Region

KUWAIT CITY — Qatar’s dispute with three fellow Gulf states, which withdrew their envoys from Doha last month, is “over”, the Qatari foreign minister said Wednesday, while insisting his country had made no concessions.

“The statement issued in Riyadh on April 17 was clear ... For the brothers in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) the dispute is over,” Khaled Al Attiyah told a press conference in Kuwait after a meeting with his Kuwaiti counterpart Sheikh Sabah Khaled Al Sabah.

GCC foreign ministers met last week and announced an end to months of unprecedented tensions between Qatar and Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

The three countries recalled their ambassadors from Doha after accusing Qatar of meddling in their internal affairs and supporting the banned Muslim Brotherhood.

Attiyah’s statement was the first Qatari comment on the special ministerial meeting held in Saudi Arabia.

“Brothers in the GCC states arrived at understandings which are not considered to be concessions by any party,” the Qatari minister said.

Attiyah said it is now “left for the brothers in the GCC states to send their ambassadors back” to Doha.

A statement attributed to Saudi Arabia that the three ambassadors would not return until Doha started to implement the agreement was “inaccurate”, he said.

At the meeting in Riyadh, the ministers agreed that the policies of GCC member states should not undermine each other’s “interests, security and stability”.

Kuwait and Oman also belong to the six-nation GCC.

Attiyah declined to provide details on the Riyadh agreement but reiterated that it signalled an end to the “differences in opinion”.

DAMASCUS — An independent Syrian lawmaker registered Wednesday as the first challenger in a June presidential election widely expected to return incumbent Bashar Assad to power despite a raging civil war.

Assad’s government hit back at a torrent of international criticism of its decision to call the election despite the violence that has killed more than 150,000 people in three years, insisting it was its sovereign right to do so.

Assad has yet to declare his own candidacy but he is widely expected to stand and win a new seven-year term.

The authorities have not spelt out how they plan to hold a credible election with as much as 60 per cent of Syria’s territory and 40 per cent of its population outside their control, according to French geographer Fabrice Balanche.

But that did not stop independent lawmaker and former communist Maher Hajjar, a member of the regime-tolerated opposition, from registering his candidacy with the constitutional court.

Born in the main northern city of Aleppo in 1968, Hajjar was a member of the Syrian Communist Party until 2000, when he joined the Popular Will party of Qadri Jamil, state television said.

Jamil served as deputy foreign minister until October 2013 when Assad fired him and he moved to Moscow.

Hajjar “took part in the peaceful, popular movement at the start of the crisis”, the state broadcaster said referring to Arab Spring-inspired demonstrations against Assad’s rule that erupted in March 2011.

The protests quickly escalated into an armed uprising in the face of a deadly crackdown by Assad loyalists, triggering a descent into civil war.

As he filed his registration papers, Hajjar said he hoped to obtain the support of the 35 fellow members of the 250-member parliament he needs for his candidacy to be approved.

It will be the first presidential election organised by the regime — previously a referendum was held on a single candidate but that system was replaced by an amendment to the constitution.

Election rules require candidates to have lived in Syria for the past decade, effectively preventing key opposition figures in exile from standing.

Candidates have until May 1 to register and Syrians living abroad will vote on May 28.

The Syrian opposition has slammed the planned election as a “farce” while the United Nations and the Arab League have warned it will deal a heavy blow to efforts to broker a negotiated peace.

But a Syrian foreign ministry official said the United Nations and its envoy Lakhdar Brahimi were to blame for “obstructing” peace talks in Switzerland earlier this year which were abandoned after just two rounds.

A ministry statement said that calling the the election was Syria’s “sovereign” right and that it would brook no interference.

“Western countries that make claims about democracy and freedom should listen to the opinion of the Syrians [to find out] who they will chose,” it said.

The ministry accused some states that “send weapons to the terrorists [rebels], support their crimes and refuse to listen to the voice of the Syrian people as expressed through the ballot box [of] obstructing all political solutions”.

It did not name any states but the accusation appeared to be primarily targeted at neighbouring Turkey and the Gulf Arab states.

CAIRO — A senior Egyptian police officer was killed by a bomb placed under his car in a western Cairo suburb Wednesday, the latest in a series of targeted attacks on police and the military as Islamic militant groups keep up a campaign of violence since last summer’s ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.

Brig. Gen. Ahmed Zaki was the second police officer of that rank killed this month in a bombing, a sign of how the violence has shifted from high profile suicide and car bombings against police installation towards more low-level attacks on individual officers or small police posts.

Also Wednesday, a police lieutenant was killed in a gunbattle that erupted as security forces raided a militant hideout near the Mediterranean coastal city of Alexandria.

Al Qaeda-inspired militant groups have claimed responsibility for most of the attacks in the wave of violence that escalated after the military ousted Morsi in July. The groups have said their bombings and shootings are to avenge the fierce crackdown on Morsi’s Islamist supporters in which more than 1,300 people have been killed and thousands arrested. 

The government says suspected militants have killed more than 450 policemen and soldiers in clashes and attacks since July, the government says. Police say of those 262 were policemen.

The government accuses Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood of orchestrating the violence, saying it is ultimately behind the militant groups, and declared it a terrorist organisation late last year. The Brotherhood denies the claim, saying the terror brand aims to justify wiping it out as a political force.

There was no immediately claim of responsibility for Wednesday’s killing, but the interior ministry pointed to the Brotherhood.

“The Egyptian police continues its determined and decisive confrontation in its battle against terrorism,” ministry spokesman Hani Abdel-Latif said in a televised statement. It “will continue its efforts to face up to these terrorist operations that are plotted by the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood group”.

The ministry said in a statement that the night before, it arrested a student affiliated with the Brotherhood who lives in Al Azhar University dorms in possession of weapon after he fired at a police patrol.

Zaki was heading to work early Wednesday from his home in the Cairo suburb 6th of October when the bomb detonated under the police car assigned to transport him, wounding him critically. He later died in the hospital, Abdel-Latif said. Two conscripts were wounded.

Zaki is one of the most senior officers to be killed in the campaign of violence. He was in the leadership of the Central Security Forces, the riot police branch that takes the lead role in dealing with protests and general security.

A senior security official in Cairo said Zaki had sat through planning meetings for the August 14 operation that broke up two pro-Morsi sit-ins in the capital, in which security forces killed more than 600 protesters. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to talk to the press.

Speaking to The Associated Press, Abdel-Latif said he was not aware of what Zaki’s tasks included, but dismissed the possibility he was targeted for any specific role he played. He said attackers are mainly going after targets of opportunity among the police.

“They are targeting police force wherever they are,” he said. “They make a homemade bomb and toss at police.”

He pointed out that traffic police have also been hit and that recently even a civilian wearing a police-style beret had a bomb lobbed at his vehicle, apparently because the attackers thought he was a policeman.

Another brigadier general was killed on April 2 when three bombs were placed by a riot police post outside Cairo University, where protests by largely Morsi supporters have been regular and often bloody since the start of academic year in September.

On Wednesday, new clashes between security forces and students broke out near or outside universities following protests in Cairo and in the southern cities of Fayoum and Assiut and other cities. One student was injured in Fayoum by birdshot, while police also fired tear gas in the clashes.

A new group that first appeared in January, Ajnad Misr, or “Egypt’s Soldiers”, claimed responsibility for that 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.

In an audio recording posted Saturday, Al Qaeda leader Ayman Al Zawahri gave his blessings to attacks by militants on Egyptian police and army, advising operatives to avoid civilians and ensure the population is supportive of their moves.

Also Wednesday, in Egypt’s second-largest city, Alexandria, Lt. Ahmed Saad was shot and killed during a raid on a militant hideout. Militants opened fire on the police as they moved on the hideout, in a farm area in Borg Al Arab, a western district on the Alexandria’s outskirts, the city’s police chief Police Maj. Gen. Amin Ezzedin told the state news agency MENA. He said one suspect was also killed and another arrested, and that two explosive belts, machineguns and homemade bombs were seized in the raid.

Abdel-Latif said two suspects were arrested and are believed to be members of Ansar Beit Al Maqdis, one of Egypt’s main militant groups. Abdel-Latif said the cell was planning attacks on security forces.

On Sunday, gunmen killed a police captain and a conscript in a firefight on a desert road outside Cairo. Two days earlier, a bomb killed at policeman at a traffic post in a busy Cairo square.

After that bombing, the main pro-Morsi coalition led by the Brotherhood issued a statement condemning the attack and suggested that security agencies were behind such attacks. The group praised police and soldiers, saying they should “study the situation, and they will find that these dirty operations are one of the tools of the coup administration” and aim to curb peaceful protests and ensure control over the country.

BEIRUT — Lebanon’s parliament failed to elect a new president on Wednesday, with no candidate securing the two-thirds of the votes needed to win and many lawmakers leaving their ballots blank.

With the parliament divided between two powerful blocs, one centred around the Hizbollah movement and the other opposed to it, the outcome had been expected.

The parliament will now hold a second vote on April 30, in which the winning candidate will need only a simple majority of 65 votes.

On Wednesday, 124 of the parliament’s 128 members were present, with 48 casting their ballots for Samir Geagea, the candidate backed by the March 14 movement that opposes Hizbollah.

Observers had predicted Geagea would fail to win the two-thirds majority required because of his fierce anti-Hizbollah stance.

But speaking after the vote, he said he would not drop out of the race.

“I will continue with my candidacy. We are not going to compromise, and the other party must name a candidate so there can be democratic elections,” Geagea said.

Members of the rival March 8 bloc centred around the powerful Shiite Hizbollah movement have not officially backed a candidate, and most of its members appeared to have submitted blank ballot papers — 52 in total.

A second candidate, Henri Helou, who is backed by members of a small bloc of independents and centrists, won 16 votes.

One vote was submitted for former president Amine Gemayel, and seven votes were deemed void.

Hizbollah’s bloc, which holds 57 seats in the parliament, has yet to announce its support for a candidate.

But its supporters strongly oppose Geagea for his anti-Hizbollah stance, and other critics point to his convictions for crimes committed during the country’s 1975-1990 civil war.

Several lawmakers marked their ballots with the names of political figures Geagea was convicted of killing during the conflict.

Lawmakers must pick a replacement for President Michel Sleiman before his term ends on May 25, but the political class remains deeply divided over the issue of Hizbollah’s arsenal and the war in neighbouring Syria.

The March 14 bloc, led by Saad Hariri, the son of assassinated former prime minister Rafiq Hariri, wants Hizbollah’s military power reined in and largely backs the uprising against Syria’s President Bashar Assad.

Hizbollah and its supporters say it needs its weapons to protect Lebanon from Israel, and the Shiite movement has sent thousands of fighters to Syria to support Assad’s forces.

The Syrian conflict has raised tensions in Lebanon and spilled over the border.

On Wednesday, a security source said four rockets fired from Syria landed in uninhabited areas in the Baalbek region of eastern Lebanon.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM/GAZA CITY — Israel cancelled a peace meeting with the Palestinians it said was scheduled for Wednesday after the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and Hamas pledged to form a joint government, an aide to the premier said.

“Israel cancelled the negotiations meeting that was supposed to take place this evening [Wednesday],” Ofir Gendelman, a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said on his official Twitter feed.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told AFP, however, that no meeting with the Israelis had been planned for Wednesday.

“Netanyahu stopped the negotiations a long time ago,” Erekat said. “He chose the settlements instead of the peace. He is demolishing the peace process.”

He said that the Palestinians would meet bilaterally with US peace envoy Martin Indyk in Ramallah on Thursday.

Netanyahu restated earlier comments that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas — familiarly known as Abu Mazen — had abandoned the path of peace by seeking partnership with Hamas.

“This evening... Abu Mazen chose Hamas, not peace,” a statement from Netanyahu’s office quoted him as saying.

“Whoever chooses Hamas does not want peace.”

Meanwhile, rival Palestinian leaders from the West Bank and Gaza Strip agreed on Wednesday to form a unity government soon, bringing thousands of people on to the streets in celebration.

Amid the jublilation, an Israeli air strike on Gaza wounded six people, the coastal territory’s Islamist ruling movement Hamas said.

“An agreement has been reached on the formation within five weeks of an independent government headed by President Mahmoud Abbas,” said a joint statement read out by Hamas’ Gaza Premier Ismail Haniyeh in front of a visiting delegation from the PLO.

It was not the first time that the rivals have announced a deal to end seven years of separate Palestinian administrations in the West Bank and Gaza.

Shortly after the deal was announced an Israeli warplane attacked a target at Beit Lahiya, north of Gaza City, wounding six people, one seriously, the Hamas interior ministry said.

An Israeli military statement described the strike as “a joint counter-terrorism operation” by the air force and the Shin Bet intelligence agency, and indicated that it missed its intended target.

“A hit was not identified,” it said, without elaborating.

The Palestinian agreement was reached during overnight talks in Gaza City between Hamas leaders and a PLO team headed by Azzam Al Ahmad, a senior figure in Abbas’ Fateh Party.

It was greeted with public celebration in Gaza City and in towns and refugee camps throughout the enclave, with crowds waving Palestinian flags and shouting “Palestinian unity!”

The rival sides have announced several times before that they would make way for a coalition of technocrats, but such pledges were never implemented and analysts expressed scepticism that this time would be any different.

“People have heard the same thing over and over again and each time the agreement had been broken by either Fateh or Hamas,” said Samir Awad, politics professor at Birzeit University in the West Bank.

Analyst Hani Al Masri said: “This reconciliation has hardly any substance on the ground. It could collapse at any moment.

“Reconciliation [between the Palestinian factions] and negotiations [with Israel] are now just tactics — each side has its own calculations.”

SANAA/DUBAI — An intense two days of air strikes on Al Qaeda in Yemen may have killed or wounded some of its commanders, but drones alone are unlikely to eradicate the threat the group poses to Yemenis and the West.

A weak central government, a rivalry-ridden and poorly equipped security force, endemic poverty and corruption have made Yemen the ideal haven of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), whom US President Barack Obama has described as the group “most active in plotting against our homeland”.

Desperate to prevent AQAP from planning more attacks like its attempt to blow up a US airliner in December 2009, Washington has used drones to kill group members and leaders.

A US national security source said on Monday that the US government believed that AQAP is currently plotting attacks against American targets, including the US embassy on Sanaa.

But analysts say drone strikes do only limited harm to AQAP.

They say the group will remain a serious menace unless the government can address challenges such as poverty and inadequate security forces, and curb the occasional civilian casualties inflicted by drone attacks that inflame anti-US sentiment.

“The US can’t simply kill its way out of the terrorism threat,” said Letta Tayler, Human Rights Watch’s senior researcher on terrorism and counter-terrorism.

“The US and other concerned nations should address all the drivers of terrorism including poverty, illiteracy, political marginalisation and lack of opportunity for young people.”

Drones will not end war

The drones’ main success has been to severely limit AQAP’s movements and ability to hold territory as it did back in 2011.

“When they move from A to B, they have to think 100 times. They’ve lost their freedom,” said Mustafa Alani, a security analyst with close ties to the Saudi interior ministry.

“It [drones] is very effective, but this is not going to deal with the problem. These people are replaceable. You can kill 10 of them and there’s 10 more in the pipeline. [So] it’s a success that won’t end the war against AQAP,” he said.

On Saturday and Sunday, several air strikes — presumed to be carried out chiefly by US drones — were launched on central and southern provinces of Yemen.

Yemen’s interior ministry said 55 militants were killed on Sunday alone, which would make it the biggest strike against Al Qaeda militants since at least 2012.

It said three of those killed were leading members of Al Qaeda. Yemen said 10 Al Qaeda militants were killed in Saturday’s attack.

A senior security source said investigations were being carried out into the identities of those killed, but confirmed that “leaders in the organisation” had died.

Rumours have been swirling that those killed include AQAP leader Nasir Al Wuhayshi and Saudi bombmaker Ibrahim Al Asiri, especially after several eyewitness reports emerged that at least one helicopter had landed after a late Sunday night strike in the restive southern Shabwa province.

Tribal sources told Reuters on Sunday that five suspected militants were killed in that attack.

“Minutes after the car [with militants] was hit, we saw helicopters hovering overhead and military cars spreading. Soldiers were seen disembarking from one of the helicopters,” said Obeid Awad.

“After they left, we found the struck car but we could not find any body parts,” he told Reuters.

Local and tribal sources over the weekend said unmanned drones had been circling for days prior to the attacks. Yemen is among a handful of countries where Washington acknowledges using drones, though it does not comment publicly on the practice.

Faris Al Saqqaf, an adviser to the Yemeni president, told Reuters that Yemeni fighter MiG-29s joined in the operation in Shabwa.

Civilian casualties, recruitment opportunities

“Drone strikes are never the solution. It is a tactical band-aid but it can be quite an important one if you don’t want to see planes dropping from the sky in the West,” said Magnus Ranstorp, a terrorism expert at the Swedish National Defence College.

Yemeni President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi praised the anti-terrorism unit in Yemen’s special forces for their strike in Shabwa, which he said targeted “dangerous leading elements of Al Qaeda” and described the operation as one “that represents a strong message to the elements of evil and terrorism”.

But the use of drone strikes has inevitably meant that civilian casualties are sometimes inflicted.

The government acknowledged that three civilians were killed in the air strike on Saturday in the central al-Bayda province. That same province was the site of a controversial strike in December in which security officials said 15 people on their way to a wedding were killed.

Yemeni political scientist Abdulghani Al Iryani points to the sharp increase in the number of Al Qaeda elements from when the drone campaign started in 2003, when they were a few hundred to the several thousand they are believed to be today.

“There are many reasons for the increase of membership of Al Qaeda, but we cannot rule out that the use of drones and the popular backlash it produced has increased the recruitment opportunities of Al Qaeda,” Iryani told Reuters.

“The fact that both the Yemeni and the US governments have relied too heavily on the use of drones as an expedient way to postpone the resolution of the problem rather than having a proper, comprehensive approach to the problem, has contributed to the expansion of Al Qaeda in Yemen,” he said.

Recipe for disaster

Yemen said the attacks were carried out after intelligence that the militants were planning attacks on “vital civil and military and installations”.

Underscoring the threat militants still poses against security forces in the country, police sources said on Monday the head of Sanaa’s police survived an assassination attempt, while one of his aides was killed by armed men. This came hours after an intelligence officer was killed and an aide to the manager of Sanaa’s airport.

The appearance of an online video a month ago in which Wuhayshi appears brazenly with hundreds of other fighters, vowing to attack the United States while celebrating the escape of Al Qaeda prisoners from Sanaa’s central prison, may have helped provide some clues.

Saqqaf, the president’s adviser, described the video as “provocative” and said it showed the location in which Al Qaeda elements were present.

But the army’s weaknesses in providing security in swathes of the country helps gives AQAP more freedom, making drones “an easy option to attack specific targets in a timely manner”, said Charles Lister, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Centre.

“But the lack of on-the-ground military presence means a lack of localised intelligence, which by extension means strikes have inevitably struck civilian targets on occasion. In a deeply tribal and conservative society, such incidents are a recipe for disaster,” he said.

“While a drone strike might represent one step forward, more often than not, it also means two steps back.”

RAMALLAH — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told a group of Israeli journalists on Tuesday that if peace talks do not continue, Israel will have to take on the burden of governing Palestinian lands.

Though Abbas has repeatedly hinted that he could devolve some of the limited powers his Palestinian Authority exercises in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, his statement added urgency to a US effort to extend negotiations set to expire next week.

“If the negotiations stop, it’s the Israeli government that will bear the responsibility for the economic situation and the paying of the salaries of [Palestinian] employees, workers and farmers, for health and for education just as it did before the establishment of the Authority,” he told the reporters visiting his presidential headquarters in Ramallah.

“Also it will bear responsibility for security, meaning Israel will bear full responsibility ... We hope that we won’t come to this period but that we come to solutions,” he said.

Israeli, Palestinian and American negotiators met for another round of talks on Tuesday, though sources from both sides of the divide say strong disagreements remain.

US Secretary of State John Kerry revived the peace talks in July after a nearly three-year hiatus, with the aim of ending a decades-old conflict and establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

Palestinians seek a state in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem — lands Israel captured in a 1967 war.

The Oslo interim agreements signed by the two sides in 1993 created the Palestinian Authority to govern Palestinian areas until the signing of a final agreement — which has proved elusive.

Crisis

The negotiations plunged into crisis this month when Israel refused to carry out the last of four waves of prisoner releases unless it received assurances the Palestinian leadership would continue the talks beyond an April 29 deadline for a peace deal.

After Israel failed to free the prisoners, Abbas responded by signing 15 international treaties, including the Geneva Conventions on the conduct of war and occupations. Israel condemned the move as a unilateral step towards statehood.

Fourteen of the prisoners Israel had agreed to free from its jails are Arabs with Israeli citizenship. Abbas said on Tuesday he rejects an Israeli demand to deport them away from their homes to the West Bank or Gaza as a security precaution.

While both sides have said they are willing to extend the negotiations, Abbas said Israel should commit to freezing settlement activity on occupied land and focus on demarcating the borders of a future Palestine.

Israel has been keen for Palestinian leaders to recognise it as a Jewish state — something Abbas has refused to do — and has been reluctant to commit to the pre-1967 lines as the basis for borders between two states.

An official in the Israeli prime minister’s office condemned the statement by Abbas, nicknamed Abu Mazen, saying it showed a lack of Palestinian commitment to the peace process.

“He who wants peace does not time after time present terms which he knows Israel cannot accept,” said the source, who declined to be named. “Abu Mazen only wants to receive without giving anything in return.”

BAGHDAD — Militants wearing military uniforms carried out an overnight attack against a balloting centre in a remote area of the country’s north and killed 10 guards, a senior police official said on Tuesday.

It was the latest in a surge of attacks around the country as Iraq gears up for crucial parliament elections on April 30. The attack came as Iraq’s Shiite-led government struggled to keep a lid on a surge in sectarian violence that has sent bloodshed soaring to levels not seen since the country was pushed to the brink of civil war in 2006 and 2007.

An unknown number of militants showed up at the polling centre late Monday in Daqouq village outside the northern city of Kirkuk, deputy police chief Maj. Gen. Torhan Abdul-Rahman Youssef said. 

They said they were there to carry out a search, he added, but instead shot and killed the 10 guards, eight of whom were village residents.

Daqouq is located about 260 kilometres north of the capital, Baghdad.

The attack was part of an ongoing effort by militants to derail elections in Sunni-dominated areas. It came just hours after a series of suicide bombings and other attacks across Iraq killed at least 33 people.

The violence has led to a cancellation of balloting in parts of the Sunni-dominated Anbar province, which is engulfed in clashes between security forces and Al Qaeda-inspired militants. The militants have seized and are holding parts of the provincial capital, Ramadi, and almost all of the nearby city of Fallujah.

More than 9,000 candidates are taking part in the elections and will vie for 328 seats in parliament.

Later on Tuesday, authorities said a roadside bomb targeting a street full of shoppers killed four people and wounded nine in the city of Mahmoudiya, about 30 kilometres south of Baghdad.

BEIRUT — New claims have emerged that President Bashar Assad’s regime may have launched attacks with an industrial chemical earlier this month, despite an international agreement to eliminate Syria’s chemical arsenal.

The latest evidence, cited by the United States and France, comes as Syria plans to hold a June 3 presidential poll, which the United Nations and the Arab League condemned as a blow to efforts to end the three-year-old civil war.

“We have indications of the use of a toxic industrial chemical, probably chlorine, in Syria this month, in the opposition-dominated village of Kafr Zita,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said Monday.

“We are examining allegations that the government was responsible.”

The revelation follows a Sunday announcement by President Francois Hollande that France had “information” — but no proof — that Assad’s regime was still using chemical weapons.

There have been conflicting accounts of the alleged chlorine attack in Kafr Zita, a rebel-held village in central Hama province, with the government and the opposition trading blame.

Activists have also reported other chlorine gas attacks, most recently in Idlib province, in the northwest, on Monday.

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and other experts have spent months working to remove Syria’s chemical stockpiles, under an agreement reached after gas attacks killed hundreds near Damascus last August.

Western governments blamed those attacks on the Assad regime and the United States threatened military action before backing down and reaching a deal with Russia to eliminate the chemical weapons.

The OPCW said last week that 65 per cent of Syria’s declared arsenal has been removed from the country.

Although chlorine is a toxic chemical, it is widely used for commercial and domestic purposes, so Syria was not required to declare its stockpiles to the OPCW, a chemical weapons expert told AFP.

“However, as a chemical weapon it is prohibited under the Chemical Weapons Convention,” which Syria joined last year, said Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, CEO of SecureBio, a British chemical weapons consultancy.

“The delivery method that we’ve seen — the use of helicopters — I am certain the opposition don’t have any helicopters.”

He also said that although chlorine is a weak agent, chemical weapons are “very effective in this kind of warfare, in urban, built-up areas, as chemical weapons find their ways into the nooks and crannies.”

Syria, meanwhile, announced on Monday that it will hold a June 3 presidential election, expected to return Assad to office.

Syria’s first presidential election — after constitutional amendments scrapped a referendum system — is to go ahead despite violence which has killed more than 150,000 people since March 2011.

Candidates have until May 1 to register and Syrians living abroad will vote on May 28.

The United Nations and the Arab League condemned the announcement, warning it would torpedo efforts to broker a negotiated peace.

“Such elections are incompatible with the letter and spirit of the Geneva communique,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said, referring to a 2012 agreement on a transition to democracy.

Arab League chief Nabil Al Arabi agreed, adding: “From a practical point of view it is not possible to organise transparent, democratic and credible presidential election amid the harsh human tragedy.”

The International Committee of the Red Cross said it was “appalled” by escalating violence in the main northern city of Aleppo, “where parties have in recent days carried out indiscriminate attacks against civilians.”

In recent weeks, government aircraft have stepped up strikes against rebel-held areas in the east of the city, pressing a bombing campaign that has killed hundreds of people since December.

Rebel fighters have hit back with rocket attacks against government-held districts in the west of the city.

In the central city of Homs, once dubbed “the capital of the revolution” against Assad, the air force bombed a tiny rebel held enclave in the city centre, activists said.

BEIRUT — Lebanon’s sometime kingmaker Walid Jumblatt announced Tuesday he was backing lawmaker Henri Helou for president, a day before parliament meets to vote on the post.

Jumblatt’s decision to back Helou, who belongs to his parliamentary bloc, comes as the country’s lawmakers prepare for a first round election to replace Michel Sleiman, whose term ends on May 25.

“We are proud to present a candidate of dialogue, a candidate of moderation, a candidate for all, with a well-known political heritage of dialogue, moderation and openness,” Jumblatt said.

No clear front-runner has emerged for the post of president, which is by tradition reserved for a candidate from the Christian Maronite community.

Parliament is mostly divided between rival factions from the so-called March 14 bloc headed by Saad Hariri and the March 8 bloc, which is centred around the powerful Hizbollah movement.

A third smaller bloc is largely controlled by Jumblatt, whose vote will be crucial if the two key blocs cannot agree on a consensus candidate.

Helou emphasised his openness to all sides in his remarks, flanked by Jumblatt.

“I want to restore dialogue and partnership between all,” he said.

“A strong president is one that brings together all Lebanese,” he added.

Helou becomes only the second official candidate in the race, though there are no rules requiring hopefuls to publicly announce their candidacy.

Born in 1953, Helou is from an area just outside Beirut and is an engineer by training.

His father Pierre Helou served in several ministerial roles.

The other declared presidential candidate is Samir Geagea, a member of the March 14 bloc who has received the public backing of the bloc’s chief Hariri.

Despite the endorsement, Geagea is considered unlikely to win because of his fierce opposition to Hizbollah.

Hizbollah’s massive arsenal and the war in neighbouring Syria — in which the group is fighting alongside the Syrian government — are two key points of contention for Lebanon’s politicial class.

Hariri’s bloc and many Sunni Lebanese support the Sunni-led uprising in Syria and are opposed to Hizbollah’s involvement there, as well as its arsenal, which outstrips that of the army.

Hizbollah and its allies say it is fighting in Syria to prevent Sunni extremists from entering Lebanon and to protect Assad’s government, which it calls a partner in “resistance” against Israel.

Wednesday’s vote requires candidates to win a two-thirds majority to declare victory, but if no winner emerges, a second-round vote only requires the victor to win an absolute majority of 50 plus 1.

Observers say Lebanon’s political divisions make it unlikely any candidate will win in the first round Wednesday, and a second round is likely to be scheduled.