Region

BAGHDAD — Iraq hanged 11 people convicted of terrorist offences on Thursday, the justice ministry said, pursuing what a UN official has criticised as a “conveyor-belt of executions”.

All those executed were Iraqi nationals, justice ministry spokesman Haider Al Saadi said in a text message to Reuters, bringing the total number of people executed in less than one week to 37.

Violence in Iraq has surged in the past year to its highest levels since the Sunni-Shiite sectarian bloodshed that peaked in 2006 and 2007, when tens of thousands of people were killed.

Police on Thursday said they had thwarted an attack against a meeting of the provincial council in Diyala province, killing seven suicide bombers and dismantling five car bombs that were apparently to be used during the foiled assault.

Gunmen also attacked an Iraqi army base in Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib neighbourhood killing two soldiers, and a roadside bomb exploded when a minibus was passing near Tarmiya, north of the capital, killing another person, police said.

Iraq hanged at least 151 people in 2013, up from 129 in 2012 and 68 in 2011, New York-based Human Rights Watch said in its annual world report published on Tuesday.

The United Nations Human Rights chief, Navi Pillay, has frequently condemned Iraq’s mass executions.

“This continued conveyor belt of executions by the government of Iraq is simply deplorable,” her spokesman, Rupert Colville, said on Sunday, after 26 people were hanged.

“Iraq’s justice system still has huge deficiencies which mean that resorting to even a small number of executions is risking a grave and irredeemable miscarriage of justice,” he said. “When people are executed by the dozen, it means that such miscarriages of justice are virtually certain to be occurring.” 

BAGHDAD — Shelling in Fallujah, a town near Baghdad held by anti-government fighters, killed four people, officials said Thursday, as Barack Obama pressed “political measures” along with security operations to fight militancy.

But with an election looming in April, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has taken a hard line and trumpeted assaults on militants, with security forces announcing the killing of more than 50 fighters in recent air strikes amid ongoing efforts to retake areas of another city partly out of government control.

Several neighbourhoods in south Fallujah were hit by shelling late Wednesday, residents of the city told AFP, with four people killed and 18 others wounded, according to Dr. Ahmed Shami from the city’s main hospital.

Fallujah residents blame the army for the shelling, but defence officials say the military is not responsible.

Mortars also struck in the centre of Ramadi but did not cause any casualties, a police captain said.

Parts of Ramadi and all of Fallujah, both west of Baghdad, have for weeks been in the hands of anti-government fighters, including those affiliated with the Al Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

It marks the first time militants have exercised such open control in Iraqi cities since the peak of the violence that followed the 2003 US-led invasion.

The government has changed its language in recent days from referring to all anti-government fighters in Anbar as Al Qaeda to instead using terms such as gangs.

And while Fallujah residents and tribal sheikhs have said ISIL has tightened its grip on the city in recent days, other militant groups and anti-government tribes have also been involved in fighting government forces in both cities.

Iraqi security forces have recruited their own tribal allies.

US President Barack Obama on Wednesday met with Iraq’s parliament speaker Osama Nujaifi, the country’s most senior Sunni politician, and “encouraged Iraq’s leaders to continue dialogue to address the legitimate grievances of all communities through the political process”, a White House statement said.

“Both sides agreed on the need for both security and political measures to combat terrorism,” it added.

Diplomats and foreign leaders, including Obama and UN chief Ban Ki-moon, have pushed Maliki to do more to work with Iraq’s Sunni community and pursue political reconciliation.

But while the government has made some concessions in recent months to the disaffected minority, it has mostly focused on wide-ranging security operations.

Air strikes launched across Anbar killed 50 militants, including foreign fighters of Arab nationality, the defence ministry said Wednesday.

Soldiers, police and SWAT forces have meanwhile joined with tribal allies in an offensive that continued Wednesday against gunmen holding several neighbourhoods of Ramadi.

BEIRUT — Lebanese soldiers shot and killed a jihadist suspected of belonging to Al Qaeda-linked groups after he opened fire on them in the country’s eastern Bekaa valley, the army said on Thursday.

“While carrying out searches for individuals suspected of involvement in terrorist acts, particularly car bombings, and after receiving a tip, the army set up a checkpoint on Wednesday afternoon to arrest Palestinian Ibrahim Abdel Moati Abu Moaylaq,” the army said.

“He tried to flee in his car, hitting a soldier, and then opened fire on the checkpoint to cover his escape, wounding an officer,” the statement added.

“The soldiers responded with fire, mortally wounding him, while his accomplice was able to escape.”

The army said Mouaylaq “belonged to the Abdullah Azzam Brigades and had ties to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant”.

The Abdullah Azzam Bridages is a Lebanese jihadist group linked to Al Qaeda, whose leader Majid Al Majid died after being arrested by Lebanese authorities earlier this month.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is a jihadist group operating in Iraq and Syria that is inspired by Al Qaeda.

The army said Mouaylaq was coordinating with an ISIL chief across the border in Syria “to transfer suicide bombers into Lebanon to carry out terrorist attacks”.

BEIRUT — Nearly 1,400 people have been killed in Syria since clashes between rebels and the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) erupted this month, a monitor said Thursday.

“The number of people killed in fighting between the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and Islamist and rebel forces since January 3 has risen to 1,395,” the Syrian observatory for Human Rights said.

The observatory, a Britain-based group that relies on activists and other sources on the ground, said the figure included 760 moderate and Islamist rebels, 426 ISIL fighters, 190 civilians and 19 others whose identities have not been established.

Clashes between rebels and jihadists from ISIL erupted early in January after months of rising tensions.

The all-out fight has seen ISIL lose territory in Idlib and Aleppo provinces, but it has consolidated its hold over Raqa city, the only provincial capital to be pried from regime control.

Elsewhere in northern Syria, near the Turkish border, ISIL militants seized control of Manjib, northeast of Aleppo, after several days of clashes in which 12 Kurdish fighters died, the observatory said.

And three people were killed, including a young girl, and 15 wounded in a car-bomb blast in the Kurdish-held village of Malkiyeh close to the border.

Regime air raids on Aleppo left another 16 people dead, including three women and eight children, after warplanes hit several rebel-held areas in the south of the city.

Al Qaeda leader Ayman Al Zawahiri, in an audio message posted online on Thursday, urged all jihadist forces “to immediately halt fighting between brothers”.

While opposition fighters initially welcomed foreign jihadists to the battle, ISIL has been accused of a string of abuses against civilians and rival rebel groups.

Among the abuses that sparked the fierce clashes was ISIL’s kidnap, torture and execution of a doctor from a powerful Islamist rebel brigade.

GENEVA — A UN envoy met members of Syria’s opposition Geneva on Thursday as efforts began to salvage peace talks by focusing on local ceasefires and prisoner swaps rather than a political deal.

The first day of talks on Wednesday was dominated by fierce rhetoric from President Bashar Assad’s government and its foes. Brought together for the first time in almost three years of war, each accused the other of atrocities and showed no sign of compromise.

UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi met leaders of the Syrian opposition at a Geneva hotel to discuss the agenda for further talks on Friday. The opposition then went to meet officials from the United States, France and Britain. Brahimi was due to meet the delegation from Assad’s government later on Thursday.

Officials still hope they can salvage the process by starting with more modest, practical measures to ease the plight of millions of people on the ground, especially in areas cut off from international aid.

More than 130,000 people are believed to have been killed, nearly a third of Syria’s 22 million people have been driven from their homes and half are in need of international aid, including hundreds of thousands in areas cut off by fighting.

Wednesday’s opening ceremony saw global powers vigorously defend their sides, with Western countries, Arab states and Turkey all joining the opposition in demanding a transitional government that would exclude Assad.

Russia, his main global supporter, said the focus of talks should be on fighting “terrorism”, a word the Syrian government applies to all of its armed opponents.

Human organs

In the most dramatic moment of the conference, Assad’s foreign minister accused opposition fighters of raping dead women, killing foetuses and eating human organs, drawing a rebuke from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon for using inflammatory language.

Foreign Minister Walid Mouallem also dismissed any suggestion that Assad might leave power, saying no international forum had the right to question the president’s legitimacy. Western and Arab states declared Assad must go.

The main negotiations, expected to last up to a week, are not due to begin until Friday, giving mediators a day to lower the temperature and focus on pragmatic steps.

One of the opposition negotiators, Haitham Al Maleh, said the mood was positive despite the tough first day. He spoke of a two-stage process, with practical steps like prisoner swaps, ceasefires, the withdrawal of heavy weapons and setting up aid corridors being dealt with first, before the political future.

The talks remain fragile, however, with both sides threatening to pull out — the government says it will not discuss removing Assad, while the opposition says it will not stay unless Assad’s removal is the basis for talks.

“There is an international willingness for this to succeed, but we don’t know what will happen,” Maleh said. “It is possible that [the government] might withdraw. We will withdraw if Geneva takes another course and deviates from the transition, to the government narrative that they are fighting terrorism.”

Emotional rhetoric

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov played down the contentious speeches that opened the talks, and emphasised the positive: “As expected, the sides came up with rather emotional rhetoric. They blamed one another,” he told reporters.

“For the first time in three years of bloody conflict... the sides — for all their accusations — agreed to sit down at the negotiating table.”

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, one of the staunchest backers of the opposition, said: “Hope exists, but it’s fragile. We must continue because the solution to this terrible Syrian conflict is political and needs us to continue discussions.”

Among the many difficulties with the process, the opposition delegation does not include Al Qaeda-linked Sunni Islamist militant groups who control much of the territory in rebel hands and have denounced those attending the talks as traitors.

Rebel ranks have been divided, with hundreds killed in recent weeks in battles between rival factions and Al Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Al Qaeda leader Ayman Al Zawahri called on fighters to unite.

GENEVA — Syrian Kurds protested Thursday their exclusion from UN-brokered peace talks in Switzerland, and vowed to forge ahead with their own freedom drive in territories they control.

“Some forces are trying to exclude us from the solutions they are looking for, and they’re not representing anybody,” said Saleh Muslim, leader of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD).

“We will continue our struggle until we get our democratic rights,” he told reporters in Geneva, where the Syrian government and opposition were to hold separate meetings with the UN mediator on Friday, two days after angry exchanges at the so-called Geneva II international peace conference in the Swiss city of Montreux.

Speaking on behalf of the Syrian Kurdish Supreme Council — made up of a range of groups from the country’s Kurdish minority — Muslim said its efforts to join the talks had failed.

That was despite repeated requests to the United Nations, the United States and Russia, the main movers in getting the Syrian regime and opposition coalition to the table.

The opposition delegation in Geneva includes Abdel Hamid Darwish, head of the Kurdish Progressive Democratic Party, which has questioned the PYD’s drive for self-rule in northeastern Syria.

But Muslim poured scorn on Darwish’s clout within the delegation, and complained that rights for the Kurdish minority were not on the table.

“How can you bring democracy to Syria without solving the Kurdish issue in Syria? The Kurdish issue should be solved within Geneva II,” he said.

He said Syria was home to 3.5 million Kurds, or some 15 per cent of the country’s population, and part of a community of around 40 million scattered across the region, notably in Iraq and Turkey.

Muslim noted that his movement rose up for Kurdish rights back in 2004, seven years before a regime crackdown on peaceful Arab Spring-inspired protests sent Syria spinning into civil war.

“We have a long history of struggle against this regime,” he said.

But he also criticised the Syrian opposition coalition, saying it had failed to give Kurds a fair hearing.

“All we want is constitutional recognition of our existence,” he said.

“We couldn’t do it with the coalition, the people who are going to take decisions for Syria, and for the future of Syria,” he lamented.

Syrian troops mostly withdrew from majority Kurdish areas in summer 2012, focusing their attention on rebel fighters and enabling the Kurds to develop semi-autonomy.

Kurdish fighters, especially those affiliated with the PYD, have since fought fierce battles against extremist opposition groups.

Two months ago, three Kurdish-majority regions declared self-rule, and one of them named a municipal council on Tuesday.

The Syrian Kurdish Supreme Council has forged an alliance with representatives of the Syriacs, one of the oldest branches of Christianity.

Bassam Ishak, president of the Syriac National Council of Syria which is not included in the talks, complained that grassroots movements have been sidelined amid international diplomatic efforts to end the country’s war.

“We are the people who are working hand in hand to build our democracy from the bottom up,” Ishak told reporters, insisting that without “authentic representatives of the Syrian people, Geneva II will not be able to come up with a sustainable solution”. 

ADDIS ABABA — South Sudan’s government and rebels signed a ceasefire on Thursday to end more than five weeks of fighting that divided Africa’s newest nation and brought it to the brink of civil war.

Fighting between troops loyal to President Salva Kiir and those backing the vice president he sacked in July, Riek Machar, erupted in mid-December.

Thousands of people have been killed and more than half a million people have fled their homes, prompting the regional grouping of nations, IGAD, to initiate peace talks.

The pact is expected to be implemented within 24 hours of the signing, mediators said.

But making the ceasefire hold could test Machar, whose forces include loyalists as well as more autonomous groups battling the centrally controlled government forces.

“The crisis that gripped South Sudan is a mere manifestation of the challenges that face the young and fledgling state,” Seyoum Mesfin, IGAD’s chief mediator, told the signing ceremony.

“I believe that the postwar challenges will be greater than the war itself. The process will be ... unpredictable and delicate.”

South Sudan’s defence minister, Kuol Manyang Juuk, told Reuters on January 17 before the deal was reached that Machar did not have enough control to make a ceasefire stick in the oil-producing nation, one of Africa’s poorest.

“To the parties, we say: Enough! The killing must end now. The displaced must be able to return to their homes,” said Alexander Rondos, the European Union’s special representative for the Horn of Africa, at the signing event.

The conflict has turned along ethnic faultlines, pitting Machar’s Nuer against Kiir’s Dinka people. Several other communities have also taken up weapons. Analysts say the ceasefire does not resolve the broader power struggle.

“It is only the first step to allow space and time for a more substantive political dialogue to take place,” said Douglas Johnson, a historian and author.

Rebel prisoners

Both sides had said several times since talks began at the start of January they were close to a deal, but disagreements had pushed back a signing. Meanwhile, fighting raged, with the government retaking major towns from rebel forces.

“This deal does not provide answers to South Sudan’s current problems. We need a comprehensive political deal,” said one rebel official in the Ethiopian capital.

“We are only signing because we, and they, are under pressure.”

Ordinary people in South Sudan’s capital Juba were also sceptical the ceasefire would swiftly end the political rivalry that underpinned the fighting.

“It can solve some of the immediate problems but not all the problems,” said 31-year-old Samuel Kuir Chok. “I’m not optimistic ... because this guy [Machar] wants to be president at all costs.”

The ceasefire was accompanied by an agreement on the “question of detainees”. Rebels had demanded the release of 11 of Machar’s allies, detained by the government and accused of attempting a coup.

Seyoum, the chief mediator, told reporters the deal provided for the 11 to eventually participate in the peace process - but that they must first face due process of law.

Shortly before the signing, rebel spokesman Mabior Garang said freeing the detainees was “not so much of a demand since everyone recognises the need for their release”.

The rebels have also demanded that Uganda, which openly admitted to helping Kiir’s forces in combat, leave South Sudan.

Diplomats at the talks had said the deal would call for an end to “involvement by foreign forces”, but Hussein Mar Nyot, the spokesman for Machar’s delegation, said it called for a ‘withdrawal of allied forces invited by both sides’.”

South Sudan won its independence from Sudan in 2011 after decades of conflict between the northern and southern Sudanese.

DAVOS, Switzerland — Iran is determined to negotiate a comprehensive deal on its nuclear programme with major powers so it can develop its battered economy, President Hassan Rouhani said on Thursday, inviting Western companies to seize opportunities now.

Addressing the World Economic Forum in Davos, the pragmatic president said Tehran was negotiating with the United States as part of a “constructive engagement” with the world and wanted Washington to back up its words with actions.

However, a day after a chaotic Syria peace conference from which Iran was excluded, he was unbending in his support for Syrian President Bashar Assad. Ending “terrorism” backed by some of Syria’s neighbours was a precondition for any settlement of the country’s civil war, he said.

Elected last year on a promise to improve Tehran’s relations with the outside world, Rouhani took the United Nations by storm in New York in September. His appearance in the Swiss resort launched phase two of a charm offensive aimed at ending sanctions that are crippling Iran’s economy.

An interim deal with the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany — known as the P5+1 — came into force this week. This granted Iran a limited easing of the sanctions in return for temporary constraints on its uranium enrichment and nuclear development.

Rouhani stressed his commitment to achieving a final settlement. “Iran has a serious will to come to an agreement with the P5+1,” he told the assembled business and political leaders. “I do not see a serious impediment in the way of this agreement. The Iranian will is strong.”

Asked what might prevent a long-term settlement, he cited the risk of “pressure from other parties” — a veiled reference to Israel, which denounced the interim deal as an “historic mistake” and urged the US Congress to resist it.

Rouhani broke no new diplomatic ground in his speech. In a private session with energy executives, he promised a new, attractive investment model for oil contracts by September as part of a drive to lure back Western business barred by the US-led sanctions, participants said.

Relations with Europe were being normalised now that the interim nuclear accord was being implemented, he said. Rouhani also met European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso on the sidelines of the conference.

“Iran should use this window of opportunity with determination to move to a comprehensive long-term solution on the nuclear issue,” Barroso said in a statement. “This would open up the potential for an improved relationship and broader cooperation.”

At a separate meeting with US, European and Arab businessmen, Rouhani said Iran was seeking investment particularly in car manufacturing, oil and gas, petrochemicals, road and rail infrastructure and mining, a participant said.

He ignored a question from two US businessmen who said they had Israeli passports and asked if they could invest in Iran. The Islamic republic does not recognise Israel.

Most sanctions, including a severe squeeze on Iran’s access to the international financial system, remain in force and the United States has stressed Western companies should not regard Iran as “open for business”.

Rouhani promised to pursue a consistent foreign policy of “prudence and moderation” to revive the economy.

He called for cooperation with all Iran’s neighbours but did not mention Gulf rival Saudi Arabia by name and refused, when pressed twice, to include Israel among states with which Iran sought friendly relations.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was in Davos but not in the hall during the speech, said afterwards that Rouhani’s soft words bore no relation to reality, citing Iran’s military role in Syria and its support for the Palestinian Hamas movement which seeks Israel’s destruction.

“Rouhani continues Iran’s deception show,” Netanyahu said.

“The goal of the Iranian ayatollahs’ regime, that hides behind Rouhani’s smile, is to ease sanctions without giving up their programme to produce nuclear weapons,” he said, urging the international community “not to be duped”.

Rouhani repeated Iran’s standard pledge not to seek nuclear weapons and said Tehran was willing to accept all safeguards and inspections of the UN nuclear agency, provided it was not subjected to “discrimination”. Western countries believe the atomic effort is aimed at developing a military capability.

“We never sought and will never seek nuclear weapons,” the president said. “I declare that a nuclear weapon has no place in our security strategy.”

But in a foretaste of tough negotiations on a long-term agreement, he said: “Iran will not accept any obstacles to its scientific progress.”

Some Western energy chiefs said they were impressed by Rouhani’s commitment to attract foreign investment in the sector, which has seen production cut by a third and exports halved by the sanctions.

“The fact that the president of Iran came to the meeting today... is clearly a sign that Iran wants to open up to international oil companies,” said Paolo Scaroni, chief executive of Italy’s Eni, who was at the meeting.

But he said Eni would stick strictly to the sanctions and return to Iran only when a permanent nuclear deal was concluded and contract terms were changed.

“It was an impressive presentation,” said one of three other oil executives who attended and spoke with Reuters on condition of anonymity.

The United States and other Western powers want Tehran to end high-grade uranium enrichment and shut down a heavy-water reactor capable of producing plutonium nuclear fuel under any permanent settlement. Iran rejects these steps.

With Saudi Prince Turki Al Faisal, a former intelligence chief and ambassador to the United States, sitting in the audience, Rouhani said Iran sought cooperation “with the littoral states of the Persian Gulf”. However, he did not name Saudi Arabia, which has expressed concern about the interim nuclear deal.

In a clear swipe at Riyadh and Qatar, he renewed criticism of countries he did not name which he said were supporting terrorism in Syria, saying this would rebound on them at home.

Senior Gulf Arab businessmen from Saudi Arabia and Bahrain who heard the speech said it was hard to believe Rouhani was genuine about his wish for better relations with Iran’s neighbours. They also said any trade deals would be for cash only until some payments channel could be arranged.

Iran was shut out of Wednesday’s UN-sponsored Syrian peace conference in Montreux, Switzerland, because of its refusal to endorse a framework for a transition from Assad’s rule.

Rouhani later cancelled a planned news conference and left the building without taking any questions in public, except from the World Economic Forum’s founder Klaus Schwab. Organisers cited “technical reasons”, saying they could not provide an adequate room with simultaneous interpretation at short notice.

CAIRO — Egypt said on Wednesday it was “very surprised” by a decision by its longtime US ally to exclude it from a high-profile African summit being convened by President Barack Obama.

Egypt joins international pariahs Sudan and Zimbabwe in the short list of African countries not among the 47 invited to the August get-together.

US officials said that Egypt was ineligible to attend because it is suspended from the African Union following the military’s overthrow of elected president Mohamed Morsi last July.

Egyptian foreign ministry spokesman Badr Abdelbati said the US decision was a “mistake” and displayed a “lack of vision”.

“Egypt was very surprised by the US statement about its reasons, especially as the summit is not being held under the auspices of the African Union and is simply a summit between the United States and African countries,” the spokesman said.

Washington stopped short of describing last year’s overthrow of Morsi as a coup, which would have triggered the automatic suspension of all aid.

But it halted a slab of its $1.5 billion a year in mainly military assistance last October in protest at the army’s failure to move more quickly towards a return to elected civilian rule.

Last week, Egypt held a referendum on a new constitution drawn up by the military-installed authorities but US Secretary of State John Kerry responded: “It’s not one vote that determines a democracy.”

BAGHDAD — Iraq’s prime minister called Wednesday for residents of restive Anbar province to “take a stand” against anti-government fighters, as air strikes were said to have killed 50 militants.

Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki’s call came as government forces pressed an offensive against militants, including those affiliated with Al Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), who overran parts of the provincial capital Ramadi weeks ago.

Diplomats have urged Baghdad to foster political reconciliation to undercut support for the militants, but with elections looming in April, Maliki and others have taken a hard line and focused on wide-ranging security operations.

“I ask the people of the province — the tribes, the notables and all who live there — to be ready to take a stand, to take serious action against those dirty people,” Maliki said in his weekly televised address.

“It is time to finish this subject, and end the presence of gangs in this city, and save the people from their evil,” he said, referring to the Anbar city of Fallujah, which is entirely controlled by insurgents.

Parts of Ramadi and all of Fallujah, both west of Baghdad, have been in the hands of militants for weeks, the first time insurgents have exercised such open control in Iraqi cities since the peak of the violence that followed the 2003 US-led invasion.

Air strikes launched across Anbar killed 50 militants, including foreign fighters of Arab nationality, the defence ministry said Wednesday.

Security forces “received accurate information and carried out painful and effective air strikes against terrorist gatherings in Anbar yesterday, January 21, that killed more than 50 terrorists”, a ministry statement said.

Soldiers, police and SWAT forces have meanwhile joined with tribal allies in an offensive that continued Wednesday against gunmen holding several neighbourhoods of Ramadi, an AFP journalist reported.

The army said in a statement that 13 militants were killed in firefights there.

In Fallujah, meanwhile, shelling in southern and central neighbourhoods left one person dead and 10 wounded on Wednesday, a medic said.

Residents of the city blame the army for the shelling, but defence officials say the military is not responsible.

The government has changed its language in recent days from referring to all anti-government fighters in Anbar as Al Qaeda to instead using terms such as gangs.

And while Fallujah residents and tribal sheikhs have said ISIL has tightened its grip on the city in recent days, several other militant groups and anti-government tribes have also been involved in fighting government forces in both cities in Anbar.

Iraqi security forces have recruited their own tribal allies.

More than 22,000 families displaced

The United Nations warned Tuesday of “an exponential increase in the number of displaced and stranded families”, with more than 22,000 families having registered as internally displaced.

It said the actual figure was likely to be higher, as not all those who fled had registered.

It said most of the displaced had found refuge elsewhere in Anbar, but some had gone as far afield as the northern Kurdish region.

Fighting originally erupted in the Ramadi area on December 30, when security forces cleared a year-old Sunni Arab protest camp.

The violence then spread to Fallujah, as militants moved in and seized the city and parts of Ramadi after security forces withdrew.

Violence elsewhere in the country on Wednesday killed eight people, security and medical officials said.

The deadliest incident occurred in Baghdad’s western outskirts, where three mortar rounds slammed into a residential neighbourhood, killing at least three people.

Attacks in and around the restive northern cities of Mosul, Tikrit and Kirkuk killed five others.

The latest violence brought to more than 700 the number of people killed so far this month, according to an AFP tally.

By comparison, fewer than 250 people died as a result of violence in all of January 2013.