Region

DAMASCUS — Israeli air strikes carried out overnight on targets in Syria's northwestern region of Latakia killed one civilian and wounded several other people, state media and a war monitor reported on Wednesday.

The Israeli authorities do not generally comment on such reports but they have previously confirmed carrying out dozens of raids in Syria, mostly against Iranian assets.

"The Israeli attack left one civilian dead and six wounded, including a boy and his mother," a military source quoted by the official SANA news agency said.

State media said a plastics factory was among the sites hit in the raids, which struck the towns of Hifa in Latakia and Masyaf in the neighbouring province of Hama.

Syrian air defences were activated to counter the Israeli missiles, with "some shot down", the report added, without mentioning any military casualties.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 14 fighters were wounded in strikes it said targeted government and allied pro-Tehran forces at several locations.

The Britain-based war monitor, which relies on an extensive network of sources on the ground, said arms depots were also targeted in the mountains on the border between Latakia and Hama provinces.

Latakia on the Mediterranean coast, a bastion of President Bashar Assad's Alawite minority, has seen relatively few Israeli strikes compared with other provinces.

In September 2018, Syrian air defences accidentally shot down a plane belonging to ally Russia — killing those on board — after being activated against nearby Israeli missiles.

Israel rarely confirms specific strikes in Syria, but its military has said it hit some 50 targets in 2020 alone.

Israel says it is trying to prevent Iran, which has been one of the Syrian government's key allies in the decade-old civil war, from gaining a permanent military foothold on its doorstep.

CAIRO — Turkey and Egypt have begun slowly warming ties as they vie for regional primacy a decade after the Arab Spring, but analysts say deep-seated mistrust means full normalisation will take time.

A Turkish delegation headed by Deputy Foreign Minister Sedat Onal met on Wednesday with an Egyptian delegation led by his counterpart Hamdi Loza, AFP reporters said.

The two-day talks come nearly two months after Ankara established the first diplomatic contacts with Cairo since 2013, as part of wider efforts to mend fences with Middle Eastern rivals.

Ankara and Cairo have both faced more US pressure since the departure of president Donald Trump, and both have been extending olive branches to their neighbours.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan have been sparring since the military's 2013 ouster in Cairo of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, personally backed by Erdogan.

Egypt's restoration of ties with Qatar in January, after a four-year Gulf blockade along with the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, has also boosted efforts towards more regional diplomacy.

"What has become apparent to Egypt... is that it's difficult for any regional power to win through a knockout punch, but rather through points," Abdul Khaleq Abdallah, a political science professor in the UAE, told AFP.

"Meeting halfway is enough in this instance... but the situation is fluid, so it could flare up again," he added.

Cairo has not appeared to share the same level of enthusiasm for rapprochement as Turkey; Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry noted in March that "words are not enough, they must be matched by deeds".

“There’s a great deal of mistrust fuelled by eight years of open hostility, and so Egypt feels hesitant,” said Nael Shama, the author of a book on Egypt’s foreign policy under deposed leaders Morsi and Hosni Mubarak.

After the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings in several Middle Eastern countries, Istanbul became a refuge for Islamist opposition activists, especially for Egyptians linked to Morsi’s outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.

In March, Erdogan’s advisers demanded popular Egyptian exiled talk show hosts, such as Moataz Matar and Mohamed Nasser, tone down their criticism of Egypt’s leader.

Previously convicted in absentia to 10 years in prison each and placed on Egypt’s terrorism list for “attempting to overthrow the regime”, the flamboyant anchors were forced to shut down their programmes, giving their audiences emotional farewells.

They are still regularly described as “traitors” and “terrorists” by pro-Sisi media.

Among Sisi’s supporters, their sidelining was seen as a crucial ideological victory.

“Turkey asking the Egyptian opposition to stop its [media] campaign against the Egyptian government is quite significant for Egypt,” said Ibrahim Awad, a public policy professor at the American University in Cairo (AUC).

But he expressed doubt that Matar and Nasser would be extradited.

At massive rallies in past years, Erdogan has frequently raised a four-finger salute seen as a tribute to hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood supporters killed by security forces in Cairo following Morsi’s ouster.

The Turkish president has won the devotion of his Islamist base as a champion of regional grievances since the Arab Spring.

But Awad noted that if normalisation continues smoothly, in the long run it “reinforces the position of Egypt... in the Middle East”.

Amr Adib, a popular late-night talk show host who regularly interviews Sisi live on air, struck a cautious tone about the Turkish delegation’s visit.

“See how things have changed so much... I mean if we manage to get an understanding during the talks then that’s all well and good, and if not then that’s fine too,” he said on Monday.

In oil-rich Libya, which descended into chaos in the aftermath of the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that ousted dictator Muammar Qadhafi, Turkey and Egypt, backed by the UAE, have been on opposite sides of the conflict.

“Everyone will benefit from defusing the acute tensions in the region, including disengagement from hotspots, chiefly Libya,” said Abdallah, the Emirates-based professor.

“The UAE isn’t just a backer of Egypt, it has been encouraging of cooling down any flare ups,” he added.

Since the selection this year of a new interim Libyan prime minister in a UN-sponsored process, Cairo and Ankara have appeared more open to a political solution to that conflict.

Ankara working with Cairo to resolve the Libyan conflict could have “a knock-on effect” of improving Turkey’s ties with Saudi Arabia, Israel, the UAE and Greece, said Bashir Abdel-Fattah.

The researcher at Egypt’s state-affiliated Al Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies voiced optimism for reconciliation despite years of tensions.

“It’s very easy in politics, that one day you can attack a country and the next day you sit down and hammer out your differences,” he said.

“This is what’s happening now.”

By Haydar Indhar
Agence France-Presse

CHIBAYISH, Iraq — In southern Iraq, putrid water gushes out of waste pipes into marshes reputed to be home to the biblical Garden of Eden, threatening an already fragile world heritage site.

In a country where the state lacks the capacity to guarantee basic services, 70 per cent of Iraq's industrial waste is dumped directly into rivers or the sea, according to data compiled by the United Nations and academics.

Jassim Al Assadi, head of non-governmental organisation Nature Iraq, told AFP the black wastewater poured into the UNESCO-listed marshes carries "pollution and heavy metals that directly threaten the flora and fauna" present there.

Once an engineer at Iraq's water resources ministry, Assadi left that job to dedicate himself to saving the extraordinary natural habitat, which had previously faced destruction at the hands of Saddam Hussein and is further jeopardised by climate change.

The pollutants also "indirectly impact humans via the buffalo", fixtures of the marshes and known for the "guemar" cheese produced from their milk, he said.

According to Nader Mohssen, a fisherman and farmer born in the marshland's Chibayish district, "the buffalo are forced to go several kilometres into the marshes to be able to drink something other than polluted water".

And "around the sewerage pipes, most of the fish die", he added, gesturing to dozens of rotting fish floating on the marsh water surface.

Foul play, foul water 

Pollution is only the latest threat to one of the world's largest inland delta systems.

The rich ecosystem, nestled between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, barely survived the wrath of Saddam, who ordered the marsh be drained in 1991 as punishment for communities protecting insurgents.

The drainage reduced the marshland by half of its 1991 area of 15,000 square kilometres.

A former regime official was condemned to death in 2010 for what the UN called "one of the worst environmental crimes in history", although he reportedly died of natural causes in prison last year.

A few years ago, Mohssen and other marshland residents — several thousand families straddling three provinces in the rural, tribal south and struggling to make ends meet — believed they would see their home flourish again.

Once the canals and earthen dykes built by Saddam's regime were destroyed, the water returned, and with it more than 200 species of birds and dozens of types of wildlife, some on the verge of extinction elsewhere.

Tourists too — mainly Iraqis — began flocking to the region again to take boat tours and lunch on grilled fish.

But today, the overwhelming stench emanating from the wastewater pipes keeps people away.

Local authorities say they are not entirely to blame for the lack of proper wastewater management.

They say residents are at fault for making illegal connections to the rainwater drainage systems because they are not connected to the sewerage system, while the federal government does not provide the necessary funds to the provincial council to build wastewater treatment plants.

Looming climate change 

"Such wastewater management units would cost around $69 million," Haydar Razzaq, head of the Dhi Qar province's wastewater department, told AFP.

He added that work on some units had begun, but, as often happens in Iraq, construction halted abruptly and never resumed.

For Assadi, who recently worked with European and American experts on the issue, the solution is simple and natural: Use plants to clean up the marshes, in a technique called phytotechnology.

But his requests to authorities have so far fallen on deaf ears.

He underscored that when UNESCO inscribed the marshes on its World Heritage List in 2016, Iraq pledged to preserve the ecosystem and provide functional services to the marshland communities.

But today, as the UN classifies Iraq "as the fifth most vulnerable country in the world" to climate change, the rehabilitation of the marshes is no longer a question of heritage preservation, but one of survival.

The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) warned in 2019 that "climate change in Iraq is expected to reduce annual rainfall, which will lead to a surge in dust storms, a reduction in agricultural productivity and increased water scarcity".

With each scorching summer, the country draws closer to this reality.

In 2015, every Iraqi had 2,100 cubic metres of water available per year, UNEP says, adding that by 2025, this figure will have fallen to 1,750, threatening the long-term stability of agriculture and industry in the country, as well as endangering the health of its 40 million people.

NAQURA, Lebanon — Lebanon and Israel resumed US-mediated negotiations over their disputed maritime border on Tuesday after a months-long hiatus, in efforts to clear the way for offshore oil and gas exploration.

The talks, between countries still technically at war, kicked off at the UN base in the town of Naqura in southern Lebanon, the National News Agency said.

Washington said on Friday they were to be brokered by US diplomat John Desrocher, and called the resumption of talks "a positive step towards a long-awaited resolution".

Lebanon and Israel last year took part in indirect US-brokered talks to discuss demarcation.

But those talks stalled after Lebanon demanded a larger area, including part of the Karish gas field, where Israel has given exploration rights to a Greek firm.

The talks last year were supposed to discuss a Lebanese demand for 860 square kilometres of territory in the disputed maritime area, according to a map sent to the United Nations in 2011.

But Lebanon then said the map was based on erroneous calculations and demanded 1,430 square kilometres more territory further south, including part of Karish.

“The discussion will start from where we left it off,” a source at the Lebanese presidency told AFP on Tuesday.

He said both Israel and Lebanon had demanded a different demarcation line.

“We don’t accept the line they’ve proposed, and they don’t accept ours, so we’ll see what the mediator suggests.”

Last month, President Michel Aoun on Thursday demanded Israel halt all exploration in Karish until the dispute was settled.

In February 2018, Lebanon signed its first contract for offshore drilling for oil and gas in blocks 4 and 9, with a consortium comprising energy giants Total, ENI and Novatek.

Lebanon in April said initial drilling in Block 4 had shown traces of gas but no commercially viable reserves.

Lebanon’s government stepped down after a massive blast at Beirut’s port in August 2020, but deeply divided politicians have been unable to form a new cabinet ever since.

Lebanese politicians hope that commercially viable hydrocarbon resources off Lebanon’s coast could help lift the debt-ridden country out of its worst economic crisis in decades.

BAGHDAD — The Iraqi army said two rockets were fired on Tuesday at a base hosting Americans, in the third such attack in three days and as a US government delegation is visiting the country.

The two rockets fell on an unoccupied segment of the Ain Al Assad airbase, "without causing damage or casualties," the army said.

The latest rocket attack follows one against an airbase at Baghdad airport housing US-led coalition troops on Sunday night, and another against Balad airbase, which hosts US contractors, north of the capital on Monday night.

None of the attacks have so far been claimed, but Washington routinely blames Iran-linked Iraqi factions for such attacks on its troops and diplomats.

Pro-Iran Iraqi groups have vowed to ramp up attacks to force out the "occupying" US forces in recent months, sometimes against Tehran's wishes, according to some experts.

Iraq's Prime Minister Mustafa Al Kadhemi, perceived by pro-Iran factions as too close to Washington, on Tuesday discussed the presence of 2,500 US soldiers based in Iraq with US envoy Brett McGurk.

The men know each other well — Kadhemi, in his role as head of intelligence, a position he retains to this day, worked closely with McGurk when he was the US-led coalition's representative.

The military coalition was set up to fight the Daesh ultra-radical group, which seized control of a third of Iraq in a lightning 2014 offensive.

Iraq declared victory against the terrorists in late 2017 and pressure from Shiite public opinion for the US to withdraw all its troops has mounted in the years since.

Kadhemi and McGurk are working on drawing up a timetable for the "withdrawal of combat forces from Iraq", according to a statement by the prime minister's office.

Around 30 rocket or bomb attacks have targeted American interests in Iraq — including troops, the embassy or Iraqi supply convoys to foreign forces — since President Joe Biden took office in January.

Two foreign contractors, one Iraqi contractor and eight Iraqi civilians have been killed in the attacks.

Last month, an explosives-packed drone slammed into Iraq’s Erbil airport in the first reported use of such a weapon against a base used by US-led coalition troops in the country, according to officials.

Dozens of other attacks were carried out in Iraq from autumn 2019 during the administration of Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump.

The operations are sometimes claimed by obscure groups that experts say are smokescreens for Iran-backed organisations long present in Iraq.

The rocket attacks come at a sensitive time as Tehran is engaged in talks with world powers aimed at bringing the US back into a 2015 nuclear deal.

The agreement, which curbs Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief, has been on life support since Trump withdrew in 2018.

DUBAI — The United Nations said Tuesday that thousands of families across war-torn Yemen have been hit by torrential rains and deadly floods since mid-April that destroyed homes and shelters.

"Initial reports indicate some 3,730 families [22,380 people] have been affected by the rains and flooding, the majority of whom are internally displaced people," the UN humanitarian agency OCHA said.

"Intensified rainfall over the past few days is causing damage to infrastructure, destroying homes and shelter and causing deaths and injuries."

On Monday, the government said four people were killed in flash floods in the historic city of Tarim in the central province of Hadramawt, and the UN cited reports of three deaths elsewhere in Yemen.

AFP footage showed city streets in Tarim flooded and its famed mud-brick buildings in ruins, with cars and motorcycles buried under mud and debris.

OCHA said flooding also caused extensive damage in the provinces of Aden, Abyan, Daleh, Lahj, Hadramawt, Marib and Taez.

Dozens of people are killed every year across Yemen in flash floods.

Fierce storms have added to the woes of the conflict-ridden country.

The UN says Yemen is suffering the world's worst humanitarian crisis as a years-long war rumbles on, with over 4 million people displaced and two-thirds of its 30-million population dependent on aid.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed and millions pushed to the brink of famine in the conflict between the government — supported by a Saudi-led military coalition — and Iran-backed Houthi rebels that is now in its seventh year.

KHARTOUM — A former Sudanese official accused of atrocities in the Darfur region has announced that he would prefer to stand trial before the International Criminal Court (ICC) rather than in Sudan.

Ahmed Haroun has been wanted by the ICC for more than a decade on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes during the Darfur conflict, which broke out in 2003 and left hundreds of thousands dead.

Haroun, along with other former regime figures, was arrested in Sudan following the April 2019 ouster of former president Omar Al Bashir on the back of mass protests against his three-decade iron-fisted rule.

On Monday, Haroun faced a local investigation committee tasked with probing the fighting in Darfur.

In a five-page statement dated May 3, he accused local authorities of keeping him in custody in “bad faith” and “in violation of the law”, alleging that the public prosecutor “deprived him of the right” to challenge his arrest.

“An authority with this miserable legal performance will not be able or willing to ensure justice,” Haroun said in his statement, which circulated widely on social media on Tuesday.

“For these reasons along with others... I am announcing with confidence that I prefer for my case, if there is one, to be referred to the International Criminal Court.”

Under Bashir, Haroun held several positions including South Kordofan governor and minister of state for the interior.

In 2007, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Haroun citing 42 counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes including murder, rape, torture, persecution and pillaging.

Sudan’s transitional administration, which came to power after Bashir’s ouster, has been in talks with the ICC about options for trying Bashir and his aides over their role in the Darfur conflict.

Fighting broke out in 2003 when ethnic minority rebels, complaining of systematic discrimination, took up arms against Bashir’s government.

Khartoum responded by unleashing a notorious Arab-dominated militia known as the Janjaweed, recruited from among the region’s nomadic tribes.

The United Nations says the conflict killed 300,000 people and displaced 2.5 million.

Bashir, who has been in custody in Khartoum’s Kober prison since he was deposed, is also wanted by the ICC over his role in the Darfur fighting.

Several of his aides are also facing accusations of committing atrocities in Darfur, including ex-defence minister Abdelrahim Mohamed Hussein.

In December 2019, Bashir was convicted of corruption, and he faces a separate trial in Khartoum over the 1989 Islamist-backed coup that brought him to power.

Last year, alleged senior Janjaweed militia leader Ali Kushayb, who was also wanted by the ICC, surrendered to the court.