Region

WASHINGTON — Five years after pledging to remake the US relationship with the broader Middle East and improve America’s image in the Muslim world, the Obama administration’s regional strategy appears to have come unhinged.

President Barack Obama has been confronted by fast-moving and ominous developments from Afghanistan to Tunisia, amid a bitter public power struggle between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and has adjusted his first term’s grand plan to restore Washington’s standing and influence.

Now, it’s a smaller vision that seems to rely on ad hoc responses aimed at merely keeping the United States relevant in an increasingly volatile and hostile atmosphere.

His administration has been forced to deal with three years of civil war in Syria. A Western-backed opposition is struggling to topple an autocratic government and repel Islamist fighters who also are destabilising neighbouring Lebanon and Iraq, where Al Qaeda has resurged less than three years after Obama withdrew US forces.

The US is struggling to identify a coherent position in Egypt after the military ouster of the country’s first democratically elected president. The administration tried its best to avoid calling the power transfer a coup.

It is losing patience with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who is refusing to sign a security agreement with the US. The pact would allow the US to leave some troops in the country to help train and assist Karzai’s army in keeping the Taliban at bay after America’s longest conflict ends
December 31.

Secretary of State John Kerry is trying to forge an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal against resistance from both sides, in a quest dismissed by some as quixotic.

Yet apart from Kerry’s efforts, Obama’s national security team seems to have settled on a largely hands-off, do-no-harm approach to developments in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya and Egypt.

This has attracted criticism and concern, not least from traditional US allies such as the Saudis, who, like the Israelis and many members of Congress, are wary, if not outright opposed to the administration’s engagement with Iran over its nuclear programme.

Administration officials, of course, are quick to deny suggestions of indecision, weakness or, worse, political expedience.

They say the president is adopting carefully crafted, pragmatic and diplomatic initiatives for each hot spot — initiatives designed to reduce what current officials believe was President George W. Bush’s reliance on military might and pressure tactics.

While the crises engulfing the Middle East cannot be blamed on Obama, there are growing fears that the US’ Mideast policy has become rudderless and reactive, and may be contributing to worsening conditions and a rise of Islamic extremism, notably in Syria and Iraq.

The administration has been accused of neglecting those countries while focusing on an elusive Israeli-Palestinian agreement.

“The deterioration in this region is just astounding,” Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham told reporters at a news conference in Jerusalem just three days into the New Year as Kerry was making his 10th peacemaking trip to Israel and the Palestinian territories.

“Israel is surrounded by regimes falling apart on all sides. The Iranians are marching toward a nuclear capability. Syria is becoming a cancer infecting the whole region. And I yearn for peace. But more than anything else, I yearn for leadership — leadership for my country to be accounted for at a time when the world needs American leadership.”

An Israeli-Palestinian peace deal is “an important goal and aspiration and would be great for the world”, he said, criticising the administration in the same city where Kerry was engaged in peacemaking.

“But I’ll be honest with you, as Syria falls into chaos with 130,000 dead, and the King of Jordan and Lebanon deal with the effects of a raging war in Syria, as Iraq begins to fall apart, as the Iranians enrich, we have to put this in the context of the world at large,” Graham said.

Criticism from Republicans such as Graham and Arizona Sen. John McCain, who echoed his colleague’s sentiments at the Jerusalem news conference, is to be expected. But it is coming from other quarters as well.

Senior members of the Saudi royal family have disparaged the United States on Syria and voiced their scepticism of the rapprochement with Iran.

Saudi frustration has become so intense that the kingdom took the unprecedented step of turning down a seat on the UN Security Council to protest inaction on Syria, and last week announced a $3 billion gift to the Lebanese army to help it battle extremists.

While publicly welcoming Kerry’s peace efforts, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has campaigned against his diplomacy with Iran and tried to scuttle it.

Some, including current and former US officials, worry that even the perception of disengagement is problematic and counterproductive. Their litany of complaints stretches from North Africa to Central Asia, and includes:

— a failure to carry through on threats to punish Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government for its use of chemical weapons.

— not taking a tougher stand on the ouster of Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood.

— not insisting on keeping a residual force in Iraq or offering greater support to the Iraqi government earlier.

— an inability to seal the deal to keep some troops in Afghanistan after 2014.

— seeking out a partnership with Iran while de-emphasising engagement with nascent democracies in Tunisia and Libya.

The administration has adopted an “uncertain tone” in Iraq that has left a negative impression that is seen “so often in this region”, James F. Jeffrey, an ex-senior State Department official and ambassador to Baghdad, wrote in an essay this past week.

The administration is “seemingly signalling to everyone that ‘Job One’ is not getting us in any sort of military engagement — not just some new Vietnam, but any new cruise missile raid, or small continuing military presence in Afghanistan, or perhaps a few dozen uniformed US [counterterrorism] experts to advise Iraqis on how to take down Al Qaeda in Fallujah”, Jeffrey said. “The result has been an extraordinary collapse of our credibility in the region, despite many commendable administration actions.”

Jeffrey makes the case that the administration seems to be trying to insulate itself from criticism and in doing so is actually sending the wrong message.

“What goes missing with such a focus is empathy for the impact our words have on foreigners — our allies, partners, and foes around the world,” he wrote. “They are also an audience, and the former two keep ‘voting with their feet’, from turning down Security Council seats to any given Tel Aviv news conference. Until this all changes, chaos will continue to threaten us, in the Middle East and elsewhere.”

The administration adamantly rejects such complaints.

“The policy of the administration is that diplomacy should be the first option,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Friday. She noted that Obama and Kerry have restarted the Middle East peace talks, opened direct talks with Iran and moved to rid Syria of chemical weapons without military strikes.

Just this weekend, she pointed out, Kerry will be meeting with Syrian opposition supporters and Arab League officials in Paris to discuss Syria and the peace process.

“To argue that we are not actively engaged in diplomatic efforts around the world is completely inaccurate and is baseless,” Psaki said.

“The issue with some of these [complaints] is it seems to equate engagement with military action, and engagement should not be measured by military action. Diplomacy is our first priority... It’s never in our interests to have troops in the middle of every single conflict in the Middle East or to be permanently involved in open-ended wars in the Middle East.”

Observers such as Jeffrey suggest that reasoning is too narrow.

The administration “conflates any military action with Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan as if it’s all a slippery slope — and it isn’t,” he said. “They haven’t sorted out the difference between total war and using military forces intelligently — from the air, from ships, using special forces, using aid, giving weapons, helping people with advice. That’s what we need to do. And there is no easy answer.”

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has told a cheering audience in a fiery speech that “the Palestinian people won’t kneel” and won’t drop demands to establish a capital in East Jerusalem, The Associated Press reported.

US Secretary of State John Kerry is trying to forge an agreement between Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the outlines of a peace deal, which also would address the fate of Jerusalem.

The Palestinians want a capital in East Jerusalem, one of the areas Israel occupied in 1967. Netanyahu has previously rejected a partition. Abbas and his aides fear that Kerry’s proposal, expected in the coming weeks, will only contain a vague reference to Palestinian “aspirations” in the city.

Abbas warned Saturday that “there will be no peace” without a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem.

Meanwhile, Israel unveiled plans Friday for more than 1,800 new settler housing units in a move the Palestinians said was aimed at forcing Washington to abandon its Middle East peace drive, Agence France-Presse reported.

The announcement triggered concerns in Washington and at the United Nations, and came just days after Kerry wrapped up his latest visit to the region as part of tireless efforts to coax Israelis and the Palestinians towards an elusive peace deal.

The settlement move was widely believed to be an Israeli response to the release 10 days ago of a third batch of veteran Palestinian prisoners in accordance with commitments made to Washington last year, according AFP.

Just days before the 26 prisoners were freed, an Israeli official warned that the government would push ahead with plans for new settler housing units as it has done twice previously in a bid to appease hardliners in the right-wing coalition of Netanyahu.

Friday’s announcement will see the construction of 1,076 units in occupied East Jerusalem and 801 in the occupied West Bank, a spokesman for Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now told AFP.

“The housing ministry announced the plans this morning,” said Lior Amihai.

“Many of the units will be built in existing settlements such as Efrat and Ariel in the West Bank, and Ramat Shlomo, Ramot and Pisgat Zeev in East Jerusalem.”

The ministry could not be immediately reached for confirmation.

US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the step was “not conducive to our efforts to move forward on peace”.

“We consider now and have always considered the settlements to be illegitimate,” she said.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he was “alarmed” by Israel’s plans.

“Such activity is not only illegal but also an obstacle to peace,” he said.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the move proved Israel wanted Kerry to stay away, and was another attempt by Netanyahu to “destroy” the peace process.

“The new settlement construction plan is a message from Netanyahu to Kerry not to come back to the region to continue his efforts in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks,” he told AFP.

“Every time Kerry has stepped up his efforts, returning to the region [for more talks], Netanyahu has stepped up his efforts to destroy the peace process,” he said.

“Netanyahu is determined to destroy the two-state solution.”

Israel ‘fooling’ Kerry

Erekat urged the EU in a separate statement to “sever all ties with the Israeli occupation, including companies and institutions involved with the colonisation of Palestine”.

The comments came after Dutch pension manager PGGM decided to divest from Israeli banks over their links with settlements in the West Bank.

Peace Now said the construction showed Israel was “fooling” Kerry and the Palestinians over its peace intentions.

“These actions are an indication that this government is not serious about the process, in fact they are fooling the Israeli public, the Palestinian leadership, the US secretary of state and the international community,” the watchdog said.

Israel freed the third of four batches of long-serving Palestinian prisoners on December 31, ahead of Kerry’s visit.

The two previous prisoner releases coincided directly with announcements for thousands of new settler homes, but Netanyahu delayed the latest announcement so as not to anger US officials, press reports said.

Kerry is reportedly due back in the region next week.

Direct negotiations began in late July with the aim of reaching a deal within nine months, but so far there has been little visible progress.

Kerry’s latest efforts focus on piecing together a framework to guide negotiations in the critical months ahead. He left empty-handed Monday, with US officials admitting there was “a lot of work that needs to happen, a lot of tough decisions”.

A poll published in Maariv newspaper said eight out of 10 Israelis did not believe Kerry’s efforts would succeed in reaching a peace deal. Another poll in the pro-government Israel HaYom newspaper showed 53 per cent did not even see him as an honest broker.

The international community views all Israeli construction on land seized during the 1967 war as illegal, and settlement activity is considered one of the most bitter issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

There are currently some 350,000 settlers living in the occupied West Bank, with another 200,000 in occupied East Jerusalem.

EU ‘deeply concerned’

The European Union’s foreign policy supremo said Saturday she was “deeply concerned” by what she said were “illegal” Israeli plans for more than 1,800 new settler housing units, AFP reported.

“I was deeply concerned to hear the latest announcement by the Israeli authorities to advance settlement plans once more,” Catherine Ashton said in a statement.

She added the settlements were “illegal under international law, constitute an obstacle to peace and threaten to make the two-state solution impossible”.

She reiterated her call on Israel to cease its settlement building and said current efforts at peace talks were a “unique opportunity” for both sides.

JUBA — South Sudanese government troops were Saturday battling to recapture Bor, the last remaining rebel-held town, the army said, a day after wresting control of a key northern oil city.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon and the Security Council, meanwhile, urged President Salva Kiir to free political detainees loyal to rebel leader Riek Machar in order to kickstart stalled peace talks.

The UN leader also warned that evidence of widespread atrocities committed during the nearly month-long conflict would be investigated, and that “perpetrators of serious human rights violations will be held accountable”.

The fighting has forced nearly 400,000 people to flee their homes and caused “very substantially in excess” of 1,000 dead, according to the United Nations.

Of those forced to flee, some 350,000 are internally displaced and the remainder have fled into neighbouring countries.

The International Crisis Group, an independent think-tank, said it believed as many as 10,000 people have been killed in just four weeks of fighting in the world’s youngest nation, which won independence from Khartoum only in 2011.

“There is still fighting near Bor,” South Sudan’s army spokesman Philip Aguer told AFP on Saturday, amid government efforts to mobilise thousands of more troops and deal a final, crushing blow to Machar — a former vice president and seasoned guerrilla fighter — and his allies.

On Friday the army marched into Bentiu, capital of the northern oil-producing Unity State, although the rebels insisted it was only a “temporary setback”. Machar told AFP by telephone that his forces would fight on and defend Bor, capital of the flashpoint state of Jonglei some 200 kilometres north of national capital Juba.

“We withdrew from Bentiu, but it was to avoid fighting in the streets and save civilian lives. We fight on, we will continue the battle,” Machar told AFP by phone from an undisclosed location.

A rebel military spokesman also claimed that anti-government forces still controlled vital oil infrastructure near Bentiu. South Sudan’s crude production, a key source of income for the impoverished nation, has dropped by around a fifth since the fighting began.

An AFP reporter in Minkammen, across the White Nile from Bor where tens of thousands of people have sought refuge, saw dozens of government soldiers boarding barges and heading to the frontline.

Fighting began on December 15 as clashes inside army units, but spread rapidly with government troops fighting huge battles against breakaway soldiers and ethnic militiamen loosely allied to Machar.

The conflict has also sparked a sharp upsurge in ethnic violence between members of President Kiir’s majority Dinka tribe against Machar’s Nuer community.

The East African regional bloc IGAD has been hosting ceasefire talks in a luxury hotel in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, and trying to get the two sides to agree to a ceasefire.

But Machar has demanded that 11 of his allies who were arrested by the government when the fighting started be released before he agrees to a truce. President Kiir has refused to free them, arguing they should be put on trial for what he maintains was a coup attempt.

BEIRUT — Iran will have no choice but to step up its uranium enrichment if a bill now moving through parliament is approved, even though it has no current need for such highly enriched uranium, its nuclear chief said on Saturday.

The bill has received expressions of support from at least 218 of parliament’s 290 members and, if passed, could threaten progress toward a resolution of Iran’s long-running row with the international community over its nuclear programme, on which a landmark interim agreement was struck last November.

The parliament is much more hawkish than Iran’s new president Hassan Rouhani on the nuclear issue, although some see the proposal, put forward last month, as a response to a bill introduced by conservatives in the US Senate that would impose new sanctions on Iran.

Iran has stockpiles of uranium enriched to 5 per cent fissile purity, sufficient for nuclear power stations, and 20 per cent, of great concern to major powers because it is a relatively short technical step from weapons-grade.

The bill would call for enrichment to 60 per cent, sufficient for use in the reactors that power nuclear submarines. Iran says it plans to build one of these, but the think-tank GlobalSecurity.org says this would require a vast leap in Iran’s manufacturing capacity.

Salehi told the Iranian Jaam-e-Jam network in an interview that Iran did not currently need such highly-enriched uranium, according to the state news agency IRNA.

But he added: “If the members of parliament see that it’s in the interests of the country that 60 per cent enrichment could be useful, and they turn this desire into a law, then we will have no choice but to obey.”

The semi-official Fars News agency said lawmakers were scheduled to discuss the bill next week.

Under the terms of the interim deal struck with the United States, Russia, China, Germany, France and Britain, Iran must limit its high-level enrichment for a period of six months in exchange for relief from some international sanctions.

The deal is meant to buy time for a full pact to be agreed to end more than a decade of tension over Western concerns that Iran may be trying to develop an atomic weapons capacity under cover of a programme that it says is wholly peaceful.

Salehi, appointed by Rouhani, made clear that he favoured a negotiated deal:

“Overall, there’s no option other than coming to an agreement. The next choice would be disagreeing, which would not benefit us, them, the region or anyone else.”

Separately, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has invited European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who liaises with Tehran on behalf of the six powers, to visit Iran, Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told the Mehr News agency.

Ashton’s spokesman, Michael Mann, said she “noted with interest” the reports of a possible invitation, adding that Ashton “has already indicated that she intends to visit Tehran as the work towards a comprehensive agreement progresses”.

BEIRUT — It started with a “selfie”: a self-portrait picture of 16-year-old Mohammad Al Chaar, who was killed in a Beirut car bomb, has sparked a mini political protest by Lebanese citizens.

In dozens of pictures posted on Facebook and Twitter, young Lebanese hold up signs with a personal message and the hashtag #notamartyr, protesting the cycle of political violence in their country.

The “Not A Martyr” campaign sprung up after Chaar was killed in a December 27 car bombing that targeted moderate Lebanese politician Mohammad Chatah.

Moments before the explosion in downtown Beirut, the teenager had posed for a selfie with his friends.

A day later, he died of his injuries in hospital.

Angered and appalled by his death, a group of young Lebanese started a protest page on Facebook.

“We can no longer normalise the persistent violence. We can no longer desensitise ourselves to the constant horror of life in Lebanon,” the page reads.

“We are victims, not martyrs,” adds the page, rejecting the notion that innocent bystanders be labelled in the same way as those who chose to die for a political or religious cause.

“But we are not hopeless, and we have dreams for our country... Tell us what you want for your country. Tell us what you want to live for.”

More than 7,000 people have “liked” the page, and hundreds have posted their own selfies.

“I want to live for my son, not die for my country,” reads one message with a photo of a woman kissing her young son on the beach.

“As a future doctor, I hope that none of my patients are victims of war, bombings, politics or religion,” reads a hand-scrawled message.

Dyala Badran, a 25-year-old Beirut resident, was among the first to respond to the campaign, posting a selfie on her Twitter account on December 30.

She looks into the camera, clutching a small sheet of white paper with the message “I want to bring the murderers to justice” written in black, and the word justice underlined.

“I posted probably one of the more dramatic ones,” she told AFP, adding that she felt “a lot of anger” building in her since Chaar’s death.

“I was very angry that he was being labelled a martyr, because in my eyes, he wasn’t, he was a victim of murder,” she said.

‘It could have been any of us’

Her message was also intended to challenge what she calls a culture of “normalisation” in Lebanon, where a population that weathered a 15-year civil war and numerous car bombs and attacks has learned to go about life after each new incident.

“We just get on with our lives. That’s supposed to be resilience, but it’s not, its normalising all this really dangerous violence,” Badran said.

“Why are we letting these murderers go about their lives without trying them?”

Another participant, Carina Aoun, left Lebanon two years ago for Dubai, and posted a message expressing the frustration of many Lebanese who end up abroad.

“I want to stop looking for a new place to call ‘home’,” her message reads.

“It’s that feeling of leaving because something might happen in Lebanon... it’s unstable,” she told AFP from the Gulf emirate, where she works in advertising.

“You’d love to go back, but you have to think about your life and what you hope to achieve.”

Aoun also objected to those terming Chaar a “martyr”, and said his death hit home for many young Lebanese who imagined themselves in his place.

“The youth in Lebanon feel with him because it could have been any of us.”

While the campaign has attracted support and attention, it comes at a time when Lebanon is deeply divided.

The bomb that killed Chaar was the latest in a string of attacks, many thought to be linked to the conflict in neighbouring Syria.

Many Lebanese feel trapped by their country’s political violence but others are directly involved in the long-running fighting in the northern city of Tripoli, or even heading across the border to battle for or against the Syrian regime.

Badran acknowledged the campaign’s prospect for short-term change are slim, but said she was heartened by it nonetheless.

“If we keep talking about these issues, then maybe we’ll remember to work on them,” she said.

“I think it’s very important to just talk about these things, to not just move on as we usually do.”

Aoun also sounded a positive note.

“It takes a long time for change to come about it, but the start is what matters and I think this is an excellent start.”

WASHINGTON — In its last-ditch attempt to get moderate Syrian opposition groups to the negotiating table, the Obama administration faces the prospect that a no-show wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

With less than two weeks to go before a long-planned peace conference in Switzerland, the main Western-backed moderate political group seeking to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad has still not decided if it will attend. It’s the latest frustration for the US and allies who have spent the last 18 months trying to negotiate a transition of power from Assad to a new, representative government.

But even if the Syrian National Coalition agrees to attend the January 22 peace meeting — as Secretary of State John Kerry will push this weekend in Paris with the coalition’s newly re-elected president — analysts say it does not have enough credibility with other Syrian groups to sit as an official counterbalance to Assad’s regime. And it might not matter, in the long run, if they don’t show.

“If the expectations to begin with are very low, then you can’t really fail — can you?” Kamran Bokhari, a Toronto-based expert on Mideast issues for the global intelligence company Stratfor, said Friday. “The constraints that the US has are clear to the international community, and it’s not going to be a surprise.

“What would be a surprise is if they are able to make a difference,” Bokhari said. “So nobody has too high of expectations.”

Coalition council President Ahmad Al Jarba, who was re-elected last week, heads a shaky alliance of opposition groups that is sharply divided on whether to attend the conference, designed to begin a negotiated peace after three years of civil war. At least 45 members have temporarily suspended their membership over the impasse. Most of its leaders are in exile outside of Syria and have been accused by rebel fighters and other activists inside the war-torn country of being ineffective and out of touch.

An estimated 180 representatives of opposition groups to Assad met in southern Spain on Friday to seek common ground.

In the meantime, Assad has stabilised his grasp on areas of Syria he still controls and shows no sign of stepping down in the war that has left at least 120,000 people dead.

Persuading Al Jarba and the coalition to attend the peace conference in Montreux, Switzerland, will be a top priority for Kerry and 10 other diplomats from Western countries and Sunni-dominated Arab states meeting Sunday in Paris.

For Syrian coalition members, the conference in Switzerland offers their first opportunity to face the Syrian administration face to face.

A senior State Department official said Friday that US officials believe the Syrian coalition will be at the negotiating table in Montreux in spite of difficulties along the way because the coalition won’t want to miss the unique opportunity the conference offers them.

“We have always said that we would like to see a representative delegation including the armed opposition,” said State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki. “We remain engaged with the opposition and we look forward to the opposition naming a representative delegation in the days ahead.”

Iran, which is allied with Assad, will not attend the peace conference, US officials said. That clears at least one objection of the moderate coalition. But the coalition also has asked that the peace conference set a time frame for an end to the fighting as its main focus, which US officials have rejected.

Kerry also will likely discuss the possibility of resuming nonlethal aid to moderate rebel groups as a part of the talks in Paris.

The aid, which included medical supplies and communications equipment and was halted in December amid fears it was being used by insurgents among the rebel groups, could be used as a bargaining point with Al Jarba. A senior State Department official said no decision has been made to do so, but that it is debated frequently with improving security within some parts of Syria. The official was not authorised to speak by name and requested anonymity.

Whether or not Jarba’s group attends, Bokhari said the main purpose of the peace conference likely will aim to bring together the disparate backers of the regime and opposition groups to hammer out an agreement on moving forward. That is particularly important now as sectarian violence in Syria is spilling over into neighboring Iraq and Lebanon.

“If you can’t make progress in resolving the conflict, can you make progress in dealing with the amount of human suffering and spillover into other counties from the conflict?” said Anthony Cordesman, a Mideast scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“The whole idea that somehow a dialogue between the rebels and the people at the meeting would produce a political solution, or progress toward one, is literally almost the art of the incredible at this point, whether they show up or not,” Cordesman said Friday. “On the other hand, there will be a lot of people there who could do more about at least making some progress on humanitarian issues.”

SANAA — Yemeni troops began to deploy in the northern province of Saada on Saturday to monitor a ceasefire between Shiite rebels and hardline Sunni Salafists, a security official said.

The deal brokered late Friday by a presidential commission ends fighting that erupted in late October centred on a Salafist mosque and Koranic school in the town of Dammaj.

But the deadly conflict had spread in the northern provinces, embroiling Sunni tribes wary of the Shiite rebels, known as Huthis, who have been accused of receiving support from Iran.

“Forces have begun deploying in the areas surrounding Dammaj,” the Saada-based security official told AFP, adding some gunmen had not yet vacated their posts.

The deal stipulated the two sides would withdraw from the areas around Dammaj to be replaced by army troops who would monitor the ceasefire, said Yahya Abu Isba, head of the presidential mediation commission.

“This agreement ends the military conflict between the Huthis and the Salafists in Dammaj... and prevents a sectarian war that was looming over Yemen,” he told state television.

The Huthis, named after their late leader Abdel Malek Al Huthi, are part of the Zaidi Shiite community.

They rose up in 2004 in their stronghold of Saada against former president Ali Abdullah Saleh’s government, complaining of marginalisation.

They accuse radical Sunnis in Dammaj of turning the town centre into “a real barracks for thousands of armed foreigners”, a reference to the Dar Al Hadith Koranic school, where foreigners study.

The security official said a plane was expected to evacuate “foreign students” and the leader of the Salafists in Dammaj, Yahya Al Hujuri, on Saturday.

Sources in the mediation commission told AFP that Hujuri had requested President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi decide on a solution for the Koranic school and its foreign students, while providing protection for the town.

Dammaj has a population of about 15,000 people.

The Red Cross said it evacuated 25 casualties from Dammaj on Saturday after the ceasefire.

The wounded, some of whom are in a critical condition, have been airlifted from Saada airport to Sanaa, the spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Yemen, Marie Claire Feghali told AFP.

The ICRC said on Monday it evacuated 34 critically wounded casualties from Dammaj, taking advantage of an earlier truce, as it has done five times since fighting resumed in the area on October 24.

On Wednesday, a presidential commission also brokered a ceasefire between the Huthis and gunmen from the powerful Hashid tribes, ending two days of clashes in the northern province of Amran.

TUNIS — Riots over Tunisia’s economy flared overnight in towns around the country, leaving one dead and posing an immediate challenge to the new prime minister and the country’s path to democracy.

Crowds protested late Friday outside the government finance buildings in the low-income neighbourhood of Ettaddamon over new taxes levied by the outgoing government described as necessary to fill yawning holes in the country’s budget.

The tax hikes were hastily suspended by the outgoing prime minister, but the decision failed to calm angry crowds and casts doubt on future government efforts to rein in spending and raise revenues.

Police reported that local criminals took advantage and began looting stores and clashing with authorities. They were dispersed with tear gas, interior ministry spokesman Mohamed Ali Aroui said Saturday.

Nearly 50 people were arrested in clashes in suburbs of Tunis, Aroui said.

In another clash, one young protester was killed and a police officer was injured in the town of Bouchebka on the Algerian border, Aroui said. He said an investigation is under way into what happened.

The latest riots came hours after a new caretaker prime minister, Mehdi Jomaa, was charged with forming a technocratic Cabinet to guide the country to new elections.

“I will do everything in my power to confront the challenges, overcome the obstacles and restore stability and security to Tunisia,” the new prime minister told reporters after the swearing-in.

Since Tunisia overthrew its authoritarian president in 2011 and set off revolutions around the Arab world, this small Mediterranean country’s economy has suffered, fuelling social unrest.

In the restive aftermath of Tunisia’s revolution, tourists fled, factories were shuttered by strikes, investment evaporated and inflation soared, worsening most residents’ daily lives. International ratings agencies downgraded the country’s credit rating to junk status, making borrowing on the international markets more difficult.

After the economy shrank 2 per cent in 2011, growth returned at 2.7 per cent in 2013, but that is far below the level needed to create jobs. Unemployment hovers at 17 per cent.

RAMALLAH — Palestinians on Saturday hailed the death of former Israeli premier Ariel Sharon, describing him as a “criminal” but regretting that he is now permanently beyond the reach of the law.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) also lamented the fact Sharon was never prosecuted, particularly over his role in the 1982 massacre of hundreds of Palestinians by Israel’s Lebanese Phalangist allies in Beirut’s Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps.

“It’s a shame that Sharon has gone to his grave without facing justice for his role in Sabra and Shatilla and other abuses,” HRW’s Middle East Director Sarah Leah Whitson said in a statement.

“For the thousands of victims of abuses, Sharon’s passing without facing justice magnifies their tragedy.”

Sharon had been in a coma for the past eight years since suffering a massive stroke on January 4, 2006, just months after pulling all troops and settlers out of the Gaza Strip. His condition worsened last week and he died at a hospital near Tel Aviv on Saturday.

The news prompted an outburst of celebration in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, where around a hundred Islamic Jihad members burned pictures of him and handed out sweets, a spokesman said.

For the ruling Islamist Hamas movement, which seized power in Gaza in 2007, just two years after the Israeli pullout, Sharon’s death “is a lesson for all tyrants”.

“Our people are living at a historic moment with the disappearance of this criminal whose hands were covered with the blood of Palestinians and their leaders,” said Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri.

Among those killed by Israel during Sharon’s term in office was Hamas’ wheelchair-bound spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, who was killed in an air strike on Gaza City in 2004.

Similar sentiments were expressed in the West Bank, where a senior official also blasted him as a “criminal” and accused Sharon of being responsible for the mysterious death in the same year of veteran Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

“Sharon was a criminal, responsible for the assassination of Arafat, and we would have hoped to see him appear before the International Criminal Court as a war criminal,” said Jibril Rajub, a senior official of the ruling Fateh Party.

Arafat was Sharon’s nemesis and the burly Israeli leader often expressed regret at not killing him during the 1982 invasion of Beirut.

After the Palestinian leader fell mysteriously ill while under a tight Israeli siege in 2004, dying in France several weeks later, rumours swirled that Israel had poisoned him.

Israel has repeatedly denied the allegations.

A history ‘written in Palestinian blood’

“We had hoped he would be brought before the International Criminal Court (ICC) as a war criminal,” said Rajub, who was head of the Palestinian security services when Sharon sent troops to the West Bank in a mass operation to wipe out militant groups in 2002.

“Sharon’s history is blackened by his crimes and written in the blood of the Palestinians,” said Jamal Huweil, a former militant from the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, an armed offshoot of Fateh.

“The curse of our blood will follow him to his grave,” said Huweil who is now a member of the Palestinian parliament, the PLC.

Human Rights Watch said that the failure to bring Sharon to justice had in no way helped the search for peace.

“His passing is another grim reminder that years of virtual impunity for rights abuses have done nothing to bring Israeli-Palestinian peace any closer. For the thousands of victims of abuses,” Whitson said.

As minister of defence, Sharon was forced to resign following the Beirut camp killings of 1982 after an Israeli commission of inquiry found he had been “indirectly responsible” for the massacre.

The commission found that Sharon had disregarded the “serious consideration... that the Phalangists were liable to commit atrocities”, recommending that he be dismissed as defence minister, HRW said.