Region

WASHINGTON — The US military is planning to train Iraqi troops in a third country to help counter a resurgence of Al Qaeda-linked militants, a defence official told AFP on Friday.

Pending an agreement with Jordan or another nation to host the effort, the training was “likely” to go ahead as both Baghdad and Washington supported the idea, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

However, Pentagon officials are not contemplating sending an American team of military instructors into Iraq, partly because it would require negotiating a legal agreement with Baghdad that proved elusive in the past.

Such a move also could spark political rancor in Washington that would revive old wounds over the controversial US-led war in Iraq.

“We’re in discussions with the Iraqis on how we can improve the Iraqi security forces,” Colonel Steven Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters.

He said a possible counter-terrorism training effort was under consideration and that the Pentagon planned to send weapons and ammunition at the request of the Iraqi government.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki “is looking for essentially small arms and ammunition, stuff that can help him right now” in the fight against Islamist extremists, Warren said.

The United States was preparing to ship “several thousand” M-16 and M-4 assault rifles as well as ammunition, the defence official said.

Iraqi security forces are battling to roll back anti-government militants who have gained ground in Anbar province, west of Baghdad, in recent weeks.

The United States led an invasion of Iraq in 2003, toppling president Saddam Hussein. American troops withdrew from the country in 2011 after failing to reach a deal with Baghdad providing legal safeguards for US forces.

Less than 300 US troops are now stationed in Iraq, with a contingent of marines guarding the American embassy and more than 100 service members overseeing military assistance.

In an interview published Thursday, Maliki said his government was benefiting from intelligence provided by Washington and had asked for weapons and counter-terrorism training.

“We are going to ask for training, in some areas we need training, especially for our counter-terrorism units,” Maliki told The Washington Post.

Asked if US trainers would come to Iraq, the prime minister said: “Yes, bringing Americans to Iraq, or Iraqi soldiers could go to Jordan and train.”

He said intelligence collaboration with the United States “is very important for us” and that the Americans were “tapping Al Qaeda communications, finding their camps and places on the ground, observing their routes over the borders”.

He added: “We work together on that field but we need more cooperation.”

The United States already has provided Hellfire missiles after a request from Maliki’s government.

ISTANBUL — Syria’s deeply divided opposition finally agreed Saturday to join an international peace conference, a day after Damascus offered concessions including a ceasefire plan for the battered city of Aleppo.

The exiled umbrella group the National Coalition voted at a meeting in Istanbul in favour of attending next week’s talks in the face of intense pressure from the West and Arab states.

The so-called Geneva II conference opening on Wednesday is aimed at setting up a transitional government to find a way out of the brutal conflict that has killed 130,000 people and made millions homeless since March 2011.

Damascus had already said it would attend, although the US Secretary of State John Kerry has accused the regime of diversionary tactics, saying “nobody is going to be fooled”.

The coalition — a grouping of myriad organisations — had been locked in procedural disputes which delayed the decision by a day.

But in a secret ballot, it agreed by 58 votes to 14 with two abstentions and one blank vote to take part, according to an official tally.

The opposition has long struggled to put forward a united front during the civil war, rocked by infighting over its leadership and efforts to form a government in exile.

And many members had been appalled at the idea of sitting down at the same table with representatives of the hated regime they have been trying to unseat for almost three years.

In a surprise move in Moscow on Friday, Syria’s Foreign Minister Walid Mouallem presented his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov with a security plan aimed at halting “all military actions” in the devastated northern city of Aleppo.

Mouallem also said the regime was willing to swap prisoners with the rebels in the first such mass exchange since the conflict erupted, while Lavrov said Damascus was ready to take “a series of humanitarian steps” to improve the delivery of aid.

And on Saturday, food aid entered the besieged Yarmuk Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus — where dozens of people are reported to have died of hunger and lack of medical care — for the first time in four months.

Syria, Mouallem said, would “make every effort to ensure Geneva II is a success and meets the aspirations of the Syrian people and the direct orders of President Bashar Assad”.

But Kerry warned the regime it could not divert the peace talks away from the aim of installing a new government, after a letter from Mouallem to the UN said Geneva was about getting rid of extremists in Syria.

‘Important opportunity will be missed’

“They can bluster, they can protest, they can put out distortions, the bottom line is we are going to Geneva to implement Geneva I, and if Assad doesn’t do that he will invite greater response,” he said.

Kerry also sought to allay opposition fears that the negotiations would somehow legitimise Assad’s regime and leave him in power, saying: “It’s not going to happen.”

Media reports have suggested that the United States and Britain are threatening to withdraw support from the opposition if it fails to send a delegation.

But factions within the Coalition — set up in its current form in November 2012 — have been wary of being drawn into a process they fear could result in Assad clinging to power.

“The goal of any political solution must be to install a government of transition that Assad will play no part in,” said coalition spokesman Khaled Saleh.

The coalition is beset by rivalries between groups backed by either Qatar or Saudi Arabia, while on the ground, more mainstream Islamist factions are battling Al Qaeda-linked jihadists.

“If the Syrian opposition refuses to take part in Geneva II, an important opportunity will be missed,” a Turkish diplomat had said before the vote.

UN refugee chief Antonio Guterres, meanwhile, pleaded for the world to ease the massive burden on countries sheltering the millions of refugees and to open their borders to those fleeing the war.

He was speaking at a meeting in Turkey on Friday of regional countries on the refugee crisis after the United Nations launched a massive $6.5-billion appeal for aid.

“For me it is unacceptable to see Syrian refugees drowning, dying in the Mediterranean or pushed back at some borders,” he said.

CAIRO — Egypt’s new constitution was approved by 98.1 per cent, with turnout higher than in a 2012 vote under now ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, a senior government official said Saturday.

The turnout and landslide “yes” vote proved that Morsi’s overthrow was a “popular revolution”, another official told a press conference formally announcing the results.

The new charter replaces an Islamist-inspired one adopted in a December 2012 referendum under Morsi with about two-thirds of the vote and a 33 per cent turnout.

Authorities say it protects women’s rights and freedom of speech.

Electoral committee head Nabil Salib said the turnout in the referendum on Tuesday and Wednesday, which was boycotted by Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood and its Islamist allies, “reached 38.6 per cent”.

Of them, 98.1 per cent of voters approved the new constitution.

Army chief Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, the general who ousted Morsi in July after massive protests, was monitoring the outcome for an indication of support for a possible presidential bid, military officials said.

He is expected to make up his mind now that the results have been announced, with his backers already calling for a rally on January 25 to emphasise their support.

Presidential and parliamentary elections have been promised for later this year.

Sisi is wildly popular among the millions who took to the streets against Morsi, but the Islamist’s followers revile him for what they say was a “coup” against Egypt’s first freely elected and civilian president.

The Brotherhood, harried by a deadly crackdown since Morsi’s removal, dismissed the referendum as “farce” and called for further protests.

It has also called rallies for January 25, the third anniversary of the 2011 uprising that overthrew veteran strongman Hosni Mubarak.

Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim also called for demonstrations on the same day to counter an Islamist “plot to spark chaos”, an unusual appeal from the top police official tasked with enforcing a law that restricts protests.

More than 1,000 people, mostly Islamists, have been killed and thousands imprisoned in a police crackdown on pro-Morsi protests.

On Friday, three men were killed in Cairo and another in clashes in Fayoum, southwest of the capital, the health ministry said, as police clamped down on the Islamist rallies.

The government hoped a large turnout in the referendum would bolster its democratic credentials and further marginalise the Islamists.

‘Sisi for presidency’

Many who took part in the referendum said their vote was also an endorsement of Sisi, seen as a strong man capable of restoring security after the three years of turmoil following Mubarak’s overthrow.

Morsi’s supporters wish to have Sisi tried internationally for crimes against humanity for the deadly crackdown, but the general is adored by his supporters and will face no serious competition if he stands for election.

“If general Sisi nominates himself for president his chances will be great,” Ahmed Al Muslimani, a presidential aide told the London-based Al-Sharq Al Awsat newspaper in an interview.

Muslimani said he spoke with the general a few days before and he had not yet made up his mind, but other officials say his candidacy appears to be a foregone conclusion.

State-run Al Akhbar newspaper, meanwhile, trumpeted its support for Sisi, declaring in a Saturday front-page banner that: “All roads lead Sisi to the presidency of the republic.”

In the first test of democracy after Morsi’s overthrow, the run-up to the referendum was marred by arrests of activists who campaigned against the constitution.

“There was no real opportunity for those opposed to the government’s roadmap or the proposed constitution to dissent,” said monitoring group Democracy International, which observed the referendum.

The group said its monitors witnessed security forces and campaigning material inside polling stations, but there was “no evidence that such problems substantially affected the outcome of this referendum”.

The US administration is closely watching the results of Egypt’s referendum, but has not yet decided whether to unfreeze some $1.5 billion (1.1 billion euros) in aid, the State Department said Thursday.

The vote has put the Brotherhood, which the government designated last month as a terrorist group, on the back foot.

Morsi himself has been in custody since his ouster and is currently standing trial in the first of three separate cases against him.

JUBA — South Sudanese government forces backed by Ugandan troops on Saturday recaptured the strategic town of Bor, defeating an army of thousands of rebels, officials said.

Army spokesman Philip Aguer said soldiers entered the town, capital of Jonglei State and situated 200 kilometres north of the capital Juba, in the afternoon following days of fierce fighting.

Uganda’s army spokesman Paddy Ankunda also confirmed that Ugandan troops, who have been backing South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir, took part in the offensive.

“Today the gallant SPLA [Sudan People’s Liberation Army] forces entered Bor, they have defeated more than 15,000 forces of [rebel leader] Riek Machar and frustrated his plans to attack Juba and install himself as the ruler of South Sudan,” Aguer told reporters.

The town, from where rebels had been threatening to march on Juba, has changed hands four times since the conflict in the world’s youngest nation began five weeks ago. Tens of thousands of civilians have fled the town, which was already reported to be deserted and largely destroyed.

Aguer said the battle had left “many dead”, but did not give figures. Rebel military spokesman Lul Ruai Koang confirmed the town had fallen, but insisted that the rebels chose to make a “tactical withdrawal” to reorganise.

“It is not a big issue. There are 11 counties in Jonglei state we are in control of nine counties. So if we are in control of nine counties, why should we waste our time on just one small county without even a population? There is no population in Bor, the entire population fled,” he said.

Ateny Wek Ateny, spokesman for President Kiir, promised that government troops would “observe international rule of law” — a day after a top UN rights envoy reported that the conflict has been marked by mass killings, extrajudicial killings, widespread destruction and looting.

“If there are people captured they should be kept in regards to the international law,” the spokesman said.

Heavy fighting was reported to be continuing in and around the key oil town of Malakal, capital of Unity State and one of the main battlefields since fighting erupted last month between rival forces loyal to President Kiir and his sacked deputy Machar.

The government meanwhile said it was optimistic it may soon sign a ceasefire agreement with rebels, amid the first signs that peace talks — which have been taking place in a luxury hotel in the Ethiopian capital for the past two weeks — may be finally making progress.

Kiir’s spokesman said the government’s chief negotiator, who had been back in Juba for consultations, was preparing to return to Addis Ababa intent on signing a truce.

“The government is ready to sign a cessation of hostilities tomorrow or on Monday. The chief negotiator had come here to consult on the conditions imposed by the rebels,” he added, without specifying if all of the differences had been ironed out.

TRIPOLI — Libya is sending troops to the country’s restive south after gunmen stormed an air force base in the region’s biggest town, Prime Minister Ali Zeidan said on Saturday, following days of skirmishes between rival tribesmen and militias.

Highlighting turmoil in the North African country, two Italian construction workers were kidnapped by unknown attackers in the east, while authorities put security forces in the capital Tripoli on maximum alert.

Western powers fear the OPEC producer will slide into instability as the government struggles to contain heavily armed militias, tribesmen and Islamists who helped topped Muammar Qadhafi in 2011 but refuse to disarm.

Weak border controls and a small army lacking equipment have turned Libya into a weapons smuggling route for Al Qaeda in sub-Saharan countries and also a transit corridor for Islamist fighters heading to Syria’s war.

Zeidan said a small group of gunmen had entered the air force base outside Sabha, 770km south of the capital Tripoli, but the government was in control of the town and its civilian airport.

“This confrontation [at the air base] is continuing but in a few hours it will be solved,” the prime minister told a televised address, without elaborating.

Zeidan said he had sent his defence minister to Misrata to instruct troops based there to move to the south. The central coastal city is home to some of the most experienced soldiers and militias, battle-hardened from the 2011 uprising.

“The troops from Misrata have been commissioned by the government to conduct a national task ... to spread security and stability in the region,” he said in the address.

Western powers worry about instability in the sparsely populated south bordering Niger, Chad, Sudan and Egypt. People traffickers also use the desert borders to smuggle refugees into Libya from where many try to reach Italy by boat.

In Tripoli, security forces were put on maximum alert after the clashes in Sabha, a security spokesmen said, without elaborating.

Italians

In the volatile east, a security source said the two Italian construction workers were kidnapped in Derna, east of Benghazi, where they had been staying in a cement factory.

“There was a group of Libyan construction workers waiting for them on the highway east of Derna to fix a hole in the road, but the Italians did not arrive,” the source said. “We are trying to establish the identity of the kidnappers, to find out about their demands.”

Derna is a stronghold of radical Islamists. Residents temporarily blocked a road outside the town to protest against the kidnapping, a local activist said.

Benghazi, the main city in the east, has been rocked by a wave of assassinations of army and police officers as well as car bombs. Most Western nationals left the city after the US ambassador was killed during an Islamist assault on the US consulate there in September 2012.

A mix of militias and tribesmen has seized the main oil export ports in the east to press for political autonomy, drying up oil revenues, Libya’s lifeline.

ABU DHABI — Israeli Energy Minister Silvan Shalom attended a meeting Saturday of the International Renewable Energy Agency in the United Arab Emirates, which has no diplomatic relations with Israel.

During its two-day meeting, the assembly is to discuss a draft roadmap for achieving a 36 percent share for renewables in the world energy mix by 2030.

A member of the Israeli delegation told AFP that “Shalom is representing Israel, which is taking part in the meeting like all the other member states of this international agency”.

However, this is the first time member Israel has sent a minister to an IRENA meeting since the organisation, whose permanent seat is in Abu Dhabi, was founded in 2009.

The Israeli delegate declined to comment on whether Shalom hoped to hold any contacts on the sidelines with Gulf Arab officials.

Israel has quietly been seeking the alliance of Gulf monarchies, which like Israel are concerned over Iran’s rising regional power.

In May, Israeli newspaper Haaretz revealed Israel had allocated a budget for a diplomatic mission in one of the Gulf states, without specifying which.

The UAE hosted an Israeli delegation for the first time in 2003 for a meeting of the International Monetary Fund.

But, unlike fellow Gulf states Oman and Qatar, it has never hosted an Israeli trade office.

Both missions have since been closed — that in Oman in 2000, and the Qatar one in 2009.

The Gulf Arab states have conditioned normalisation of relations with Israel on its acceptance of the 2002 plan drafted by Saudi Arabia for peace with the Palestinians.

Israel’s relations with the UAE have been clouded by the January 2010 death in a Dubai hotel of Hamas military commander Mahmud Al Mabhuh in what investigators believe was an assassination by Israel’s Mossad spy agency.

SANAA — An Iranian diplomat was fatally wounded in a drive-by shooting outside the ambassador’s residence in the Yemeni capital Saturday, the third attack on embassy personnel in recent months.

A medic at Sanaa’s Modern German Hospital told AFP the diplomat, Ali Asghar Assadi, had been “hit in the shoulder, abdomen and stomach”.

“He was taken to the operating theatre then transferred to intensive care but died after an hour and half.”

Iran confirmed the death and swiftly condemned what it said was a new kidnap attempt against one of its diplomats in Yemen. In July, embassy staffer Nour-Ahmad Nikbakht was abducted by suspected Al Qaeda militants, and tribal sources say he remains in captivity.

“Ali Asghar Assadi, the Iranian diplomat who had been injured in the terrorist attack in Sanaa, was martyred,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham told the official IRNA news agency.

Yemen’s charge d’affaires in Tehran was later summoned to the ministry, where officials conveyed “strong protest”.

Iran also demanded Sanaa swiftly finds the culprits behind the shooting, Iran’s ISNA news agency reported.

Earlier, Afkham said “a terrorist group attacked him and attempted to kidnap him but he resisted and the terrorists resorted to shooting.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran strongly condemns this incident and will follow up on the case with the Yemeni authorities,” she added in remarks to ISNA.

Yemen’s foreign ministry denounced the attack and said Assadi’s murder was aimed at damaging relations with Iran, the official Saba news agency said.

Sanaa and Tehran are “anxious to prevent any attempt to undermine these relations”, a statement said, adding that authorities are determined to bring the attackers to justice.

Witnesses said the assailants had opened up with automatic weapons before fleeing.

A police source told AFP “unidentified assailants in a van fired on the diplomat three times as he was leaving the ambassador’s residence near a shopping centre in Hadda,” the main diplomatic district of Sanaa.

Spate of attacks on foreigners

The attack comes amid deadly fighting in northern Yemen between Sunni Islamists and Zaidi Shiite rebels whom their opponents charge are receiving support from Shiite Iran.

The army deployed in the flashpoint town of Dammaj earlier this month to supervise a local truce between the Shiite rebels and Sunni hardliners but the deadly conflict had already spread to other northern provinces.

There has been a spate of attacks targeting foreigners in Sanaa in recent months.

On December 15, the Japanese consul was seriously wounded after being dragged from his car in Hadda and repeatedly stabbed.

On November 26, gunmen killed one Belarussian defence contractor and wounded another as they left their hotel.

And a German embassy guard was killed on October 6 as he resisted an attempt to kidnap him.

Yemen is the ancestral homeland of slain Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden. Its local affiliate, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), is regarded by Washington as among the jihadist network’s most dangerous.

The group carries out frequent hit-and-run attacks on security personnel in its strongholds in the south and east.

But it has also carried out spectacular attacks in the capital, including a brazen daylight assault on the defence ministry last month that killed 56 people, among them foreign medical staff.

A South African teacher who was kidnapped by AQAP along with his wife in Yemen’s second city Taiz last May is still alive but in poor health, an organisation working to free him said on Saturday.

A deadline to pay $3 million (2.2 million euros) in ransom to spare 56-year-old Pierre Korkie his life expired on Friday, but a Yemeni mediator confirmed that it has now been extended for three weeks.

Mediator Anas Al Hamati helped secure the release of Korkie’s wife Yolande on January 10.

The couple had lived and worked in Yemen for four years. 

BAGHDAD — Attacks across Baghdad, including car bombs at an up-scale shopping mall and near a juvenile detention centre, killed 20 people Saturday as rising violence fuels fears of all-out sectarian war.

The bombings and a deadly, weeks long standoff in the western province of Anbar, part of a nationwide surge in violence that has already killed more than 600 this month, come just months ahead of parliamentary elections.

Diplomats including UN chief Ban Ki-moon have urged authorities to pursue political reconciliation with disaffected Sunni Arabs to resolve the unrest, but the US has said it will provide training for Iraqi forces in a third country and would ship small arms to the country’s security forces.

Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki has taken a hard line and ruled out dialogue with militants.

Iraqi officials have instead trumpeted wide-ranging security operations against militants, including in the desert region of Anbar, which borders Syria, but they appear to have done little to abate daily bloodshed.

In Baghdad on Saturday evening, seven attacks — including six car bombs — killed at least 20 people and wounded more than 60 others, security and medical officials said.

One of the blasts went off near the glitzy new Mansur Mall, one of the capital’s most upscale shopping centres, where families and young people often meet in the evenings to go to the cinema or eat at Western-style restaurants.

At least five people were killed and 12 more were wounded.

The area was deserted after the attack as shoppers rushed out of the mall and quickly made their way home, while security forces imposed restrictions on movement in the area, barring cars from entering or leaving the district, AFP journalists at the scene said.

Another car bomb in the Taubchi neighbourhood detonated near a juvenile detention centre, and fears of an impending prison break spurred the authorities to effectively shut down the area, an AFP journalist said.

The blast killed four people and left 13 others wounded, officials said, while Iraqiya state TV said security forces managed to repel the attempted jailbreak.

Bombs also went off near a bus station in Nahda, a bridge in Utaifiyah, as well as the neighbourhoods of Amriyah, Jamiyah and Adel, killing 11 people in all.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks, but Sunni militants linked to Al Qaeda often carry out waves of coordinated bombings in the capital against civilian targets.

Violence also struck north of Baghdad, in the restive multi-confessional cities of Kirkuk and Baqouba.

Twin blasts at a Kirkuk market killed three people, while gunmen badly wounded a journalist after stopping his car at an intersection in Baqouba. The journalist, who worked for Sharqiya TV, managed to escape his car but was shot three times and is currently in hospital.