Region

DAMASCUS — The head of an international mission to Syria charged with destroying the country’s chemical weapons called on President Bashar Assad’s government Sunday to ensure it meets a deadline to destroy all its toxic chemicals amid a raging civil war.

Also Sunday, four more candidates announced their candidacy for Syria’s upcoming June presidential election, state television announced, a poll Assad is expected to win.

Meanwhile, clashes raging through the northern city of Aleppo killed at least 20 people and wounded over 50, activists reported.

Sigrid Kaag of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) told reporters in Damascus that 92.5 per cent of Syria’s chemical materials had been removed from the country and destroyed. She called it “significant progress”, although she called on Syria’s government to ensure remaining materials would be eradicated by the end of April.

“I strongly encourage [the Syrian government] to go for that last push that we can really talk of hundred per cent removal and destruction,” Kaag said.

Syria missed an April 13 deadline to destroy all its chemical weapons in accessible locations. International experts say that could impact on reaching a June 30 deadline to remove all Syria’s chemical weapons.

“An important [achievement] has been made in permanently closing down production facilities,” Kaag said, adding it came in “a very short period of time and under difficult and challenging security conditions”.

Another 12 chemical weapons production facilities are still being reviewed by the OPCW to see how they will be destroyed, she said.

She said the timely removal of toxic chemicals had become even more pressing to ensure “none of the chemical weapons material falls in the wrong hands”, referring to rebels trying to overthrow Assad who include the increasingly influential Al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front.

She said fighting in areas where sensitive sites were located could rapidly deteriorate, making a “timely and swift extraction even more” important.

Syrian officials did not comment on Kaag’s remarks.

The international community aims to remove and destroy 1,300 metric tonnes of chemicals Syria stockpiled to turn into poison gas and nerve agents.

The effort was sparked by an August 21 chemical weapons attack near Damascus that killed hundreds of people. The attacks were blamed on Assad’s government and brought the United States to the brink of military intervention in Syria. Damascus denied involvement.

In recent weeks, activists have accused government forces of attacking rebel-held areas with poisonous chlorine gas, according to Associated Press interviews with more than a dozen activists, medics and residents on the opposition side.

Syria denies the allegations, and they haven’t been confirmed by any international organisation.

Kaag acknowledged the reports of renewed chlorine gas attacks but said they were so far “unsubstantiated allegations.”

She said the OPCW’s technical secretariat had contacted the Syrian government over the allegations, but gave no further details.

If the allegations are true, they highlight the limitations of the global effort to rid Syria of toxic material.

Meanwhile, Sawsan Omar Haddad, a 51-year-old engineer from the coastal province of Latakia, became the first woman to register as a candidate in Syria’s upcoming June 3 presidential election.

In a state television broadcast Sunday, Parliament Speaker Jihad Laham said Haddad had registered her candidacy a day earlier.

Another three candidates also registered Sunday, bringing the total number of contenders to six.

The other three who registered Sunday were Samir Ahmed Moalla, a 43-year professor of international law from the southern province of Quinetra; Mohammad Firas Rajjouh, 48, from Damascus; and Abdul-Salam Salameh, 43, from the central province of Homs.

Assad has suggested he would seek a third, seven-year term, though he has not announced his candidacy yet.

Analysts said they expected at least one candidate to run against Assad to give the election a veneer of legitimacy.

Syria’s opposition have blasted the decision to hold presidential elections amid the country’s 3-year-old conflict, which has killed more than 150,000 people and driven a third of the country’s population from their homes.

Syria’s foreign ministry rejected the criticism, saying the decision to hold presidential election was “sovereign”. It warned that “no foreign power will be allowed to intervene” in the process.

Also Sunday, at least 24 people were killed and more than 50 wounded in fighting between pro-Assad forces and rebels in the northern city of Aleppo, reported the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The fight for Aleppo is particularly important now, with analysts saying they expect Assad’s forces will try wrest as much of the city as possible before elections.

Some of the deaths occurred when rebels blew up the industrial chamber and a power station in a blast that rocked the city, said state-run television and activists.

Rebels also fired mortar shells into government-held areas, killing more civilians.

Other deaths occurred as government air strikes blew apart several residential buildings, burying people, including two children, under the rubble, according to activists and videos uploaded of the events.

The videos appeared genuine and corresponded to AP reporting of the events.

The industrial chamber bombing was part of a surge by rebels in Aleppo to push back against government attempts to take opposition-controlled parts of Syria’s largest city.

Rebels dug a tunnel to reach the chamber in government-controlled territory, said Aleppo activist Hassoun Abu Faisal. The building was used by pro-government forces, reported the Syrian Observatory, which has a network of activists on the ground.

Activist Abu Faisal said ultraconservative Sunni fighters had organised a joint campaign since February to push back against pro-Assad forces, who had been encroaching on rebel supply lines in eastern Aleppo.

He said the intensified clashes between rebels and pro-Assad forces have prompted the government to intensify its bombing of rebel-held areas, and some parts of the city now change hands daily.

BAGHDAD — Five key questions about Iraq’s general election on Wednesday.

Who are the candidates?

9,039 candidates from 277 political blocs are standing for a seat in the 328-strong parliament.

More than 20 million Iraqis are eligible to vote, with 48,796 polling stations nationwide.

Tribal allegiances and sectarian affiliations play a key role in voting.

No single party is expected to win a simple majority on its own and subsequent coalition negotiations are expected to take months.

Who is the favourite?

Prime Minister Nouri Maliki ‘s State of Law Al liance is widely expected to win the biggest number of seats.

With no unifying opposition figure, Maliki is expected to stay in the post he has held since 2006, despite unrest, a struggling economy and critics who say he is consolidating power.

Shiite blocs challenging Maliki include the Ahrar movement linked to cleric Moqtada Al Sadr and the Citizens bloc, a formerly powerful group seen as close to Iran.

What impact will violence have?

The election comes with almost 3,000 people killed this year, fuelling fears that Iraq could slip back into all-out conflict and the bloody Shiite-Sunni sectarian war of 2006-2008.

The bloodletting has sharply raised sectarian tensions. Minority Sunnis who were in ascendance for decades under Saddam Hussein accuse the Shiite-led government of discriminating against them.

The militant takeover of a town near Baghdad sparked worries they may try to encroach on the capital itself.

Who will take power?

Under an unwritten agreement, the president is Kurdish, the prime minister is a Shiite and Sunnis choose the speaker of parliament.

Iraqi leaders have in the past opted for national unity governments, but Maliki has pushed for a majority government, arguing that it will be better able to pass legislation.

Which outside actors have a say?

Iraq borders Iran, Syria, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, and politicians frequently claim neighbouring states influence policy and negotiations.

The United States is seen as having lost influence since its troops withdrew in December 2011, but it is still Iraq’s main arms supplier.

Iran is seen as having a strong influence over who becomes prime minister and is regularly accused of directly funding individual parties.

Maliki has also blamed the civil war in Syria for higher levels of unrest in Iraq, and accused Saudi Arabia and Qatar of backing militants.

BAGHDAD — When Iraqis go to the polls in Wednesday’s general election, regional strife could make neighbouring Iran, former occupier the US, Gulf nations and Syria silent voters as well, analysts believe.

The election is the first since American troops withdrew in late 2011, and since then US influence has waned while Iran has acquired more clout inside its Arab neighbour.

The conflict in Syria between President Bashar Al Assad and mostly Sunni rebels that erupted in March 2011 has also spilled over the border, and could influence the election outcome.

“Elections in Iraq are taking place amid a raging regional conflict, with Syria as its main source, and Iraq is not far from this conflict,” said Issam Al Faili, professor of political history at Baghdad’s Mustansiriyah University.

“Iraq was historically an arena for the conflict between the great powers, and today once again it seems Iraq is the stage for similar disputes that have made Iran, the US, the Gulf states and also the conflict in Syria voters.”

Tehran and Washington both played a key role in the reelection of Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki in 2010 at the head of a national unity coalition.

But the American military withdrawal in late 2011 allowed Iran to build its political influence over its neighbour, making it the biggest foreign player in the country it fought a brutal war against from 1980-1988.

“The Iranian influence is certainly greater because they have direct control of some parties” in Iraq, said Michael Knights, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Rise in attacks nationwide 

But he said that the US can exert its influence over Baghdad through its ability to “refuse to supply” weapons.

Iraqi security forces are currently battling a concerted rise in attacks nationwide, and Washington is still Baghdad’s main arms supplier.

The rise of Iranian influence has also embroiled Iraq in the dispute between Tehran and the mostly Sunni Gulf monarchies over the conflict in Syria.

Syria’s bloody civil war has divided Iraqi politicians, with Baghdad’s Shiite-led government publicly adopting neutrality.

Iraq has called for a political solution to Syria’s conflict and rejected arming rebels battling President Bashar Assad’s regime, a stance supported by most Gulf monarchies.

Maliki launched a scathing attack on Saudi Arabia and Qatar in Iraq in March, accusing them of declaring war on Iraq and saying that Riyadh was “supporting terrorism” in the region and the world.

Most of Iraq’s Shiite majority frets about backing the largely Sunni rebels fighting the Syrian regime, dominated by the Shiite offshoot Alawite sect, in case they win and later back Iraqi Sunnis.

From 2006-2008, Iraq was ravaged by a bloody sectarian civil war between Shiites and Sunnis, who had dominated Iraq until the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003.

“Many foreign powers have agents in Iraq,” Faili said.

Clash over regional influence 

“These agents owe their loyalty to the states that support them, principally the Gulf states, which will try in the elections and their aftermath to push for a government loyal to them, as opposed to Iran’s insistence on a government that supports its regional policies.”

“Iran’s national security will not allow a government that does not support [Tehran], and its regional competitors that might find the US on their side will push for the opposite.”

Despite this clash over regional influence, analysts and diplomats say Iran strongly hopes that Iraq’s election succeeds.

A successful election could help Iraq establish cohesion and unity among its Shiites so Tehran can devote itself fully to the conflict in Syria.

“Iran has been playing power games [in Iraq] for a long time,” said one Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“Their priority in Iraq right now is to keep it as quiet as they can because they’ve got their hands full with Syria” and are too busy organising “Shiite militias sending Iraqis to fight along with [Lebanon’s] Hizbollah in Syria”.

“If Iraq might look like it might become too successful, maybe the Iranians will stir things up a bit, maybe, but it’s not in danger of looking too successful.”

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The world’s largest bloc of Islamic countries is sending 14 delegates to the Central African Republic on Tuesday to lead a fact-finding mission, express solidarity with Muslims and contribute to any peace talks in the country, wracked by sectarian bloodshed.

The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation says delegates will be in the capital, Bangui, for three days. Guinea’s Foreign Minister Lounceny Fall will head the delegation, which will include Turkey’s foreign minister and diplomats from some of the 57 member-states, as well as OIC Secretary-General Iyad Ameen Madani and the body’s special envoy to the Central African Republic, Sheikh Tidiane Gadio.

The OIC said Sunday in a statement to The Associated Press that the delegates are expected to meet with interim President Catherine Samba-Panza, the prime minister and foreign minister, as well as Muslim and Christian religious leaders.

Central African Republic exploded into violence in early December amid mounting resentment toward a Muslim rebel government that had seized power in March 2013 by overthrowing the president of a decade. The rebel leader-turned-president had little control over his forces, who were blamed for raping, torturing and killing civilians particularly among the country’s Christian majority.

Once the government fell in January, Christian militia fighters began attacking Muslim civilians, prompting tens of thousands to flee the country and leaving an untold number dead. At one point earlier this year, Muslims were being killed by Christian mobs in the streets on a near-daily basis.

The OIC visit follows on the heels of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who was in Central African Republic earlier this month. He warned that ethno-religious cleansing is a reality and that most members of the Muslim minority have fled.

MANAMA — Bahrain’s supreme criminal Court has sentenced eight people to life in prison for their part in the killing of a policeman in a bomb blast in November, the prosecutor’s office said on Sunday.

The Sunni-ruled Gulf Arab kingdom and host of the US Fifth Fleet has struggled with unrest since mass pro-democracy protests, led by the majority Shiite population but also included some Sunnis, erupted in 2011.

The protests were put down by the authorities but since then more radical Shiites have carried out low-level violence against security forces on an almost daily basis. Recent months have seen a rise in the use of homemade bombs.

The prosecutor’s office said the eight men planted a homemade bomb close to where police usually erected a checkpoint during protests, before setting tyres on fire and blocking the road to lure police to the site.

One policeman was killed and four others were injured in the resulting blast, the prosecutor said.

Bahrain’s main opposition group, Al Wefaq, said on its website that detainees were regularly subjected to torture and forced to make confessions, and that the courts were ignoring human rights violations committed by the security forces.

The Bahrain government says it has taken steps to address security forces’ violations by dismissing those responsible and introducing cameras at police stations to monitor abuses. But activists say this has not helped.

WASHINGTON — US Secretary of State John Kerry told South Sudanese President Salva Kiir on Saturday that he welcomed the release of four South Sudan leaders accused of rebellion and treason.

The top US diplomat expressed “grave concern” about the ongoing conflict in the world’s youngest nation, where a four-month civil war between Kiir’s government and rebels loyal to sacked vice president Riek Machar has left thousands of people dead, over a million displaced and prompted UN warnings of the risk of famine.

During a phone call, Kerry pointed to “recent violence in Bentiu and Bor and the deliberate targeting of civilians by armed groups on both sides of the conflict”, spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement.

But he “welcomed the government of South Sudan’s decision to release the four senior political officials who had been in detention since December”.

On Friday, the four leaders were released and charges of attempting to overthrow the government were dropped, in a move aimed at easing tensions.

Their detention had been a major sticking point in peace talks, and the gesture comes as the leaders on both sides of the conflict face the threat of UN sanctions amid worsening violence and atrocities.

Kerry “urged President Kiir to stop military offensives and to adhere to the Cessation of Hostilities agreement”, the statement said, noting Washington has made the same demands of anti-government forces.

“Both Secretary Kerry and President Kiir expressed their support for the... peace process.”

The court order said the men were released “in order to promote peace and reconciliation among our people”, while Kiir called on people to respect those released.

ABU DHABI — A senior US official signalled optimism on Sunday about a possible resolution of the Iranian nuclear dispute but said Washington remained concerned that Iran’s ballistic missiles threatened Gulf Arab states.

Frank Rose, US deputy assistant secretary of state for space and defence policy, said Washington was “acutely” aware of Gulf Arab states’ anxieties about Iran and wanted to help them launch a Gulf-wide coordinated missile defence capability.

“We are optimistic that we’ll have a successful resolution of the Iran nuclear issue ... but that doesn’t downgrade our concern about Iran’s other bad behaviours, specifically their support for terrorism as well as their continued development of ballistic missile capabilities,” Rose told reporters on the sidelines of a conference in Abu Dhabi on missiles and defence.

“As long as Iran continues to develop ballistic missiles that can threaten the United States or deployed forces and our friends and allies in the region, we will work effectively with our partners here in the UAE as well as the rest of the Gulf to defend against that threat.”

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.

Coordination

The Islamic republic denies accusations that it is seeking a capability to make nuclear weapons. It insists that the missiles are part of its conventional armed forces and rules out including them on the agenda of the nuclear discussions.

Rose said the priority for United States in the region was to develop a coordinated missile defence system for Gulf Arab states, something the six member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council lack.

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, and Rose made no comments as to whether the topic should be part of the discussions.

Washington and Tehran earlier this year set out contrasting positions on whether missiles should be raised at all during talks on a long-term solution to Iran’s nuclear work that are supposed to yield an agreement by late July.

Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, a senior member of Tehran’s negotiating team, was in February quoted by state media as saying Iran’s defence issues were not negotiable and it had no intention of discussing missile capabilities with the powers.

However, a senior US official noted that a UN Security Council resolution adopted in 2010 banned all activity by Iran related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons, adding: “In some way, this will have to be addressed.”

Retired Major General Khaled Al Bu Ainnain, a former commander of UAE air force and air defence, told the conference Gulf Arab states must improve their anti-missile capabilities.

“Today if there’s a cruise missile passing through Qatar and going to Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, how to share this information with neighbouring countries? There has to be central operating procedures ... We don’t have that,” Bu Ainnain said.

He played down fears of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons.

“Is Iran going to do a nuclear [bomb]? I personally don’t think so. Even if it acquired nuclear [weapons], will it use it? It will never use it,” he said.

RIYADH — Saudi Arabia confirmed 26 more cases of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), which has killed nearly a third of sufferers, and said 10 more people have died from the disease.

The confirmations follow Egypt’s announcement on Saturday that it had confirmed its first case of MERS in a man who had recently returned to the country from Riyadh, where he was working.

Saudi Arabia, where MERS was discovered around two years ago and which remains the country most affected, has now had 339 confirmed cases of MERS, of which 102 have been fatal.

The 143 cases announced since the start of April represent a 73 per cent jump in total infections in Saudi Arabia this month.

The new cases were announced in two statements published on the health ministry website on Saturday and Sunday.

The 10 confirmed on Saturday included seven in Jeddah, the focal point for the recent outbreak, two in the capital Riyadh and another in Mecca. Two MERS patients died.

The 16 further cases confirmed on Sunday included two in Riyadh, eight in Jeddah and another six in the northern city of Tabuk. Eight MERS sufferers died on Sunday.

The acting health minister, Adel Fakieh, said on Saturday he had designated three hospitals in Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam on the Gulf coast as specialist centres for MERS treatment.

The three hospitals can accommodate 146 patients in intensive care, he said in comments carried by local press on Sunday.

Many Saudis have voiced concerns on social media about government handling of the outbreak, and last week King Abdullah sacked the health minister.

In Jeddah, some people are wearing facemasks and avoiding public gatherings, while pharmacies say sales of hand sanitisers and other hygiene products are soaring.

UNITED NATIONS — Syria maintains an ability to deploy chemical weapons, diplomats say, citing intelligence from Britain, France and the United States that could strengthen allegations Syria’s military recently used chlorine gas in its bloody civil war.

The comments reflect a growing conviction among Western capitals that President Bashar Assad has failed to come clean about Syria’s chemical weapons programme despite his promises to end it, and they insist the United States and its allies will resist calls by Assad to shut down a special international chemical disarmament mission set up to deal with Syria.

Syria denies it maintains the capacity to deploy chemical weapons, calling the allegation a US and European attempt to use their “childish” policies to blackmail Assad’s government.

But in a tacit acknowledgement of the original declaration’s incompleteness, Syria earlier this month submitted a more specific list of its chemical weapons to the international disarmament mission after discrepancies were reported by inspectors on the ground, officials said.

Under threat of US air strikes, Assad agreed with the United States and Russia in September to dispose of his chemical weapons — an arsenal that Damascus had never previously formally acknowledged — after hundreds of people were killed in a sarin gas attack in August on the outskirts of the capital.

Washington and its Western allies said it was Assad’s forces who unleashed the sarin attack, the world’s worst chemical attack in a quarter-century. The government blamed the rebel side in Syria’s civil war, which is now in its fourth year.

The verification of Syria’s declaration on its poison gas arsenal and its destruction has been overseen by a joint team of the United Nations and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the global chemical arms watchdog.

Diplomats say Western governments have long suspected Syria did not declare all aspects of its chemical arms programme. But the envoys say they have kept silent on the issue to avoid giving Assad an excuse to curtail cooperation with the UN-OPCW mission and slow down an already delayed timetable for shipping toxins out of the country.

With more than 90 per cent of Syria’s declared chemical stockpiles now out of the country, Western officials have started to break their silence.

“We are convinced, and we have some intelligence showing, that they have not declared everything,” a senior Western diplomat told Reuters, adding that the intelligence had come from Britain, France and the United States.

When asked how much of its programme Syria has kept hidden, the diplomat said: “It’s substantial.” He offered no details.

Ambiguities and discrepancies

Syrian UN Ambassador Bashar Ja’afari dismissed the charge.

“These countries aren’t really reliable and their policies towards the implementation of the agreement between the Syrian government and the OPCW aren’t principled but rather childish,” he said in a mobile phone text message to Reuters.

“If they have some evidence they must share it with the OPCW rather than pretending to have secret evidence!”

Ja’afari said the three Western powers’ goal was to needlessly extend the UN-OPCW mission by “keeping the ‘chemical file’ open indefinitely so that they can keep exerting pressure and blackmailing the Syrian government”.

Another Western official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters that while there was not 100 per cent certainty Syria maintains chemical weapons, the three Western powers agreed that there is a “high level of probability” that Syria deliberately under-reported the full extent of its chemical arms-related stockpiles.

He cited examples of large batch of a sarin precursor chemical going missing in Syria and Damascus’ unverified claims to have destroyed most of its mustard gas stocks before the UN-OPCW mission arrived in the country and other anomalies.

In interviews over the last two months with Western officials with access to intelligence about Syria, Reuters learned that topics of concern include deadly nerve agent ricin, mustard gas, precursor chemicals used to make sarin, and, more recently, the use of chlorine gas in Syria.

US and British officials have also spoken of ambiguities and problems with the Syrian chemical weapons declaration. US officials warned as early as November that intelligence suggested Syria may try to hide some toxins.

Suspicions that its declaration was incomplete deepened when Syria did not report to the OPCW having sarin, which was used in the outskirts of Damascus on August 21, or the type of rockets used to deliver an estimated 300 litres of the toxin.

The senior Western diplomat said Britain, France and the United States had provided information to the OPCW months ago, including on specific undeclared chemical weapons sites. He added that the three powers had also provided Assad’s staunch ally Russia with the intelligence but “they have not reacted”.

The OPCW had no immediate comment when queried. A Russian UN mission spokesman said he had no comment, though Moscow reiterated on Friday its position that claims about the Syrian government using chemical weapons were false.

BAGHDAD — The death toll from twin jihadist bombings that struck a Shiite political rally in the Iraqi capital ahead of next week’s parliamentary election has risen to 33, officials said Saturday.

Friday’s attack by a Sunni militant group came at the height of campaigning ahead of Wednesday’s polls, the first since US troops withdrew in late 2011 and with Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki seeking re-election amid the country’s worst violence since a brutal Sunni-Shiite sectarian war.

A car bomb followed by a suicide attack hit the rally for the Sadiqun bloc, the political wing of the Asaib Ahel Al Haq (League of the Righteous) militia, killing 33 people and leaving more than 100 wounded, security and medical officials said.

Officials had said earlier that 28 people died.

The League of the Righteous, a Shiite militia blamed in the past for killing US soldiers and kidnapping Britons, has been linked to groups fighting mostly Sunni rebels in Syria, whose civil war has split the Middle East’s sectarian communities, particularly in multi-confessional Iraq.

The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) claimed the attack, saying it was “to avenge the league’s involvement in neighbouring Syria”.

ISIL, itself fighting in Syria, made the claim in a statement on jihadist forums hours after the attack.

The attack was “in revenge for what the Safavid militias are doing in Iraq and Sham [the Levant], killing and torturing and displacing Sunnis”, it said.

It used a pejorative term for Iraq’s Shiite majority, linking it to the Safavid empire that once ruled neighbouring, predominantly Shiite Iran.

Iraq heads to the polls on Wednesday with little sign of any respite in the bloodshed, and the country still looking to rebuild after decades of conflict and sanctions.

A number of Shiite blocs are vying with Maliki for votes in his traditional heartland of central and southern Iraq.

They include Sadiqun but also the Ahrar movement, which is linked to powerful cleric Moqtada Al Sadr, and the Citizens bloc, a formerly powerful political group seen as close to Iran.