Region

CAIRO — A court in Egypt has adjourned the murder trial of deposed Islamist president Mohamed Morsi until Sunday, when it will hear “decisive” testimony from senior security officials.

The case is part of a relentless crackdown against Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood movement since the military ousted him on July 3, ending a turbulent single year in office.

Morsi and 14 co-defendants are charged with involvement in the killing of opposition protesters outside a Cairo presidential palace in December 2012.

At Sunday’s hearing, testimony is expected from the former head of the military’s Republican Guard, the unit tasked with providing security for Egypt’s presidents.

The court will also hear from three other top Republican Guard officials and from the head of Morsi’s personal security detail.

“The five witnesses are decisive as they were the closest to Morsi and his aides,” Ramy Ghanem, a lawyer for a civilian wounded in the clashes, told AFP.

During pre-trial questioning, the head of the Republican Guard told prosecutors that Morsi called him the night before the clashes.

He said he was ordered to disperse a sit-in by Morsi opponents near the presidential palace within an hour but had refused to do so because it could lead to casualties.

On Saturday, defence lawyers for some of the defendants slammed a technical committee report on video footage of the December 5, 2012 clashes between Morsi supporters and opponents, saying it was biased.

The defence team requested that a new independent committee review the footage.

Morsi’s murder trial comes as former army chief Abdel Fattah Al Sisi moved closer to replacing him in next month’s presidential election.

On Friday, Sisi’s campaign said he had already received the thousands of signatures required from supporters to register his candidacy.

Sisi is expected to easily win the May 26-27 poll. He is seen by his backers as a saviour for ending Islamist rule after Morsi’s divisive 12 months in office.

The Brotherhood and other Islamist groups accuse Sisi of staging a coup against the country’s first democratically elected president, unleashing a wave of violence that has killed almost 2,000 people since July.

Morsi, who faces two other trials for espionage and militancy related charges, could face the death penalty if convicted.

LUXOR, Egypt — A bloody feud in Egypt’s southern Aswan province between an Arab clan and a Nubian family has killed at least 23 people in two days of fighting, leaving bodies strewn on hospital floors and homes torched in its wake, government officials and witnesses said Saturday.

An interior ministry statement said the fighting erupted earlier in the week over the harassment of a girl, which later saw students from the two sides spray offensive graffiti on the walls of a local school. Vendetta killings are common in southern Egypt, where a perceived violation of honour can often turn deadly.

Nubian students accused members of the Arab clan of trying to destabilise the province by working for the former governments of ousted president Hosni Mubarak and overthrown Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, said Abdel-Sabbour Hassan, a Nubian activist.

A security official also said there are tensions in the community over members of the Arab Beni Helal clan, as some of them are accused of being part of an arm and drugs smuggling ring. Aswan is a way station for a smuggling ring from Sudan. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as he wasn’t authorised to speak to journalists.

Adel Abu Bakr, a Nubian resident of Aswan, said members of the Arab Beni Hilal tribe first beat a Nubian and then shot dead three Nubians on Friday, including a woman. Another Nubian was killed later that night, he said. Following their funerals, hundreds of Nubians attacked the Arab neighbourhood, killing over a dozen people using mostly sticks and daggers, he said.

Health official Mohammed Azmi told private television station CBC that 23 people were killed and 12 are in critical condition. A local government statement said 31 were injured. Abu Bakr said a local Nubian community centre was set on fire, and other witnesses said seven homes were torched. Ambulances failed to reach the neighbourhood were the two clans live, leaving bodies strewn throughout the neighbourhood.

The interior ministry said police officers attempted to negotiate a truce late Friday and arrested three people, but fighting resumed Saturday. Footage from the area on social media that appeared consistent with The Associated Press reporting showed schoolchildren pelting a rival group, despite the presence of an armoured police vehicle.

Abu Bakr said the police failed to stem the violence and called for the army to intervene. The local governor also asked for soldiers to be deployed.

“Since noon Friday, we are urging the police to intervene to separate between the two. But nothing happened,” he said, adding that the police failed to deploy in the area. “Their presence would have changed the nature of this fight.”

A joint statement from the two clans accused “invisible hands” of igniting the feud. In a Facebook post, military spokesman Col. Ahmed Mohammed Ali blamed members of Morsi’s outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group of trying to ignite the fighting. He did not offer evidence to support the claim. Egypt’s military-backed interim government routinely blames the group for violence.

Later Saturday, Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab and the interior minister traveled to Aswan to meet with local leaders.

CAIRO –– At least 18 people were killed in tribal clashes in Egypt on Saturday, security officials said, prompting police to send reinforcements to quell the unrest.

The fighting between the Bani Hilal tribesmen and Nubian villagers in the southern province of Aswan was ongoing and the death toll was expected to rise, the officials said.

On Thursday, the rival sides attended a reconciliation meeting aimed at ending long-standing disputes, but an argument broke out and became a firefight that killed three tribesmen, the security officials said.

Tribal vendettas are common in the rural and poor south, but this week's violence is the worst in recent memory, they said.

Police began to reassert themselves across the country only recently, after a breakdown in law and order following a 2011 uprising that overthrew strongman Hosni Mubarak.

BAGHDAD — Iraqi soldiers killed more than 40 militants in clashes near Baghdad on Thursday as anti-government fighters edged close to the capital just weeks before national parliamentary elections.

The firefight was the latest in a surge in bloodshed over the past year, amid fears insurgents could seek to destabilise the April 30 polls by upping the pace of attacks with violence already at its worst since 2008.

The bloodshed comes with campaigning under way for the elections, Iraq’s first since March 2010, which the UN’s special envoy has warned will be “highly divisive”.

On Thursday morning, militants attacked an army camp in Yusifiyah, just southwest of Baghdad, an interior ministry statement said.

More than 40 insurgents died in the ensuing battle, with one army officer also killed.

“Iraqi security forces confronted a failed attempt by Daash gang members to break into a military camp,” the statement said, referring to the Arabic abbreviation for the powerful Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant jihadist group.

“The security forces... killed more than 40 terrorist attackers, and the attack resulted in the death of one of our officers when he was confronting these criminal gangs.”

Two heavy machineguns, 15 rifles and five grenade launchers were seized, along with other equipment, the statement said.

The clashes in Yusifiyah come after days of fighting in the Zoba and Zaidan areas west of Baghdad.

The fighting spurred concerns that militants who have for months controlled the city of Fallujah, a short drive from Baghdad, could be looking to open a new front to encroach on the capital itself.

Elsewhere Thursday, a series of attacks nationwide, including five car bombs, killed 10 people, security and medical officials said.

Worst unrest since 2008 

A car bomb near the restive ethnically mixed northern town of Tuz Khurmatu killed four soldiers and wounded 12, while another car bomb in Hilla, south of the capital, killed two more.

Three car bombs elsewhere south of Baghdad killed three people, while gunmen killed another in Tikrit, north of the capital.

More than 2,300 people have been killed in Iraq so far this year, with unrest at its highest level since 2008 when the country was emerging from a brutal Sunni-Shiite sectarian war that left tens of thousands dead.

The bloodletting has been principally driven by anger in the Sunni Arab minority over alleged mistreatment at the hands of the Shiite-led government and security forces, as well as by the civil war in neighbouring Syria.

Analysts and diplomats have urged the authorities to reach out to the Sunni community to undermine support for militancy, but with the elections looming, Maliki and other Shiite leaders have been loath to be seen to compromise.

Near-daily bloodshed is part of a long list of voter concerns that include lengthy power cuts, poor running water and sewerage services, rampant corruption and high unemployment.

But campaigns are rarely fought on individual issues, with parties instead appealing to voters’ ethnic, sectarian or tribal allegiances or resorting to trumpeting well-known personalities.

UN special envoy Nickolay Mladenov has warned that the election campaign will be “highly divisive”, underscoring fears that the polls could worsen a long-standing political deadlock in which Iraq’s fractious unity government has passed little in the way of significant legislation.

“Campaigning will be highly divisive,” Mladenov told AFP in an interview.

“Everyone is ratcheting it up to the maximum, and you could see this even before officially the campaign started.”

Mladenov, a Bulgarian former foreign and defence minister, added: “I would hope that it would be more about issues, and how the country deals with its challenges, but at this point, it’s a lot about personality attacks.”

“The efforts to reach across the sectarian divide are very weak.”

CAIRO — A series of three bombs went off Wednesday outside Cairo University, killing a police general and wounding seven people, introducing a new level of violence to the almost daily battles at campuses fought by Egyptian police and students loyal to the ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.

Universities have emerged as the main centre of the campaign of protests by Morsi’s supporters against the military-backed government that replaced him, because a fierce crackdown the past nine months has made significant rallies by Islamists in the streets nearly impossible.

The result has been increasingly deadly clashes between protesters and security forces in and around the walled campuses, with several students killed the past weeks.

Wednesday’s blasts targeted a post of riot police deployed outside Cairo University in case of protests, in apparent retaliation for police assaults. That would be a significant escalation and raises the likelihood of a fierce response by security forces that would further push a spiral of violence at the universities.

A new group that first appeared in January, Ajnad Misr, or “Egypt’s Soldiers”, claimed responsibility for the bombing. In a statement, it said it was waging a campaign of retribution and that the slain police general had been involved in killings of protesters. It said the attack also came in response to increased detentions of female protesters.

The main pro-Morsi university group, “Students against the Coup”, led by Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood, denied involvement in the bombings.

But a leading figure in the group, Youssef Salheen, warned that excessive violence by the security forces and the broader crackdown on the Brotherhood was fuelling a violent response.

“All that is incitement to all those who go down to protest to turn from peacefulness to violence and terrorism because of all what they see,” said the 21-year-old Salheen, a student at Cairo’s Islamic Al Azhar University, another campus that sees frequent clashes. He said his group is working against the radicalisation of protesters.

Since the military removed Morsi in July, the interim government has been waging a fierce crackdown on the Brotherhood and other Islamists, killing hundreds and arresting more than 16,000.

At the same time, police and the military have faced a campaign of car bombs and suicide bombings hitting security facilities and assassinations of officers. In some cases, security officers’ cars have been torched.

Many of the biggest and most sophisticated attacks have been claimed by an Al Qaeda-inspired militant group based in the Sinai Peninsula. Ajnad Misr has claimed several smaller bombings since January. The government accuses the Brotherhood of orchestrating the violence, branding it a terrorist organisation — a claim the group denies and calls a pretext for wiping it out.

Wednesday’s blasts — using what authorities said were crude homemade explosives — were rare in that they targeted police forces in the field directly deployed to face protesters.

The three blasts were also staggered in time. The first two bombs, which security officials said were hidden at the foot of a tree, went off less than a minute apart near a security post of riot police, security officials said.

The third, concealed up another tree nearby, exploded nearly two hours later, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to talk to the press.

Ajnad Misr said in its statement that the third blast was delayed to spare civilians nearby. The tactic has been frequently used in Iraq by Sunni militants fighting the Shiite-led government — using secondary explosions to target members of the emergency services and reinforcements who come to the aid of those wounded in the first blast.

The first two blasts sprayed nails packed into the explosives, killing police Brig. Gen. Tareq Al Mergawy, with a nail that pierced his heart, a spokesman for the state forensics department, Hesham Abdel-Hamid, told the private TV CBC.

Four civilians and three senior police officers were wounded, including the deputy police chief of Giza province, where Cairo University is located.

After the bombing, police chased down and detained several students on the streets nearby, but there was no immediate word on the number of arrests made.

The country’s most powerful political figure, former military chief Abdel Fattah Al Sisi — who removed Morsi and this month left the military to launch a run for president — denounced the bombings in a statement issued by his election campaign.

“Egypt will march forward and will not succumb to black terrorism,” he vowed.

After an emergency meeting of top security and intelligence officials, the government announced it would deploy more forces outside universities and will expedite the issuing of a new anti-terrorism law. The new law reportedly expands the definition of terrorism, allows for greater Internet surveillance and creates a special prosecutors’ office for terrorism crimes with expanded powers.

Cairo University and other universities around the country have seen countless clashes with police since last July’s ouster of Morsi.

But the level of violence has grown since classes resumed this month following the mid-term break — which was extended for around a month in an attempt to bring calm. At least two students in Cairo have been killed in clashes since classes resumed, and a 15-year-old was killed near campus clashes in southern Egypt.

The protesters have also become more violent, hurling firebombs and stones at security forces. On Sunday at Al Azhar University — where one student was killed — protesters with steel bars smashed a wall recently built to prevent them from taking to the street outside the campus.

A group of activists called “Freedom for Students” has documented more than 1,300 arrests of students since last summer. Already, some have been tried and sentenced, including 12 from Al Azhar University who received 17 years’ imprisonment for taking part in protests.

Dozens of Cairo University students have been expelled for taking part in protests after the interim president gave university heads the power to summarily expel students. In March, 24 were expelled for raising a black jihadi banner on campus.

The wave of protests has hiked tensions among students, as well. There have been instances of fights and scuffles between Islamist and anti-Islamist students.

Universities have long been a centre of political activities. Islamist students were powerful on campuses in 1970s and 1980s. In recent years, more secular revolutionary student activists — who were part of the 2011 uprising that ousted autocrat Hosni Mubarak — gained greater prominence.

Those secular activists, who oppose both the Brotherhood and the military’s power, are now being overshadowed by the violence surrounding Islamists. They have refused to join Islamist protests, instead trying to pursue their own agenda of documenting arrests and expulsions and demanding jailed students’ release.

Osama Ahmed, a leftist Cairo University student, warned that police force is building sympathy for the Brotherhood and weakening non-Islamist students.

“The Brotherhood considers what it does as draining the authorities. But in reality, these protests are building nothing,” he said. “What is being drained is the student movement, and the circles of sympathy around [Islamists] increase slowly because of the absence of an alternative.”

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israel’s chief negotiator with the Palestinians has told them that a planned release of 26 prisoners cannot proceed, a source close to the embattled peace talks told AFP Thursday.

A frustrated US Secretary of State John Kerry earlier demanded that recalcitrant Israeli and Palestinian leaders demonstrate leadership in the crisis-hit talks.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the source said Justice Minister Tzipi Livni told a meeting with her counterparts on Wednesday that the prisoner release could not take place, as the Palestinians had unilaterally resumed moves to seek international recognition for their
promised state.

The talks hit a new impasse when Israel failed to free the prisoners as expected at the weekend.

In response, the Palestinians formally requested accession to several international treaties in a bid to unilaterally further their statehood claim.

The source said Livni told the Palestinians that her government had been seeking to expedite the release when the Palestinians submitted their accession request to UN bodies and that they had therefore breached their commitments under the terms of peace talks restarted under US auspices last July.

It said that Livni urged the Palestinians to cancel the move and return to talks.

US officials said that Kerry, who has pursued more than a year of intensive shuttle diplomacy, spoke by phone to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday afternoon, but they gave no details.

Kerry said in Algiers Thursday that Israelis and Palestinians made “progress” in lengthy overnight talks in Jerusalem, also attended by the Americans.

His efforts appeared to be on the brink of collapse this week after Israel announced a fresh wave of settlement tenders and the Palestinians resumed international recognition moves.

Washington described them as “unhelpful, unilateral actions”, but insisted diplomacy still had a chance.

Kerry threw down the gauntlet, telling both sides it was time for compromise at what he called a “critical moment” in the peace process.

“You can facilitate, you can push, you can nudge, but the parties themselves have to make fundamental decisions to compromise,” he said.

“The leaders have to lead, and they have to be able to see a moment when it’s there.”

He said progress was made during a meeting between Livni, US special envoy Martin Indyk and Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat that lasted until 4:00 am Thursday.

“There is still a gap and that gap needs to close fairly soon.”

Marathon overnight meeting 

The overnight marathon meeting “focused on the necessity of releasing the prisoners”, a Palestinian official told AFP on condition of anonymity, adding that the applications for accession to several international treaties were “irreversible”.

Each side accused the other of violating undertakings given when the talks began.

“The ball is in Israel’s court now. It should release the prisoners,” former Palestinian negotiator Mohammed Shtayeh told AFP.

The moves dealt a hammer blow to Kerry’s frenetic efforts to broker an extension of the negotiations beyond their original April 29 deadline.

UN Middle East peace envoy Robert Serry confirmed receiving the Palestinian applications, with a spokesman for the secretary general saying they would consider the “appropriate next steps”.

The first treaty the Palestinians applied to was the Fourth Geneva Convention, which holds huge symbolic importance as it provides the legal basis of their opposition to Israeli settlements in the occupied territories.

In Israel, there was surprise and anger over the Palestinian move.

“The Palestinians have returned to a diplomatic Intifada,” one political official told Yediot Aharonot newspaper, using the Arabic word for uprising.

Pro-government Israel HaYom daily said security officials did not believe the Palestinians wanted the talks to collapse.

“The Palestinians currently have no vested interest in a breakdown of the negotiations. Messages in that vein were relayed in talks that were held between security officials from both sides,” it said.

It also said efforts were under way to compile a list of more prisoners who could be freed should the sides agree to extend the talks.

It added that top officials agree that the potential security repercussions of a talks collapse “will be far greater than the price that Israel will be required to pay for extending the negotiations”.

TRIPOLI, Lebanon — More than a million people fleeing Syria's war have registered as refugees in Lebanon, the UN said Thursday, with many living in misery in a tiny country overstretched by the crisis.

And the number is swelling by the day, with the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) saying it registers 2,500 new refugees in Lebanon every day — more than one a minute.

At a crowded centre in Tripoli, Lebanon's second city, hundreds of refugees were seen on Thursday queueing to register.

Yehia, an 18-year-old from Homs, was identified by as the millionth refugee to be registered.

He told AFP he lives in a garage in Dinniyeh, near Tripoli, with his mother and two sisters.

His father, a carpenter, was killed by a sniper in 2011, six months after the revolt against President Bashar Assad broke out.

"It is a disaster," said Yehia. "My mother sold all her gold so we could pay the $250 (191 euros) monthly rent. We don't know what will happen to us in the future."

His main wish is to go back to school to finish his studies, which were interrupted by the war.

"The fact that there were one million Syrians before me who are going hungry, even dying here is very painful," Yehia said sorrowfully.

The UNHCR says that Syrian refugees, half of them children, now equal a quarter of Lebanon's resident population, warning that most of them live in poverty and depend on aid for survival.

UNHCR representative Ninette Kelly branded the one million figure as "a devastating marker".

"Each one of these numbers represents a human life who, like us, have lives of their own, but who've lost their homes, they've lost their family members, have lost their future," she told reporters.

Kelly said Lebanon has become the country with the highest per capita concentration of refugees in the world.

Lebanon "is literally staggering under the weight of this problem. Its social services are stressed, health, education, its very fragile infrastructure is also buckling under the pressure."

The massive crisis is compounded by a spillover of the violence that has ravaged Syria for the past three years, with Lebanon experiencing frequent bombings and clashes even as it grapples with political deadlock and an economic downturn.

In a statement, UNHCR chief Antonio Guterres urged increased international action to help Lebanon deal with this "immense" and "staggering" crisis.

Social Affairs Minister Rachid Derbas also appealed for support, saying Lebanon "cannot carry this burden alone."

The strain has been particularly felt in the public sector, with health and education services, as well as electricity, water and sanitation affected.

The humanitarian appeal for Lebanon "is only 14 per cent funded," even as the needs of a rapidly growing refugee population become ever more pressing, Kelly said.

Girls married young

The vast majority of refugee children are not attending school.

"The number of school-aged children is now over 400,000, eclipsing the number of Lebanese children in public schools. These schools have opened their doors to over 100,000 refugees, yet the ability to accept more is severely limited," the UNHCR said.

Because of the dire economic situation their families endure, many children are now working, "girls can be married young and the prospect of a better future recedes the longer they remain out of school," it added.

Walid, a 22-year-old who shines shoes to scrape out a living in Tripoli, said: "Our situation is very sad, and we refugees really live from hand to mouth."

Unlike Turkey and Jordan, which are also hosting hundreds of thousands of Syrians, Lebanon has not set up official camps.

Alaa Ajam, owner of a foreign exchange shop in Tripoli, said "of course (the refugee crisis) is a burden... We are in solidarity with the Syrians, but like other countries we should have camps."

Tens of thousands of families live in insalubrious informal settlements dotted around the country, many of them near the restive border with Syria.

The conflict has killed more than 150,000 people, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, with half of the population estimated to have fled their homes.

ADEN — Al Qaeda has claimed an attack on a Yemeni army headquarters in a tightly secured district of Aden in which 20 people died, most of them militants, a monitoring group said Thursday.

The building targeted in Wednesday’s attack is located in the heavily patrolled coastal district of Tawahi that hosts intelligence and political police headquarters, a naval base and a presidential residence.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) affiliate of the global jihadist network claimed the attack in an online message, said the US-based SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors extremist organisations.

AQAP, which the United States views as Al Qaeda’s most dangerous branch, said the attack killed “nearly 50 soldiers” and was part of its campaign to “target the joint operation rooms that manage the US drones in the country”.

Washington has stepped up drone strikes in Yemen against the group in recent months.

Militants launched Wednesday’s attack on the northern side of the army headquarters, with some climbing a wall into the building as a suicide car bomber rammed his vehicle into a western entrance, Yemen army officials said.

Reinforcements from the 31st Armoured Brigade stationed in Aden were dispatched to support the troops in Tawahi, according to one official, who added that the fighting went on for several hours.

Six soldiers were killed and 14 wounded, while three civilians including a seven-year-old child also died, the official added. Ten of the assailants plus the suicide bomber died.

Despite repeated attempts by the army to crush AQAP in its strongholds in the east and south, militants continue to carry out deadly attacks on security forces across the country.

The brazen attack on such a highly protected area came despite the authorities having stepped up measures in recent weeks to contain a deadly wave of violence rocking the Arabian Peninsula country for years.

Wednesday’s assault is similar to one carried out by gunmen from Al Qaeda-affiliated group Ansar Al Sharia on an army headquarters in Hadramawt in September, in which they took hostages and 12 people died.

In December, Al Qaeda militants launched a daylight assault on the defence ministry, killing 56 people.

The group has taken advantage of the weakening of the central government since 2011, as a result of a popular uprising that toppled president Ali Abdullah Saleh after 33 years in power.

ALGIERS — The United States and Algeria pledged Thursday to work together to battle terrorism, as US Secretary of State John Kerry paid his first visit to the north African nation.

“Algeria, which has paid a heavy toll to terrorism, will never bow in front of this scourge,” Algerian Foreign Minister Ramtane Lamamra said at the opening of strategic talks between the two countries.

“Terrorism knows no boundaries, has no creed, no religion and targets all nations,” he added.

But he called for more intelligence sharing from the United States in the fight against Islamist militancy, and greater coordination among regional law enforcement agencies as well as for border monitoring.

Jihadist violence has plagued the vast Sahel-Sahara region since the 2011 overthrow of Libyan dictator Muammar Qadhafi, prompting a French-led military intervention in Algeria’s southern neighbour Mali in January 2013 after Al Qaeda-linked groups seized control of the country’s north.

But militants have also struck in Niger, Tunisia and Algeria itself, where they overran a desert gas plant last year triggering a bloody four-day siege in which some 40 hostages were killed.

Lamamra said his country was committed to working with all its partners “to stand in the way of this peril, and to eradicate this scourge”.

One of Algeria’s major concerns was the situation in the Sahel, where “terrorism, human trafficking, drug trafficking and all kinds of criminal activities have woven their webs,” he said.

This threatened “the stability and very existence of the peoples and states of the area”.

Kerry, who arrived late Wednesday amid tight security, said Washington wanted to partner with Algeria to build a more robust defence relationship and help secure and strengthen borders in the region.

He also vowed that the United States would work with Algeria to try to stem the unrest in the lawless Sahel region, which stretches across several north African nations.

“We are grateful, very grateful, for Algeria’s efforts in Mali and Niger, which underscore Algeria’s constructive role in regional stability not only in the east, but to the south.”

Kerry said one of the ways to fight terrorism was to help create jobs and ensure stability in people’s lives.

“Those who offer the violence that comes with terrorism, don’t offer jobs, they don’t offer education, they don’t offer healthcare, they don’t have a programme to pull a country together.”

Such terror groups are in direct “confrontation with modernity”, he warned.

Algeria’s independent press has questioned the timing of Kerry’s visit, which comes as campaigning is in full swing for an April 17 presidential election in which ailing incumbent Abdelaziz Bouteflika is controversially seeking a fourth term.

El Watan newspaper voiced concern that Bouteflika’s campaign team would portray the visit as a US “endorsement” of the 77-year-old’s re-election bid.

Human Rights Watch has accused the authorities of seeking to “stifle” freedom of association ahead of the poll.

Kerry met Bouteflika on Thursday afternoon, with only a small group of staff, before his planned departure for Morocco.

But in a nod to the criticism, he said Washington was looking forward to free, transparent elections.

“The United States will work with the president that the people of Algeria choose in order to bring about the future that Algeria and its neighbours deserve.”

Kerry said such a future was one where “citizens can enjoy the free exercise of their civil, political, and human rights, and where global companies, businesses, are confident in being able to invest for the long haul.”

BEIRUT — Battles raged Thursday over key flashpoints in Syria’s Latakia province, a monitor said, nearly two weeks into a rebel offensive against the heartland of President Bashar Assad’s clan and Alawite sect.

Fighting was especially fierce over a strategic hilltop known as Observatory 45, overrun by rebels last week, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

“Since last night, the fighting has been focused on observatory 45. The army advances and takes over, then the rebels advance and push them back out,” said its director, Rami Abdel Rahman.

Supporting the army and militia on the ground, the air force launched several strikes targeting the hill, the Britain-based monitor said.

Regime warplanes also struck rebel-held areas in the nearby Jabal Akrad area, a hill district under insurgent control for many months.

Rebels and their jihadist ally Al Nusra Front launched a major surprise offensive on Latakia nearly two weeks ago, and have since seized several positions and villages including the Kasab area, home to a border crossing into Turkey.

Hundreds of fighters on both sides have been killed in the battles for Latakia, including 20 rebels killed in the past day alone, said the observatory.

Just over a week into the fighting, opposition chief Ahmad Jarba visited several rebel areas of Latakia, expressing support for the opposition fighters there and pledging funding.

But on Thursday, rebel chief for the area Mustafa Hashim accused the opposition National Coalition of failing to honour its promises.

“We hear from the radio and television channels that the president of the National Coalition visited the coast [Latakia] to have his picture taken and to divide the revolutionaries’ ranks,” said Hashim in a statement posted on YouTube.

“They [the Coalition] say they are giving military support to the revolutionaries but this is not true to this day,” he added.

Elsewhere, four mortar rounds hit the Dukhaniyeh area near Damascus, killing six children and wounding five other people, said state news agency SANA.

Seven others were wounded in central Damascus, in three mortar attacks, one of which struck near the landmark Umayyad Square, SANA said.

More than 150,000 people have been killed in Syria’s three-year war, with half the population estimated to have fled their homes.