Region

BEIRUT — Syria’s air force struck a besieged rebel-held town Saturday as UN and Red Crescent workers distributed aid there, a monitor and activists said.

“Two air strikes hit Douma during a visit of a delegation of the United Nations to the town’s outskirts,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Activists said one of the strikes hit an area adjacent to a warehouse where aid is being stored, but that aid was distributed nonetheless.

Douma is in the Eastern Ghouta area of Damascus province, where rebels are under siege and residents suffer terrible humanitarian shortages.

Activist Hassan Takieddin said 400 aid parcels were distributed “to the whole of Eastern Ghouta. That is very little”.

The UN’s visit to the town is the first since March, he said.

Meanwhile, state news agency SANA said four people were killed and nine wounded in eastern Damascus, blaming “terrorists”, the regime’s term for rebels.

A police source cited by the agency said the blast was caused by a device comprising 30 kilogrammes of explosives.

In Aleppo, troops evacuated wounded comrades and detainees from the central prison that had been under rebel siege for more than a year until Thursday, said the observatory.

The wounded soldiers and prisoners were transferred to a hospital in western Aleppo, the group added.

The army, backed by pro-regime militia and Lebanon’s Shiite Hizbollah, broke the rebels’ siege on the prison Thursday.

The developments come as the observatory said the death toll from a Thursday evening attack by rebels on a campaign rally in Daraa for President Bashar Assad’s re-election bid had risen to 37.

“Among them were 19 civilians, including four children, 12 members of the popular defence committees [pro-regime militia] and six soldiers,” Observatory Director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

The attack also wounded dozens, said the observatory, which had initially reported a death toll of 21.

Assad faces two little known challengers in next month’s vote and is widely expected to clinch a third seven-year term despite the civil war, which has killed more than 160,000 people.

The election will only be held in regime-controlled areas, and has been dismissed by the opposition and its Western backers as a farce.

BAGHDAD — Throngs of Shiite Muslims converged on a shrine in north Baghdad on Saturday for annual commemoration rituals under heavy security after a string of deadly attacks in the Iraqi capital.

Much of the city was on lockdown for the climax of the rites to mark the death of a revered figure in Shiite Islam, with Baghdad’s security forces looking to deter Sunni militant groups which often target Iraq’s majority community.

Several major roads were closed off and a wide variety of vehicles barred from the streets, as security forces also relied on aerial cover and sniffer dogs.

Organisers say millions of pilgrims were expected to visit the shrine in the Kadhimiyah neighbourhood of north Baghdad between Saturday and Sunday, when the commemoration rituals are to climax, though the figure could not be independently verified.

For days worshippers from across Baghdad, and the rest of the country, have been walking to Kadhimiyah, site of a shrine dedicated to Imam Musa Kadhim, the seventh of 12 revered imams in Shiite Islam, who died in 799 AD.

Sunni militants regard Shiites as apostates and, as in previous years, multiple attacks have targeted worshippers in the run-up to the Imam Kadhim commemorations.

Three bombings in the capital, including two carried out by suicide attackers, on Thursday killed 21 people, while mortar fire on Friday struck a district adjacent to Kadhimiyah, killing three more.

The unrest comes as Iraq grapples with a protracted surge in bloodshed that has left more than 3,700 people dead so far this year and fuelled fears the country is slipping back into all-out conflict.

Friday’s deadly violence struck in the capital and the restive northern province of Nineveh, leaving 17 people dead and 25 others wounded, security and medical officials said.

Mortar fire in north Baghdad killed three people, while two men were shot dead in the west of the capital.

The mortar rounds slammed into the Zahra neighbourhood adjacent to Kadhimiyah.

In Nineveh province, north of the capital, four more people were killed on Friday, including two senior police officers, officials said, while attacks elsewhere north of Baghdad killed eight others.

Violence has surged in the past year to its highest level since 2008, while anti-government fighters control an entire city a short drive from Baghdad and parts of another.

The latest attacks come as Iraq’s political parties jostle to build alliances and form a government after April polls that left incumbent Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki in the driver’s seat to remain in office for a third term.

The authorities have trumpeted security operations against militants, saying on Friday that they killed 35 more insurgents, and blame external factors such as the civil war in neighbouring Syria for the surge in violence.

Analysts and diplomats, however, say the Shiite-led government must do more to reach out to disgruntled minority Sunnis and undermine support for militancy.

TRIPOLI, Libya — A renegade general leading a military offensive against Islamists and their allied militias dominating Libya’s political scene on Saturday welcomed street rallies in support of his campaign, saying the demonstrations have given him a “mandate” to fight terrorism.

Gen. Khalifa Haftar’s remarks came a day after thousands took to the streets in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, the restive eastern city of Benghazi and other cities waving Libyan flags and chanting his name.

“People of Libya, you have given your orders. There is no going back on accepting the mandate and facing up to the challenge,” Haftar said in a statement broadcast on Libya’s Alahrar TV.

Since launching his campaign eight days ago, Haftar has said he wants to crush Islamist militias backed by Libya’s Islamist-dominated parliament, and impose stability after three years of chaos following the ouster and death of dictator Muammar Qadhafi in the 2011 civil war.

Haftar has described his offensive as a battle against terrorism. In Saturday’s broadcast, he said his forces will not return to their barracks until terrorism is defeated, and called on Libyans to keep up their support for his campaign.

Since Qadhafi’s ouster and slaying, Libya has been plagued by a weak central government, lawlessness and out-of control militias that have challenged a weak police and army.

Haftar’s spokesperson, Mohammed Hegazi, called on troops who have not yet joined the campaign dubbed “Operation Dignity” to do so within 48 hours or “face penalties”. He did not elaborate.

Also Saturday, a military jet — apparently flown by a pilot who joined Haftar’s forces — soared over the eastern city of Darna, known as a stronghold of an extremist militia.

The plane did not attack, said a militiaman on the ground, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorised to talk to media.

Haftar’s base remains in Benghazi, where he first started his campaign and where militants have attacked and killed government officials, security members and alleged Qadhafi loyalists.

The city is now divided between Haftar’s forces and the powerful militias. A volley of missiles fired during an exchange between the two sides hit a residential area late on Friday, wounding a man and his wife, hospital official Fadia Barghathi said.

Barghathi also said moderate cleric Saleh Aharaka was killed late Friday with several bullets to the chest and head. Aharaka was a known critic of radical groups.

Later Saturday, a spokesperson for Haftar’s troops — dubbed the National Libyan Army (NLA) — warned the parliament against trying to convene again, insisting the chamber has been disbanded.

“Any attempt to meet or convene the parliament anywhere will be considered a legitimate target,” said Jamal Habeel, the NLA spokesperson.

Last week, fighters allied with Haftar stormed and ransacked the parliament building in Tripoli, and declared the house disbanded.

Days later, some Islamist lawmakers met at an alternative location but failed to approve a new government. The assembly was to meet again on Sunday.

BEIRUT — Lebanese parliamentarians failed on Thursday in a last effort to elect a successor to President Michel Sleiman before his term expires, leaving a political vacuum as the country struggles to cope with spillover from Syria’s civil war.

Parliament’s fifth attempt to vote for a new president was abandoned when deputies failed to reach a quorum on Thursday, 48 hours before Sleiman is due to leave the presidential palace.

The deadlock stems from deep divisions, worsened by sectarian tensions over Syria’s conflict, between Lebanon’s two main political blocs: the Hizbollah-led March 8 coalition which supports Syrian President Bashar Assad, and the rival March 14 camp which backs Assad’s opponents.

“We are heading for a vacuum in the presidential palace,” parliamentarian Khaled Al Daher told reporters after Thursday’s session which was boycotted by March 8 deputies because of the failure to agree on a consensus candidate.

The deadlock comes as Lebanon struggles to cope with more than one million refugees who fled neighbouring Syria and now form up to a quarter of the population, straining the economy and upsetting Lebanon’s delicate sectarian balance.

Most of the refugees, like the rebels fighting to topple Assad, are Sunni Muslims. Assad, from Syria’s Alawite minority which is an offshoot of Shiite Islam, is backed by Shiite Hizbollah and its patron Iran.

Lebanon’s presidency, allocated to the Maronite Christian community under Lebanon’s sectarian division of power, is one of the three main political offices alongside the prime minister — a Sunni Muslim — and parliamentary speaker — a Shiite.

“The country is heading into the unknown and nobody knows whether this vacuum will be brief or prolonged,” March 14 parliamentarian Ahmed Fatfat told Reuters. “We have entered a new and dangerous phase”.

Political standoff

Despite Fatfat’s dire warning, most Lebanese have become accustomed to protracted political stalemate whenever the time comes to choose a new parliament, government or president.

Salam took a year to find support for the government he formed in March, while parliamentary elections which were due last summer were postponed until this November, stymied by the same standoff holding up the choice of new president.

In the end, Lebanese politicians have relied on agreement between outside patrons — Saudi Arabia for March 14 and Iran for March 8 — to resolve differences.

But Syria’s war has polarised regional players just as it has Lebanon’s domestic factions, and Lebanon is currently just one problem in a multitude of Middle East crises.

“The Lebanese think that as soon as the Saudis and Iranians sit down at the negotiating table, the third party will be Lebanon. That’s absolutely not correct,” said Nabil Bou Monsef, a columnist at Lebanon’s Al Nahar newspaper, arguing that regional powers have other priorities.

In the absence of an elected successor, Sleiman’s powers will pass to Prime Minister Tammam Salam’s government, which is also supposed to prepare for a parliamentary election later this year.

But Bou Monsef said the presidential vacuum, which he predicted could drag on as long as a year, might well affect the timing of the parliamentary vote too. “Another extension of the parliamentary term looks certain,” he said.

VIENNA — A UN atomic watchdog report due on Friday is likely to confirm that Iran is curbing its nuclear activities as agreed with world powers in a landmark accord last year, diplomatic sources said.

They said the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) would probably verify in a monthly update that Iran is living up to its part of the interim agreement struck in November, designed to buy time for talks on a long-term deal.

The update “will show continuing compliance”, one Western diplomat said on Thursday.

The report is also expected to include information about Iran’s agreement this week to address two issues in a long-stalled IAEA investigation into suspected atomic bomb research by Tehran, which denies any such work.

The undertaking could advance the research the IAEA is trying to carry out, and may also help Iran and six world powers to negotiate a broader deal to end a dispute that has raised fears of a new Middle East war.

But Western capitals, aware of past failures to get Iran to cooperate with the IAEA, are likely to remain sceptical until it has fully implemented the agreed steps and others to clear up allegations of illicit atomic work.

The IAEA-Iran talks are separate from those between Tehran and the six powers — United States, France, Germany, Britain, China and Russia. But they are complementary as both focus on fears that Iran may covertly be seeking the means and expertise to assemble nuclear weapons, which it denies.

US officials say it is vital for Iran to address the IAEA’s concerns if Washington and five other powers are to reach a long-term nuclear accord with Iran by a self-imposed deadline of July 20. But the Islamic state’s repeated denials of any nuclear bomb aspirations will make it hard for it to admit to any wrongdoing in the past without losing face.

Keeping ‘diplomatic process alive’

Under last year’s deal — made possible by the June election of pragmatist Hassan Rouhani as Iranian president after years of increasingly tense relations with the West — Iran scaled back its most sensitive work in exchange for some sanctions easing.

Diplomats and experts say it will be much more difficult to agree the terms of a final deal, as Iran and the powers remain far apart on the permissible scope of its nuclear programme, especially regarding its uranium enrichment capacity.

US and Iranian officials said little progress was made in the latest round of negotiations, which ended in Vienna on Friday. They will meet again in June as they step up their push to try to clinch a long-elusive agreement.

Rouhani said in Shanghai on Thursday that the talks had reached an important and tough juncture, but a deal was still possible by the July deadline.

Gary Samore, until last year the top nuclear proliferation expert on US President Barack Obama’s national security staff, predicted it would be “very difficult” to achieve that goal.

But, he said in a speech, “both sides have a strong interest to keep the diplomatic process alive because neither wants to return to previous cycle of escalation of increased sanctions and increased nuclear activities with increased risk of war”.

BEIRUT — President Bashar Assad’s troops broke a year-long rebel siege of Aleppo’s main prison on Thursday, cutting a main insurgent supply line and vowing to press on and recapture the whole of Syria’s biggest city.

State television showed soldiers inside the prison after they routed Al Qaeda and other Islamist forces who had tried several times in recent months to break into the jail and free thousands of prisoners.

The military gain comes 12 days before an election widely expected to deliver a landslide victory — and seven more years in power — for President Bashar Al Assad, whose forces have been cementing his control over the centre of the country.

A military statement said the fighting around the prison, about 8km northeast of Aleppo, had cut a supply line linking the rebel-dominated rural hinterland with the contested city.

“It represents a heavy blow to these groups that were using the countryside as a base to target Aleppo and its population,” the statement said.

The military command was determined to “hit the terrorist groups with an iron fist and restore security and stability to Aleppo city and every inch of the country.”

Assad’s forces and rebels have been fighting for two years in Aleppo, Syria’s commercial hub before the start of its three-year civil war, and the countryside around it.

Weary defenders

Television pictures from inside the prison complex showed dozens of bearded and weary soldiers, who had held out against 13 months of rebel siege, standing behind grey sandbags and celebrating the arrival of the relief troops.

They also showed prisoners, men and women, behind bars in long rows of cells.

Rebels, including fighters from Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front, have tried repeatedly to storm the prison, breaching its outer walls with huge bombs but failing to take full control.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said 3,000 inmates were held at Aleppo jail, including Islamists and other political prisoners as well as common criminals.

It said the air force continued to bombard rebels near the prison with barrel bombs on Thursday, a third day of heavy fighting after they launched an offensive on Tuesday to push back the insurgents.

The Britain-based, anti-Assad Observatory, which monitors the violence in Syria through a network of activists and medical and military sources, says more than 162,000 people have been killed in the civil war, which grew out of protests against Assad’s rule in March 2011.

Assad’s forces, backed by Shiite fighters from Iraq and Lebanon’s Hizbollah, have pushed back rebels around the capital Damascus and the city of Homs, strengthening his hold over a chain of cities running along Syria’s northsouth axis.

But rebels have made gains recently near the southern city of Deraa, and control a swathe of territory from rural Aleppo in the north down through the farmlands and oil producing regions to the east.

RAMALLAH/OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Palestinian premier Rami Hamdallah is to head the consensus government to be formed under a deal with Hamas to end seven years of rival administrations in the West Bank and Gaza, an official said Thursday.

“The government is nearly ready, and Rami Hamdallah will be prime minister,” the official close to the reconciliation negotiations told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas “informed Mr Hamdallah yesterday [Wednesday] that he would head the government”, the official said.

Hamdallah is the prime minister of the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority. Hamas has a rival prime minister in Gaza — Ismail Haniyeh.

Hamas “had no objection” to the decision, said Bassem Naim, an adviser to Haniya.

A senior Fateh official, Azzam Al Ahmed, is due in Gaza on Sunday to “finalise consultations” on the government, Naim said.

On April 23, Hamas and the Palestine Liberation Organisation, dominated by Abbas’ Fateh Party, signed a surprise reconciliation deal aimed at forging a unified administration.

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

Hamas, which does not recognise Israel, has ruled Gaza since it expelled Fateh after a week of deadly clashes in 2007.

The April reconciliation agreement incensed Israel, putting the final nail in the coffin of faltering US-led peace talks.

The new government will still need the approval of the Hamas-dominated Palestinian parliament, which was elected in 2006 before the deadly fighting of the following year, Haniya said last week.

Both the European Union and the United States have said repeatedly that they will have no dealings with any government that involves Hamas until the Islamist group renounces violence and recognises Israel and past peace agreements.

Meanwhile, the European Union has banned the import of poultry and eggs from Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, including annexed East Jerusalem, Israeli news website Walla reported on Thursday.

The 28-nation bloc informed the Israeli agriculture ministry that it recognised its veterinary supervision only within Israel’s pre-1967 borders and that settlement poultry produce, therefore, did not meet public health regulations for import, the website said.

An EU official in Tel Aviv confirmed the report and said the ruling was issued “in the spirit” of guidelines which came into force in January prohibiting dealings with settlement-based firms and bodies.

The settlements are illegal under international law and their continued expansion in the face of EU and US criticism was a prime factor in the collapse of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

“This issue, like many other trade issues that come up in the framework of trade relations between Israel and the European Union, will be addressed within the framework of the ongoing professional dialogue between the parties,” Walla quoted an agriculture ministry spokesperson as saying.

The ministry declined to comment when contacted by AFP.

“It should be noted that poultry and poultry-related products from the settlements account for under 5 per cent of all such products in Israel, so that the new European guideline will not have much practical impact from an economic standpoint,” Walla reported.

TRIPOLI — A renegade Libyan general who has launched an assault against Islamists has warned the country has become a “terrorist hub” and called for creation of an emergency Cabinet and holding legislative elections.

Khalifa Haftar is garnering growing support among elements of the military, politicians and diplomats in a country still riven by instability three years after the overthrow of dictator Muammar Qadhafi.

He even drew positive comments from the United States, where he spent 20 years in exile, though Washington has been quick to deny claims that it is backing him.

Claiming to speak in the name of the army, Haftar urged the country’s highest judicial authority Wednesday “to form a civilian presidential high council tasked with forming an emergency Cabinet and organising legislative elections”.

Once one of Qadhafi’s top generals, he returned to support the rebellion in 2011 and has emerged this year as the most serious challenge to the post-Qadhafi authorities.

“Libya has become a hub for terrorists who control power,” said Haftar, who has been branded an outlaw after his forces launched an assault Friday on the eastern city of Benghazi in which at least 79 people were killed.

Without explaining how this would come about, he said the presidential council he envisions would hand over power to an elected parliament.

He said the army had decided this after the Islamist-dominated General National Congress, whom some accuse of complicity with radical groups, had refused to step down “as demanded by the people”.

Successive governments have complained that the GNC’s claim to executive power as well as legislative authority has tied their hands in achieving security.

The bottom line for many is that it has failed to re-establish security in a country where militias representing tribal, regional and ideological interests wield much of the power to the detriment of the central government.

Election prospects uncertain 

Libya has called an election for June to replace the GNC and try to resolve the power struggle, but violence among militias threatens to scupper the vote.

US Ambassador Deborah Jones, speaking during a visit to the United States, said she “personally... would not come out and condemn” Haftar’s efforts in going after groups blacklisted by the US as terrorist organisations, despite Washington’s disapproval of the violence used to achieve that goal.

“He’s not declared that he wants to be the ruler; he’s not declared that he wants to be in charge of the state,” Jones said, adding the announcement of June elections may have been one of his desired results.

“What he has declared is that he wants the GNC to step aside because the GNC has thus far failed to take any action to respond to the unhappiness of many Libyans that it has outstayed its time.”

The electoral commission denied Thursday reports it had fixed June 25 as a date for the elections, which it said only the GNC can do, but that they were expected to be held some time in the second half of the month.

But with Haftar making his own demands on a political settlement, it is unclear what will happen.

He is backed by an elite army special forces unit in Benghazi, where Islamists are well entrenched; police brigades, officers at Tobruk air base, the powerful Al Baraassa tribe from the east, the chief of staff of Libya’s air defence units and the powerful ex-rebel brigade from the city of Zintan.

On the political front, Culture Minister Habib Lamine became the first member of the government to back him, saying the GNC, “which protects terrorists, no longer represents me”.

And Libya’s UN ambassador, Ibrahim Dabbachi, has also declared his support.

Despite the tensions, the situation was almost normal in Tripoli and Benghazi, where shops, banks and government offices were open.

However, explosions could be heard Thursday in the capital’s southern district of Salaheddine, where the Zintan brigades have several military installations.

While Haftar was gaining support, a Muslim group led by influential cleric Yusef Al Qaradawi, closed to the Muslim Brotherhood, urged Libyans Thursday to firmly oppose attempts to topple “legitimacy” in their country.

A statement by the Association of Muslim Scholars did not mention Haftar by name, urged Libyans to “unite” and stand “firmly against whoever tries to topple the legitimacy and sow sedition” in the country.

UNITED NATIONS — Russia and China on Thursday vetoed a UN Security Council resolution referring the Syrian crisis to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for investigation of possible war crimes, prompting angry responses from the proposal’s supporters who said the two countries are blocking justice and should be ashamed.

This is the fourth time the two countries have used their veto power as permanent council members to deflect action against the government of President Bashar Assad.

More than 60 countries signed on to support the French-drafted resolution in a dramatic move to demand a path to justice in the conflict, which has entered its fourth year.

The resolution would have referred Syria’s crisis to the world’s permanent war crimes tribunal without specifically targeting either the government or the opposition.

Before the vote, UN Deputy Secretary General Jan Eliasson pleaded with council members to find unity and “put an end to this long nightmare”. French Ambassador Gerard Araud warned, “A veto would cover up all crimes. It would be vetoing justice”.

But Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin walked into the council meeting with a smile, telling reporters, “I’m going to be boringly predictable.” He earlier had called the resolution a “publicity stunt” that would hurt efforts to find a political solution to a crisis that activists say has killed more than 160,000 and sent millions fleeing.

US Ambassador Samantha Power had her speech ready for the promised veto. “Sadly, because of the decision of the Russian Federation to back the Syrian regime no matter what it does, the Syrian people will not see justice,” she said. She added: “There should be accountability for those members of the council who prevented accountability.”

The draft resolution condemned the “widespread violation” of human rights and international humanitarian law by Syrian authorities and pro-government militias as well as abuses and violations by “non-state armed groups” during the last three years. It would have referred the conflict to the world’s permanent war crimes tribunal without targeting either side.

“It is to Russia and China’s shame that they have chosen to block efforts to achieve justice for the Syrian people,” said British Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant. “And it is disgraceful that they have yet again vetoed the Security Council’s efforts to take action in response to the appalling human rights violations being committed every day in Syria.”

Rwandan Ambassador Eugene Richard Gasana said: “This council cannot be inured to mass tragedies.”

The Security Council has been deeply divided over Syria, with Syrian allies Russia and China at odds with the US, its Western allies and other members who support the opposition.

Frustration has soared as the international community struggles to find a solution to the war, deliver humanitarian aid to almost 3.5 million Syrians in need and end impunity for horrific crimes. Attempts at peace talks are at a standstill, leading the joint UN-Arab league envoy who tried to broker them to resign.

“Russia and China’s vote for continued impunity is a disgrace of historic proportion,” said Richard Dicker, director of international justice at Human Rights Watch. The opposition Syrian Coalition called the vetoes a “disgrace”.

The dozens of co-sponsors to the latest failed Security Council resolution said they wanted to send “a strong political signal... that impunity for the most serious crimes under international law is unacceptable”.

Syria is not a party to the Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court, so the only way it can be referred to The Hague, Netherlands-based tribunal is by the Security Council.

Syria’s UN Ambassador Bashar Ja’afari sent a letter Tuesday asking countries not to support the resolution. A copy of the letter, obtained by The Associated Press, calls the proposal “biased” and an effort to “sabotage any chance of peaceful settlement of the Syrian crisis led by the Syrian people themselves”.

The Security Council has managed twice to reach agreement on a Syria resolution, once to get rid of its chemical weapons and earlier this year to demand access for the delivery of humanitarian aid. The resolution on aid has largely failed.

CAIRO — Just over half Egyptians approve of former army chief Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, an opinion poll showed on Thursday, just days ahead of a presidential election he is expected to win easily.

The poll, released on Thursday by the Washington-based Pew Research Centre, also found that 43 per cent opposed the army’s overthrow of elected president Mohamed Morsi last July, a move for which the military claimed national backing.

The results of the poll suggest a nation more divided than Sisi’s supporters would claim, and indicate that he may have to move quickly to shore up support in a country where popular unrest has contributed to the downfall of two presidents since 2011.

Sisi’s supporters see him as the kind of strong man needed to stabilise a country in crisis. But he is reviled by Islamists as the mastermind of a coup against a freely elected leader.

Since Morsi was ousted, thousands of Brotherhood supporters have been arrested and hundreds killed and Egypt has been hit by a wave of violence.

Independent opinion polling is hard to come by in Egypt.

Pew said it had conducted face-to-face interviews last month with 1,000 Egyptians. 

Sisi received a favourable rating from 54 per cent of those polled, while 45 per cent said they disapproved of him.  Fifty-four per cent backed last year’s military takeover.

Suggesting fatigue with the turbulent transition from Hosni Mubarak’s rule, Egyptians are now more likely to say that stable government is more important than having a democratic one, Pew said.

Sisi deposed Morsi following mass protests against his rule.

The poor and the youth are more supportive of Morsi’s ouster than the rich and people over 50 years old, the poll found.

In the security crackdown following Morsi’s removal, hundreds of supporters from the Muslim Brotherhood have been killed and thousands imprisoned.

Despite the ban on the Brotherhood, the poll showed that 38 per cent of Egyptians rate the group favourably. That’s down from 63 per cent in Pew’s survey a year earlier but much higher than suggested by Sisi, who said the people had rejected the group.

Hamdeen Sabahi, Sisi’s sole competitor in the presidential race, earned favourable reviews from 35 per cent of respondents, with 62 per cent expressing an unfavourable opinion of him.

The poll also revealed declining support for Egypt’s military and judiciary, powerful institutions which have been key players in the last three years of political turmoil.

Forty-five per cent said the military is having a negative influence on the country versus 56 per cent who think its impact is positive.

On the judiciary, 41 per cent believe it is having a positive impact, with 58 per cent saying its influence is negative.

Egypt’s courts drew international commendation this year after a judge sentenced more than 1,000 Brotherhood supporters to death in two cases criticised for a lack of due process.