Region

NEW ORLEANS — Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton remained vague on Monday about whether she would run for president in 2016 and said the militant attack in Benghazi, Libya, was the biggest regret of her four years as the top US diplomat.

Before a large crowd of politically active car dealers, the overwhelming favourite among Democratic presidential contenders discussed her signal accomplishments, notably a recommendation that US commandos go into Pakistan to kill Osama Bin Laden, and her regrets.

“My biggest regret is what happened in Benghazi,” she said during a question-and-answer session after her keynote speech at the National Automobile Dealers Association convention in a packed, 4,000-seat room.

Four Americans, including US Ambassador Christopher Stevens, were killed when militants attacked the lightly protected US diplomatic compound in Benghazi and a better-fortified CIA base nearby on the night of September 11, 2012.

The attack became a political flashpoint in the run-up to the 2012 election, with Republicans arguing that President Barack Obama tried to play down its significance as he campaigned for a second term. Republicans are sure to make it an issue if Clinton runs in 2016.

The selection of Clinton as the speaker at the three-day NADA conference, attended by more than 22,000 dealers, met vocal opposition. NADA, which declined to say how much she was paid for her appearance, said she was selected because she offered an important perspective.

Dealers are a politically active group and tend to be conservative. They gave more than $16 million to political campaigns in 2012, 85 per cent to Republicans, according to the Centre for Responsive Politics.

“Mrs Clinton is a polarising figure but that’s OK,” David Shepard, a NADA director and a dealer in Fort Scott, Kansas, said. He added that the selection was not a NADA endorsement of Clinton as a possible presidential candidate.

Strong ties to industry

Clinton peppered her speech with anecdotes about the Clinton family’s strong ties to the dealer industry — although she herself has not driven since 1996.

She was introduced by Arkansas dealer and NADA director Jack Caldwell, who went to elementary school with former president Bill Clinton.

Bill Clinton’s father and uncle were Buick dealers, she said. She also joked about her first two cars, including the yellow Fiat she had while teaching at the University of Arkansas that was eventually stolen.

She also highlighted the American auto industry’s importance in establishing the US presence around the world. She singled out a General Motors engine plant in Uzbekistan, which gave the United States an edge in a area where it is competing for influence with China, she said.

“She has a pretty good understanding about what we do, especially in business,” said Chris Daggs, a Ford Motor Co. dealer in Crestview, Florida. “I’ve always felt she was someone more in our corner as a dealer.”

The last time the conference was held in New Orleans was in 2009, just before the federal bailout of General Motors and Chrysler Group LLC, which Clinton supported, that helped save the two companies and dealers nationwide.

As expected, Clinton remained vague about whether or not she would run for president in 2016. But she applauded General Motors’ selection of Mary Barra as its top executive — the first time a woman has ever run a major car company.

“We have a lot of women in the corporate pipeline who have been working in their industries for a long time and are finally in a position where I think they could be given the opportunity for leadership like Mary Barra,” she said.

LONDON — Iranian parliamentarians will come to London in the next few months, the first such visit in years, as Iran and Britain try to improve their damaged relations, a group of British lawmakers said on Tuesday.

The visit was agreed during a trip to Iran this month by a four-man delegation from the British parliament that met Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and senior lawmakers.

“We formally invited the Iranian Majlis [parliament] and they formally accepted,” Jeremy Corbyn, a Labour parliamentarian who was in the delegation, told Reuters, adding that a date had yet to be finalised but that it would be before the summer.

Britain severed direct diplomatic relations with Iran after activists stormed its embassy in Tehran more than two years ago.

However, the election of a relative moderate, President Hassan Rouhani, paved the way for a thaw in ties which has helped Tehran strike a preliminary agreement about its disputed nuclear programme with six world powers, including Britain.

Britain appointed a non-resident charge d’affaires to Iran in November, reviving direct ties, a step mirrored by Tehran. The British parliamentary delegation, led by former Foreign Scretary Jack Straw, visited Tehran from January 6 to 10.

During a parliamentary hearing on Tuesday, the four lawmakers said they had inspected the disused British embassy in Tehran. It was closed in 2011 after a rally against British sanctions turned violent and protesters scaled the walls, ransacked offices and burned buildings.

They said its walls were daubed with graffiti reading “Down with the English” but that they thought it could be restored to full working order fairly quickly providing the Iranian authorities provided assurances about the future staff safety.

CAIRO — Three years after a popular uprising forced out ex-general Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s army is again pushing a commander to stand for president after he ousted the first civilian head of state.

On Monday, the army endorsed its Field Marshall Abdel Fattah Al Sisi’s candidacy for an election he is expected to win amid a strong nationalist fervour since he overthrew president Mohamed Morsi.

In just over six months, Sisi has managed to win accolades from a vast section of Egyptians for leading the ouster of Morsi and crushing the Muslim Brotherhood Movement to which the Islamist belongs.

Morsi was toppled after one turbulent year in office following mass street protests amid allegations of grabbing power and ruining an already deteriorating economy.

Announcing its backing for Sisi, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces said that “the people’s trust in Sisi is a call that must be heeded as the free choice of the people”.

Sisi is soon expected to resign as army chief and announce his candidacy in a presidential election scheduled to be held by mid-April.

A victory for the 59-year-old would keep alive a tradition of Egyptian presidents being drawn from the armed forces.

Mubarak and all of his predecessors came from the military, starting with the charismatic colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser, who ruled Egypt between 1954 and 1970.

And after Mubarak’s ouster, it was Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi who ruled Egypt until the election of Morsi in June 2012. But Tantawi’s tenure was marred by deadly street protests before Morsi was elected.

Sisi is riding a wave of nationalist fervour, however, amid a heavy handed crackdown on Morsi’s supporters, which according to Amnesty International has left at least 1,400 people dead.

To Sisi’s supporters, he is the best option for ending three years of political instability following the 2011 uprising that ended Mubarak’s reign.

And to his critics and experts it is the military’s decades old iron grip on Egypt that has once again brought an army man to the forefront after civilian leaders blew their shot at power.

“There is definitely a political vacuum with no civilian parties able to throw up a good leadership,” said Mohamed Ghorab, an activist from a group that campaigns against military trials of civilians.

“We saw this with the Muslim Brotherhood, [and] they failed. We hoped that another liberal party would come up and fill the vacuum, but that didn’t happen.

“Hence given the backing from a section of the society, the military is now filling the vacuum,” he said in his personal capacity.

‘Old demons of repression’ returning

Since Morsi’s ouster, Sisi has emerged as a nationalist icon, but simultaneously Egypt is also witnessing the return of the feared security services which were widely hated under Mubarak.

In recent months a deadly crackdown that began against Morsi’s Brotherhood has widened, with activists who spearheaded the anti-Mubarak revolt finding themselves behind bars.

Top anti-Mubarak campaigners Ahmed Douma, Ahmed Maher, Mohamed Adel and Alaa Abdel Fattah have been detained for organising protests the military-installed authorities say were illegal.

The authorities had defended the removal of Morsi on the back of mass street protests against his rule.

“Their current policies are a betrayal of all the aspirations of bread, freedom and social justice” of the anti-Mubarak revolution, said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui of Amnesty International in a statement marking the third anniversary of the 2011 revolt.

She charged the security forces had also not been held to account for using “excessive” force in dealing with protests staged by Morsi’s supporters who continue to demand his reinstatement.

Analysts say the repressive old regime of Mubarak is returning to the fold, but that it is unleashing even more force on dissent than before, now that the military is clearly at the helm.

“Even if the military authorities try to maintain a democratic face, it is now clear that Egypt is being overtaken by old demons of repression, authoritarianism and personal power,” said Karim Bittar of the Institute of International Strategic Relations.

“The hopes aroused by the revolution of January 25, 2011 among the liberals and progressive [people of Egypt] are about to go up in smoke.”

WASHINGTON — A US cargo ship departed Monday on a mission to destroy dozens of containers of deadly chemical weapons being removed from Syria as part of international efforts to dismantle that country’s poison gas and nerve agent programme.

Defence officials said the MV Cape Ray, which was loaded with sophisticated equipment, left Monday night for the roughly two-week trip across the Atlantic and into the Mediterranean. The mission was delayed briefly when there was an electrical problem with one of the ship’s two main engines.

The Virginia-based Cape Ray is headed to the Italian Port of Gioia Tauro, where the Syrian chemicals will be transferred to the ship. The chemicals include raw materials for making sarin and mustard gas and they will be destroyed on board the Cape Ray at sea.

On Monday, a second shipment of chemical weapons was loaded onto Danish and Norwegian ships at the Port of Latakia in Syria, according to a statement from the UN and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. The ships were expected to stay in international waters off Syria waiting for additional loads.

Security challenges in Syria have slowed the transport of the materials to the port there where they are then loaded onto the ships. The Danish and Norwegian cargo vessels will transfer the chemicals onto the Cape Ray at the Gioia Tauro port.

Officials have said that about 700 tons of chemical weapons will be destroyed.

The 198-metre Cape Ray is carrying two massive machines, called field deployable hydrolysis systems, which will mix the chemicals with heated water and other chemicals to break down the toxic weapons in a titanium reactor, making them inert.

The Cape Ray belongs to the Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration, but control of the ship transferred to the US Navy’s sealift command Monday morning. Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, said Monday that there was a crew of about 35 civilian mariners on the ship and some technical experts. More than 60 experts needed to operate the hydrolysis machines as well as other security and support staff are expected to be on the ship for the eventual chemical transfer. Most of those will board the Cape Ray at a later date.

Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel, in a message to the ship’s crew members, hailed their historic mission.

“You are about to accomplish something no one has tried,” Hagel said. “You will be destroying, at sea, one of the world’s largest stockpiles of chemical weapons and helping make a safer world.”

The confirmed use of chemical weapons in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta on August 21, in which the US government said 1,400 people died, prompted a US-Russian agreement to eliminate Syria’s chemical weapons by mid-2014.

AJDABIYA, Libya — A deal to lift an armed blockade of Libyan oil ports and restart exports could be possible within two weeks after talks with the government advanced on key demands, a senior leader of the protest movement said.

The group, led by a former rebel who once battled leader Muammar Qadhafi, seized three major eastern ports in summer to demand a greater share of oil wealth and more regional autonomy, choking off 600,000 barrels per day of oil exports.

Prime Minister Ali Zeidan’s government in Tripoli has been trying to reopen the ports as it faces a budget crunch that risks deepening unrest in the OPEC producer. Oil exports, Libya’s lifeline, have more than halved since summer.

Deputies from the General National Congress (GNC) parliament and tribal leaders have tried mediate to end the port seizures, but so far government and federalists led by Al Ibrahim Jathran have engaged only in a war of words.

But Abb-Rabbo Al Barassi, prime minister of the self-declared eastern region government, told Reuters that Tripoli and his federalist movement are closing the gap, and a deal to resolve the standoff of oil ports could be weeks away.

“I see progress with the state, the government, the General National Congress (GNC) assembly,” he said in an interview in the group’s base in Ajdabiya town. “I think it won’t take longer than two weeks to reach a deal, God willing. Maybe even less than that.”

Oil markets have been sceptical of such announcements in the past as militias and tribesmen wrangling for power in the post-Qadhafi era reach deals which often fall apart. Talks with Jathran’s group to reopen the seized Ras Lanuf, Es-Sider and Zueitina ports failed at the last minute in December.

But Barassi, a former army colonel, said Zeidan’s and GNC head Nuri Ali Abu Sahmain had noticeably softened their stance towards his group.

“We are optimistic. Even Mr Ali Zeidan’s comments are not as sharp as they used to be. Also Nuri Sahmain is also not so tough anymore in his language,” he said. “There’s no threat of using force, but a will to talk.”

Barassi spoke in the reception room of his new home reachable only along a pot-holed dirt track. A pro-Jathran television station blared in the background as assistants and relatives served coffee and oranges.

Dragging into its six-month, Libya’s oil standoff has often appeared like a war of attrition, with Zeidan and Jathran exchange warnings.

But Barassi also appeared to take a softer tone than previous federalist statements.

“We are not enemies. We don’t deal with the government and the GNC as enemies. We may have different views, on how to work...but we haven’t used force.”

Three demands

The federalists, who command thousands of former state oil security guards, have made three demands to reopen the ports.

They include Tripoli investigating oil corruption and selling oil under supervision of the three Libyan regions from pre-Qadhafi times — Cyrenaica in the east, Tripolitania in the west and southern Fezzan.

“The latest talk [from the government] is that there are no problems with the first two demands,” he said. Zeidan, who calls Jathran’s group illegal, has said it was willing to investigate oil corruption.

Barassi said the third demand calling for oil sales to be shared among the three regions based on a law from the pre-Qadhafi-era was difficult for Zeidan because accepting would mean recognising the idea of a federal state.

Jathran and others in the east are campaigning for federal structure, which was in place before Qadhafi came to power. Officials in Tripoli fear this could lead to secession.

Barassi said his group was trying to address Zeidan’s concerns over the third demand.

“We are in dialogue with them and we can readjust it,” he said. He declined to elaborate, saying only that the group expected within two days to receive a response from Tripoli to an adjusted proposal.

Little to do

Barassi insisted that the group might try selling oil on its own should talks fail but said it had decided for now not to sign anything and wait for the outcome of the talks.

“We want to sell oil the right way,” he said. “We talked to firms who signed deals with the state before and we spoke with new ones to get contracts.”

“But we told them to wait until there is an agreement with the government so there is a contract with the state in a complete way,” he said, declining to give names.

He said some potential buyers were concerned about safe passage to the seized ports. The Libyan navy earlier this month said it had opened fire on a Malta-flagged tanker trying to reach es-Sider port to load oil.

“Some firms are fearful,” the federalist leader said.

Originally from the eastern town of Beida, Barassi runs the self-declared government from a temporary base in Ajdabiya. But he said there was little to do for his 23-strong Cabinet including ministers for industry, health and education.

“It’s right that we don’t have work. We wait for oil exports or a budget,” he said.

The group has also founded the Libya Oil and Gas Corp to sell oil when it can. Barassi said the firm consisted of former staff from state National Oil Corp (NOC) based in ports who are sympathetic to federalists — a claim denied by Tripoli.

Based in nearby Brega, the federalist oil company appears less impressive than the colourful letterheaded statements it recently sent to oil markets suggesting it could offer tankers safe passage to the ports.

“We’ve only appointed a director for the firm,” he said.

BEIRUT — The Syrian army is edging its way towards southeastern Aleppo as it battles rebel fighters for control of the northern city, a monitor and a pro-government daily said Tuesday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it was a “limited advance” but the first by government troops in more than a year, and that residents fearing a major operation were fleeing the region.

The troops have gained some ground in Aleppo in the past few weeks, taking advantage of the fact that rebels who hold larges swathes of territory have turned their guns against jihadist fighters.

“The Syrian army made a limited advance, for the first time in more than a year, and seized the Karm Al Qasr district on the southeastern fringes of Aleppo,” held by the rebels, said the Observatory.

The offensive was launched from Nairab military airport east of Aleppo, Syria’s second city and pre-war commercial hub.

Al Watan newspaper, which is close to President Bashar Al Assad’s government, said the troops made the advance on Monday and also seized the districts of Ballura and Kasr Al Tarrab.

It too said the operation had been launched from Nairab airport in the east, as well as Aziza village in the south, while adding it had reached the outskirts of Mayssar, a rebel bastion in southeast Aleppo.

The Observatory said residents of Mayssar, nearby Marjeh and Enzarrat were fleeing their homes for “neighbourhoods controlled by regime forces... because of the fighting”.

Al Watan also reported the exodus.

Since December 15, Aleppo has been the target of an aerial offensive that has killed hundreds, mostly civilians.

On Tuesday at least three people were killed in regime air raids that targeted Qadi Askar and Mayssar, said the Observatory.

On Saturday, Aleppo-based activist Mohammad Wissam said the army has taken advantage of the fact that rebels have recently turned their sights against jihadists.

“The army has deployed en masse around the east of the city, and families residing in the area have started to flee for other safer neighbourhoods and villages” fearing an all-out assault, he said.

Aleppo has been devastated by fighting between government and rebel forces that began in mid-2012.

Control of the city is now divided between the regime and rebels, and the opposition also holds much of Aleppo province.

In other violence a Saudi suicide bomber and fighter from the Al Nusra Front jihadist group blew himself up at an army checkpoint late Monday, killing 13 soldiers and pro-regime militiamen, the Observatory said. 

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Comments by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the World Economic Forum make it clear he is against the establishment of a Palestinian state, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat has said.

“Anyone who says they want the settlers to remain is actually saying they don’t want the establishment of a Palestinian state,” Erekat said in remarks published Monday in Palestinian daily Al Ayyam.

Erekat was reacting to comments by Netanyahu at last week’s WEF gathering in Davos, where the premier insisted Israel would not evacuate Jewish settlements built on occupied land the Palestinians want for their future state.

Netanyahu has publicly supported the two-state solution during US-sponsored talks which envisage the creation of a Palestinian state as part of a final peace agreement.

But at Davos, the premier told Israeli journalists at a briefing, “I have said before and I say again; I do not intend to dismantle any settlement, I don’t intend to uproot any Israeli.”

His comments were broadcast on public radio.

Israel’s settlements, which are illegal under international law, are a key sticking point that is preventing peace talks from making any visible progress.

Some Israeli media said that Netanyahu was speaking in response to a question specifically about the Jordan Valley, the part of the occupied West Bank bordering Jordan.

Israel insists on maintaining a long-term military presence in the Jordan Valley as a buffer against attacks on Israel, while the Palestinians want an international security force deployed there for their own security.

But angry Israeli hardliners on Monday linked Netanyahu’s Davos comments to a report by an international news agency that the premier is floating the idea of existing settlements being leased from the Palestinians in a future Palestinian state.

“We do not leave settlers behind enemy lines,” Deputy Defence Minister Danny Danon, a hawkish member of Netanyahu’s own Likud Party, told army radio.

“It’s an idea of leaving Jews, abandoning Jews to the control of the Palestinians,” Deputy Foreign Minister Zeev Elkin, also of Likud, told the station.

“It’s a red line, contrary to the beliefs of the national camp, the beliefs of the Likud,” he said.

Settler leader Dani Danon told AFP that the concept of settlements no longer being under Israeli sovereignty was a “political, security and Zionist aberration”.

Veteran political analyst Shimon Shiffer said that the news agency report, which Netanyahu’s office neither confirms nor denies, was a deliberate attempt to draw a hostile response from the Palestinians, painting them as rejecting peace.

“Netanyahu... is trying to push the settlers into a corner and challenge the Palestinian side, knowing that the latter will reply with a resounding negative,” he wrote in the top-selling Yediot Aharonot newspaper.

Maariv’s Shalom Yerushalmi suggested that the premier was playing for time.

“The settlements will certainly be removed, but the prime minister will not be the one to remove them,” he wrote.

“This will be a gradual process in any case, and by the time we reach the removal of the settlements Netanyahu will no longer be there.”

TUNIS — Tunisia adopted a new constitution on Monday, a big stride towards democracy in the country that began the Arab Spring revolutions and has largely avoided the chaos and violence now plaguing the neighbours it inspired.

After years under autocrat Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisia’s charter has been praised as one of the most progressive in the Arab world, designating Islam as the state religion but protecting freedom of belief and sexual equality.

Parliament erupted in celebrations after the official signing of the constitution. Lawmakers approved it on Sunday evening, ending months of deadlock that had threatened to undo Tunisia’s transition.

“This is an exceptional day for Tunisia, where we celebrate the victory over dictatorship. The government and the opposition have won, Tunisia has won,” President Moncef Marzouki told the assembly after signing.

The small North African country’s steady progress contrasts sharply with turmoil in Libya and Egypt, whose people followed Tunisia in ousting their veteran leaders in 2011.

Tunisia’s stock market rose 1.7 per cent on Monday in a sign of investor confidence in the country’s stability, with the constitution in place and the formation of a new caretaker Cabinet that will govern until elections.

After months of crisis, Tunisia’s transition got back on track when ruling Islamist party Ennahda agreed to compromise late last year and step down to make way for a non-political Cabinet of experts, led by former minister Mehdi Jomaa.

Hours before Sunday’s approval of the constitution, new Prime Minister Jomaa named technocrats with international experience to key posts such as finance minister and foreign minister.

No election date has been set, but Ennahda and opposition party Nidaa Tounes, headed by a former Ben Ali official, are expected to battle for the presidency.

In the National Assembly and on the street, political divisions about the role of Islam were forgotten in the celebrations over a constitution that United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon commended as a “milestone”.

“It is the first time we have been so united since the revolution,” said Asma Habaib, a young bank worker in central Tunis. “It is like another revolution.”

Challenges ahead

One of the most secular nations in the Arab world, Tunisia struggled after its 2011 revolution with divisions over the role of Islam and the rise of Islamist ultra-conservatives.

Ennahda Party won the most seats in parliament, but the assassination of two opposition leaders last year pitched the country into crisis. Increasing deadlock in Tunisia, and the Egyptian army’s deposing of its Islamist president in July, eventually prompted a compromise between Ennahda’s chief Rached Ghannouchi and the opposition.

Divisions are still present, but Tunisia’s leaders, heavily reliant on tourism for its foreign income, and with no tradition of violence or military interventions, opted to battle at the ballot box, not on the street.

Following that example will be tough for its North African neighbours.

Two years after its own NATO-backed revolt toppled autocratic leader Muammar Qadhafi, neighbouring Libya is caught in messy transition, with its constitution undrafted, its transitional parliament still deadlocked and former rebel fighters refusing to disarm.

In Egypt, elected Islamist president Mohamed Morsi was ousted by the army and jailed, and his Muslim Brotherhood movement declared a terrorist organisation.

Egyptians approved their own new constitution this month, but the country is still beset by political violence as army chief General Abdel Fattah Al Sisi pushes forward a transition plan that is expected to lead to him running for the presidency.

Tunisia’s new premier Jomaa has plenty of challenges to secure stability before the elections in a country where many complain about the high cost of living and a lack of economic opportunities.

Islamist militants have been a growing threat in Tunisia, which shares a porous border with Libya, where Al Qaeda-linked militants have sought refuge. A suicide bombing at a Tunisian beach resort late last year showed its vulnerability.

International lenders also want Tunisia to curb public spending on subsidies on fuel and basic goods to control the budget deficit. Protests broke out recently over a tax increase, forcing the government to roll back the measure.

“The adoption of a new constitution is an important step in reducing political uncertainty in Tunisia,” Fitch Ratings agency said in a statement. “But easing political and social tensions will be a long and challenging process.”

BAGHDAD — Late night attacks in Sunni Arab areas north of Baghdad pushed the overall death toll from violence in Iraq a day earlier to 26, security and medical officials said Monday.

The protracted surge in nationwide unrest, coupled with a deadly standoff in Anbar province between security forces and anti-government fighters, has left more than 850 people dead so far this month.

Diplomats and foreign leaders have urged Iraq’s Shiite-led government to address long-term grievances in the disaffected Sunni community to undercut support for militants, but with elections due in April, Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki has taken a hard line.

Violence in Anbar, as well as Baghdad and several areas north of the capital on Sunday left at least 26 people dead and dozens more wounded, officials said on Monday, updating previous tolls.

The deadliest of the violence struck in Abu Ghraib, a Sunni Arab town to the west of Baghdad, where eight people were killed in separate incidents — six soldiers were gunned down in a checkpoint attack, while a bombing on a busy road killed two people.

Gunmen in Baghdad killed four people in two different shootings, including a former Iraqi army general, while militants targeting local officials in Baqouba and Mosul, two of the country’s most violent cities, left three dead.

Three car bombs in the ethnically mixed city of Kirkuk killed four more people, and another car bomb in the town of Mishahda left three dead.

And in Fallujah, which has been out of government hands for several weeks, a mother and her three children were killed when a blast struck their home, a doctor said. It was unclear if heavy artillery or smaller rockets were responsible for the explosion.

The latest bloodshed pushed the overall death toll for the month above 850 — more than three times the toll for January 2013, according to an AFP tally.

It comes as security forces are locked in battles with militants, including those affiliated with Al Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), in Anbar, a mostly-Sunni desert region west of Baghdad that shares a border with Syria.

ISIL has been involved in the fighting, and witnesses and tribal leaders in Fallujah say the group has tightened its grip on the city in recent days, but other militant groups have also battled security forces and their tribal allies.

The standoff has forced more than 140,000 people to flee their homes, the UN refugee agency said, describing this as the worst displacement in Iraq since the 2006-08 sectarian conflict.

CAIRO — Egypt’s top military council gave the army chief, Field Marshal Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, a green light on Monday to seek election as president, a vote he is almost sure to win with Egyptians weary of turmoil unleashed by a pro-democracy uprising in 2011.

Sisi deposed elected Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in July after mass unrest over his increasingly arbitrary and erratic rule, kindling political chaos and security crackdowns on dissent in the Arab world’s most populous nation.

He has since taken on almost cult-like popularity in Egypt with many seeing him as a decisive figure able to stabilise a country that has lurched from one economically ruinous crisis to another since the 2011 overthrow of autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

“[The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces] is looking forward with respect and reverence to the desire of the huge masses of the great Egyptian people in the nomination of...Abdel Fattah Al Sisi for the presidency of the republic, which it considers a mandate and an obligation,” the military high command said in a statement.

“The top army officials all okayed Sisi running for the presidency,” said a security source. The 59-year-old career officer is expected to announce his candidacy within days.

Hours before top generals approved Sisi contesting the election, the presidency announced he had been promoted to field marshal from general, in what security officials said was a sign he is about to declare his candidacy for the presidency.

“The decision was expected and it is the first step before the resignation of the general and his candidacy announcement, which is now expected very soon,” said a security official.

In order for Sisi to contest the election, he has to resign from his post as defence minister and from the military.

After toppling Morsi, Sisi unveiled a political roadmap that promised free and fair elections in Egypt, which is of great strategic importance because of its 1979 peace treaty with Israel and control of the Suez Canal.

But despite his popularity, Sisi has no pedigree as a democrat and has shown himself willing to apply deadly force against those who disagree with him.

Islamists accuse Sisi of coup

The Muslim Brotherhood accuses him of staging a coup by effectively putting Egyptian government back under the domination of the military as it was before Mubarak’s exit and aborting its professed transition to democracy.

The Brotherhood holds Sisi responsible for what it says are widespread human rights abuses in a security crackdown that has killed nearly 1,000 Islamists. Top Brotherhood leaders including Morsi are all in jail and facing trial.

But, in addition to many people in the street, Sisi enjoys the backing of the army, Egypt’s most powerful institution, as well as the interior ministry, many liberal politicians and Mubarak-era officials and businessmen who have made a comeback since the political demise of Morsi.

Judging by his appeal, those forces are likely to give him plenty of time to prove himself as president, and there are no other politicians who could challenge Sisi anytime soon.

Deputy Prime Minister Ziad Bahaa El Din, a moderate in the army-backed government, tendered his resignation on Monday.

Din, a lawyer, had called for a more inclusive political process in a nation that, crippled by prolonged violent unrest that has shattered the economy, appears to be growing less tolerant of dissent by the day.

“A crucial stage of the roadmap is now over. It required keeping a unified front and avoiding disputes in order for the nation to emerge from constitutional and economic collapse,” said a letter posted on Din’s Facebook page said. “Now that we start a new phase where the country is preparing for successive elections... I ask that you accept my resignation.”

Din is in charge of an economic team that includes the ministers of finance, trade and industry, supply, planning and investment, as well as the governor of the central bank.