Region

GAZA CITY — Israeli warplanes attacked several sites in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip Sunday, sources on both sides said, hours after a rocket from the Palestinian enclave hit Israel.

Palestinian medical and security sources said five sites in northern and southern Gaza were hit, including training camps for the Islamic Jihad and Ezzedine Al Qassam Brigades, Hamas military wing.

The Palestinians said there were no injuries in the attacks.

The Israeli army said in a statement it “retaliated” to “ongoing rocket attacks from Gaza”, targeting four “terror sites” in northern Gaza and a fifth in the south of the coastal territory.

On Saturday night, a rocket fired from Gaza hit an open area in southern Israel without causing damage or injuries, the army and police said.

According to data from the Israeli army, since the beginning of March 82 projectiles fired from Gaza hit Israel.

DUBAI — An Iranian suspected of helping kidnap a British-Iranian businessman in Dubai has been arrested in Thailand and deported to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), an official source familiar with the matter said on Sunday.

Ali Rehmat Assadi will stand trial in the UAE on charges of abducting Abbas Yazdi, who went missing in June, the source added. Yazdi’s wife, Atena, has told UAE media she feared he might have been kidnapped by Iranian intelligence officers.

Iran has denied any role in Yazdi’s disappearance.

UAE authorities said in January they had detained three Iranians suspected of being part of a group that had kidnapped Yazdi, a businessman who owns a general trading company in the Gulf Arab emirate.

The official source said on Sunday that Assadi, the subject of an Interpol “red notice” or international wanted persons alert requested by Dubai, was the fourth principal member of the group. There was no immediate word on why Assadi had been in Thailand.

The Iranian and British governments had been informed of Assadi’s arrest in line with diplomatic and consular regulations, the source said.

Britain’s Foreign Office said in August it was in touch with the Dubai and Iranian governments over the case of Yazdi, who was 44 years old at the time of his disappearance.

UAE newspaper 7Days has cited Yazdi’s wife as saying the trader and investor was a close childhood friend of the son of former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Britain is among Western nations at odds with Iran over its nuclear programme and other issues. It shut its embassy in Tehran after what it called “an attack by government-sponsored militias” on the mission in November 2011. Iran’s embassy in London was also closed.

British media had reported that, at the time of his disappearance, Yazdi was giving evidence by video link to an international arbitration tribunal in The Hague intended to settle a long-running commercial dispute involving United Arab Emirates-based Crescent Petroleum and the National Iranian Oil Company.

There is no suggestion that this involvement in the arbitration is connected to his disappearance, British media have said.

TUNIS — Three years after its uprising that inspired the Arab Spring revolutions, Tunisia is on its way to political stability with a new constitution and the promise of elections later this year.

At the same time the country’s caretaker government, led by Prime Minister Mehdi Jomaa, is conscious that some real social challenges lie ahead.

Jomaa, a former aerospace executive who worked in France, warned Tunisians last month that they must make “painful sacrifices” to revive the economy.

Tunisia’s budget deficit is set to grow to 8 per cent of the gross domestic product this year, mostly due to public worker wage costs and subsidies which are a hangover from former Tunisian autocrat Zine El Abidine Ben Ali ousted in 2011.

Jomaa’s challenge is how to cut government costs without triggering the kind of discontent that toppled Ben Ali, whose overthrow was caused partly by grievances over unemployment and high costs that are still very real for many Tunisians.

The technocrat government headed by Jomaa took over two months ago after an accord between the two main political poles — the Islamist Ennahda Party and its secular opponents — that ended a political standoff and cleared the path for elections.

Jomaa last month announced external borrowing needs for this year would be $8 billion — nearly double the initial estimate in the government’s budget plan.

Just last year, an attempt to increase a vehicle tax showed how sensitive subsidy and financial austerity reforms can be. The announcement triggered rioting and clashes that forced the previous government to reverse its decision.

“We know very well there is social tension in the country, but we should move forward with reforms to restore the balance of the Tunisian economy,” Finance Minister Hakim Ben Hamouda told journalists last week after meeting with an IMF delegation.

Sensitive to past tensions, the minister avoided setting a date to raise fuel prices and tackling other subsidies that balloon the state’s spending bill but help poorer Tunisians.

With few hydrocarbon reserves unlike its rich neighbours Algeria and Libya, Tunisia relies heavily on foreign tourism and remittances from Tunisians living overseas.

Political stability has opened up the door to credits and aid like $500 million in US loan guarantees and financing from the IMF, World Bank, European Union and the Japanese government — a total of $3.2 billion in packages.

Steady, painful measures

But Jomaa’s government is under pressure from international lenders to take hard steps to curb public expenditure — fuel subsidies, public wage bills and transport subsidies, all politically sensitive.

One government source told Reuters that a 6 per cent increase in domestic fuel prices may be introduced in July this year.

Industry Minister Kamel Ben Nasr has said planned fuel price hikes will provide the government with an extra 350 million dinars or around $220 million this year.

He told the state news agency TAP that Tunisia’s government is looking to reduce energy subsidies from 3.6 billion Tunisian dinars ($2.26 billion) in 2013 to 2.5 billion Tunisian dinars ($1.57 billion) this year.

This year the government has already cut energy subsidies for cement companies by 50 per cent and will cut them by 100 per cent next June.

It also plans to reduce fuel subsidies for sectors including food industry and textiles, which will bring 420 million Tunisian dinars ($263.83 million) to state coffers.

Public transport prices will rise as part of plans to offset losses of public transport companies from fuel increases.

But with Tunisia preparing for elections later this year — its first ballot under a new constitution and its second only free election — those reforms may carry political cost.

“It is a delicate balance. Tunisian purchasing power worsened remarkably due to the increasing of inflation, but the government is forced to make immediate reforms,” said Ezzidine Saidaane, a local economic expert.

Saidanne expects Jomaa’s government will look to cut subsidies on food items, fuel prices and cooking gas, but it will not include bread prices, which would be too sensitive. In 1984, dozens were killed in rioting over a bread price hike.

Preparing to ward off potential protests over price increases, last week the government began negotiations with Tunisia’s powerful labour union federation the UGTT.

But in a country where many still complain they have yet to see the economic benefits of their “Jasmine Revolution”, getting those reforms done may come at a price.

“We can’t accept an increase in gasoline or food prices,” said Salem Rbihi, a truck driver in Tunis. “Beware of our anger, I tell the government, because a second revolution will be on its way, and it will be harder, a revolution of the hungry.”

ASWAN, Egypt — Clashes between an Arab clan and a Nubian family resumed Sunday in Egypt’s south, killing two people and wounding four, health officials said, leaving the tourist city of Aswan on the edge despite a high-profile government effort to end the bloodshed.

The bloody clashes, which began Friday, so far have claimed 25 lives. Gunfights spread beyond a residential area to outside the local hospital and morgue near the city’s centre, a few kilometres from the tourist hotels and its commercial areas.

An angry mob from the Arab clan torched more new Nubian homes Sunday after collecting the bodies of their relatives to bury. The attack pushed armed Nubians into the streets, sparking pitched gunbattles. Police struggled to break up the mob outside the hospital. A military helicopter flew over the area.

Locals, meanwhile, complained of the inability of security forces to halt the vendetta violence. Nubians burned horse carts belonging to the Arab clan in protest.

A Nubian resident reached by telephone said gunmen from the Arab Haleyla clan attacked his neighbourhood Al Sayel Al Rifi, on the edge of Aswan.

“We are dying. They are attacking us,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he feared for his life. “There is no government and no police in the area.”

The renewed clashes came shortly after the local governor visited the area. An Associated Press photographer there said firefights broke out nearby, including outside the hospital and morgue. An armoured vehicle was stationed outside the neighbourhood of narrow dirt roads. Authorities closed local schools and a university over fears of renewed violence.

In the city’s centre, shops and bakeries were closed. Trains sat at the edge of town, trying to wait out the violence.

The bloody feud began after a fight last week between school students drew in adults, sparking the clashes that turned deadly Friday. Police said the fight was over the harassment of a girl. Witnesses said offensive graffiti written on the school walls fuelled the violence.

Security officials say members of the Arab clan are involved in arms and drugs smuggling and are well-armed. The fight took on a political overtone when the impoverished Arab clan accused the ethnic Nubians of supporting the military, while the Nubians say the Arabs back ousted Islamist President Mohamed Morsi and are protected by officials loyal to longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

Local leaders say police were mostly absent from the streets, causing the violence to spread. The governor appealed for the military to deploy troops in the area. On Sunday, a military official said more soldiers were heading to Aswan.

Egypt’s Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab and his interior minister visited Aswan on Saturday to meet local leaders to end the dispute. Mahlab promised a fact-finding mission to investigate whow the violence erupted. But vendettas, particularly over perceived violations of honour, are all too common in southern Egypt.

On Sunday, local government official Mohammed Mostafa told private television station CBC that officials are considering emergency measures and possibly a curfew in the area.

The violence in Egypt’s south adds to unrest plaguing the country since Morsi’s overthrow in July. Protests by Morsi supporters often devolve into violence and militants have launched a wave of attacks since his ouster. It also comes before May’s presidential election, in which the former powerful military chief Abdel-Fattah Al Sisi, who removed Morsi, will run for office and is widely expected to win.

On Sunday, former presidential hopeful Mortada Mansour announced he would run for president. Mortada, widely considered a Mubarak loyalist and the head of renowned Egyptian football club Zamalek, was disqualified on a technicality before the 2012 poll that Morsi won.

Speaking to journalists, Mansour said he would ban all protests and strikes nationwide for one year if elected. He did not offer details on how he planned to do it.

Leftist politician Hamdeen Sabahi is also running in the election, scheduled for May 26 and 27.

BAGHDAD — An explosion at a booby-trapped house, ensuing clashes with militants and a roadside bombing killed 18 soldiers Saturday in Iraq, authorities said.

The blast happened Saturday afternoon when a group of soldiers searched a farmhouse in Garma, an area near the city of Fallujah, 65 kilometres west of the capital, police said. Minutes later, police said gunmen opened fire on arriving soldiers.

The blast wounded 24 soldiers and levelled the home, officials said.

In other attacks, police said a roadside bomb targeting a military convoy killed three soldiers and wounded seven just north of Baghdad.

Medical officials at two Baghdad hospitals confirmed the casualties. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they weren’t authorised to speak to journalists.

Al Qaeda-inspired militants took control of Fallujah and parts of Ramadi in late December, taking advantage of a months-long surge in Sunni discontent against Maliki’s government. The takeover was sparked when security forces arrested a Sunni lawmaker sought on terrorism charges, then dismantled a year-old Sunni anti-government protest camp. They later pulled out of the area to calm angry residents, allowing the militants to take control.

Violence has been escalating in Iraq. Last year, Iraq saw its highest death toll since the worst of the country’s sectarian bloodletting began to subside in 2007, according to United Nations figures.

The country will hold its first parliamentary elections since the withdrawal of US troops on April 30.

BEIRUT — Mortar shells slammed into several areas of the Syrian capital on Saturday, with one hitting near the Russian embassy without causing injuries, a monitoring group said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also said regime troops battled rebels in Eastern Ghouta near the capital, while opposition forces tightened their siege of a military base in Idlib province of northwest Syria.

The observatory reported mortar fire near the Ummayad area and the Russian embassy in the upscale Mazraa neighbourhood of Damascus, with no casualties reported.

The Britain-based group also reported mortar fire in the southern Shughur district and nearby Fahama, where a number of security buildings are located.

Syria’s state news agency SANA reported 17 mortar round attacks across the city, causing damage to a hospital as well as several homes and cars.

Mortar shell attacks on the capital on Friday injured 22 people, it said, without giving a toll for Saturday.

The escalation came as government troops stepped up a campaign against rebels on the outskirts of Damascus, particularly Eastern Ghouta which has been under regime siege for months.

The observatory said rebels and regime troops were fighting in the town of Mleiha in the Eastern Ghouta area.

On Friday, regime warplanes carried out air strikes as soldiers tried to storm the town.

The fighting left 17 rebels dead on Friday, a day after 22 opposition fighters were killed in and around Mleiha, according to the observatory.

In nearby Jaramana, SANA reported “terrorist mortar shell attacks” injured 13 people on Saturday.

The army siege of Eastern Ghouta has led to food and medical shortages, which the observatory said had caused the death of a child on Friday.

In Idlib, the observatory reported fighting between regime and rebel forces in the area around Babuleen, which opposition forces captured on Friday.

Their advance has allowed rebel forces to tighten a siege of the Wadi Deif army base, one of the regime’s last significant posts in Idlib.

In northern Aleppo city, the observatory reported regime air raids with explosives-packed “barrel bombs,” a day after 18 people were killed in air raids on the east of the city.

WASHINGTON — US Secretary of State John Kerry's high-stakes gamble that he could finally achieve the dream of generations and bring peace to the Middle East seems to be collapsing as easily as a house of cards.

Despite a dozen visits to Israel and the West Bank since he assumed office 14 months ago and many more late-night meetings with his recalcitrant partners in capitals around the world, it appears after all that he may have been trumped.

While there was always certain hubris to his mission impossible, the political dangers facing wily Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu conspired last week with decades of pent-up anger among Palestinians to throw up the most serious crisis to the fragile peace negotiations since they resumed in July.

Yet at the start of Kerry’s latest overseas trip there was little to suggest he would return to the US 13 days later with his peace effort in trouble and a blunt admission that he and the White House needed to “evaluate” the next steps.

Indeed, Kerry had not visited Israel in three months in a tacit recognition that each trip raised expectations and usually triggered some kind of provocative move from one of the parties.

His monthly commute between Washington and Jerusalem had also begun to raise eyebrows with little tangible progress to show and an April 29 deadline looming.

Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon had called Kerry “obsessional” and “messianic” and at home some critics said he was “delusional”.

‘Reality-check time’ 

All roads to Jerusalem are littered with past failed peace negotiations which have wound through places such as Madrid, Oslo and Camp David.

But this time Kerry felt there was something within his grasp, a deal under which both sides would agree to keep talking into next year, as some of the nitty-gritty contours of a pact began to emerge.

He deeply believes that a comprehensive peace treaty is the only way to secure Israel’s future and build a better tomorrow for Palestinians, with both peoples having suffered too much.

So the 70-year-old former senator, the son of a diplomat, stepped willingly into the quagmire that is Middle East peace.

He has invested huge amounts of energy, setting a punishing schedule which would defeat many half his age and remaining eternally optimistic and unflappable even after hours locked in tense negotiations.

It was sobering, therefore, on Friday as he prepared to head home — after the Israelis cancelled the last prisoner releases and the Palestinians said they would seek statehood at 15 agencies at the UN — that in a rare moment of frankness and frustration he admitted “it’s reality-check time”.

“There are limits to the amount of time and effort that the United States can spend if the parties themselves are unwilling to take constructive steps in order to be able to move forward,” Kerry told reporters in Rabat.

With the war in Syria, Iran’s nuclear programme and the crisis in Ukraine, “we have an enormous amount on the plate”, he said.

No one walking away yet 

Exactly what Kerry’s next move will be remains uncertain, and he has insisted that the negotiators remain at work on the ground.

But it’s more than possible that he’ll give both sides a little space to figure out what they want to do, as he huddles with the White House.

There will be another three-way meeting likely on Sunday in the region to assess the way forward, officials close to the talks say, and the US insists the negotiations are not dead.

Only a few months ago, Kerry’s stock had been rising with his brand of face-to-face diplomacy winning praise.

He had helped kick-start the peace talks after a three-year gap, sealed a deal with Russia to rid Syria of its chemical weapons, and negotiations with Iran over its suspect nuclear programme had made the first progress in a decade.

Now critics will be sharpening their pencils in glee.

But he has three more years in office, and almost boundless patience.

The White House Friday defended the “tireless” Kerry, saying his long-odds Middle East peace bid had not been a waste of time because the stakes were so high.

But Josh Earnest, a White House spokesman, admitted that the chances of Kerry succeeding when he embarked on his Middle East peace quest a year ago had never been high.

“I don’t know if people in Las Vegas are betting on these kinds of things these days, but I’m sure the odds... would be very long.”

Earnest refused to say that Washington had given up.

“That presupposes an additional step here, that at some point somebody throws up their hands and walks away. Secretary Kerry’s certainly not willing to do that.”

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israeli and Palestinian negotiators will meet jointly Sunday with US envoy Martin Indyk, as attempts continue to prevent the collapse of peace negotiations, officials close to the talks said.

The first three-way meeting since Wednesday comes as Washington reviews its push for a peace deal after a spiral of tit-for-tat moves by Israel and the Palestinians took hard-won negotiations close to collapse.

US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Friday there were "limits" to the time and energy Washington could devote to the process, adding it was time for a "reality check".

The same day Indyk met separately with chief Israeli negotiator, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, and her Palestinian counterpart, Saeb Erekat.

Kerry, who has engaged in more than a year of intensive shuttle diplomacy, had spoken to both the Israeli and Palestinian leaders Thursday in a bid to bring the two sides back from the brink.

But Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas rejected his appeals to withdraw applications he signed on Tuesday to adhere to 15 international treaties, a Palestinian official said.

And Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ignored appeals to refrain from “unhelpful” tit-for-tat moves, asking officials to draw up a range of tough reprisals, Israeli media reported.

Israel says Abbas’ move is a clear breach of promises made by the Palestinians when peace talks were
relaunched in July to pursue no other avenues for recognition of their promised state.

The Palestinians say Israel had already reneged on its own commitments by failing to release a fourth and final batch of Arab prisoners last weekend, and that the treaty move was their response.

RABAT — Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday pledged US support for Moroccan reforms and efforts to promote regional stability, while also highlighting the social challenges faced by Rabat.

“Morocco is playing an important leadership role, and the United States will stand by this relationship every step of the way,” he said at the end of a North African tour.

“The 18 different agreements that Morocco signed with Mali show that Morocco is driving greater security and greater prosperity in the region,” he added, speaking in Rabat alongside his Moroccan counterpart, Salaheddine Mezouar.

Those accords, signed in February during a tour of West Africa by King Mohammed VI, included an agreement to train hundreds of imams in Morocco.

Rabat is considered an important US ally in combatting radical Islamist ideology, which has enjoyed a revival elsewhere in North Africa since the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings that swept away decades-old dictatorships.

Morocco’s agreement to train imams from nearby countries afflicted by jihadist violence, such as Mali, Tunisia and Libya, forms part of its strategy of promoting a more tolerant version of Islam.

The top US diplomat met Moroccan Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkirane after flying to Rabat from Algiers on Thursday evening.

Following his talks with Mezouar on Friday, he met King Mohammed VI in Casablanca before leaving for Washington.

Kerry cited joint military exercises conducted by Morocco’s armed forces and US Africa Command (AFRICOM) — which 18 nations took part in and which concluded on Friday in the southern city of Agadir — as an aspect of the two countries’ strategic cooperation.

Despite their ties, Rabat cancelled the annual military exercises, known as African Lion, during a diplomatic spat last year caused by Washington’s surprise proposal to task the UN peacekeeping force in the disputed Western Sahara with human rights monitoring.

Morocco controls most of the former Spanish colony which it considers an integral part of its territory, but has increasingly come under fire over its human rights record there, including by influential US activists.

Rabat fiercely resisted Washington’s move, lobbying aggressively to have the peacekeeping proposal dropped by the Security Council, which eventually happened.

In his talks with Mezouar, Kerry welcomed “recent actions and initiatives taken by Morocco” to promote human rights in the territory, noting the growing role of the official National Human Rights Council, according to a joint statement.

‘Enormous challenges’ 

Following last year’s rift, King Mohammed VI flew to Washington in November to meet US President Barack Obama, who praised him for deepening democracy, and promoting economic progress and human development.

Obama also welcomed the king’s commitment to abolishing the military trial of civilians, which the Moroccan government finally agreed to do in a bill approved last month.

Kerry said the United States was “deeply committed” to supporting the “major reforms” already undertaken by the king, and symbolised by the new constitution he introduced in 2011 in response to nationwide protests.

But he warned of the “enormous” social challenges facing Morocco and other countries across the region.

He cited the 2011 uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt as examples of the dangers facing governments that fail to provide opportunities for their burgeoning youth population.

“Sixty per cent of the country is under 30 years old,” Kerry said.

“The challenge of any government under those circumstances is to be able to provide jobs and opportunities for its young people. And that challenge is enormous.”

Morocco’s unemployment rate is officially pegged at around 10 per cent.

But youth unemployment is as high as 30 per cent according to the World Bank, and jobless graduates protest regularly in the capital, while companies based in Morocco complain about the shortage of skilled workers.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Friday praised Tunisia as the poster child of the Arab Spring, as Washington unveiled half a billion dollars in loan guarantees during the visit of Prime Minister Mehdi Jomaa.

Obama said that Tunisia, where the Arab Spring began when fruit vendor Mohammed Bouazizi set himself alight in 2010, had witnessed the kind of progress sadly lacking in some other nations in the region.

“What we’ve seen in the years since is that some countries have had difficulty in this transition,” Obama said as he welcomed Jomaa to the Oval Office.

“The good news is that in Tunisia, where it began, we have seen the kind of progress that I think all of us had been hoping for, although it’s been full of challenges.”

Jomaa, speaking at first in French, said that his nation was on the cusp of a new economic transition.

“We are counting on our own endeavours, but we are also counting on cooperation from friendly countries, in particular the United States,” to guarantee jobs, prosperity and liberty for younger Tunisians.

“I would call what is happening in Tunisia a ‘start up’,” he said.

In English, in a clear message to foreign partners and investors, Jomaa said: “just believe in it, just take the risk, invest in it.”

Washington on Friday formalised a $500 million loan guarantee to help Tunisia access international capital markets.

The United States had offered a first guarantee of $485 million two years ago.

Washington also offered $400 million in direct financial aid in 2011.

The Oval Office visit was the highlight of Jomaa’s programme in Washington, which saw the prime minister carry his message of economic rejuvenation to Capitol Hill, the State Department, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

Jomaa was sworn in to head a new government of independents tasked with preparing for fresh elections in January, taking over from an Islamist-led administration after a political crisis.