Region

BEIRUT — Lebanon hiked fuel prices by more than 30 per cent Tuesday as it reduced subsidies that have eaten away at the central bank's foreign currency reserves amid a painful economic crisis.

Petrol and diesel prices went up sharply, according to a revised price list published by the official National News Agency (NNA), in a week when a steep currency devaluation sparked angry street protests.

The sharp fuel price rises came as Lebanon, a small country of six million people, grapples with an economic crisis branded by the World Bank as one of the world's worst since the mid-19th century.

The Lebanese pound, which has been pegged to the dollar at 1,507 since 1997, sold for more than 17,000 to the greenback on the black market this week, a record low.

The price of 20 litres of 95-octane petrol shot up nearly 16,000 Lebanese pounds ($10.6 at the official rate) to reach 61,000 pounds ($40.6), according to NNA.

The price of the same amount of 98-octane petrol climbed by 16,300 pounds ($10.8) to reach nearly 63,000 pounds ($42).

Meanwhile, the price of diesel reached 46,100 pounds ($30.7), up from 33,300 pounds ($22.2).

The new prices came after weeks of long queues at petrol stations that had started rationing gasoline and diesel fuel amid shortages.

Fuel importers blamed the crisis on a delay by the central bank in opening credit lines to fund fuel imports due to depletion of foreign currency reserves.

For their part, Lebanese officials said smuggling to Syria and stockpiling by fuel distributors had contributed to shortages.

The central bank used to fund 85 per cent of fuel imports at the official exchange rate of 1,507 Lebanese pounds to the dollar while importers fund the rest of the cost at the street rate.

But the government last week authorised the funding of fuel imports at the weaker exchange rate of 3,900 Lebanese pounds to the dollar instead of the official peg to ease the crisis.

The central bank on Monday said it would open credit lines for fuel imports based on the new exchange rate in compliance with the government’s decision.

Following the central bank announcement, the energy ministry said that fuel tankers docked in Lebanese waters had started offloading fuel shipments that would boost supply in the coming days.

Fadi Abu Shakra of the union of fuel distributors told NNA on Tuesday that six tankers had started offloading shipments and they would soon be distributed to gas stations across the country.

AZAZ, Syria — In a camp in northwest Syria, Mohamad Al Abdullah relies on UN aid to treat a spinal injury that could have paralysed him had it not been for cross-border aid.

But that life-saving assistance is now threatened by a Russian veto.

With Moscow threatening to shut the region's last crossing from Turkey at a UN Security Council vote in the coming days, the 17-year-old and millions like him risk losing a vital conduit for medical and food supplies.

"All my medicine comes from abroad through the crossing," Mohammad told AFP from his tent in the opposition-held Syrian town of Azaz.

He still has pieces of shrapnel lodged in his back and ribs from a 2014 car bomb blast that wounded his spine, killed his father and prompted him to flee Deir Ezzor in Syria's east to seek refuge in the northwest.

"If [the shrapnel] moved only a millimetre, I would be paralysed. That's what the doctors told me," he said.

"If the crossing closes, I will sit idly in this tent, unable to move, because if it wasn't for my medicine, I wouldn't be able to stand up from the pain."

The painkillers he desperately needs reach Azaz via the opposition-controlled Bab Al Hawa crossing on the Turkish border, the only entry point for UN assistance into Syria's beleaguered northwest.

But the resolution authorising such deliveries expires on July 10, by which time the Security Council must have voted on its renewal.

Damascus ally Moscow says the UN mandate on the border violates Syria's sovereignty, and wants to close Bab Al Hawa when the current provision expires, re-routing aid through government-controlled territory.

The UN has warned that blocking aid via the crossing could cause a "humanitarian catastrophe".

'Medical crisis' 

More than three million people live in the Idlib region in Syria's northwest, much of which is controlled by fighters and allied rebels.

Around 2.4 million people there need humanitarian aid, according to the UN.

It says some 1,000 trucks have passed through the crossing every month over the past year, carrying in vital COVID-19 vaccines, hospital equipment and medicine for diabetes, tuberculosis and leishmaniasis.

NGOs have warned that re-routing such supplies through government-held territory could lead to disaster.

“The notion that the Syrian government can replace UN aid is absurd,” Amnesty International’s Syria researcher Diana Semaan said on Friday.

There is currently no agreement between the UN and Damascus to authorise UN aid deliveries to the northwest from inside Syria.

Aid groups have repeatedly accused Damascus of hindering humanitarian assistance to areas outside its control.

“The Syrian authorities have a long history of diverting and obstructing humanitarian aid,” Amnesty International said in a statement.

It warned against a “medical crisis” in the northwest similar to the one currently gripping north-eastern Syria after the closure of another checkpoint there under Russian pressure last year.

Ireland and Norway, non-permanent members of the Security Council, presented a draft resolution on Friday aiming to keep Bab Al Hawa open for one year.

Permanent members the United States, France and Britain had also wanted to reopen the nearby Bab Al Salam crossing with Turkey, which was shut last year, diplomats have said.

The International Rescue Committee has pushed for Bab Al Salam to be reopened, arguing that “one crossing alone has proved insufficient to meet the scale of needs”.

Price hikes 

Sitting outside his shop in the town of Al Bab, Mustafa Shaaban said his entire family relies on life-saving medicine delivered by the UN and its partners.

The 57-year-old, who escaped a regime offensive on Aleppo city, said he injured his skull during Russian bombardment of Al Bab years ago.

The same attack killed his eldest son and blew off his other son’s leg, forcing him to use a prosthetic limb.

Separate shelling on their house wounded his grandson and his daughter, who underwent three intestinal surgeries and is now equipped with a stomach prosthesis.

She desperately needs drugs for the pain and for her stomach.

“The effect on our family will be a big one,” if Bab Al Hawa closes, he said.

Back in Azaz, Ahmad Hamra, a displaced Syrian also from Aleppo, said he had lost both his legs in an airstrike on the city that killed his brother.

He now takes daily doses of pain killers, which have seen price hikes amid a nationwide economic crisis.

“I get all my medicine [for free] from clinics,” the 37-year-old said from inside his tent in an Azaz displacement camp.

“I can’t afford to go and buy it from pharmacies.”

BAGHDAD — Iraq on Monday condemned overnight US air strikes against Iran-backed armed groups on the Syrian-Iraqi border that killed at least seven fighters and sparked calls for revenge from Iraqi armed factions.

The second such raid on pro-Iran targets since US President Joe Biden took office, described by the Pentagon as "retaliatory", led to fears of a new escalation between Tehran and Washington and came despite faltering efforts to revive a key deal over Iran's nuclear programme.

Iraq's Prime Minister Mustafa Al Kadhemi condemned the attack as a "blatant and unacceptable violation of Iraqi sovereignty and Iraqi national security".

"Iraq reiterates its refusal to be an arena for settling scores," Kadhemi added in a statement, urging all sides to avoid any further escalation.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday that strikes on pro-Iran fighters in Iraq and Syria should send a "strong" message of deterrence not to keep attacking US forces.

"I would hope that the message sent by the strikes last night will be heard and deter future action," Blinken told reporters on a visit to Rome.

"This action in self-defence to do what's necessary to prevent further attacks sends a very important and strong message," he said.

The Hashed, an Iraqi paramilitary alliance that includes several Iranian proxies and has become the main power broker in Baghdad, said the strikes killed four of its fighters in the Qaim region, some 13 kilometres away from the border.

The fighters were stationed there to prevent extremists from infiltrating Iraq, the group said in a statement, denying that they had taken part in any attacks against US interests or personnel.

"We reserve the legal right to respond to these attacks and hold the perpetrators accountable on Iraqi soil," the Hashed said.

US defence spokesman John Kirby said in a statement that three military facilities used by Iran-backed militia had been hit overnight Sunday to Monday, two in Syria and one in Iraq.

Kirby said the targets had been used by "Iran-backed militias that are engaged in unmanned aerial vehicle [UAV] attacks against US personnel and facilities in Iraq".

US interests 

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria, said seven fighters had been killed in the strikes in the early hours of Monday morning local time.

At least six more fighters were wounded and the targets included an arms depot near Albu Kamal, a Syrian town which lies where the border crosses the Euphrates river, the Britain-based monitor said.

Syria's state-run SANA news agency said one child had been killed in the raid but gave few details.

US interests in Iraq, where 2,500 American troops are deployed as part of an international coalition to fight the Daesh group, have been targeted in more than 40 attacks this year.

The vast majority have been bombs against logistics convoys, but rocket fire and drones packed with explosive have also been used in the assaults some of which were claimed by pro-Iran factions hoping to pressure Washington into withdrawing all its troops.

"Given the ongoing series of attacks by Iran-backed groups targeting US interests in Iraq, the president directed further military action to disrupt and deter such attacks," Kirby said.

"Specifically, the US strikes targeted operational and weapons storage facilities at two locations in Syria and one location in Iraq, both of which lie close to the border between those countries," he added.

Kataeb Hizbollah and Kataeb Sayyid Al Shuhada, two Iraqi armed factions with close ties to Tehran, were among the "several Iran-backed militia groups" that had used the facilities, Kirby said.

KHARTOUM — Integrating a powerful paramilitary force into the army has emerged as the latest stumbling block in Sudan's transition to civilian rule following three decades under ousted strongman Omar Al Bashir.

A civilian-military administration has led Sudan since August 2019 under a power-sharing deal that was due to expire next year but was extended after a peace agreement reached in October with several rebel groups.

Both deals stipulated the need for reform to the military, including the integration of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) — formed in 2013 to crush rebels fighting Bashir's government throughout Sudan — into the regular army.

The RSF largely drew its members from Arab nomads and camel-herding Janjaweed militias whom rights groups accuse of atrocities in Darfur.

Tensions between the RSF and the army have reportedly been simmering in recent weeks but appeared to peak after paramilitary commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo openly rejected a merger with the armed forces.

"Talk of RSF integration into the army could break up the country," warned Daglo, commonly known as Hemeti, in a speech that went viral on social media.

"The RSF is established under a law passed by an elected parliament. It's not a battalion... to be integrated into the army," he said.

Military officials have repeatedly denied any rift, but civilian Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok has pointed to "deeply worrying" fractures among powerful blocs of Sudan's security system.

He has called for a unified army that includes the RSF, and warned that unresolved splits among political factions at the helm of Sudan's transition could result in chaos and civil war.

"The question now for Sudan is to be or not to be," Hamdok told journalists last week.

'Rumours' 

Sudan is navigating a rocky post-Bashir transition marked by a wrenching economic crisis and deepening political division.

It has seen a spike in violent crime, protests and popular discontent in recent weeks as the government pushes for tough economic reforms.

Daglo and Gen. Abdel Fattah Al Burhan, the army’s commander-in-chief and leader of Sudan’s transitional ruling body, have slammed allegations of army-RSF tensions as “rumours” that should be “crushed”.

Last month, rebel groups from the Darfur region who signed a landmark 2020 peace deal with Sudan’s government called for speeding up reforms to the security sector, including unifying the army.

The peace deal could collapse if reforms were not implemented, they warned.

War broke out in Darfur in 2003 when African minority rebels complaining of discrimination took up arms against Bashir’s Arab-dominated government in Khartoum.

The years-long conflict killed 300,000 people and displaced 2.5 million, according to the UN.

Military expert Amin Ismail said the RSF’s integration into the army “is a must at this point”.

“The RSF was formed for a specific purpose under Bashir, but now that his regime is gone, it should be part of one unified army.”

A Sudanese military source told AFP that integrating the RSF into the army was “linked to pressures from the West and international institutions”.

Failing to do so could “affect Sudan’s international relations”, the source said, requesting anonymity.

‘Distant hope’ 

Jonas Horner, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group, said reform of the security sector was “a fundamental requirement of Sudan’s transition”.

But he warned that any attempt to forcibly integrate the RSF or disarm it “would potentially catalyse serious urban warfare”.

Before agreeing to integrate his forces, “Hemeti will likely seek assurances over his role in a post-transition Sudan, and over calls for his prosecution” over the Darfur conflict, Horner said.

Hemeti was involved in the army’s April 2019 ousting of Bashir following mass demonstrations against the president’s iron-fisted rule.

Protesters have accused the RSF of violently dispersing a mass sit-in outside the army headquarters in June that year. Medics linked to the protest movement say at least 128 people died in the days-long crackdown.

Hemeti has denied the allegations.

Instead, he has portrayed himself as a “protector” of Sudan’s revolution, and was even involved in talks with rebels who signed onto the October peace agreement.

Negotiations with a holdout rebel faction were adjourned this month. The group’s chief negotiator told AFP that one of the unresolved issues was the integration of armed groups into the army.

Analyst Horner said the RSF’s merger with the army “appears to be a distant hope”, especially as “Hemeti’s power base is wrapped up entirely in his control of the RSF”.

“As long as Sudan retains multiple armies with competing interests and power bases, security sector reform remains unlikely,” he said.