Region

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.

BEIRUT — A six-week offensive by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) against rival Islamists in eastern Syria has killed 600 fighters and driven 130,000 people from their homes, a monitoring group said on Tuesday.

ISIL, which is battling to control a huge area of east Syria and western Iraq, has advanced along the Euphrates River in the oil producing Deir Al Zor province, driving back militants from Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front and other Islamic brigades.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said ISIL now controls most of the northeast bank of the Euphrates from close to the border with Turkey down to the town of Busayra, nearly 320km to the southeast.

It aims to extend that control all the way to the town of Albukamal on the Iraqi border, strengthening links between its Syrian and Iraqi wings, the observatory’s Rami Abdelrahman said.

Across the border, ISIL has made stunning gains, overrunning the headquarters of the provincial government in Iraq’s northern city of Mosul late on Monday.

The group follows Al Qaeda’s jihadist ideology but its leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi has defied orders by Al Qaeda leader Ayman Al Zawahiri to stop fighting in Syria and focus on Iraq.

Baghdadi fought first in Iraq before expanding into Syria when the 2011 uprising against President Bashar Assad was crushed by force and descended into civil war.

His enemies say ISIL has almost exclusively targeted rival rebels — including the Nusra Front which Baghdadi originally nurtured — rather than Assad’s forces, as it exploits turmoil in Syria and insecurity in Iraq to carve out territory.

Hundreds killed

The UK-based observatory said 241 fighters from ISIL and 354 from Nusra and other Islamic brigades had been killed in fighting since ISIL launched its offensive in Syria’s Deir Al Zor province, seizing four oilfields from its rivals.

Another 39 civilians have been killed, including five children, said the observatory, which relies on a network of medical and military sources and activists across the country to monitor the violence in Syria.

The internecine fighting among Assad’s mainly Sunni Muslim opponents, who include foreign jihadi fighters, has prevented any coordinated rebel military campaign against him and helped his forces consolidate control in the centre of the country.

Backed by the militant Lebanese Hizbollah movement and Shiite Iraqi fighters, his troops have pushed back rebels from the edge of Damascus and border areas with Lebanon — a vital supply line for rebels — as well as the city of Homs.

Syria’s northern and eastern provinces remain largely beyond Assad’s control, although his forces still hold part of Deir Al Zor’s provincial capital and have been making advances around the disputed northern city of Aleppo.

Last week he won re-election in a vote held in government-controlled parts of the country. Opponents dismissed it as a charade in the midst of a conflict which started with protests against the president. Authorities said it gave him a democratic mandate to rule for another seven years.

More than 160,000 people have been killed in Syria’s civil war. Nearly three million refugees have sought sanctuary abroad and six million people have been displaced inside the country, the United Nations says.

CAIRO — Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, who took office on Monday, tasked Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab with forming a new government after the previous Cabinet resigned, the presidency said.

Ex-army chief Sisi was sworn in on Sunday after winning a lopsided victory in a vote boycotted by the Muslim Brotherhood movement of Mohamed Morsi, the elected president he deposed last July.

“The president accepted the government’s resignation and tasked Mr Mahlab with the formation of a new government to implement the state’s vision for the upcoming phase,” presidential spokesman Ehab Badawy said in a statement.

Mahlab said he had not yet begun talks on forming a new government, state news agency MENA reported.

The previous Cabinet installed by Sisi, Egypt’s de facto leader since he ousted Morsi, resigned on Monday to allow the new president to “choose an appropriate one to serve the nation”, Mahlab said in an earlier statement.

“I assure you that along with the ministers... I exerted all efforts to accomplish the duties we were tasked with in very difficult circumstances,” Mahlab said.

Since Sisi deposed Morsi after millions of people protested against the Islamist’s divisive year-long rule, Egypt has been deeply polarised.

The economy has also nosedived on falling tourist revenues and investments.

At the same time, the government has carried out a brutal crackdown on Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood in which more than 1,400 people have been killed and thousands jailed.

After Sunday’s inauguration, in a warning to the now blacklisted Brotherhood, Sisi said there will be “no leniency and truce with those who resort to violence”.

“I am looking to a new era built on reconciliation and tolerance... except with those who committed crimes or used violence as a tool,” he said in his first national address as president.

“I am saying clearly that those who shed the blood of the innocent and [who] killed... the sons of Egypt, they don’t have a place in [our] march.”

DUBAI — As Syria’s conflict drags on, refugees who fled to the UAE have recreated a slice of home in the Gulf state, from popular Syrian restaurants to Damascus’ iconic Hamidiyeh market.

Amid the gentle bubbling of water pipes and the clack of backgammon pieces, visitors to the Hamidiyeh restaurant reminisce about Damascus in the luxurious Dubai Marina district.

“This place attracts us because it makes us feel as if we are in Damascus,” says Waleed Ayoub, a customer.

Like millions of his countrymen, Ayoub has left Syria, where peaceful protests for political change in March 2011 turned into a full-on civil war after a brutal government crackdown on the protesters.

With its mock up of the arched ceiling of Damascus’ main old souq, Al Hamidiyeh is one of many new restaurants and shops in the United Arab Emirates catering to Syrians nostalgic for their homelands.

Branches of the war-torn country’s most popular eateries have sprung up around the UAE, which has mostly attracted “refugees” with the means to leave their country and establish themselves in the emirates.

Expensive cars with Damascus plates have become a common sight in the UAE, a destination inaccessible to most refugees due to the high cost of living and the difficulty of obtaining visas.

A two-year residency permit costs between 20,000 and 30,000 dirhams ($5,400 to $8,100) and must be processed by a sponsor, Syrian residents say.

High standards of living

Unlike the millions who fled to neighbouring countries such as Jordan, Turkey, and Lebanon — where many are jammed into refugee camps — Syrians in the UAE enjoy its high standard of living.

Many have even opened businesses.

In Sharjah, signs such as Al-Sham bakery, Damascus Olive, and Al-Zabadani Plain — a reference to a town near the Syrian capital, parts of which are under opposition control — line the main road in the emirate.

Among these is the family-run Nabeel Nafisa sweets, an offshoot of one of the most famous patisseries in Damascus.

“With the worsening situation in Syria and the relatively large Syrian community that has formed here, we considered opening a branch in Sharjah,” says branch manager Abdelhadi Nafisa.

Nafisa has shut several branches in Syria, mainly those in the “hotspots on the outskirts” of Damascus, but his shops in the capital remain open.

While Nafisa’s shop in Damascus is famous for the non-stop hustle with customers queueing to try its famous “kunafa” — a sweet pastry filled with white cheese — the new outlet in Sharjah is quiet.

Nafisa said obtaining the same ingredients used at home was difficult and some adjustments had to be made to certain recipes.

Syrian businessmen 

lose out 

A few kilometres away, businessman Anas Mousatat has opened a branch of Tarboush, a popular restaurant in Syria’s former business hub Aleppo — swathes of which have been ruined by heavy fighting between government and rebel forces since summer 2012.

In Tarboush, amid the smell of grilled lamb kebabs Aleppo was famous for and the Levantine dialect spoken by most of its customers, it is difficult to remember that this is Sharjah.

When Mousatat first arrived in the UAE, he did not have business on his mind, he says, but as his enterprise in Aleppo nosedived, he opened the restaurant to earn his keep.

Although Syrian businessmen seem to be doing well in the UAE, many “have lost a lot already”, according to Ahmed Edilbi, founder of Dubarah, an initiative connecting long-established Syrian businessmen in the UAE with their more recently arrived compatriots.

Syrians are unfamiliar with the UAE market and commercial laws, and rising living costs in the Gulf country are another setback, he said.

“More than half of upper-class Syrians who came here have now become middle-class after they spent their savings on failed investments and living costs,” he says.

Mousatat, who says he too lost out financially, will “definitely” return to Syria if the situation improves.

But he admits he might keep the Gulf branch of his restaurant open for business.

ANKARA — Iran and Turkey on Monday pledged to work together to stop extremism and bloodshed in the Middle East despite their deep differences over Syria’s civil war.

“Iran and Turkey, the two important countries in the region, are determined to fight against extremism and terrorism,” Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani told a news conference in Ankara.

He said the instability in the region benefited neither the neighbouring countries, nor the world, and said Turkey and Iran agreed to work together.

Turkish President Abdullah Gul commended Rouhani’s policies since taking office in August last year, saying they were helping Iran open up to the world.

The diplomatic niceties though papered over a complex and often dysfunctional relationship between the two countries. Those ties have taken an especially bitter turn in recent years as a result of increasing competition between Sunni and Shia Muslim powers across the region.

This has become more pronounced following the onset of the Syrian civil war, in which the two nations have found themselves on opposite sides.

Iran, a Shia theocracy, is the chief backer of Syrian President Bashar Assad, while Sunni-majority Turkey has moved from trying to encourage reform in Syria to overtly supporting the armed opposition.

Rouhani has congratulated Assad on his re-election for a third seven-year term last week, in a poll ridiculed by Syrian opposition groups and their Western and Arab backers.

Turkey, however, blasted the elections as “null and void”, saying that it was “out of the question to take them seriously”.

The Syrian poll “represents a clear contradiction to the Geneva declaration seeking a political solution”, a Turkish foreign ministry official told AFP on Monday.

Iran sees ‘turning point’ in ties 

Rouhani’s trip to Turkey, flanked by a crowded delegation of ministers and Iranian businessmen, saw 10 bilateral deals signed in several sectors including finance, tourism, culture and communications.

Iran and Turkey will also chair the first meeting of a high-level cooperation council, a mechanism Ankara has established with its neighbours to promote trade and regional integration.

The Iranian leader asserted his visit “will undoubtedly be a turning point in the two countries’ relationship”.

It was the first trip to Turkey by an Iranian president since former leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made a “working” visit to Istanbul in 2008. The last official presidential visit from Iran to Turkey was in 1996 by Hashemi Rafsanjani.

That visit was marked by controversy when Rafsanjani refused to visit the mausoleum of modern Turkey’s revered founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk — a routine practice for foreign heads of state. Rouhani also is expected to skip the mausoleum.

Ataturk’s secular credentials make him an unpopular figure with Iran’s theocratic rulers.

Fraught relationship 

Despite the tensions, both countries have many reasons to work together.

Both are concerned about the rise of sectarian conflicts on their borders, and most of all wish to maintain their close energy and trade ties that have been threatened by Western sanctions targeting Iran.

Turkey is heavily reliant on Iran for oil and gas, having few energy resources of its own. It has been a fierce opponent of Western sanctions that has severely curtailed its access to Iranian fuel in recent years.

Ankara has been accused of circumventing the sanctions by quietly trading gold for Iranian gas.

Turkish prosecutors are currently investigating what they describe as a huge criminal network that used bribes and payoffs to conceal the illicit trade. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has dismissed the allegations as a foreign plot and put huge pressure on investigators to drop the case.

On a visit to Tehran in January, Erdogan said the two countries were aiming to more than double trade to $30 billion (22 billion euros) by 2015.

He hopes Iran will be able to forge a diplomatic deal with the West over its nuclear programme by the deadline of July 20 that would see sanctions — suspended since an interim deal was signed late last year — dropped permanently.

President Gul said that Turkey “strongly supported a deal that will help remove all the sanctions”.

Ankara has long defended Tehran’s right to peaceful nuclear technology but adamantly opposes any development of nuclear weapons, which it fears would lead to an arms race in the Middle East.

“We don’t want any country in our region to possess nuclear weapons. We maintain our desire for a Middle East cleared of weapons of mass destruction,” Gul said.

Rouhani said: “Our region should be cleared of not only nuclear but also conventional weapons”.

Competition for influence 

Yet Iran and Turkey have emerged as competitors for influence across the Middle East — notably in Iraq and Syria — as well as in Central Asia and the Caucasus.

Even on areas where they might be inclined to cooperate — such as in the fight against Kurdish separatism — they have often sought to undermine each other.

Both Turkey and Iran face a threat from Kurdish rebels who wish to break away and form their own country. But instead of working together, each government have sponsored rebels in the other’s backyard over the years.

In Ankara, Rouhani said he and Gul discussed Syria and Egypt, and how Iranian-Turkish cooperation could help stop the bloodshed in the region.

“What’s important to us is for the two countries to reach stability and security, that the people’s vote are determining, and an end to the war, bloodshed and killings between brothers.”