Region

RIYADH — Yemeni insurgents have seized an Emirati-flagged vessel in the Red Sea, the insurgents and a Saudi-led coalition said on Monday, giving contrasting explanations for the latest escalation in a seven-year war.

The coalition, fighting in support of Yemen's internationally recognised government, said the vessel was carrying medical supplies but the insurgents said they seized "a military cargo ship with military equipment".

The coalition has been fighting for nearly seven years in support of Yemen's government against the Iran-backed Houthis, in a conflict that has displaced millions and created the world's worst humanitarian crisis, according to the United Nations.

"The militia must promptly release the ship, or the coalition forces will undertake all necessary measures and procedures to handle this violation, including the use of force if necessary," coalition spokesman Turki al-Malki said.

In a statement cited by the official Saudi Press Agency, he said the vessel was travelling from Yemen's Socotra island, off the country's south coast.

It was returning to the Saudi city of Jazan carrying medical supplies after finishing a mission to set up a field hospital on the island, Malki said.

"The boat named Rawabi, bearing the flag of the United Arab Emirates, was pirated and kidnapped at 23:57 (2057 GMT) Sunday while off Hodeida province," he said.

Malki was unable to confirm the number of people on board when contacted by AFP. There was no immediate comment from the United Arab Emirates.

'Hostile acts' 

The Huthis confirmed they had seized an Emirati-flagged vessel in the Red Sea but their military spokesman Yahya Saree said it had "entered Yemeni waters without authorisation" and was carrying out "hostile acts".

Saree tweeted: "The successful and unprecedented operation is part of the fight against [coalition] aggression."

Fighting has intensified over the past few weeks in Yemen, the Arabian Peninsula's poorest country.

The Houthis come from the minority Zaidi Shiite sect of Islam and fought six previous wars against Yemen’s then-government between 2004 and 2010. But the current conflict is also a battleground for the wider feud between regional powers Saudi Arabia and Iran.

UN special envoy Hans Grundberg last week said the uptick in fighting “undermines the prospects of reaching a sustainable political settlement to end the conflict in Yemen”.

Grundberg added: “The escalation in recent weeks is among the worst we have seen in Yemen for years and the threat to civilian lives is increasing.”

It is not the first time that ships have become caught up in the war.

In November 2019, for example, the Houthis acknowledged they had seized three ships, two South Korean vessels and a Saudi-flagged tug, in the Red Sea a few miles off Uqban island, north of Hodeida.

In July 2018 the kingdom accused the rebels of attacking two Saudi-operated oil tankers in the Red Sea. The pro-Houthi Al Masirah television said that the rebels had targeted a Saudi warship named Al Dammam, without providing further details.

Other ships have been seized in recent years in regional waters, with most incidents blamed on Iran. Tehran and Washington, a close ally of Saudi Arabia, regularly accuse each other of aggressive acts at sea.

On December 25 the coalition launched a “large-scale” assault on Yemen after missiles fired by the rebels killed two people in the kingdom, the first such deaths in three years.

In November the rebels took control of a large area south of Hodeida, a key Red Sea port where the warring sides agreed on a ceasefire in 2018, after loyalist forces withdrew.

Efforts by the UN and United States to end the conflict have so far made little progress.

In late November the United Nations said the war would have killed 377,000 people by years’ end, both directly and indirectly through hunger and disease.

KHARTOUM — The resignation of Sudan's prime minister leaves the military in full command and threatens a return to the repressive policies of the ousted regime of strongman Omar Al Bashir, analysts say.

After months of street protests and violent crackdowns that have claimed at least 57 lives, observers fear more bloodshed ahead after premier Abdalla Hamdok stepped down late on Sunday.

In his farewell address on national TV, Hamdok said he had tried to prevent Sudan "from sliding toward disaster" but that it was now at a "dangerous crossroads threatening its very survival".

"Hamdok's resignation has left the military in sole command of the country," said Magdi Al Gizouli of think-tank the Rift Valley Institute. "Protesters will take to the streets again and will be left to face more violence."

Since its independence from Britain and Egypt in 1956, Sudan, now one of the world's poorest countries, has been mostly under military rule with only rare democratic interludes.

It has been navigating a fragile transition toward full civilian rule since the April 2019 ouster of veteran president Bashir following an unprecedented wave of youth-led protests.

Bashir, who is wanted for war crimes in the Darfur region by the International Criminal Court, was jailed as Sudan took steps to rejoin the international community and obtain debt relief, foreign aid and investment.

But the already rocky transition was derailed on October 25 when Sudan's new de facto ruler, top general Abdel Fattah Al Burhan, launched a coup, detaining Hamdok and his cabinet ministers.

The power grab sparked international condemnation and a new wave of street protests, with 57 people killed, hundreds wounded and at least 13 women raped during renewed street unrest.

'Facade removed' 

Burhan reversed Hamdok's ouster and reinstated him on November 21, also promising elections in mid-2023, but the protest movement had lost all faith in both leaders and kept up their demonstrations.

They accused the civilian leader Hamdok, a former international economist, of "betrayal" and "legitimising the coup regime".

In the weeks since, Hamdok had failed to form a new government, and local media reported in recent days that he had not shown up at his office.

Gizouli said the parties to Sudan's November deal had hoped it would "reduce the agitation on the streets" and allow them to find a way "to rework the constitutional arrangements".

"But all this did not happen," he said.

Instead, Hamdok had found himself "paralysed" and "not able to get anything done, neither politically nor administratively".

Some observers now fear the Hamdok's resignation signals a reversion to the kind of rule Sudan saw under the Islamist-backed regime of Bashir.

Sudanese analyst Kholood Khair wrote on Twitter that Hamdok's resignation "removes any facade the #SudanCoup generals can enjoy and present this coup as anything other than a reversion to the Islamo-military politics of Bashir.

"Though Sudan's future is uncertain, the clarity helps all to see this coup for what it is."

 'Stakes are high' 

Following Hamdok's resignation, Britain's Minister for Africa Vicky Ford tweeted that she was "deeply saddened" by the departure of the man who "was serving Sudan and its people's desire for a better future.”

"Millions have raised their voices since 25/10 coup to demand civilian rule: security forces and other political actors must now respect those demands."

The United States urged Sudanese leaders to set aside differences, find consensus and ensure continued civilian rule.

"Sudan's next PM and Cabinet should be appointed in line with the constitutional declaration to meet the people's goals of freedom, peace and justice," the US Bureau for African Affairs said.

Activists have stepped up their calls for more anti-military protests from Tuesday and called on demonstrators to again head to the presidential palace in Khartoum "until victory is achieved".

Sudan's military rulers have, meanwhile, granted themselves heightened powers to stop dissent.

Burhan late last month issued a decree allowing security forces to arrest individuals "over crimes related to the state of emergency" which effectively bans street protests.

It also allows security forces to enter and search "any building or individual" and impose "surveillance of any property and facility".

"The stakes are now very high," said Gizouli, who argued Hamdok had been "a possible mediator between all sides".

"Now it's an open confrontation between security forces and the old system, excluding Omar Al Bashir, and a leaderless movement on the streets based on the activism of young people."

John Prendergast, of The Sentry think tank, argued that foreign powers should not stand idly by.

"The longer the United States and European Union wait to create consequences for the actions of the military rulers," he wrote, "the more the regime is consolidating its economic and political power, to the great detriment of Sudan's population”.

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories — Israel targeted Hamas positions in southern Gaza late Saturday after rockets were fired from the Palestinian enclave, occupation army said.

"Fighter jets, helicopters and tanks struck a rocket manufacturing site, and military posts belonging to the Hamas terror organisation," Israeli occupation army said.

Palestinian sources told AFP the army had targeted "a site of the Al-Qassam Brigades, west of Khan Younis" in southern Gaza, referring to the military wing of Hamas, the Islamist movement controlling the territory.

The sources also reported Israeli artillery fire on a Hamas observation base in northern Gaza.

Hamas condemned the Israeli strike, with a spokesman vowing “to defend our Palestinian people and liberate our land and our holy sites from the occupation and its colonial settlers until achieving the inevitable triumph”.

The Israeli strike came after two rockets were allegedly fired from the Gaza Strip on Saturday morning, falling into the Mediterranean Sea off Tel Aviv.

No warning sirens sounded and Israel’s Iron Dome rocket interception system did not deploy, the army said in a statement.

Sources in Hamas told AFP that “the firing of the two rockets on Saturday morning was a technical problem due to the bad weather”.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett addressed the Hamas explanation on Sunday morning.

“All of Hamas’ stories about lightning and thunder, that repeat themselves winter after winter, are no longer relevant,” he said at the beginning of the weekly cabinet meeting.

Israel has maintained a blockade on the impoverished enclave since 2007, the year Hamas took power.

KHARTOUM — Sudanese security forces killed two protesters on Sunday, medics said, as thousands braved tear gas, a heavy troop deployment and a telecommunications blackout to demand a civilian government.

Demonstrators lambasted an October 25 coup by military leader General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, shouting "power to the people" and demanding the military return to barracks, at protests near the presidential palace in the capital Khartoum and in its twin city Omdurman.

As with previous demonstrations, which have become regular since the coup, the authorities erected roadblocks, with shipping containers blocking Nile River bridges between the capital and outlying areas.

But thousands nonetheless came out to demonstrate "in memory of the martyrs", with at least 56 protesters killed since the coup, according to medics.

In the latest deaths, the pro-democracy Doctors' Committee said one protester was shot in the chest and a second suffered a "severe head wound" at the hands of security forces in Omdurman on Sunday.

Young men on motorcycles were seen ferrying wounded protesters to hospitals as security forces blocked ambulances from reaching them.

Web monitoring group NetBlocks said mobile internet services were cut from mid-morning ahead of the planned protests, the first of the year.

Activists use the internet for organising demonstrations and broadcasting live footage of the rallies.

‘No to military rule’ 

Sudan, with a long history of military coups, had been undergoing a fragile journey toward civilian rule since the 2019 ouster of autocrat Omar Al Bashir following mass popular protests.

But the country has been plunged into turmoil since Burhan — Sudan’s de facto leader following the ouster of Bashir — launched his coup and detained Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok.

Hamdok was reinstated on November 21, but mass protests have continued as demonstrators distrust veteran general Burhan and his promise to guide the country towards full democracy.

Activists have kept up a more than two-month-long campaign of street demonstrations against the army’s takeover.

The rallies have been repeatedly broken up by security forces firing rounds of tear gas, as well as charges by police wielding batons.

On Thursday, six people were shot dead in Khartoum when security forces cracked down on mass rallies that saw tens of thousands take to the streets chanting “no to military rule”.

‘Year of resistance’ 

Burhan insists the military’s move “was not a coup” but a push to “rectify the course of the transition”.

On Friday an adviser warned that “the demonstrations are only a waste of energy and time” which will not produce “any political solution”.

Activists on social media say 2022 will be “the year of the continuation of the resistance”.

They demand justice for those killed since the coup as well as the more than 250 who died during months of mass protests that paved the way for the toppling of Bashir.

Activists have condemned sexual attacks during December 19 protests, in which the UN said at least 13 women and girls were victims of rape or gang-rape.

The European Union and the United States issued a joint statement condemning the use of sexual violence “as a weapon to drive women away from demonstrations and silence their voices”.

On Saturday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned in a statement that Washington was “prepared to respond to those who seek to block the aspirations of the Sudanese people for a civilian-led, democratic government and who would stand in the way of accountability, justice, and peace”.

Over 14 million people, one in three Sudanese, will need humanitarian aid next year, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs — the highest level for a decade.

BAGHDAD — Thousands of supporters of an Iraqi alliance of armed groups on Saturday marked the upcoming second anniversary of a US drone strike that killed a revered Iranian commander and his Iraqi lieutenant.

Chanting “Death to America”, the Hashed Al Shaabi loyalists filled a Baghdad square to honour Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, who headed the Quds Force, the foreign operations arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, until his death on January 3, 2020.

The night-time drone strike near Baghdad airport sent shock waves across the region and sparked fears that decades of arch enmity between Washington and regional Shiite power Tehran would escalate into direct military confrontation.

“US terrorism has to end,” read one sign at the rally by backers of the pro-Iranian Hashed, a Shiite former paramilitary alliance that has been integrated into Iraq’s state security apparatus.

The strike against Soleimani, the architect of Iran’s Middle Eastern military strategy, was ordered by then US president Donald Trump, and it also killed his Iraqi lieutenant Abu Mahdi Al Muhandis, the Hashed’s deputy chief.

Hashed supporters, some with their children, marched into a square in central Baghdad that was closed off to traffic, an AFP correspondent said.

Some unfurled huge white flags emblazoned with the Hashed insignia, as well as Iraq’s national flag, while others held pictures of Soleimani and Muhandis.

Unclaimed attacks 

The US said at the time that Soleimani was planning imminent action against US personnel in Iraq, a country long torn between the competing demands of its principal allies Washington and Tehran, and the assassination came after a wave of attacks on US interests in the country.

Iran, which wields considerable cross-border influence, warned it would avenge Soleimani’s death.

Five days after his killing, it fired missiles at an air base in Iraq housing US troops and another near Erbil in the country’s north.

Since then dozens of rockets and roadside bombs have targeted US security, military and diplomatic sites across Iraq.

Iraqi and Western officials have blamed hard-line pro-Iran factions for the attacks, which have never been claimed by any group.

In February last year, the US carried out an air strike against Kataeb Hizbollah, an Iranian-backed Iraqi paramilitary force stationed along the Iraqi-Syrian border, following rocket attacks on its Baghdad embassy and a US military contracting firm north of the capital.

The Hashed has repeatedly called for the withdrawal of US troops deployed in Iraq as part of a multinational coalition fighting Daesh group.

The Sunni extremists seized around a third of Iraq in a lightning 2014 offensive, but were beaten back by both the US-led coalition and the Hashed, before Baghdad declared the terrorist defeated in late 2017.

‘Crime against sovereignty’ 

Senior Hashed official Faleh Al Fayyad reiterated the demand that the US complete its withdrawal on Saturday, saying the killing of Soleimani and Muhandis was “a crime against Iraqi sovereignty”.

In December, Iraq announced the end of the US-led coalition’s “combat mission” in the country.

But about 2,500 American soldiers and 1,000 coalition troops are to remain deployed in Iraq to offer training, advice and assistance to national forces.

The Hashed’s political wing, the Fateh (Conquest) Alliance, performed very strongly in the 2018 legislative elections, thanks to the paramilitaries’ key role in defeating IS.

While Fateh remains a significant political player, it lost almost two thirds of its seats in legislative polls in October, driven by concerns even among Shiite voters over outsized Iranian influence.

As part of the anniversary commemorations, a candle-lit vigil is set to take place on Sunday evening at Baghdad airport.

In Iran, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and senior Guards figures met with Soleimani’s family on Saturday, ahead of the main commemorations there on Monday.

TUNIS — Appeals mounted on Saturday for a word on the whereabouts of detained Tunisian politician Noureddine Bhiri, a leader of the Islamist-inspired Ennahdha Party, the largest in the North African country’s suspended parliament.

Plainclothes officers arrested Bhiri, a former justice minister and deputy president of Ennahdha, in the capital Tunis on Friday.

Ennahdha had played a central role in the country’s politics until a power grab by President Kais Saied in July.

Tunisia’s independent national body for the prevention of torture (INPT) said in a statement that authorities had provided no information on Bhiri nor on Fathi Baldi, a former interior ministry official who was also taken in for questioning on Friday.

The body’s president, Fathi Al Jarray, said there had been “no response” from the interior ministry to its requests for information about the two men.

Tunisia was the only democracy to emerge from the Arab Spring revolts of a decade ago, but civil society groups and Saied’s opponents have expressed fear of a slide back to authoritarianism a decade after the revolution that toppled longtime ruler Zine Al Abidine Ben Ali.

Lawyer and INPT official Lotfi Ezzedine told AFP that some individuals had been placed under house arrest over the summer, but “this is even worse because we don’t even know where they are detained”.

Bhiri and Baldi were “neither in an official detention facility, nor at their homes, nor at a police station”, he said, charging that the pair’s location was being “kept secret”.

Saied on July 25 sacked the Ennahdha-supported government and suspended parliament, presenting himself as the ultimate interpreter of the constitution.

He later took steps to rule by decree, and in early December vowed to press on with reforms to the political system.

Ennahdha said on Friday that authorities were questioning Bhiri and denounced “a kidnapping and dangerous precedent marking the country’s entry into a tunnel to dictatorship”.

Ezzedine said the interior ministry had ordered the pair under preventive detention without legal proceedings because they allegedly presented “’a danger to public order’.”

They have been unable to communicate with their families or lawyers or receive visits, he said, branding their detention “unconstitutional”.

Ennahdha party lawmaker Habib Khedher said Interior Minister Taoufik Charfeddine had refused on Saturday to meet with representatives of Bhiri’s defence committee.

He said Bhiri’s wife Saida Akremi and the head of the national order of lawyers had requested a meeting to check on the health of Bhiri, who suffers from several chronic illnesses.


TEHRAN — Iran announced on Thursday it has carried out a new space launch, in a move likely to irk Western powers amid tough talks on reviving a 2015 nuclear deal.

Tehran successfully put its first military satellite into orbit in April 2020, drawing a sharp rebuke from Washington.

Western governments worry that satellite launch systems incorporate technologies interchangeable with those used in ballistic missiles capable of delivering a nuclear warhead.

Iran insists its space programme is for civilian and defence purposes only, and does not breach the nuclear deal or any other international agreement.

UN Security Council Resolution 2231 of 2015, endorsing the nuclear deal, imposed no blanket ban on Iranian rocket or missile launches.

Iran's state broadcaster aired footage of a rocket rising from a desert launchpad, but gave no details of its location.

"The Simorgh [Phoenix] satellite launcher carried three research cargos into space," said Defence Ministry spokesman Ahmad Hosseini.

"The research goals foreseen for this launch have been achieved," he added, quoted by state television.

Earlier this month US media reported that preparations for a launch were under way at Iran's space centre in Semnan, 300 kilometres  east of Tehran.

Hosseini did not elaborate on the nature of the research, but he said the latest operation was a "preliminary launch" and that more would follow.

Vienna talks see 'progress' 

In February, Iran announced it had launched its most powerful solid fuel rocket to date, the Zoljanah, boasting that it can put a 220-kilogramme payload into orbit.

The United States voiced concern about that launch, saying the test could boost Iran's ballistic missile technology at a time when the two nations are inching back to diplomacy.

According to the Pentagon and satellite imagery of the Semnan centre, an Iranian satellite launch failed in mid-June, reports denied by Tehran.

Iran's declared new space launch comes amid talks underway in Vienna between the Islamic republic and world powers to restore the 2015 nuclear agreement.

The deal offered Tehran much-needed relief from sanctions and curtailed Iran's nuclear activities.

But the unilateral withdrawal by then-US president Donald Trump derailed the deal, and prompted Tehran to walk back on its commitments under it.

Talks to revive it began in late November, with an eighth round getting under way on  Monday.

On Thursday, Iran's chief negotiator Ali Bagheri said "relatively satisfactory progress" has been made.

"Some written changes on the lifting of sanctions were established between the two parties," Bagheri, said in a video published by Tasnim news agency.

The UN Security Council Resolution endorsing the nuclear deal did not ban Iran from launching missiles or rockets.

But it called on it "not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such ballistic missile technology".

Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia are taking part in the Vienna talks with Iran, while the United States is participating indirectly.



"There may have been some modest progress," State Department spokesman Ned Price said Tuesday.



KHARTOUM — Tens of thousands of Sudanese protesters defied a security lockdown on Thursday, braving tear gas and chanting "no to military rule" as they marched in rallies demanding a transition to a civilian government.

Demonstrators reached within a few hundred metres of the presidential palace, the headquarters of General Abdel Fattah Al Burhan who seized power on October 25, before troops, police and paramilitary units launched multiple tear gas canisters into the crowd.

"The revolution continues," protesters shouted, beating drums and waving flags.

Pro-democracy activists have kept up a more than two-month-long campaign of street demonstrations against the army's takeover, despite a crackdown that has seen at least 48 people killed in protest-related violence, according to the independent Doctors' Committee.

Security forces deployed in strength across Khartoum, using shipping containers to block the Nile bridges that connect the capital with its northern suburbs and its twin city Omdurman.

The bridges were blocked off for the last protests on December 25, when tens of thousands took to the streets. Those rallies were also broken by tear gas -- as well as charges by police wielding batons and firing into the air.

Some 235 people were injured during those protests, according to the Doctors' Committee, which is part of the pro-democracy movement.

On Thursday, protesters demanded that soldiers "go back to the barracks", carrying those injured from inhalation of the tear gas.

Bridges blocked, phones cut 

New surveillance cameras were installed on the major thoroughfares for Thursday's protests, and for the first time, authorities also cut all phone lines, both international and domestic.

Web monitoring group NetBlocks reported mobile internet services were cut from mid-morning, limiting the ability of protesters to encourage supporters or to broadcast live footage of the rallies.

Witnesses reported similar anti-coup protests in Madani, south of the capital, and the cities of Kassala and Port Sudan in the east.

Burhan, who held civilian leader Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok effectively under house arrest for weeks, reinstated him on November 21 under a deal promising elections for July 2023.

But protesters said the deal had simply given a cloak of legitimacy to the generals, who they accuse of trying to reproduce the former regime of autocratic president Omar Al Bashir, toppled in 2019 following mass protests.

"Signing with the military was a mistake from the start," one protester said, accusing the generals of being "Bashir's men".

'Respect free speech'

The US embassy appealed for restraint, reiterating "its support for peaceful expression of democratic aspiration, and the need to respect and protect individuals exercising free speech," a statement said.

"We call for extreme discretion in use of force and urge authorities to refrain from employing arbitrary detention."

Activists have condemned sexual attacks during December 19 protests, in which the UN said at least 13 women and girls were victims of rape or gang-rape.

The European Union and the United States issued a joint statement condemning the use of sexual violence "as a weapon to drive women away from demonstrations and silence their voices".

Sudan still has no functioning government, a prerequisite for the resumption of international aid cut in response to the coup.


Over 14 million people, a third of Sudan's population, will need humanitarian aid next year, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the highest level for a decade.