Region

BAGHDAD — Iraqi government forces pressed their assault on militant strongholds in Anbar province Sunday as attacks elsewhere killed 21 people, with intensifying violence fuelling fears of a return to all-out conflict.

The effort to win back parts of Ramadi, capital of the western province of Anbar and one of two cities that either entirely or partly fell out of government control weeks ago, comes with violence at its highest level since 2008.

Soldiers and police fought alongside armed pro-government tribesmen in southern Ramadi in some of the heaviest clashes of recent weeks, a police officer and an AFP journalist said.

They were making slow progress in retaking militant-held neighbourhoods as acting Defence Minister Saadun Al Dulaimi visited to oversee operations.

Two police officers said the assault enabled government forces to wrest back control of parts or most of several key areas of Ramadi, including the Malaab, Street 60, Humeirah and Albu Jabar districts.

On Saturday, the defence ministry announced that warplanes and artillery had hit a neighbourhood of northern Fallujah, a rare military operation inside the city itself.

The army has largely stayed out of Fallujah, a short drive from Baghdad, fearing major incursions could ignite a protracted conflict with massive civilian casualties and damage to property.

US battles in the city, a bastion of militants following the 2003 US-led invasion, were among their bloodiest since the Vietnam War.

For weeks, anti-government forces have held parts of Ramadi and all of Fallujah, the first time they have exercised such open control in cities since the peak of violence that followed the 2003 invasion.

Al Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant has been involved in the fighting, as have other militant groups and anti-government tribes.

The police and the army have recruited their own tribal allies.

The standoff has prompted more than 140,000 people to flee their homes, the UN refugee agency said, describing it as the worst displacement in Iraq since the peak of the 2006-2008 sectarian conflict.

Elsewhere in Iraq on Sunday, attacks in and around Baghdad and north of the capital killed 21 people, security and medical officials said.

The deadliest violence struck in the town of Baiji, where a coordinated attack on an encampment of anti-Al Qaeda Sunni militiamen, or Sahwa fighters, killed eight people in all, security and medical officials said.

An initial gun attack on the base was followed by a suicide car bomb, with 17 others wounded.

Attacks in the areas of Baghdad, Balad, Taji, Mosul and Kirkuk killed 13 more people.

Violence has spiked markedly in recent months, with more than 1,000 people killed in January, the highest toll for a month since April 2008, according to government data.

SANAA/DUBAI — An Iranian embassy official kidnapped in the Yemeni capital Sanaa in July is still alive, a Yemeni security official said on Sunday, disputing an earlier report that he had been found beheaded.

Last month, a provincial official said local people had found the body of the diplomat in an area north of oil fields in Maarib province.

At the time Iran’s Student News Agency quoted an Iranian embassy official as denying that the headless body belonged to the missing employee.

On Sunday, a Yemeni security official who declined to be named told Reuters: “Contacts with the Iranian diplomat’s kidnappers through tribal mediators confirm that he [the diplomat] is still alive and that the body found did not belong to him,” the security official told Reuters.

Iran’s official IRNA news agency on Sunday quoted Yemen’s charge d’affaires in Tehran, Abdullah Al Sari, as saying: “Yemen’s interior ministry and security forces are following up on the fate of kidnapped Iranian diplomat, Noor Ahmad Nikbakht, and according to latest information he is alive and in good health.”

He added: “Our security forces are looking for ways to help and secure his release. We hope good news on this will be announced soon.”

Last month, another Iranian diplomat was fatally wounded when he resisted gunmen who tried to kidnap him. 

TEHRAN — Six months after the inauguration of Iran’s moderate President Hassan Rouhani, Western diplomats and businessmen are racing to Tehran hoping that a diplomatic thaw will reopen lucrative markets.

A landmark agreement reached with world powers on Iran’s controversial nuclear programme in November has raised hopes that Western sanctions could be lifted on the oil-rich country with a population of 76 million.

A delegation of 110 members of MEDEF — France’s largest employers’ union — is due in Tehran on Monday to resume talks after an absence of several years.

No contracts will be signed due to the strict international sanctions still in place, but the visit is seen as a key step towards regaining a foothold in the country.

Iran’s auto market was once dominated by French giants including Peugeot, which halted operations in 2012, and Renault, which sharply scaled back its presence due to US sanctions on spare parts deliveries in June 2013.

The French firms hope to regain their share against Asian rivals, particularly Chinese firms, which are not bound by the Western sanctions.

The number of cars produced in Iran was more than halved between 2011 and 2013, from 1.7 million to just 500,000.

Iran clinched the interim deal in November with the P5+1 group — Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany — under which it agreed to curb its nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief.

The six-month agreement, which took effect January 20, is aimed at buying time for a comprehensive agreement.

Western nations have long accused Iran of pursuing a nuclear weapons capability alongside its civilian programme, charges denied by Tehran.

The breakthrough in the talks has been largely attributed to the election last year of Rouhani, a reputed moderate who had vowed to pursue a diplomatic solution to the nuclear impasse.

“Among the regional countries and compared to Syria, Iraq, Egypt and Libya, Iran is paradoxically known to enjoy a remarkable stability,” an Iranian analyst, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP.

Western diplomats return

Iran has also seen recent high-profile political visits, including by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who led a delegation last week aimed at boosting economic ties between the two countries, which back opposite sides in Syria’s civil war.

Italian Foreign Minister Emma Bonino visited Tehran in December.

And Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt is due to arrive in Tehran on Monday, while his Polish counterpart Radoslaw Sikorski is expected in late February.

The recent visits of former British foreign minister Jack Straw and ex-UN chief Kofi Annan could be also added to the list.

Iran’s diplomatic ties with Western countries were severely strained under Rouhani’s predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, known for his hard line on the nuclear programme and incendiary rhetoric towards Israel.

“These visits are a sign that the taboo of sanctions has been shattered,” Amir Mohebian, a political analyst, told AFP.

“This is already a major success for the diplomacy of President Rouhani.”

There is no sign of any diplomats from the United States — still dubbed the “Great Satan” by Iran’s hardliners — making their way to Tehran.

But US Secretary of State John Kerry has met repeatedly with his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif, and on Sunday the two met on the sidelines of a Munich security conference to discuss the next round of nuclear talks.

Iran is set to resume negotiations with the P5+1 in Vienna on February 18.

BAGHDAD — Arrest warrants have been issued for the judge who convicted Saddam Hussein and a journalist critical of the government for allegedly libelling Iraq’s premier, a watchdog and the judge said Sunday.

Warrants were issued last month for Munir Haddad and Sarmad Al Taie, apparently for criticising Nouri Al Maliki, under an article of the criminal code that prohibits defaming or insulting government employees.

A local press watchdog said the warrant for Taie, who writes a regular column for the Al Mada newspaper and is a frequent guest on television current affairs programmes, was the first against a journalist since the US-led invasion in 2003.

Maliki’s spokesman declined to confirm the premier’s office had filed the case.

Haddad, who sentenced Saddam to death in 2006 and is now a private lawyer, turned himself in last week after being told of the warrant. He was subsequently released on bail.

“The person who filed a case against me was Maliki, accusing me of libel,” Haddad said, telling AFP the original warrant was issued on January 8.

“I did not attack him, I was just practising my freedom of expression by criticising the government’s performance... I am not against the prime minister, I am not his competitor, I do not have any political allegiance, I do not want to replace him, and I do not want to be in the government.”

Haddad gave no details on the specific comments he made to trigger the accusation, and did not say when he would next appear in court.

Another warrant was issued for Taie, according to Ziad Al Ajili, head of the Baghdad-based Journalism Freedom Observatory.

“The government has filed a legal case against Sarmad Al Taie because of the opinions he expressed on television,” Ajili told AFP, adding the warrant was apparently the first issued against a reporter since Saddam’s overthrow.

“This is far away from international standards of freedom of opinion and expression.”

Maliki’s spokesman Ali Mussawi declined to say whether or not the premier had initiated the legal case, but said: “Maliki is like any citizen. He goes to the courts to defend his rights. What is the problem?”

“This is a boost for the judiciary. Everybody, even the prime minister, is subject to the law.”

ABU DHABI — The UAE summoned the Qatari ambassador on Sunday to protest against remarks made by a Muslim Brotherhood-linked cleric who slammed the Emirates for jailing Islamists, the foreign ministry said.

The summons was the first of its kind by a member of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council — Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — against another GCC state since the bloc’s formation in 1981.

Qatar’s ambassador to the UAE, Fares Al Nuaimi, was summoned to the foreign ministry in Abu Dhabi and handed “an official letter of protest” over “insults” by cleric Yusef Al Qaradawi, WAM news agency reported.

Qaradawi, an Egyptian-born Muslim scholar, wields huge influence through his regular appearances on Al Jazeera television from his base in exile in Qatar, where he has lived for decades.

He is a staunch backer of Egypt’s deposed Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, unlike the UAE which supports the interim government installed in Cairo by the military that overthrew Morsi last July 3.

In a weekly Friday prayers sermon in Doha last month, Qaradawi lashed out at the UAE, accusing it of “standing against Islamist regimes, punishing its leaders and putting them in jail”.

His comments came just days after the UAE jailed a group of 30 Emiratis and Egyptians to terms ranging from three months to five years for forming a Muslim Brotherhood cell.

The Brotherhood is banned in much of the region, and the UAE, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia pledged billions of dollars in aid to Egypt after the overthrow of Morsi, who hails from the Islamist organisation.

Qatar, however, has backed the Brotherhood in several countries swept by the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011, and has criticised Cairo for banning the group and launching a deadly crackdown against it.

On Saturday, Qatari Foreign Minister Khaled Al Attiyah disavowed Qaradawi’s remarks, saying “they do not reflect Qatari foreign policy” and insisting that ties between the two nations are “strategic in all aspects”.

But the UAE foreign ministry said that response “did not reflect a decisive stance rejecting Qaradawi’s speech”, and therefore Abu Dhabi had to take “an unprecedented measure” and summon Doha’s envoy.

JUBA — South Sudanese rebels accused government forces on Sunday of razing the hometown of their leader Riek Machar, violating a ceasefire and said the army was drawing support from foreign fighters now in the country.

Rebel spokesman Lul Ruai Koang said government SPLA forces and fighters from the Sudanese Justice and Equality Movement — a rebel group from north of the border — had destroyed the northern town of Leer on Saturday, massacring women and children as they fled.

An army spokesman said he had not received any reports of fighting in Leer, where the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres said last week more than 200 of its staff had been forced to flee because of growing insecurity.

The government accuses the rebels of flouting the ceasefire signed on January 23.

The claims and counter-claims came as east African ceasefire monitors began to arrive in South Sudan, seven weeks after violence erupted in the capital, Juba, before spreading across the world’s newest state.

“[President Salva] Kiir’s forces burned down the whole of Leer town and entire surrounding villages,” Koang said in a statement.

“The latest destruction of Leer town in Unity state has no strategic, operational or tactical importance, but mere need for psychological satisfaction.”

Koang said the Ugandan military, which gave air and ground support to the SPLA as it battled to recapture rebel-held towns before the ceasefire, had swollen its ranks with fighters from the defeated M23 Congolese rebel group.

Hundreds of M23 rebels fled into Uganda after the Congolese army and a UN brigade flushed them from their strongholds. SPLA spokesman Philip Aguer said he had received no reports of foreign militiamen joining the conflict.

Ugandan army spokesman Colonel Paddy Ankunda called the rebel allegations “cheap lies”.

Thousands of people have been killed and more than 800,000 have fled their homes since fighting was triggered by a power struggle between President Kiir and Machar, his former deputy whom he sacked in July.

The conflict, which has taken on a largely ethnic dimension between the Dinka and Nuer tribes of Kiir and Machar respectively, has brought oil-producing South Sudan, a country the size of France, to the brink of civil war.

Machar on Friday accused Kiir of sabotaging the peace talks — which resume in neighbouring Ethiopia this week — and of waging a campaign of ethnic cleansing, in a Reuters interview at his bush hideout in remote Jonglei state.

An advance team of monitors sent by east African nations arrived in Juba on Sunday to start observing the shaky truce.

Diplomats expect them to focus on the three flashpoint towns of Malakal and Bentiu, near the main oilfields, and Bor, where some of the heaviest clashes have occurred, as well as the capital.

“We will start our mission, at least the teams will be deployed, within the next week,” General Gebreegzabher Mebrahtu, a retired Ethiopian general who is leading the advance team, told reporters in Juba.

The violence, the worst since South Sudan won independence from Sudan in 2011, has caused a humanitarian crisis.

At least 3.2 million people — more than a quarter of the population — face food shortages, the United Nations says. Aid agencies say insecurity is hampering their operations.

SANAA — Armed Yemeni tribesmen have kidnapped a German citizen in the capital Sanaa, foreign ministry officials said Sunday.

Foreign ministry officials said the German was in the country studying Arabic. They said that after he was seized Friday, his kidnappers took him to Marib province east of Sanaa.

A security official said that the kidnappers are demanding the release of two members of a tribe in Marib, who were arrested in a military hospital in Sanaa four months ago.

A Yemeni government spokesman said efforts were under way to release the hostages.

“A crackdown is taking place now at the locations of the kidnappers in order to release the German hostage,” Rajeh Badi said. 

The other officials spoke anonymously as they were not allowed to talk to the media.

Abductions are frequent in Yemen, an impoverished nation where armed tribesmen and Al Qaeda-linked militants take hostages in an effort to swap them for prisoners or cash.

TRIPOLI, Libya — A Libyan security official says that over 54 detainees have escaped from a prison in the capital Tripoli due to a security failure.

Judicial Police Lt. Col. Ahmed Abu Kara said in a Sunday statement that the escapees smashed the building’s rear protective windows, while guards were distributing the inmates’ breakfast. He said the prison was short five guards at the time of the Saturday breakout.

Abu Kara says jails overseen by the judicial police have been plagued by repeated prison breaks. In July, over 1,000 detainees escaped from Al Kweifiya prison near the eastern city Benghazi.

Libya has experienced a security vacuum since the 2011 overthrow of longtime dictator Muammar Qadhafi. In the absence of a strong police and military, the government relies on militias that include many anti-Qadhafi rebels.

CAIRO — Egypt said Sunday that verdicts handed down by military courts, which under the new constitution are allowed to try civilians, can now be appealed.

The provision allowing civilians to be judged by the military has faced stiff opposition from rights activists.

Thousands of cases involving civilians have been referred to military courts since the early 2011 uprising that toppled long-time ruler Hosni Mubarak.

More than 12,000 cases were referred to military courts that year alone when a military junta assumed power after the fall of Mubarak, according to campaign group No To Military Trials For Civilians.

On Sunday, interim President Adly Mansour ordered the creation of a higher court to hear appeals against verdicts delivered by military tribunals, a statement from his office said.

The new constitution adopted in January stipulates that civilians can face military trials in cases involving direct attacks on military personnel or military installations.

But rights groups say this could violate a defendant’s right to an impartial trial.

Dozens of supporters of ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi have also been referred to military trials since he was deposed by the army in July.

Military tribunals have also passed verdicts in recent months against three Egyptian journalists.

In November, journalist Mohammad Sabry was given a six-month suspended sentence for photographing army checkpoints in the restive Sinai Peninsula near the border with the Palestinian Gaza Strip.

A month earlier, Ahmed Abu Derra was handed down a similar sentence for reporting without authorisation in a military zone, also in Sinai.

Also in October, a Cairo military court sentenced another journalist, Hatem Abul Nour, to a year in jail for impersonating an army officer over the phone.

CAIRO — A jihadist group behind a wave of spectacular attacks is a grave threat to Egypt’s stability as political turmoil triggered by the Islamist president’s ouster rocks the country, analysts say.

In less than a fortnight, Ansar Beit Al Maqdis (Partisans of Jerusalem) has claimed responsibility for several high-profile attacks.

These include a car bombing at police headquarters in Cairo, shooting down a military helicopter with a missile and assassinating a police general in broad daylight in the capital.

“Vengeance is coming,” the Sinai-based group warned army chief Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, who is expected to stand for the presidency after he ousted Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically elected president.

The group’s attacks have “made Egyptian authorities look like they were chasing ghosts”, said David Barnett, research associate at US-based think tank the Foundation for Defence of Democracies.

“It is the main militant group that has the potential to escalate the destabilisation in the country.”

Analysts say Ansar Beit Al Maqdis is inspired by Al Qaeda.

But Egyptian security officials claim the “terrorist group is derived” from Morsi’s Islamist Muslim Brotherhood which won all elections after the 2011 ouster of Hosni Mubarak.

Ansar Beit Al Maqdis is thought to have been founded primarily by Egyptians in 2011 after the anti-Mubarak revolt, with most of its fighters drawn from Sinai tribes.

In recent months the group has also seen support coming from the Nile Delta and some areas of Cairo, experts say.

Although its overall command structure and source of funding are major unknowns, two of its known leaders are Shadi Al Menei, who has eluded arrest so far and is from Sinai’s Sawarka tribe, and Abu Osama Al Masry, of whom little is known.

The group is also believed to be led or backed by militants who broke out of prison in 2011 during the anti-Mubarak revolt.

“Its links with Al Qaeda are tenuous at best,” said Barnett. The group’s videos often feature clips of Al Qaeda’s Egypt-born leader Ayman Al Zawahiri.

The group’s “early goal was to attack Israel and prevent co-operation between Egypt and Israel by sabotaging gas pipelines”, said France-based Matthieu Guidere, an expert on Islamist militants.

Interior minister targeted

On Friday its fighters fired a rocket at Israel’s Red Sea resort of Eilat, the group said in a statement.

“On July 3 [the day Morsi was removed] the group issued a fatwa declaring the Egyptian army as infidels. From there, it turned from an anti-Israeli jihadist group to one focusing against the Egyptian security forces,” Guidere said.

Ansar Beit Al Maqdis also claimed a September 5 car bomb attack in Cairo targeting interior minister Mohamed Ibrahim, who escaped unhurt.

Its deadliest assault was a December 24 suicide car bomb that ripped through a police building north of Cairo, killing 15 people.

On January 25, as Egyptians marked the third anniversary of the start of the anti-Mubarak revolt, the group claimed it downed a military helicopter in Sinai with a missile, killing five soldiers.

“The level of sophistication is beyond what observers thought they were capable of,” Barnett said of the group’s ability to stage assaults outside the Sinai.

“The attacks suggest there are well experienced fighters in the group. Some of them have significant experience in fighting.”

Sinai-based researcher Ismail Alexandrani said Ansar Beit Al Maqdis had procured weapons from Libya and Sudan after the fall of Mubarak.

“We can also say that some jihadists who previously fought in Afghanistan, Syria and Bosnia have joined the group,” he added.

Ansar Beit Al Maqdis believes in gaining power through violence, analysts believe.

“The overthrow of Morsi’s government is a prime indication for their argument that the way to success is through violence and not through democratic process,” said Barnett.

The Muslim Brotherhood says that it renounced violence decades ago.

Morsi’s overthrow has polarised Egypt, with Amnesty International saying that 1,400 people have been killed in political violence since last July.

Deputy Interior Minister Shafiq Saeed said the authorities “have arrested members from the group who have confessed that [Ansar Beit Al Maqdis] belongs to the Muslim Brotherhood”, and denied that jihadist attacks had risen.

“The government is so entrenched in the battle against the Brotherhood that they appear to be losing the sight of the actual battle around them,” said Barnett.

“The reality is that there is real danger from the jihadi group capable of carrying out attacks.”