Region

NAIROBI — Peace talks with South Sudan’s rebels have been delayed again, the government said on Tuesday, a day after the United Nations accused rebel fighters of massacring civilians in an oil town they had seized.

“The talks have been postponed,” Information Minister Michael Makuei told Reuters by telephone. “The reason [the mediators] gave is that it will give them the opportunity to make further consultations.”

Negotiations between the government of President Salva Kiir and rebels loyal to former vice president Riek Machar have failed to advance since the January 23 signing of a ceasefire which never took hold.

The killing of hundreds of men, women and children in the oil hub of Bentiu, which was seized by the rebels a week ago, has exacerbated ethnic tensions between Kiir’s Dinka people and Machar’s Nuer. The rebels deny they carried out the killings.

A UN official told Reuters she had seen dozens of rotting bodies strewn in Bentiu’s dusty streets.

“[In] the marketplace we saw large piles of bodies, dozens and dozens of bodies, piled up on top of each other,” said Amanda Weyler, communications officer for the UN humanitarian coordination office OCHA. Women were among the dead, she said.

The United Nations said on Monday that rebels had killed civilians as they sought refuge in a hospital, a mosque and a church.

The rebels said the UN allegations were baseless and accused a part of the UN mission in South Sudan of pedalling “cheap propaganda” to win favour with Kiir, blaming government forces for the systematic killings.

“The government forces and their allies committed these heinous crimes while retreating,” rebel spokesman Lul Ruai Koang said in an e-mailed statement. These are ridiculous allegations fabricated by enemies of [the] war of resistance for democratic reforms.

The East African IGAD group brokering the talks postponed their resumption by five days to April 28, the government said.

More than 1 million people have fled their homes since fighting erupted in the world’s youngest country in December.

Thousands of people have been killed and tens of thousands have sought refuge at UN bases around the country after the violence spread across the country the size of France and took on an ethnic dimension.

RIYADH — Saudi Arabia has discovered another 17 cases of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), as the total number of confirmed infections of the SARS-like disease has jumped by a third in the kingdom in the past week.

King Abdullah replaced the health minister, Abdullah Al Rabeeah, on Monday amid growing public disquiet at the spread of the disease, which was discovered two years ago and kills around a third of sufferers.

Rabeeah said on Sunday he did not know why there had been a surge but said it might be part of a seasonal pattern since there had also been a rise in infections last April and May.

However, the jump is of particular concern as Saudi Arabia is expected to have a large influx of pilgrims from across the world in July during the holy month of Ramadan, followed in early October by the arrival of millions of people to perform the annual Hajj in Mecca.

Jeddah, Saudi Arabia’s second largest city where many of the new cases have been discovered, is the main entry point for pilgrims visiting nearby Mecca, site of the holiest places in Islam but where there have been no confirmed cases so far.

Last year’s Hajj passed without any new infections being identified.

The 17 new cases, announced late on Monday on the health ministry website, bring the total number of Saudi infections to 261, of whom 81 have died. Combined with the other 49 cases announced in recent days, they represent a jump of 34 per cent in the number of laboratory confirmed infections within a week.

Seven of the 17 new cases were in Jeddah. Six were in Riyadh, including one who died, while three were in Medina and one was in the northern city of Tabuk.

Saudi authorities last week issued several statements aimed at reassuring the public that there was no immediate cause for concern at the latest outbreak and that it had not met international definitions of an epidemic.

However, Labour Minister Adel Fakieh, who has been appointed as acting health minister, was shown in several newspapers on Tuesday touring one of the main hospitals in Jeddah, a display that seemed aimed at countering accusations from some Saudis on social media that the authorities had not taken the situation seriously enough.

Rabeeah said on Sunday Saudi Arabia was still opening its borders for foreign visitors, including pilgrims, and that the authorities were taking “all the scientific precaution measures to ensure the safety and well-being of our nation”.

He said there was not yet any medical reason to change the preventative measures already in place, such as travel restrictions or closures of some medical facilities where clusters of cases have occurred, to contain the spread.

MERS has no vaccine or anti-viral treatment, but international and Saudi health authorities say the disease, which originated in camels, does not transmit easily between people and may simply die out.

Jeddah, like most Saudi cities, has areas within its boundaries where camels are free to graze.

Fakieh has become a prominent figure in Saudi politics in recent years after pushing sweeping reforms in employment policy aimed at getting more young Saudis into jobs.

TRIPOLI — Libya will start registering voters for general elections, officials said on Tuesday, in the first concrete step indicating a vote will take place later this year.

In February, the Libyan parliament, the General National Congress (GNC), agreed to hold early elections, in an apparent effort to assuage Libyans frustrated at political chaos nearly three years after the fall of Muammar Qadhafi.

Deputies initially agreed to extend their term after their mandate ran out on February 7, to allow a special committee time to draft a new constitution. But that move provoked protests from Libyans angry at the slow pace of political change.

Voter registration will start from Wednesday, Emad Al Shadi Al Saih, head of the elections commission, told reporters. He gave no date for the vote but analysts say it might take place in summer or early autumn.

Saih called on Libyans to avoid “being negative” and participate in the elections in order to rebuild the country.

The GNC is deadlocked between Islamists and nationalists, compounding a sense of chaos as Libya’s fledgling army tries to assert itself against unruly ex-rebels, tribal groups and Islamist militants.

Many people in the OPEC nation blame congress infighting for a lack of progress in the transition towards democracy since the overthrow of Qadhafi in 2011.

In addition, Libya needs to pick a new prime minister after Abdullah Al Thinni resigned a week ago after just one month in office, blaming an attack by gunmen on his family.

On Tuesday, deputies postponed a session to choose a premier from seven candidates because more time was needed for debate, Benghazi Congressman Omar Khaled Al Obaidi told Reuters.

“The Congress decided to cancel today’s session because there is no consensus so far,” he said.

ANKARA — The number of Syrian refugees in Turkey has reached “almost one million”, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday, while pledging to keep accepting those fleeing the war.

“Are we supposed to ask our brothers not to come, and to die in Syria?” Erdogan said as he addressed his party’s lawmakers in parliament.

The three-year conflict in Syria has sent millions fleeing to neighbouring countries and beyond.

Turkey, a staunch opponent of the regime in Damascus, is one of the countries that has born the brunt of the refugee crisis, along with Lebanon and Jordan.

The United Nations said earlier this month that more than a million people Syrians had officially registered as refugees in Lebanon, and that numbers were swelling by the day.

RAS AL HARF, Lebanon — Lebanese authorities on Tuesday sent a rare aid convoy to the town of Tufeil, an island of Lebanese territory inside Syria where thousands have become trapped in the country’s war.

Tufeil is located on the northeastern tip of Lebanon, which stretches into Syria.

Though the town is Lebanese, it is impossible to reach it without passing through Syrian territory.

The town was once home to some 5,000 people, most of them Sunni Muslims, but many have fled to safety inside Lebanon as the conflict in Syria has escalated.

Ever since Lebanon gained independence from France in 1943, residents of Tufeil have voted in Lebanon, but have gone to school, worked, received medical treatment and bought their goods from Syria.

But as the Syrian army, backed by Lebanon’s Shiite Hizbollah movement, scored a string of victories this year in the surrounding Qalamun area, Tufeil’s Sunni residents found themselves trapped.

For weeks the town’s population has been unable to leave or receive any kind of assistance, with Syrian armed forces blocking the routes into Syria.

Inside Lebanon, the villages neighbouring Tufeil are largely Shiite, where support for Hizbollah and the Syrian regime is strong, and residents accuse Tufeil of supporting Syria’s Sunni-led opposition.

With concern rising about the plight of the town, Lebanon’s Interior Minister Nuhad Mashnuq said Monday that authorities would provide assistance to Tufeil’s residents, as well as to Syrians who have taken refuge there.

Mashnuq also said he had been in touch with Hizbollah in a bid to safe passage for the aid convoy through the Shiite village of Britel, which neighbours Tufeil in Lebanon.

An AFP journalist, who travelled with the convoy until Ras Al Harf, six kilometres from Tufeil, said the terrain was rugged and that Hizbollah positions and flags were clearly visible.

The aid convoy comprised Red Cross vehicles, trucks transporting 1,000 food parcels, tents, 3,000 blankets, a mobile clinic, and fuel tanks, said Lebanon’s High Relief Commission chief Mohammad Kheir.

According to Kheir, “1,000 Lebanese and 3,000 Syrians” are now trapped in Tufeil.

Ali Al Shum, an official from Tufeil, told AFP: “Before the [Syrian] crisis, we didn’t used to distinguish between Lebanese and Syrians. We lived together.”

He denied any Syrian opposition fighters had entered Tufeil.

Once the convoy arrived, television footage from the town showed hundreds gathered to receive aid, cheering and throwing flowers at the delegation.

“We need help, but we do not want to leave our land,” said one beneficiary.

Another asked for the Lebanese army to deploy in Tufeil “to protect us”.

DAMASCUS — Syria said Monday it will hold a presidential election expected to return President Bashar Assad to office on June 3, despite a civil war that has killed tens of thousands.

Underlining the ongoing violence, mortar fire hit near the parliament building shortly before the election was announced, killing two people.

Syria’s first presidential election — after constitutional amendments did away with the old referendum system — will be held amid violence that has killed 150,000 people since March 2011, according to one monitoring group.

Speaker Mohammad Al Lahham announced the date in parliament, saying Syrians living outside the country would vote May 28 and candidates would be able to register to run from Tuesday until May 1.

Lahham said voting would be “free and fair... and under full judicial supervision”.

He urged Syrians “to give voice to their will through the ballot box and participate in the democratic process by electing whoever they think is most able to lead Syria to victory”.

Assad, who became president after his father Hafez died in 2000 and whose current term ends on July 17, is widely expected to run and win another seven-year mandate despite the conflict.

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

The opposition has criticised plans to hold a presidential election and insists Assad should step down and have no role in Syria’s future.

Much of the international community has also warned Syria against holding the vote, with UN-Arab League peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi saying it could close the door to any peace negotiations.

And on Monday Britain dismissed the election, saying that holding it during the war meant the result “will have no value or credibility”.

It remains unclear how Syria’s government will organise a vote under the current circumstances, with swathes of the country out of its control and nearly half the population displaced.

Syria’s conflict began with peaceful protests demanding democratic reform but soon escalated into a civil war after the government launched a massive crackdown on dissent.

‘What about democracy?’ 

Violence continues in many parts of the country, even reaching into the heart of the capital, which has regularly come under mortar fire from opposition fighters on the outskirts.

A security official said mortar fire in Damascus was expected to increase during the electoral period.

“They [rebels] will increase the fire this month to try to undermine the election,” he said.

Syria specialist Fabrice Balanche said the government could only stage the election on 40 per cent of the country’s territory.

“The election can only be held in the government-held areas, a band of territory stretching from the Jordan border, through Damascus, Hama and Homs,” as well as Idlib city, Jisr Al Shughur, half of Aleppo and half of Deir Ezzor, he told AFP.

Opposition member Samir Nashar, who spoke from neighbouring Turkey, described the election as “a mere continuation of [Syria’s] past.”

“For 50 years, from 1963 [when the ruling Baath Party came to power] to date, there have been no transparent elections,” Nashar told AFP.

“I don’t think that anyone would believe that these elections can really express the will of the Syrian people, considering all this destruction and forced displacement... What elections are we talking about? What about democracy?”

An activist in Daraya, near Damascus, described the announcement as a new sign of military escalation in the conflict.

“Things are going towards escalation, and we haven’t yet reached the point where either side is exhausted, and where they would genuinely want a political solution,” Amjad Abbar told AFP via the Internet.

On the ground, regime forces were on the offensive in the central city of Homs, where the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said clashes were continuing in the districts of Bab Hud and Juret Al Shiyah.

Both rebel-held neighbourhoods have been under government siege for nearly two years.

In the northern city of Aleppo, meanwhile, activists said regime aircraft dropped explosives-packed barrel bombs on several districts, a day after 52 civilians were killed in air raids across the province of the same name.

North of Damascus, a car bomb attack killed two soldiers at a checkpoint in Mashru Dummar neighbourhood.

KUT, Iraq — Suicide bombers attacked two checkpoints south of Baghdad on Monday, among a spate of attacks in central Iraq that killed 23 people as a general election looms next week.

Iraq is going through a protracted surge in bloodshed that has killed more than 2,750 people so far this year and the UN envoy warned on Monday that militants were seeking to stoke sectarian tensions between the Shiite Muslim majority and the Sunni Arab minority.

In the deadliest attack, a suicide bomber detonated a vehicle rigged with explosives at a police checkpoint in the Suweirah area, south of Baghdad, killing 13 people and wounding 35, a police officer and a medical source said.

Another suicide bomber blew up a vehicle at a checkpoint in Madain, killing at least two people and wounding five, while gunmen shot dead one person and wounded at least one other in Latifiyah, officials said.

In the Sadr City area of north Baghdad, a car bomb in an area of shops killed five people and wounded at least 12. A car bomb in the Shaab area killed at least two people and wounded at least nine.

The attacks came a day after violence in Iraq, including a suicide bombing at Baghdad’s Imam Kadhim University, killed at least 16 people.

UN envoy Nickolay Mladenov condemned the attack on the university, which is run by the Shiite religious endowment, as an attempt to stoke sectarianism.

“This is yet another example of sectarian-based violence that the people of this country need to fight in order to bring this country to tranquility, and it is happening at a time when the Iraqi people are preparing to go to the polls in a few days,” Mladenov said.

“The target has been selected to incite sectarian hatred.”

The April 30 vote is Iraq’s first parliamentary election since US forces withdrew in 2011 and is a major test for the security forces.

While they were able to keep violence to a minimum during provincial elections last year, the security forces have failed to halt a surge of unrest this year.

Violence has killed more than 500 people in Iraq so far this month, according to AFP figures based on security and medical sources.

It has been fuelled by widespread anger among the Sunni Arab minority, who say they are mistreated by the Shiite-led government and security forces.

TRIPOLI/TUNIS — A Tunisian diplomat kidnapped in Libya pleaded with his government to negotiate with his Islamist captors, according to a video released by an Islamist group on Sunday evening.

Libyan Islamists have seized two Tunisian diplomats in the past month to demand the release of fellow militants jailed in Tunisia for attacking security forces there in 2011, according to the Tunisian government.

Entitled “message of the kidnapped Tunisian diplomat Mohammed Bel Sheikh to the Tunisian government and his family” the video, published on social media, showed the diplomat crying.

“Mr President, negotiate seriously with them. I want to return to my country Tunisia,” the diplomat, who was sporting a beard, said. “They can kill me anytime.”

“Mr President, I have three young children,” he said. “Are you a father, Mr President?”

Bel Sheikh was kidnapped a month ago, while another Tunisian diplomat was snatched in the Libyan capital last week, the latest in a series of kidnappings of diplomats in the North African country.

At the end of the video, an Islamist group called Shabab Al Tawhid (Youth of Monotheism) added a message to the Tunisian government: “As you imprison ours we will imprison yours. As you kills ours we will kill yours.”

Neither Libyan nor Tunisian officials were immediately available for comment but the diplomat’s family confirmed it was Bel Sheikh who appeared in the five-minute video.

“The person who appeared in the video is my brother, that is sure... we’re suffering,” his sister Samira bel Sheikh told Reuters.

“Where are the Tunisian authorities a month after his kidnapping. We haven’t seen any action or negotiations,” she said, adding that her brother had missed the birth of his youngest daughter. “Where is the president and the prime minister ?”

Libyan authorities are struggling to contain former rebels and Islamist militants who fought to depose ex-leader Muammar Qadhafi in 2011 and who have formed increasingly powerful and violent militias.

Last Tuesday, gunmen kidnapped Jordan’s ambassador to Libya, demanding an Islamist militant be released from a Jordanian jail in exchange for the diplomat’s freedom.

Foreign powers worry that Libya’s porous borders and the absence of a functioning government are making the country a safe haven and transit point for militant Islamists heading for Syria, Egypt or sub-Saharan African countries.

Last week the interim prime minister resigned after just a month into the job, saying gunmen had tried to attack his family.

Tribal groups, militias and even local citizens are also resorting to road blockades as a negotiating tactic. Some rebel groups have also shut down the OPEC member’s oil facilities, raising supply concerns on global oil markets.

ADEN — An “unprecedented” US and Yemeni aerial campaign in Yemen killed at least 68 Al Qaeda militants in a bid to head off attacks by the network’s local affiliate, officials said Monday.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has been linked to a number of failed terror plots against the United States, and its leader has appeared in a rare video in which he vowed to attack Western “crusaders... everywhere in the world”.

A top Yemeni official told AFP the “unprecedented” Saturday-Sunday air war came after “information that Al Qaeda was plotting attacks on vital installations, military and security, as well as foreign interests in Yemen”.

The interior ministry said intensive air strikes on Al Qaeda bases in the rugged mountains of Abyan province on Sunday killed 55 militants, including three local chiefs.

Tribal sources had put the death toll from the raids near the town of Al Mahfad at more than 30.

The interior ministry said the raids lasted several hours, adding that “terrorists of Arab and foreign nationalities are among the dead and are in the process of being identified”.

The top official said Yemeni MiG-29 jet fighters took part in the raids, which tribal sources said involved unmanned drones.

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

A drone strike on Sunday night killed three militants, one of whom may have been a senior commander, when a missile blasted their off-road vehicle in the southern Shabwa province, an official said.

Witnesses confirmed the vehicle was completely destroyed and said they saw the charred remains of three individuals.

Shortly after the attack, commandos in an unmarked helicopter arrived to retrieve the bodies, they said.

“The operation seems to indicate that one of the dead could be an important leader of Al Qaeda,” one witness told AFP.

And on Saturday, a drone strike in the central province of Baida killed 10 Al Qaeda suspects and three civilians, official Saba news agency reported. It did not say who carried out the attack.

Meanwhile, two gunmen on a motorbike shot dead an intelligence officer Monday and wounded another in Sanaa, in an attack that “bore the hallmarks of Al Qaeda”, an official said.

President Abd Rabbo Mansur Hadi, meanwhile, awarded Yemen’s counterterrorism unit the medal of “bravery” for its “successful raid last night”, the government said in a statement.

“The operation delivers a strong message to the criminal and terror operatives that the armed forces and security personnel are ready to foil and thwart terrorist acts at any time and place,” said Hadi.

‘War against crusaders’

The weekend attacks came after AQAP chief Nasser Al Wuhayshi pledged to fight Western “crusaders” everywhere, apparently referring to the United States and other countries which have intervened in Muslim countries.

“We will continue to raise the banner of Islam in the Arabian Peninsula and our war against the crusaders will continue everywhere in the world,” he said in a video posted online last month.

The video, which showed Wuhayshi addressing militants, could have been shot in the Al Kur mountain range, which stretches between Abyan, Shabwa and Baida provinces, and has become a stronghold for AQAP, tribal sources said.

Hadi has defended the use of drones, despite criticism from rights groups concerned about civilian casualties.

The United States has defended its use of drones against Al Qaeda, saying they allow it to target jihadists without sending soldiers into lawless areas where local authorities have little or no control.

Rights groups have criticised the drone programme in Yemen and other countries, and repeatedly urged the US administration to investigate strikes in which civilians have been killed.

KUWAIT — A judge has suspended two Kuwaiti newspapers for two weeks after they published stories about a recording that discusses an alleged plot to overthrow the Gulf state’s ruling system, their editors and the state news agency said on Sunday.

Kuwait, a major oil producer and US ally, has imposed a news blackout on a sensitive investigation into the tape, saying earlier this month that media coverage about it was damaging to the country. A parliament session discussing the tape last week was held behind closed doors.

The information ministry said the newspapers had published “articles and views on the case which could affect relevant investigations by the Public Prosecution, and could even undermine the national interest,” the KUNA news agency reported.

Al Watan editor-in-chief Sheikh Khalifa Ali Al Khalifa Al Sabah told Reuters that his publication would contest the decision and continue to update its website. It would not publish its print edition from Monday, he added.

“I do not think we talked about the tape more than any other newspaper,” Sheikh Khalifa, a member of Kuwait’s Al Sabah ruling family, said. “This is a great legal error.”

Alam Alyawm editor Abdulhameed Al Da’as said his newspaper had also received a notice about the verdict on Sunday and would cease publication for two weeks.

Alam Alyawm is a separate publication to Al Watan and is close to Kuwait’s political opposition. Its front page on Sunday said there was an “uprising against the closure of the newspaper,” and featured comments from politicians and media figures against the expected suspension.

Kuwait’s courts do not comment to the media about cases.

Reports about the tape have featured extensively in local newspapers and online since the start of the year, prompting a rare statement from the ruling emir’s office this month, which told people to stop discussing the topic.