Region

SANAA — Eleven Yemeni soldiers and 14 Shiite Houthi rebels were killed Tuesday during clashes in a stronghold of the insurgents in the north of the country, medics said.

Dozens of other combatants were wounded in the gunfight that erupted on the western outskirts of Amran city, the medics at Amran hospital said.

A military source said earlier that three soldiers were killed in the clashes which broke out when rebels attacked an army position in the area.

Tensions remain high in Amran where Huthis have been trying to enforce their presence through armed parades and protests against the military.

But the suspected aim of the rebels is to enlarge their sphere of influence as the country is set to be split into six regions, pushing out from their mountain strongholds in the far north to areas closer to the capital Sanaa.

The rebels complain that Yemen would be divided into rich and poor regions under the federalisation plan agreed in February following national talks that were part of a political transition.

The Houthis have fought the central government in Sanaa for years, complaining of marginalisation under former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was ousted in 2012 following a year of protests.

In February, they seized areas of Amran province in fighting with tribes that left more than 150 people dead.

The rebels, known also as Ansarullah, had to withdraw from some of these areas following a truce with the armed tribes and as the army deployed halting the advance of the rebels towards the capital.

The Yemeni government is grappling with an insurgency by southern separatists claiming secession for the regions of the formerly independent south.

It is also fighting a fierce war against Al Qaeda in southern and eastern areas.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, is considered by Washington as the most dangerous affiliate of the jihadist network after being linked to several failed plots against the United States.

LONDON — A 31-year-old man on Tuesday became the first person to be convicted in Britain of terror offences related to the Syria conflict.

Mashudur Choudhury, from Portsmouth on the southern English coast, travelled to Syria in October with the intention of attending a terrorist training camp, his trial heard.

He was arrested at London’s Gatwick Airport on his return later that month and on Tuesday was found guilty of engaging in conduct in preparation of terrorist acts.

The father of two will be sentenced on June 13.

Prosecuting lawyer Alison Morgan had told the jury: “The evidence clearly shows that this defendant planned for and then travelled to Syria with the intention of attending a training camp.”

“The training was to include the use of firearms and the purpose of fighting was to pursue a political, religious or ideological cause.”

“At times in his discussions with others the defendant described his intention to become a martyr.”

In a Skype message to another British jihadist, Choudhury suggested that the group he was travelling to Syria with, which included four others from the Portsmouth area, should be called the “Britani brigade Bangladeshi bad boys”, the court heard.

Details of text messages exchanged between Choudhury and his wife were also read out to the jury, including one in which she wrote to him: “Go die in battlefield.”

“Go die, I really mean it just go. I’ll be relieved. At last. At last.”

TUNIS — Tunisia on Monday formed a long-awaited truth and justice commission, more than three years after the 2011 revolution, to implement “transitional justice” and compensate the victims of decades of dictatorship.

The 15-member body, which was elected by the national assembly with a majority of 71 votes, will also be tasked with identifying and bringing to trial those responsible for abuses committed under the former regimes of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Habib Bourguiba.

Its formation comes after two years of political bickering that stalled progress on the country’s institution building and six months after the transitional justice law was finally ratified by parliament after repeated delays.

A planned reconciliation mechanism, whose details have yet to be elaborated, will be responsible for “strengthening national unity”.

The new commission is made up of human rights activists, representatives of victim groups, opponents of Ben Ali and judges.

Crimes it is tasked with identifying include voluntary homicide, rape, extrajudicial killings and torture, as well as economic crimes such as misappropriating public funds and financial corruption.

The transitional justice system also aims to reform the laws and institutions of the judiciary that allowed such abuses to happen, in order to strengthen the rule of law.

Since the January 2011 uprising, Tunisia’s new rulers have yet to implement any significant reforms of the judiciary, penal code or the security services on whom Ben Ali relied to suppress dissent.

Separately, the national assembly was due to debate a bill on Monday that would set up special tribunals to try those responsible for the bloody crackdown on popular protests that led to Ben Ali’s ouster, in which more than 300 people were killed.

The initiative comes after a military tribunal allowed the then head of presidential security Ali Seriati and interior minister Rafik Belhaj Kacem to walk free after controversially cutting their jail sentences on appeal, in rulings that sparked public anger.

Both men had initially been handed heavy prison terms for their part in the deaths of protesters during the uprising.

CAIRO — An Egyptian court acquitted 169 Muslim Brotherhood supporters charged in connection with unrest that followed the overthrow of president Mohamed Morsi last year, breaking a pattern of mass convictions at trials involving the Islamist opposition.

The men were charged with “illegal gathering” in relation to violence in Cairo on August 16 last year, two days after the security forces killed hundreds of Morsi supporters while breaking up their protest camps in the capital.

Of those charged, 117 were still being held. They will now be freed. Others charged in the case had already been released. Further details on the ruling were not immediately available.

The authorities have jailed thousands of Morsi supporters since the army deposed the Brotherhood politician last July following mass protests against his rule.

Earlier this year, a judge issued preliminary death sentences against 1,200 Brotherhood supporters and members in two separate cases, triggering heavy condemnation from Western governments and human rights groups. The convicted included the group’s leader, Mohamed Badie.

Rights groups criticised the trials for deep procedural flaws, and despite the acquittals, other courts are continuing with convictions.

A judge in Alexandria on Monday convicted 62 people and sentenced them to jail terms of up to 25 years in relation to political violence last July. The judge also upheld the death penalty against one of those charged in the case.

This came a day after more than 160 Brotherhood supporters were handed sentences of up to 15 years in prison.

Morsi’s overthrow triggered the worst bout of internal strife in Egypt’s modern history, with many hundreds of his supporters killed.

Several hundred policemen and soldiers have also died in a campaign of bombings and shootings since last year.

Gunmen killed two policemen in southern Egypt and a bomb wounded three students outside a university in Cairo on Monday, security sources said, a week before a presidential election former army chief Abddel Fattah Al Sisi is expected to win.

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia — Lebanese Prime Minister Tammam Salam visited regional heavyweight Saudi Arabia Tuesday as his country struggled to elect a new president.

Salam told reporters in the Red Sea city of Jeddah the repeatedly delayed election of a leader to replace President Michel Sleiman’s whose mandate expires on May 25 is an “internal Lebanese affair”.

The official SPA news agency said Salam spoke after meeting King Abdullah at Jeddah airport.

Earlier, after meeting Saudi Crown Prince Salman Bin Abdulaziz, an adviser to Salam said his visit “is not related to the presidential election in Lebanon”.

Hizbollah, one of Lebanon’s two main blocs, is backed by Iran, Riyadh’s Gulf rival.

The other is led by the son of assassinated former premier Rafiq Hariri, Saad Hariri who now lives in Saudi Arabia, a key backer of his bloc.

Hariri’s Sunni-led bloc has backed a candidate Hizbollah has opposed without proposing an alternative.

In Jeddah, Salam met Hariri and said he “seemed serious in his efforts to reach a result that would enable... the election to take place”.

The Lebanese parliament’s latest attempt on Thursday to meet to vote on a new president failed for the fourth time, after the Hezbollah-led bloc boycotted the session leaving it without a quorum.

In December, Saudi Arabia pledged $3 billion for the Lebanese army to buy equipment from France.

Lebanon is sharply divided over the conflict in neighbouring Syria, where Hezbollah is fighting alongside Syrian troops.

Damascus dominated Lebanon for nearly 30 years until 2005, but still exerts significant influence there through Hizbollah, which is also a close ally of Iran.

RIYADH — Saudi Arabia on Tuesday reported two new deaths from the MERS coronavirus, taking to 175 the overall number of fatalities from the respiratory disease in the world’s worst-hit country.

The latest victims were a man in Riyadh and a woman in the port city of Jeddah, both in their 70s, the health ministry website said.

It said the total number of infections was now 540.

Other nations including Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, the Netherlands, the United Arab Emirates and the United States have also recorded cases, mostly in people who had been in Saudi Arabia.

Middle East Respiratory Syndrome is considered a deadlier but less transmissible cousin of the SARS virus that appeared in Asia in 2003 and infected 8,273 people, 9 per cent of whom died.

Like SARS, MERS appears to cause a lung infection, with patients suffering coughing, breathing difficulties and a temperature. But MERS differs in that it also causes rapid kidney failure.

TARTUS, Syria — Tartus has itself largely escaped the conflict in Syria, but posters of its sons killed fighting for the regime elsewhere in the country line the western city’s main road.

A wall in the central bus station is a tapestry of pictures of the dead, most of them young, posing in fatigues with Kalashnikovs.

There are also photographs of President Bashar Assad, and his father and predecessor Hafez Assad, as well as the Syrian flag and sometimes images of Jesus Christ.

One shows a young man posing like Rambo, a cartridge belt around his bare torso as he cradles a machinegun.

Many shops in the city of 90,000 display large posters proclaiming the “Glory of the Unknown Soldier”. In Martyrs Square, banners list those who fell battling “terrorism”, the regime term for Assad’s opponents.

More than 162,000 people have been killed since Syria’s conflict began in March 2011 with a harsh government crackdown on anti-Assad protests.

While coastal Tartus has remained relatively insulated from actual fighting, its residents have swelled the ranks of the army and pro-regime militia, the National Defence Force (NDF).

“Tartus has been called the capital of martyrs because it’s the province with the highest proportional number of casualties in the army and the NDF — 4,200 killed, 2,000 wounded and 2,000 missing,” Tartus governor Nizar Mussa said.

“There isn’t a district, a village that doesn’t have its share of victims,” he told AFP.

The director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor tracking the war’s casualties, puts the number even higher, saying around half of the 60,000 regime fighters killed come from Tartus.

They have died in clashes countrywide.

“Tartus’s borders are limited not by those of the province, but of Syria as a whole,” said Ahmed Khaddur Abu Hadi after burying his brother Hassan, 40, an NDF fighter.

He was killed in Kasab near the border with Turkey.

“People from Tartus are fighting in Latakia and Aleppo provinces or in Qalamun [near Damascus]. They go everywhere and fall as martyrs in defence of the nation,” he added, his sister-in-law weeping beside him.

Mussa says that more than a dozen ambulances go daily to Latakia’s Bassel Al Assad airport, named after the president’s older brother who died in a 1994 car crash, to collect the bodies.

A ‘human reservoir’ 

Observatory director Abdel Rahman calls Syria’s coastal area, where most residents share Assad’s Alawite faith, “the human reservoir for the regime”.

“They have taken advantage of the confessional discourse of certain Islamist groups who talk about fighting the Nusayris [a derogatory term for Alawites] to promote Alawite recruitment,” he said.

“They fight to the end, convinced that it’s either Bashar or the end of the Alawites.”

In Tartus cemetery, Syrian flags flutter above dozens of graves, many bearing photos of the deceased. Some are marked only with numbers because the victims are unidentified.

The governor says residents sign up to fight for economic and ideological reasons.

“The region is poor. There’s not much agricultural land, no factories and few service sector jobs, so many people join the army,” he said.

But, he added: “We mustn’t forget that this is the only province where illiteracy has been eradicated.

“People who know how to read and write have understood the scale of the conspiracy against their country, and want to stop it.”

In September 2013, the government created a “martyrs’ affairs” office in each province to help relatives of those killed.

“Every day around 100 widows and orphans come to me and I try to help them with what the state has allocated,” said Mona Ibrahim who heads the Tartus bureau.

Her own husband was killed in 2011 in Baba Amr in Homs.

Fabrice Balanche, a French geographer who specialises in Syria, says Tartus is 80 per cent Alawite, 10 per cent Sunni, 9 per cent Christian and 1 per cent Ismaili.

Of the Alawites, 90 per cent are employed by the state, in the bureaucracy or the army.

“When the crisis began, the [pro-regime] ‘shabiha’ militias were created and then the National Defence Force to support the army,” Balanche said.

“Then the reservists were called up. All the men between 20 and 40 in Alawite areas are serving under the flag,” he added.

“They respond to the call because defending the regime means defending their community.”

DUBAI — King Abdullah has approved a five-year plan worth more than 80 billion riyals ($21.33 billion) to develop Saudi Arabia’s education sector, state news agency SPA reported on Monday.

The plan includes building 1,500 nurseries, providing training for about 25,000 teachers and establishing educational centres and other related projects, Education Minister Prince Khaled Al Faisal was cited by SPA as saying.

The 80 billion riyals are in addition to what is being allocated annually to the education ministry, SPA said.

The state education system’s traditional focus on religious and Arabic studies means Saudi has struggled to produce the scientists, engineers, economists and lawyers that it needs.

King Abdullah had launched an overhaul of state schools and universities, part of a raft of reforms designed to ease the influence of religious clerics, build a modern state and diversify the economy away from oil to create more jobs.

Saudi Arabia’s 2014 state budget projects a modest 4.3 per cent rise in spending compared with last year, the slowest rate in a decade, although the ministry’s own budget shows  heavy spending on social welfare projects.

An increase in welfare spending has helped buy social peace in the kingdom and spared the world’s top oil exporter the kind of upheaval that toppled governments in the Middle East and North Africa during the “Arab Spring” that began in 2011.

The ministry’s budget includes funds to build 465 schools and 11 hospitals and a 3 per cent rise in education spending to 210 billion riyals. Infrastructure spending is set to jump 25 per cent, with money earmarked for new roads and railways as well as upgrades of ports and airports.

SANAA — Yemen put its security forces on high alert Monday over fears of possible terrorist attacks in the capital, the interior ministry said.

The measures came after a nearly three-week government offensive to root out suspected Al Qaeda militants from southern cities and towns where they have a strong presence.

In a statement, the ministry said authorities had received tips of Al Qaeda plots in which militants were to attack government agencies while disguised in military uniform. It said it instructed checkpoints to inspect identification cards of military personal.

Yemen’s President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi said last week that his country is in “open war” with the group and that it would expand its operations in the south from areas where it has been making gains. Militants have responded with attacks
on security forces.

The US considers Yemen’s local Al Qaeda branch, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, as the terror group’s most dangerous offshoot worldwide. It is blamed for a number of unsuccessful bomb plots aimed at Americans, including an attempt to bring down a US-bound airliner with explosives hidden in the bomber’s underwear and a second plot to send mail bombs hidden in the toner cartridges on planes headed to the US.

The US embassy in Sanaa shut down its premises this month as a precaution against possible retaliatory attacks.

Also Monday, the defence ministry announced death of Galbeeb Al Yamani, a militant it described as an Al Qaeda leader in the central province of Baida, in clashes with armed forces. It did not provide any further details.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israel’s chief negotiator Tzipi Livni on Monday defended a decision to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas after peace talks collapsed, in a move that drew sharp criticism from ministers.

“I would like to remind everyone that the conflict isn’t over,” Justice Minister Tzipi Livni told her HaTnuah Party at a weekly meeting, according to a statement.

“We’re still here and the Palestinians are still here. Our interest is to resolve the conflict, and ignoring reality is not an option,” she said.

Livni came under fire for holding talks in London with Abbas on Thursday, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office and ministers distancing themselves from the meeting, insisting it was private and did not signal official intention to resume talks.

Israel pulled out of the talks in mid-April, saying it would not negotiate with any Palestinian government supported by Hamas after the leadership in the West Bank signed a unity deal with the rival Islamist rulers of Gaza, who are committed to the destruction of Israel.

“Ignoring the other side, not listening or talking, is irresponsible,” Livni said.

“A resolution is best achieved through direct negotiations, but we can’t ignore the agreement between Hamas and Fateh,” she said, referring to Abbas’ ruling party which dominates the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority.

“To all those politicians up in arms, I want to be clear — we’ll continue doing what we believe in, and that’s what I did last week by meeting the president,” Livni said.