Region

TEL AVIV –– Thousands of African asylum seekers demonstrated outside Western embassies in Tel Aviv on Monday in a second day of mass protests against Israel’s immigration policies.

The migrants, primarily from Eritrea and Sudan, marched from downtown Tel Aviv to the embassies, calling for help in the face of Israel’s refusal to give them refugee status and its detention without trial of hundreds of asylum seekers.

A police spokesman said the march by some 10,000 migrants was coordinated with police and there were no disturbances.

Under legislation passed on December 10, authorities can detain illegal immigrants entering Israel for up to a year without trial.

A sprawling detention facility has been opened in the Negev Desert to house both them and immigrants already in the country deemed to have disturbed public order.

The demonstrators marched past the Israeli office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, chanting “Wake up UN”.

The UNHCR has not been responsible for determining the refugee status of asylum seekers in Israel since 2009, when that authority was transferred to the interior ministry.

UNHCR official Sharon Harel said Israel had not approved a single request for refugee status in all of last year, although an interior ministry spokeswoman told AFP it had granted 10.

Harel said the asylum seekers already in Israel — 14,000 from Eritrea and 36,000 from Sudan — received collective protection on arrival and were not returned to their countries of origin.

But the UNHCR condemned Israel for not affording “those with protection needs” with “access to refugee status determination”, defining them as “infiltrators” without “taking into account the reasons why they had to flee from their country of origin”.

The interior ministry rejected the UN criticism, insisting “all the requests for asylum are examined by the population and immigration authority”.

“Any foreign national who has requested political asylum in Israel is protected from expulsion until the examination of their request has been completed”, it said.

The right-leaning government has made removal of African migrants who slipped across the desert border with Egypt before the completion of a high-tech barrier last year a priority.

It says their presence in Israel threatens its Jewish character.

Tens of thousands of African migrants held a mass rally in central Tel Aviv on Sunday to mark the launch of a three-day nationwide strike.

RAMALLAH/OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — A Palestinian official said the Palestinians have reservations about some of US Secretary of State John Kerry’s ideas for the outlines of a peace deal with Israel, particularly on the future of Jerusalem.

Kerry left Monday after meetings with Israeli and Palestinian leaders. He is to present a US proposal for a peace framework and is expected back in the region next week.

The official said Monday that wide gaps remain, including about East Jerusalem.

The official, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of Kerry’s demand for discretion, said the US state secretary suggested that a framework refer to Palestinian “aspirations” to have a capital in Jerusalem.

The Palestinians want a specific mention of East Jerusalem as their capital, fearing that otherwise they’ll end up with a small part of the city.

After four days of intense diplomacy, Kerry headed home Monday, insisting progress had been made despite failing to agree a framework to guide Israeli-Palestinian talks.

On his 10th visit to the region as US top diplomat, Kerry spent hours locked in separate meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
He also visited Jordan and discussed peace efforts with His Majesty King Abdullah.

The US official also made a trip to Saudi Arabia, where he held talks with the Saudi monarch.
With the US remaining tight-lipped about the details, little news has filtered out about Kerry’s proposals to bridge the huge gaps between the two sides as they seek to draw up the contours of two states living side by side.
According to a report in Israeli daily Maariv, Kerry pressed Netanyahu to agree to a formula which would enable the return of some Palestinian refugees, who fled or were expelled from Israel in 1948.

Netanyahu refused, Maariv said. According to the newspaper, Israeli negotiators also wish to extend talks beyond their agreed April deadline to January 2015, in return for freezing some settlement construction in the occupied West Bank.

Jordan and Saudi Arabia will be key to any deal.
Jordan’s historic role in the guardianship of Muslim sites in Israeli-annexed Arab East Jerusalem is recognised under its 1994 peace treaty with Israel.

Saudi Arabia authored a 2002 peace plan which is the basis of Arab aspirations for any deal.

Kerry, who has made a Middle East peace deal a personal quest since taking office in February, is due to meet this week with top members of the Arab League to brief them on his discussions in Israel and the West Bank.
This trip was clouded by bitter recriminations from both Israeli and Palestinian leaders, accusing each other of not being serious partners in the search for peace.
On Sunday, Netanyahu renewed allegations that Palestinians were “continuing their campaign of inciting hatred.”

The Palestinians, meanwhile, reportedly told Kerry they will refuse to recognise Israel as a Jewish state, and remain steadfast in their opposition to stationing any Israeli troops on the border between the West Bank and Jordan to ensure Israel’s security in a new Palestinian state.
Israeli media said he could be back as early as next week.

TUNIS –– Tunisia’s army has shelled militant hideouts near the Algerian border as part of a campaign against hardline Islamists seeking to destabilise the North African country’s fragile transition to democracy.

Troops fired heavy artillery after spotting suspicious movements in the Mount Chaambi area on Sunday, army spokesman Taoufiq Rahmouni told the state news agency TAP. It was unclear if there were any casualties.

Concerns about militant violence are increasing as Tunisia takes its final steps to full democracy, three years after its revolution that inspired the “Arab Spring” revolts in Libya, Egypt, Yemen and Syria.

The Tunisian military have repeatedly hit Chaambi, a remote mountainous region a few kilometres from Algeria, since the start of 2013 after militants began trying to establish a refuge base there.

“The number of terrorists hiding there is around 25 or 30,” Rahmouni said.

Militants, mainly from the Islamist group Ansar Al Sharia whose leader has declared allegiance to Al Qaeda, have emerged since the Tunisian uprising in early 2011 ousted autocratic leader Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

Tunisia’s police last week arrested seven suspected ultra-conservative Islamist militants, accusing them of threatening attacks during New Year celebrations in Kasserine, the closest city to Mount Chaambi.

The country’s Islamist-led government declared Ansar Al Sharia a terrorist organisation last year after blaming it for the assassination of two opposition leaders.

Militants have since clashed with police in raids and a suicide bomber blew himself up late last year at a beach resort in the first such attack in Tunisia in a decade.

Tunisia’s ruling Islamist party Ennahda has agreed to step down under a deal that will see parties finish the constitution, set a date for elections and name an electoral council before a non-political caretaker government takes over.

GAZA CITY –– Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh reached out to West Bank rivals Fateh on Monday, saying its members would be allowed back into Gaza, in efforts to promote Palestinian reconciliation.

“The [Hamas] government will allow all Fateh members who are from Gaza and who left the strip [in 2007] to return, without any preconditions,” apart from those accused of killing Hamas members during intense factional fighting that year, Haniyeh said.

Speaking to reporters after a visit to the Hamas interior ministry in Gaza City, he added authorities would “release a small number of Fateh members who are imprisoned [in Gaza] for security reasons”.

Fateh MPs, who are based in the West Bank, would also be allowed to visit Gaza, Haniyeh added.

Hamas in recent months has reached out to Fateh, which dominates the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, as Israel and Egypt have tightened a blockade on the Islamist movement’s Gaza enclave.

Haniyeh spoke via telephone to Fateh leader and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in October, stressing the need for reconciliation and “a return to national unity”.

Long-time tensions between Hamas and Fateh boiled over in a week of fighting in 2007 that left the Islamist movement –– which is sworn to Israel’s destruction –– in charge of the impoverished coastal strip.

The fighting came a year and half after Hamas won a landslide victory in Palestinian general elections, leading to a Western boycott of the Islamist-run government.

Since the takeover both movements have launched tit-for-tat crackdowns on their rivals in the areas under their control.

The two sides have made repeated attempts to heal the rift, most recently by signing an Egyptian-brokered deal in 2011 in which they pledged to set up an interim government of independents to pave the way for new elections.

The agreement has never been implemented.

The Islamist movement says it has been under severe pressure since the Egyptian army destroyed hundreds of tunnels used to smuggle fuel and goods into the blockaded Gaza Strip following its overthrow of president Mohamed Morsi.

Hamas is the Palestinian branch of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, from which Morsi hails.

TUNIS — Tunisia’s national assembly on Monday approved an article in the draft constitution that would guarantee gender equality “without discrimination” in the Muslim nation.

“All male and female citizens have the same rights and duties. They are equal before the law without discrimination,” states article 20 of the new charter, which was approved by 159 lawmakers out of the 169 who voted.

Tunisia hopes to adopt the long-delayed new constitution by January 14, the three-year anniversary of the overthrow of dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in a popular revolt that kicked off the Arab Spring.

Since the 1950s, when it gained independence from France, Tunisia has had the most liberal laws in the Arab world on women’s rights, which some have accused the outgoing Islamist-led government of wanting to roll back.

Human rights groups had expressed reservations about article 20 of the constitution, arguing that it limits the protection of rights to citizens and not foreigners, and does not specify the prohibited grounds of discrimination.

They urged the assembly, in a joint statement last week, to “enshrine the principles of equality and non-discrimination before the law and extend it to anyone subject to the jurisdiction of Tunisian authorities, including both citizens and foreigners”.

“Article 20 should specify that discrimination, direct and indirect, is prohibited on the grounds of race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status,” said the NGOs, which included Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

Article 45, which would guarantee the protection of women’s rights by the state and the “equality of opportunity for men and women”, has yet to be examined.

The ruling Islamist party Ennahda, which has promised to step down when the new constitution is adopted, came in for heavy criticism when it tried to press through the idea of gender “complementarity” rather than equality.

After lawmakers have voted on the draft constitution article by article, it needs to be approved by two-thirds of parliament’s 217 members to be adopted. Otherwise, it will have to be put to a referendum.

BEIRUT –– Syria’s main opposition National Coalition re-elected Ahmad Jarba as its leader during a general assembly meeting in Istanbul on Sunday, the coalition said in a statement.

Jarba won 65 votes, beating his only rival Riad Hijab –– the best-known defector from the regime of President Bashar Assad –– by 13 votes.

Jarba, who is seen as close to key rebel backer Saudi Arabia, was first elected to head the Coalition in July, and will now lead the group for another six months.

His re-election comes at a sensitive time, less than three weeks away from slated peace talks in Switzerland that would bring rebels and regime representatives to the table.

The coalition was set to discuss on Monday whether to take part in the peace talks, though a key bloc –– the Syrian National Council — has already announced it will boycott the so-called Geneva II process.

That has raised fears the coalition may end up rejecting the talks altogether. According to council member and veteran dissident Samir Nashar, “Ahmad Jarba does not want to go to Geneva”.

Born in 1969 in the northeastern city of Qamishli, on the border with Turkey, Jarba is a Sunni Muslim who has tried to convince Arab and Western nations to arm the rebels.

In his six months as coalition leader, he has appeared more subdued than previous opposition chiefs who had higher profiles as veteran dissidents.

Jarba’s re-election comes deep into a crisis within the main opposition group, which is based outside Syria.

Many opponents and rebels on the ground feel the coalition has failed to represent them.

RAMADI –– Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki called Monday for Fallujah residents to expel “terrorists” to avoid a security forces assault, as a senior tribal leader insisted that Al Qaeda-linked militants had left.

Fallujah has been outside government control for days, while parts of Anbar provincial capital Ramadi, farther west, are also held by militants.

It is the first time militants have exercised such open control in major cities since the height of the bloody insurgency that followed the US-led invasion of 2003.

Maliki called on “the people of Fallujah and its tribes to expel the terrorists” so “their areas are not subjected to the danger of armed clashes,” state television reported.

He also ordered security forces “not to strike residential areas in Fallujah”, it said.

A senior official told AFP on Sunday Iraqi forces were preparing “a major attack” on Fallujah.

And ground forces commander Staff General Ali Ghaidan Majeed said the city should “wait for what is coming” — a reference to the impending assault.

Sheikh Ali Al Hammad, a senior tribal leader from Fallujah, insisted on Monday that Al Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) forces had departed the city, saying it is now held by Sunni tribesmen.

“There is no ISIL in the city,” Hammad told AFP by telephone. “They all left.”

“The gunmen inside are from the sons of the tribes, and they are here to defend Fallujah,” he said.

But a witness said ISIL fighters were still in the city, but had lowered their characteristic black flags to avoid being targeted, and Iraqi officials had previously said ISIL was in control.

In any case, Fallujah remains outside government control, and even if the departure of ISIL militants is confirmed, Baghdad may still seek to retake it.

US Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday that Washington would provide assistance to Iraqi forces but that it was “their fight”, while Iran’s deputy chief of staff, General Mohammad Hejazi, also offered “equipment and advice” to Baghdad.

Fighting in Anbar has reportedly killed more than 200 people in just three days, making it the deadliest violence to hit the province in years.

Echoes of a bloody past

Both Ramadi and Fallujah were insurgent strongholds in the years after 2003, and Fallujah was the target of two major assaults in which US forces saw some of their heaviest fighting since the Vietnam War.

American forces suffered almost one-third of their Iraq dead in Anbar, according to independent website icasualties.org.

They eventually wrested back control of Anbar from militants, with the support of Sunni Arab tribesmen who formed the Sahwa (Awakening) militias, which allied with US troops against Al Qaeda from late 2006.

But two years after US forces withdrew from the country, Sunni militants have regained strength, bolstered by the war in neighbouring Syria and widespread Sunni Arab anger with Iraq’s Shiite-led government.

Fighting erupted in the Ramadi area on December 30, when security forces cleared a year-old protest camp where Sunni Arabs had been demonstrating against what they see as the marginalisation and targeting of their minority community by Baghdad.

The violence spread to Fallujah, and the subsequent withdrawal of security forces from parts of both cities cleared the way for militants to seize control.

Maliki had long sought the closure of the protest camp outside Ramadi, dubbing it a “headquarters for the leadership of Al Qaeda”.

But its removal has caused a sharp decline in the security situation.

ISIL, the latest incarnation of the jihadist group’s Iraq affiliate, has made a striking comeback from past defeats, launching numerous attacks in both Iraq and neighbouring Syria last year.

Violence in Iraq in 2013 reached a level not seen since 2008, when the country was just emerging from a brutal period of sectarian killings.

More than 250 people have been killed in the first five days of this month, exceeding the toll for the whole of January last year.

FALLUJAH, Iraq — Iraq is preparing a “major attack” to retake militant-held Fallujah, a senior official said Sunday, spelling a new assault for the city, west of Baghdad, where US forces repeatedly battled insurgents.

Washington said it would help Baghdad in its battle against Al Qaeda-linked militants but that there would be no return of US troops.

The takeover of Fallujah and parts of Anbar provincial capital Ramadi, farther west, is the first time that militants have exercised such open control in major cities since the height of the bloody insurgency that followed the US-led invasion of 2003.

“Iraqi forces are preparing for a major attack in Fallujah,” a senior Iraqi official told AFP.

Special forces have already conducted operations inside the city, the official said.

The regular army has paused on the edge of the city to allow residents time to leave, awaiting orders to launch “the attack to crush the terrorists”.

Fallujah is in the hands of fighters of the Al Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), a senior security official said on Saturday.

Secretary of State John Kerry said on Sunday that the United States would provide assistance to Iraqi forces in their battle against the militants but that it was “their fight”.

Kerry said Washington was “very, very concerned” about the resurgence of ISIL but said it was not contemplating any return of US ground troops, after their withdrawal in December 2011.

“We are not obviously contemplating returning, we are not contemplating putting boots on the ground, this is their fight,” Kerry told reporters in Jerusalem

“But we’re going to help them in their fight... We are going to do everything that is possible to help them.”

‘Wait for what is coming’

ISIL militants seized control of the village of Bubali near Ramadi after heavy fighting on Sunday, a witness said.

And AFP journalists reported sporadic clashes both inside Ramadi and on the outskirts of Fallujah.

Iraqi ground forces commander Staff General Ali Ghaidan Majeed told AFP that security forces killed 11 militants from countries including Afghanistan and various Arab states on the highway from Baghdad to Fallujah.

Majeed admitted “we do not know what is happening in Fallujah”, but said the city should “wait for what is coming” — a reference to the impending assault.

On Friday and Saturday, more than 160 people were killed in the worst violence to hit Anbar province in years.

Both Ramadi and Fallujah were insurgent strongholds in the years after 2003, and Fallujah was the target of two major assaults in which US forces saw some of their heaviest fighting since the Vietnam war.

American troops eventually wrested back control of Anbar from militants, with the support of Sunni Arab tribesmen of the Sahwa militia, who joined forces with the US from late 2006.

US forces suffered almost one-third of their Iraq dead in Anbar, according to independent website icasualties.org.

But two years after US forces withdrew, the power of militants in the province is on the rise.

Fighting erupted in the Ramadi area on December 30, when security forces cleared a year-old protest camp where Sunni Arabs demonstrated against what they see as the marginalisation and targeting of their minority community by the Shiite-led government.

The violence then spread to Fallujah, and the subsequent withdrawal of security forces from parts of both cities cleared the way for militants to seize control.

Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki had long sought the closure of the protest camp outside Ramadi, dubbing it a “headquarters for the leadership of Al Qaeda”.

But its removal has caused a sharp decline in the security situation.

ISIL is the latest incarnation of Al Qaeda’s Iraq affiliate and has made a striking comeback this year, taking advantage of widespread discontent among Sunnis and its newfound bases in neighbouring Syria, where it has become a major player in the nearly three-year-old conflict.

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

CAIRO –– An Egyptian court on Sunday gave suspended one-year sentences to 12 activists including youth leaders of the 2011 uprising for an attack on a former presidential candidate’s headquarters.

Those sentenced include Alaa Abdel Fattah and Mona Seif, prominent youth activists known for their leading role in the revolt that toppled president Hosni Mubarak.

They were convicted of torching and destroying the election campaign headquarters of Ahmed Shafik in May 2012, but acquitted of looting the premises.

They had been referred to trial under now deposed Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, who defeated Shafiq in the May and June 2012 election.

Shafiq had withdrawn the complaint against them at the time, saying he did not want to be used by Morsi as a pretext to crack down on secular dissidents.

The jail sentences can be enforced within three years if the defendants are convicted in any other trials.

Abdel Fattah is currently in detention for allegedly taking part in a violent and illegal protest in November. The date for his trial has yet to be determined.

In late November, the military-installed government passed a law that bans all but police-sanctioned demonstrations.

In December, a court sentenced three prominent activists who spearheaded the anti-Mubarak revolt to three years in jail for organising an unlicensed protest.

Ahmed Maher, Ahmed Douma and Mohamed Adel were convicted in the first such verdict against non-Islamist protesters since Morsi’s ouster by the military in July.

Some secular activists who had supported Morsi’s overthrow now accuse the military-installed government of restricting freedoms.

And in December, Shafiq, who served as Mubarak’s last premier, was acquitted of corruption charges by Egyptian courts, paving the way for his return more than a year after he fled abroad after losing narrowly losing to Morsi.

AMMAN/JERUSALEM –– Syrian rebel fighters loyal to Al Qaeda ceded ground near the Turkish border to rival Islamists on Sunday, activists said, in what seemed to be a tactical withdrawal to end clashes between Syrian- and foreign-led opponents of President Bashar Assad.

As Syria’s civil war gets ever more complex amid a broad regional confrontation between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, the United States raised the prospect of Assad’s sponsor Iran, the Shiite power long at odds with Washington and its Sunni Arab allies, playing some role in this month’s Syrian peace talks.

US Secretary of State John Kerry said Tehran still should not take formal part in the peace conference scheduled to start on Lake Geneva on January 22 because it had not endorsed a 2012 accord calling for a new Syrian leadership. But he said there might be ways that Iran could “contribute from the sidelines”.

There is little prospect of a rapid end to the Syrian conflict but the resurgence in Iraq of mutual enemy Al Qaeda, and a recent rapprochement with the new Iranian president, have raised speculation about a common effort between the United States and Tehran to contain instability in the region.

Kerry, visiting Jerusalem, pledged to help Iraq’s Shiite-led government fight Al Qaeda but said Washington was not considering sending US troops, two years after they withdrew.

Syrian opposition activists said the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), allied to Al Qaeda and featuring foreign jihadists among its commanders, had pulled back on Sunday from strongpoint including Al Dana and Atma in Idlib province and that fighters from the Nusra Front and Ahrar Al Sham moved in.

“The Islamic State is pulling out without a fight. Its fighters are taking their weapons and heavy guns,” activist Firas Ahmad said. He added that the ISIL fighters headed in the direction of Aleppo, where Assad’s troops have stepped up pressure on rebel forces who captured the city 18 months ago.

Another activist, Abdallah Al Sheikh, said that some Syrian ISIL fighters had stayed in place but switched allegiance to the Nusra Front, whose commanders are mostly Syrian rather than foreign. Nusra coordinates with the Islamic Front, a coalition of Syrian Islamist brigades that includes Ahrar Al Sham.

Syrian opposition supporters and diplomats said that, despite days of skirmishing in the northwest between ISIL and other rebel factions, a broad alliance involving these groups seemed to be holding in the desert east of the country.

“There is certainly competition between ISIL and the other Islamist militants, but it does not appear there is full-scale confrontation,” a Middle Eastern diplomat said.

The strength of radical Islamists, nearly three years after popular revolt broke out against Assad, has caused Western powers to hold back on practical support for the rebels despite endorsing the goal, shared with Sunni Arab states such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, of overthrowing the Syrian president.

Syria peace talks

Western powers preparing for the peace conference in Montreux later this month have been pressing other opposition groups, friendlier to Western interests, to resolve their own factional disputes and take a full role in negotiations.

The Syrian National Coalition (SNC), a Western-backed umbrella body formed largely by exiles, was meeting in Istanbul to elect new leaders and vote, probably on Monday, on whether to take part in talks with Assad’s representatives.

Many in the SNC are concerned that it could jeopardise what support it enjoys inside Syria by takiang part in the talks with Assad’s delegates at what is known by the UN organisers as “Geneva II” — a sequel to international talks in Geneva in 2012.

While the Islamic Front and others fighting in Syria have ruled out negotiations, the SNC has said it would take part on certain conditions — though few of these, such as the release of prisoners and more aid to rebel areas, have been met.

Nonetheless, senior SNC member Anas Abdah told Reuters the coalition was under pressure to take part in talks, if only to avoid losing the goodwill and support of Western powers: “The only clear political option is Geneva 2,” he said.

“If we don’t explore this option, the international community might lose interest and not do anything.”

Monzer Makhous, the SNC envoy in Paris, said: “There cannot be a political solution from Geneva because the terms set out by the international community at previous meetings have not been met... But at this stage we have no other option.”