Region

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No plans for 

military strike

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A stunned region

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Redrawing the borders

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reactions inside the region are ambivalent to hostile.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Targeted’ and ‘precise’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

East Jerusalem traders strike 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BAGHDAD — A major offensive by jihadists is allowing Iraqi Kurds to take control of disputed territory that Baghdad has long opposed them adding to their autonomous northern region.

With federal forces abandoning their posts, Kurdish forces, known as peshmerga, are filling the vacuum in some areas — defending them from the militants but also putting them under Kurdish control.

Jihadists and their allies have overrun all of the northern province of Nineveh and significant areas of neighbouring Salaheddin and Kirkuk provinces, as well as part of northern Diyala, in an offensive that began Monday night.

All four provinces contain territory claimed by both the federal government and the three-province Kurdistan region, which has its own borders, security forces and government but is financially dependent on Baghdad.

On Thursday, Kurdish forces took control for the first time of the oil hub of Kirkuk. The city is at the heart of the swathe of territory the Kurds want to incorporate into their region.

“We tightened our control of Kirkuk city and are awaiting orders to move towards the areas that are controlled by ISIL,” peshmerga Brigadier General Shirko Rauf said, referring to jihadist group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

Kirkuk Governor Najm Al Din Karim, himself a Kurd, said peshmerga were filling in gaps left by federal troops who withdrew from their positions in the province.

“Army forces are no longer present, as happened in Mosul and Salaheddin,” Karim said, referring to the first city to fall in the offensive and another province where militants have gained significant ground.

Kurdish leaders have long wanted the army out of Kirkuk province, and vehemently opposed the establishment of a federal military command that included it.

In a statement on the Kurdistan government’s official website, peshmerga ministry secretary general Jabbar Yawar criticised federal security personnel as being “only interested in collecting their salaries,” and said Baghdad had been warned they would not hold up.

“Peshmerga forces are in control of the majority of the Kurdistan region outside of [Kurdistan Regional Government] administration,” Yawar said, referring to the disputed areas.

John Drake, a security analyst with AKE Group, said the crisis could aid the Kurdish region in the territory dispute.

It “could end up gaining further control over territory disputed with Baghdad by bolstering its security forces around places such as Kirkuk and Tuz Khurmatu,” he said, referring to a disputed northern town that Kurdish forces have reinforced.

He noted that the Kurdistan region “would not face the same challenges from Baghdad as in the past because the federal authorities are evidently in an extremely poor position to do anything about the situation”.

Iraqi security forces have not performed well so far, with some throwing away their uniforms and abandoning vehicles and positions to flee the militants.

Asos Hardi, a journalist and analyst, said Kurdish forces moving into areas vacated by the army “gives them a better and wider control [of] the disputed areas”.

“But what will happen next, that’s the risk, that’s the problem,” he said.

Moving into these areas ultimately puts Kurdish forces in the line of fire.

This risk was demonstrated on Thursday when a roadside bomb targeted Jaafar Mustafa, the Kurdish minister responsible for the peshmerga, as he returned from inspecting units in Kirkuk province.

Mustafa survived the blast, which took place west of Kirkuk city, but it killed a peshmerga fighter, Rauf said.

The presence of jihadists in provinces that neighbour the Kurds’ autonomous region also carries economic risks.

Drake noted that “the fact a major Islamist organisation has now established a presence right on [Kurdistan’s] doorstep will be a major source of concern for would-be investors and local residents alike”.

Hardi said that if militants succeed in controlling Sunni Arab areas of the country, “this will divide Iraq, practically, into three different parts”.

It is “a very dangerous situation... not only for Kurds, but for all Iraq,” Hardi said.

BEIRUT — Lebanon’s capital Beirut is awash with flags. But instead of the usual political colours, they’re the bunting of World Cup competitors like Brazil and Germany being flown by local mega-fans.

Lebanon’s national team didn’t qualify for the event starting Thursday, and the tiny nation has no great sporting track record.

But its citizens display a near-fanatical enthusiasm for chosen proxy nations, mainly countries that tend to do well in the World Cup and host large Lebanese populations, draping cars, homes and businesses with “their” country’s colours.

“I just love Germany. I love the way they play the game,” says 19-year-old Elias Nohra.

He spent $50 having a Germany flag sticker affixed to the roof of his car.

“Money well-spent,” he says with a grin.

Some drivers have gone further, trailing fluttering flags from their cars, draping scarves round their rear-view mirrors, and even plastering semi-transparent flag stickers across entire windshields.

The mania is a chance for the often unstable country to escape the daily grind, and good news for vendors, with even those who usually sell cell phones or children’s toys adding flags to their stock to cash in.

“Every day we get closer to the World Cup, flag sales increase,” says 23-year-old vendor Ali Nasrallah in the Sabra, Palestinian camp in Beirut.

“The flags we sell most are Brazil, Germany and Italy.”

A survey of the landscape makes it clear that Brazil, Germany and Italy are indeed local favourites, with the three nations best represented among the flags flying from cars and homes.

Family ties spur support 

That comes as no surprise to 23-year-old Rayan Musallem, a sports journalists and Brazil fanatic.

She belongs to an official fan club working with Brazil’s embassy to organise match viewings.

“I’ve loved Brazil since I was little, it might be because my family nicknamed me Rio, but to be honest I just love the country, their passion for football and the way they play,” she says.

Like many Lebanese, she knows families who have emigrated to Brazil, which is home to the largest concentration of Lebanese in the diaspora.

Such ties through emigration are one reason Lebanese cite in choosing which country to support.

“I’m with France because all my family is there,” says 50-year-old Aida Qassis, who owns a toy shop but has added flags to her stock.

“You know, Lebanon took its independence from France and France still supports us, so I hope they do well in the World Cup,” she says.

Elie Sarkis inherited his support of Brazil from his father and grandfather.

“They’ve always loved Brazil, I think in part because they were impressed that when players scored they’d cross themselves and thank God,” he says.

“My family are very religious, and they like that in Brazil, people might be poor, but they have faith, and when they get rich they still love their country and have faith in God.”

But for many Lebanese, the decision to pick a team is swayed solely by their favourite players.

Argentina has seen its popularity here boosted by the high-profile career of Lionel Messi, and Portugal commands an outsize following on the basis of its star striker Cristiano Ronaldo.

‘A unifying event’ 

For 24-year-old Tony Rizk, it was legendary goalkeeper Oliver Kahn who started his passion for Germany’s team.

Last year, he fulfilled a life-long dream by visiting Munich, and this year he and the fan club he founded are working with Germany’s embassy in Lebanon to organise viewing events.

Like many Lebanese, he describes World Cup mania as one of the few non-political events in a country often marked by political and sectarian divisions.

“Our club has fans from everywhere in Lebanon. You see Muslims, Christians, everyone, watching the games,” he says.

“It’s a unifying event.”

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — An Israeli air strike killed a Palestinian man in Gaza on Wednesday after rocket fire from the territory prompted Israel’s premier to warn he holds Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas responsible.

Two Palestinians were also wounded in the evening raid in the northern Gaza Strip, the emergency services said.

The dead man, 30-year-old Mohammed Al Awour, and one of the wounded were travelling on a motorbike and were the apparent targets. A seven-year-old boy who was passing by on foot was also wounded.

The Israeli military said it had targeted “terrorists affiliated to the international jihad”, its designation for Al Qaeda inspired groups in Gaza.

Local sources also said that the two men on the bike were radical Salafist fighters.

Awour was involved in numerous rocket attacks on southern Israel in recent years and particularly over the past month, the Israeli army said in a statement.

He belonged to “a violent and extremist Salafist cell which attempted to organise several terrorist attacks against Israel,” the army statement added.

Abbas, who swore in a new merged government for the Palestinian territories last week replacing the Hamas administration in Gaza, condemned the rocket fire which Israeli officials said hit the Eshkol region without causing any casualties or damage.

Israel had previously held Hamas responsible for all rocket fire from Gaza, regardless of who carried it out.

Now, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu holds Abbas, who heads the unity government, responsible, a spokesman said.

“Abbas is responsible and accountable for rockets that are fired at Israeli towns and cities by terrorists in the Gaza Strip,” Ofir Gendelman said on Twitter.

Netanyahu welcomed the deadly Israel air raid and promised that the army and the Shin Bet security service would “continue to take strong action against all those who try to attack the security of Israel’s citizens”.

Reacting to the rocket fire, Abbas’s office said he “condemns the rocket fire and calls for honouring past agreements”.

The United States criticised the rocket attack on Israeli soil but said it would still work with the new Palestinian government.

“We condemn all rocket fire from Gaza. It is unprovoked aggression against civilian targets and is totally unacceptable,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.

“President Abbas must do all in his power to prevent deterioration in the security situation,” Psaki said, welcoming his condemnation of the attack which came from the militant Hamas-run Gaza Strip.

The US does “acknowledge the reality that Hamas currently controls Gaza,” the spokeswoman said.

But she noted that there were no members affiliated with Hamas in the new government, and that the US would continue to work with it.