Region

BEIRUT — It was not so long ago that Bashar Assad’s enemies thought he was finished.

In the summer of 2012, the rebels were not just at the gates of Damascus, but inside the capital, preying on Assad’s harried forces.

His government had lost big chunks of Syria’s territory and a string of strategic towns, and a small number of loyal and tested army units were rotating around the country in an exhausting attempt to hold back rebel advances on many fronts.

Not any longer.

Now, even as the United States seeks to increase aid and training to moderate rebels to fight Assad’s forces, US officials privately concede Assad isn’t going anywhere soon.

Buoyed by a sequence of victories over the past year, won in large part through Iran and Hizbollah, its Lebanese paramilitary proxy, Assad will be elected president this week for a third seven-year term, symbolically contested by selected opponents playing walk-on roles to pad out the main drama.

The old Syria — at its core a security state run by the Assad clan, their Alawite allies and selected partners from other minorities and the Sunni majority — is reasserting itself.

Assad himself, who had almost dropped out of sight and, on the rare occasions he did appear in public, looked troubled and strained, has re-emerged looking relaxed, confident and smart as he gets out and about, campaigning with his wife, Asma.

Triumphalism

There is a note of triumphalism when he speaks, a sense that the tide of the crisis, that began as a popular revolt against his rule, has turned in his favour.

Despite the loss of 160,000 lives and the displacement of 10 million Syrians, the shattering of cities like Homs and Aleppo and wholesale destruction of infrastructure and the economy, Assad proclaims Syria will become again what it once was.

During a visit to the ancient Christian town of Maaloula on Easter Sunday, after it had been recaptured from rebels, he told soldiers: “We will remain steadfast and bring security back to Syria and defeat terrorism. We will hit them with an iron fist and Syria will return to how it was.”

“The battle may be long but we’re not afraid; Syria has been like that all its life,” he said on another stop at nearby Ain Al Tina. “As long as we’re together... we’ll rebuild it. However much they destroy we will rebuild and make it even better.”

Such is his confidence that he is contemplating retaking the whole country after the presidential election, according to a Lebanese political ally who sees him regularly.

Having regained control of a chain of cities up the northsouth backbone of the country, secured his grip on the northwest coast and Alawite heartland, and cleared rebels away from Lebanon’s border, he is mulling a new offensive against Aleppo, before pushing right up to the northern frontier with Turkey.

According to the Lebanese ally he would leave parts of eastern Syria that are connected to the insurgency in western Iraq under the control of Al Qaeda-linked jihadis — fitting Assad’s contention he is fighting foreign-inspired terrorists.

This would also send a warning to Western and Arab supporters of the mainstream rebels that getting rid of him opens the gate to Sunni extremists.

Reasserting control

Diplomats close to Assad acknowledge that part of his strategy has been to overlook the presence of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), an Al Qaeda division led by foreign jihadists, who have been fighting the moderate rebels — the first to rise up against the Syrian leader’s rule.

“It’s a logical strategy. Why attack ISIL if ISIL is attacking your enemy?,” one Arab diplomat said.

But Assad will eventually retake even the east, the Lebanese ally confidently predicts, citing the Algerian state’s long and bloody campaign to eradicate Islamist insurgents in the 1990s.

“It will take time but Algeria lasted seven to eight years until the government purged the country and regained control,” he said.

Yet, seductive though this scenario may be to the loyalist camp, Assad has returned from the brink only because powerful foreign allies — Iran, Hizbollah, and Iranian-trained Iraqi militias on the ground and Russia in the UN Security Council — have intervened decisively as the US, Europeans and Arabs have mirrored the indecision and muddle of Syria’s rebel opposition.

“Assad has not won, Assad has survived,” says Fawaz Gerges, a Middle East expert at the London School of Economics. “There is a big difference between weathering the violent storm and basically defeating the opposition.”

“Both in his discourse and his image he projects much more confidence, he is much more at ease, he projects a narrative of victory,” Gerges says. “The truth is that Al Qaeda has damaged the opposition and has strengthened Assad’s hand.”

“But the fact is the opposition is divided but not defeated yet. You have between 70,000 and 100,000 fighters and we have to wait and see how the opposition, and how the United States, Western powers and regional allies play their cards.”

Pyrrhic victory?

Lebanese columnist Sarkis Naoum, a Syria expert who from the start predicted a long conflict, says Assad has won “the first half” of the conflict. “It is a pyrrhic victory. The scale is on Bashar and Iran’s side now but for sure Bashar won’t be able to win the overall war.”

While there are indications that the US and its allies are beginning to worry more about an Al Qaeda revival in Syria than about removing Assad, Western diplomats say, there is also evidence Washington is encouraging Saudi Arabia to provide selected rebel units with more sophisticated anti-tank weapons and Qatar to upgrade their skills with military training.

US President Barack Obama, facing criticism that he has been passive and indecisive on Syria, said last week that he would work with Congress to “ramp up support for those in the Syrian opposition who offer the best alternative to terrorists and brutal dictators” but he offered no specifics.

While Obama and Congress deliberate, the dominant fear remains the absence of a credible alternative to take over power from Assad, whose family has ruled Syria ruthlessly for over 40 years. Instead, they see a scenario under which the country of 23 million people may go the way of Iraq or Libya.

At home, Assad is fond of telling foreign journalists that he and his wife continue to move around Damascus freely and without personal security. But locals say that has not happened since the uprising erupted in March 2011.

Security surrounding Assad’s movements is so tight that even at official ceremonies, it is not clear if the footage shot is of the same day or a previous day, they say.

One close observer noted that Assad doesn’t tell his guards in advance about his movements. “He suddenly emerges and they run after him to follow movement orders on the spot,” he said.

Close to home

Mortars continuously hit close to Assad’s private residence in Damascus, residents who live in the area say.

During a recent mortar barrage that came unusually close to his residence, neighbours say they saw several cars with darkened windows leave from a basement.

“It was so fast, almost instantaneous. We heard the mortar blast, which we felt in our home. It shook our windows. And by the time I walked up to the window to see what was happening, I saw maybe 10 cars leave from his residence, one after the other, all of them in a big hurry,” one resident said.

Locals along the Syrian coast say Assad and his family have not been to their summer residence for at least two years.

Western diplomats say that about a year into the uprising, “Assad must have gotten advice from his friends not to leave Damascus as it is the ultimate prize for the rebels”.

Under all scenarios, experts say a military solution to oust Assad is out of the question and, barring an assassination, a nuclear deal between Iran and major powers could in the long-term be the only way forward to usher a post-Assad order.

“He’s staying until someone puts a bullet in his head or until the regional equation changes and this won’t happen until a nuclear deal is reached,” said the Arab diplomat.

Another diplomat with close links to Assad admitted that the president, 48, is the man of the moment but not the future.

“He’s not perfect, and he could be more flexible on humanitarian issues. Besides, he won’t be around forever, and Syria will eventually move forward. But for now, he’s the better of the two choices,” the diplomat said.

But diehard loyalists close to Iran strongly believe Tehran will stand by its friend, whose alliance is a vital land bridge giving the non-Arab Persian state access to Hizbollah, its proxy militia fighting Israel from Lebanon.

“God forbid when his situation was worse than this, the Iranians did not give him up, they won’t now.”

TEHRAN — Kuwait’s Emir Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah on Sunday started a landmark visit to Tehran focused on mending fences between Shiite Iran and the Sunni-ruled monarchies in the Gulf.

The two-day visit comes amid a thaw in ties between Tehran and six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) since the election of Iran’s moderate President Hassan Rouhani in June 2013.

In greeting the emir, Rouhani, quoted on the presidency website, said the trip would mark “a decisive turning point” and that the two states had “close views on political, regional and international issues”.

The visit would “benefit both countries”, the emir was quoted as saying.

Sheikh Sabah, on his first visit to Tehran as head of state, flew in at the head of a high-level delegation including the foreign, oil, finance, commerce and industry ministers.

“Our ties with Kuwait are very important to us and we hope this trip would be a new chapter to boost cooperation,” said Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, quoted by state news agency IRNA.

The visit will also focus on controversial regional issues, including Iran’s military involvement in Syria, the situation in Iraq and Egypt, and the Middle East peace process, Kuwaiti officials said.

Relations between Iran and the Gulf, namely signs of rapprochement between regional power brokers Saudi Arabia and Iran, will also be discussed during the visit, Kuwaiti Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Khaled Al Jarallah told Al Hayat newspaper.

He said Kuwait, which currently holds the rotating presidency of the GCC — which also includes Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) — has balanced links with Tehran and is willing to mediate between Riyadh and Tehran.

Saudi Arabia and its GCC partners are deeply suspicious of Iran’s nuclear ambitions and wary of the talks under way between Tehran and Western powers aimed at striking a long-term compromise.

Riyadh is also at odds with Iran over the Syria war, in which Tehran backs the government and Saudi Arabia the rebels, as well as its involvement in Iraq, Bahrain and other countries in the region.

Last month, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al Faisal invited his Iranian counterpart Zarif to visit Riyadh.

Saudi Arabia has also invited Iran to attend a two-day meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation that opens on June 18 in Jeddah, with Tehran welcoming the invite as a “friendly” gesture.

But Zarif told IRNA on Sunday that he will not be able to attend because the timing coincides with the next round of nuclear talks between Iran and world powers, scheduled for June 16-20 in Vienna.

In December, Zarif toured Kuwait, the UAE, Oman and Qatar, but skipped Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

Kuwait’s ambassador to Tehran, Majdi Al Dhafiri, told Kuwait’s official news agency KUNA that Sheikh Sabah and Rouhani will discuss a number of “strategic projects” useful for the whole region. He did not elaborate.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Palestinian and Israeli rights groups on Sunday wrote to EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton demanding her “urgent intervention” on behalf of 125 prisoners on long-term hunger strike.

The letter was sent as the overall number of Palestinian prisoners refusing food climbed to 290, including 70 being treated in hospital, an Israel Prisons Service spokeswoman told AFP.

Of that number, 125 have been on hunger strike for more than five weeks, beginning their mass protest on or shortly after April 24, Palestinian rights groups say.

Most of the prisoners are administrative detainees who are refusing to eat in protest over their being held without trial in a procedure which can be extended indefinitely.

“We... wish to bring to your attention the ongoing mass hunger strike involving approximately 125 Palestinian detainees and prisoners, and request your urgent intervention on their behalf,” said the letter, signed by 17 rights groups and the Palestinian prisoners affairs ministry.

“As of June 1, the majority of the hunger strikers have gone without food for 38 days.

“We have reached a critical stage and unless there is immediate intervention there will be dire consequences for the health of all those on strike,” it said.

Among those refusing food are six parliamentarians from the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), all of whom are administrative detainees, the letter said. Palestinian officials said they had only recently joined the strike.

Many had stopped taking vitamins and were only drinking water, it said, accusing Israel of withholding salt from them for the first fortnight of their strike.

The IPS denied the allegation, with spokeswoman Sivan Weizman telling AFP the detainees had been given “everything as required by law”.

Hanan Ashrawi, a senior figure with the Palestine Liberation Organisation accused Israel of “systematically” using administrative detention as a tool for the collective punishment of Palestinians.

“We call on all states... to pressure Israel to drop its cruel and illegal use of the colonial practise of administrative detention and other administrative punitive measures,” she said in a statement.

Two years ago, more than 1,500 prisoners staged a four-week hunger strike which ended with a deal in which Israel agreed not to extend the prison terms of those in administrative detention unless fresh evidence against them emerged.

Israel also agreed to return those in solitary detention back to the general prison population as well as allowing a resumption of family visits for detainees who come from Gaza.

About 5,000 Palestinians are being held in Israeli prisons, nearly 200 of them under administrative detention orders, which allow suspects to be jailed without trial for up to six months.

Such orders can be renewed indefinitely by a military court.

CAIRO — Egypt’s outgoing interim president enacted a law on Saturday making it illegal to desecrate the national flag or refuse to stand for the national anthem, his office said.

Those who break the new law will face up to one year in jail.

Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, the former army chief who ousted  Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, won an overwhelming victory in last week’s presidential election and is to take office next month.

The law, one of the last that will be enacted by outgoing interim president Adly Mansour, also stipulates a fine of up to 30,000 Egyptian pounds (about $4,300, 3,200 euros) for desecrating the flag or disrespecting the anthem, his office said in a statement.

Several Islamist members of Egypt’s parliament, which was dissolved in 2012, had sparked outrage when they refused to stand for the national anthem. Some hardline Islamists reject displays of nationalism, which they view as a Western innovation.

ABU DHABI — The United Arab Emirates foresees greater stability in Egypt after former army chief Abdel Fattah Al Sisi won a presidential election last week and will continue to back it financially, the UAE foreign minister said on Saturday.

Since the army ousted Egypt’s first freely elected president, the Islamist Mohamed Morsi amid mass protests against his rule last July, the UAE has become a major donor for Egypt, taking a hands-on approach in its support for Cairo.

The Gulf Arab countries were opposed to Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood, which they regard as a security threat. In total Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the UAE have pledged over $12 billion in loans and donations since July.

Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed also told reporters the UAE wanted international partner to join in their efforts to repair Egypt’s shattered economy.

“We want to have partners from around the world involved, whether it be partners like Germany... or institutions like the World Bank and the IMF,” Sheikh Abdullah said at a news conference in Abu Dhabi on the occasion of a visit by his German counterpart.

The minister said the UAE had a plan to revive Egypt’s economy and put it back on track.

“The next period will be different. The previous one was a transitional period and now there will be more stability,” he said.

The International Monetary Fund and Egypt have discussed a possible loan worth up to $4.8 billion to help the economy, embattled since a 2011 uprising that toppled president Hosni Mubarak and drove away tourists and foreign investors, two main sources of foreign currency.

These talks took a backseat when financial aid began flowing from Gulf Arab states following Morsi’s ouster last year.

BEIRUT — Syrian refugees in Lebanon will lose their status as such if they return home for a visit, the interior ministry said Saturday.

At the same time, there are calls for deporting those who voted in an election in which Syrian President Bashar Assad is certain to win.

More than a million Syrians have fled their war-torn country for Lebanon in the past three years, according to the United Nations.

“Syrian displaced people who are registered with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees are requested to refrain from entering into Syria starting June 1, 2014, or be penalised by losing their status as refugees in Lebanon,” said the ministry.

The statement, published by the National News Agency, said the measure is grounded “in a concern for security in Lebanon and the relationship between Syrian displaced and Lebanese nationals... and in a bid to prevent any friction between them”.

The decision, which takes effect Sunday, comes two days after tens of thousands of Syrians flocked to their Beirut embassy to vote in the election.

Lebanon’s March 14 coalition, which opposes Assad and its Lebanese allies, said those who voted “should be deported immediately... because their security in Syria is not under threat”.

The refugee influx into Lebanon has burdened the tiny Mediterranean country’s weak economy, with politicians on all sides calling for measures to limit the flow.

Lebanon has not signed the Convention on Refugees, and refers to Syrians forced out of their country by war as “displaced”.

Most Syrian refugees in Lebanon live in informal camps dotted around the country, mainly in border areas in the north and east.

The authorities say the actual number of Syrians in Lebanon is far higher than the nearly 1.1 million accounted for by UNHCR.

Lebanon has frequently complained it lacks the necessary resources to cope with them, and that the labour market is struggling to accommodate them.

Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil warned Thursday that the country would “collapse” if the influx continues to soar.

He also said Beirut was taking measured aimed at “putting an end to the Syrian migration wave to Lebanon”.

Lebanon, dominated by Damascus for nearly 30 years until 2005, is still sharply divided into pro- and anti-Assad camps.

It has also seen a spillover of Syria’s violence, killing scores in the past three years, mainly in battles and explosions.

On Saturday, the Lebanese army said an explosive device planted inside a vehicle detonated during the night in the border town of Arsal, wounding two people.

A local official in Arsal told AFP the vehicle had a Syrian registration plate, and that “a personal dispute” had been behind the attack.

Arsal is home to more than 100,000 Syrian refugees.

DAMASCUS — Nearly 2,000 civilians, including 567 children, have been killed in a massive air offensive this year by Syrian regime forces on the northern province of Aleppo, a monitor said Friday.

The staggering death toll from barrel bombings and other air raids on rebel-held areas comes just four days before the June 3 presidential election that is expected to return Bashar Assad to power.

“From the beginning of January to May 29, 1,963 civilians were killed by barrel bombs and other air raids. Among them were 567 children and 283 women,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Control of Aleppo city, Syria’s former commercial hub, has been divided since a rebel offensive in July 2012, and government aircraft have also targeted nearby towns and villages held by the opposition.

The air offensive began in mid-December, and intensified in January, with regime helicopters raining barrels bombs on rebel areas, causing many thousands of people to flee their homes.

The munitions are cylindrical metal containers packed with explosives and scrap metal, which are unguided and cannot be directed at military targets.

Their use has been condemned by the international community.

The United Nations saying they have a “devastating effect”, the United States has denounced them as “barbaric” and rights group have said their use could amount to a war crime.

Activists have criticised the international community for failing to stop the “massacres” in Aleppo.

‘Criminal regime’

In April, Human Rights Watch said: “President Assad is talking about elections, but for Aleppo’s residents, the only campaign they are witnessing is a military one of barrel bombs and indiscriminate shelling.”

The election will be held only in government-controlled areas inside Syria and in Syrian embassies, where voting began on Thursday.

The regime has barred the exiled opposition from standing in the race.

Assad, whose family has ruled Syria with an iron fist for four decades, is expected to win a third, seven-year term in Tuesday’s election, in which he faces two little-known challengers.

The opposition has dismissed the vote as a “farce” and the United States calls it a “parody of democracy”.

Rebel Free Syrian Army chief General Abdel Ilah Al Bashir on Thursday urged Syrians boycott a vote run by a “criminal” regime.

“O Syrians, historical duty, true patriotism and fears over the dangers threatening Syria and Syrians dictate that we must foil this farce by boycotting it completely,” said Bashir.

The election is seen as a tactic by Damascus to strengthen Assad’s position.

Even though the opposition has seized significant swathes of territory, especially in the north and northwest, the Iran and-Russia-backed regime still massively outguns the rebels with its regular army, air force, growing paramilitary force and elite fighters from Lebanon’s Shiite Hizbollah.

The vote also comes as the rebels have been weakened by infighting among rival jihadist groups.

On Friday, senior Iranian foreign policy adviser, Ali Akbar Velayati, said he expected the election to be “carried out without a hitch” and “to strengthen the legitimacy of the Bashar government”.

The Syrian conflict began as an Arab Spring-inspired, peaceful movement demanding political change but it descended into civil war after Assad unleashed a brutal crackdown against dissent.

At least 162,000 people have died as a direct result of the fighting and bombings, according to the observatory which relies on a network of activists and medics on the ground for its reports.

According to the European Commission, an additional “200,000 Syrians have died from chronic illnesses due to lack of access to treatment and medicines”.

It also said that nearly half the country’s population of 22.4 million has fled the country or has been displaced inside Syria while 3.5 million are in areas impossible which cannot be accessed by aid workers.

“Denying such access is a crime,” said this week European Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response, Kristalina Georgieva.

LONDON — The Foreign Office said Saturday it was following up the case of a British woman reportedly sentenced to 20 years in jail in Iran for posting anti-regime propaganda on Facebook.

Iranian opposition website Kaleme said Roya Saberinejad Nobakht, an Iranian-born British woman, was among eight people jailed for posts on the social networking site.

The 47-year-old, from Stockport outside Manchester in northwest England, was detained whilst visiting friends in the city of Shiraz in October, reports said.

Nobakht has dual British and Iranian nationality and has lived in England with her British husband, Daryoush Taghipoor, 47, for more than six years, according to The Times newspaper.

He travelled to Iran to find her, was allowed to visit her for 10 minutes and has not seen her since, the daily said.

A Foreign Office spokeswoman said: “We are aware that a British national has received a custodial sentence in Iran. We are seeking to establish the full facts and are following up the case with the Iranian authorities.”

There is an ongoing clash in Iran between moderates, backed by President Hassan Rouhani, and hardliners, over Internet freedom.

GENEVA — An international team of scientists say they have identified a compound that can fight coronaviruses, responsible for the SARS and MERS outbreaks, which currently have no cure.

Coronaviruses affect the upper and lower respiratory tracts in humans. They are the reason for up to a third of common colds.

A more severe strain of the virus, thought to have come from bats, triggered the global SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) epidemic in 2002, which killed nearly 800 people.

The Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) is a new strain discovered in Saudi Arabia in 2012 and thought to have originated in camels. More deadly but less contagious, it has so far killed 193 people out of 636 confirmed cases.

Now, a team of scientists led by Edward Trybala from the University of Gothenburg in Sweden and Volker Thiel from the University of Bern, have discovered a compound called K22, which appears to block the ability of the virus to spread in humans.

“This finding is important in light of the fact that some emerging coronaviruses, such as SARS and MERS... are potential pandemic-causing pathogens,” Trybala said in an e-mail to AFP.

In “our work we found a novel strategy to combat these viruses,” he added.

The team screened 16,671 different compounds before realising that K22 could combat a weak form of coronavirus that causes mild cold-like symptoms.

They then went on to show that it can fight more serious strains, including SARS and MERS.

In an article for specialist journal “PLOS Pathogens”, the scientists explained that the virus reproduces in the cells that line the human respiratory system.

The virus takes over the membranes that separate different parts of human cells, reshaping them into a sort of protective armour in order to start its production cycle, and so creating “viral factories”, Trybala told AFP.

K22 acts at an early stage in this process, preventing the virus from taking control of the cell membranes and so opening up “new treatment possibilities”, he said.

“The results confirm that the use of the membrane of the host cell is a crucial step in the life-cycle of the virus,” the researchers wrote. Their work shows that “the process is highly sensitive and can be influenced by anti-viral medications”.

They said the recent SARS epidemic and MERS outbreak mean there should be urgent investment in testing K22 outside the laboratory and developing medicines.

While K22 still has a way to go before it can be tested on humans, Trybala still believes “that identification of this new strategy of combating coronaviruses will aid to develop an effective and safe antiviral drug”.

Earlier this month, experts gathered in Geneva by the World Health Organisation confirmed that MERS was spreading but had yet to reach the level of global emergency.

Most of the MERS cases and deaths so far have been in Saudi Arabia, but the virus has been imported to more than a dozen other countries. All of those cases have involved people who became ill while in the Middle East.

Iran registered its first death from MERS on Thursday, and has registered six cases of the infection.

TRIPOLI — Rival interim governments are disputing power in Tripoli less than four weeks before a general election, claiming control of Libya’s huge currency reserves from oil and gas.

The power struggle is creating a quandary for foreign diplomats as the competing claimants trumpet their meetings as a vindication of their legitimacy.

Prime minister Abdullah Al Thani had announced his intention to step down earlier this year after an armed attack on his family but he is insisting that his successor should be chosen by a new parliament rather than its contested predecessor.

Prime Minister Ahmed Miitig insists his election by the outgoing Islamist-led parliament, largely boycotted by liberals for months, was valid and he has formed a rival administration which met Thursday in a Tripoli luxury hotel.

“We have got ourselves in a real bind,” said analyst Salem Al Zarrouk.

“Which of the two governments is the central bank going to deal with, who is going to hold the chequebook and who is going to sign the deals with foreign and domestic firms?” he asked.

Libya’s foreign currency reserves built up from past oil and gas earnings still stand at more than $100 billion, but they have been depleting fast from $132 billion last July.

A still unresolved rebellion for autonomy in eastern Libya has cut oil exports from 1.5 million barrels per day to just 240,000 bpd.

That has reduced earnings from $4.6 billion a month to just $1 billion, far short of the $3.5 billion the central bank says Libya needs each month just to cover imports.

“To vote in a government to run the country for less than a month and to put in its hands billions of dollars is virtual madness and looks like a deliberate ploy to complicate the situation,” said fellow analyst Moataz Al Majbari.

“Ahmed Miitig must withdraw from politics immediately. His insistence on his claim to the premiership will only deepen the crisis,” he said.

Miitig has repeatedly refused to give way, insisting he is determined to “serve my country even for a few minutes”.

Zarrouk accused the Muslim Brotherhood and its more radical Islamist allies of seeking to install the nominally independent Miitig as part of “a last-ditch bid to hang on to power”.

Analyst Mohamed Al Jebal said the 42-year-old businessman from Libya’s third city Misrata should stand down to save his fledgling political career.

“What he’s doing now is political suicide,” Jebal said.

But Miitig’s supporters in the outgoing interim parliament have been defiant.

Speaker Nuri Abu Sahmein has warned Thani that he could face criminal prosecution for his refusal to hand over the premiership in accordance with the vote in the General National Congress.

Tripoli power struggle 

The GNC’s legitimacy was thrown into question when it unilaterally prolonged its mandate, due to expire this February, until December, only agreeing to a June 25 election for a successor body in the face of mass protests on the streets.

But it still insists that its election in Libya’s first-ever free polls in July 2012 gives it executive as well as legislative authority until then.

The power struggle in Tripoli has brought to a halt negotiations on reopening two key oil terminals which remain under blockade by rebels demanding autonomy for the east.

They want a return to the federal constitution which Libya had for the first 12 years after independence in 1951 with key spending powers in the hands of three regions.

And as the rival prime ministers square off in Tripoli, waiting in the wings outside Benghazi is a former general and longtime US exile whose forces have launched two armed assaults, backed by air power, on jihadists in the main eastern city.

Khalifa Haftar claims his forces represent the legitimate national army, and although he has repeatedly denied any political ambitions, his Islamist opponents accuse him of plotting a coup in Tripoli with the backing of liberals and their militia allies.

“Now we have two governments and pretty much two parliaments and two armies,” said Suleiman Dogha, a former political leader in the 2011 uprising that toppled and killed longtime dictator Muammar Qadhafi.

“I fear that we will end up with two or three states.”