Region

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Three Israeli teenagers, one of them also a US citizen, have been kidnapped in the occupied West Bank, presumably by Palestinians, the army said on Saturday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held the Palestinian Authority responsible for their well-being, but Palestinians baulked at the idea they were to blame for the disappearance inside an Israeli-controlled area of the West Bank.

The suspected abductions come as Israel piles pressure on a new Palestinian government, formed early last week under a reconciliation deal between the Palestine Liberation Organisation and Israel’s foe, the Islamist movement Hamas.

The three, students at two Jewish seminaries, went missing late Thursday as they hitchhiked between Bethlehem and Hebron.

They have been named as Eyal Yifrah, 19, and two 16-year-olds, Naftali Frenkel and Gilad Shaer.

“We believe that they have indeed been kidnapped by presumed Palestinians,” a senior officer told journalists, without elaborating on who was behind the abduction.

He said the search is being carried out in coordination with security forces from the Palestinian Authority, and “tens of Palestinians” have been arrested in the process.

He added substantial reinforcements had been brought in, including special forces and an airborne brigade, to participate in the search around Hebron, in the southern West Bank.

Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon visited the site of the disappearance.

“Because we have no information to the contrary, we are assuming that they are still alive,” he told reporters.

Troops closed the main crossings into the Gaza Strip to prevent the teenagers from being smuggled into the territory, where the Islamist Hamas movement remains dominant despite the formation of the Palestinian unity government.

Air strikes on Gaza 

A rocket was fired from Gaza into Israel early on Saturday without causing any casualties or damage, the army said.

In response, Israel launched air strikes on southern Gaza, “hitting a site of terrorist activity and a weapons depot”, an army statement said.

Hamas said Apache gunships had fired on a training camp of its armed wing in Khan Younis and empty ground in Rafah, on the Egyptian border, without causing casualties.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with US Secretary of State John Kerry Friday, and said he holds Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas responsible for the teenagers’ safety.

Kerry also telephoned Abbas, a Palestinian source said.

A spokesman for the Palestinian Authority’s security services, General Adnan Al Damiri, called Netanyahu’s suggestions “mad”.

Damiri said the PA had no authority over the sprawling Gush Etzion settlement bloc, which is under full Israeli control.

“Even if there was an earthquake, Netanyahu would blame the Palestinian Authority,” he told AFP.

Israel has held Abbas responsible for all violence emanating from Gaza and for West Bank security since he signed a reconciliation deal with Hamas and the new government was formed.

Another Palestinian official said the authority’s security services were “cooperating” with Israeli agencies to gather information on the teenagers’ disappearance.

A statement in Arabic attributed to the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group claimed the kidnapping late on Friday.

The statement’s authenticity could not be verified, however, and it contained spelling errors.

BAGHDAD — Soldiers armed with shovels are digging in just 25 kilometres north of Baghdad as others man new checkpoints, bolstering the Iraqi capital’s defences against a militant assault.

A major militant offensive launched on Monday, spearheaded by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group but also involving supporters of executed leader Saddam Hussein, has overrun a large chunk of northern and north-central Iraq.

The advance swept to within less than 100 kilometres of the capital, raising fears among residents that the city itself would be next, though militants have since been pushed back by security forces in areas farther north, making an assault on Baghdad appear less likely.

ISIL spokesman Abu Mohammed Al Adnani has vowed its fighters would press on to Baghdad and Karbala, a city southwest of the capital that is considered one of the holiest sites in Shiite Islam.

Top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani on Friday urged Iraqis to take up arms against the Sunni militants.

Trucks carrying hundreds of volunteers were among a large number of vehicles passing through the key main checkpoint north of Baghdad, as security forces carried out spot checks.

The volunteers sang patriotic songs as they were driven to a nearby training centre.

Security forces performed poorly when the militant onslaught was unleashed, but they now appear to be recovering from the initial shock and have begun to regain ground.

They are regrouping despite scenes of disarray in the early days of the offensive, when soldiers shed their uniforms for civilian clothes and abandoned weapons and other equipment.

And they have retaken areas north of the capital that were among the closest militants got to Baghdad, officers said.

Bolstered by militiamen 

Regular security forces are bolstered by militiamen in preparing to defend the capital.

“Our forces stand as one rank beside the army and the police,” said Hussein Al Tamimi, a local leader of the Sahwa militia forces, which fought alongside American troops against militants in previous years.

“Where are they?” he asked of the militants.

“We are waiting for them and looking for them. We want them to come so we can finish them.”

Dhia Ali Al Tamimi, a local tribal leader, also spoke out in support of the security forces, telling AFP that “everyone must protect the land and the state”.

“Life is completely normal in our areas and attacks by these terrorists don’t scare us,” he said.

Inside Baghdad itself, security forces have also set up new checkpoints, joining a slew of others.

Brigadier General Saad Maan has told AFP that “we put in place a new plan to protect Baghdad”.

It “consists of intensifying the deployment of forces, and increasing intelligence efforts and the use of technology such as [observation] balloons and cameras and other equipment”, Maan said.

He also said coordination between the various security forces had been increased.

Ihsan Al Shammari, a politics professor at Baghdad University, said he does not expect the militants to reach Baghdad, and that “their end will be far from the capital”.

But if they did reach Baghdad, it would devolve into street-to-street fighting, Shammari added.

Inside the capital, life is still relatively normal in the Kadhimiyah area, the city’s northernmost area and home to a revered Shiite shrine visited by hundreds of thousands of people every year.

Kadhimiyah shop-owner Abu Khodr was defiant, saying that “standing up to terrorism is a national duty for everyone in the world, not just in Iraq”.

“We don’t fear them at all,” he said of the militants. “Do we fear the enemies of God?”

A confident army Colonel Abduljabbar Al Assadi, inspecting the new defensive positions north of Baghdad, said: “Our forces are ready for any emergency.”

Assadi said the checkpoint had already been attacked twice. In one attack, his arm was broken.

“Despite that, I refused to leave the checkpoint, and I will not abandon it,” he said.

TEHRAN — Iran is serious in seeking a comprehensive nuclear deal with world powers despite lingering differences, President Hassan Rouhani said Saturday, insisting negotiations could succeed before a July 20 deadline expires.

But Rouhani added that should Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany not strike a deal next month, the process will continue until all differences are resolved.

“We are serious in the negotiations, and it will be in the interest of everyone if a deal is signed in the next five weeks,” the Iranian president told a press conference in Tehran.

“But there are differences, and in some issues the gaps are substantial,” he said.

The P5+1 (Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States plus Germany) talks with Iran resume in Vienna on Monday with the aim of transforming an interim deal into a lasting accord.

The West wants to ensure that Iran’s nuclear activities are purely peaceful. In return, Iran wants the removal of international sanctions that have choked its economy.

Details of the negotiations have been scant but according to French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, Iran wants to operate thousands of centrifuges, machines used to enrich uranium to fuel nuclear plants but which could also provide fissile material for an atomic bomb.

The P5+1 wants Iran to drastically reduce its uranium production capacity, and keep only a few hundred centrifuges active.

“If there is no deal [before July 20], then we will continue the talks... until we reach an agreement,” Rouhani said, while suggesting that work on a draft agreement could begin in Vienna.

Rouhani’s remarks came a day after his lead negotiator and foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, warned critics not to let “illusions” about his country’s nuclear programme scuttle a deal.

“It would be tragically shortsighted if illusions were to again derail progress towards a historic achievement,” Zarif wrote in an editorial in The Washington Post.

In Tehran, Rouhani and Zarif appear to have reined in hardline and conservative critics who are opposed to any compromise on what they call Iran’s “right” to operate a civilian nuclear programme.

Against that backdrop, Rouhani on Saturday suggested if the talks collapse, the burden would be on “hardliners in America and the Zionist regime” who are against any deal that allows Iran to keep even a limited nuclear drive.

ROME — Ten migrants drowned after the boat they were travelling in sank off the Libyan coast, Italy’s navy said on Saturday, reporting the latest deaths among thousands of migrants trying to reach Europe from Africa and Syria.

At least 50,000 people have crossed from North Africa to Italy so far this year, exceeding the 40,000 who arrived in the whole of 2013, according to the Italian coastguard authorities.

That leaves the annual total set to surpass the 60,000 who made the trip in 2011 when the Arab Spring revolutions loosened border controls.

The navy said that, together with the Italian coastguard, on Friday it had saved 39 migrants from the boat which capsized around 40 nautical miles north of Libya but that it had also picked up 10 dead bodies.

It gave no information on the nationality of the victims or the other migrants, who have been transferred onto the Italian supply ship Etna.

The ship, carrying a total of around 700 migrants picked up in the last few days, is heading for the Sicilian capital of Palermo where it is due to arrive on Sunday, the navy said.

The surge of migrants leaving North African shores is straining the ability of the Italian naval mission — called Mare Nostrum or “Our Sea” — to patrol the waters between Africa and Italy on its own.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has called on the United Nations to intervene in Libya, from where he says more than 90 per cent of the migrants depart and where criminal gangs charge migrants more than $1,000 each for a passage on unsafe vessels.

Mare Nostrum began in October after 366 migrants fleeing African countries drowned when their boat capsized a mile from Sicily. After the tragedy, the EU pledged 30 million euros ($40.85 million)in emergency funding, mainly to finance immigration facilities on land.

Italy has repeatedly asked for more European Union countries to join Mare Nostrum, which is Europe’s biggest ever search-and-rescue mission, but so far only Slovenia has chipped in, offering one ship for two months late last year.

ANKARA — Diplomats and soldiers trapped inside Turkey’s consulate in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul had no option but to surrender last week after hundreds of heavily armed Islamist militants surrounded the building, the foreign ministry said on Saturday.

The seizure, by insurgents from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) on Wednesday, of 49 Turks, including special forces soldiers, diplomats and children has prompted criticism of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government for failing to foresee the danger and evacuate the consulate sooner.

The ISIL offensive threatens to dismember Iraq and leaves Turkey facing a widening Islamist insurgency in two of its southern neighbours, with ISIL also making territorial gains in Syria near the Turkish border.

Turkish Deputy Foreign Minister Naci Koru said every security precaution had been taken at the consulate but that events unfolded quickly and that Iraqi security forces stationed around the building abandoned their posts as ISIL seized Mosul.

“We gave an order [on Tuesday] to evacuate but our consul general told us that they were safer inside the consulate. He said it was not possible to evacuate under the circumstances,” Koru told reporters in Ankara.

Hundreds of insurgents surrounded the building the next day, he said, at which point the consul general called Ankara again.

“The militants were asking them to surrender in 10 minutes and said otherwise they would come in. We contacted our prime minister and foreign minister immediately and the decision [to surrender] was made,” Koru said.

“It wasn’t possible to confront such a large group with the number of security personnel inside the consulate.”

The militants entered the building and put the 49 people into vehicles before taking them to another location, where they are still being held and are unharmed, Koru said.

Some Turkish commentators have suggested the events could jeopardise Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu’s chances of replacing Erdogan as prime minister. Davutoglu is seen as a potential candidate for the job if, as expected, Erdogan decides to run for Turkey’s presidency in an August election.

Erdogan said on Friday all efforts were being made to secure the release of the consulate staff, as well as a second group of 31 Turkish truck drivers also captured by ISIL last week. He criticised his opponents for trying to make political capital out of a highly sensitive situation.

No plans for 

military strike

Turkish officials have made clear there are no immediate plans to launch any sort of military operation to release the hostages, saying relevant militant groups have been contacted and that diplomatic efforts are underway in coordination with NATO, the Iraqi government and the United States.

“Our first priority right now is the safe release of our citizens. There is no such thing on our agenda,” Koru said, when asked whether Turkey would consider a military intervention.

No demands have been made by ISIL for the release of any of the 80 hostages, Koru added.

Iraq is Turkey’s second biggest export market and largest oil supplier. The Turkish foreign ministry says an estimated 120,000 Turks are registered as resident in the country.

The vast majority of them reside in the autonomous Kurdish enclave which curves around north and east of Mosul and which so far has not been targeted by ISIL, serving as a buffer between the insurgents’ advance and Turkish territory.

Turkey has urged its nationals to leave Iraq. Flag carrier Turkish Airlines is scheduling additional flights to Baghdad and Arbil, in Iraqi Kurdistan, to help them do so.

BEIRUT — The capture of Iraqi cities Mosul and Tikrit by Al Qaeda-influenced jihadis has not only redrawn the map of a country corroded by sectarian hatred.

It could also redesign Middle Eastern national boundaries set nearly a century ago after the fall of the Ottoman empire, and lead to a forging of new regional alliances.

As well-armed forces of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) raised their black flags over Mosul last week, routing an Iraqi army that fled rather than fight, the future of Iraq as a unitary state hung in the balance.

As they pressed south towards Baghdad, the rest of the region, the United States and other powers woke up to the prospect that this Jihadi comeback could establish a dangerous base in the heart of the Middle East — an Afghanistan on the Mediterranean.

“What we are witnessing is the fragmentation of power. The government of Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki will never be able to centralise power in the same way he has,” says Fawaz Gerges, a Middle East expert at the London School of Economics.

“We are seeing a redrawing of boundaries for sure,” he said.

As the conflict escalated, Iraq’s most senior Shiite cleric on Friday urged his followers to take up arms to defend themselves against the Sunni revolt. A rare message from Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani, the highest religious authority for Shiites in Iraq, said people should unite to fight back against the insurgency by ISIL fighters and former Saddam loyalists.

Sistanis’ intervention followed the failure of the government Maliki, the Shiite prime minister re-elected in April, to convene a quorum in parliament to grant him emergency powers. Sunni and Kurdish lawmakers had stayed away.

A stunned region

The peshmerga forces of the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, meanwhile, seized Kirkuk, the oil-rich region bordering their self-governing territory, stepping into a security vacuum to claim a prize they have always regarded as their own.

The ease with which ISIL, a Sunni Jihadi movement that has fed on the civil war in Syria and staked out the ungoverned space between eastern Syria and western Iraq, swept into Iraqi cities has stunned a region seemingly inured to shock.

The insurgents, led by Iraqis who broke with Al Qaeda, are pressing south to Baghdad.

Some experts say they may be over-reaching. But while ISIL’s predecessors were defeated in 2007-08 by Sunni tribal militias empowered by US forces, ISIL has exploited Sunni anger at Maliki’s sectarianism and inherited networks from Saddam Hussein’s army.

“ISIL has been able to embed itself with a disaffected and alienated Sunni community,” says Gerges.

“In fact, the most important development about ISIL in the last year is its ability to recruit former officers and soldiers of the dissolved Iraqi army. If you observe how ISIL has been waging war you see a skilled mini army, confident, that has command and control, is motivated and using war tactics.”

The ISIL advance has been joined by former Baathist officers who were loyal to Saddam as well as disaffected armed groups and tribes who want to topple Maliki. So far the towns and cities that have fallen to the militants have been Sunni.

“The Sunnis of Iraq are willing to go to bed with the devil to defeat Maliki, this is where the danger lies,” Gerges said.

Redrawing the borders

The million-strong Iraqi army, by contrast, trained by the United States at a cost of more than $20b, is hobbled by low morale and corruption that impedes its supply lines.

Its effectiveness is hurt by a perception among Sunnis that it pursues the hostile interests of the Shiites, a majority in Iraq, raised to power by the US led invasion of 2003.

The Kurdish capture of Kirkuk overturns a fragile balance of power that has held Iraq together since Saddam’s fall.

Iraq’s Kurds have done well since 2003, running their own affairs while being given a fixed percentage of the country’s overall oil revenue. But with full control of Kirkuk —  and the vast oil deposits beneath it — they could earn more on their own, eliminating the incentive to remain part of a failing Iraq.

US President Barack Obama threatened military strikes against ISIL, highlighting the gravity of the group’s threat to redraw borders in a region already wracked by war.

Hayder Al Khoei, Associate Fellow at Chatham House, said the jihadi onslaught leaves Washington in an awkward position.

“With US-made military vehicles and weapons being paraded by jihadists in Mosul, policy makers will be questioning the effectiveness of providing Baghdad with even more military hardware that may end up in the hands of the very people they want to defeat,” he said.

Reactions inside the region are ambivalent to hostile.

Deep down Saudi Arabia and its Sunni allies, which have never reconciled themselves to the loss of Sunni-ruled Iraq to the Shiites, detest Maliki for his alliance with non-Arab Shiite Iran. They would like to see Maliki brought down but did not want Al Qaeda affiliates to be the ones doing it.

They believe Iran, backed by its allies, wants to build a Shiite crescent from Iraq through Syria to Lebanon.

“I can imagine a Saudi official saying ‘the wrong people are doing the right thing’,” said Jamal Khashoggi, head of a TV news station owned by Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal.

On the other hand, Iran, which has strong leverage in Iraq, is so alarmed by the ISIL advances that it may be ready to cooperate with Washington in helping Baghdad fight back.

A senior Iranian official told Reuters the idea is being discussed among the Islamic republic’s leadership. For now, officials say, Iran will send its neighbour advisers and weaponry, although probably not troops, to help Maliki.

Turkey, which has turned a blind eye to Jihadis crossing its border to fight Syrian President Bashar Assad, is not ready to intervene militarily because it fears its own sectarian demons and will focus on securing its borders, experts say.

The Kurds, crucial players, will likely resist Baghdad’s calls to be drawn in by sending troops to recapture Mosul and other towns. They will instead consolidate their presence in Kirkuk and along their borders, Kurdish officials said.

Iraq watchers say ISIL, estimated to have a few thousand fighters inside Iraq, won’t be able to advance into Baghdad, a capital of six million where Maliki has his special forces deployed, backed by Iranian-trained militias.

“I don’t think they will run as far as Baghdad. They haven’t got the numbers, they overreached themselves... It is more about the weakness of the Iraqi state than it is about the state of ISIL,” said Toby Dodge, Director of the Middle East Centre at the London School of Economics.

Just as there is little chance of ISIL taking over the Shiite-dominated capital, the Iraqi army is unlikely to dislodge ISIL from Mosul or regain full control of the north of the country, even with Shi’ite militia volunteers and likely Iranian support.

With the rising Sunni insurgency, Iran may have to weigh in to salvage its ally and Tehran’s influence in Iraq as it did in neighbouring Syria.

Diplomatic sources said Iran already has high-ranking commanders, including two close aides of Qassem Suleimani, the commander of the Revolutionary Guards elite Quds force, regularly holding meetings with Maliki.

Malikis’ mobilisation of Shiite militias, endorsed by the highest religious authority, has the potential to trigger all-out sectarian strife, analysts say.

And there are concerns that Iraq might disintegrate into sectarian and tribal conflict, shattering into Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish entities.

“Maliki is playing with fire by trying to unleash Shiite militias, this is a recipe for disaster. That’s exactly what ISIL wants — to trigger all-out sectarian war,” Gerges said.

“Iraq has never healed, it is a mutilated country. The crisis is reaching a tipping point whereby Iraq will splinter into three or four states or reconcile. To reconcile you need a new leader, a new mindset and you don’t have it there.”

WASHINGTON — Two and a half years after President Barack Obama disentangled America from a long, unpopular war in Iraq, his options for helping the Iraqi government stave off a militant onslaught are slim as doubts simmer over whether even punishing air strikes would be effective.

He will announce in coming days how far he is willing to go in responding to the crisis in Iraq, where militants are sweeping south towards the capital Baghdad in a campaign to recreate a large mediaeval Islamic caliphate spanning Iraq and Syria.

While Obama has ruled out sending combat troops, US officials say options under consideration include air strikes on Sunni insurgents threatening the Shiite-led government, accelerated delivery of weapons and expanded training of Iraqi security forces. The US already has increased intelligence-gathering flights by drone aircraft over Iraq, officials said.

There is growing skepticism both inside and outside of the administration whether Washington has the will, let alone the power, to halt Iraq’s slide into a civil war that could tear it apart. The collapse of Iraq’s US-trained army in the north last week has compounded concerns that fast-moving events are unfolding beyond America’s ability to control them, say officials.

“It is a colossal mess,” said one senior US official.

Hoping to mitigate the risk of a failed US response, the administration may opt for a phased approach, first trying to shore up Iraqi forces and possibly resorting to more direct military action if the situation deteriorates further, according to a source familiar with the White House’s thinking.

The biggest questions centre on whether the United States will carry out air strikes, either with warplanes or unmanned drones, against militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, which moved swiftly to seize the northern cities of Mosul and Tikrit this week and now threaten Baghdad.

Such attacks, an option the Pentagon described on Friday as “kinetic strikes”, could be launched from aircraft carriers or from the sprawling US air base at Incirlik in Turkey. The carrier USS George H.W. Bush and its strike group are already “in the region,” the Pentagon said on Friday.

While a US air assault could send a tough message to ISIL forces about Washington’s commitment to the survival of the besieged Iraqi government, national security officials are raising concerns about the US ability to target roving bands of insurgents and seriously damage their fighting capabilities.

Air strikes that damage cities or Iraqi infrastructure could worsen the crisis, said two US national security sources. Another big concern is the risk of hitting the wrong people.

‘Targeted’ and ‘precise’

Obama’s insistence on Friday that any military action would be “targeted” and “precise” appears to reflect a desire for a cautious course that avoids civilian casualties and prevents war-weary Americans from being dragged back into Iraq’s sectarian quagmire.

A former US official with knowledge of the situation said that, in discussions within the administration, the White House is seeking to limit the extent of American military involvement, casting doubt over whether the White House would go ahead with a Pentagon-proposed package of military equipment, training and potential air strikes.

The former official, who requested anonymity to discuss internal government deliberations, said Obama and his top aides were focused on increased military sales to the government of Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki and leery of proposals for drone strikes against ISIL.

The idea of speeding up delivery of US weapons to Iraqi forces is also not without drawbacks.

While shipments of small arms and counterterrorism equipment may be possible in the near term, large military hardware such as F-16 jet fighters and Apache attack helicopters take much more time to move out of the production pipeline.

Transfer of more of the Hellfire air-to-ground missiles that Iraq has requested could be accelerated. Lockheed Martin Corp , which makes the Hellfire, said it would work with the US government to step up those deliveries if asked.

But US officials may be wary of moving too quickly in this area, especially after seeing US-supplied equipment such as Humvee patrol vehicles and artillery fall into militants’ hands during their lightning advance this week.

The Pentagon had pushed for months, sometimes against resistance from White House policy makers, for Iraq to be given a package of enhanced military support to combat the insurgency. But some analysts say proposals on the table are insufficient to help Iraqi forces turn the tide against advancing militants.

“They [the administration] have to do something,” said former CIA and White House official Ken Pollack, who is now at the Brookings Institution think tank.

But he said the most recent US proposals amounted to mostly a counterterrorism package “which will basically have no impact on the situation”.

And he suggested it could even further complicate matters by furthering the perception that the United States is squarely on the side of Iraq’s Shiite government, which has alienated large swaths of the country’s Sunni minority.

Obama’s deliberations on the possible use of military force in Iraq echoed last year’s debate on whether to strike Syria over the use of chemical weapons.

The president has again promised to “consult with Congress” but he stopped short of saying he would bring the issue to a vote by lawmakers. Congressional opposition to the Syria strike plan contributed to Obama’s decision not to go ahead with it.

BEIRUT — A car bomb exploded in a pro-government neighbourhood in the central Syrian city of Homs on Thursday, killing at least seven people, state media and activists said.

The Syrian government took full control of Homs last month after rebels withdrew from their strongholds in the Old City as part of a negotiated evacuation deal following a nearly two-year siege by the military. That agreement has largely restored a sense of calm and order to the city, although car bombs still occasionally target government areas.

Thursday’s blast occurred in the Wadi Dahab district and killed at least seven people, the Syrian state news agency said. It added that some 25 others were wounded.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the death toll at eight. The activist group said six of the dead were civilians, but it was not clear whether the other two were civilians or pro-government gunmen.

Also Thursday, the observatory said the Syrian government has released around 530 detainees under a “general amnesty” announced Monday by President Bashar Assad following his re-election. Thousands more prisoners are expected to be released under the presidential pardon.

The observatory director, Rami Abdurrahman, said some of those who have been freed were detained under terrorism laws, while others had been imprisoned for standard criminal offences. They have been released from prisons in Damascus, Aleppo, the southern city of Daraa as well as Deir Al Zour in the far east.

The government has issued several small-scale pardons since the Syrian uprising began in March 2011.

The latest amnesty appears to be the most sweeping. Still, it is not clear whether it applies to the tens of thousands of anti-government activists, protesters, opposition supporters and their relatives who international rights groups say are imprisoned in the country.

It does, however, cover foreign fighters, who the government says will not be prosecuted if they surrender.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — The post-mortem of a Palestinian teenager killed in clashes with the Israeli army in the West Bank showed a live round caused his death, an NGO said Thursday.

Nadeem Nuwarah, 17, was killed on May 15 during a day of protests and clashes with Israeli forces in Beitunia, southwest of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

His body was exhumed for a post-mortem examination on Wednesday, which was carried out by two Israeli forensic pathologists, one Palestinian, a Danish and an American.

“They [the experts] have a clear agreement on the cause of death,” said Sarit Michaeli of Israeli rights group B’Tselem, which coordinated the post-mortem with NGOs Defence for Children International, Al Haq and Physicians for Human Rights.

“They all agree that it was live ammunition,” she told AFP.

The conclusion Nuwarah was shot by a live bullet through his chest were “based on the entry and exit wounds in the body, and x-rays that traced [bullet] fragments in the body”, Michaeli said.

“They ruled out any other cause of death, rubber bullets or anything else.”

Israel’s army says it used “riot dispersal” means, a term which includes rubber bullets, and denied using live fire during the day of protests as Palestinians marked the “Nakbeh”, or catastrophe, of Israel’s establishment in 1948.

Palestinian leaders accused Israel of Nuwarah’s “deliberate execution” at the time, after CCTV footage appeared to show Nuwarah was shot unprovoked, during a lull in the violence.

Israel suspended a non-combat soldier spotted by CNN television cameras firing his weapon during the clashes, but said there was no proof his shot was responsible for killing Nuwarah.

The forensic experts were also “able to track the trajectory of the bullet [that hit Nuwarah] and assess the angle from which it was fired,” Michaeli said, but was unable to elaborate before the findings were published officially.

Nuwarah’s family, who said they found the bullet that killed him in the backpack he was wearing when he died, had handed the round over for investigation, Michaeli said.

Israel’s army did not immediately comment on the investigation.

Mohammed Udeh, 16, was shot dead in the same location around an hour later but his family did not consent to a post-mortem, B’Tselem said.

East Jerusalem traders strike 

Meanwhile, shops in Arab East Jerusalem shut Thursday in solidarity with hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, many of whom have been hospitalised.

Business owners pulled down their shutters in the normally bustling Old City in Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem, an AFP correspondent said, to observe a strike called by an umbrella group of various political parties and factions.

The Palestinian National and Islamic Forces said there would be a demonstration in the evening outside the offices of the Red Cross, also in East Jerusalem.

On Wednesday, the Palestinian leadership called for international intervention over the hunger strike, asking that Israel be held responsible for the health of the prisoners.

A letter addressed to the UN Security Council and the European Union, signed by senior Palestinian figure Saeb Erekat, said more than 400 prisoners had joined the strike, of whom approximately 130 had been refusing food for more than six weeks.

“We call on you to call on Israel to annul the policy of administrative detention and to condition deepening your bilateral ties with Israel pending Israel’s fulfilment of all its obligations,” he wrote in English.

Most of the strikers are administrative detainees who are being held without charge for indefinitely renewable six-month periods in a procedure dating back to the British mandate (1920-1948).

Israel Prisons Service spokeswoman Sivan Weizman told AFP Thursday the current hunger strike was the longest-ever staged by Palestinians detainees.

In contrast to Erekat’s claim, she said 250 inmates were refusing food, of whom 80 were being treated in hospital.

Earlier this week, the Israeli parliament approved the first reading of a bill to enable doctors to force feed hunger strikers. It must pass two more readings before becoming law.

Some 5,000 Palestinians are being held in Israeli jails, with nearly 200 in administrative detention.

CAIRO — An Egyptian court acquitted former Hosni Mubarak interior minister Habib Al Adly of corruption Thursday in a retrial after he had been sentenced to 12 years in 2011.

In March 2013, a cassation court had ordered the retrial of Adly, who had been convicted of money-laundering and illicitly enriching himself.

The charges were linked to the sale of land owned by Adly. He tasked police officials with finding a buyer who would pay the highest possible price.

The disgraced ex-minister, who ran Mubarak’s security services for more than a decade before a popular uprising overthrew the strongman in 2011, will remain in detention.

Adly was widely unpopular because of abuses committed by his security agents, and rights groups said the torture of suspects was commonplace during his term in office.

In February, a court upheld a three-year jail sentence handed to Adly for taking advantage of his position and forcing police conscripts to work on his private property.

Along with Mubarak, he had been sentenced to life in prison in 2012 over the killings of protesters in the 2011 uprising. A court overturned the verdict on technical grounds and they are now being retried along with six police commanders.

An official enquiry into deaths during the revolt found at least 846 civilians and 26 police officers were killed.

Adly also stands accused in a separate trial on charges of illicit gains worth 181 million Egyptian pounds (around $25 million, 18 million euros). The next hearing in the trial will take place on September 18.

In May, Mubarak received three years in prison on corruption charges, while his two sons Alaa and Gamal each received four-year terms.

They were accused of embezzling more than one hundred million Egyptian pounds earmarked for the maintenance of presidential palaces.

But the trials of Mubarak and his officials have been overshadowed by the charges against Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, ousted in July by ex-army chief Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, the country’s new president.

Thursday’s ruling comes days after Sisi was sworn in as president. His opponents say he is bent on establishing an autocratic regime worse than the one instituted by Mubarak.

Since Morsi’s ouster, a government crackdown targeting his Islamist supporters has left more than 1,400 killed in street clashes and seen at least 15,000 jailed.

Hundreds have also been sentenced to death in speedy mass trials that have triggered an international outcry.