Region

RIYADH — Saudi health authorities reported Monday new deaths from the MERS coronavirus, taking to 173 the overall number of fatalities from the disease in the world’s worst-hit country.

The health ministry said on its website that five people have died, including a 28-year-old woman in the port city of Jeddah, and a 32-year-old man in northern Tabuk.

A woman aged 69 died in Riyadh and a 55-year-old man died in the city of Mecca, home to Islam’s holiest site which is visited by millions of pilgrims each year.

A fifth man, 59 died on Sunday in the western city of Taif.

The ministry said the total numbers of infections has reached 537 case.

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 to the desert kingdom.

MERS 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, it 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.

The top commander of the Libyan army’s special forces said on Monday his troops had joined forces with renegade general Khalifa Haftar, who has said he wants to purge the North African country of militant Islamists, Reuters reported.

The announcement gives a boost to a campaign by Haftar, who has been denounced by the Tripoli government as attempting to stage a coup in the oil producer.

It had been unclear how many troops supported Haftar, whose forces launched an attack on Islamist militants in Benghazi on Friday in which more than 70 people died.

Militiamen apparently allied to Haftar also stormed parliament in Tripoli on Sunday and fought for hours with rival militiamen.

“We are with Haftar,” Wanis Bukhamada told Reuters in the eastern city of Benghazi. On live television he had earlier announced his forces would join “Operation Dignity”, as Haftar calls his campaign.

The special forces are the best trained troops of Libya’s nascent army. They have been deployed since last year in Benghazi to help stem a wave of car bombs and assassinations, but struggled to curb the activities of heavily armed Islamist militias roaming around the city.

An air base in Tobruk in Libya’s far east also said it had joined Haftar’s force — a significant move since it remains unclear how much backing Haftar has within Libya’s regular armed forces and the powerful brigades of former rebels who toppled Muammar Qadhafi in 2011.

A statement from the air base said its personnel wanted to fight “extremists”, echoing Haftar’s rhetoric.

“The Tobruk air force base will join ... the army under the command of General Khallifa Qassim Haftar,” the statement said. Staff at the air base confirmed its authenticity.

Also on Monday Libya extended the closure of Benghazi airport until May 25 for security reasons, Reuters reported quoting an official.

Since the end of Qadhafi’s one-man rule, the main rival militias of ex-rebels have become powerbrokers in Libya’s political vacuum, carving out fiefdoms and flexing their military muscle.

Meanwhile, the Libyan government on Monday proposed an initiative aimed at saving the country from plunging into civil war, calling on the disputed parliament to go into recess, Agence France-Presse reported.

An open letter published on the government’s website said the General National Congress should “take a recess after the vote on the 2014 budget and until new parliamentary elections” within three months so the country does not descend into civil war.

The budget vote had been expected to take place this week amid a dramatic spike in lawlessness in Libya’s two largest cities.

The government plea comes a day after the GNC was attacked by armed groups demanding its dissolution and after Haftar launched the offensive targeting Islamists in Benghazi on Friday.

The initiative also calls for a new vote of confidence in the GNC for new Premier Ahmed Miitig following a chaotic and contested first vote at the beginning of the month, according to AFP.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — When Pope Francis arrives in the Holy Land on his “pilgrimage of prayer”, Israelis and Palestinians will both be looking to use the visit to score a few political points.

Although the Vatican has said the emphasis of the Pope’s visit is to heal a centuries-old rift between the Catholic and Orthodox worlds, every gesture he makes is likely to come under close scrutiny by both sides.

For Israel, it will be a chance to draw world attention for something other than its ongoing settlement activity.

“The very fact of the visit is a success,” an Israeli official told AFP on condition of anonymity, as the tourism ministry said it was hoping the papal pilgrimage would drive a 10 per cent increase in Christian tourism.

In fact, the Pope’s “pilgrimage of prayer”, which begins in Jordan on Saturday, will leave a relatively faint footprint in Israel.

His visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories will kick off on Sunday in the southern West Bank city of Bethlehem.

“He is taking a helicopter directly from Jordan to Palestine — to Bethlehem. It’s a kind of sign of recognising Palestine,” Father Jamal Khader of the Latin patriarchate in Jerusalem told journalists.

In Bethlehem, the Pope will meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and then celebrate mass in front of the Church of the Nativity, the traditional birthplace of Jesus, before visiting a nearby refugee camp.

“Knowing who he is, and his sensitivity for all those who suffer, I am sure that he will say something defending all those who are suffering, including the Palestinians who live under occupation,” Khader said.

After a short flight to Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport where he will be greeted by Israeli President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he will hold a top-level meeting with Orthodox Church leaders, before spending the night in the residence of the papal nuncio in occupied East Jerusalem.

Israel occupied East Jerusalem in 1967 and calls the entire city its “united, undivided capital”, in a move never recognised by the international community.

It is there that he will spend much of May 26, apart from brief forays into Israel to pay his respects at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial and visit Peres and Israel’s two chief rabbis.

He will meet Netanyahu at the Vatican-owned Notre Dame Complex, which lies on the seam line between East and West Jerusalem, for talks which will touch on politics, an Israeli official said.

“We shall be able to explain to him, from our point of view, what’s happening politically in the region,” he said.

“We shall explain to him the Iranian threat.”

During the visit, the Pope is expected to call for a peaceful resolution of the conflict with the Palestinians.

“The purpose of his visit is to encourage us not to be afraid of each other and to talk to each other and live together peacefully,” Papal Nuncio Archbishop Giuseppe Lazzarotto told reporters on Sunday.

Any reference he makes to Israeli settlements, to the West Bank separation barrier, or to the question of Palestinian prisoners or refugees will be closely watched by both sides.

‘Highly charged’

“Everything will be highly charged politically,” said Hind Khoury, a former Palestinian minister for Jerusalem affairs.

Following the collapse of US-led peace talks last month, the Palestinians have resumed moves to seek recognition for their promised state in the international diplomatic arena and will be looking to the papal visit to provide fresh ammunition.

“This visit will help us in supporting our struggle to end the longest occupation in history,” said Ziyyad Bandak, Abbas’ adviser for Christian affairs.

“He will have a lunch with Palestinians, with families suffering from the occupation... then he will visit Dheishe refugee camp to witness the suffering of Palestinian refugees,” he told Voice of Palestine radio.

For Israel, it was a political slight that “the Pope will begin his visit in Palestine and not Israel”, he claimed.

“I know that Israeli officials are not happy with this decision.”

The very fact of the visit is tantamount to Vatican support for an end to Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories, Bandak said.

“We welcome this visit and consider it as support for the Palestinian people, and confirmation from the Vatican of the need to end the occupation.”

GAZA CITY — Rivals Hamas and Fateh are moving towards a unity government as early as next week, in what seems to be their most promising attempt yet to heal a seven-year split that weakened the case for Palestinian statehood.

Both are propelled by crisis. The Islamist Hamas group, which seized the Gaza Strip from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fateh in 2007, is having trouble governing alone because of crippling financial problems. 

Abbas needs a new political programme after his strategy of statehood through talks with Israel yielded deadlock. 

Yet even if the sides manage to replace their competing governments in the West Bank and Gaza with a joint one, the potential of failure remains high because of their ideological divide and the false starts of the past.

Abbas is to head a temporary government of 15 independent technocrats that prepares for elections for president, parliament and the leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), the main Palestinian representative body of which Hamas is currently not a member.

The Hamas-dominated Palestinian parliament, inactive since the 2007 split, is to resume its work until new elections are held.

Abbas returned to the West Bank from abroad Monday, and is to begin selecting government ministers from names accepted by both sides. 

Under previous understandings, he would retain his job as president and also serve as prime minister, but the possibility has been raised that he might name someone else as prime minister to ease his work load. 

The government should be formed by May 27, or five weeks after the latest reconciliation deal was struck, though an extension is possible. 

The government is to remain in power for at least six months. Parliament should resume work a month after the Cabinet is formed.

For Hamas, reconciliation offers a possible entry to the PLO and with that greater political legitimacy.

The two groups’ security forces are to merge under terms negotiated by an Egyptian-led committee.

The Hamas government has a security force of 16,500. 

Separately, the Hamas movement commands a 20,000-strong military wing. 

In the West Bank, Abbas’ 34,000-strong security force, including officers trained by the US, coordinates with Israel in security operations.

Gaza analyst Adnan Abu Amer says Hamas will never accept the dismantling of its military wing, the base of its power in Gaza, while Israel and the US will not accept bringing Hamas loyalists into the West Bank security forces.

After the formation of the new government, 3,000 Fateh loyalists who worked for Gaza security before the Hamas takeover are to return to their jobs. 

BAGHDAD — Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki won by far the most seats in parliamentary elections, results showed Monday, putting him in the driver’s seat to retain his post for a third term.

Despite the strong performance, Maliki’s State of Law alliance fell short of an overall majority, meaning he will have to court rivals from across the communal spectrum, some of whom have sharply criticised Maliki and refused to countenance his bid for reelection.

Results from the election commission showed State of Law garnered 92 out of 328 parliamentary seats, with the incumbent himself winning more than 721,000 personal votes.

Both were by far the highest such figures from the April 30 vote — the first since US troops withdrew from Iraq at the end of 201 — and marked significant increases compared to Maliki’s performance in the last general election in 2010.

Maliki’s bloc won 30 seats in Baghdad alone, and came first in 10 out of 18 provinces overall, all of them in the premier’s traditional heartland in the Shiite-majority south of the country.

His main rivals all finished with between 19 and 29 seats overall, according to an AFP tally of election commission results.

The results announced Monday can still be challenged and could change before they are finally certified by the country’s supreme court.

Both the US embassy in Baghdad and the UN mission to Iraq welcomed the results, with Washington saying it was “a testament to the courage and resilience of the Iraqi people, and another milestone in the democratic development of Iraq”.

Iraq’s political parties have for weeks been meeting and manoeuvring as they seek to build post-election alliances, but the formation of a new government is still expected to take several months.

As in previous elections, the main blocs are expected to agree on an encompassing package that ensures the prime minister, president and parliament speaker are all selected together.

Under a de facto agreement established in recent years, Iraq’s prime minister is a Shiite Arab, the president is a Kurd and the speaker of parliament is a Sunni Arab.

Violence and opposition 

Following Iraq’s last elections, it took nine months to form a government as parties engaged in protracted horse-trading and several blocs tried to oppose Maliki’s bid for re-election.

Voters often complain of poor electricity and sewerage services, rampant corruption, high unemployment and a litany of other concerns, but the monthlong campaign preceding the vote concentrated on Maliki’s bid for a third term.

Maliki’s critics accuse him of consolidating power, particularly within the security forces, and blame him for a yearlong deterioration in security, and say there has not been enough improvement in the quality of life.

The election and its aftermath came amid a surge in violence that has killed more than 3,500 people this year, fuelling fears that Iraq could be slipping back into the all-out conflict that cost tens of thousands of lives in 2006 and 2007.

In particular, the 63-year-old faces strong and vocal opposition in the Sunni-dominated west and the Kurdish north, with rivals there insisting they will not agree to a third term.

Maliki, who has been in charge since 2006, blames external factors such as the war in neighbouring Syria for the surge in unrest, and says his so-called partners in government snipe at him in public and block his legislative efforts in parliament.

The run-up to the election was plagued by attacks on candidates and campaign rallies, as well as allegations of malpractice that apparently contributed to lower turnout in areas populated by disgruntled minority Sunnis.

More than 9,000 candidates ran for the 328 seats in parliament, with about 62 per cent of eligible voters casting ballots.

BEIRUT — The death toll in Syria’s three-year conflict has climbed past 160,000, an activist group said Monday.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Monday it has documented 162,402 deaths in the conflict, including civilians, rebels and members of the Syrian military. 

That figure also contains militiamen, such as members the Lebanese Hizbollah group who has been fighting alongside Assad’s forces, as well as foreign fighters among the opposition forces.

The observatory remains the sole organisation providing a reliable tally of Syria’s war dead.

The grim tally, however, only presents one facet of the effect of the crackdown on a revolt against President Bashar Assad that erupted in March 2011. The crisis has also uprooted some 6.5 million people from their homes, forced 2.7 million to flee the country, laid waste to cities and towns alike, and unleashed sectarian hatreds that have rippled across the region.

The government has presented Syria’s June 3 presidential election, which Assad is widely expected to win, as a means to end the conflict. The Syrian opposition and its Western allies have denounced the vote as a farce aimed solely at lending Assad a veneer of electoral legitimacy.

It also remains unclear how the government can hold a credible vote when the nation is engulfed in fighting and a significant chunk of the country is in opposition hands.

The United Nations has stopped updating its own tally of the Syrian dead, saying it can no longer verify the sources of information. The world body’s last count in late July was 100,000 killed.

The observatory bases its figures on information it obtains from a network of activists inside Syria. Its numbers are based on the names of those killed, collected by activists who document the dead in hospitals, morgues and identify them from video materials.

Civilians comprised about a third, or 53,978, of the observatory’s new toll. Those deaths include 8,607 children and 5,586 women.

The uprising also has killed 26,858 rebel fighters and 37,685 Syrian soldiers, the observatory said. It said 25,147 pro-government fighters also have died on the battlefield, including 438 Hizbollah fighters, and 1,224 foreign Shiite militants and Palestinian fighters.

The Syrian government does not publicise the number of its casualties.

The observatory counted 13,529 deaths among foreigners and other fighters who have sided with the rebels, including members of an Al Qaeda-linked group and other hard-line Islamist groups. 

There are also 2,891 unidentified bodies in the conflict, and 2,314 identified bodies of Syrian army troops who have crossed over to the opposition side to fight the government.

The observatory considers its tally a rough estimate and said the overall figure of those killed was higher than the sum of subcategories.

On the opposition side, Islamist extremists, including foreign fighters and Syrian rebels who have taken up hard-line Al Qaeda-style ideologies, have played an increasingly prominent role in the armed opposition, dampening the West’s support for the rebellion.

Syria’s uprising began with largely peaceful protests against Assad’s rule before slowly turning into a civil war. The conflict has taken on sectarian overtones, with predominantly Sunni Muslim rebels battling an Assad government that is dominated by Alawites, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

Bickering among the opposition’s exiled politicians who make up the Western-backed Syrian National Coalition has hampered efforts to create a credible alternative to Assad.

On Monday, a spokesperson for the opposition’s Turkey-based interim government said its defence minister, Asaad Mustafa, had submitted his resignation. The spokesperson, Sarah Karkour, did not say why Mustafa was stepping down.

An opposition official told AP by telephone that Mustafa had differences and disagreements with others in the government, including interim Prime Minister Ahmad Toumeh.

Mustafa’s resignation only goes into effect with the approval of the coalition’s president, Ahmad Al Jarba, the official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media on the issue.

KUWAIT — Kuwait will hold parliamentary by-elections on June 26 to replace five lawmakers who quit over a row about questioning the Gulf state’s prime minister in parliament, a senior government official said late on Sunday.

Some Kuwaiti media have said the resignations of the five in April and May could lead to the dissolution of the 50-member assembly. By setting a date for by-elections, the government is signalling it wants to push ahead with the current parliament.

In recent years, the Gulf state’s parliaments have been repeatedly dissolved over procedural disputes or for challenging the government, in which members of the ruling family hold top posts. Requests to question ministers have sometimes led to dissolutions because the ministers want to avoid such grillings or votes of no confidence.

Three of the MPs — Riyad Al Adsani, Abdulkareem Al Kandari, Hussein Quaiqaan — resigned on April 30 after parliament voted to cancel their interrogation of Sheikh Jaber Al Mubarak Al Sabah over issues such as housing and corruption.

They were joined on May 4 by former parliamentary speaker Ali Al Rashed and Safa Al Hashem, the only female MP in the National Assembly.

The five do not represent a unified bloc in Kuwait, where political parties are banned. Kuwait’s parliament is the most powerful in the Gulf Arab region but policy is determined by the government, which said Sheikh Jaber, a senior ruling family member, was not responsible for the issues MPs wanted to question him about.

By-elections to replace the five will be held on June 26, Sheikh Mohammad Al Mubarak Al Sabah, Kuwait’s minister for Cabinet affairs said according to a Cabinet statement published on state news agency KUNA.

RIYADH –– Saudi Arabia closed its embassy in Tripoli on Monday and evacuated all its diplomats over "security" concerns in Libya, the SPA state news agency reported.

The Saudi ambassador to Libya Mohammed Mahmud al-Ali told SPA the kingdom's consulate in Libya was also closed "due to the current circumstances and the security situation."

He said all diplomats in Libya were flown out of the North African country.

BEIRUT — Syria’s air defence chief was killed during an offensive by President Bashar Assad’s forces against rebels east of Damascus, Islamist rebels and a monitoring group said.

They said General Hussein Ishaq died on Sunday from wounds suffered on Saturday during the assault by Assad’s forces on the town of Mleiha which appears aimed at expanding the president’s control around the capital before a June 3 election.

The air defence forces which have a large base in Mleiha and are responsible for defending against air attacks, have played little part in the war with rebels who have no air power.

However, Ishaq is one of the most senior military officials to be killed in three years of conflict.

The last high-ranking casualty was Hilal Al Assad, a cousin of the president and regional head of the national defence force militia, who was killed two months ago in the Mediterranean province of Latakia.

“We announce good news to the Islamic nation, of the killing of one of the leaders of unbelief, General Hussein Yaqoub Ishaq, head of the Air Defence Administration in Mleiha,” the Islamic Front said in a statement.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, also reported Ishaq’s death in Mleiha, which is close to the road linking central Damascus to the international airport.

Mleiha lies on the edge of the eastern Ghouta region — a mix of farmland and small towns which have formed a base for rebel fighters but which have been surrounded by Assad’s forces for more than a year.

The army, backed by Shiite fighters from Iraq and Lebanon’s Hizbollah group, has pushed back the rebels around Damascus and consolidated Assad’s grip over central Syria, including the Lebanese border the country’s third-largest city, Homs.

State media made no mention of Ishaq’s death but pro-Assad Internet sites said he was “martyred” in Mleiha.

Rebels seize Hama town

North of Damascus, rebels killed 34 pro-Assad fighters when they attacked an army post near the town of Tel Malah in Hama province on Sunday, the Observatory said.

Video footage released by the rebels showed the building — a school which they said the army had commandeered as a base — as well a captured armoured personnel carrier and a tank.

The area has changed hands several times during Syria’s protracted conflict, and the rebels said it was the third time they had taken control there.

The town of Tel Malah lies on a road linking two Christian towns in Hama province and is also close to several Alawite villages.

Assad’s family is from Syria’s Alawite minority, who mostly support the president, and many Christians also back him, fearing the increasingly radicalised Sunni Muslim rebels.

The rebels who took over Tel Malah included fighters from the Nusra Front — Al Qaeda’s official branch in Syria — the Islamic Front.

More than 150,000 people have been killed in Syria’s civil war, which erupted after Assad responded with force to protests against his rule three years ago.

After clawing back territory in the centre of the country Assad is now preparing for a presidential election which is widely expected to extend his 14-year rule for another seven-year term.

GAZA CITY/ OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — A new Palestinian “consensus government” to be named by the Palestine Liberation Organisation and the Islamist movement Hamas is to be finalised within days, a senior Hamas official said Sunday.

Bassem Naim, an adviser to Hamas’ premier for the Gaza Strip, Ismail Haniyeh, said a senior member of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fateh movement, which dominates the PLO, would meet with Hamas officials in Gaza this week to conclude negotiations.

Azzam Al Ahmad is “arriving in Gaza on Wednesday and Thursday to meet with the Hamas reconciliation delegation to hold consultations”, Naim told AFP. “We expect the government to be announced by [Abbas] early the following week,” he said, and will then be presented to the Palestinian parliament for a vote of confidence. 

Hamas signed a reconciliation deal last month with the PLO in a surprise move which aims to overcome a years-long intra-Palestinian split.

Hamas has dominated the Palestinian parliament since winning a landslide victory in the last parliamentary election, held in 2006.

But the US and Europe have since backed the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority under Abbas and boycotted the Islamist movement, which advocates armed conflict with Israel.

Under their April 23 reconciliation deal, the two sides are to form an “independent government” of technocrats, headed by Abbas, paving the way for long-delayed elections.

Representatives from the rival factions have held several rounds of talks to heal the bad blood since Hamas expelled Fateh from Gaza in a week of deadly clashes in 2007.

The reconciliation deal has incensed Israel, putting the final nail in the coffin of faltering US-led peace talks between Israel and Abbas’ administration.

Livni under attack

Meanwhile, Israel’s chief negotiator Tzipi Livni came under attack on Sunday for talks with Abbas, with senior officials insisting there was no intention to resume peace negotiations.

Thursday’s meeting in London was the first between the two sides since the collapse last month of the latest round of talks, and came after both held separate talks with US Secretary of State John Kerry.

But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office and ministers quickly moved to distance themselves from the Livni-Abbas meeting, insisting it was private and did not signal any official intention to resume talks with the Palestinians.

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.

Although Netanyahu was reportedly angered by the meeting, he knew about it in advance and communicated his concerns to Livni, an official in his office said, the implication being that he had not moved to block the talks.

“Prime Minister Netanyahu made clear to Minister Livni even before her meeting with Abu Mazen [Abbas] that she would be representing only herself and not the government of Israel,” the official said.

“Netanyahu made it clear to Minister Livni that Israel’s position, as decided unanimously by the [security] Cabinet, was that the Israeli government will not conduct negotiations with a Palestinian government supported by Hamas.”

Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz, a hardliner close to Netanyahu, was quick to criticise Livni.

“I don’t know of any civilised Western country where a minister would meet, on his own initiative, the head of an authority or state in a period of crisis and tension,” he said at the start of the Cabinet meeting, in remarks broadcast on army radio.

“It doesn’t look good and it isn’t right.”

Speaking on Channel 2’s Meet the Press on Saturday, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman also insisted the meeting had been private.

“It’s true that Livni met Abu Mazen, but these were certainly not negotiations,” he said, calling it a “private” initiative, and noting that Livni herself had voted in favour of the security Cabinet decision to freeze talks with any government backed by Hamas.

Following the intra-Palestinian unity deal, Hamas is working with the Palestine Liberation Organisation to piece together an interim government of political independents which is to be announced in the coming days.

Abbas has insisted the government will follow his policy of recognising Israel, rejecting violence and abiding by past peace agreements, while Hamas has said the new administration will not have a political mandate.