Region

DAMASCUS — Syrian army troops recaptured on Monday a key position in coastal Latakia province, a regime bastion, state television said, as rebels press a campaign in the region.

“Syrian army units have full control of Observatory 45 in the north of Latakia province and are continuing to pursue terrorist groups,” the state broadcaster said, quoting the military.

Observatory 45 is a strategic hilltop that overlooks several areas inhabited by residents from the Alawite community, the religious sect to which President Bashar Assad belongs.

State television reported live from near the site and broadcast pictures of dead bodies it said were “terrorists”, many of them foreigners.

Last week, the rebels seized the position as part of an offensive launched on March 21 in Latakia province, which had been relatively untouched by the widespread violence elsewhere in the country.

Rebel forces, including jihadists from the Al Qaeda-affiliated Al Nusra Front, have also captured the Armenian town of Kasab and the nearby Kasab border crossing with Turkey, as well as the village of Samra, giving them access to the Mediterranean for the first time.

More than 300 people on both sides have been killed since the rebels launched their offensive, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

“The army has managed to install multiple rocket-launchers on Observatory 45, but fighting in continuing in the vicinity of the hillside,” said the monitoring group.

After a series of rebel losses in Damascus province, the opposition has shifted its focus to Latakia, where the army and pro-regime militias have rallied to defend the area.

On Monday, opposition forces fired Grad rockets at the Bassel Al Assad Airport for the first time.

The civilian facility is named for a deceased brother of the president and is near the town of Qardaha, the Assad clan’s ancestral home.

Assad’s father Hafez Assad, who preceded as president, is buried in Qardaha.

“The rockets landed near the airport without causing deaths or damage,” Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

The conflict has become more complex with rebels once allied in their bid to topple the regime now fighting against each other.

In the past 10 days, fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) have been locked in battle with fellow jihadists from Al Nusra Front in the northeastern province of Hasakeh.

The observatory said the death toll from the fighting has risen to 120, after fierce weekend clashes for control of Markada, a town on the border with Iraq, where ISIL has its roots.

ISIL seized on Saturday the town which lies on a key route through which the jihadists obtain supplies from Iraq.

Syria’s conflict is now in its fourth year, and more than 146,000 people have been killed since it began.

TEL AVIV — A Tel Aviv court on Monday found former premier Ehud Olmert guilty of bribery linked to a Jerusalem property development, in one of the worst corruption scandals in Israeli history.

At a lengthy hearing in Tel Aviv District Court presided over by Judge David Rosen, Olmert was convicted on two counts of bribery, making him the first former premier to be convicted of the offence.

The trial, which included 16 defendants and took place over two years, was linked to the construction of the massive Holyland residential complex when Olmert served as the city’s mayor.

In 2010, Olmert was named the key suspect in the so-called Holyland affair on suspicion that he received hundreds of thousands of shekels for helping developers get the construction project past various legal and planning obstacles.

The towering construction project, which dominates the city’s skyline, is seen as a major blot on the landscape and widely reviled as a symbol of high-level corruption.

“We’re talking about corrupt and filthy practices,” Judge Rosen said in the 700-page verdict which branded Olmert as a liar.

Olmert reportedly sat expressionless throughout the verdict as the judge spoke at length of a “corrupt political system which has decayed over the years... and in which hundreds of thousands of shekels were transferred to elected officials”.

According to the verdict, excerpts of which were seen by AFP, Olmert personally received bribes to the tune of 560,000 shekels ($160,000/116,000 euros at the current exchange rate), most of which was given to his brother Yossi by a middleman who later turned state’s witness.

“The state‘s witness bought [Olmert’s] ‘services’ at a price of 500,000 shekels which was transferred to him through his brother,” it said of the main sum, saying the transfer involved eight post-dated cheques of between 50,000 and 80,000 shekels.

Rosen also said the 68-year-old had lied to the court in a bid to “blacken the name” of the state’s witness in a verdict which found 13 of the 16 defendants guilty.

Olmert’s spokesman Jacob Galanti vowed to appeal, the Haaretz news website reported.

There has been no date set for the sentencing, although the court has ordered deliberations to begin on April 28 in a process which is likely to last several weeks, legal sources said.

Liat Ben Ari, one of the prosecuting lawyers, said it was “still too early” to say whether they would ask for the maximum sentence of seven years.

“Usually the punishment for bribery is prison. Obviously, we have to look at all the circumstances and the full verdict in order to reach a decision,” she told public radio.

Commentators said it was possible Olmert could face a jail term.

“You are talking about a man who has already been convicted of corruption in a previous case at Jerusalem district court,” said Moshe HaNegbi, legal commentator for public radio.

“I don’t see a situation, under these circumstances, where the prosecution does not ask for several years’ jail time.”

In July 2012, a Jerusalem court found Olmert guilty of breach of trust but cleared him on two more serious charges related to the alleged receipt of cash-stuffed envelopes and multiple billing for trips abroad.

He was fined $19,000 and given a suspended jail sentence for graft.

The Haifa-born politician was mayor of Jerusalem from 1993 to 2003, after which he served as a Cabinet minister, holding the trade and industry portfolio as well as several others.

He became premier in 2006, leading the centre-right Kadima Party into government, but resigned in September 2008 after police recommended that he be indicted in several graft cases.

CAIRO — An Egyptian court on Monday rejected a plea for bail by jailed Al Jazeera journalists, who denied links with the blacklisted Muslim Brotherhood in a trial that has sparked international condemnation.

The journalists, who have spent nearly 100 days in jail since their arrest, are charged with spreading false news and supporting the Islamist movement of deposed president Mohamed Morsi.

“Please, get us out of jail, we are tired. We’ve been suffering in prison,” Mohamed Fadel Fahmy, the Cairo bureau chief of Al Jazeera English, told the judges.

He and his seven co-defendants, dressed in white prison uniforms, were briefly allowed out of the caged dock to address the court, in what Fahmy’s lawyer, Khaled Abu Bakr, described as “an unprecedented move in the history of Egypt’s criminal courts”.

The trial, in which 20 defendants stand accused, has sparked an international outcry and fuelled fears of a media crackdown by the military-installed authorities.

Australian reporter Peter Greste also pleaded to be released on bail, telling the judges “we only desire at this point to continue to fight to clear our names outside prison”.

“We would like to emphasise that we are more than willing to accept any conditions that you impose on us,” he added.

Producer Baher Mohamed said he wanted to be with his wife during her pregnancy.

“My wife is pregnant and she visits me in jail with the children. It is exhausting,” he told the judges.

“I want to be released on bail so I can be by her side.”

‘Not only about us’ 

At the end of the session Mohamed told AFP that “we are here representing freedom of expression”.

“It’s not only about us.”

The judges ordered that two defendants who claimed they had been tortured be examined by “independent forensic doctors”.

They then adjourned the trial to April 10 without granting bail to any of the accused.

Prosecutors insist the Al Jazeera journalists colluded with the Brotherhood, now designated a “terrorist” group, and falsely sought to portray Egypt in a state of “civil war”.

Fahmy said he cannot be considered as a terrorist or a Brotherhood member as he is a “liberal man” who drinks alcohol.

Greste also denied any links with the Brotherhood, saying he and fellow jailed journalists posed no threat to Egypt.

“The idea that I have a connection with the Muslim Brotherhood is frankly preposterous,” Greste told the judges, adding he had arrived in Cairo just two weeks before his arrest.

Eight defendants are in custody, and the rest are either on the run or abroad.

Greste and Canadian-Egyptian Fahmy were arrested on December 29 in a Cairo hotel suite they used as a bureau after their offices were raided by police.

‘100 days in prison’ 

Before the proceedings began, Greste’s brother Mike said the award-winning journalist was “strong... but 100 days in prison must have left its effect on him”.

Defence lawyer Mokhles Al Salhy said his clients had been doing their “job professionally and objectively” when they were arrested.

“They were covering violent clashes between protesters and security forces, as were all other channels. They didn’t make it up or fabricate it,” he told AFP.

Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) urged the authorities to release the journalists and respect freedom of expression.

“The authorities must stop invoking the fight against terrorism in order to persecute dissident journalists,” RSF’s Lucie Morillon said.

The trial of the journalists from the Qatari-owned Al Jazeera network comes against the backdrop of strained ties between Cairo and Doha since the army ousted Morsi in July.

Qatar was a close ally of Morsi’s government and the Brotherhood, and Egypt accuses the gas-rich Gulf state of backing the Islamist movement, including through Al Jazeera.

The authorities banned the pan-Arab broadcaster’s Egyptian channel after Morsi’s removal.

Monday’s hearing comes a day after Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim accused an Al-Jazeera editor of helping to leak classified intelligence documents, in a separate espionage trial involving Morsi.

The minister charged that Amin Al Serafi, secretary to Morsi, leaked the documents to Ibrahim Mohamed Hilal, who he said was Al Jazeera’s news editor and also a Brotherhood member.

Hilal allegedly facilitated a meeting between a Palestinian go-between, a Qatari official and an operative with an unspecified intelligence agency.

DUBAI — Yemen’s president in an interview published Monday defended the US use of drones against Al Qaeda in his country, despite criticism from rights groups and a parliamentary vote to ban them.

President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi also again accused Iran of supporting southern secessionists and northern rebels as Yemen undergoes a difficult political transition.

Drone strikes “have greatly helped in limiting Al Qaeda activities, despite some mistakes which we are sorry about,” Hadi told the pan-Arab Al Hayat daily.

The United States has launched repeated drone strikes on Al Qaeda targets in Yemen as part of its “war on terror” and in support of the army’s campaign against the jihadists.

The drone war, which has killed dozens of militants over the past year, has triggered criticism from human rights activists, who say many innocent civilians have also died.

The United Nations said 16 civilians were killed and at least 10 wounded when two separate wedding processions were hit in December.

The victims had been mistakenly identified as members of Al Qaeda, the UN quoted local security officials as saying at the time.

Following the deaths, Yemen’s parliament, which has limited powers when it comes to security policy, voted to ban drone strikes.

But Hadi insisted that using traditional warplanes against the extremist network could cause “much bigger losses”.

In the same interview, he told Shiite-dominated Iran to “keep its hands off Yemen” and to stop backing “armed groups” in the country.

“Unfortunately, Iran still meddles in Yemen whether by supporting the separatist [Southern] Movement or some religious groups in the north,” he said, referring to the northern Huthi Shiite rebels who fought six wars with central government forces since 2004 before signing a truce in February 2010.

In recent months, the rebels have clashed sporadically with tribesmen and troops in an attempt to spread their control further towards the capital.

“We had asked our Iranian brothers to review their wrong policy towards Yemen, but our demands have so far been fruitless,” said Hadi, adding that Sanaa is not seeking “escalation” with the Islamic republic.

Hadi has repeatedly accused Tehran of “trying to derail the political” process in Sunni-majority Yemen, where a yearlong popular uprising led to the 2012 ouster of former strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh after a Saudi-sponsored deal was sealed the previous November.

Both Shiite rebels and southern independence activists, demanding a return to the independence they enjoyed before union with the north in 1990, have rejected plans for a six-region federation decided by a presidential committee in February.

ISLAMABAD (AFP) –– A Pakistani court Monday indicted former military ruler Pervez Musharraf for treason, a landmark move in a case seen as a test of civilian authority in a country long dominated by the military.

Tahira Safdar, one of three judges hearing the case in a special court, read out five charges relating to Musharraf's 2007 imposition of emergency rule, with the ex-president pleading "not guilty" to each of them.

Musharraf, who had earlier arrived at the court in a convoy of SUVs with over 2,000 security personnel deployed along his route, then turned to address the judges.

"I honour this court and prosecution, I strongly believe in law and don't have ego problems, and I have appeared in court 16 times in this year in Karachi, Islamabad and Rawalpindi," the 70-year-old, who ruled Pakistan from 1999 to 2008, said.

Appearing fit and confident, he made an emotional speech highlighting the country's achievements under his tenure.

"I am being called a traitor, I have been chief of army staff for nine years and I have served this army for 45 years. I have fought two wars and it is 'treason'?"

"I am not a traitor. For me traitors are those who loot public money and empty the treasury," he added.

Musharraf's defence team requested the court adjourn for eight weeks to allow them to prepare, and repeated a call for the retired general to be allowed to visit his ailing mother, who is in her nineties, in the UAE.

"He has come voluntarily to the court and he has pleaded not guilty. He will come back voluntarily," lawyer Farogh Naseem said.

The court is likely to respond this request in its written order later Monday.

- 'Acted on advice' -

After the hearing, chief prosecutor Akram Sheikh said Musharraf's main defence rested in the claim that he acted on the advice of then-prime minister Shaukat Aziz and the cabinet when suspending the constitution.

"He has taken the defence that he did not take these steps independently," Sheikh said.

"On this I have submitted before the court that it is now for him to prove that he did this on the advice of the prime minister and the cabinet," he added.

Musharraf declared a state of emergency in November 2007, shortly before the Supreme Court was due to rule on the legality of his re-election as president a month earlier while he was also the army chief.

He then arrested and sacked the country's top judges, including the chief justice, who challenged his decision.

Facing impeachment following democratic elections in 2008, Musharraf resigned as president, going into self-imposed exile in Dubai.

He returned to Pakistan in March last year on an ill-fated mission to run in the general election.

Almost as soon as he landed he was barred from contesting the vote and hit with a barrage of legal cases, including on his decision to raid a radical mosque in Islamabad, the killing of a rebel leader in Baluchistan and the death of ex-prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday it would be clear within “days” whether the crisis-hit peace talks would be extended beyond an April 29 deadline.

His remarks come as US officials work around the clock to prevent a collapse of the negotiations over a dispute about Palestinian prisoners.

“It could be a matter of just days,” Netanyahu told ministers from his rightwing Likud Party who met just before the weekly Cabinet meeting.

“Either the matter will be resolved or it will blow up. And in any case, there won’t be any deal without Israel knowing clearly what it will get in exchange,” he said, according to his spokesman.

“And if there is a deal, it will be put to the Cabinet for approval.”

President Shimon Peres, currently on a visit to Austria, noted the sides were “working around the clock in an effort to reach a breakthrough in the talks”.

“I hope that in the coming days there will be positive developments in the negotiations,” he said.

With the talks teetering on the brink of collapse, Washington has been fighting an uphill battle to coax the two sides into accepting a framework proposal which would extend the negotiations beyond April to the end of the year.

But the matter has become tied up with the fate of 26 veteran Palestinian prisoners who Israel was to have freed this weekend under terms of an agreement which brought about a resumption of talks.

Israel on Friday informed the Palestinians they would not free the detainees, with US State Department confirming it was working “intensively” to resolve the dispute.

The Palestinians say they will not even consider extending the talks without the prisoners being freed, but Israel has refused to release them without a Palestinian commitment to continue the talks, prompting a fresh crisis of confidence.

“We agreed to the fourth batch,” Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz told reporters on Sunday, while stressing it would not happen as long as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was preparing to “blow up the negotiations” the very next day.

But Zehava Galon who heads the left-wing Meretz Party urged Netanyahu “to take brave decisions, even if they are difficult”.

“The Israeli government cannot unilaterally break promises that we made under the auspices of the Americans,” she said, adding that despite the difficulty in releasing such prisoners “the government must implement the fourth phase”.

‘Ball in Israel court’ 

“The ball is now in Israel’s court,” Palestinian Prisoners Minister Issa Qaraqaa told Voice of Palestine radio on Sunday, saying the leadership was expecting an answer from the Israeli government within 24 hours.

Aside from the release of the 26 veteran detainees, Abbas reportedly wants an Israeli commitment to free even more prisoners as one of his conditions for agreeing to extend the talks.

Late on Saturday, an official in Ramallah told AFP that Netanyahu had expressed willingness to free another 400 detainees and reduce Israel’s military presence in the West Bank in exchange for Palestinian agreement to extend the talks.

Israeli officials refused to comment.

Under a deal that relaunched peace talks last July, Israel agreed to release 104 prisoners held since before the 1993 Oslo peace accords in exchange for the Palestinians freezing all efforts to seek further international recognition.

So far, Israel has freed 78 of them in three batches, and the last group — which the Palestinians insist includes 14 Arab Israelis jailed for nationalist attacks — was to have been released on March 29.

CAIRO — Egypt is to hold a presidential election on May 26-27, 10 months after the army turfed out Islamist leader Mohamed Morsi from the presidency, the electoral commission announced Sunday.

Retired army chief Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, who toppled Morsi, is expected to win the vote, riding on a wave of popularity for having removed the divisive president last July.

The election would go into a second round June 16-17 if there is no outright winner, but that outcome seems unlikely given Sisi’s popularity and the absence of serious contenders.

The only other main candidate is left-wing politician Hamdeen Sabbahi, who came third in the 2012 election that Morsi won. The new president will be announced by
June 26 at the latest.

The commission said registration of candidates would open on Monday and run until April 20, and campaigning from May 3-23.

The announcement of the dates by electoral chief Ashraf Al Asy at a news conference came days after Sisi resigned as defence minister and army commander to contest the election, pledging to eradicate “terrorism”.

Egypt has been rocked by often violent protests and a spate of militant attacks which have killed almost 500 people, mostly policemen and soldiers, the government says.

Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood, blacklisted as a “terrorist organisation”, has said there can be no stability under Sisi as president, accusing him of having staged a coup against Egypt’s first freely elected and civilian president.

The Islamists have vowed to continue protests, which along with persistent militancy, threaten to further damage the country’s already battered economy.

At least 1,400 people, mostly Islamists, have been killed in a police crackdown on street protests, according to Amnesty International.

On Friday, five people, including an Egyptian journalist, were killed in clashes between Islamists and police in Cairo.

In Sinai, militants killed a soldier on Sunday, security officials said.

Sisi has vowed to restore law and order and address the teetering economy, in turmoil since a popular uprising overthrew veteran strongman Hosni Mubarak in 2011.

He is supported by a broad range of liberal and nationalist parties.

But some dissidents who supported his ouster of Morsi, after millions demonstrated demanding the Islamist’s overthrow, now say he is reviving undemocratic practices.

The retired field marshal has said there will be no return to the corruption and human rights violations of the Mubarak era.

But analysts and opposition activists say the country is already witnessing its worst government abuses in decades.

According to a roadmap in a new constitution passed in a January referendum, the presidential contest will be followed by a parliamentary poll to restore elected rule by the end of the year.

Previous polls since Mubarak’s overthrow were all won by the Brotherhood, before a court dissolved the Islamist-dominated parliament in 2012.

Many of their former lawmakers, including top and mid-level Brotherhood leaders, have been arrested along with an estimated 15,000 people in the police crackdown.

ARRABA, Israel — Palestinians and Arab Israelis commemorated on Sunday Land Day with rallies remembering six of their number who were shot dead during a 1976 demonstration against land seizure.

In the northern Israeli town of Arraba, thousands of people turned out for the main demonstration, many waving Palestinian flags, an AFP correspondent said.

A smaller gathering also took place in Sawawil, a Bedouin village in the southern Negev desert which is not recognised by Israel, with police saying hundreds participated.

The annual Land Day demonstrations are held to remember six Arab Israeli protesters who were shot dead by Israeli police and troops during mass demonstrations in 1976 against plans to confiscate Arab land in Galilee.

In annexed east Jerusalem, some 70 demonstrators gathered outside the walls of the Old City by Damascus Gate, throwing stones and chanting slogans, a security spokeswoman said, adding that the rally was quickly broken up and one person arrested.

Spokeswoman Luba Samri told AFP that Land Day demonstrations were “over or nearly over” by the evening and that nothing out of the ordinary took place.

There were also several gatherings in the Gaza Strip, with scores of people attending a demonstration near the northern town of Jabaliya organised by the ruling Hamas movement.

Among the crowd were youngsters wearing green baseball caps and makeshift tunics fashioned out of the Palestinian flag.

They chanted slogans and held up banners reading: “We will return to our land, no matter how long it takes.”

A demonstration near the southern city of Khan Yunis drew similar numbers, among them dozens of children holding balloons bearing the Palestinian flag or scrawled with the word “Gaza”.

Scattered demonstrations and sit-ins also took place in the West Bank, including in the southern city of Hebron where foreign peace activists also attended.

BAGHDAD — Members of Iraq’s electoral commission retracted their resignations on Sunday, having threatened to quit en masse in protest against political interference just one month before a nationwide vote.

The entire board of the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) tendered its resignation last week, further complicating the outlook for polls that have already been clouded by violence across the country.

In a statement following a visit by the United Nations’ envoy to Iraq, IHEC said: “The decision has been taken to withdraw the resignations and resume our duties in full confidence.”

IHEC said it had found itself caught between conflicting rulings from parliament and the judiciary regarding the exclusion of certain candidates from the election, due on April 30.

Members of the commission said the conflict stemmed from divergent interpretations of the electoral law, which includes a clause allowing for candidates “of ill repute” to be barred from taking part.

Critics of Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki have accused him of using the law to eliminate his political rivals to help clear the way for his third term.

“I welcome the decision by the Election Commissioners to withdraw resignations so that parliamentary vote can take place on April 30,” wrote UN envoy to Iraq Nikolay Mladenov on Twitter.

DUBAI/RIYADH — Saudi Arabia’s leaders hope US President Barack Obama and their King Abdullah understand each other better after talks, and can stabilise a close regional security alliance after months of rockiness over Middle East policy, diplomats said.

Friday’s two-hour exchange at King Abdullah’s desert camp did not yield a shared statement or any evidence of policy changes, leading some Saudis to question whether differences over Syria’s war or Iran’s nuclear programme were closer to being resolved.

But diplomats said the mere fact Obama made the effort to visit and discuss issues “frankly” — in a US official’s words — with the king should reduce the margin for public spats and counter an impression that both sides value the alliance less.

Obama visited the world’s top oil-exporter and birthplace of Islam aiming to soothe Saudi fears that the United States was retreating from its commitment to the security of Middle East allies and allowing Riyadh’s rival Iran more influence.

Those concerns, revolving particularly around the cautious US approach to the war in Syria where Riyadh and Tehran back opposing sides, had led top Saudis to warn of a “major shift” from Washington and that they might “go it alone” in the future.

Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said before Obama and King Abdullah met late on Friday night that the relationship had improved since the autumn thanks to better coordination on assisting Syria’s insurgents.

But the comments made by a senior administration official later on Friday did not indicate any shift in areas where the two sides have disagreed.

“It’s too early to judge whether the meeting is successful. Judge and jury on this is if the American policy on Syria changes quickly enough,” said Mustafa Alani, a security analyst with close ties to the kingdom’s interior ministry.

That point was echoed by Abdullah Al Askar, chairman of the foreign affairs committee in Saudi Arabia’s Shoura Council, a body appointed by King Abdullah to discuss policy issues and advise the government.

“As you know, before the visit the relationship was a cold one, but not to a degree where it was in danger,” he said, adding that he was speaking in a personal capacity, and did not have direct knowledge of what Obama and King Abdullah discussed.

But Askar added that although the meeting had appeared to go smoothly, it was not yet possible to judge its success. “We can figure out on the ground... if there is a change [in US policy], it means the Americans now understand the real story.”

Iran threat

Saudi faith in Obama was shaken by his approach to the Arab uprisings in 2011, when they wanted him to do more to protect shared allies who were unseated by popular protests and by his failure to press Israel into ending settlement construction in occupied territory that Palestinians want for a state.

Last year their anger boiled over when Obama backed away from air strikes against the forces of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad after a poison gas attack in the country’s civil war, and when Washington and five other world powers agreed a preliminary deal with Iran over its disputed nuclear programme.

They have been pressing for US involvement of some kind, whether air strikes or more help in turning the Syrian rebels into a competent military force, since early in the conflict but feel Obama has vacillated over how far to commit.

Saudi Arabia believes it is facing a life-and-death struggle with Iran for the future of the Middle East, including in Syria, and abhores the prospect of sanctions and other pressure on the Islamic Republic being lifted.

Washington’s early reassurances that it would not allow Iran more scope to be involved in Arab issues in exchange for a nuclear deal were met with suspicion in Riyadh. But as the interim nuclear accord has shown little sign of being broadened into a permanent settlement, their concerns have diminished.

Nevertheless, Riyadh had hoped for concrete developments on improving the weapons flow to Syria’s rebels, especially after US media reported last week that the White House was considering a new plan that involved providing more arms and stepping up training efforts.

But a senior administration official said after the meeting that US reluctance to provide anti-aircraft missiles, seen by backers of the rebels as indispensable if they are to start turning the tables of the stalemated conflict against Assad, had not changed.

Robert Jordan, US ambassador to Riyadh from 2001-03, said that normally such summits produced action on concrete measures.

In this case, he said, “it’s not clear to me that either side got very much other than words and reassurances”.

A Saudi source said the lack of tangible action was “expected” and that the kingdom’s rulers had lost their trust in Obama when he backed away from military action against Assad.

Alani said: “The question is how fast he [Obama] is going to deliver on his promises. This is a major issue now. Especially on Syria. They will give it a month or two to see if there’s a shift. If it isn’t happening, we’ll go [back] to square one.”