Showing posts with label Middle East. Show all posts
Sunday 30 November 2014
Mubarak verdict fuels protests, mockery in Egypt
Protests erupted at universities across Egypt on Sunday, condemning a court decision to drop criminal charges against Hosni Mubarak, the president whose ouster in the 2011 uprising raised hopes of a new era of political openness.
Hundreds of demonstrators gathered at Cairo University, waving pictures of Mubarak behind bars and demanding the "fall of the regime", the rallying cry of the Arab Spring uprisings that shook governments from Tunisia to the Gulf in 2011.
Police stood ready at the gates to bar students that sought to take their demonstration into the streets.
An Egyptian court on Saturday dropped its case against Mubarak over the killing of protesters in the 2011 uprising that ended his 30-year rule.
The ruling was seen by activists as the latest sign that the rights won during the revolt are being eroded.
Two people were killed and nine were wounded on Saturday evening, when security forces fired tear gas and birdshot to disperse about 1,000 protesters who attempted to enter Tahrir Square -- the symbolic heart of the revolt that ousted Mubarak.
Security forces closed a Cairo metro station, the state news agency said, an apparent effort to prevent gatherings downtown.
Clashes also erupted at Zagazig University in the Nile Delta, and the state-owned Al-Ahram newspaper said 11 students were detained after setting fire to a building.
Many Egyptians who lived through the rule of former air force officer Mubarak view it as a period of autocracy and crony capitalism.
His overthrow led to Egypt's first free election. But the winner, Mohamed Mursi, was ousted last year by Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, another military officer who won a presidential vote in May.
Egyptian authorities have since jailed Mursi and thousands of his Muslim Brotherhood supporters, sentencing hundreds to death in mass trials that drew international criticism.
By contrast, Mubarak-era figures have been released and new laws curtailing political freedoms have raised fears among activists that the old leadership is back.
"Down with Hosni Mubarak, down with every Mubarak, down with military rule" said one Facebook page that called for protests against the ruling.
The verdict has also prompted a deluge of online cartoons about the return of the old guard.
One animated video begins with a group of Mubarak-era politicians in a darkened cell facing an array of charges. One by one they are released and end up celebrating their freedom with their former president, singing "yes, we are back".
REUTERS
Thursday 6 November 2014
Jerusalem tension leaves Jordan more exposed to Mideast turmoil
The U.S. ally has been alarmed and angered by recent Israeli actions at the sacred al-Aqsa compound in Jerusalem, where tensions are raising the prospect of a new Palestinian uprising that would add to the crises at Jordan's borders and may even spill into the kingdom.
For Jordanian King Abdullah, a majority of whose 7 million subjects are Palestinian, a one-day closure of al-Aqsa last week amounted to a personal affront: his Hashemite dynasty derives part of its legitimacy from its custodianship of the holy site.
"One of the major things that angers the Jordanian state and people is the Israeli behavior in Jerusalem. On the one hand we are trying to combat terrorism and extremism, and on the other hand we are confronted with this reckless behavior," said Mohammad Al-Momani, minister of state and government spokesman.
While Israel says it is sensitive to Jordan's views and blames extremists for stirring up trouble at the site, Amman is responding in unusually tough terms. It has even suggested the crisis could imperil the countries' 1994 peace treaty - an idea not heard from Amman during much bloodier Israeli-Palestinian flare-ups such as the July-August Gaza war.
This underlines just how seriously King Abdullah views a crisis that complicates his bid to keep his kingdom free from the type of turmoil that has toppled other Arab leaders and produced numerous civil wars in the region since 2011.
The timing could not be worse for Jordan, less than two months after it joined the air strikes on Syria that radical Islamists - including some in Jordan - are portraying as an attack on Islam rather than the Islamic State group.
Some Jordanians are not convinced by the logic of joining that U.S.-led war, fearing it could draw retaliation from Islamic militants in Jordan where - like elsewhere in the Muslim world - Islamic State is finding sympathizers and recruits.
The Jerusalem situation will provide King Abdullah's Islamist opponents, who range from jihadists to the mainstream Muslim Brotherhood, with new grounds to criticize the Western-backed leader unless he is seen to take a tough stance.
Jordan on Wednesday recalled its ambassador to Israel in protest, the first time it has done so since they made peace in 1994 though the post was also vacant for two periods since then.
"WATERED" WITH JORDANIAN BLOOD
Jordanian stewardship of the al-Aqsa compound was recognized in the 1994 peace treaty with Israel but dates back to 1924 when Palestinian leaders in Jerusalem granted custodianship to King Abdullah's great grandfather, Sharif Hussein.
The custodianship was reaffirmed in an agreement signed last year between the Palestinian Authority and King Abdullah. The area, which is also home to the Dome of the Rock, is known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as the Temple Mount.
A tinder-box for Israeli-Palestian conflict, it is the third holiest site in Islam and the holiest in Judaism. Several hundred Jordanian civil servants run the site. They allow Jews to visit, but not to pray there.
Israel closed the site last Thursday in response to the shooting of an Israeli-American far-right religious activist who has led a campaign for Jews to be allowed to pray there. It was reopened the next day after what Jordanian officials have described as a personal intervention by King Abdullah.
It was the first such closure at the site since 2000 - the year a visit to the site by the then Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon helped to ignite the second Palestinian Intifada.
King Abdullah has used unusually harsh language in recent criticism of Israel. He recently likened Islamic extremists to Zionist extremists.
In a speech this week, he said Jerusalem's soil was "watered by the blood and sacrifices of our martyrs" - a reference to Jordanian soldiers killed there fighting Israeli forces in the 1948 war that resulted in the establishment of Israel.
Jordan, which governed the West Bank including East Jerusalem from 1948 to 1967, would confront "through all available means, Israeli unilateral policies and measures in Jerusalem and preserve its Muslim and Christian holy sites".
"He's very annoyed and worried ... Jerusalem is everything," said a diplomat in Amman. "You can't overstate how important it is. It's the last thing they need. There's enough going on in Syria and Iraq and Jordan is impacted by both," he said.
"Whenever we have a big bout of extremism in the region then Jordan feels that wind blowing. That's cause for worry but not cause for thinking there will be short-term instability."
COMBUSTIBLE MIX
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the status quo of the al-Aqsa compound agreed with Jordan after the 1967 war will not be altered. But he is under pressure, even from within his own Likud Party. A far-right Likud member defied Netanyahu's calls for restraint by visiting the site on Sunday.
Israel says it wants stability in Jordan and is sensitive to its position. "Our greatest fear nowadays is that someone is trying to create disturbances on the Temple Mount in order to ignite the region, in order to harm both Jordan and Israel," Daniel Nevo, Israel's ambassador to Jordan told Israel Radio in an interview aired on Wednesday.
For Jordan, the specter of another big flare-up of the conflict between Israel and Palestinians brings risks unlike those arising from the expansion of Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. Jordan has received waves of Palestinian refugees in the 1948 and 1967 Middle East wars, and restive Palestinian nationalism has been a source of concern for decades.
Add to that socioeconomic malaise - unemployment is running at 11.4 percent but unofficial figures put it at twice that level - and slow pace of political reform, and Jordan faces the same combustible mix that set off the Arab uprisings in 2011.
On a clear night, the lights of Jerusalem can be seen from the Amman outskirts, proximity that also sets the Israeli-Palestinian conflict apart from the wars in Syria and Iraq.
Some of Amman's poorer districts are actually Palestinian refugee camps that with time have become permanent residential areas, home to the descendents of Palestinians forced to flee by wars in 1948 and 1967. Jerusalem means much more to these Palestinian Jordanians than the war against Islamic State.
"In Syria, people are facing injustice and want to be free from injustice. But Palestine and Jerusalem are occupied and usurped land," said Thaer Dawood, 46, an Amman shopkeeper whose family hail from a village near Ramallah in the West Bank.
"You don't quite know what is going to happen because you have a lot people from the West Bank here. Nobody here will consent to what is happening in Palestine," he said, speaking at a coffee shop in a mostly Palestinian district of Amman.
Jordan managed to navigate the last two Palestinian uprisings without major instability.
"We are doing a good job in maintaining peace and security," Momani, the minister, said. "More and more Jordanians are subscribing to the idea that stability and security is the oil of this country. That is why we protect it dearly."
But combined with Jordan's internal challenges -unemployment, poverty and a lack of political inclusiveness - conflict in Jerusalem will only make it easier for groups like Islamic State to recruit.
"The public protests (over Jerusalem) will be strong, but the frustrations inside individuals will be much stronger," said Taher al-Masry, a former Jordanian prime minister from a prominent Palestinian family.
"The danger from Daesh (Islamic State) is not from it coming over the borders, but from feelings or frustrations concerning the deteriorating economic conditions."
reuters
ICC: No action on Israeli storming of aid boat.
"Following a thorough legal and factual analysis of the information available, I have concluded that there is a reasonable basis to believe that war crimes under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court were committed on one of the vessels, the Mavi Marmara, when Israeli Defense Forces intercepted the 'Gaza Freedom Flotilla' on 31 May 2010," Bensouda said in a statement.
However Bensouda said that any cases relating to the storming "would not be of sufficient gravity to justify further action by the ICC."
Eight Turks and one Turkish-American were killed and several other pro-Palestinian activists were wounded when Israeli commandos stormed the ship Mavi Marmara on May 31, 2010.
Bensouda opened a preliminary investigation last year after the tiny African state of Comoros — which is a member of the court — filed a complaint about the boarding of the ship which was flying under a Comoros flag.
A Turkish lawyer representing Comoros vowed not to give up the case.
"This is a moral struggle that we're pursuing by ourselves. It's a legal struggle; a struggle in the name of humanity. This struggle isn't over," said attorney Ramazan Ariturk. "We will object to a higher court at the International Criminal Court and we believe without a doubt that we will prevail."
In a 61-page report, prosecutors conclude that "there is a reasonable basis to believe" that Israeli forces may have committed the crimes of wilful killing, wilfully causing serious injury and committing outrages upon personal dignity.
The report said that the findings were based on "information available at this stage" and that ICC prosecutors did not collect the evidence.
A U.N. report in July 2011 found that the raid was justified, but that Israel used excessive force.
Israel and Turkey are not members of the court, which only has jurisdiction over its members, over cases that are referred to it by the U.N. Security Council and over events that take place on the territory of member states.
ap
U.S. denies telling Yemen ex-president to leave or face sanctions
An official source at Saleh's General People's Congress (GPC) party said on Wednesday that the U.S. ambassador to Yemen had delivered a message through a mediator for Saleh to leave the country by 5 o'clock (1400 GMT) on Friday or face international sanctions.
"The GPC statements about threats to Saleh from the U.S. are untrue," the State Department said in a statement. "There have been no meetings between the ambassador and GPC officials at which any such statements have been made."
The GPC official said Washington had delivered an ultimatum for him to leave or face sanctions that the U.N Security Council is expected to impose on him in line with requests by President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and the U.S. State Department.
The United States last week requested the U.N. Security Council impose an asset freeze and global travel ban on Saleh and two leaders of the Shi'ite Muslim Houthi group which controls Sanaa, on the grounds that they threatened the peace and stability of Yemen and obstructed the political process.
The U.S. sanctions request stated that since he stepped down in 2012 following widespread protests, Saleh "reportedly become one of the primary supporters of the Houthi rebellion" and that he was behind attempts to cause chaos throughout Yemen.
Saleh has denied seeking to destabilize Yemen.
A U.N. sanctions committee had been scheduled to discuss the U.S. request on Tuesday, Nov. 4. Several Western diplomats say the curbs are expected to come into force on Friday.
Saleh's office described the ultimatum as an unacceptable intervention in Yemen's internal affairs and vowed to resist it. "The source urged members of the General People's Congress and its allies and the masses of the Yemeni people to be alert and to prepare to confront all possibilities that threaten the security and stability and unity of Yemen," it said.
reuters
Tuesday 21 October 2014
U.S. involved in seven air strikes on Islamic State targets
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Fighter, bomber and attack aircraft were used in the raids and all returned safely, the Central Command statement said.
The strikes near Kobani, Syria, destroyed Islamic State fighting positions, a building and an Islamic State unit.
In Iraq, a fighting position southeast of the Mosul Dam and one south of the Bayji oil refinery were destroyed while another strike north of Fallujah suppressed an Islamic State attack, the statement said.
Reuters
Monday 20 October 2014
Al Qaeda attacks kill at least 33 people in Yemen
(Reuters) - At least 33 people were killed in a suicide bombing and gun attacks in central Yemen, tribal sources and medics said on Monday, as al Qaeda fighters seized a Yemeni city in a new challenge to the central government.
Violence has spread in Yemen since Shi'ite Muslim Houthis took over the capital, Sanaa, last month, threatening the stability of a country that borders on Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter.
Houthi forces have fanned out into central and western Yemen, posing a challenge to Sunni tribesmen and al Qaeda militants, who regard the Houthis as heretics. Fighting has flared in several provinces.
In the latest attacks, an al Qaeda suicide bomber drove a car towards the home of a local government official in the town of Radda in al-Bayda province, killing at least 13 people, medical sources said.
Ansar al-Sahrai, an al Qaeda affiliate, said in a statement the attack targeted a meeting at a Houthi leader's house and that "dozens were killed or wounded".
Earlier in the day, tribal sources said al-Sharia fighters on Sunday night shelled a Radda house where a local Houthi leader lives, killing gunmen.
At least 10 Houthi fighters were killed in two other incidents, one on the outskirts of Radda and another at a checkpoint in the nearby Ibb province, tribal sources said.
Ansar al-Sharia said in a report from the al-Orsh area in al-Bayda that "dozens of Houthis" have been killed or wounded in battles since Sunday evening, and that two of its fighters were killed in Ibb.
Radda, with a population of 60,000, has long been a stronghold of Ansar, which includes many fighters from local tribes who are up in arms over the presence of Houthi rebels in the mainly Sunni region.
There is growing international concern about Yemen's turmoil because of its proximity to Saudi Arabia and international shipping lanes, as well as the risk of al Qaeda using the country as a springboard for attacks abroad.
QAEDA INSURGENTS SEIZED MAJOR TOWN
In a significant development, residents and activists said al Qaeda fighters had marched into al-Odayn, a city of 200,000 in the central province of Ibb, captured the local government offices and raised their black and white flag over it.
"They came in at midday, invaded the town, chanting Allahu Akbar (God is Greater) and seized the government compound unopposed," one resident of al-Odayn said.
Residents also said Sunni militants destroyed the home of a local Houthi member who had been trying to recruit local fighters to join a popular committee, a kind of a grassroots police force Houthis have established in other parts of the Arabian Peninsula country.
The Houthis' advance and clashes with Ansar al-Sharia prompted often faction-ridden regional Sunni tribesmen to close ranks to try to protect themselves.
In a statement issued on Sunday, a committee of local tribesmen warned that they would not tolerate the presence of "any armed militia from any party" in al-Bayda province and called on the central government to step in to maintain order.
"The state must carry out its national duty to spare the province of sectarian strife," said the statement, which was obtained by Reuters.
The Yemeni armed forces have largely avoided confronting the Houthis since they moved into Sanaa last month, leading to speculation that President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi was tacitly allowing the group to move freely while a new government is being formed.
Whether it would command more authority than the last one is questionable, however. While the Houthis signed a power-sharing pact with other political parties, that has not deterred them from thrusting into other regions of Yemen.
In a further sign of gathering chaos, al Qaeda militants on Monday raided the Um al-Maghareb military airport in the eastern province of Hadramout province, not far from the Saudi border, and looted equipment, military and security sources said.
Sunday 19 October 2014
Fiercest fighting in days hits Syrian border town
Islamic State, which controls much of Syria and Iraq, fired 44 mortars at Kurdish parts of the town on Saturday and some of the shells fell inside nearby Turkey, according to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. It said four more mortars were fired on Sunday.
The month-long battle for Kobani has ebbed and flowed. A week ago, Kurds said the town would soon fall. The United States and its coalition partners then stepped up air strikes on Islamic State, which wants to take Kobani in order to strengthen its position in northern Syria.
The coalition has been bombing Islamic State targets in Iraq since August and extended the campaign to Syria in September after Islamic State, a group that espouses a rigid interpretation of Islam and initially fought Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces, made huge territorial gains.
Raids on Islamic State around Kobani have been stepped up, with the fate of the town seen as an important test for U.S. President Barack Obama's campaign against the Islamists.
NATO member Turkey, whose forces are ranged along the border overlooking Kobani, is reluctant to intervene. It insists the allies should also confront Assad to end Syria's civil war, which has killed close to 200,000 people since March 2011.
"We had the most intense clashes in days, perhaps a week, last night. (Islamic State) attacked from three different sides including the municipality building and the market place," said Abdulrahman Gok, a journalist in Kobani.
"Clashes did not stop until the morning. We have had an early morning walk inside the city and have seen lots of damaged cars on the streets and unexploded mortar shells," he said.
CAR BOMBS
The Observatory reported two Islamic State car bombs hit Kurdish positions on Saturday evening, leading to casualties. A cloud of black smoke towered over Kobani on Sunday.
A fighter from one of the female units of the main Syrian Kurdish militia in Kobani, YPG, said Kurdish fighters were able to detonate the car bombs before they reached their targets.
"Last night there were clashes all across Kobani ... this morning the clashes are still ongoing," she said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The Observatory said 70 Islamic State fighters had been killed in the past two days, according to sources at the hospital in the nearby town of Tel Abyab, where Islamic State bodies are taken. Reuters cannot independently confirm the reports due to security restrictions.
The Observatory said some Syrian Arab fighters from the Revolutionaries of Raqqa Brigade, who are fighting alongside Kurdish fighters, had executed two Islamic State captives.
"One was a child of around 15 years old. They shot them in the head," he said.
Islamic State have also used executions throughout their campaigns in Syria and Iraq, killing hundreds of enemy combatants and civilians who oppose their cause, according to Islamic State videos and statements.
Welat Omer, a doctor caring for the few remaining civilians in Kobani, told Reuters by telephone that he was looking after 15 patients, including children and the elderly.
“We need medicine, including antibiotics and milk for the children, and medicine for the elderly, who have heart conditions, diabetes and high blood pressure,” Omer said.
Hundreds of thousands have fled Islamic State's advance. Turkey hosts about 1.5 million Syrian refugees, including almost 200,000 Syrian Kurds from Kobani.
Ankara has refused to rearm beleaguered Kurdish fighters, who complain they are at huge disadvantage in the face of Islamic State's weaponry, much of it seized from the Iraqi military when the militants took the city of Mosul in June.
Turkey views the YPG with suspicion for its long-standing links with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a 30-year armed campaign for self-rule in Turkey.
President Tayyip Erdogan was quoted in the Turkish media on Sunday as saying Ankara will never arm the YPG through its political wing, the PYD.
"There has been talk of arming the PYD to establish a front here against Islamic State. For us, the PYD is the same as the PKK, it’s a terrorist organization," he was quoted as saying.
This stance has sparked outrage among Turkey's own Kurds, who make up about 20 percent of the population. Riots in several cities earlier this month killed left than 35 people dead.
Thursday 16 October 2014
Iran, U.S. say some headway made in 'difficult' nuclear talks
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(Reuters) - Iran and the United States said they made some progress in high-level nuclear talks but much work remained to clinch a breakthrough deal by a late-November deadline.
Both sides said they still aimed to meet the self-imposed Nov. 24 date, despite doubts among many experts that they can reach a full agreement to end a decade-old dispute over Tehran's nuclear programme with just a few weeks remaining.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry left Vienna early on Thursday after six hours of talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton the previous day, but his officials remained to continue the talks through Thursday.
"It was very difficult, serious and intensive ... but instead of focusing on problems, we discussed solutions as well," Zarif told Iranian media on Thursday, sources who were present told Reuters. "There was progress in all the fields."
The U.S. side also said progress was made.
Zarif said he would next meet Kerry and Ashton in three to four weeks' time though not in Vienna, Iranian state television reported. Ashton coordinates talks with Iran on behalf of the six other countries involved, including the United States.
Ashton and Zarif met on Thursday with senior officials from the six - the United States, France, Germany, China, Russia and Britain - before the Iranian foreign minister left Vienna.
The talks are in a “critical phase”, Ashton's spokesman said.
"We are trying hard to make progress and remain fully engaged to achieve a comprehensive solution” by the deadline, Michael Mann said in a statement, adding that experts would meet in coming days to continue technical work.
Relations with the West have thawed since Hassan Rouhani was elected president last year seeking to end Iran's international isolation, and the talks are aimed at easing concerns about Tehran's atomic activities in exchange for lifting sanctions.
But Western officials say there are still gaps in the positions, especially over the future scope of Iran's production of enriched uranium, which can have civilian and military uses.
NUCLEAR "PATHWAYS"
One of Iran's chief negotiators, Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, last week raised the possibility the talks could be extended, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday that the deadline was not "sacred".
But Zarif said none of the parties believed in extending the talks, IRIB said. A senior U.S. official said an extension was not discussed, adding: "You never say never, but today we are focussed on Nov. 24 and Nov. 24 only.”
Western governments want Iran to cut its uranium enrichment capacity so that it would take a long time to purify enough uranium for an atomic weapon. Tehran, which says all its nuclear work is for peaceful ends, has rejected demands to significantly reduce the number of enrichment centrifuges below the 19,000 it has now installed, of which roughly half are operating.
The U.S. official said gaps in negotiating positions must be narrowed in a way that "ensures that all of the pathways for fissile material for a nuclear weapon are shut down."
Russia's chief negotiator, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, said three key areas - uranium enrichment, the future of Iran's Arak research reactor and how to lift sanctions – had not yet been resolved, RIA Novosti news agency reported.
Ramped up air strikes stall Islamic State advance on Syrian town
(Reuters) - Two days of heavy air strikes by U.S. warplanes have slowed an advance by Islamic State militants against Kurdish forces defending the Syrian border town of Kobani.
Last week Turkish and U.S. officials said Islamic State were on the verge of taking Kobani from its heavily outgunned Kurdish defenders, after seizing strategic points deep inside the town.
The tempo of coalition air strikes has increased dramatically, with U.S. fighter and bomber planes carrying out 14 raids against Islamic State targets near Kobani on Wednesday and Thursday, the U.S. military's Central Command said.
The strikes had seen the militants' advance slow, but "the security situation on the ground in Kobani remains tenuous," the U.S. statement added.
The four-week Islamic State assault has been seen as a test of U.S. President Barack Obama's air strike strategy, and Kurdish leaders say the town cannot survive without arms and ammunition reaching the defenders, something neighbouring Turkey has so far refused to allow.
Islamic State has been keen to take the town to consolidate its position in northern Syria after seizing large amounts of territory in that country and in Iraq. A defeat in Kobani would be a major setback for the Islamists and a boost for Obama.
Heavy and light weapons fire were audible from across the border in Turkey on Thursday afternoon, with one stray mortar hitting Turkish soil close to abandoned tents, a Reuters correspondent said.
Turkish security forces moved civilians and media away from hills overlooking Kobani as the fighting raged.
Six air strikes hit eastern Kobani and there was fierce fighting between Kurdish and Islamist fighters overnight on Wednesday, but neither side made significant gains, according to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Kurdish fighters later managed to seize a street in Kobani that had been held by militants, the Observatory said.
A journalist in Kobani said air strikes had allowed Kurdish forces to go on the offensive for the first time since Islamic State launched their assault four weeks ago.
"We walked past some (YPG) positions in the east yesterday that were held by IS only two days ago," Abdulrahman Gok told Reuters by telephone.
"Officials here say the air strikes are sufficient but ground action is needed to wipe out IS. YPG is perfectly capable of doing that but more weapons are needed."
Islamic State's Kobani offensive is one of several it has conducted after a series of lightning advances since June, which have sent shockwaves through the region and sparked alarm in western capitals.
U.S. officials have ruled out sending troops to tackle the group, but Kurdish forces have been identified as viable partners for the coalition, and Kurds in Iraq have received western arms shipments to bolster their cause. No weapons or ammunition have reached Kobani however, fighters there say.
Kurdish forces killed at least 20 Islamic State fighters on Wednesday west of Ras al-Ayn, another Syrian city on the border to the east of Kobani, the Observatory reported.
At least two YPG fighters were also killed during the clashes, in which Kurdish fighters seized Kalashnikovs, machine guns and other weaponry, The Observatory said.
SAFE ZONE
Turkey has refused to bow to pressure to aid Kobani, either by ordering in Turkish tanks and troops that line the border, or permitting weapons and ammunition to reach the town.
Ankara is reluctant to be sucked into the morass of the Syrian conflict without clear guarantees from western allies that more will be done to help repatriate 1.6 million people who have fled across the border from Syria.
Officials are also wary of arming Kobani's Kurdish defenders, who have strong links with the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has staged a decades long insurgency against the Turkish government in the country's predominantly Kurdish southeast.
Turkish officials are increasingly frustrated with criticism of their actions towards Kobani, saying they have carried the humanitarian burden from the fighting, which saw 200,000 people cross the border from the Kobani area.
They also say air strikes fail to offer a comprehensive strategy against Islamic State, which has flourished in the power vacuum created by Syria's war. Ankara blames Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for this, and wants him toppled from power, something western allies currently refuse to countenance.
Speaking on Wednesday, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Kurdish fighters who had fled into Turkey had been invited to return to Kobani to defend it, but had declined.
He also spelled out details for the "secure zones" that Turkey wants to be set up in Syria close to its border, so that refugees can begin to return.
Zones should be created near the city of Aleppo, which has seen some of the fiercest fighting of recent months. Others would be set up near the Turkish border in Idlib province, Hassaka, Jarablous and Kobani, Davutoglu said.
To boost legitimacy, the U.N. should enforce the zones, Davutoglu said, but failing that, the international coalition could provide the air cover needed.
"Turkey could provide all the help necessary if such protection zones are created. But when such protection zones do not exist, to ask Turkey to intervene on its own is to ask Turkey to shoulder this risk on its own."
Turkish officials are optimistic they can convince coalition partners to meet some of their demands, at which point Ankara would play a more active role, although it is unclear how long negotiations might take.
U.S. officials say creating safe zones is not a priority and NATO said last week it was not discussing such a move.
The Syrian Foreign Ministry on Wednesday reiterated Damascus' opposition to "buffer zones" - the phrase used by some Turkish officials - warning they would be a gross violation of international law, the Syrian state agency Sana reported.
"(The Syrian people) won’t allow anyone to interfere in their affairs, and are bent on defending their sovereignty,” the Foreign Ministry statement said.
Wednesday 15 October 2014
Algerian police protest at president's office
(AP) — Algerian police tried to push their way into the president's headquarters Wednesday in an unusual protest movement prompted by violence against security forces in the south.
The unrest in southern Algeria and protests in the capital come amid concerns that President Abdelaziz Bouteflika is too ill to rule Africa's largest country, an ally in U.S. efforts against terrorism. Bouteflika has been largely absent from the public eye since his re-election in April, and it's unclear whether he was in his office Wednesday.
In the second day of protests in Algiers, about 300 police officers marched to the president's office, wearing their blue uniforms but apparently unarmed. Some tried to push their way past the front gate but were stopped by guards.
The president's chief of staff, Ahmed Ouyahia, emerged to try to talk to protesters, but quickly went back inside after he was met with boos and hisses. The police demanded to see the prime minister instead.
They are demanding the resignation of the head of all security forces in the country, Gen. Abdelghani Hamel, chanting "Hamel, Get Out!"
The protesters are showing support for colleagues in the riot-torn southern oasis city Ghardaia, where security forces have been attacked, according to local media. About a dozen people have been killed and many shops burned in riots since December, as Berber and Arab communities compete for scarce jobs and housing there. Thousands of police have been sent there to quell the violence.
The country's police have not been known to demonstrate before and the unprecedented march comes at a delicate time for oil and gas-rich Algeria.
Clashes in Libya's Benghazi kill at least 3
(AP) — A local Libyan commander says deadly clashes are underway between Islamist militias and forces loyal to a renegade general who has vowed to take control of the eastern city of Benghazi.
The militia commander says at least three people have been killed in the fighting so far. He says his militia took a military camp and tanks from Gen. Khalifa Hifter's forces after a suicide bomber blew himself at the camp gates.
A security official allied to Hifter denied the claim. Both spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the fighting in Benghazi.
Hifter's forces are backed by armed residents.
Speaking on local TV late Tuesday, Hifter announced an "armed revolt" on Wednesday against the Islamist extremists who overran army barracks and claimed control over Benghazi earlier this year.
Tuesday 14 October 2014
Facing new oil glut, Saudis avoid 1980s mistakes to halt price slide
(Reuters) - Still haunted by its failed attempt to prevent a steep drop in oil prices by slashing production by almost three quarters in the 1980s, the world's top oil exporter Saudi Arabia is determined not to make the same mistake again.
The oil glut of the 1980s, the early days of the modern crude market and a distant memory for most traders, has resurfaced recently in conversations with Saudi officials and veteran analysts who see it as the defining moment behind the kingdom's new strategy to protect medium-term market share.
While the latest 25 percent slide in oil prices to below $90 a barrel is so far modest compared with the 1980s slump that took crude from $35 to below $10, many observers see similarities in a global market that is on the brink of a pivotal turn from an era of scarcity to one of abundance.
Three decades ago, the spike in prices caused by the 1973 Arab oil embargo and Iran's 1979 revolution sapped global oil demand, while the discovery of oil offshore in the North Sea spurred a new influx of non-OPEC crude.
With world markets awash in oil, Saudi Arabia embarked on a strategy of defending prices, which at the time were largely set by exporters rather than the nascent futures market. The kingdom slashed its own output from more than 10 million barrels per day in 1980 to less than 2.5 million bpd in 1985-86.
Other producers failed to follow suit, however, both within the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and among new petroleum powers such as Britain and Norway. Prices fell into a years-long slump, leading to 16 years of Saudi budget deficits that left the country deeply in debt.
Finally, in 1985, Riyadh shifted gears, revving up output and cutting prices in a move that triggered a final slump in markets but ultimately paved the way for a gradual recovery.
"The big mistake was that they continued to cut production to try to prop the prices and the price fell anyway," said analyst Yasser Elguindi of Medley Global Advisors.
Instead they should have fought for market share, allowing "higher cost producers to shut in as the price fell - which is what they are doing now.”
Last week, Saudi officials briefed oil market participants in New York on the kingdom's shift in policy, making clear for the first time that Saudi is prepared to tolerate a period of lower prices - perhaps as low as $80 a barrel - in order to retain market share, Reuters reported on Monday. [ID:nL2N0S70J7]
Saudi Arabia is not trying to push oil prices down, an oil source said, but is prepared to let the market find its floor and tolerate lower prices until others in OPEC commit to action. It has already cut selling prices to retain Asian customers.
Their message is "don't expect us to somehow shoulder the responsibility for managing the whole oil market," said Sadad al-Husseini, a former top executive at state-run Saudi Aramco.
Brent crude oil traded below $88 a barrel on Monday, its lowest in almost four years, as traders realize that Saudi Arabia is in no hurry to curb the emerging oil glut. [O/R]
1980s GHOSTS
The grim circumstances of the 1980s dominated the formative years of King Abdullah's rule, when as de facto regent during the long illness of his predecessor King Fahd, he embarked on painful economic reforms that paved the way for years of growth.
Riyadh this time wants to preempt a price collapse without sacrificing production levels or market share.
In the 1980s, it was a drop in U.S. and European consumption coupled with the rise of the North Sea; now it is fears of easing demand from Asia and the unexpected growth of U.S. shale oil.
The net effect is the same: An oil market potentially facing years worth of oversupply, a scenario the Saudis and OPEC have not been forced to grapple with since the early 2000s, before the rise of China triggered a decade-long price boom.
Fellow Gulf Arab ally and OPEC exporter Kuwait has already said that OPEC is unlikely to cut oil production in an effort to prop up prices because such a move would not necessarily be effective. Venezuela became the first member to call for an emergency meeting to defend $100 oil.
OPEC DISUNITY
Another similarity: OPEC disunity.
During the 1980s, Riyadh learned the hard way that it could not count on fellow OPEC producers, many of whom continued to pump at higher rates than their agreed-upon quotas, leaving Saudi Arabia to bear the brunt of output cuts.
Much of the disharmony was on public display. Iran and Iraq were engaged in an eight-year all-out war. Accusations by Iraq that Kuwait had been pumping above its OPEC quota led ultimately to the first Gulf War in the early 1990s.
It was not until late 1985 that the issue came to a head. The kingdom and OPEC finally agreed to reclaim market share, driving prices down to $10 a barrel but reestablishing themselves in the market. It took 16 years for prices to fully recover.
"They decided they had enough – they were the swing producer and they increased production and drove prices down dramatically," said Dr. Gary Ross, chief executive of PIRA Energy Group, who has followed oil markets since the 1970s.
This time around, Riyadh appears to be taking that stance from the start, with a focus on preserving the medium-term revenue of its 266 billion barrels of crude oil reserves rather than chase falling prices and sacrifice their market.
"From an economics point of view, it’s much better to let prices go way down," according to Philip K. Verleger, president of consultancy PKVerleger LLC and a former advisor to President Carter. The emerging price war is "a war of necessity."
Monday 13 October 2014
Turkey: No new deal with US on using air base
(AP) — NATO allies Turkey and the United States differed Monday on where they stand on the use of a key air base, with Turkish officials denying reports from the United States that there was a new agreement on its use for operations against Islamic State militants.
The impasse suggests that major differences remain between the two sides. Turkey has said it won't join the fight against the extremists unless the U.S.-led coalition also goes after the Syrian government of President Bashar Assad, including establishing a no-fly zone and a buffer zone along the Turkish border.
The United States has been pressing Turkey to play a larger role against the Islamic militants, who have taken control of large swaths of Syria and Iraq, including territory on Turkey's border, and sent refugees fleeing into Turkey.
U.S. officials said again Monday that Turkey would let U.S. and coalition forces use its bases, including Incirlik air base, which is within 100 miles of the Syrian border, for operations against the Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq.
However, emerging Monday from a Cabinet meeting, Turkey's deputy prime minister, Bulent Arinc, said that "apart from the existing cooperation in combatting terrorism, there is no new situation concerning Incirlik air base."
The deputy premier added that Turkey had proposed the use of some of its bases to train and equip moderate opposition forces fighting the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, but said the sides had not yet come to any agreement.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, in comments published Sunday, said Incirlik was already being used for reconnaissance purposes in Iraq and said its use for wider operations would depend on whether Turkey's demands for a no-fly zone and a safe zone in Syria are met.
"There are activities that we are already undertaking jointly from Incirlik, concerning Iraq," Davutoglu told the Milliyet newspaper. "But as a base for a more extensive operation ... we have already made our position clear: There has to be a no-fly zone and a safe haven must be declared."
Arinc said the two countries would hold "deeper" talks in the coming days on Turkey's cooperation in the U.S.-led coalition, including its demands for a no-fly zone and a safe haven in Syria.
On the ground Monday, the battle continued to rage on Turkey's border as Islamic State fighters carried out at least three suicide bombings in the Syrian border town of Kobani, allowing the group to make a small push into the strategic town, activists said.
Islamic State extremists have carved out a vast stretch of territory from northern Syria to the outskirts of Baghdad where they have imposed their harsh interpretation of Islamic law. The fighters have massacred hundreds of captured Iraqi and Syrian soldiers, terrorized religious minorities, and beheaded two American journalists and two British aid workers. Hundreds of thousands of refugees have fled into Turkey from Syria ahead of the militants.
The U.S.-led coalition has been carrying out airstrikes against militant targets in and around Kobani for more than two weeks, and the town's fate has emerged as a major test of whether the air campaign can roll back the extremists in Syria.
The sound of explosions and occasional gunfire could be heard across the border in Kobani a day after Kurdish fighters managed to slow the advance of the jihadist group. What appeared to be a rocket-propelled grenade struck a minaret in the center of the town, emitting a cloud of white smoke.
Activists said Islamic State militants were carrying out a three-pronged attack from the eastern side of the town and that clashes were reported in the southern part.
The Syrian Kurdish enclave has been the scene of heavy fighting since late last month, with the better-armed Islamic State fighters determined to capture the border post.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said an Islamic State suicide bomber detonated a car filled with explosives in the northern part of Kobani near the border with Turkey. It said the car was headed to the border crossing between Kobani and Turkey.
Later Monday, another suicide attacker blew himself up in a vehicle east of Kobani near the security quarter that houses the main police station and other local government offices, according to the Observatory and Kobani-based activist Farhad Shami.
The Observatory later reported a third suicide attack northeast of Kobani, adding that Islamic State fighters were able to capture a cultural center. Coalition warplanes later bombarded the area, the Observatory said.
Shami said the third suicide attack was carried out by an armored vehicle that blew up about 300 yards (meters) from the main border crossing point into Turkey. He also confirmed that Islamic State fighters captured the cultural center southeast of the town.
There was no immediate word on casualties from the explosions.
Shami said coalition aircraft flying over Kobani had struck 10 times Sunday and Monday.
Islamic State forces 180,000 to flee in Iraq
(Reuters) - Fighting in Iraq's western Anbar province has forced up to 180,000 people to flee since the city of Hit fell to Islamic State earlier this month, the United Nations said on Monday.
Islamic State fighters extended that advance by overrunning a military base that the Iraqi army had abandoned 8 km (5 miles) west of Hit earlier on Monday, according to an army officer and members of a government-backed Sunni militia.
Islamic State has been on the offensive in the desert province of Anbar, bordering Syria, in recent weeks, taking the town of Hit on Oct. 2 and nearby Kubaisa on Oct. 4.
That has raised concerns in the West because it is close to Baghdad and demonstrates the group's reach; while operating successfully in Anbar, it is also on the verge of taking the strategic town of Kobani hundreds of miles away in northern Syria on the border with Turkey.
In Baghdad, three bombs exploded in Shi'ite parts of the capital on Monday, killing 30 people, police and medical officials said, continuing a wave of attacks targeting Iraq's majority religious group.
There was no claim of responsibility for the bombings, but Islamic State claimed a string of attacks in Baghdad on Sunday that left 45 dead.
As a result of the fighting and air strikes in Anbar, carried out by the Iraqi government and a U.S.-led military coalition, up to 30,000 families or 180,000 individuals have fled Hit, the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said. [ID:nL6N0S82NI]
The war in Anbar and its conquest of Mosul have allowed Islamic State to hold territory from eastern Syria across Sunni parts of Iraq with the goal of establishing a caliphate.
SUICIDE BOMBERS
In northern Syria, three Islamic State fighters blew themselves up on Monday in Kobani, a monitoring group said, with the hardline militants making slight advances inside the besieged Kurdish town.
In one of the attacks, an Islamic State fighter detonated a truck laden with explosives in a northern district of Kobani, which has been the scene of heavy clashes between Kurdish forces and Islamic State fighters, Kurdish sources said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group reported more heavy fighting on Monday inside the city, where U.S.-led air strikes have so far failed to halt the militants' advance.
Rami Abderahman of the Observatory said one of the suicide attacks targeted a bus station in the northwest of Kobani and that the group had taken around 50 percent of the town.
"They now control the cultural centre, which means they have advanced further inside the town," he said.
The Observatory said there had been at least five U.S.-led strikes early on Monday, mainly targeting southern districts of Kobani, which is known as Ayn al-Arab in Arabic. Clashes also continued to the east, killing a dozen Islamic State fighters.
The militant group wants to seize the town to consolidate a dramatic sweep across northern Iraq and Syria. [ID:nL6N0S821H]
The United States and Saudi Arabia launched eight air strikes on Sunday and Monday against Islamic State targets in Syria, including seven near Kobani, the U.S. military said.
Four strikes southwest of Kobani hit Islamic State units and destroyed a machine gun firing position, while three strikes northeast of Kobani struck a militant unit and damaged a staging location and several buildings. Another strike hit an Islamic State garrison northwest of Raqqa, the military said.
DENIAL
In a blow to U.S. hopes, Turkey denied it had agreed to let the United States use its Incirlik air base in the fight against Islamic State, and sources at the Turkish prime minister's office said talks were continuing on the subject.
Turkey had however reached an agreement with Washington on training Syrian rebels, the sources told reporters, without saying who would train the insurgents or where.
The comments come after U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice said Turkey had agreed to let forces from a U.S.-led military coalition use its bases for activities inside Iraq and Syria and to train moderate Syrian rebels.
Syria's air force meanwhile carried out strikes against rebels at more than double its usual rate on Monday, according to the Observatory.
The intensified air strikes by President Bashar al-Assad's government will add to the fear among Assad's opponents that he is taking advantage of the U.S. strikes to crush other foes, including the "moderate opposition" that Washington backs.
The United States says it does not want to help Assad's government despite bombing Islamic State, the most powerful group fighting against Damascus in a three-year-old civil war. Washington aims to help arm moderates to fight against both Assad and Islamic State.
But within days of the start of U.S. air strikes in Syria last month, Assad's government stepped up the tempo of its own air campaign against rebels closer to the capital Damascus.
The Observatory said the Syrian air force had struck 40 times on Monday in areas in Idlib and Hama provinces, including dropping oil drums packed with explosives and shrapnel.
Sunday 12 October 2014
Qatar pledges $1B for Gaza Strip reconstruction
(AP) — Qatar pledged $1 billion Sunday toward the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip after this year's devastating Israel-Hamas war, once again using its vast wealth to reinforce its role as a regional player as Gulf Arab rival the United Arab Emirates promised $200 million.
The pledges followed U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry earlier announcing immediate American assistance of $212 million. The European Union pledged 450 million euros ($568 million), while Turkey, which has been playing a growing role in the Middle East in recent years, said it was donating $200 million.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, however, has said Gaza needs $4 billion to rebuild.
The promises came during a one-day conference on the reconstruction of Gaza in the Egyptian capital, Cairo. Delegates representing some 50 nations and 20 regional and international organizations applauded the pledge by Qatar, a tiny but energy-rich Gulf Arab nation at odds with its larger neighbors, like the Emirates.
The Emirates, like regional heavyweight Saudi Arabia, alleges that Qatar uses its massive wealth to undermine regional stability, primarily through meddling in other nations' affairs and aiding militant Islamic groups like Gaza's Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, the Arab world's oldest Islamist group with branches across much of the region.
Qatari Foreign Minister Khalid bin Mohammed al-Attiyah, in announcing his country's pledge, denounced the "international silence" that surrounded Gaza's destruction.
"While the Palestinian people need financial support, they need more political support from the international community," he said. "A just peace is the only real guarantee for not destroying what we are about to rebuild and reconstruct."
Organizers of the Cairo conference hope the pledges will be paid over the period of three years to aid reconstruction in the Gaza Strip, which borders Israel and Egypt. Both countries have blockaded Gaza since Hamas took power there in 2007, causing the territory of 1.8 million people economic hardships and high unemployment.
Donors plan to funnel the aid through Abbas' Palestinian Authority, and bypass Hamas. Abbas and Hamas recently formed a national unity government which held its first Cabinet meeting in Gaza last week.
The Western-backed Abbas, speaking to delegates, said the latest Gaza war caused "tragedies that are difficult to be described by words. ... Entire neighborhoods have been reduced to rubble." The 50-day war was the third between Hamas and Israel since 2008.
"The (Palestinian) government will carry out the reconstruction plan with full responsibility and transparency in coordination with the U.N., the donors, international financial institutions, civil society and the private sector," he said.
Leading participants said the reconstruction of Gaza cannot be carried out in isolation from efforts to revive Israeli-Palestinian talks in search of a comprehensive and lasting settlement and.
"We must not lose sight of the root causes of the recent hostilities: A restrictive occupation that has lasted almost half a century, the continued denial of Palestinian rights and the lack of tangible progress in peace negotiations," said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who later announced in a news conference that he planned to visit Gaza on Tuesday.
"I call on all parties to come together to chart a clear course toward a just and final peace," Ban said. "Going back to the status quo is not an option; this is the moment for transformational change."
The latest conflict in Gaza was the most ruinous of the three wars, killing more than 2,000 Palestinians — mostly civilians, the U.N. says. Another 11,000 were wounded, and some 100,000 people remain homeless.
Kerry said Gazans "need our help desperately — not tomorrow, not next week, but they need it now." He said the new U.S. money, which nearly doubles American aid to the Palestinians this year, would go to security, economic development, food and medicine, shelter and water and sanitation projects.
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, whose government negotiated the cease-fire that ended the most recent war, said the reconstruction effort hinged on a "permanent calm" between Hamas and Israel, and required the exercise of "full authority" by the Palestinian Authority led by Abbas.
Egypt has had tense relations with Gaza's Hamas rulers since the Egyptian military ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi in July last year and threw its weight behind the administration of Abbas in the West Bank. Morsi belonged to the Muslim Brotherhood and his overthrow strained ties between Egypt and Qatar.
El-Sissi said the conference sent a message that "the status quo must not continue, cannot be returned to, and that any attempt to bring about temporary stability will not last long."
"I tell the Israelis, both citizens and government: The time has come to end the conflict without further delay, to grant rights and establish justice so that prosperity and security can prevail," he said.
Palestinian-Israeli peace talks have broken down, and Abbas used the conference to warn that the failure to reach a deal posed a serious threat to regional stability.
"Israel's aggression on the Gaza Strip exposed the fragility and dangerous nature of the situation in our region in the absence of a just peace," Abbas said. He called on the international community to support his bid to get the U.N. Security Council to dictate the ground rules for any future talks with Israel, including by setting a deadline for an Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian lands.
EU negotiator Catherine Ashton appeared to back the arguments of Ban, Abbas, el-Sissi that work must begin to reach a comprehensive settlement for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
"I want to stress one more time that the solution for Gaza cannot be found in Gaza alone," she said. "Only a credible resumption of the peace negotiations can allow for a durable solution to the current crisis.
"This must be the last time in which the international community is called upon to rebuild Gaza. There cannot be a return to the status quo which has proved unsustainable," she added.
US used attack helicopters near Baghdad
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(AP) — The top U.S. military officer says the U.S. called in Apache helicopters to prevent Iraqi forces from being overrun by Islamic State militants in a recent fight near Baghdad's airport.
Gen. Martin Dempsey says the extremists were within about 15 miles and had they overrun the Iraqis, "it was a straight shot to the airport."
The Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman also tells ABC's "This Week" that there could be circumstances in the future when a no-fly zone over Syria could be part of the military campaign.
Dempsey says there may come a time when he might recommend that American advisers accompany Iraqi troops against Islamic State targets. Dempsey thinks Mosul, in northern Iraq, could be the "decisive" battle in the ground campaign at some point.
Gaza reconstruction conference opens in Cairo
(AP) — An international donors' conference to help Gaza rebuild after the devastating, 50-day Israel-Hamas war this summer opened in Cairo on Sunday with participants expected to pledge hundreds of millions of dollars.
Egyptian leader Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi kicked off the one-day gathering that has brought together envoys including U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and European Union negotiator Catherine Ashton.
Egypt, which negotiated a cease-fire that ended the fighting on Aug. 27, has had tense relations with Gaza's Hamas rulers since the Egyptian military ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi in July last year and threw its weight behind the administration of Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank. Donors plan to funnel the aid through the Palestinian Authority that Abbas leads, and bypass Hamas.
Abbas told the conference that $4 billion were needed to rebuild Gaza, and that the latest war caused what he described as "tragedies that are difficult to be described by words."
"Entire neighborhoods have been reduced to rubble and 90 families are no longer listed in the civil register," he said, pledging transparency in the way the funds will be used.
Abbas and the militant Hamas group, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, recently formed a reconciliation government which held its first Cabinet meeting in Gaza last week. But a blockade of Gaza enforced by both Egypt and Israel remains in force.
Addressing the meeting, el-Sissi suggested that Hamas would have no leading role in the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip, a sliver of coastal territory on the Mediterranean bordered by Israel and Egypt.
The reconstruction effort, he said, hinged on a "permanent calm" between Hamas and Israel and required the exercise of "full authority" by the Palestinian Authority led by Abbas.
The latest conflict in Gaza was the most ruinous of three wars between Hamas and Israel since 2008, leaving more than 2,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians killed. Another 11,000 were wounded, and some 100,000 people remain homeless.
Both Abbas and el-Sissi said an Arab peace plan adopted in 2002 provided a basis for settling the Palestinian-Israel conflict. The plan envisages Israel's withdrawal from Arab territories it occupied in the 1967 Middle East war in return for normalized relations with all Arab nations.
Kurds urge more air strikes in Kobani; monitor warns of defeat
(Reuters) - Kurdish forces defending Kobani urged a U.S.-led coalition to escalate air strikes on Islamic State fighters who tightened their grip on the Syrian town at the border with Turkey on Saturday.
A group that monitors the Syrian civil war said the Kurdish forces faced inevitable defeat in Kobani if Turkey did not open its border to let through arms, something Ankara has appeared reluctant to do.
The U.S.-led coalition escalated air strikes on Islamic State in and around Kobani, also known as Ayn al-Arab, some four days ago. The main Kurdish armed group, the YPG, said in a statement the air strikes had inflicted heavy losses on Islamic State, but had been less effective in the last two days.
A Kurdish military official, speaking to Reuters from Kobani, said street fighting was making it harder for the warplanes to target Islamic State positions.
"We have a problem, which is the war between houses," said Esmat Al-Sheikh, head of the Kobani defense council.
"The air strikes are benefiting us, but Islamic State is bringing tanks and artillery from the east. We didn't see them with tanks, but yesterday we saw T-57 tanks," he added.
While Islamic State has been able to reinforce its fighters, the Kurds have not. Islamic State has besieged the town to the east, south and west, meaning the Kurds' only possible supply route is the Turkish border to the north.
The U.N. envoy to Syria on Friday called on Turkey to help prevent a slaughter in Kobani, asking it to let "volunteers" cross the frontier to reinforce Kurdish forces defending the town that lies within sight of Turkish territory.
Turkey has yet to respond to the remarks by Staffan de Mistura, who said he feared a repeat of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia. Kurdish leaders in Syria have asked Ankara to establish a corridor through Turkey to allow aid and military supplies to reach Kobani.
A senior Kurdish militant has threatened Turkey with a new Kurdish revolt if it sticks with its current policy of non-intervention in the battle for Kobani.
Islamic State "is getting supplies and men, while Turkey is preventing Kobani from getting ammunition. Even with the resistance, if things stay like this, the Kurdish forces will be like a car without fuel," said Rami Abdelrahman, who runs the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the conflict in Syria through sources on the ground.
U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said on Saturday that retired General John Allen, a U.S. envoy charged with building an international coalition against Islamic State, had just returned to Washington and reported progress.
"There was considerable progress made by General Allen specifically with Turkey," Hagel told a news conference in Santiago. He said U.S. military teams would hold talks in Turkey next week.
"They'll be spending a good deal (of time) next week with Turkey's general staff and appropriate leaders going through the specifics of Turkey's commitments to help the coalition specifically to train and equip areas of their contribution," he added.
PLUMES OF SMOKE
Turkey has been reluctant to help the Kurds defending Kobani, one of three areas of northern Syria where Kurds have established self-rule since the Syrian civil war began in 2011. The main Syrian Kurdish group has close ties to the PKK, which waged a militant campaign for Kurdish rights in Turkey and is listed as a terrorist group by Turkey and its Western allies.
Tall plumes of smoke were seen rising from Kobani on Saturday and the sound of gunfire was close to constant as battles raged into the afternoon, a Reuters journalist observing from the Turkish side of the frontier said.
After sunset, the sounds of gunfire and shelling continued. Red tracer gunfire lit the sky in the eastern sector of the town, much of which has fallen to Islamic State. Battles also raged at the southern and western edges of the town.
A Kurdish military official in the Syrian city of Qamishli, another area under Kurdish control, said thousands of fighters stood ready to go to Kobani were Turkey to open a corridor.
But Ghaliya Naamat, the official, said the fighters in Kobani needed better weaponry. "Medium-range weapons is what is lacking," she told Reuters by telephone.
"According to the news and the information in Kobani, there is no shortage in numbers. The shortage is in ammunition."
If U.S.-led air strikes fail to stop Islamic State militants from overrunning Kobani, it would be a setback for U.S. President Barack Obama's three-week-old air campaign against Islamic State in Syria.
The campaign is part of a U.S. strategy to degrade and destroy the group that has seized large areas of Syria and Iraq, threatening to redraw borders of the Middle East according to its ultra-strict vision of Islam.
U.S. officials have acknowledged that it is possible Islamic State could seize full control of the town in coming days. If that happens, the group could boast that it withstood American air power. The U.S.-led coalition has launched 50 strikes against militant positions around the town.
Hagel, in Santiago as part of a Latin America tour and a summit of Defense Ministers of the Americas in Peru next week, said U.S. air strikes were aimed at driving back Islamic State fighters from Kobani.
"We know ISIL is occupying part of the outskirts of Kobani. It is a dangerous situation and we recognize that," Hagel told the news conference in Santiago.
"We are doing what we can do through our air strikes to help drive back ISIL. In fact there has been some progress made in that area. It is a very difficult problem," he added.
The U.S. military conducted six air strikes against Islamic State militants near Kobani on Friday and Saturday, U.S. Central Command said.
"WE NEED SOMETHING EFFECTIVE"
While much of Kobani's population has fled, 500-700 mostly elderly people remained, with 10,000-13,000 nearby in a border area between Syria and Turkey, U.N. envoy De Mistura said.
The Observatory said no fewer than 226 Kurdish fighters and 298 Islamic State militants had been killed since the group launched its Kobani offensive in mid-September. It said the overall death toll including civilians was probably much higher.
Islamic State views the Kurdish YPG and its supporters as apostates due to their secular ideology.
Idris Nassan, deputy foreign minister of Kobani district, told Reuters by telephone that air strikes had helped Kurdish fighters regain some territory in the south of the city but they were not enough.
"A few days ago, ISIS attacked with a Humvee vehicle, they use mortars, cannons, tanks. We don't need just Kalashnikovs and bullets. We need something effective since they captured many tanks and military vehicles in Iraq," he said, calling for outside powers to send weapons.
"The supply of fighters is very good for YPG," he added. "But fighters coming without arms, without weaponry is not going to make a critical difference."
The Kobani crisis has sparked deadly violence in Turkey. The country's Kurdish population numbers 15 million, and Turkish Kurds have risen up since Tuesday against President Tayyip Erdogan's government, accusing it of allowing their kin to be slaughtered.
At least 33 people have been killed in three days of riots across the mainly Kurdish southeast, including two police officers shot dead in an apparent attempt to assassinate a police chief. The police chief was wounded.
Saturday 11 October 2014
Suicide bomber kills 11 in market north of Baghdad
(Reuters) - A suicide bomber detonated his explosives belt in a market north of Baghdad on Saturday, killing 11 people and wounding 21 others, medical and police officials said.
The attack took place about 28 km (17 miles) north of the capital, between the towns of Tarmiyah and Mishahda. The area has been the scene of clashes between Iraqi forces and Islamic State (IS) fighters, who have taken control of large sections of northern and western Iraq this year.
In other violence, four Iraqi soldiers died in a friendly-fire incident in the town of Udaim, 90 km northeast of Baghdad.
The soldiers, who had been wounded by IS fighters, were being taken to hospital when Shi'ite militia volunteers who mistook them for insurgents fired a rocket-propelled grenade at their vehicle, police and medical officials said.
Thursday 9 October 2014
Turkey, Kurd tensions worry US in fight for Kobani
(AP) — Even as it prods Turkey to step up in the global fight against Islamic State militants, the United States is worried that Ankara might use military action to target Kurdish fighters who are the last line of defense against extremists trying to take over the Syrian border town of Kobani.
In a careful-what-you-wish-for scenario, U.S. officials acknowledge that drawing Ankara into the war could open a new line of attack against a Kurdish movement that has for decades sought greater autonomy inside Turkey.
At the same time, Americans officials fear Turkey could simply choose to remain out of the fray, and let two of its enemies — the Islamic State group and Kurdish guerrillas — fight for Kobani. That would give the militants an opportunity to do as much damage to the Kurdish fighters in Syria as possible.
Neither scenario is agreeable, the officials said. The issues and implications are expected to be broached — delicately — when U.S. envoys coordinating the international response to the Islamic State group meet Thursday and Friday with Turkish leaders in Ankara. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the diplomatic situation by name.
For months, Turkey resisted using force against the Islamic State, which has rampaged through large amounts of territory just over its borders in Iraq and Syria. Until recently, its reluctance had been mostly excused out of security concerns for dozens of Turkish diplomats and employees who were kidnapped by the militants from the Iraqi city Mosul in June. The hostages were freed last month.
Since then, American officials have grown increasingly frustrated by Ankara's inaction against the Islamic militants, yet simultaneously nervous about what a Turkish military response would mean for the Kurdish fighters at Kobani.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Thursday that Turkey is prepared to take on a bigger role once a deal is reached with the U.S.-led coalition. "Turkey will not hold back from carrying out its role," he said.
Secretary of State John Kerry and Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu have spoken at least twice this week, and special U.S. envoy retired Marine Gen. John Allen is hoping for answers in his meetings in Ankara on how Turkey plans to join the battle.
"Clearly, on their border, this is of enormous concern to Turkey — and they recognize that," said Kerry, who also described the U.S. as "deeply concerned about the people of Kobani."
Kerry also sounded a note of caution. "These things have to be done in a thoughtful and careful way so everybody understands who is doing what and what the implications are of their doing it and where you go as a result," he said Wednesday.
Last week, Turkey's parliament approved a measure to allow for assaulting the Islamic State group, a step the U.S. and other world leaders viewed as Ankara's decision to enter the conflict. But largely left unsaid was that the measure still allows Turkish troops to take aim at the Kurdish separatists. The Kurdish fighters in Syria, known as the YPG, are tied to the Kurdistan Worker's Party, or PKK, the Kurdish separatist guerrilla movement that is fiercely opposed by the Turks. Both Ankara and Washington have designated the PKK as a terrorist organization.
Ankara is "committed to fighting ISIS terrorists and PKK terrorists," said Bulent Aliriza, a former Turkish diplomat now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, using an acronym for the Islamic State militants.
Turkey "has not intervened in Kobani to break the siege," Aliriza said. "The question is, if it were to intervene, would it fight both?"
The PKK and Turkey agreed to a cease-fire last year, but the relative peace has begun to unravel. Tensions between the two sides have flared frequently, and this week alone, 14 people were killed as Kurdish protesters clashed with police in Turkey over Ankara's hands-off approach in Kobani.
The U.S. does not consider the Syrian Kurdish fighting force or its political wing, the Kurdish Democratic Union, terrorist organizations. Still, Washington has distanced itself from both. The State Department said this week that U.S. officials have engaged with the Kurdish political party only through intermediaries.
But the Obama administration knows that the Kurdish fighters in Syria are the only force on the ground standing between the Islamic State militants and Kobani. More than 400 people have been killed in brutal clashes, according to activists, and fighting has forced at least 200,000 town residents and villagers to flee across the border into Turkey.
The U.S. military conducted five airstrikes against Islamic State positions near Kobani on Wednesday and Thursday, U.S. Central Command reported, saying, "Indications are that Kurdish militia there continue to control most of the city and are holding out" against the militants.
Still, "Kobani could be taken. We recognize that," Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby said Wednesday in Washington. "Air power is not going to be alone enough to save that city."
Turkey has said it does not want Kobani to fall. The country boasts the second-largest army among NATO forces, and has stationed a handful of troops in Syria — at a memorial south of Kobani that is dedicated to Suleyman Shah, grandfather of Osman I, founder of the Ottoman Empire.
Ankara has long called on the U.S. to increase its own military action in Syria — both against Sunni extremist groups and the government of President Bashar Assad. For years, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has demanded the creation of a humanitarian corridor buffer zone inside Syria, as well as a no-fly zone to secure Turkey's borders and stem the flow of refugees.
The White House and Pentagon maintained Wednesday that the U.S. is not considering supporting a buffer zone in Syria, which would be costly, complex and controversial to enforce.
But Kerry and British Foreign Minister Philip Hammond both said the idea of a buffer zone was worth examining, although they stopped short of endorsing it. Their comments came after French President Francois Hollande spoke with Erdogan and issued a statement in Paris announcing his support for a buffer zone to protect refugees.
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