Region

RIYADH — Saudi Arabia on Friday listed the Muslim Brotherhood and two Syrian jihadist groups as terrorist organisations, and ordered citizens fighting abroad to return within 15 days or face imprisonment.

The move represents a major escalation against the Muslim Brotherhood of deposed Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi and indicates rising concern in Riyadh over the possible return of battle-hardened Saudi extremists from Syria.

In addition to the Muslim Brotherhood, Saudi listed Al Nusra Front, which is Al Qaeda’s official Syrian affiliate, and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), a rogue group fighting in both Syria and Iraq, as terrorist organisations.

The interior ministry decree, which was released by state media, also listed as terrorist groups the Shiite Huthi rebels fighting in northern Yemen and “Hizbollah inside the kingdom”, apparently referring to a little-known Saudi Shiite group.

The order penalises involvement in any of the groups’ activities at home or abroad — including demonstrations — and outlaws the use of “slogans of these organisations”, including in social media.

It also forbids “participation in, calling for, or incitement to fighting in conflict zones in other countries”.

Riyadh is a staunch supporter of the Sunni-led rebels battling to overthrow Syrian President Bashar Assad but has long feared blowback from radical jihadist groups, particularly after a spate of attacks by a local Al Qaeda franchise from 2003 to 2006.

King Abdullah last month decreed jail terms of up to 20 years for belonging to “terrorist groups” and fighting abroad.

Similar sentences will be passed on those belonging to “extremist religious and ideological groups, or those classified as terrorist organisations, domestically, regionally and internationally”, state news agency SPA said at the time.

Supporting such groups, adopting their ideology or promoting them “through speech or writing” would also incur prison terms, the decree added.

Rights group Amnesty International sharply criticised last month’s decree, saying it could be used to suppress peaceful political dissent because the law used an “overly vague definition of terrorism”.

Saudi Arabia set up specialised terrorism courts in 2011 to try dozens of nationals and foreigners accused of belonging to Al Qaeda or being involved in a wave of bloody attacks that swept the country from 2003.

Rivalry with Qatar 

Saudi Arabia and other conservative Gulf monarchies have long been hostile towards the Muslim Brotherhood, fearing that its brand of grass-roots activism and political Islam could undermine their authority.

The decision to brand the Brotherhood a terrorist group came a day after Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates recalled their ambassadors from Qatar, which had been a staunch supporter of Morsi and backs Brotherhood-linked groups across the region.

It was an unprecedented escalation of tensions within the Gulf Cooperation Council — which also includes Kuwait and Oman — and was widely seen as signalling Gulf fury at Qatari support for Islamist groups following the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings.

It was also seen as a revival of the on-again, off-again rivalry between Riyadh and Doha, oil- and gas-rich monarchies that have long vied for regional influence.

Saudi Arabia hailed the overthrow of Morsi and pledged billions of dollars to Egypt’s military-installed government following his July 2013 ouster, and in recent months has eclipsed Qatar as the main backer of Syria’s rebels.

Egypt, which has launched a sweeping crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood and detained reporters from Qatar’s Al Jazeera news network, on Thursday welcomed the Gulf countries’ decision to recall their envoys from Doha.

It said its own envoy, who has been in Cairo since early February, “will not return to Qatar at the present time, and his remaining [in Egypt] is a sovereign political decision”.

“It is for Qatar to clearly determine its position, whether it will stand on the side of Arab solidarity, unified ranks and protection of national security... or on the other side, and bear the consequences and responsibility for that,” a government statement said.

JUBA — Five soldiers died when heavy fighting broke out in the main military barracks in war-torn South Sudan’s capital Juba on Wednesday, underscoring serious tensions within the national army as it battles a rebel uprising.

Fierce gunfire lasting two hours was heard coming from the main barracks near Juba University, home to the presidential guards and other elite troops, from 9:30am (0630 GMT).

The government played down the violence as resulting from a “misunderstanding” over pay. Army spokesman Malak Ayuen told AFP five soldiers had been killed and that those found responsible would face a court martial.

“It’s unfortunate that this morning fighting ensued among the commandos themselves over salary,” he said.

“What happened was a misunderstanding among the commandos and it ended in their unit.”

However, the UN mission in South Sudan voiced concern in a statement at “a number of shooting incidents which occurred in the capital, Juba”.

The fighting at the barracks was not far from UN offices.

The UN mission spoke of other reports of shootings in Juba, including around the university and the World Food Programme warehouse.

According to independent Tamazuj radio, the fighting at the barracks started after soldiers argued with a military pay committee. Other local media carried unconfirmed reports that the fighting broke out between guards loyal to President Salva Kiir and a commando unit under top general Gatwech Gai.

The US embassy in Juba issued a statement advising people to stay indoors as hundreds of terrified residents flooded the main church in Juba, fearing a major outbreak of violence.

“When the fighting started we immediately ran to the church for protection,” said Annet Sitima, a local woman.

The conflict in South Sudan started in the capital Juba under similar circumstances nearly three months ago amid tensions within the ruling party between President Kiir and former vice president Riek Machar.

The December 15 clashes, which spilt the army along ethnic lines, quickly spread across the country.

MUNSTER, Germany — Behind barbed wire fences at a top-security site in a German forest, workers in hazard suits will soon destroy remnants of Syrian chemical weapons of a type first tested here during World War I.

Far from the battlefields of the three-year-old Syrian war, this remote high-tech facility, which usually destroys munitions from two world wars, will help eliminate mustard gas stocks from the arsenal of President Bashar Assad.

The facility known as GEKA, Germany’s state-owned company for disposing of chemical warfare agents, boasts incinerators and a blast-proof explosives furnace that can safely detonate munitions with the destructive power of two tonnes of TNT.

“It’s not an adventure playground,” a GEKA spokesman quipped Wednesday to journalists visiting the site, where the faint smell of mustard gas-contaminated soil in bags wafts through storage halls. “You wouldn’t hold a children’s birthday party here.”

About 140 staff work on the site adjacent to a military training ground, from where rifle shots echo through the cedar woods.

It was at this site in Munster, some 70 kilometres south of Hamburg, that Germany developed chemical weapons during World War I and first test-fired mustard gas, a devastating warfare agent.

“It attacks the skin and causes blisters and wounds, and it is strongly carcinogenic,” said GEKA chief Andreas Krueger. “If you breathe in a lot, it attacks the lungs and mucous membranes including the eyes.”

As GEKA helps eliminate Syria’s chemical weapons, he said, “you do think about how, after 100 years since the start of World War I, they are still a problem”.

“But you also remember that the OPCW [Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons] and thus this entire effort won the Nobel Peace Prize last autumn. That’s a certain incentive and also a source of pride if you’re involved, even in a small way.”

Mustard gas

A century has passed since lethal poison clouds first maimed and killed soldiers in the trenches of Europe, but the horror of the indiscriminate killer has not been consigned to history.

Last year, on
August 21, rockets loaded with the nerve agent sarin ploughed into battlefield suburbs of Damascus, killing hundreds of people.

The world was shocked by YouTube footage, purportedly taken after the attack, that showed men and children in spasms and pain, eyes flickering and foaming at the mouth.

The Syrian opposition, along with the US, EU and Arab League, blamed the attack on Assad forces, a claim denied by the regime and its ally Russia.

Under threat of US military strikes, the Assad regime agreed to sign the Chemical Weapons Convention and hand over its 1,300-tonne stockpile for destruction by mid-2014.

The lethal material is to be destroyed under the supervision of the UN and OPCW, but several interim deadlines have since slipped and frustrated Western powers accuse the regime of stalling.

The weapons handed over by Syria will be neutralized aboard the US warship MV Cape Ray in the Mediterranean Sea.

Germany, along with Britain, has offered help with disposing of the secondary waste, so-called hydrolysates, which are similar to industrial waste.

Some 370 tonnes of the waste will be shipped in coming months in about a dozen containers to the German plant, where it will be pumped into a 1,000oC incinerator.

The area near GEKA has been heavily contaminated since 1919, when an explosion obliterated everything in a three-kilometre radius.

In World War II the area was again used for chemical weapons research and production, only to be later destroyed by British occupation forces after 1945.

The German army took over in the 1950s and has since been dealing with the legacy of two world wars, which have left the soils contaminated and littered with unexploded ordnance.

Munitions are still found here, screened with mobile X-ray units and taken away in round blast-proof metal containers on wheels.

Warfare agents are then separated from explosives and detonators, a process handled with remote-controlled saws and drills under jets of water, and then burnt for eight to 12 hours.

Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier in January announced that Germany would lend its expertise to help in the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons, saying that “the international community has an obligation to ensure they are destroyed”.

DOHA — Qatar will not bow to demands from three Gulf states to alter its foreign policy, sources close to its government said, suggesting Doha is unlikely to abandon support for Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and Syrian Islamists.

In an unprecedented move, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain recalled their ambassadors from Qatar on Wednesday, saying Doha had failed to abide by an accord not to interfere in each others’ internal affairs.

Hours later Qatar’s Cabinet voiced “regret and surprise” at the decision by the fellow-members of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), but said Doha would not pull out its own envoys and that it remained committed to GCC security.

On Thursday, a source close to the Qatari government suggested Qatar would not comply.

“Qatar will not let go of its foreign policy, no matter what the pressures are. This is a matter of principles which we will stick to, no matter the price,” the source said.

The source also suggested Qatar would not stop its practice of playing host to members of the Muslim Brotherhood, including Youssef Al Qaradawi, an influential Sunni cleric and a vocal critic of authorities in Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

“Since the day Qatar was founded we decided to take this approach of always welcoming anyone who seeks refuge in our country, and no amount of pressure will make us kick these people out,” said the source close to the government.

A source at the foreign ministry said: “It’s the right of every sovereign state to have its own foreign policy.”

The source also suggested that Qatar had no differences with fellow Gulf Arab states on Gulf matters.

Airtime for preacher

The dispute “is more about differences in foreign policy approaches”, the source added, referring to issues in the Middle East such as the crises in Egypt and Syria.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE clearly do see Qatar as at odds with them on Gulf issues. They are fuming especially over Qatar’s support for the Brotherhood, an Islamist movement whose political ideology challenges the principle of dynastic rule.

They also resent the way Doha has sheltered Qaradawi and given him regular airtime on its pan-Arab satellite television channel Al Jazeera, and on Qatari state television.

The GCC, which normally keeps its disputes under wraps, is a pro-Western alliance of monarchies set up in the 1980s to counter Iranian influence in the Gulf, and includes several of the world’s biggest producers and exporters of oil and gas.

Qatar’s new emir, Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani, who took over from his father in June last year, said Qatar would not “take direction” in foreign affairs, suggesting he would continue his father’s habit of pursuing policies at odds with those of most other GCC states.

He has yet to comment publicly on the latest ruckus.

Since the start of the Arab Spring, the tiny Gulf state has used its wealth to back Islamists throughout the Arab Spring revolutions in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Syria.

With ambitions to mediate in conflicts in the region, Qatar has been a welcoming host to members of the Brotherhood, other Islamist groups and the Afghan Taliban.

Al Jazeera says it is an independent news service giving a voice to everyone in the region.

BAGHDAD — A series of bombings Thursday struck commercial areas in central Iraq, killing at least 37 civilians, authorities said.

Most of the blasts came from explosives-rigged parked cars and one by a bomb that ripped through an outdoor market, police said.

In Baghdad, a car bomb targeting shoppers in the southwestern Amil neighbourhood killed seven people and wounded 17, police said. A bomb at a cafe in Baghdad’s Sadr City neighbourhood killed four people and wounded 15, authorities said. Another bomb in a commercial street in central Baghdad killed three people and wounded 13, police said, while an explosion near the Green Zone killed three people and wounded eight.

In Hillah, located about 95 kilometres south of Baghdad, two car bombs killed nine civilians and wounded 28, police said.

A police officer said an explosion killed four people and wounded 10 in the nearby town of Iskandariyah, about 50 kilometres south of the capital.

In Mishada, about 30 kilometres north of Baghdad, a car bomb killed five civilians and wounded 14, another police officer said. A bomb in Baghdad’s southeastern suburb of Jisr Diyala killed two civilians and wounded seven, police said.

Three medical officials confirmed the casualty figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to release the information.

The attacks came a day after a series of explosions killed at least 24 people in different parts of Iraq. Such bombings have increased since last year, along with Sunni anger over perceived mistreatment and random arrests of Sunnis by the authorities.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks, but they bore the hallmarks of Al Qaeda and other Sunni insurgents, who frequently use car bombs and suicide attacks to target public areas and government buildings in their bid to undermine confidence in the government.

UNITED NATIONS/ WASHINGTON — March will be a “critical” month for Syria if it is to maintain its timetable for dismantling its chemical weapons arsenal, the UN official tasked with overseeing the mission said on Wednesday.

“The month of March, as I informed the Security Council, is the critical month to look at continued progress towards the overall deadline,” said Sigrid Kaag, special coordinator for a joint mission by the UN and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to disassemble the weapons.

She made her remarks after briefing members of the Security Council early Wednesday by Damascus towards the goal of destroying or handing over its arsenal of banned weapons before a June 30 deadline.

After Damascus missed several key dates, the UN Security Council last week demanded that it move faster.

Prior to a shipment Monday, the United States estimated that Damascus had shipped out just 5 per cent of its stockpile.

The Syrian government blamed the delays on insecurity in the country, where it is locked in a brutal war with rebels seeking the overthrow of President Bashar Assad.

Kaag said, however, that there has been “an acceleration and an intensification” of effort by Damascus, and that about 35 per cent of weapons material now has been shipped.

“A number of shipments have taken place and will continue to take place,” she said.

“About one-third of Syrian chemical weapons materials has been removed or destroyed, Kaag said.

Over the next few days, she added, “we expect to reach already 40 or 41 per cent, and we look forward to see continued progress.”

Kaag also praised the “unity of purpose and voice of the Security Council” after briefing its members.

Syria agreed to hand over its chemical weapons for destruction after Washington threatened military action in response to a chemical weapons attack outside Damascus in August 2013.

The United States and the Syrian opposition blamed the attack, which reportedly killed hundreds of people, on the Syrian regime.

It denied involvement, but under pressure agreed to dismantle its chemical weapons programme.

Restricting movement

The United States is restricting the movement of Syria’s UN ambassador, limiting him to a 40-kilometre radius around New York City, the State Department said Wednesday.

Officials gave no explanation for the move against Bashar Jaafari but US relations have deteriorated sharply with Damascus since Assad led a crackdown against a pro-democracy uprising in 2011.

“We have delivered a diplomatic note to the permanent representative of the Syrian mission to the United Nations in New York informing him that he is restricted to a 40-kilometre travel radius,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.

The note was delivered at the end of February, she told reporters.

Some other countries’ UN envoys face similar restrictions, she said. Envoys from Iran and North Korea are among them.

“So this is not something that is out of the realm of what we’ve done before,” Psaki said.

The Coalition for a Democratic Syria, an association of Syrian-American groups, welcomed the announcement, accusing the diplomat of trying to fuel sectarian divisions among Syrians in his public appearances in the United States.

“This development has been a long-standing objective that the Syrian-American community has been trying to achieve for the past five months,” said Chad Brand, a spokesman for the coalition.

For the past six months, Jaafari “has been conducting a series of propaganda tours across the United States to mislead Americans and sow sectarian discord among Syrian-Americans,” he said.

The United States has closed its embassy in Damascus but has not cut off diplomatic ties with Syria, despite repeated condemnation of the Assad regime.

The US ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, who had cultivated contacts with Syria’s opposition, stepped down last week. Ford left the Syrian capital in 2011, when the popular uprising against Assad turned into a bloody civil war.

ROME — World diplomats worked Thursday to try to help Libya create a stable government and more secure environment amid the violence and growing political tensions that have festered since Muammar Qadhafi’s regime crumbled in 2011.

The meeting of foreign ministers, mostly from the West and Gulf states, focused largely on easing disagreements among Libya’s diverse tribal, religious and ethnic populations, looking towards writing a new constitution and holding elections this year. The ministers are also working to secure the weapons and ammunition left over from the Qadhafi regime to help bring more security to the country.

“Those mostly uncontrolled materials are a threat to the entire region,” German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told the conference, adding that Germany and France are allocating several million euros (dollars) for the weapons-securing project this year.

US Secretary of State John Kerry shared a warm handshake with Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zidan at the start of the meeting at Italy’s foreign ministry. He also met with Nouri Abu Sahmein, the Islamist-leaning president of Libya’s parliament.

Italian Foreign Minister Federica Mogherini, who hosted the conference, said the international community wants to give the Libyan people support. She said they are suffering “far beyond what was expected and would be normal” from uncontrolled circulation of weapons and other violence.

GAZA — President Mahmoud Abbas has halted salary payments to scores of security men loyal to a rival Palestinian politician, deepening disarray within their US-backed Fateh faction, officials said on Thursday.

They said Abbas’ move appeared aimed at weakening Mohammed Dahlan, a former Gaza Strip strongman who lives in Dubai but is widely expected to return to the Palestinian territories to challenge the president and Fateh chairman.

That could spell a bitter and uncertain confrontation given Fateh’s statutory limbo since Islamist Hamas, once its partner in the Palestinian government, turned into a foe in 2007 and seized control of Gaza during a brief civil war.

Fateh, which now holds sway only in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, is due to hold a leadership election this year but that has yet to be scheduled. The schism with Hamas makes new national ballots nearly impossible, extending the term of Abbas, who was elected president in 2005.

Fateh official Sufian Abu Zayda said salaries had been suspended for 98 security men who had worked under Dahlan in Gaza before the Hamas takeover. Some of them have since moved to Egypt and the West Bank.

“We knew a month ago about the intention to suspend the salaries. By the time banks closed yesterday it was clear that nearly 100 people, 100 families, had lost their income,” Abu Zayda told Reuters.

‘Young guard’

An official in the West Bank, who asked not to be named, confirmed that a number of salary payments had been suspended but declined to say why.

Dahlan, 52, is among a Fateh “young guard” chafing at the rule of 79-year-old Abbas. Other likely challengers include West Bank strongmen Jibril Rajoub and Marwan Barghouthi. The latter participates in Palestinian political discourse despite serving a life term in an Israeli jail for militant attacks.

Though Hamas blamed him for the inter-factional fighting in Gaza, Dahlan has recently made some informal contact with the Islamists. Abbas was angered by the possibility Hamas and Dahlan could normalise ties, officials and analysts said.

Dahlan was one of the Palestinians’ top peace negotiators with Israel for several years.

Palestinian officials, including from Fateh, said he has also formed a close relationship with Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, the Egyptian defence minister and de facto leader, also upsetting Abbas. Cairo has long played a key mediating role among Palestinians and between them and Israel.

Last month a delegation of senior Fateh officials loyal to Abbas made a rare visit to Gaza, during which they urged both Hamas and local Fateh supporters to shun Dahlan.

In 2011, at Abbas’ behest, the Fateh Central Committee accused Dahlan of financial and criminal offences. Dahlan rejected the allegations and has never been formally charged with crimes. But he left the West Bank after Abbas’ security forces raided his home there, moving to Amman and then Dubai.

Dahlan could not immediately be reached for comment.

TUNIS — Tunisia’s president on Thursday lifted the state of emergency that has been in place since the outbreak of a popular revolution three years ago, and a top military chief said soldiers stationed in some of the country’s most sensitive areas will return to their barracks.

The decree from President Moncef Marzouki said the state of emergency ordered in January 2011 is lifted across the country immediately.

The state of emergency was imposed by longtime President Zine Al Abidine Ben Ali, and was maintained after he was overthrown.

At the start it included a curfew and a ban on meetings of more than three people, but it has been relaxed over time. However it has continued to give the military and police special powers to intervene in unrest or security threats.

Tunisia has been battling Al Qaeda linked extremists since the revolution, but officials said the security situation has improved recently.

Col. Maj. Mokhtar Ben Nasr told The Associated Press that soldiers deployed in force across Tunisia would return to their barracks.

After the end of the dictatorship that touched off the Arab Spring uprisings across the region, Tunisians brought a moderate Islamist party into power allied with two other secular parties. But the coalition struggled in the face of continuing social unrest, high unemployment, the rise of a radical Islamist movement with ties to Al Qaeda and the assassination of two left-wing politicians.

Despite that, Tunisia remains a regional bright spot, since its fractious elected assembly finally wrote and passed a progressive constitution earlier this year.

MANAMA — Bahrain’s interior ministry said on Thursday two children were injured after they were instructed to plant a bomb in the same village where a bomb killed two local policemen and an officer from the United Arab Emirates earlier this week.

The two children, aged 10 and 11, had been instructed by “terrorists” to plant a bomb in Daih, west of the capital Manama, but it exploded as they were handling it causing serious injury to one of them, the statement by the ministry said.

Monday’s attack in Daih had raised fears of more violence in the Sunni Muslim-ruled kingdom, where opposition groups led by majority Shiites have staged protests for the past three years demanding political reform and an end to perceived discrimination.

Bahrain blacklisted three anti-government groups as terrorist organisations after the blast took place, outlawing the February 14 movement, Saraya Al Ashtar [Ashtar Brigade] and Saraya Al Muqawama (Resistance Brigade).

The little known Saraya Al Ashtar claimed responsibility for Monday’s attack in a message on social media that could not be immediately authenticated.

The ministry of interior said late on Wednesday it had arrested four more people in connection with Monday’s bombing. Authorities said earlier this week that 25 suspects had been rounded up in relation to the Daih bombing.

“The statements of the [four] detained indicate that their roles varied from bomb making, to monitoring and photography, and it was learned that other key actors were responsible for luring the police to the scene,” the statement said.

Bahrain’s Shiites have long complained of discrimination against their majority community in areas such as jobs and public services, charges that the Sunni-led government denies.

The Gulf island is a US ally which hosts the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet. The Sunni Al Khalifa family, which has ruled for two centuries, has resisted Shiite-led demands for an elected government, not one chosen by the king.