Region

UNITED NATIONS — The suspected ringleader of the deadly 2012 assault on an American compound in Benghazi was planning new attacks on Americans, the United States says, defending the raid that captured the Libyan militant.

US commandos seized Ahmed Abu Khatallah near the Libyan city of Benghazi on Sunday, drawing condemnation from Tripoli, which considers the stealth raid an infringement of its sovereignty.

But in a letter addressed to the president of the UN Security Council for June, Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, US envoy Samantha Power evoked “the United States’ inherent right of self-defence”.

“Following a painstaking investigation, the US government ascertained that Ahmed Abu Khatallah was a key figure” in the September 11, 2012 Benghazi assault, her letter, dated Tuesday, read.

“The investigation also determined that he continued to plan further armed attacks against US persons,” it added.

“The measures we have taken to capture Abu Khatallah in Libya were therefore necessary to prevent such armed attacks and were taken in accordance with the United States’ inherent right of self-defence,” Powers wrote.

She explained she sent the letter as required by article 51 of the UN charter.

The article requires member states who take measures to defend against an attack to immediately inform the Security Council, which acts as a guarantor of peace and international security.

CAIRO — Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah will pay a brief visit to Egypt on Friday in a show of support for its newly elected president, Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, two Saudi sources told Reuters on Thursday.

Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab monarchies have provided billions of dollars in aid to Egypt to stave off economic collapse since Sisi, then army chief, ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi last year and outlawed his Muslim Brotherhood.

Like Egypt, Saudi Arabia has branded the Brotherhood a terrorist organisation, viewing its Islamist doctrines as a threat to Saudi dynastic rule.

King Abdullah, who does not often travel due to his advanced age and health concerns, will stop off in Cairo for just a few hours on his way home from a visit to Morocco, the Saudi sources said.

The king has urged Egyptians to embrace Sisi and to disown the “strange chaos” of the Arab uprisings of the past few years, which toppled Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and other autocrats in Tunisia and Libya.

Sisi won more than 90 per cent of the vote in Egypt’s presidential election last month, though turnout was low.

Saudi Arabia regards Egypt, the most populous Arab state, as a frontline ally in its region-wide struggle against Iran as well as against the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood.

DOHA/DUBAI — Saudi Arabia kept up a drumbeat of opposition to any foreign intervention in Iraq on Thursday in an apparent message to regional rival Iran, which has hinted at possible cooperation with the United States in quelling insurgents menacing Baghdad.

Washington is considering an Iraqi request to launch air strikes on the positions of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) rebels, and the Iranian president has said his countrymen will not hesitate to defend Shiite shrines there if need be.

Either scenario would probably dismay Sunni Muslim Gulf Arab governments wary about what they see as meddling by Shiite Muslim power Iran in the region and opposed to any armed action that could harm Sunni communities in Iraq.

In a statement, the Saudi embassy in Britain reiterated that Riyadh opposed “all foreign intervention and interference in the internal affairs of Iraq. Instead, we urge all the people of Iraq, whatever their religious denominations, to unite to overcome the current threats and challenges facing the country”.

And a Saudi source in the Gulf told Reuters that Riyadh’s opposition to foreign intervention was shared by the United States, France and Britain. “No outside interference will be of any benefit,” the source told Reuters.

The comments suggested Iraq risks becoming a pawn in a fierce regional power struggle between Iran and Sunni heavyweight Saudi Arabia, which was aghast when the US occupation after Saddam Hussein’s fall in 2003 brought about elections that empowered Iraq’s Shiite majority.

In a sign of a new chill in already frosty ties between the Sunni Muslim kingdom and Iraq’s Shiite-led government, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al Faisal dismissed as “ludicrous” Iraqi charges that the kingdom supported Sunni militants there.

His comments reflected the critical tone of much commentary about Iraqi authorities in the Sunni majority Gulf Arab states, where commentators allege Baghdad has discriminated against Iraq’s minority Sunnis and so has only itself to blame for the onslaught by Sunni militants.

The Iraqi government has repeatedly accused its Gulf neighbours of backing insurgents such as ISIL in Iraq’s turbulent West, charges they deny.

In remarks apparently addressed to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki, Prince Saudi suggested in remarks to reporters Riyadh would not take lessons from Baghdad in countering militancy.

He said Iraq should follow the kingdom’s example in countering Islamist armed groups, a reference to Riyadh’s successful 2003/06 campaign against Al Qaeda.

‘Conspiracy’ against sunnis

“[Our] advice to the Iraqi official to combat terrorism in his country is to follow the policy which the Kingdom is following and not to accuse it of being with terrorism...praise be to God we have cleaned our country of this epidemic.”

Maliki, an ally of Iran, has appealed for national unity with Sunni critics of his government after a rapid offensive through the north of the country by ISIL, which wants to carve out a
mediaeval style caliphate in the heart of the Middle East.

To date, that effort at inclusion has not born fruit.

In a statement likely to be received with unease in Riyadh, US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Thursday the United States is contemplating communicating with Iran to share information about the insurgency spreading across Iraq, but is not seeking to work together with Iran to address the crisis.

Retired Qatari diplomat Nasser Al Khalifa, in comments that appear to reflect a wide strand of thinking among Gulf Arab policymakers, said in a Twitter message that it would be “wise” for the West to stay clear of Iraq, unless it were for the purpose of removing Maliki from power.

“Any intervention in Iraq by the west to prop up criminal Maliki in Iraq will be seen by the whole Sunni Arabs and Muslims as war against them,” said Khalifa, a former embassador to Washington.

“For the West or Iran or the two working together to fight beside Maliki against Sunni Arabs will be seen as another conspiracy against Sunnis,” he said.

The United Arab Emirates announced on Wednesday it was recalling its ambassador to Baghdad for consultations, saying it was worried that the Iraqi government’s “sectarian” policies could heighten political tensions and worsen security there.

Islamist scholars led by influential Qatar-based cleric Youssef Al Qaradawi urged Arab and Islamic states on Thursday to protect Sunnis in Iraq, who they said had suffered a great injustice at the hands of the Iraqi government.

BAGHDAD/WASHINGTON — Iraq has asked the United States for air support in countering Sunni rebels, the top US general said on Wednesday, after the militants seized major cities in a lightning advance that has routed the Shiite-led government’s army.

However, General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the US military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, gave no direct reply when asked at a Congressional hearing whether Washington would agree to the request.

Baghdad said it wanted US air strikes as the insurgents, led by fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), battled their way into the biggest oil refinery in Iraq and the president of neighbouring Iran raised the prospect of intervening in a sectarian war that threatens to sweep across Middle East frontiers.

“We have a request from the Iraqi government for air power,” Dempsey told a Senate hearing in Washington. Asked whether the United States should honour that request, he answered indirectly, saying: “It is in our national security interest to counter ISIL wherever we find them.”

In the Saudi city of Jeddah, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said Baghdad had asked for air strikes “to break the morale” of ISIL.

While Iraq’s ally, Shiite Muslim power Iran, had so far not intervened to help the Baghdad government, “everything is possible”, he told reporters after a meeting of Arab foreign ministers.

Sunni fighters were in control of three quarters of the territory of the Baiji refinery north of Baghdad, an official said there, after a morning of heavy fighting at gates defended by elite troops who have been under siege for a week.

ISIL aims to build a Sunni caliphate ruled on mediaeval precepts, but the rebels also include a broad spectrum of more moderate Sunnis furious at what they see as oppression by Baghdad.

Some international oil companies have pulled out foreign workers. The head of Iraq’s southern oil company, Dhiya Jaffar, said ExxonMobil had conducted a major evacuation and BP had pulled out 20 per cent of its staff. He criticised the moves, as the areas where oil is produced for export are mainly in the Shiite south and far from the fighting.

Washington and other Western capitals are trying to save Iraq as a united country by leaning hard on Shiite Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki to reach out to Sunnis. Maliki met Sunni and Kurdish political opponents overnight, concluding with a frosty, carefully staged joint appearance at which an appeal for national unity was read out.

In a televised address on Wednesday Maliki appealed to tribes to renounce “those who are killers and criminals who represent foreign agendas”.

But so far Maliki’s government has relied almost entirely on his fellow Shiites for support, with officials denouncing Sunni political leaders as traitors. Shiite militia — many believed to be funded and backed by Iran — have mobilised to halt the Sunni advance, as Baghdad’s million-strong army, built by the United States at a cost of $25 billion, crumbles.

Like the civil war in Syria next door, the new fighting threatens to draw in regional neighbours, mustering along sectarian lines in what fighters on both sides depict as an existential struggle for survival based on a religious rift dating to the 7th century.

Holy shrines

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani made the clearest declaration yet that the Middle East’s main Shiite power, which fought a war against Iraq that killed a million people in the 1980s, was prepared to intervene to protect Iraq’s great shrines of Shiite imams, visited by millions of pilgrims each year.

“Regarding the holy Shia shrines in Karbala, Najaf, Kadhimiya and Samarra, we announce to the killers and terrorists that the great Iranian nation will not hesitate to protect holy shrines,” Rouhani said in an address to a crowd on live TV.

He said many people had signed up to go to Iraq to fight, although he also said Iraqis of all sects were prepared to defend themselves: “Thanks be to God, I will tell the dear people of Iran that veterans and various forces — Sunnis, Shias and Kurds all over Iraq — are ready for sacrifice.”

Iraqi troops are holding off Sunni fighters outside Samarra north of Baghdad, site of one of the main Shiite shrines. The fighters have vowed to carry their offensive south to Najaf and Karbala, seats of Shiite Islam since the Middle Ages.

Saudi Arabia, the region’s main Sunni power, said Iraq was hurtling towards civil war. Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al Faisal, in words clearly aimed at Iran and at Baghdad’s Shiite rulers, deplored the prospect of “foreign intervention” and said governments need to meet “legitimate demands of the people”.

Maliki’s government has accused Saudi Arabia of promoting “genocide” by backing Sunni militants. Riyadh supports Sunni fighters in Syria but denies aiding ISIL.

The United Arab Emirates, a Saudi ally, recalled its ambassador from Baghdad and criticised what it called the sectarian policies of the Iraqi government.

The Baiji refinery is the fighters’ immediate goal, the biggest source of fuel for domestic consumption in Iraq, which would give them a grip on energy supply in the north where the population has complained of fuel shortages.

The refinery was shut on Tuesday and foreign workers flown out by helicopter.

“The militants have managed to break into the refinery. Now they are in control of the production units, administration building and four watch towers. This is 75 per cent of the refinery,” an official speaking from inside the refinery said.

The government denied the refinery had fallen. Counter-terrorism spokesman Sabah Nouri insisted forces were still in control and had killed 50 to 60 fighters and burned six or seven insurgent vehicles after being attacked from three directions.

Oil prices rose on news the refinery was partly in rebel hands

Frosty meeting

Last week’s sudden advance by ISIL — a group that declares all Shiites to be heretics deserving death and has proudly distributed footage of its fighters gunning down prisoners lying prone in mass graves — is a test for US President Barack Obama, who pulled US troops out of Iraq in 2011.

Obama has ruled out sending back ground troops but is considering other military options to help defend Baghdad, and US officials have even spoken of cooperating with Tehran against the mutual enemy.

But US and other international officials insist Maliki must do more to address the widespread sense of political exclusion among Sunnis, the minority that ran Iraq until US troops deposed dictator Saddam Hussein after the 2003 invasion.

US Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he did not back sending US troops into the conflict in Iraq, which he described as a “civil war”, before a meeting with Obama about the crisis.

Reid and three other congressional leaders — Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi — are meeting Obama later on Wednesday.

Western countries fear an ISIL-controlled mini-state in Syria and Iraq could become a haven for militants who could then stage attacks around the globe.

British Prime Minister David Cameron told parliament he disagreed “with those people who think this is nothing to do with us and if they want to have some sort of extreme Islamist regime in the middle of Iraq it won’t affect us. It will.

“The people in that regime, as well as trying to take territory, are also planning to attack us at home in the United Kingdom,” Cameron said.

In a rerun of previous failed efforts at bridging sectarian and ethnic divisions, Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish leaders met late on Tuesday behind closed doors. They later stood frostily before cameras as Ibrahim Al Jaafari, a Shiite politician who held the post of prime minister before Maliki, read a statement.

“No terrorist powers represent any sect or religion,” Jaafari said in the address, which included a broad promise of “reviewing the previous course” of Iraqi politics. Afterwards, most of the leaders, including Maliki and Usama Al Nujaifi, the leading Sunni present, walked away from each other in silence.

Though the joint statement said only those directly employed by the Iraqi state should bear arms, thousands of Shiite militiamen have been mobilised to defend Baghdad.

According to one Shiite Islamist working in the government, well-trained organisations Asaib Ahl Haq, Khataeb Hizbollah and the Badr Organisation are now being deployed alongside Iraqi military units as the main combat force.

With battles now raging just an hour’s drive north of the capital, Baghdad is on edge. The city of 7 million people saw fierce sectarian street fighting from 2006-2007 and is still divided into Sunni and Shiite districts, some protected by razor wire and concrete blast walls.

India said it was worried about 40 Indian construction workers missing in territory seized by ISIL.

CAIRO — Egypt on Tuesday released Al Jazeera journalist Abdullah Al Shamy, who has been on hunger strike for nearly five months in protest over his detention.

Shamy, who works for the main Arabic channel of the Qatar-based network, was arrested on August 14 when police dispersed supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi in Cairo, sparking clashes that left hundreds killed.

The journalist has been on hunger strike since January 21, according to his family.

On Tuesday, Shamy, dressed in a white prison uniform and looking frail, walked out of a police station in Cairo’s neighbourhood of Nasr City, according to an AFP correspondent at the scene, a day after the prosecutor general ordered his release due to his health condition.

Shamy’s family told AFP in May that he had shed 40 kilogrammes since he began the hunger strike.

Twelve other defendants were also ordered released by the prosecutor on Monday over their health conditions.

Al Jazeera expressed its “relief “ in a statement issued swiftly after Shamy’s release.

“Abdullah has been through a terrible ordeal for over 10 months. He will want to spend time with his family and recuperate,” the network said, adding that it “looked forward to seeing him back in action, doing the vital job of journalism that he so clearly loves”.

The military-installed authorities have been incensed by Al Jazeera’s coverage of their crackdown on Morsi supporters, in which more than 1,400 people have been killed in street clashes and at least 15,000 jailed.

Three other Al Jazeera journalists with the network’s English-language channel are held in Egypt and on trial for spreading false news and supporting Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood.

The trial of Australian Peter Greste, Egyptian-Canadian Mohamed Fadel Fahmy, producer Baher Mohamed and 17 other co-defendants has sparked an international outcry.

On Monday, the court set June 23 as the date for its verdict in the case.

TRIPOLI — Libya on Wednesday condemned US special forces’ arrest of a man on its soil suspected of masterminding a deadly Islamist militant attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, describing the detention as a violation of Libyan sovereignty.

In the first official reaction from Tripoli, Justice Minister Saleh Al Marghani said the suspect, Ahmed Abu Khatallah, should be returned to Libya and tried there.

“We had no prior notification. We did not expect the US to upset our political scene,” Marghani told a news conference.

He said Khatalah had been wanted by Libyan authorities for questioning but a lack of security had prevented this.

Said Al Saoud, spokesman for the foreign ministry, said: “This attack on Libya sovereignty happened at a time when Benghazi is suffering from many problems.”

US President Barack Obama said he authorised the operation in Libya on Sunday in which US commandos snatched Khatallah on Benghazi’s outskirts, and that he was being transported to the United States for prosecution.

The September 2012 assault on the US consulate in Benghazi, since closed, killed four Americans including the US ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens.

The North African oil producer is struggling with chronic lawlessness, with the government and parliament in Tripoli unable to control militias, tribes and Islamists who helped oust Muammar Qadhafi in 2011 but are now defying state authority.

NEW DELHI — Forty Indian construction workers have been kidnapped in Iraq’s second largest city of Mosul, which fell to Sunni insurgents last week, India’s foreign ministry said on Wednesday.

The identity of the kidnappers and the whereabouts of the workers are unknown, foreign ministry spokesman Syed Akbaruddin told a news briefing. No ransom demand has been received.

Islamist militants have long considered India a target. A recent Al Qaeda video called on Indian Muslims to follow the example of Syria and Iraq and launch a jihad, or holy war, against the New Delhi government.

On Monday, India’s new government issued a strong condemnation of the insurgency and said it stood firmly by Baghdad, breaking from India’s traditionally nuanced diplomacy.

It was not immediately clear why Indian workers were targeted.

“The Red Crescent confirmed to us that as per their information, 40 Indian construction workers have been kidnapped,” Akbaruddin said. “We won’t leave any stone unturned to help every single Indian national.”

Militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), along with other Sunni rebels, are reported to have abducted dozens of foreigners as they swept through towns in the Tigris valley north of Baghdad in recent days.

Sixty people including workers from Turkey, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Turkmenistan have been taken from a hospital construction site near the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, Turkey’s Dogan news agency said.

Insurgents seized eighty Turkish nationals including diplomats, soldiers and children workers in Mosul last week.

Most of the Indian hostages are from the north Indian state of Punjab and were working for a Baghdad-based company called Tariq Noor Al Huda, Akbaruddin said.

Stranded nurses

A former employee told Reuters the company had told him the Indians were now safe and being moved towards Kurdish controlled areas of Iraq. Reuters was not able to independently confirm this or contact the company directly.

The sister of one of the men abducted said he had been out of contact since last Sunday.

“His phone has been switched off. We are tense and are wondering what happened to him,” Gurpender Kaur told TV news channel CNN-IBN. “Until then, at least we were able to speak for a second or two, but now even that is not possible.”

About 10,000 Indian nationals work in Iraq, mostly in areas unaffected by the fighting between the ISIL and the national army. About 100 Indian workers are trapped in areas overrun by ISIL, Akbaruddin said.

The Indian government has contact with many of them, including 46 nurses, and has sent a senior envoy to Baghdad to support repatriation efforts.

The nurses are stranded in Tikrit, which is under militant control, with many of them holed up in the hospital where they work. Nurses who spoke to the Indian media said they had been treating people wounded in fierce street fighting.

The Red Crescent, a humanitarian group, has contacted the nurses and is providing assistance, Akbaruddin said.

ISIL fighters, who aim to establish a Muslim caliphate across the Iraqi-Syrian frontier, launched their revolt by seizing Mosul and have since swept through the Tigris valley towards Baghdad.

WASHINGTON — The United States said on Tuesday it had captured a suspected ringleader of the 2012 attack on the US diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, a raid that killed four Americans including the US ambassador and ignited a political firestorm in Washington.

President Barack Obama said in a statement he had authorised the operation in Libya on Sunday in which US troops, working with law enforcement personnel, captured Ahmed Abu Khatallah.

"Since the deadly attacks on our facilities in Benghazi, I have made it a priority to find and bring to justice those responsible for the deaths of four brave Americans," Obama said, adding that Khatallah would "face the full weight of the American justice system".

A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Khatallah was being held aboard an American ship after he was grabbed on the outskirts of Benghazi in an operation carried out by US special operations forces.

Rear Admiral John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said there were no civilian casualties in the operation and all US personnel involved had safely left Libya. The Pentagon declined to discuss further details of the operation and it was not immediately clear whether there were non-civilian casualties.

A US official said Khatallah would be charged and prosecuted through the US court system and would not be sent to the prison for suspected Al Qaeda militants in Guantanamo, Cuba.

That decision follows past practice and is in line with President Barack Obama’s policy of bringing suspected militants caught abroad through the US justice system rather than trying them in the military tribunal system at Guantanamo Bay, a prison he is trying to close.

A criminal complaint released by the US District Court for Washington, DC, accused Khatallah of killing a person in the course of an attack on a federal facility, providing material support to terrorists and using a firearm in commission of a crime of violence.

Political motivations

After the 2012 attack, which killed Ambassador Chris Stevens, Republicans accused the Obama administration of playing down the role of Al Qaeda in the attack for political reasons.

They also said then-secretary of state Hillary Clinton had failed to take adequate steps to ensure the safety of American diplomatic personnel, an issue that is still resonating as Clinton considers running for US president in 2016.

The Libyan government had no immediate comment on the US announcement and it was unclear whether Washington had notified Libyan officials before carrying out the operation.

It was the second time the administration has said US special operations forces have gone into Libya to detain a militant. A US Army Delta Force team grabbed Al Qaeda suspect Nazih Al Ragye, better known as Abu Anas Al Liby, in Tripoli in October 2013 and sent him to a US navy ship for interrogation.

Liby was later charged in a US federal court in New York in connection with the 1998 bombing of the US embassy in Kenya, which killed more than 200 people.

House of Representatives Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, a Republican, called the capture “a little bit of a bright spot in what has not been a great story to tell on the rising tide of terrorism organisations around the world”.

He said, however, that the arrest did not break Khatallah’s organisation and said there were more than a dozen “individuals of interest” that the United States needed to apprehend.

Secretary of State John Kerry said the September 11, 2012, attack was felt “acutely” by the State Department. He welcomed Khatallah’s capture, saying: “This bold action by the superb United States military is a clear reminder to anyone who dares do us harm that they will not escape with impunity.”

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israel stepped up efforts to crush Hamas in the West Bank on Tuesday as the hunt for three Israeli teenagers believed kidnapped by the Islamist movement entered its fifth day.

Thousands of Israel troops engaged in the search for the youths turned their attention during the night to the northern West Bank city of Nablus and surrounding area, arresting 41 Palestinians, the army said.

So far, Israel has arrested around 200 Palestinians, most of them Hamas members, as it conducts a vast search operation for the students, two of them minors.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused fighters from the Islamist movement of kidnapping the youths last week.

"We are here in the midst of a complex operation. We need to be prepared for the possibility that it may take time. This is a serious event and there will be serious consequences," Netanyahu said on Monday evening.

Israel has said it holds Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas responsible for the safe return of the three, with Netanyahu phoning him to demand his help in the search efforts in what was their first direct political contact since 2012.

So far, there has been no formal claim of responsibility, and Hamas has dismissed Israel's accusations as "stupid".

Smashing Hamas 

At a meeting of the Israeli security Cabinet on Monday, ministers decided to expand moves against Hamas in order to smash its political and social infrastructure in the West Bank, officials said.

“As long as our boys remain abducted, Hamas will feel pursued, paralysed and threatened,” said Lieutenant Peter Lerner, the military’s official spokesman.

“We are committed to resolving the kidnapping and debilitating Hamas terrorist capacities, its infrastructure and its recruiting institutions,” he said in a statement.

A series of punitive steps aimed at decapitating Hamas in the West Bank were discussed on Monday by ministers, who examined the possibility of banishing its senior members to Gaza and demolishing their West Bank homes, Israeli media reports said.

Ministers were reportedly meeting again on Tuesday.

“Israel has decided to perform a root canal to uproot everything green in the West Bank,” said army radio, referring to the colour representing Hamas.

Economy Minister Naftali Bennett, who was at the meeting, told the radio Israel had decided to “dramatically” change its approach to the Islamist movement.

“We will bring about a situation in which Hamas people will become a nuisance for the Palestinian population, and that their presence in Judaea and Samaria [the West Bank] will cause harm everywhere,” he said.

‘Entry ticket to hell’

“In other words we will turn membership in Hamas into an entry ticket to hell.”

Writing in the top-selling Yediot Aharonot, Alex Fishman said the kidnapping had created a “one-time operational opportunity” which Israel would use “to castrate” Hamas and suppress its “strongholds in Palestinian Authority territory to the greatest extent possible”.

Pundits said Israel was also seeking to bring about the collapse of a newly-formed Palestinian unity government backed by Hamas, the firstfruits of a reconciliation deal between rival leaders in the West Bank and Gaza which has been furiously denounced by the Netanyahu government.

“The purpose of the Israeli actions... is to drive a wedge between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, and stop the reconciliation process that began some two months ago,” wrote Amos Harel in Haaretz newspaper.

By crushing Hamas’ infrastructure, it would weaken the movement ahead of Palestinian elections which under the unity deal are supposed to take place before the end of the year, Fishman said.

“Removing the political leadership from the West Bank is supposed to weaken Hamas in advance of the Palestinian presidential election,” he said.

But as the manhunt entered its fifth day, commentators voiced concern about growing reports of clashes around the West Bank, sparking fears that an already tense situation could rapidly escalate.

On Monday, a 19-year-old Palestinian was shot dead by troops during clashes in Jalazoun camp north of Ramallah. And during the night, troops shot and seriously wounded a Palestinian who was trying to infiltrate a Jewish settlement in the same area, military radio said.

In Gaza, the Israeli air force carried out a fourth straight night of air strikes after fighters fired more rockets over the border.

BAGHDAD — Militants pushed a weeklong offensive that has overrun swathes of Iraq to within 60 kilometres of Baghdad Tuesday, as the UN warned the country's very existence was under threat.

Washington, meanwhile, deployed some 275 military personnel to protect its embassy in Baghdad, the first time it has sent troops to Iraq since it withdrew its forces at the end of 2011 after a bloody and costly intervention launched in 2003.

It was also mulling air strikes against the militants, who are led by the powerful Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) jihadist group, and, according to Baghdad, funded and supported by Saudi Arabia.

The insurgents since they launched their lightning assault on June 9 have captured Mosul, a city of two million people, and a vast amount of territory north of Baghdad.

The crisis has displaced hundreds of thousands of people and sparked fears that the violence could impact the country’s vast oil production, along with concerns that security forces won’t be able to halt the insurgents’ march on the capital.

Officials said Tuesday that the fighters briefly held areas of Baqouba, a short drive from Baghdad, and took control of most of Tal Afar, a Shiite-majority town in north Iraq that lies along a strategic corridor to Syria.

The overnight attack on Baqouba, which was pushed back by security forces but left 44 prisoners dead at a police station, marked the closest that fighting has come to the capital as part of a lightning offensive in which jihadists have said they intend to march on Baghdad and the southern Shiite holy city of Karbala.

Tal Afar gains

In Tal Afar, militants were controlling most of the town but pockets of resistance remained, and soldiers, policemen and armed residents held on to parts of its airport, according to Nineveh provincial council deputy chief Nureddin Qabalan.

The swift advance of the militants has sparked international alarm, with UN envoy to Baghdad Nickolay Mladenov warning that Iraq’s sovereignty was at stake.

“Right now, it’s life-threatening for Iraq but it poses a serious danger to the region,” Mladenov told AFP.

“Iraq faces the biggest threat to its sovereignty and territorial integrity” in years, he added.

The violence sweeping Iraq has also raised tension in the region, with Baghdad on Tuesday accusing Saudi Arabia of “siding with terrorism” and of being responsible for financing the militants.

The comments come a day after Riyadh had blamed Baghdad’s “sectarian” policies for the unrest.

Another sombre warning came from the prime minister of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, who told the BBC it would be “almost impossible” for the country to return to how it was before the offensive was launched.

Nechirvan Barzani said it would be difficult to find a resolution with Maliki, who is accused by his opponents of blatant sectarianism, remaining in power.

“Now we have to sit down and find a solution, find how to live together... but if we expect, if we think that Iraq will go back like before Mosul, I don’t think so, it’s almost impossible.”

Alarmed by the militant advance against an Iraqi army that has largely wilted in the face of the onslaught, foreign governments have begun evacuating their nationals and pulling out diplomatic staff.

US reinforcements 

US President Barack Obama announced that about 275 military personnel were being deployed to Iraq to help protect the embassy in Baghdad and assist US nationals there, noting that they were “equipped for combat”.

Washington has already deployed an aircraft carrier to the Gulf, but Obama has ruled out a return to combat in Iraq for US soldiers.

As the US weighed its next move, Secretary of State John Kerry said on Monday that drone strikes could be used, and while Washington has ruled out cooperating militarily with Tehran, the two nations — which have been bitter foes for more than 30 years — held “brief discussions” on the crisis in Vienna.

Drones have been used by the US against militants in Yemen, Afghanistan and Pakistan, but have come in for criticism over civilian casualties, and have so far not been used to strike insurgents in Iraq.

Doubts are growing that the Iraqi security forces can hold back the militant tide, despite military commanders trumpeting a counteroffensive.

Soldiers and police retreated en masse as the insurgents, which included ISIL but also a litany of other groups including supporters of executed dictator Saddam Hussein, swept into Iraq’s second city of Mosul a week ago, leaving vehicles and even uniforms in their wake.

Their retreat, despite their vast numerical advantage, is the result of what experts say are myriad problems, ranging from lacklustre training and low morale, to corruption and an atmosphere of simmering sectarianism.

The jihadists are said to have killed scores of Iraqi soldiers as they pushed their advance, including in a “horrifying” massacre in Salaheddin province that has drawn international condemnation.