Region

CAIRO — An Egyptian appeals court on Monday upheld the jailing of three leading figures of the 2011 pro-democracy uprising, tightening a crackdown on secular activists opposed to the army-backed government.

Critics see their case as an attempt to stifle the kind of political street activism common since the uprising that ousted autocrat Hosni Mubarak three years ago as Egypt prepares for presidential election next month.

A court handed down three-year sentences to the three liberal activists, Ahmed Maher, Ahmed Douma and Mohamed Adel, last December for protesting without permission and assaulting the police.

The verdict was the first under a new law that requires police permission for demonstrations. The case stemmed from protests called in defiance of the law. The European Union and the United States had urged Egypt to reconsider the verdict.

Popular leftist politician and presidential hopeful Hamdeen Sabahi condemned the sentences and urged Interim President Adli Mansour to grant the activists a presidential pardon. The liberal Al Dostour Party made the same request.

The three men appeared in court on Monday inside a metal cage wearing blue prison suits and chanting: “Down, down with army rule, our country will always be free!”

They have one final chance to appeal to a higher court but analysts see little hope of the verdict being overturned.

“I was not expecting this sentence at all. I was certainly expecting it to be overturned. That is very bad news,” said Dostour Party spokesman Khaled Dawoud.

“This will definitely send a very negative signal to all the young people who supported the [2011] January revolution.”

Already pursuing a crackdown against the Muslim Brotherhood movement of deposed president Mohamed Morsi, the army-led authorities have arrested a number of secular activists in recent months for breaches of the new protest law.

SIDON, Lebanon — At least eight people were killed in fighting on Monday between Palestinian factions in a refugee camp near Lebanon’s southern city of Sidon, Lebanese and Palestinian medical sources said.

Local sources said the clashes broke out between fighters from the Brigades of Return, a group orginally linked to Palestinian President Mohammad Abbas’ Fateh group, and a rival organisation.

The leader of the Brigades of Return, Ahmed Rasheed, and two of his brothers were killed in the clashes in the Mieh Mieh camp, the sources said.

It was not immediately clear what triggered the fighting, in which at least 10 people were wounded.

Fateh and a range of Islamist factions compete for influence in Mieh Mieh and the nearby Ain Al Hilweh, two of the 12 Palestinian camps in Lebanon that are home to more than 200,000 registered refugees.

Tensions in the camps and in Lebanon as a whole have been exacerbated by the conflict in neighbouring Syria. More than a million Syrian refugees have poured into Lebanon along with many Palestinians, displaced by three years of war.

BEIRUT — Lebanese security officials say clashes in a Palestinian refugee camp near the southern city of Sidon have killed seven people, including the commander of an armed group.

The officials say at least 10 others were wounded in Monday's fighting in Mieh Mieh, which broke out between supporters of a former commander of the mainstream Palestinian group Fatah and members of a rival armed group, Ansarullah.

The officials say heavy machineguns and rocket propelled grenades were used in the fighting. They spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

Fighting between rival groups is common across Lebanon's 12 Palestinian refugee camps.

The army blocked all roads leading to the camp later Monday in an effort to contain the fighting.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened the Palestinians with unilateral reprisals on Sunday, as the two sides met for last-ditch talks with a US envoy on salvaging the peace process.

Israel will retaliate if the Palestinians go ahead with applications to adhere to 15 international treaties, the rightwing premier said.

“These will only make a peace agreement more distant,” he said of the applications which the Palestinians submitted last Tuesday.

“Any unilateral moves they take will be answered by unilateral moves at our end,” he told a weekly Cabinet meeting.

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators went into talks with US envoy Martin Indyk in the afternoon, a Palestinian source said.

He stressed there would be no change in the Palestinian position if Israel continued to refuse to free Arab prisoners.

The crisis erupted after Israel last week refused to release the fourth and last batch of Palestinian prisoners in line with an agreement struck with the Palestinians and the United States.

In a tit-for-tat move, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas signed the applications, triggering Israel’s wrath.

Israel says Abbas’ move was a clear breach of the commitments the Palestinians gave when the talks were relaunched last July to pursue no other avenues for recognition of their promised state.

US Secretary of State John Kerry, the driving force behind the talks, warned on Friday that there were “limits” to the time and energy that Washington could devote to the peace process.

But Abbas and Netanyahu have both ignored Kerry’s pleas to step back from the brink, and Israel’s prime minister asked for a range of retaliatory options to be drawn up.

The Israeli parliament is due to meet to discuss the crisis on Monday.

“The Palestinians have much to lose from a unilateral move. They will get a state only through direct negotiations and not through empty declarations or unilateral moves,” Netanyahu said on Sunday.

“We are prepared to continue talks, but not at any price.”

‘Facts on the ground’ 

Israel’s chief negotiator Tzipi Livni suggested that Washington scale down its “intensive” involvement, saying direct talks between Abbas and Netanyahu were needed.

“We need bilateral meetings between us, including between the prime minister and Abu Mazen [Abbas],” she said on television on Saturday.

A Palestinian source said Livni had already made the suggestion at a meeting two days earlier with her Palestinian counterpart Saeb Erekat, but that no such encounter is on the agenda.

Netanyahu angrily noted that the Palestinian applications to the international institutions were filed before planned talks aimed at extending negotiations beyond their April 29 deadline.

But Palestinian official Yasser Abed Rabbo said Israel was responsible for the crisis and “wants to extend the negotiations forever”.

“Israel always implements unilateral steps,” he told Voice of Palestine radio.

Israel’s hardline Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman called for early elections in case the prisoners are released.

“The government has three choices: free the prisoners even if the Palestinians have not kept their promises, form a new governing coalition or organise elections. The last option is preferable,” he said at a conference in New York, quoted on Israel Radio.

Officials from Netanyahu down have been cautious not to specify the exact nature of punitive measures Israel might take against the Palestinians.

But Haaretz newspaper said Netanyahu and Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon have asked the military administration in the West Bank to draw up a list of possible punitive measures.

Other reports said Israel could prevent Wataniya Palestine Telecom from laying down cellphone infrastructure in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, and halt Palestinians from building in parts of the West Bank.

Economy Minister Naftali Bennett, an outspoken hardliner who opposes a Palestinian state, said certain Palestinian leaders should be tried by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes.

Shurat Hadin, a non-governmental organisation that backs the families of Israelis killed in Palestinian attacks, said it would petition the ICC.

Human Rights Watch, meanwhile, said Washington should back the Palestinian bid to join international treaties, a step which “could help create a better environment for peace negotiations”.

DAMASCUS — At least 29 rebels died in a blast Sunday in the central Syrian city of Homs as they primed a car bomb for an attack, a monitoring group said.

In the capital, meanwhile, two people were killed when mortar fire struck the Damascus Opera House, state media reported.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said at least 29 people were killed, most or all of them believed to be rebels, in the besieged Old City of Homs when a car bomb exploded.

“The death toll is likely to rise because there are dozens of people missing and body parts in the area of the blast,” the Britain-based group said.

State news agency SANA also reported the blast, saying a car had exploded while being loaded with explosives.

One activist network, the Syrian Revolution General Commission, said the blast was the result of a rocket landing on an ammunition depot in the area. The claim could not be independently confirmed.

The blast took place on the outskirts of the Old City of Homs, which is under rebel control.

Some 1,400 civilians were able to leave the area this year under UN supervision, but an estimated 1,500 people remain until the army siege.

In the capital, SANA said two people were killed in mortar fire by rebel fighters.

“Two people were killed and five wounded by a mortar round that hit the Damascus Opera House” near key government and military buildings on Umayyad Square, it said.

The attack damaged the Opera House, which was inaugurated by President Bashar Assad in 2004.

Mortar fire also wounded 13 people in several neighbourhoods of the capital.

On Saturday, mortar rounds struck near the Russian embassy, said the observatory.

The rebel fire on Damascus comes as government forces step up a campaign to crush insurgents in its eastern suburbs, it said.

On Sunday, the observatory said five civilians, including three children, were killed in regime air strikes on the town of Douma northeast of Damascus.

And additional air raids as well as fierce fighting was reported in Mleiha, southwest of the capital in Damascus province.

In northern Aleppo province, the observatory said two people, including a child, were killed in raids using explosive-packed barrels bombs, an army tactic that has caused dozens of deaths.

BAGHDAD — Gunmen near Iraq’s capital kidnapped and later shot to death six men, the deadliest of a series of attacks Sunday that killed at least 15 people across the country, authorities said.

The gunmen broke into the homes at dawn Sunday in the town of Latifiyah, a mainly Sunni town 30 kilometres south of Baghdad, a police officer said. Authorities later found the bodies, all with gunshot wounds to the head, in remote, rural farmland near the capital, the officer said.

No one immediately claimed the slayings and the motive was unclear. 

The slayings come amid escalating sectarian violence in Iraq, which last year saw its highest death toll since the worst of such killings in 2007, according to the United Nations. 

In November, 18 Sunnis kidnapped by men in Iraqi army uniforms were found dead, just days after police found the corpses of 13 men all killed by close-range gunshots to the head.

Since late December, Iraq’s minority Sunnis has been protesting what they perceive as discrimination and tough anti-terrorism measures against them by the Shiite-led government. 

Now some call for Shiites to create armed “popular committees”, attached in some form to the regular security forces. 

The idea raises the specter of some of Iraq’s darkest years following the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-led regime, paving the way for long-repressed majority Shiites to seize power.

The ongoing violence also comes as the country prepares for its first parliamentary elections since the withdrawal of US troops on April 30

Meanwhile Sunday, a suicide bomber rammed a fuel tanker into a police headquarters in the northern city of Tikrit, killing three police officers and wounding 13, another police officer said. Tikrit is 130 kilometers north of Baghdad.

In Maidan, a town about 20 kilometres  southeast of Baghdad, a bomb in a commercial area killed two civilians and wounded five, police said. Shortly before sunset, a bomb exploded in a commercial street in Baghdad’s northeastern suburb of Husseiniyah, killing four people and wounding 11, police said.

Three medical officials confirmed the casualty figures for the attacks. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to release the information to journalists.

ALGIERS — Algerian police beefed up security and arrested about 20 people on Sunday at a campaign rally for President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s re-election, a day after violence ended a similar gathering.

Dozens of students hostile to the ailing 77-year-old’s bid for a fourth term tried to demonstrate ahead of the rally in Tizi-Ouzou, in the mainly Berber region of Kabylie east of the capital.

“Free and democratic Algeria!” and “Boutef, pull out!” they chanted of the veteran leader, before police arrested about 20 people, journalists said.

Abdelmalek Sellal, the former prime minister who is Bouteflika’s election campaign manager, then arrived to address the gathering of hundreds of supporters.

Bouteflika is widely expected to clinch another term in the April 17 election, but without taking to the campaign trail because of concerns about his health.

Tensions over his re-election bid turned violent on Saturday when protesters stormed a campaign rally in Bejaia, also in the Kabylie region, and torched portraits of him before attacking a television crew covering the event.

In 2001, 126 people died in Kabylie during violent clashes between the security forces and Berbers protesting about discrimination, poor living and working conditions and alleged government corruption.

Bouteflika’s main challenger, Ali Benflis, condemned the violence which prompted Sellal to call off Saturday’s rally.

“I regret that this campaign is taking place in a climate of tensions,” Benflis said in a statement issued Sunday at a rally in his hometown of Batna, in another mainly Berber region, the Aures.

“I have to be honest and say nothing has been done to ensure it is taking place in a calm and serene” atmosphere, he was quoted as saying.

“I call for the respect of freedom of expression in all circumstances, a value which is the cornerstone of my policy of national renewal.”

Bouteflika’s campaign headquarters blamed the violence on the Barakat movement (Arabic for “That’s Enough”) formed to oppose his candidacy.

Sellal and other Bouteflika aides have been doing the leg work for the president, who is too frail to campaign after a mini stroke last year confined him to hospital in Paris for three months.

The defence ministry, meanwhile, said the army killed an armed Islamist, and seized weapons and equipment in a raid Saturday on hideouts in Jijel area of Kabylie.

DUBAI — The navies of Iran and Pakistan plan to hold joint military exercises in the eastern part of the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, Iran’s state news agency said on Sunday.

Several Pakistani naval vessels, including a warship and a submarine, docked at the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas on Saturday, the IRNA news agency said, citing an Iranian navy statement.

“The most important activity of the Pakistani fleet during its stay in Bandar Abbas is to launch joint manoeuvres with selected units of Iran’s navy in eastern waters of the Hormuz Strait,” Iranian Rear Admiral Shahram Irani told IRNA.

Iran’s state news agency said the joint naval exercises were aimed at promoting military cooperation between Tehran and Islamabad but gave no details of the plans.

More than a third of the world’s seaborne oil exports pass through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow corridor between Iran and Oman. Western navies, led by the United States, patrol the region to ensure their safe passage.

A crude oil tanker was shot at last week as it sailed through the Strait of Hormuz, although such incidents are rare.

BAGHDAD — Authorities launched a massive polio vaccination campaign on Sunday in Iraq, Syria and Egypt after health officials found a suspected case of the virus in a young boy near Baghdad.

The five-day campaign aims to vaccinate more than 20 million children, including 5.6 million in Iraq alone, UNICEF said, with confirmed cases in conflict-hit neighbouring Syria having sparked a region-wide alert.

“Polio eradication is a global priority,” UNICEF’s representative in Iraq Marzio Babille said in a statement.

“I appeal to the people of Iraq to join hands in ensuring every child under the age of five is vaccinated during the upcoming April polio campaign, regardless of how many doses they’ve received previously.”

Last month, Iraq’s health ministry said it found a case of polio in a young boy in Bab al-Sham, near Baghdad, the country’s first such case in 14 years.

Health ministry spokesman Ziad Tariq said at the time that officials believed the case originated in Syria, which shares a long border with Iraq’s restive western province of Anbar.

In early January, anti-government fighters took control of all of Anbar city of Fallujah and parts of the provincial capital Ramadi, some of which they still hold.

A total of 27 children have been paralysed by polio in Syria through the end of March, according to the UN, including 18 in Deir Ezzor, the Syrian province across the border from Anbar.

Lebanon and Turkey will join the regional polio vaccination campaign on April 10 and April 18 respectively, according to UNICEF.

BENGHAZI — Public and private sector staff including oil workers went on strike in the Libyan Port city of Benghazi on Sunday, protesting against worsening security and demanding the resignation of parliament whose mandate has expired.

Traffic at Benghazi’s international airport was halted by the strike. As a result, a Turkish Airlines plane was turned away, according to state media.

Oil companies, universities and schools also closed, heeding a call by political groups for a day of “civil disobedience” to demand better security, witnesses said.

Government forces have failed to improve security in the port city where car bombs, and killings of police and army officers have become part of daily life.

Most foreigners left Benghazi after the US ambassador to Libya was killed in an Islamist assault on the US consulate in September 2012.

The strikers want Libya’s General National Congress (GNC) assembly to resign immediately. The GNC’s initial mandate mandate expired on February 7 but a date as yet to be set for a new election.

Many Libyans blame infighting parliamentarians for the growing turmoil and anarchy that have persisted in Libya since Muammar Qadhafi was toppled in a NATO-backed uprising in 2011.