Region

TRIPOLI — Libya will release the crew of a tanker that loaded oil at a rebel-held port and was stopped by the US navy off Cyprus, its state prosecutor said on Monday.

Three Libyan rebel fighters who had boarded the tanker will stay in jail, Abdelqadir Rawdan told Reuters. The crew was made up of sailors from Pakistan, India, Syria, Sudan and other countries.

“The crew will be released and expelled,” he said.

On Sunday, the Morning Glory arrived in the Libyan capital Tripoli after US special forces stormed the tanker a week ago and handed it over to Libya’s nascent navym which had initially failed to stop it.

The ship had docked two weeks ago at the Es Sider port, which is under control of rebels demanding autonomy and a greater share of oil for Libya’s east of the country.

Rawdan said the crew was still being investigated but it was clear that its members had acted at gun point.

The return of the tanker was a rare victory for Tripoli, which is struggling to end a port blockade by rebels, one of many challenges facing the central government which has failed to secure the country three years after the fall of Muammar Qadhafi.

Former anti-Qadhafi rebels and militias refuse to surrender their weapons and often use force or control of oil facilities to make demands on a state whose army is still in training with Western governments.

Western governments, which backed NATO’s air strikes to help the 2011 anti-Qadhafi revolt, are pressing the factions to reach a political settlement.

THE HAGUE — The head of the organisation overseeing the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile said he still hoped Damascus could meet a final deadline of June 30 but it might miss that target.

Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government agreed to destroy its chemical weapons arsenal by midyear as part of a US-Russian agreement negotiated after a chemical attack last August that killed hundreds of people around Damascus.

It has handed over roughly half of its stockpile to a joint mission with the United Nations but is several weeks behind schedule, blaming security problems for the delays.

“I think that some targets have not been met, but the deadline of 30 June still remains our target, and we think we can finish the destruction by that time, or close to that time,” Ahmet Uzumcu, head of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, said.

An official at the OPCW, which won the Nobel Peace Prize last year, said Uzumcu meant the process could run past the June 30 deadline Damascus had agreed to. This was the first official indication it might not be met.

Experts have said the deadline is overly ambitious but Russia and the United States have invested huge resources and political capital in the operation, which is expected to cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

Uzumcu made the comments after meeting US Secretary of State John Kerry, who is in the Netherlands with President Barack Obama for a G-7 meeting leaders on the crisis in Ukraine.

Kerry said he hoped the confrontation over Moscow’s annexation of Crimea would not harm cooperation with Russia on international efforts to destroy Syria’s chemical weapons.

“All I can say is I hope the same motivations that drove Russia to be a partner in this effort will still exist,” Kerry told reporters in The Hague.

A large portion of the chemicals are to be destroyed on a US ship, the Cape Ray but that process has not yet started and will take up to 90 days, Washington has said.

Syria has missed almost all deadlines agreed in the deal brokered by Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, whom Kerry met in The Hague for bilateral talks.

Lavrov repeated Moscow’s position that Syria will meet its obligations under the deal.

“We have reason to believe that the deadlines will be respected and the chemical weapons will be removed from Syria by the middle of 2014,” Lavrov said, as quoted by Russia’s foreign ministry.

Plans for a joint mission between Russia and NATO to protect the Cape Ray that will destroy Syria’s deadliest chemical weapons at sea have been cancelled due to tensions over Russia’s annexation of the Crimea.

Kerry, who made no further allusion to Crimea in his remarks, noted that Syria had also missed a March 15 date for destruction of a dozen production and storage facilities.

“We have some real challenges ahead of us in these next weeks. We in the United States are convinced that if Syria wanted to they could move faster,” he added.

Kerry confirmed that about half of Syria’s declared chemical weapons arsenal has been shipped out or destroyed within the country.

“We are just about at the 50 per cent removal mark. That is significant but the real significance would only be when we get all the weapons out,” he said.

UNITED NATIONS — UN chief Ban Ki-moon reported Monday that humanitarian access to Syrians remains “extremely challenging” a month after the world body demanded a lifting of sieges and bombardments of residential areas.

Ban called on the government and the opposition to take measures to ease the delivery of relief supplies, notably medicine, to 9.3 million Syrians in need.

“One month after the passing of Security Council Resolution 2139, humanitarian access in Syria remains extremely challenging for humanitarian organisations,” Ban said.

“Delivering lifesaving items, in particular medicines, remains difficult. And the assistance reaching people continues to fall far short of what is required to cover even their basic needs,” he said.

Ban was referring to a UN Security Council resolution passed unanimously February 22 that called for the lifting of sieges and an end to bombardments of residential areas with barrel bombs.

The resolution, which Russia supported after negotiations, provides no sanctions against those who fail to respect it.

While it leaves open the door to sanctions against violators at some later point, based on Ban’s report, that would require another decision by the Security Council.

Diplomats expect Russia would block any sanctions against the Syrian regime, as it has done three times since the start of the Syrian crisis in March 2011.

“Most demands are not being met, but I do not expect any major decision on the next step at this time,” said one diplomat. “There is not a lot of appetite for that after 30 days, and Russia will block it anyway.”

The report estimated that 3.5 million people were trapped in areas under siege or difficult to reach because of fighting, a million more than at the start of the year.

Ban condemned “the continued heavy shelling, including the use of barrel bombs by the Syrian government forces in residential neighbourhoods, as well as the terror acts in Syria by extremist groups who are attempting to impose radical ideologies in some parts of the country.”

He also said he was deeply concerned about the use of foreign fighters and the shipment of arms and fighters into the country from outside.

He appealed to states and other actors in the Syrian civil war to end their support for the violence, and to use their influence to promote a political solution the conflict, now in its fourth year.

Local ceasefires have been negotiated here and there, he said, but they are handicapped by the absence of neutral third parties to supervise them and by the mistrust on all sides.

According to the report, 220,000 people are living under siege in Homs, Nubl and Zhara and in several localities on the outskirts of Damascus. Most, about 175,000, are under siege from the Syrian military, and the remainder by opposition forces.

The United Nations has identified 258 “priority zones” where improved humanitarian access would have an especially positive impact.

But no new ceasefires have taken effect in the month since February 22, and there has been only limited access to the more difficult to reach areas.

In a rare instance of progress, a UN convoy authorised by the Syrian government crossed the border from Turkey on March 21 in the direction of Qamishli, for the first time since the start of the war.

CAIRO (AFP) –– A court in Egypt on Monday sentenced 529 supporters of ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi to death after a mass trial, judicial sources said.

Islamist backers of Morsi are facing a deadly crackdown launched by the military-installed authorities since his ouster in July, with hundreds of people killed and thousands arrested.

The sentence was delivered in the second hearing of a trial which began on Saturday in Minya, south of the capital.

Of those sentenced, 153 are in detention and the rest are on the run, the sources said, adding that 17 others were acquitted. The verdict can be appealed.

Those sentenced are among more than 1,200 Morsi supporters on trial in Minya. A second group of about 700 defendants will be in the dock on Tuesday.

They are accused of attacking both people and public property in southern Egypt in August, after security forces broke up two Cairo protest camps set up by Morsi supporters on August 14.

They are also charged with committing acts of violence that led to the deaths of two policemen in Minya, judicial sources said.

The accused include several leaders of Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood, including its supreme guide Mohamed Badie.

Morsi, Egypt's first elected and civilian president, was ousted by the army on July 3 in a move that triggered widespread unrest across the deeply polarised nation.

Hundreds of people died in the August assault on the two Cairo protest camps and in subsequent clashes that day.

Rights group Amnesty International says at least 1,400 people have been killed in violence across Egypt since then, and thousands more have been arrested.

Morsi is himself currently on trial in three different cases, including one for inciting the killing of protesters outside a presidential palace while he was in office.

Morsi was removed after just 12 months as president following mass street protests against his rule amid allegations of power grabbing and worsening an already weak economy.

DAMASCUS — Syria accused Ankara of “flagrant aggression” Sunday after Turkish forces shot down a warplane near the border, raising tensions as Syrian loyalists and rebels battled for control of a frontier crossing.

Relations between the neighbouring states have collapsed during the Syrian conflict, with Ankara squarely backing rebels trying to topple President Bashar Assad.

It was the most serious incident since Turkish warplanes last September downed a Syrian helicopter that Ankara said was two kilometres inside its airspace.

A Syrian military source said Turkey shot down the warplane “in a flagrant act of aggression that is evidence of [Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip] Erdogan’s support for terrorist groups”.

The aircraft “was chasing terrorist groups inside Syrian territory at Kasab”, said the source, referring to the disputed border crossing. The pilot was able to eject.

Syrian troops and rebels have been locked in deadly fighting since Friday for control of Kasab border post in the northern province of Latakia, a regime stronghold.

The battle erupted after three jihadist groups, including Al Qaeda’s Syria affiliate Al Nusra Front, announced the launch of an offensive Tuesday in Latakia dubbed “Anfal”, or “spoils of war”.

In a move expected to further exacerbate tensions, Erdogan and Turkish President Abdullah Gul praised Turkey’s military for downing the warplane.

Erdogan also warned Syria against any response.

“Our response will be heavy if you violate our airspace,” he warned Damascus.

The Turkish military said two Syrian MIG-23 planes approaching its airspace were warned “four times” to turn away and that it scrambled fighter jets when one refused to do so and violated Turkish airspace.

A statement said an F-16 jet fired a missile at the Syrian plane in line with “rules of engagement” adopted after a Turkish warplane was downed by the Syrian air force in June 2012, since when Ankara considers any military approach towards the border a threat.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the plane downed on Sunday was bombing rebels fighting to seize Kasab when it was hit.

It said the rebels overran the crossing but were still battling loyalist forces in the area, while activists posted a video on YouTube showing jihadists from Ansar Al Sham flying a black flag over the post.

A Syrian military source denied the fall of Kasab, as a security source said the rebels had infiltrated from Turkey.

The battle for Kasab erupted Friday and at least 80 fighters on both sides have been killed.

‘Cease aggression’ 

Sunday’s action prompted an angry response from the foreign ministry in Damascus which, echoing the military source, accused Turkey of “interference” in Kasab and siding with the rebels.

Turkey’s “unjustified military aggression against Syrian sovereignty in the Kasab border region over the past two days proves its implication in the events in Syria”, it said in a statement.

Turkey “must cease its aggression and support for terrorism”, it said, adding however that Damascus “wants good bilateral relations” with Ankara.

According to the observatory, which relies on a network of activists and medics on the ground for its reports, the fighting in Latakia spread Saturday to a string of villages under regime control.

As a result, “significant military reinforcements have been sent to the government forces”, it said.

Latakia province, which includes Assad’s family village, is considered a regime stronghold, and many of its residents are from his Alawite minority.

Large parts of the province have remained relatively insulated from Syria’s three-year conflict that has reportedly killed more than 146,000 people.

Turkey is a staunch opponent of the Assad government and hosts more than 750,000 refugees, many in camps along the border.

Ankara supports the rebellion against Assad’s regime but also worries that jihadists fighting in Syria could threaten its own security.

On Friday, Ankara warned that it would retaliate “in kind” if jihadists in the northern province of Aleppo attack the historic Tomb of Suleyman Shah, which is inside Syria but under Turkish jurisdiction.

TRIPOLI — A tanker loaded illegally with crude from a rebel-held port and intercepted by the US navy arrived Sunday off Tripoli and its crew were detained, Libyan maritime and official sources said.

The official news agency Lana said the 21 crew members of different nationalities and three Libyans on the tanker “Morning Glory” were handed over to judicial police.

The ship’s captain and the three Libyans were being questioned, said prosecutor general’s spokesman Al Seddik Al Sour.

After its arrival off the capital early on Sunday, the tanker headed off towards Zawiya port, 50 kilometres to the west, a Libyan maritime source said.

The US Navy handed over the Egyptian-owned tanker on Saturday to its Libyan counterparts.

“We have been assured by the government of Libya that the captain, crew members and Libyan nationals who were aboard the stateless tanker will be treated humanely in accordance with internationally recognised standards of human rights,” the US embassy in Tripoli said.

US Navy SEALS captured the Morning Glory off Cyprus in the eastern Mediterranean last Monday.

The ship the previous week evaded the Libyan naval off the eastern port of Al Sidra — controlled by rebels seeking autonomy from Tripoli — after reportedly being loaded with some 234,000 barrels of crude.

The weak Tripoli government’s failure to stop the Morning Glory had plunged Libya into one of its biggest crises since Muammar Qadhafi was toppled by a NATO-backed uprising in 2011.

Its escape after Libyan authorities had repeatedly vowed to take all measures to stop it underscored the weakness of the central government, which has struggled to rein in heavily armed former rebels.

But on Sunday, the Libyan navy’s chief of staff, Hassan Boushnak, told reporters that the US intervention had saved the tanker from being bombed.

“The intervention of US forces who feared an environmental catastrophe in the Mediterranean prevented us from destroying the ship,” he said.

Rebels pressing for autonomy for Libya’s eastern Cyrenaica region — epicentre of the revolt against Qadhafi — have been blockading oil terminals in eastern Libya since July.

CAIRO — An Egyptian court released a leading leftwing activist on trial for joining an unsanctioned and violent protest on bail Sunday, as the army-installed regime seeks to quell political unrest.

Alaa Abdel Fattah and 24 others are accused of taking part in a violent protest last November outside the senate, where a panel drafted a new constitution giving the army broader powers.

The trial for the activist, one of the leaders of the 2011 uprising that overthrew Hosni Mubarak, opened on Sunday as another court resumed the trial of Mubarak’s deposed Islamist successor Mohamed Morsi.

The interim government has arrested thousands of people, mostly Islamists, following Morsi’s overthrow by the military in July.

The crackdown on the opposition amid often violent protests by Islamists is the harshest in decades, prompting fears of a return to the decades long authoritarianism the revolutionaries who toppled Mubarak had hoped to end.

The interim government has arrested thousands of people, mostly Islamists, since Morsi’s overthrow.

Police have also arrested secular dissidents and several journalists.

“They want to silent opposition — this is why they are targeting the revolutionary youth,” Mamduh Gamal, one of the defendants already out on bail, told AFP before the trial began.

Abdel Fattah and his co-defendants were arrested after violating a recently enacted law banning all but police-authorised demonstrations.

Three leading anti-Mubarak protest leaders have already been sentenced to three years in prison for violating the law.

Cheers erupted in the courtroom on Sunday when the presiding judge ordered the release of Fattah and the co-defendant still in custody on bail of 10,000 Egyptian pounds (around $1,400).

His father and lawyer Ahmed Seif said he should be freed on Monday, once bail has been posted.

At the hearing, the defendants, now all freed on bail, denied the charges against them from a caged dock. Abdel Fattah joked with journalists during a court recess and flashed victory signs.

The trial was adjourned to April 6.

Elsewhere in the capital, Morsi was ushered into a soundproof dock for the resumption of his trial on charges of involvement in the killing of opposition protesters during his year in power.

The prosecution showed the court footage of Islamist activists tearing down tents set up by the opposition outside Morsi’s palace in December 2012.

At least seven people were killed in clashes outside the palace, after protests against a presidential decree granting Morsi extra-judicial powers.

The court adjourned the trial to April 5.

Morsi is also on trial in two other cases, on charges of colluding with militants to carry out attacks in Egypt and involvement in prison breaks during the anti-Mubarak uprising.

The Islamist’s presidency quickly alienated many Egyptians, who accused him of power grabbing and mismanaging the economy.

Millions took to the streets demanding his resignation before the military stepped in.

Some of the activists who opposed Morsi, including Abdel Fattah, have since turned on the government, accusing it reviving the Mubarak-era.

More than 1,400 people, mostly Islamists, have been killed in street clashes since Morsi’s overthrow, according to rights group Amnesty International.

Thousands have been imprisoned, including much of the leadership of Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood.

Field Marshal Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, the army chief who overthrew Morsi, is expected to resign this week and contest an upcoming presidential election that he is certain to win.

Sisi is riding a wave of nationalist fervour and support for a firm leader seen to be able to restore security and manage the floundering economy.

ADRAR, Algeria – Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s campaign chief promised on Sunday that constitutional changes would create a “broad democracy” if the ailing incumbent wins re-election next month.

Former prime minister Abdelmalek Sellal gave scant details of the long-promised changes as he opened the re-election campaign with a speech in the southern desert town of Adrar.

Sellal was one of six senior regime figures who fanned out across the vast North African country to campaign on behalf of the president, who is too sick to take to the hustings himself.

Bouteflika’s decision to seek a fourth term despite a mini-stroke, which confined him to hospital in Paris for three months last year, has drawn heavy criticism not only in opposition ranks but also from some within the regime.

Former president Liamine Zeroual has sharply criticised the 2008 constitutional amendment that allowed Bouteflika to seek and win a third term and demanded a handover of power.

Sellal told the rally in Adrar that constitutional changes, first promised in the wake of the Arab Spring uprisings that swept the region in 2011, would be adopted this year.

“Algeria will have a broad democracy, a participatory democracy. Every citizen will take part in the country’s development,” said Sellal, who stepped down as prime minister to run Bouteflika’s re-election campaign.

“We are going to expand the rights of the people’s elected representatives and the opposition parties will have their constitutional rights,” he told a crowd of about 1,000 people.

Sellal gave no further details of the proposed changes, a draft of which he handed to Bouteflika in September last year.

Press reports had suggested that the changes might create a post of vice president but that was denied by Sellal on Friday.

Bouteflika ‘fit to govern’

Sellal, who was closely involved in the 2004 and 2009 campaigns that returned Bouteflika to power, insisted earlier this month the president need not be on the road himself to campaign for re-election.

The president rejected concerns about his health in a message to the nation on Saturday, insisting he is fit to govern and will stand in the race April 17 election in response to persistent calls from Algerians.

“It is my duty to respond positively, because never in my life have I shied away from the call of duty,” he said.

“The difficulties linked to my health do not appear to disqualify me in your eyes or plead in favour of me giving up the heavy responsibilities which have, in part, affected my health,” he said.

Bouteflika, who is widely expected to win the race, faces five other presidential hopefuls, including one woman, Louisa Hanoune, and former premier Ali Benflis.

In an interview published Sunday by the Jeune Afrique magazine, Benflis, who is seen as Bouteflika’s main competition, said he would offer Algerians a new constitution “in order to re-establish a balance of powers”.

Benflis, 69, is a human rights defender who was sidelined from politics after running against Bouteflika in 2004.

He was due Sunday to address supporters in Mascara, a city in western Algeria that is highly symbolic because it is the hometown of the Emir Abdelkader, a key figure in Algerian history who fought the French colonial authorities in the 19th century.

El Watan2014 website, set up for the presidential election, said the message “Ali Benflis will be our future president” had appeared on the site before it was taken down.

This came as Bouteflika’s Facebook page said that the president’s website had been temporarily suspended because of a cyberattack.

Meanwhile, politicians boycotting the elections on Sunday called for a “democratic transition” as a way to achieve a change of power in Algeria.

AMRAN, Yemen — Hundreds of Shiite Houthi rebels protested Sunday in northern Yemen and blocked a road leading into Amran city, a day after clashes with government forces left 12 people dead.

Tension remained high after the rebels set up a protest tent in the middle of the road at the northern entrance to Amran, near an army checkpoint where their comrades clashed with security forces on Saturday.

Other rebels, mostly toting guns, marched inside the city demanding the sacking of the governor and a regional army chief, who they accused of belonging to the Sunni party Islah, an AFP reporter said.

Eight rebels were killed Saturday, as well as two soldiers and two civilians, after shooting erupted when gunmen heading to join a demonstration insisted on crossing through a checkpoint with their weapons.

A presidential mediating committee has been sent to Amran to defuse tensions after the rebels brought in reinforcements from their northern strongholds and the army boosted its presence.

The committee gave the rebels a 24-hour ultimatum, ending Monday morning, to remove the protest tent, open the road and pull out gunmen.

“If the Houthis have certain demands, those will be carried to the president,” said Ahmed al-Makdissi who heads the committee.

“We are concerned now about cementing security and stability,” he told AFP near the protest tent.

Last week, Houthis armed with assault rifles paraded through Amran and drove in vehicles fitted with rocket launchers, demanding the sacking of the “corrupt government”.

The Houthis have fought the central government in Sanaa for years, complaining of marginalisation under former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was ousted in 2012 following a year of protests.

Last month, President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi and party leaders in Sanaa agreed to transform Yemen into a six-region federation as part of a political transition.

The rebels, who complain that Yemen would be divided into rich and poor regions under the plan, have been trying to enlarge their zone of influence by pushing out from their mountain strongholds in the far north to areas closer to the capital.

BEIRUT — A firefight between pro- and anti-Damascus factions in Beirut killed one gunman and wounded 13 Sunday, a security official said, in the latest spillover of the conflict in neighbouring Syria.

The gunbattle raged from 3:00am to 8:30am (0100 to 0630 GMT) in a poor Sunni Muslim district in the south of the Lebanese capital, the security official told AFP.

A heavy deployment by the army brought a halt to the fighting, an AFP journalist reported.

The battle pitted members of a small pro-Damascus Sunni group — the Arab Movement Party (AMP) — against gunmen opposed — like most Lebanese Sunnis — to Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime.

A pro-Damascus activist said the dead man was an AMP member.

Lebanon’s National News Agency said the Assad supporters came under attack by hardline Sunni Islamists.

Witnesses said that the opposing gunmen were members of small Lebanese and Palestinian factions hostile to Shiite militant group Hizbollah, whose militants have intervened in Syria alongside Assad’s forces.

The AMP was at the centre of the fighting when the first Syria-linked violence erupted in the Lebanese capital in May 2012.

It supporters were forced out of the capital’s Tariq Jedideh district in fighting with gunmen sympathetic to the Future Movement of anti-Damascus former prime minister Saad Hariri.

Hizbollah strongholds in south Beirut have since seen repeated deadly bomb attacks blamed on hardline Sunni militants.

The latest Beirut fighting came after nine days of clashes between pro- and anti-Assad groups rocked Lebanon’s second city Tripoli, killing 24 people and wounding 128.

The northern city has been the scene of chronic sectarian fighting since the war in Syria erupted three years ago, with gunmen from the Sunni district of Bab Al Tebbaneh battling fighters from neighbouring Jabal Mohsen, whose residents belong to Assad’s Alawite sect.

AMP leader Shaker Barjawi is a veteran militant whose career has spanned multiple decades and causes.

He fought in the Lebanese civil war under the banner of the Palestine Liberation Organisation before heading to Iraq to fight alongside now executed dictator Saddam Hussein’s forces in his 1980-88 war with neighbouring Iran.

At the time the Iraqi and Syrian regimes were bitter rivals, and on his return home, Barjawi was a staunch opponent of the troop presence in Lebanon which Syria maintained from 1976 to 2005, earning him a spell in prison in Damascus.

But he later changed sides and became a staunch ally of the Assad regime.