Region

BEIRUT — Lebanon on Saturday announced the formation of a compromise government after a 10-month political vacuum during which the war in neighbouring Syria exacerbated longstanding divisions.

The 24-member government brings together the powerful Shiite movement Hizbollah and its allies with the Sunni-led bloc of former prime minister Saad Hariri for the first time in three years.

“After 10 months of efforts, of patience, a government protecting the national interest is born,” said Tammam Salam, Lebanon’s new prime minister.

“It is a unifying government and the best formula to allow Lebanon to confront challenges,” said Salam, who was tasked with forming the government back in April 2013, after the resignation of his predecessor Najib Miqati.

The announcement ends a political stalemate that left Lebanon without a government even as the conflict next door spilled over, with car and suicide bomb attacks striking Beirut and elsewhere.

Multiple attempts to resolve the government crisis stumbled over disagreements between the Hizbollah and Hariri blocs, which back opposing sides in the Syrian conflict.

Hizbollah is allied with Syria’s President Bashar Assad and has dispatched fighters to bolster his regime in its fight against an uprising.

Hariri is a fierce opponent of the government in Damascus and backs the Sunni-led uprising against Assad.

Compromise agreement

Saturday’s compromise, which has been months in the making, is intended to ensure neither the Hizbollah nor the Hariri bloc has veto power over the other.

It divides the 24 portfolios into three groups, with Hizbollah and Hariri’s blocs each taking eight ministries, and the final eight going to candidates considered to be neutral.

To preserve the delicate balance between the country’s 18 sects, the government is also equally divided between Christian and Muslim representatives.

Hizbollah’s political wing will have two ministries — industry and minister of state for parliamentary affairs — with its allies taking portfolios including the foreign ministry and energy ministry.

A single portfolio was awarded to a woman, with neutral figure Alice Shabtini taking the displaced persons ministry that handles the cases of people displaced during Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war.

Hariri paved the way for the breakthrough when he announced in a U-turn last month that he was willing to allow his so-called March 14 bloc to join a government with Hizbollah.

The decision was a bitter pill for the former prime minister, who is fiercely opposed to Hizbollah.

Five Hizbollah members are currently on trial in absentia at a special court in the Hague for their alleged involvement in the 2005 assassination of Hariri’s father and ex-premier Rafiq Hariri.

Hariri’s decision has not been welcomed by all those in his bloc, with the Christian Party Lebanese Forces refusing to join any government that includes Hizbollah.

‘Concessions’

Sources within March 14 said Hariri had made a number of “concessions” to Hizbollah, which won several key portfolios for its Christian ally Michel Aoun.

His son-in-law Gebran Bassil becomes foreign minister, and fellow bloc member Arthur Nazarian will be charged with the powerful energy ministry.

Hariri also reportedly compromised on two initial candidates for interior minister, both of which were rejected by Hizbollah’s bloc, party sources said.

Hariri has said his decision was justified by the country’s desperate need for leadership as it struggles with the spillover from the war in Syria.

Hariri, who is based in Paris, offered Salam his congratulations after the government was announced.

He said he hoped the government would be “able to deal with the constitutional and national challenges, with the responsibility required at this crucial period of the country’s history”.

The new government will have no shortage of challenges ahead of it, first among them likely to be the security situation.

In recent months, a string of bomb attacks have rocked the capital Beirut and other parts of the country, largely targeting Hizbollah strongholds but killing civilians.

Jihadist groups, some linked to those fighting in Syria, have claimed responsibility and said the attacks are a response to Hizbollah’s role in the Syrian conflict.

Lebanon is also struggling under the weight of nearly one million Syrian refugees, who are testing the country’s already-limited resources.

GENEVA — International mediator Lakhdar Brahimi apologised to the Syrian people on Saturday for the lack of progress at peace talks in Geneva after their second round ended with little more than an agreement to meet again.

The Algerian-born diplomat said the agreement to evacuate people from the besieged city of Homs had raised hopes that had not been satisfied at the Geneva talks, involving opposition groups and representatives of President Bashar Assad.

The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) also stressed how meagre the results had been, saying an evacuation from Homs did not herald any wider improvement in humanitarian access to Syria’s civil war zones, where the United Nations says up to three million people in need are beyond its reach.

“I am very, very sorry and I apologise to the Syrian people that their hopes, which were very, very high here, that something will happen here,” Brahimi told journalists after the talks.

“I think that the little that has been achieved in Homs gave them even more hope that maybe this is the beginning of coming out of this horrible crisis they are in.”

Saturday’s last session of the second round of the talks was “as laborious as all the meetings we have had, but we agreed on an agenda for the next round when it does take place”, Brahimi added.

He said both sides would need to reflect on their responsibilities before round three, and that the government in particular had to accept that the main objective of talks was transition.

Fears of ground assault

The three-year-old Syrian conflict has killed more than 140,000 people — more than 7,000 of them children — according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, and is destabilising the country’s neighbours.

The pro-opposition observatory, a British-based monitoring group, said around 6,000 Syrians have been killed since the latest talks started last month, the fastest death rate recorded since the country slid into conflict in 2011.

The rebels come mainly from Syria’s majority Sunni Muslims and have been joined by radical Sunni groups such as Al Qaeda and other foreign militants.

Shiite Muslim Iran and the powerful Lebanese Shiite movement Hizbollah have thrown their weight behind Assad, who is from Syria’s minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, and whose family has dominated Syria for 44 years.

Thousands of people fled a rebel-held western Syrian town, Yabrud, on Friday after it was bombed and shelled in an operation that has stirred fears of a major assault by ground troops, the United Nations said.

Al Manar television, run by Lebanon’s Hizbollah, said the Syrian army had advanced in the Yabrud area, seizing control of the town’s main road and a nearby border crossing that it said was used for smuggling

Brahimi said the points to be discussed at the next Geneva round included violence and terrorism, a transitional governing body, national institutions and national reconciliation.

However, he added, the Syrian government first wanted to deal with the issue of combating “terrorism” — the word it uses to describe armed opposition to Assad’s rule — and had refused to deal with any other points until that was resolved.

Obama sees no early solution

Brahimi said he hoped both sides would consider their responsibilities and “the government side in particular [will] reassure us that when they speak of implementing the Geneva Communique they do mean [that] a transitional governing body, exercising full executive power, will be the main objective”.

Opposition National Coalition spokesman Louay Safi said there was “nothing positive” to take from round two, which lasted a week. The final session lasted around half an hour.

Syrian government delegate Bashar Al Jaafari, said the opposition wanted the issue of “terrorism” to stay open-ended. “Whoever refuses to fight terrorism is part of terrorism,” he told reporters after the final session.

ICRC President Peter Maurer said in a statement that the Syrian government and opposition still did not honour basic tenets of international humanitarian law despite the evacuation of besieged Syrians from Homs.

There were many other besieged areas besides Homs, he said, with more than a million people living in very difficult conditions.

“Negotiations with the Syrian authorities and opposition groups have not resulted in meaningful access or a firm commitment to respect the basic principles of international humanitarian law,” he said. “This pattern has again played out in Homs over the last week.”

BAGHDAD — Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki promised training for allied tribal militia and over $83 million in construction funds during a visit Saturday to Ramadi, where militants hold territory seized weeks ago.

The measures are the latest in a bid to placate people in Anbar province, whose capital is Ramadi, and Iraq’s broader Sunni Arab minority, which complains of marginalisation by the government and of being unfairly targeted by heavy-handed security measures.

Maliki’s visit came as militants killed more than two dozen soldiers and police in other parts of the country over two days and held part of the northern town of Sulaiman Bek, another front in the persistent rebellion against his Shiite-led government in Sunni areas.

It was the first time Maliki is known to have travelled to Anbar since jihadists and anti-government tribesmen seized parts of Ramadi and all of nearby Fallujah at the start of the year, in a major setback for his government.

The premier’s spokesman, Ali Mussawi, told AFP he met with provincial officials and leaders of powerful local tribes.

“We came to confirm our support to our people and our tribes in Anbar,” Mussawi quoted Maliki as saying.

He also announced 100 billion dinars (about $83.3 million/60.8 million euros) in construction funds for the province, and that security forces would provide training to pro-government tribesmen, Mussawi said.

But with corruption a major and persistent problem in Iraq, it is unclear how much of the construction money will provide tangible benefits to Anbar residents.

Earlier this week, Maliki said tribesmen who fight on the side of the government would be incorporated into the Anbar police, but it was not immediately clear how the new promise fits into that plan.

The takeovers in Anbar are the first time anti-government forces have exercised such open control in major cities since the bloody insurgency that followed the US-led invasion of 2003.

More than 370,000 people may have been displaced by Anbar violence, according to the UN.

The prospects of a quick resolution to the crisis seem slim, with Deputy Prime Minister Hussein Al Shahristani saying the strategy for retaking Fallujah is to surround it and wait for Sunni Arab gunmen to run short of weapons and equipment.

Part of northern town held

Authorities also face a small-scale version of the Anbar crisis in northern Iraq, where militants took control of part of the town of Sulaiman Bek and nearby areas in Salaheddin province on Thursday.

Local official Talib al-Bayati told AFP security forces had succeeded in retaking militant-held areas on Friday, but then withdrew for unknown reasons.

On Saturday, gunmen were in control of the town’s Al Askari neighbourhood, he said.

Sulaiman Bek has been hit by numerous attacks over the past year, and was briefly seized by militants in late April.

In July, 150 militants struck with mortar rounds, rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons, and executed 14 Shiite truck drivers on a nearby highway.

Meanwhile, 26 soldiers and police have been killed in targeted attacks and clashes over the past two days, mainly in Salaheddin, officials and doctors said.

The often poorly trained and disciplined security forces are the target of near-daily attacks by militants.

Violence in Iraq has reached a level not seen since 2008, when the country was just emerging from a period of brutal sectarian killings.

Foreign leaders have urged the Shiite-led government to do more to reach out to the disaffected Sunni Arab minority to undercut support for militants.

But Maliki has taken a hard line ahead of a general election scheduled for April.

GAZA CITY — Israeli troops fired tear gas and live bullets at Palestinians throwing stones Friday near the border fence in northern Gaza, the army said, with Palestinian medics saying 17 men were wounded.

Clashes are common on Fridays, with regular protests near the border in support of Gaza farmers who say troops uprooted their trees to create a buffer zone.

Emergency services chief Ashraf Al Qudra told AFP 13 protesters were wounded by gunfire and four hit by tear gas.

Earlier he said one of the men shot was in critical condition.

An army spokeswoman confirmed the shooting but did not say if anyone was hurt.

Later the army said that two “projectiles” fired from the Gaza Strip hit an open area in the southern Israel without causing casualties or damage.

It was not immediately clear if they were rockets or mortar rounds.

MANAMA — Tens of thousands of Bahrainis joined a peaceful demonstration on Saturday to mark the third anniversary of an abortive pro-democracy uprising led by majority Shiite Muslims.

The rally organised by the kingdom’s main opposition Al Wefaq movement was one of the biggest staged since 2011.

Vast crowds of men, women and children took to the streets of the small Gulf Arab nation calling for democracy, political reform and the release of political prisoners, witnesses said.

“We will not stop until we achieve our demands,” protesters shouted. “Shiites and Sunnis, we all love this country.”

Police could not be seen at the rally on Budaiya Highway, which links the capital Manama to the northwestern town of Budaiya, witnesses said. No clashes were reported.

The interior ministry said a policeman had died after being wounded by a “terrorist” blast on Friday. Three other policemen were wounded the same day, while 26 people had been arrested.

“Some villages saw rioting, vandalism and the targeting of policemen,” the ministry said, referring to Friday’s unrest.

Bahrain, with Saudi help, crushed the demonstrations that began on February 14, 2011 inspired by Arab uprisings elsewhere, but has yet to resolve the conflict between majority Shiites and the Sunni-led monarchy they accuse of oppressing them.

The ruling family has launched a third round of dialogue with its opponents, but no political agreement is in sight.

The Bahraini authorities, along with their Saudi backers, view Shiite demands for political reform as Iranian-inspired subversion. Their handling of the unrest has embarrassed the United States, which has had to balance its support for an ally that hosts its Fifth Fleet against human rights concerns.

“Three years since the start of the protests, we have seen no peace,” said a 34-year-old clerk in Saar village who gave his name only as Abu Ali. “Every day...youngsters go out and burn tyres on the roads and the police attack them with tear gas.”

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he was concerned about reports of clashes between demonstrators and security forces on Friday, and urged the authorities to act in strict accordance with their international human rights obligations.

‘Unprovoked attacks’

In response, the interior ministry said the constitution guaranteed the right to peaceful protest and assembly and that numerous peaceful rallies and protests had taken place in the past week without police interference, but added: “Over the past two days there have been a series of unprovoked attacks on police by groups who use urban guerrilla warfare tactics. This includes the use of deadly homemade weapons and the detonation of two bombs... When they use force it is done in a proportionate and necessary manner.”

Crown Prince Sheikh Salman Bin Hamad Al Khalifa, a relative moderate in the Sunni Al Khalifa family that has ruled Bahrain for more than 200 years, stepped in last month to try to revive a dialogue that the opposition had boycotted for four months.

Royal Court Minister Sheikh Khaled Bin Ahmed Al Khalifa has since met opposition leaders and other figures, but formal talks have yet to resume and the two sides still seem far apart.

The opposition had boycotted the talks after the government investigated at least two of its leaders on incitement charges.

Concern is rising that young Shiites will resort more and more to violent militancy if mainstream opposition leaders fail to advance a political settlement that would give Shiites a bigger say in government and improve living conditions.

A tiny Gulf archipelago of 1.7 million people, Bahrain has been in turmoil since the original revolt. The government says it has implemented some reforms recommended by international investigators and that it is willing to discuss further demands.

Shiites want wider-ranging democratisation, entailing Cabinets chosen by an elected parliament rather than appointed exclusively by the king. They also call for an end to alleged discrimination in jobs, housing and other benefits. The government denies any policy of marginalising Shiites.

GENEVA — Red Cross chief Peter Maurer voiced alarm Saturday over the chaos surrounding the evacuation from the besieged Syrian city of Homs, urging the warring sides to respect basic humanitarian law.

“I am concerned about the conditions in which the evacuations took place and about the number of people who remain trapped and unaided between front lines throughout Syria,” Maurer, the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, said in a statement.

“Humanitarians working in Homs over the last week were operating in an extremely challenging security environment,” he said, lamenting that neither side in the conflict had provided “firm commitment to respect the basic principles of international humanitarian law”.

The UN-led humanitarian operation to help thousands trapped in rebel-held areas of Homs besieged by the Syrian government for 600 days has been hailed as a success for getting some aid in and managing to evacuate some 1,400 people.

But the humanitarian exit operation — the result of months of painstaking UN-brokered negotiations — has been marred by the fragile ceasefire underpinning it.

Aid convoys into the areas, where people had been facing daily bombardment and dwindling supplies, came under attack and 14 people were killed by shelling.

Maurer stressed Saturday that aid workers can provide desperately needed assistance only if all parties agree to respect and protect them, “as required by international humanitarian law”.

“The situation in Homs and other besieged areas is highly complex, but the basic tenets of the law are simple,” he said, stressing the responsibility of the parties to provide for the basic needs of civilians under their control or ensure that aid workers can do so.

Pointing out that more than a million people in Syria are living in “extremely difficult conditions”, he said groups like the ICRC and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent must be able to go in and “have direct contact with people affected by the fighting in order to assess their needs”.

More than 136,000 people have been killed in nearly three years of civil war in Syria and millions have been forced to flee their homes.

Maurer said the organisations were ready to participate in further evacuations of Syrian civilians, but only if the warring parties “agree to guarantee safe passage to ICRC and SARC teams at all times”.

The ICRC is the guardian of the Geneva Conventions on warfare, and observers said it had been reluctant to get involved in the Homs evacuation because “it is not by any stretch of the imagination the way this should be done”.

Maurer also referred to the hundreds of male evacuees who were detained in a bid by the regime to weed out “terrorists”.

“Anyone detained after an evacuation must be treated humanely at all times and be allowed to contact their families,” Maurer said, echoing calls from the United Nations.

Respecting humanitarian law is “non-negotiable”, he said, stressing that “Syria is no exception”.

GENEVA — A stand-off between Russia and Western powers left their rival Syrian allies deadlocked in talks in Geneva on Thursday as fighting that has left tens of thousands under siege and hoping for relief from abroad went on.

Russia said it had presented a draft UN resolution on fighting “terrorism” in Syria and its own plan for improving aid access, throwing down a challenge to Western states in the Security Council which proposed another formulation that Moscow said would open the way for Western military intervention.

In Geneva, where a second round of peace talks has made little progress since Monday, Western diplomats and the Syrian opposition delegates complained that President Bashar Assad’s government was refusing to discuss international proposals for a transition of power and hoped Russia would press it to do so.

Mediator Lakhdar Brahimi was meeting senior Russian and US diplomats in Geneva on Thursday, hoping the three-week-old process’ co-sponsors could salvage negotiations which some Western diplomats said were already in danger of collapse.

US Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov were also expected to meet Syrian negotiators during their time in Geneva.

“What we have seen so far is that the regime is not serious,” opposition delegate Anas Al Abdah said. “The sooner the Russians can put enough pressure on the Syrian regime side, the better. And they are positioned to do that.”

Western diplomats also said they hoped Moscow could apply pressure on the Damascus government to do more to compromise. If not, some feared a planned third round of talks might not follow any time soon after this week’s discussions are completed.

Opposition activists say the rate of killing has increased in the three weeks since talks began — averaging a record of more than 230 a day — as both sides have sought to shore up their bargaining positions by gaining territory.

On Thursday, activists said government forces dropped crude barrel bombs from the air on rebel-held areas around Damascus and Aleppo, as well as the town of Al Zara near Homs. There were clashes in Hama province near a highway, that rebels have been trying to block to cut the government’s supply lines.

World powers

Russia has been Assad’s most powerful international ally during the three-year-old conflict, using its veto in the Security Council to block bids to pressure him with condemnation or the threat of sanctions.

US President Barack Obama criticised Russian attitudes to the latest UN efforts to provide aid. The Russian foreign ministry hit back on Wednesday, calling that a “distortion”.

Moscow’s new push for a resolution condemning acts of “terrorism” is in tune with rhetoric from Damascus, which uses the term to describe all those fighting to oust Assad in the conflict that has killed more than 130,000 people.

The Syrian government delegation has resisted efforts to discuss a transition of power in Geneva this week, saying fighting “terrorism” must be addressed first.

“Terrorism is certainly no less acute a problem” than the humanitarian crisis in Syria, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a news conference. He added that “terrorist groups” fighting there were a growing threat.

He accused Western countries that have lent support to the opposition and rebel groups, which are fighting alongside Al Qaeda and other Islamist militants, of “de facto attempts to justify terrorism” by arguing it cannot be eradicated from Syria as long as Assad remains in power.

The National Coalition, Syria’s main opposition group, which is backed by the West and began talks with a government delegation in Geneva last month, accuses Assad of supporting terrorists on the ground in Syria as he fights the rebels.

‘Eating cat’

In the city of Homs, a key battleground for much of the war, the evacuation of hungry civilians and rebel fighters from the besieged old quarter was continuing for a seventh day and a ceasefire was extended until Saturday, the governor said.

In all, 1,400 people had been evacuated since Friday, when a UN-brokered ceasefire came into force. It was an early achievement of the Geneva process begun on January 22.

Of these, 220 were still being detained for questioning. While women and children have been free to leave, men and youths aged between 15 and 55 are deemed of fighting age by the Syrian authorities and are being vetted by the security forces.

A US State Department spokesman said on Wednesday that the government had pledged to release men after screening.

MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday endorsed Egyptian army chief Abdel Fattah Al Sisi’s undeclared bid to head the strife-torn North African nation as the two leaders negotiated a massive Moscow weapons deal.

Sisi came to Moscow with Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy for talks aimed at securing Russian assistance — stagnant since the late Soviet era — that could replace subsiding support from Cairo’s more recent ally Washington.

Putin told Sisi that he fully backed Egypt’s new constitution and crucially made no mention of Cairo’s crackdown on protests or the army-backed overthrow in July of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.

“I know that you, mister defence minister, have decided to run for president of Egypt,” Putin told Sisi in televised remarks.

“I wish you luck both from myself personally and from the Russian people.”

The 59-year-old Egyptian field marshal has not officially declared his presidential ambitions but is overwhelmingly expected to run in elections likely to be held before the end of April.

A Kuwaiti newspaper had quoted Sisi as saying last week that he felt obliged “to meet the demands of the Egyptian people” and run for head of state. The army later denied the report.

Sisi and Fahmy had earlier on Thursday met their Russian counterparts to negotiate a $2-billion arms deal the two sides initially discussed in Cairo in November — a month after Washington suspended millions of dollars in assistance to the Egyptian army over Morsi’s ouster.

“Our visit offers a new start to the development of military and technological cooperation between Egypt and Russia,” Sisi told Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu.

“We hope to speed up this cooperation,” Sisi said.

Top officials revealed no details of Thursday’s military discussions while signalling that both sides were interested in the speedy conclusion of a deal.

“It was decided to accelerate preparations on an intergovernmental agreement on military and technological cooperation,” a joint statement released by the Russian foreign ministry after the talks said.

Air defence systems

The head of Russia’s state industrial holding company had said after the Cairo meeting that Moscow was on the verge of reaching a landmark agreement to deliver air defence systems to Egypt’s army.

Rostec chief Sergei Chemezov said on November 18 that “some contracts [with Egypt] have already been signed — particularly one concerning air defence systems.”

But he later clarified that he was referring only to a framework deal and not to firm delivery contracts.

Moscow’s authoritative Vedomosti business daily on November 15 said the deals under discussion were worth more than $2 billion and could be financed by Saudi Arabia.

Some Gulf media have reported that the United Arab Emirates — a strong Egyptian backer since Morsi’s fall — was also ready to fund a part of the purchase.

The Soviet Union was the main supplier of arms to Egypt in the 1960s and early 1970s. Cooperation between the two sides dropped after Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty and Cairo began receiving generous US aid.

Russia is now keen to revive those ties and Shoigu made clear on Thursday that Moscow fully supported the tough measures taken by Sisi against Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood movement.

“We cannot but celebrate the adoption of the new Egyptian constitution,” the Russian defence minister told Sisi.

“We view your efforts at achieving stability as effective.”

Shoigu added that the two sides had touched on the possibility of Russia and Egypt conducting joint military exercises and the option of the North African country’s officers undergoing military training in Moscow.

MAALEH ADUMIM, Palestinian Territories — Thousands of young Israeli hardliners marched Thursday to demand the government build new settler housing units in E1, a highly sensitive strip of West Bank land near Jerusalem.

Security officials said more than 6,000 people, almost all of them teenagers, joined the march which began in Maaleh Adumim settlement and ended at E1 — an undeveloped stretch of land just to the west, which borders annexed East Jerusalem.

“Kerry = persona non grata,” read one of the signs, referring to US Secretary of State John Kerry, who is currently trying to coax Israel and the Palestinians towards a peace agreement.

Israel has been planning construction in E1 since the early 1990s but nothing has ever been built there due to heavy international pressure. Plans for building 1,200 units unveiled in December 2012 were quickly put on the back burner after the announcement triggered a major diplomatic backlash.

The Palestinians say construction in E1 would effectively cut the West Bank in two and prevent the creation of a contiguous Palestinian state.

“We will keep [the] promise to build in E1,” Housing Minister Uri Ariel told a crowd composed almost entirely of high schoolers.

Last April, Ariel, who belongs to the far-right national religious Jewish Home Party, pledged to build new apartments in E1 within 18 months.

In January 2013, a group of more than 200 Palestinian activists had set up a protest encampment called Bab Al Shams in E1 as a way of drawing attention to Israel’s plans to settle there.

Israel and Palestinians began a nine-month track of direct peace talks at Kerry’s urging in July 2013, but there has been little visible sign of progress.

Kerry, who has repeatedly come under fire from Israeli hardliners in recent weeks, is currently focusing his efforts on hammering out a framework agreement which would allow for the talks to be extended, likely until the end of the year.

SANAA — Attackers fired rocket-propelled grenades at the main prison in Yemen’s capital on Thursday in a failed attempt to free inmates, security sources and witnesses said.

Explosions and gunfire between security forces and the attackers could be heard several kilometres away from the prison in northern Sanaa, which has Al Qaeda members among its inmates. The biggest explosion rattled windows in the area.

No one claimed responsibility for the attack, but Yemen is grappling with a growing threat from one of Al Qaeda’s most active wings, which has killed hundreds of people in assaults on state and military facilities in the past two years.

There were no immediate reports of casualties but witnesses saw ambulances driving towards the high-security prison, which police secured after the 30-minute gunfight.

Attackers fired at least one rocket at a police patrol vehicle outside the main prison gates, a police officer at the scene said.

Police sealed off the road to the airport which runs through the neighbourhood where the prison is located, close to the interior ministry.

Special forces and armed personnel carriers were being sent in to chase the attackers, a security source said. The attackers failed to enter the prison.

Earlier on Thursday, a British teacher was reported missing in Sanaa in what a Yemeni security source suggested could have been a kidnapping. The abduction of foreigners in Yemen is common.

The US ally, with a population of 25 million, is trying to end nearly three years of political unrest, which began when mass protests erupted in 2011 against Ali Abdullah Saleh, the president of 33 years, who stepped down.

Interim President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi has been facing other challenges in trying to restore stability to Yemen, which shares a long and porous border with top world oil exporter, Saudi Arabia.

Apart from security, Yemen is trying to deal with demands by southern separatists for independence and incorporate rebels from the Shiite Muslim Houthi movement, which has been on an offensive to extend its control over the north.