Region

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israel, looking to avoid censure at the FIFA Congress in Brazil on Wednesday, has defended its arrest of a Palestine national team player, telling the world football body he was a courier for Islamist fighters.

Sameh Fares Mohammad had intended to “harm the state of Israel and its citizens”, Israeli Sports Minister Limor Livnat wrote in a letter to FIFA President Sepp Blatter.

The Palestine Football Association (PFA) has been lobbying against Israel at FIFA over Mohammad’s arrest by the Shin Bet security service in April and restrictions on the movement of other Palestinian players and officials in the Gaza Strip and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Israel cites security concerns for such restrictions, but has drawn international calls for greater freedom of movement for Palestinians through Israeli military checkpoints.

Livnat wrote in her letter that Mohammad was detained by Israeli security officials upon his return with the Palestine national team from a training camp in Qatar in April.

She said Mohammad had met a Hamas fighter in Qatar whom Israel had freed in a prisoner swap in 2011. He had given Mohammad money, a mobile phone and written messages to bring back to Hamas officials in the West Bank town of Qalqiliya.

“He understood that these were clandestine meetings and even kept them secret from the team’s other members and its management,” Livnat wrote in the letter which the sports ministry made public.

Livnat said that during a football tournament in Qatar in April, Mohammad had met Talal Ibrahim Abd Al Rahman Sharim of the Hamas Islamist movement, a group classified by the West as a terrorist organisation.

Sharim had been serving a life sentence in an Israeli prison for security offences, until his release along with more than 1,000 other jailed Palestinians in a 2011 swap for Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier abducted in 2006 in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.

Mohammad had made “cynical use of his sports activities exit permit to promote Hamas’ activities,” Livnat added.

“I am confident that you will find this information worrisome and constituting clear evidence of the misuse of sports in a fashion that threatens the security of Israeli civilians,” she said.

Abdel-Majid Hejja, a senior PFA official said Mohammad had no previous political affiliation and had never been arrested before. He accused Israel of fabricating the allegations.

“This player has no connection to any political party and had never been arrested in the past. Israel can throw accusations towards anyone. Israeli pretexts are always there and ready,” Hejja told Reuters.

PFA President Jibril Rajoub said last month that FIFA had established a task force that included Palestinian and Israeli delegates but this had failed to improve the main issues of freedom of movement and access for Palestinian athletes.

Earlier this week, the PFA said Israel had denied its deputy general-secretary, Mohammad Ammassi, permission to travel from Gaza to the West Bank, from where he would have crossed to Jordan and on to Brazil.

The PFA accused Israel of arbitrarily denying passage to Ammassi. An Israeli official said Ammassi was banned from leaving the Gaza Strip because he had failed to follow procedure and submit his request at least 10 days prior to travel.

The official said Ammassi could re-submit his request, which would be duly considered.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israel’s parliament gave initial approval on Wednesday to a law that would prevent the release of any Palestinian prisoners jailed for murder in connection with an attack in which children were killed.

The measure, backed by the government and introduced by far-right lawmakers who objected to the freeing of dozens of Palestinian prisoners during peace talks this year, passed by 36 votes to 20, but must still be approved in four more parliamentary votes before becoming law.

It would entitle judges to determine in sentencing that a Palestinian defendant jailed for life for murder committed during an attack should not be eligible for pardon or any other easing of his sentence.

Current Israeli policy allows for prisoners to win early release by receiving a pardon at the state president’s discretion. The new measure would limit the president’s powers to grant such pardons.

Ofir Akunis, a deputy minister in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Cabinet, endorsed the measure in a speech, drawing attention to “massive objection” in the United States to its swap this month of five Taliban detainees to free Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl.

“Freeing terrorists doesn’t bring peace but distances it and only brings more terrorism,” Akunis said.

Israel freed dozens of Palestinian prisoners under a deal achieved by US Secretary of State John Kerry last year to renew peace talks with the Palestinians, which collapsed in April in mutual recrimination.

The Palestinians accused Israel of failing to release about two dozen men it had promised to free by the end of March, while Israel protested at a Palestinian unity deal forged in April with the Islamist Hamas, which Israel shuns as a terrorist group.

Israel has freed hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in past swaps for captured soldiers. In 2011, more than 1,000 went free in exchange for Gilad Shalit, held in Gaza for more than five years.

CAIRO — An Egyptian court sentenced leading activist Alaa Abdel Fattah to 15 years in jail on Wednesday for violating a protest law and on other charges, his lawyer said, a move that outraged human rights groups.

Abdel Fattah, 33, became a symbol of the 2011 uprising against President Hosni Mubarak through his leading role in the protests and on social media. Twenty four other people were also sentenced to 15 years in jail on similar charges.

The ruling came three days after former army chief Abdel Fattah Al Sisi was inaugurated as president, nearly a year after he toppled the country’s first freely elected leader, Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Since Morsi’s fall, security forces have killed hundreds of Brotherhood supporters and arrested thousands of others.

They have also rounded up secular activists like Abdel Fattah, raising concerns the authorities are turning the clock back to the Mubarak era when any form of dissent was risky.

The protest law passed last year heightened fears about the future of political freedoms in Egypt. The law, which rights groups say is deeply repressive, gives the interior ministry the right to ban any meeting of more than 10 people in a public place.

Abdel Fattah was ordered arrested over accusations he called protests against provisions in a new constitution that allow civilians to be tried in military courts.

He had been out of jail on bail, but he was detained following the judge’s ruling, according to security sources.

His sister Mona Seif wrote on her Facebook page that authorities had stopped the defendants attending the trial, which in this case under Egyptian law meant that they be given the maximum possible sentence and retried if they surrendered themselves.

His father, lawyer Ahmed Seif Al Islam, who was also the head of his legal team, called the proceedings a “trap” to arrest his son and other defendants and to force a re-trial with them in prison instead of free.

Western allies have voiced concerns about human rights abuses in Egypt but have not taken strong measures in protest.

“In today’s verdict, the judiciary has shown that it regards the assembly law as a carte blanche to criminalise peaceful dissent,” Human Rights Watch said in a statement. “It’s a further message that protest is not welcome in the new Egypt.”

Activist Asmaa Mahfouz expressed alarm over Wednesday’s prison sentences.

“Fifteen years for protesting?????? What about those who killed? Those who steal the money of the poor? Those who raped girls in the square?,” she asked on Twitter.

“There will never be a state as long as this goes on.”

Sisi ordered the interior minister to fight sexual harassment following the arrest of seven men for attacking women near Cairo’s Tahrir Square during his inauguration celebrations, his office said on Tuesday.

Many Egyptians, exhausted by three years of street violence and upheaval, see Sisi as a strong figure who can restore stability and seem less concerned about alleged abuses.

“Instead of addressing the urgent need for reform, Egyptian authorities have spent the last year engaging in repression on a scale unprecedented in Egypt’s modern history,” said Hassiba Hadj-Sahraoui, deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International.

“Now that President Sisi has formally taken the reins of power, he should put an end to these rampant abuses.”

GAZA CITY/OCCUPIED — Gaza’s banks reopened Wednesday after being closed for six days by Hamas forces, an official said, in a dispute that is the first challenge to a new Palestinian unity government.

“All automatic telling machines at bank branches in the Gaza Strip are working again today,” said a statement from Jihad Al Wazir, head of the Palestinian monetary authority, the Palestinians’ central bank.

Hamas forces withdrew from outside banks, where they had been preventing the use of ATMs.

All banking services would be available on Thursday morning, Wazir said.

Hamas demanded Thursday that the Palestinian Authority take employees of the disbanded Gaza government onto its payroll, after the PA’s Gaza-based staff received their salaries but their Hamas counterparts went empty-handed.

After scuffles broke out at ATMs, Hamas security forces closed the banks.

The row over pay was the first hitch in a reconciliation deal between Hamas and the Palestine Liberation Organisation that began with the formation of a new unity government.

The PA has so far refused to pay Hamas’ 50,000 civil servants, who are not registered as its employees because they were appointed after the Islamist movement ousted bitter rivals Fateh — which dominates the PLO — from Gaza in 2007.

Although Hamas allowed banks to reopen Wednesday, it continued to levy financial pressure by confiscating a number of card machines from Gaza shops and supermarkets so customers could not pay by credit card.

Meanwhile, Palestinian fighters in Gaza fired a rocket Wednesday which struck southern Israel without causing any casualties or damage, Israeli officials said.

A statement from the military said the rocket hit the Eshkol region, with a police spokesman telling AFP it caused no damage.

Some 140 projectiles fired by fighters in the Gaza Strip have hit southern Israel since the start of 2014, according to the military.

On June 1, two rockets from Gaza hit Israel, following which the Israeli air force launched raids on the Palestinian enclave.

BEIRUT  — The leader of radical Sunni fighters who have made rapid military advances in Iraq is the rising star of global jihad, driven, Islamist fighters say, by an unbending determination to fight for and establish a hardline Islamic state.

Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, commander of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), now controls large parts of eastern Syria and western Iraq, a vast cross-border haven for militants in the Sunni Muslim core of the Middle East.

Despite his power — and a $10 million US reward for information leading to his capture — little is known about a man who for his own survival has shunned the spotlight.

Fighters from ISIL and its rivals who spoke to Reuters praised Baghdadi as a strategist who succeeded in exploiting turmoil in Syria and Iraq’s weak central authority after the US military withdrawal to carve out his powerbase.

He has proved ruthless in eliminating opponents and showed no hesitation in turning against former allies to further his ambition of creating an Islamist state.

Enemies, even those from rival radical groups who broadly share ISIL’s religious ideology, are fought and defeated. Captured fighters — and non-combatants — are usually shot or decapitated, their deaths recorded in grisly videos which inspire fear and revulsion among opponents.

“In short, for Sheikh Baghdadi, each religion has its state except Islam, and it should have a state and it should be imposed. It is very simple,” said one of his non-Syrian members, speaking from inside Syria.

Syrian expansion

According to the US reward notice, which depicts a round-faced, brown-eyed man with closely cropped beard and short dark hair, Baghdadi was born in the Iraqi town of Samarra in 1971.

He got a doctorate in Islamic studies at Baghdad University, jihadi websites say, and after years of fighting with Al Qaeda groups became leader of its Islamic State of Iraq in 2010.

A year later, sensing opportunity when the uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad erupted, Baghdadi sent an aide across the border to expand Al Qaeda’s foothold there.

That aide, Abu Mohammad Al Golani, set up Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front which quickly rose to prominence with a series of deadly car bombings. It also earned a reputation as the most effective of the many disparate forces fighting Assad.

But as Golani grew strong in Syria and rejected an edict to merge his forces under Baghdadi’s command, Baghdadi launched a war against the Nusra Front, leading to a split with Al Qaeda leader Ayman Al Zawahiri.

For many of Baghdadi’s supporters the clash between their battlefield commander and the nominal but distant Al Qaeda leader, who tried in vain to impose his authority to end the dispute, was no surprise.

When Al Qaeda founder Osama Bin Laden was killed by US forces in Pakistan three years ago, Baghdadi “was the only one who did not pledge allegiance to Zawahiri,” the non-Syrian ISIL member said.

“He was assigned by Sheikh Osama to establish the state, this was his plan before he [Bin Laden] was killed.”

While Baghdadi’s supporters believe an Islamic state would revive the glories of Islam under Prophet Mohammad, they say Zawahiri feared that by drawing jihadi fighters together in one place it would make it easier for the West to defeat them.

His fighters counter that Baghdadi has plenty of hidden surprises for his enemies. “He has capabilities that he keeps secret until the right time,” another ISIL supporter said.

Growing in strength

Ignoring Zawahiri’s calls to leave Syria to the Nusra Front, Baghdadi expanded operations across northern and eastern parts of Syria in 2012 and 2013, sometimes battling Assad’s forces but more often pushing out other rebel fighters.

ISIL’s unforgiving treatment of ordinary Syrians won it many enemies and by the end of last year an alliance of Nusra and other Islamist brigades struck back, pushing ISIL back to its stronghold along the Euphrates River in the oil producing deserts of eastern Syria.

But ISIL has grown stronger, not weaker. Baghdadi’s fighters control the city of Raqqa — Syria’s only provincial capital completely beyond Assad’s control — and have imposed strict Islamic law.

In neighbouring Deir Al Zor province ISIL has waged a six-week offensive against rival rebels in which 600 fighters have been killed, seizing oilfields and towns on the northeast bank of the Euphrates 100km from the Iraqi border.

Oil sold on the black market provides millions of dollars in revenues, rebels say. Combined with Iraqi recruits and the military equipment seized in his capture of the Iraqi city of Mosul, Baghdadi now has a formidable array of resources.

Supporters say that is key to achieving his aim of military self-sufficiency, ensuring an independent flow of money, manpower, weapons and energy supplies.

Rival to Zawahri

Baghdadi’s real and very visible strength stands in sharp contrast to Zawahiri, in hiding for more than a decade and trying to influence a global jihad most of which is played out a long way from his refuge.

Even Baghdadi’s rivals say the ISIL leader is in the ascendancy, winning influence well beyond Syria and Iraq.

“He is becoming very popular among jihadis. They see him as someone who is fighting the war of Islam,” said a Nusra Front fighter from the Syrian city of Aleppo, adding bitterly that Baghdadi’s supporters “cannot see the damage he is inflicting”.

“He has received letters expressing loyalty from Afghanistan and Pakistan as well,” the Nusra fighter said. “Sheikh Zawahiri is trying but I think it is too late.”

From Nusra’s perspective, Islamists in Syria have “entered a cycle of blood and nobody will come out of it”, he added.

To his followers, Baghdadi represents a new generation of fighters working to fulfil the next stage of Bin Laden’s dream, moving from Al Qaeda — which can mean “base” in Arabic — towards the fully fledged radical state.

“Sheikh Baghdadi and Sheikh Osama are similar. They always look ahead, they both seek an Islamic state,” said a Syrian ISIL fighter.

Others go further, saying Baghdadi’s creation of ISIL makes Zawahiri’s part of Al Qaeda’s operation redundant.

“The group Al Qaeda does not exist any more. It was formed as an Al Qaeda [base] for the Islamic state and now we have it, Zawahiri should pledge allegiance to Sheikh Baghdadi,” said the non-Syrian ISIL fighter.

Another jihadi who described himself as close to Baghdadi said Zawahiri was watching, powerless, to see whether the ISIL leader makes a false move. “He is waiting to see if Baghdadi will win or fall, but in either case he is no longer leader.”

‘World should fear him’

Among his strategies, Baghdadi has opened the door to foreign fighters, particularly Europeans and Americans, providing them with training and a sense of purpose.

While they are useful on the Syrian battlefield, they may also head back home one day, war veterans with experience to recruit others to carry out attacks for Baghdadi outside the Middle East.

They are trained to be fearless and merciless. Activists in several areas inside Syria say that Baghdadi’s men walk around wearing explosive vests.

In a sign of their brutality, a video posted on the Internet shows ISIL fighters, some of whom do not appear to speak Arabic, executing several men. Two victims were reciting the Shahada, the Muslim declaration of faith, as they were killed.

Many clerics say it is forbidden to kill a person while they declare the Shahada, but Baghdadi’s men operate by a simpler rule: whoever stands in their way should be terminated, regardless of religion or sect.

Asked how serious Baghdadi is, a supporter replied: “When you have his army, his determination and his belief then the world should fear you.”

“If the world does not fear Baghdadi then they are fools, they do not know what will hit them in the future.”

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Reuven Rivlin, a right-wing legislator opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state, was elected Israel’s president on Tuesday to replace the dovish Shimon Peres in the largely ceremonial post.

Rivlin, 74, is a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party. He has a reputation for political independence and has had a frosty personal relationship with the Israeli premier.

A former speaker of parliament, Rivlin defeated Meir Sheetrit of the moderate Hatnuah Party by a vote of 63-53 in a run-off in the legislature, after none of the original five candidates won an outright victory in a first-round ballot.

Although Israeli heads of state are not directly involved in political decision making, Peres, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, used the presidency as a pulpit for advocating peace with the Palestinians, often taking a more conciliatory stance than Netanyahu.

Peres, 90, ends his seven-year presidential term in July.

Unlike Peres, Rivlin has called for a confederation with the Palestinians rather than negotiating an independent state for them — something Palestinian leaders have long rejected.

US-shepherded peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians seeking statehood in Israeli-occupied territories collapsed in April amid bitter mutual recrimination.

Despite his opposition to a Palestinian state, Rivlin won the endorsement of Israel’s left-wing Haaretz newspaper, which noted in an editorial on the eve of the ballot that he had long advocated Jewish-Arab cooperation.

In an interview last month with The Times of Israel website, Rivlin promised that, if he became president, he would not seek to intervene in the decisions of the country’s elected politicians on peacemaking or other issues.

Choking back tears at a ceremony in the Knesset after the vote, Rivlin echoed that pledge, saying: “The faith you have shown in me today, in all corners of this house, obliges me to shed, from this moment on, my political role.”

President important in coalition-building

Last month, Netanyahu floated a trial balloon on the future of the presidency, ordering his advisers to sound out Cabinet colleagues on suspending the vote and evaluating the need for the position, political sources said.

Some political analysts suggested that Netanyahu was concerned that a victory by Rivlin, who once publicly accused the prime minister of showing disrespect to parliament, could make him more vulnerable in a future general election.

No single party has ever won an outright majority in a national vote. That makes the president — whose duties otherwise carry little power — a key player in coalition-building.

Congratulating Rivlin at the Knesset ceremony, Netanyahu cited their common history in right-wing politics.

“I know you will do your utmost as president to meet the two-fold mission of unifying the nation and showing unity in the face of external challenges,” Netanyahu said. “I promise, as a prime minister from a similar background, to work with you.”

The campaign for the election of Israel’s 10th president was marred by rumours of foul play and mudslinging.

One leading candidate, veteran Labour politician Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, pulled out of the race on Saturday after police questioned him about alleged financial malpractice.

Ben-Eliezer denied any wrongdoing and said he had been “deliberately targeted” by enemies out to sabotage his bid.

Peres, an internationally respected statesman, restored prestige to the post after he was elected in 2007 to replace Moshe Katsav, who was convicted of rape in 2010 and is serving a seven-year prison term.

GAZA — A leader from the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas accused President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fateh Party on Tuesday of jeopardising a reconciliation deal, just a week after a unity government was formed to end their feuding.

Problems between the two sides surfaced just days after the new administration took office, when it failed to pay some 40,000 civil servants hired by Hamas in Gaza, saying the employees had to be vetted before receiving their salary.

Angry police loyal to Hamas in the Gaza Strip ordered the closure of all banks in the coastal enclave until the issue was resolved, dealing a fresh blow to an already sickly economy.

The tensions shifted to the nearby West Bank on Monday, when Hamas said that security forces loyal to Abbas had used violence to break up a rally organised by the movement and had assaulted senior Islamist leader Hassan Youssef.

“Since the reconciliation pact was signed, the gap between us and Fateh and the security services has got bigger,” Youssef told reporters in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Tuesday.

“This is not a unity. They are doing this to push us to say we do not want reconciliation. We want reconciliation,” the Hamas official said, accusing Abbas’ policemen of confiscating the Islamists’ green flags and detaining the group’s supporters.

A security source in the West Bank said police intervened after protesters began chanting slogans against Abbas’ Palestinian Authority, the body that exercises partial rule over the Palestinian territories.

Youssef denied that and called on the Palestinian Authority to say “whether Hamas was a banned group in the West Bank”.

In a sign of the mutual animosity that exists between the two groups, Fatah accused Hamas activists of attacking their supporters in the West Bank city of Hebron on Monday, leaving four people needing hospital care.

Pay constraints

Israeli authorities have urged foreign allies to shun the unity government because it enjoys the backing of Hamas, which refuses to recognise Israel’s right to exist.

But Western governments, including the United States, have pledged to work with Abbas’ new administration.

Ordinary Palestinians had hoped that after years of failed attempts to end the stand-off between the two factions, the creation of a government of technocrats would pave the way to genuine reconciliation and long-delayed elections.

However, tensions in Gaza, creaking under a rigid blockade imposed by both the Israelis and Egyptians, have only worsened, with Hamas employees furious that while they had not been paid, staff tied to the Palestinian Authority had received a salary.

Hamas itself had struggled to pay its staff in recent months due partly to the continued blockade — one of the reasons why the group decided to sign last week’s accord with Abbas and dissolve its own government in Gaza.

After Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007, the Palestinian Authority continued to pay its old 70,000-strong workforce in the enclave, even though the majority of them no longer worked.

Some of them are now meant to return to their old duties, but it was not clear how they would be reintegrated, or how long it would take to vet all the civil servants hired by Hamas.

Looking to apply pressure on the new unity government, Hamas police have ordered the closure of all of Gaza’s banks, creating a fresh headache for local businesses.

Merchants importing goods from Israel or abroad were seeking new ways to pay their counterparts.

“It is catastrophic if we cannot pay for food and fuel. Israeli merchants won’t send goods here for free. It will cause a disaster here,” said Sami Abu Ahmed, a Gaza business man.

Ehab Bessaiso, a spokesman for the unity government, said the administration was looking to resolve the problems and urged both sides to avoid causing further tensions that “harm our interests and hinders the government from doing its duties”.

DAMASCUS — Syria has begun releasing prisoners, many of whom were held without charge, under the broadest amnesty the country has seen since the Assad clan took power nearly 50 years ago.

The amnesty declared by President Bashar Assad came a week after his controversial re-election as he seeks to portray himself as the champion of reconciliation in the war-torn country.

Assad is due to be sworn in for a new term on July 17.

“This is the most important amnesty since Hafez Al Assad [the president’s father and predecessor] came to power nearly 45 years ago,” said human rights lawyer and ex-prisoner of conscience Anwar Al Bunni.

He said the amnesty should cover “tens of thousands of prisoners behind bars because of the anti-terror law passed in July 2012”, more than a year into an anti-regime revolt.

According to Bunni, “dozens of prisoners began to be released from Adra Prison [in Damascus province] yesterday [Monday] and the releases will continue today.”

State television showed dozens of prisoners being freed in Hama in central Syria.

The amnesty is unprecedented because it extends for the first time to those accused under the country’s anti-terrorism legislation.

The government has dubbed all of those opposed to Assad’s rule — armed opposition fighters and peaceful activists alike — of “terrorism”, and used the law to imprison high-profile dissidents.

The amnesty is also the first to offer clemency to foreign jihadists fighting for the opposition, as long as they hand themselves in within a month.

Army deserters will be given full pardons if they hand themselves in within three months of the decree, according to the text.

But it was unclear how many prisoners might be freed under the amnesty, as previous clemency decisions have not seen large numbers of detainees released.

“This amnesty should not be yet another false promise, and the released should not be replaced by new activists being wrongfully imprisoned,” Nadim Houry, deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa division, told AFP.

Prominent releases expected 

Lawyer Michel Shammas said it was unclear how the decree would apply for thousands of people detained in branches of Syria’s notorious security establishment, where torture is systematic.

But both he and Bunni said several prominent figures were expected to be freed.

“Mazen Darwish, Hani Zaitani and Hussein Ghreir will be released, as will activist Leyla Awad, psychologist Jamal Nawfal and Raneem Maatuq, daughter of (jailed lawyer) Khalil Maatuq,” Shammas said.

“But there is no meaning for an amnesty if it doesn’t include all the detainees, and we don’t know yet how the decree will be applied for more than 50,000 people being held in security branches.”

Darwish, Ghreir and Zaitani were arrested in February 2012 in a raid on the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM) where they work.

The three face trial for activities “such as monitoring online news and publishing the names of the dead and disappeared”.

Meanwhile, Homs Governor Talal Al Barazi told AFP that more than 100 people who handed themselves over to authorities after being trapped by a nearly two-year siege of the central city will be at home within 72 hours.

Assad issued the amnesty five days after securing another seven-year term in Syria’s first multi-candidate presidential vote, which the opposition and much of the international community denounced as a “farce”.

Voting took place only in regime-held territory, amid a raging conflict that has killed more than 162,000 people in three years, and excluded any anti-regime opponents from standing.

On Tuesday, state television broadcast footage of Assad meeting Maher Al Hajjar and Hassan Al Nuri, the two regime-approved candidates who stood against him but who together secured less than 12 per cent of the votes cast.

During their meeting, Assad said “the citizens’ turnout showed very clearly the strength of the Syrian people and their determination to decide their destiny all alone, despite very difficult circumstances”.

Since the anti-Assad revolt erupted, the regime has blamed all violence on a foreign-backed “terrorist” plot.

GENEVA — Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Tuesday his country would “do its best” to secure a nuclear deal as Tehran and Washington held crunch talks on the long-running dispute.

Senior negotiators from both camps met behind closed doors for a second day of talks at Geneva’s upscale Hotel President Wilson, which was sealed off to the media.

The meeting is part of a fresh diplomatic drive in the face of a looming July 20 deadline for a final deal between Iran and the P5+1 group of world powers.

“Iran will do its best for a final deal with the P5+1,” said Rouhani, a former nuclear negotiator, speaking in Turkey.

The self-declared moderate was elected president last year, succeeding hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and has launched a drive to mend fences with the West.

“Iran is ready to sit at the negotiating table for a solution” to both the nuclear dispute and “unfair sanctions”, he said.

After over three hours of talks Tuesday morning, Iran’s deputy foreign minister and nuclear pointman Abbas Araqchi said the climate was “positive”.

‘Tough choices’ 

Washington warned of “tough choices” as fellow P5+1 members try to build momentum in the crunch negotiations.

The US-Iran meeting began Monday with a five-hour session, the first time since the 1979 Islamic revolution that American and Iranian negotiators have held direct, official nuclear talks.

The two sides have met informally, notably in a secret session last year in Oman which helped coax Tehran back to the negotiating table.

They have also sat down together within the P5+1 process.

The P5+1 comprises the five permanent UN Security Council members Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, plus Germany.

They secured an interim deal with Iran in November after marathon talks in Geneva.

The deadline for a final accord was July 20, but several players including Iran have already said a six-month extension may be needed.

Washington and the other P5+1 states are seeking solid commitments that will ensure Iran’s stated desire for a peaceful atomic energy programme is not a covert attempt to build a nuclear bomb.

For Iran, the goal is to make a leap towards ending the international sanctions, notably those imposed by the United States, that have battered its economy.

On Wednesday, Iranian negotiators are set to meet in Geneva with their French counterparts, before heading to Rome for talks with Russian officials, then hold a session in Tehran with Germany on Sunday.

“Bilateral discussions offer a much more effective platform for conducting real bargaining than the cumbersome committee-type discussions in the P5+1 framework,” said Ali Vaez, senior Iran analyst at the International Crisis Group.

“The two major sticking points are Iran’s future enrichment capacity and sanctions relief,” he said.

The goal of the bilateral talks is to prepare a June 16-20 meeting between Iran and the P5+1 in Vienna, where they aim to set down details of the final deal.

The last round in Vienna in May yielded little.

‘Fate of the world’ at hand

The stakes are high, amid warnings by US hawks against being hoodwinked by Rouhani’s new approach.

That message was echoed by Yuval Steinitz, the minister of strategic affairs in Israel, Iran’s archfoe and widely believed to be the sole if undeclared nuclear-armed state in the Middle East.

“Any international agreement that leaves Iran on the threshold of nuclear capability is worse than no agreement at all,” he said Monday at the annual Herzliya Conference on Israeli security policy.

“What is now at hand is not just the fate of Israel in the Middle East but the fate of the world.”

Brigadier General Itai Brun, who heads the Israeli military’s research division, said Iran now appeared to be talking “in earnest” about a final deal thanks to international pressure, adding that he expected an accord this year.

SANAA — Yemen suffered a total blackout on Tuesday after gunmen in the eastern province of Marib sabotaged key power lines, the electricity and energy ministry announced.

“The act of sabotage at Kilometre 78 [76km east of Sanaa] suspended the entire national power and energy grid, including at Marib’s gas plant, and cut power in all provinces,” a ministry spokesman was quoted by the defence ministry news website 26sep.net as saying.

State news agency Saba quoted a spokesman as saying that power lines in Marib had come under attack twice.

Technical teams repaired the lines after the first assault before gunmen sabotaged them a second time and prevented technicians from fixing them again.

Tuesday’s attack was the third of its kind this month, Saba said.

Attacks on power lines in Yemen are common and are often launched by heavily armed tribesmen as a lever to press for the release of jailed relatives or to support other demands.

Marib is also a stronghold of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, seen by the United States as the extremist network’s deadliest franchise, which has been targeted by an army offensive since April 29.

The absence of reliable electricity supplies further complicates the lives of Yemenis, who already suffer water and food shortages.