Region

MOGADISHU — A car bomb killed at least 12 people, including Somali soldiers and civilians, on Monday in a city that was once a stronghold of Al Qaeda-linked rebels, police said.

Baidoa — about 250km southwest of Mogadishu — was the second most important city for Al Shabaab insurgents after the port of Kismayu, before they were routed by Ethiopian troops in 2012.

“A car bomb killed 12 people including government forces and residents,” Captain Nur Aden, a police officer, told Reuters by telephone from Baidoa.

“The car bomb was targeted at the former governor of Bay region who was by then in a local bank opposite the cafeteria. His cars and others which were also parked there were destroyed. Some of his bodyguards were seriously injured. Most of the people who died were residents who were in the cafe.”

There was no immediate claim for the attack. Al Shabaab could not be reached for comment.

WASHINGTON — A second case of the dangerous Middle East respiratory virus, called MERS, has been found in the United States, health authorities said Monday.

The patient is a healthcare worker who resides and works in Saudi Arabia, who travelled by plane May 1 from Jeddah to London, England, then to Boston, Atlanta, and Orlando.

The patient, whose name and gender were not released, is in a Florida hospital and is “doing well”, officials from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention told reporters.

The patient was in Florida to visit family and was admitted to a hospital on May 8.

Out of “an abundance of caution”, the CDC said it is attempting to contact over 500 passengers on the traveller’s flights to see if anyone is ill, but it is unclear whether the patient was contagious during the journey.

The United States announced its first case last week, in a healthcare worker who had travelled to Riyadh at the end of April.

He was released from the hospital on Saturday and is considered “fully recovered”, the Indiana Health Department said.

Middle East Respiratory Virus, or MERS, causes fever, cough and shortness of breath, and can be lethal particularly among older people and those with pre-existing health problems.

Some 30 per cent of the several hundred people infected with it have died, according to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

The virus first emerged in Saudi Arabia in 2012 and recent research has suggested it may originate in camels.

According to the World Health Organisation’s latest count on May 9, MERS has killed 145 people out of 536 lab-confirmed infections.

The vast majority of cases have been in Saudi Arabia, but MERS has also been found in 16 other countries. Most cases involved people who had recently travelled to Saudi Arabia.

The World Health Organisation is planning to hold an emergency meeting Tuesday to discuss the MERS crisis.

KUWAIT — Kuwait’s justice and Islamic affairs minister has resigned, state news agency KUNA said on Monday, after a senior US official said he had called for jihad in Syria and promoted the funding of terrorism.

Last month, Nayef Al Ajmi rejected the comments made in March by US Treasury Undersecretary David Cohen as “groundless and baseless”, and was backed by the Cabinet.

On Monday, the Cabinet said the Gulf state’s ruling emir had accepted Ajmi’s resignation. No reason was given for the move and it was not immediately possible to reach Ajmi for comment. Kuwaiti media reported last month that he had offered to resign before, citing his health.

“The Cabinet expresses its sincere appreciation for the efforts of the minister and thanks him for his ministerial work and good achievements,” KUNA said in an SMS alert.

Earlier on Monday news service Al Rai quoted him as thanking the emir for accepting his resignation.

Kuwait has been one of the biggest humanitarian donors to Syrian refugees through the United Nations, but it has also struggled to control unofficial fund-raising for opposition groups in Syria by private individuals.

Cohen said Ajmi had “a history of promoting jihad in Syria” and that his image had featured on fund-raising posters for the Nusra Front, a Syrian rebel group linked to Al Qaeda.

Unlike some other Gulf states, US ally Kuwait is against arming rebels fighting to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad. But it has tolerated fund-raising in private houses, mosques and on social media.

Some Kuwaiti and US officials fear campaigns that give militant Islamist groups funds to buy arms will fuel violence in Syria and stir sectarian tension in Kuwait.

Interior Minister Sheikh Mohammad Al Hamad Al Sabah was appointed acting Islamic Affairs Minister and Cabinet Affairs Minister Sheikh Mohammad Al Mubarak Al Sabah will take on the additional role of acting justice minister, KUNA said.

Sheikh Mohammad said last year the Syrian crisis was touching a “very raw sectarian nerve” in the Gulf Arab region.

In a sign that Kuwait is reacting to concerns about the fund-raising issue, a Kuwaiti official said a campaign backed by local clerics and politicians was illegal.

Munira Al Fadhli, an assistant undersecretary in the ministry of social affairs and labour, was quoted by Monday’s English language daily Kuwait Times as saying: “Our department does not authorise or license individuals to collect donations. Licences are only given to official charities.”

Fadhli said the “Syria Calls” campaign violated the law and legal action would be taken against its organisers.

“Syria Calls” describes itself as a “Union of Kuwaiti campaigns to support Syria” and is backed by well-known local clerics and opposition politicians. An online poster for the group does not make clear exactly what the money is for.

SANAA — A drone strike killed six Al Qaeda suspects in eastern Yemen on Monday, the first such raid since government troops launched their biggest offensive on jihadists in two years, tribesmen said.

In Sanaa, the US embassy announced the mission would “remain closed for consular services through May 15”, adding that it could remain shut for even longer depending on the situation.

The pilotless aircraft deployed over eastern Yemen targeted a vehicle near Al Husun, a village in Marib province, killing at least six “Al Qaeda members”, tribal sources told AFP.

The United States is the only country operating drones over Yemen, but US officials rarely acknowledge the covert programme.

Two weeks into its government offensive, Defence Minister Mohammed Nasser Ahmed pledged an “open war on terror”, at a security meeting in the southeastern city of Mukalla.

The war aims to “cleanse the regions of Yemen” of terror elements, he said.

Yemen’s army says it has inflicted heavy losses on Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula since it launched a major offensive against AQAP strongholds on April 29.

But suspected AQAP militants have carried out apparent revenge attacks.

Washington regards AQAP as Al Qaeda’s most dangerous franchise and the group has been linked to failed terror plots in the United States.

On Monday, militants opened fire on an army convoy heading from Azzan to Huta, in the southern province of Shabwa, a military official said, prompting an exchange of fire.

Army troops also killed a Saudi militant with Al Qaeda named as Majid Al Mutairi in Shabwa, the defence ministry news website 26sep.net said.

Troops last Thursday announced they had entered Azzan, which had been a jihadist bastion.

The interior ministry, meanwhile, said it has beefed up security in several provinces to prevent likely attacks by jihadists and infiltration by Somali jihadists.

US extends embassy closure 

Fears of reprisals as well as a spate of attacks against foreigners prompted the United States to close its embassy in Sanaa last Wednesday.

The State Department “has been apprised of information that, out of an abundance of caution and care for our employees and others who may be visiting the embassy, indicates we should institute these precautionary steps”, said the mission’s website.

Last week, a Frenchman was killed and another wounded when gunmen opened fire on their car in Sanaa’s diplomatic district.

Both worked for a private security firm which officials said was guarding the European Union delegation in Yemen.

Yemeni security forces said the head of a terror cell” behind the attack has been shot dead.

Since Sunday, dozens of Al Qaeda suspects have been rounded up in the capital, a source in the security services told AFP.

The interior ministry said checkpoints were set up around the provinces of Sanaa, Ibb, Baida, Lahij and Marib to prevent the entry of jihadists fleeing the offensive in Shabwa and Abyan.

The ministry added it was on alert to “prevent the infiltration of radical fighters coming from Somalia”, without elaborating.

On Sunday, a suspected Al Qaeda suicide bomber killed 12 soldiers and a civilian in an attack on a military base in the southeastern province of Hadramawt.

AQAP’s leader Nasser Al Wuhayshi recently appeared in a rare video in which he vowed to attack Western “crusaders” wherever they are.

Jihadists use the term crusaders to refer to Western powers, especially those countries which have intervened militarily in Muslim countries, such as Britain, France and the United States.

The ongoing army offensive follows a wave of US drone strikes that killed scores of suspected jihadists in southern and central regions.

Both the White House and Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi have defended the use of drones despite complaints by human rights groups concerned over civilian casualties.

AQAP took advantage of a 2011 uprising that forced veteran strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh from power to seize large swathes of southern and eastern Yemen.

The army recaptured several major towns in 2012 but has struggled to reassert control in rural areas, despite the backing of militiamen recruited among local tribes.

ROME — At least 14 people died when a boat packed with migrants sank between Libya and Italy on Monday, in the latest shipwreck tragedy to hit the Mediterranean.

The Italian navy said another 200 people had been rescued after the ship sank with a reported 400 people on board.

“Fourteen bodies have been recovered so far. Medical workers on the Sirio and the Grecale are providing assistance to the 200 survivors,” the Italian navy said on Twitter, referring to two warships on the scene.

Two Italian coast guard vessels and several merchant ships scrambled to the area were also taking part in the high-seas rescue operation, the navy said.

It said it had also deployed a helicopter in the zone.

Libya has long been a springboard for Africans seeking a better life in Europe and the number of illegal departures from its shores is rising.

Hundreds of migrants land in Italy almost every day, most of them asylum-seekers from Eritrea, Somalia and Syria, and many are now being picked up by Italian warships.

The latest shipwreck happened at around 1100 GMT and some 185 kilometres south of Lampedusa Island, Italy’s southernmost point.

The area is closer to Libyan than to Italian shores.

Italian media reported that there had been some 400 people on board the migrant boat, which would leave dozens of people still unaccounted for.

Centro Astalli, a Jesuit refugee shelter and research centre in Rome, said “at least 40 people” had died and called for the establishment of “humanitarian corridors” for asylum-seekers coming from North Africa.

The head of Italy’s Red Cross, Francesco Rocca, said that “the European Union must act immediately, without wasting any time” and “not shirk responsibility”.

ANSA news agency cited rescuers saying the boat was first spotted by a patrolling Italian coast guard plane that made an emergency call to a merchant ship in the area, which became the first on the scene.

The migrant boat later sank near an offshore oil rig, the report said. The cause is not yet known.

Italian and European leaders expressed outrage and called for action in a repeat of the response to the drowning of more than 400 migrants off Italy in October 2013.

European Parliament President Martin Schulz said in a tweet that he was “shocked” by the tragedy, adding: “EU must take responsibility to protect people and values”.

The European Union’s Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem also expressed concern saying Europe needed “legal ways... to avoid these disasters”.

On a visit to Brussels, Italian Foreign Minister Federica Mogherini said: “There is an awareness that this is not just something that concerns Italy.”

“There is a moral duty for everyone as human beings to avoid people dying in the Mediterranean,” she said.

A Libyan navy spokesman, Colonel Ayub Kassem, said Libya “does not have the means to help with this shipwreck, which took place in international waters”.

 ‘Europe’s turn to pay’ 

The Libyan navy earlier said that 36 migrants perished, 42 were missing and 52 were rescued following another shipwreck on Tuesday closer to Libyan shores.

Immigration charities estimate up to 20,000 migrants have died at sea trying to reach Europe in the past 20 years, often travelling on rickety fishing boats.

In the wake of last year’s shipwrecks, the Italian navy launched “Mare Nostrum” — a Latin reference to the Mediterranean — a large-scale operation that anti-immigration politicians in Rome have accused of assisting irregular migration in Europe.

Interior Minister Angelino Alfano said last month that more than 20,000 migrants had arrived this year.

Libya’s interim interior minister said on Saturday that Tripoli could “facilitate” the migrant arrivals unless the European Union helped it combat the problem.

“I’m warning the world and Europe in particular — if they do not assume their responsibilities, Libya could facilitate the transit of this flood” of immigrants towards Europe, Salah Mazek told a news conference.

He said Libya was “suffering” because thousands of mainly sub-Saharan Africans were spreading disease, crime and drugs in the North African nation.

“Libya has paid the price. Now it’s Europe’s turn to pay,” Mazek added.

CAIRO — Egypt’s presidential frontrunner Abdel Fattah Al Sisi sought to ease concerns Monday that he would restrict freedoms, insisting that democratic principles and human rights were guaranteed under the new constitution.

Sisi, who is expected to easily win the May 26-27 election, said last week that democratic aspirations expressed in mass protests since 2011 were affecting national security and slowing a much-needed economic recovery.

“The future of freedoms and democracy is protected by the constitution which the people agreed on,” Sisi told a gathering of intellectuals and thinkers on Monday, a statement from his campaign office said.

Egyptians adopted a new constitution in January after a previous version was suspended when Sisi ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July last year.

Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood movement had boycotted a referendum on the new constitution.

Sisi said he understood the concerns of intellectuals, saying there was “no place for a religious or military state” in Egypt.

“It is always a difficult equation a state faces: how to achieve sufficient security that is satisfactory enough for the people without breaching the principles of democracy and human rights and without oppressing the innocent,” the retired field marshal said.

At a round-table discussion with Egyptian journalists last week, Sisi had warned that democratic aspirations were hindering national security.

“You write in the newspaper, ‘No voice is louder than freedom of speech!’ What is this?” Sisi asked them.

“What tourist would come to a country where we have demonstrations like this? Are you forgetting that there are millions of people and families who can’t earn their living because of the protests? It is one of the manifestations of instability.”

He also said that given the situation in Egypt, which cannot be compared to Western democracies, it could take “20 to 25 years to achieve true democracy” in the Arab world’s most populous country.

Since 2011, Egypt has seen two presidents ousted after mass street protests, a deadly crackdown on protesters and militant attacks that have left it deeply polarised and the economy in a shambles.

The situation was further aggravated when the interim authorities installed by Sisi passed a law banning all but police-sanctioned protests.

Several prominent figures from the 2011 anti-Hosni Mubarak uprising have been jailed for breaking the protest law, and a brutal government crackdown on Morsi supporters has killed more than 1,400 people since his ouster.

BEIRUT — A rogue Iraqi offshoot of Al Qaeda is now killing more rival Al Qaeda fighters every week in Syria than President Bashar Assad’s forces as infighting intensifies among opposition gunmen.

Clashes this year between Al Qaeda’s official Syria wing, the Nusra Front, and the franchise’s disowned offspring, The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), have killed hundreds of fighters and displaced tens of thousands of civilians.

Nusra lost control of Raqqa — the only rebel-held city in Syria — to ISIL fighters in January and intense fighting over the weekend resulted in ISIL making gains in the eastern province of Deir Al Zor, Syria’s oil region.

If ISIL can take the province, it will control territory across Syria and into Iraq.

Al Qaeda’s leader, Ayman Al Zawahiri, has repeatedly tried to rein in ISIL and this month he appealed to the group to return to Iraq and redouble its efforts there as sectarian fighting rages. But on Sunday, ISIL’s spokesman, Abu Mohammed Al Adnani, released an audio message rejecting the request.

“About your demand for us to withdraw from Syria, this will not happen and we repeat that this order is impossible,” he said.

The internecine fighting — some of the bloodiest in the war so far — has undermined the uprising against Assad and dismayed world powers anxious to see an end to the three-year-old conflict in which more than 150,000 have been killed.

ISIL follows Al Qaeda’s hard-line ideology but draws its strength from foreign fighters, battle-hardened from Iraq.

Both groups, which are hardline Sunni Islamists, fight sectarian battles against Assad, who is supported by his minority Alawite sect — an offshoot of Shiite Islam — as well as Shiite fighters from Iraq and Lebanon’s Hizbollah.

When ISIL moved into Syria last year, many Nusra Front members changed allegiances. ISIL head Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi tried to force a merger with Al Nusra Front, defying orders from Zawahiri and causing a rift.

The two groups have fought this year over influence and territorial disputes rather than ideological differences. Both imposed a strict interpretation of Islamic law which has angered many Syrians.

Nusra heads south

In Deir Al Zor city, civilians who lived through two years of fighting between opposition fighters and the government are now fleeing clashes between ISIL and the Nusra Front.

Some 230 militants have been killed over the past two weeks in the infighting, which also takes place in Deir Al Zor’s oil fields, the anti-Assad Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says.

Fierce fighting continued on the outskirts of the city on Monday and in villages around it. The rebel-on-rebel fighting has also taken the heat from the fight against the remaining government forces in Deir Al Zor city.

Deir Al Zor borders Iraq’s Anbar province, a majority Sunni region where ISIL has been leading a battle against Shiite Prime Minister Nouri Maliki.

Consolidating control of Deir Al Zor would give ISIL an international border and territory stretching 800km from the centre of Iraq across to the Mediterranean and the border with Turkey.

Rami Abdulrahman, head of the observatory, said that ISIL will have a hard time taking Deir Al Zor city, where the Nusra Front and other rebel groups remain strong.

“But ISIL is taking areas outside the city and in the region,” he said. “They are trying to control the area from Raqqa city to Iraq.”

Even if ISIL cannot fully take Deir Al Zor city, control of the region will strengthen links with its Iraqi wing and isolate rebels inside the city.

Bruised by ISIL advances in the rebel-held north and east, the Nusra Front has made headway in Syria’s south, taking ground from rebel units backed by Western powers.

A loose coalition of less hardline rebels calling themselves the Free Syrian Army have been sidelined by other militias in Syria. Western powers who support the Free Syrian Army have held back from providing game-changing weapons for fear that groups such as the Nusra Front and ISIL will capture them.

Now several thousand Nusra Front fighters operate in southern Syria and are far more disciplined and organised than their more secular minded rivals whose divisions and squabbling have lost them much popular support.

This has helped Nusra Front grow, with fighters now manning checkpoints close to the Israeli border in the Golan and the Jordanian border near Deraa, birthplace of the revolt against Assad.

An Egyptian court on Sunday sentenced 36 students from the prestigious Al Azhar University to four years in prison each over violent protests backing ousted president Mohamed Morsi, Agence France-Presse reported quoting judicial sources.

Students supporters of the deposed Islamist regularly stage protests calling for his release at universities, in particular at Cairo’s Al Azhar University, a prestigious seat of Sunni Islamic learning.

All 36 were found guilty of holding a violent protest in December, rioting, blocking roads in front of the university and showing aggression against the security forces, the sources said, according to AFP.

Each was also fined 30,000 Egyptian pounds (about $4,250, or 3,100 euros).

Another court has handed down life sentences to seven Morsi supporters after violent protests in mid-August in Qaliubiya province north of Cairo, a statement from the prosecution’s office said on Sunday. The sentence was on Saturday.

The group was accused of shooting passersby, resisting security forces, cutting off a main highway and burning cartyres.

The violence erupted on August 14 after security forces dispersed two protest camps set up in Cairo by Morsi supporter to call for his reinstatement. Hundreds of people were killed that day.

Morsi was ousted by the army last July 3 after mass street protests against his divisive year-long rule.

Since his overthrow, a crackdown targeting his supporters has seen more than 1,400 people killed in street clashes, upwards of 15,000 jailed and hundreds sentenced to death after speedy mass trials.

Morsi, Egypt’s first freely elected president, himself faces three trials on various charges, including colluding with militant groups.

Meanwhile, security officials said suspected militants have attacked an army convoy in the restive Sinai Peninsula, killing one soldier and wounding another, The Associated Press reported.

The officials said Sunday’s attack took place south of the town of Sheikh Zuwayed. They say militants believed to be members of an Al Qaeda-inspired group opened fire and fled the scene.

The group, Ansar Beit Al Maqdis, or Champions of Jerusalem, has carried out attacks across Egypt in recent months that have killed dozens of people, mostly police officers and soldiers.

DUBAI — Iran’s supreme leader described as “stupid and idiotic” Western expectations for his country to curb its missile development, striking a defiant tone ahead of a fresh round of nuclear talks.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called on Iran’s Revolutionary Guards to mass produce missiles and said the nuclear negotiations were not the place to discuss Tehran’s defence programme or to solve the problem of sanctions damaging the Iranian economy.

“They expect us to limit our missile programme while they constantly threaten Iran with military action,” Khamenei was quoted as telling the IRNA news agency while on a visit to an aeronautics fair held by the Revolutionary Guards.

“So this is a stupid, idiotic expectation ... The revolutionary guards should definitely carry out their programme and not be satisfied with the present level. They should mass produce. This is a main duty of all military officials.”

Iran and the United States, France, Germany, Britain, China and Russia will reconvene in Vienna on Tuesday to try to iron out differences over how to end a long standoff over suspicions that Tehran has sought the means to develop nuclear weapons.

While missiles are not at the heart of the talks over Iran’s nuclear work, which centre on the production of fissile material usable in atomic bombs, Western countries would like them discussed at the nuclear discussions.

Iran has one of the biggest missile programmes in the Middle East, viewing it as an essential precautionary defence against the United States and other adversaries such as Israel.

The United States and its allies fret that such missiles could potentially carry nuclear warheads.

BAGHDAD — Authorities in Iraq have found the bodies of 20 soldiers shot dead after being kidnapped from a northern military base, and a string of attacks on Sunday killed 17 people.

The bloodshed comes as officials count votes from the April 30 general election amid a protracted surge in violence that has killed more than 3,200 people this year.

The bloodletting has fuelled fears that Iraq is slipping back into the all-out sectarian conflict that left tens of thousands dead in 2006 and 2007.

Authorities have been quick to blame external factors such as the civil war in neighbouring Syria for the rise in unrest.

However, analysts and diplomats say the Shiite-led government must do more to reach out to the disaffected Sunni Arab minority to undermine support for militancy.

In the north, militants attacked a small military base, abducted 20 soldiers and later shot them dead. Their bodies were found in the area on Saturday night, according to security officers and a morgue employee.

The powerful Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) jihadist group claimed the attack in a statement, saying it had targeted members of the “Safavid army”, a pejorative term to link Iraq’s security forces with those of Iran, which was once ruled by the Safavid empire.

“God willing, these operations will not stop,” the statement added.

ISIL and an army major general said the kidnappings took place in Nineveh province on May 5.

The previous month, militants killed 12 soldiers and wounded 15 in an assault on a military base west of Mosul, the capital of Nineveh province.

The province, where militants hold considerable sway, is one of the most consistently violent areas in Iraq.

Militants opposed to the Baghdad government frequently target the security forces, but it is rare for such a large number of soldiers to be kidnapped at once, especially from a military position.

Meanwhile, violence in Baghdad and north Iraq killed 17 people on Sunday, security and medical officials said.

Four policemen, two soldiers and a civilian were killed in attacks in Nineveh province, while one person was gunned down in Salaheddin province.

In Kirkuk province, gunmen killed a policeman and two soldiers.

Two people were shot dead in the capital, while four more people, including three anti-Al Qaeda militiamen, were killed on the city’s outskirts.