Region

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Hardline national religious Israeli Jews held a mass prayer on Thursday at the Western Wall plaza in Jerusalem against ongoing Israeli-Palestinian peace talks which could result in territorial compromises.

The prayer was aimed at invoking heavenly mercy against “dangers threatening the Land of Israel” in the wake of reports about US Secretary of State John Kerry’s impending framework agreement, organisers said.

Security officials said 2,000 people attended the gathering.

They included Housing Minister Uri Ariel and other members of the far-right Jewish Home Party, part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition but fiercely against his professed two-state solution.

Since he kick-started the latest round of peace talks in July, Kerry has been trying to push Israel and the Palestinians towards a framework agreement ahead of an agreed April deadline.

Deputy Religious Services Minister Eli Ben Dahan noted a Tuesday New York Times report according to which Kerry’s guidelines would include an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and East Jerusalem as the capital of the future Palestinian state.

“We are not against the government, we are here to say it must resist the pressures to give part of Jerusalem to make it the capital of the Palestinian state,” he told AFP.

Moshe Cohen of the Beit El settlement, who was one of the event’s organisers, told AFP: “Kerry’s plan endangers us since he wants to separate between the Jewish people and the land of Israel.”

The Western Wall is below the Al Aqsa compound, the third holiest site in Islam which is also revered by Jews as their holiest site where the ancient temple stood.

Jews are not allowed to pray inside the compound itself.

BEIRUT — Faced with recent setbacks in Iraq and Syria, Al Qaeda is slowly but firmly gaining influence in Lebanon, helped by the country’s increasing sectarian violence and the turmoil caused by Syria’s civil war, sources close to the group say.

Lebanon, a small Mediterranean state with a fragile sectarian power sharing system, has seen the worst of the Syria’s war spillover with car bombs in Beirut and Tripoli, gunfights in city streets and rocket fire in the Bekaa Valley.

The violence is exacerbated by Lebanon’s own sectarian divisions and entrenching them. Shiite Hizbollah supports President Bashar Assad while his rebel opponents are backed by Sunni Muslims including Islamists and Al Qaeda fighters.

In Syria, Al Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) holds territory in the north and east but has been on the defensive in recent weeks after coming under attack from rival rebel groups that resent its harsh rule.

The sources say it is now seeking to expand in Lebanon, particularly the northern city of Tripoli, plagued by violence and lawlessness since the start of Syria’s uprising nearly three years ago.

The accounts from the sources, including fighters who support and oppose Al Qaeda in Syria, appeared to be supported at the weekend when a statement in the name of Abu Sayyaf Al Ansary — described as Al Qaeda’s commander in Lebanon — said the group had put down roots in Lebanon.

In an audio statement Ansary declared allegiance to the head of ISIL. Speaking, he said, from Tripoli, he announced Lebanon would be a gateway for Al Qaeda to strike at Israel.

Several Syrian rebel sources said the group was in the final stages of establishing itself in Lebanon’s north — a region seen as fertile ground for the group where many people have adopted a stricter interpretation of Sunni Islam in the past few years.

Dozens of people have been killed in Tripoli in the past year in violence between Alawites — the offshoot of Shiite Islam to which Assad and his family belong — and Sunnis.

Roots of conflict

The hatred goes back to the 1980s when Syrian troops, sent by Bashar’s father Hafez Al Assad, with the help of local Alawites in Tripoli crushed Sunnis who were seen close to the Palestinian groups fighting in Lebanon.

After Lebanon’s 15-year civil war ended in 1990, consecutive governments concentrated rebuilding and investment in the capital Beirut, leaving other cities struggling with relative poverty, unemployment and an alienated underclass.

As well as the deprived cities, the mainly Sunni Muslim Palestinian refugee camps — home to most of the 440,000 Palestinians living in Lebanon — are also a potential breeding ground for jihadis. So far they have produced small groups who have gone to fight in Afghanistan, Iraq and other conflicts abroad rather than building up forces in Lebanon itself.

Against that backdrop, a local commander in Syria who is close to Al Qaeda commanders there said Ansary had been given the conditional blessing of ISIL leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi to announce Al Qaeda’s presence in Lebanon.

“There will be statement in the next few days and the world will know then what will happen in Lebanon, and with God’s will it will warm the heart of the faithful,” he said.

While the group is expected to focus on Tripoli as a base, local commanders may be present in the northern province of Akkar, in the Bekaa Valley and the southern city of Sidon, where supporters of Sunni Islamist Sheikh Ahmed Al Assir clashed with the army last year.

Residents say Al Qaeda is already calling the shots in some Tripoli neighbourhoods and areas of the northern province of Akkar and the Bekaa Valley. Black and white flags associated with its uncompromising Islamist agenda openly fly from the streets and balconies of some Tripoli districts.

Baghdadi, an Iraqi who leads thousands of fighters from across the world but mainly from Iraq, Egypt and Libya, initially sent his men to fight alongside Syrian rebels, most of them Islamists.

But many Syrian fighters grew to resent his dominance, especially after his fighters killed and tortured hundreds of Syrians including other Islamist fighters.

“His dream is to create a state, he cannot see anything else but that and will crush anybody who stands in his way,” said a Syrian commander who fights against Al Qaeda.

“He even spilt our blood because we refused to consider him our Emir [leader]. So for him we are infidels now standing in the way of the state just like the Shiites, Jews and others.”

Baghdadi even challenged the overall Al Qaeda leader Ayman Al Zawahri a few months ago when Zawahri called on him to leave the Syrian battlefield to another Al Qaeda affiliate, the Nusra Front. The two groups have clashed in recent weeks as Islamist fighters launched coordinated attacks on ISIL this month.

Looking for a new home

After that setback in Syria — and an army offensive against its stronghold in western Iraq — Lebanon could offer both a new recruiting ground and a base for attacks.

“They are looking to fulfil their dream. They are ‘Iraq and the Levant’, which means Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine. They will not stop now,” said a commander whose men detained fighters from ISIL during battles in northern Syria.

The sources were divided over how powerful the group is at this stage in Lebanon. Some said it had already established its base and would launch more organised attacks in the country, while others said it was still in final preparatory stages.

“Our understanding is that they are around 80 per cent established but not fully established. They are still not well organised or the cells connected to each other,” said another Syrian commander via Skype. “They are in the process of re-grouping, that is what we know.”

Sources in Tripoli said that a debate took place for weeks among the jihadis on whether to go public. They were told by higher command to wait for approval from Baghdadi.

Saturday’s audio statement, posted on YouTube in Abu Sayyaf Al Ansary’s name, suggests that approval has been granted.

Ansary said Sunnis in Lebanon were mistreated by the powerful Shiite Hizbollah. He called on Sunnis to unite and saluted recent bombings in Shiite areas claimed by Al Qaeda-linked Abdallah Azzam Brigades but said they were not enough.

“After the flag of Islam was raised from Iraq to the Levant... we have decided to announce our allegiance to them,” he said. “We swear allegiance to Emir Abu Bakr Al Husseini Al Baghdadi, from Tripoli, so that we will be a door for him, God willing, from Lebanon to the holy site [Jerusalem].”

“So we offered the idea of regenerating their cells in Lebanon so that we continue the path of jihad which has scared America in its den.”

A spokesman named Abu Omar would issue a statement with more details soon, he said. The sources said the new statement may come as soon as Friday.

Lebanon arrested a leader of Al Qaeda-linked Abdullah Azzam brigades this month, who died in custody days later.

“The north [of Lebanon] is a fertile ground for this for many reasons. People are extremists — but because of ignorance,” said a third Syrian commander who lives in Turkey. He predicted an escalation in violence in Lebanon but said all-out conflict remained unlikely for now.

BEIRUT — Eight years ago Hassan Ghamlouche’s jewellery shop was gutted when Israeli jets bombarded the Hizbollah-controlled district of southern Beirut where he works.

Now a wall of sandbags stands in front of the glittering gold in his shop window to protect Ghamlouche and his customers from a new threat — a wave of car bombs which have struck the capital’s Shiite neighbourhoods in the last six months.

Dozens of people have been killed in four bombings targeting the Hizbollah stronghold. The first in July struck just 100 metres from Ghamlouche’s shop, and two more explosions this month suggest the pace of attacks may be stepping up.

Rockets were also fired into Shiite southern Beirut last summer and a twin suicide bombing at the nearby Iranian embassy compound killed at least 25 people in November.

Iran is the main patron of Hizbollah, the powerful Shiite group which fought a 34-day war with Israel in 2006 and also plays a leading role in Lebanese politics, with two ministers in the country’s caretaker government.

Al Qaeda-linked Sunni militants have claimed responsibility for some of the attacks and threatened more, saying Hizbollah’s intervention in Syria’s civil war alongside President Bashar Assad’s forces makes it a legitimate target.

The bloodshed and warnings of deeper sectarian conflict have alarmed many in the Shiite neighbourhoods where the army, Hizbollah and local shopkeepers are all stepping up security against further attacks.

“These measures provide 70 per cent to 80 per cent protection from shrapnel, heat or blast,” Ghamlouche said of the black sandbags piled up in front of his shop.

Across the road, welders were fixing metal plates across the front of his workshop while workers planted trees in the street’s freshly dug central reservation — a move designed to deter car bombers by restricting room for anyone to park outside spaces now chained off for residents and shopkeepers.

At the entrance to the neighbourhood, the army searched cars, while a soldier in an armoured vehicle checked their registration plates against a list of wanted vehicles.

Beirut airport, next to the Mediterranean Sea on the southern approach to the city, has also stepped up security checks, while two centres of Shiite religious learning on the old airport road are now protected by concrete blocks and a line of freshly painted black and yellow metal barriers.

Empty streets

On Hadi Nasrallah Street, the main street running through the Hizbollah suburbs of south Beirut, traffic is noticeably lighter. Parking places under the main overpass have been sealed off to prevent would-be bombers leaving cars there.

“The roads are empty because people are scared,” said Ayman Bazzoun, who runs a shop on the street named after the slain son of Hizbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

“If people have no reason to, they won’t leave home,” he said. “People are not going out a lot — they call for delivery.”

For many residents, the security measures are a bleak reminder of Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war when Beirut streets were turned into frontline positions. Raw nerves are further frayed by alerts which spread through social media — mostly false alarms — of more potential attacks.

Five days ago Hizbollah officials blocked off a main road and summoned residents through loudspeakers to come down from their apartments and identify their cars after the group received information about another possible attack.

For building materials salesman Ahmad Sharafeddine, protecting his shop was simply a matter of re-arranging his goods. Sandbags which he usually sells to construction firms were piled up outside the shop, while inside the window another protective wall was built from sacks full of ceramic plaster.

“Every day three or four customers come to buy sandbags to protect their shops,” he said, sitting at his desk less than 50 metres from the site of two bombings this month — the second of which struck last week.

A white car with a smashed windscreen was still there, next to a large portrait of Iran’s late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

GENEVA — Opposing sides in Syria’s civil war stood together in silence to honour victims of the three year conflict on Thursday, but week-old peace talks were still stuck on the question of how to proceed with just one day left before they head home.

The United States said on Thursday it was concerned that Syria was falling behind in a schedule to ship out its chemical weapons stockpiles to be destroyed. Reuters reported on Wednesday that Syria had given up less than 5 per cent of its chemical weapons arsenal and will miss a deadline next week to send all toxic agents abroad for destruction.

The first talks between President Bashar Assad’s government and his foes have been mired in rhetoric since they began a week ago in Geneva.

UN mediator Lakhdar Brahimi said on Wednesday he does not expect to achieve anything substantive in the first round which ends on Friday, but hopes for more progress in a second round, which diplomats expect to begin around February 10.

The sides took a first tentative step forward on Wednesday by agreeing to use a 2012 document for discussions, but it was clear on Thursday, the first day of talks under the agreed road map, that they still disagree about how to proceed.

They began with a rare sybol of harmony: Opposition delegate Ahmad Jakal said his delegation’s head, Hadi Al Bahra, proposed the minute of silence and all sides stood up, including Assad’s delegation and Brahimi’s team.

“All stood up for the souls of the martyrs. Symbolically it was good,” Jakal told Reuters.

But the sides quickly shifted back to their disputes. The government delegation accused the opposition of supporting terrorism for refusing to sign up to a resolution opposing it.

“We presented a proposal that the two sides might agree on the importance of combating violence and terrorism. The other side rejected it because they are involved in the issue of terrorism,” Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad said.

Damascus uses the word “terrorist” to describe all rebel fighters; Western countries have declared some Islamist groups among the rebels, such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), to be terrorists but consider others to be legitimate fighters in the civil war.

Opposition delegates said the declaration proposed by Damascus ignored foreign fighters from Iran, Iraq and Lebanese Hizbollah supporting the Assad government.

“The regime today provided a one-sided communiqué. It wants to confuse ISIL with the people of Syria who took up arms and defended their families,” opposition spokesman Louay Al Safi said.

‘Playing theatre’

The 2012 agenda, known as Geneva 1, sets out stages to end the conflict, including a halt to fighting, delivery of aid and agreement on setting up a transitional government body.

While the opposition wants to start by addressing the question of the transitional governing body — which they believe would require Assad to give up power — the government says the first step is to discuss terrorism.

Safi accused Syrian government forces of dropping “barrel bombs” — crude drums of high explosives — on major cities including Homs and Aleppo and “slaughtering” Turkmen civilians.

“The regime is playing theatre. It wants to give impression of wanting a political solution, but the situation on the ground reflects its intention, we look at deeds,” he said.

US and Russian officials, co-sponsors of the conference, are in Geneva advising the opposition and Syrian government delegations, their respective allies.

Mekdad, one of the most influential players, was meeting with Russian officials on Thursday, diplomatic sources said.

The 2012 agenda, including its call for a transitional government, was drawn up at a time when Western countries mainly believed Assad’s days were numbered. But the past year has seen his position improve on the ground and diplomatically.

Last year saw Washington abandon plans for strikes to punish Damascus for using chemical weapons, ending more than two years of speculation that the West might join the war against Assad as it did against Libya’s Muammar Qadhafi in 2011.

Instead, Assad agreed to give up his poison gas stocks, a complicated process that has fallen behind schedule.

“The United States is concerned that the Syrian government is behind in delivering these chemical weapons precursor materials on time with the schedule that was agreed to,” US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel said on Thursday.

Diplomats said there had been no progress at the Geneva talks on humanitarian issues and that a U.N. aid convoy has been waiting fruitlessly to enter the rebel-held Old City of Homs, where the United States says civilians are starving.

If there is no breakthrough on Homs this week, it would give the opposition delegation, mostly comprised of exiles, little to show for their decision to participate. Other factions with more power on the ground in Syria are opposed to the talks.

“The UN convoys are ready, we are waiting for clearances so we can provide this aid in a secure manner,” Jens Laerke, spokesman of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told Reuters on Thursday.

A United Nations agency caring for Palestinian refugees was able to deliver food to a rebel-held Damascus district on Thursday, alleviating the plight of thousands of people trapped for months by a Syrian army siege.

Syria’s biggest city Aleppo took some of the heaviest aerial bombardment of the conflict in the past week, including the dropping of barrel bombs that killed and wounded dozens, opposition delegate Ahmed Ramadan told Reuters.

New York-based watchdog Human Rights Watch said on Thursday that the Syrian authorities had flattened seven residential districts for no apparent objective other than to punish civilians for harbouring rebels who had fled.

Clashes and bombardment were reported by activists in nearly every province on Thursday, from central Homs city to the northwestern farming province of Idlib to the eastern desert city of Deir Al Zor.

A resident in Homs province said rebel fighters from the small town of Al Hosn had attack an army checkpoint overnight in a nearby village, killing 16 soldiers and stealing a tank. Fighting has come perilously close to the nearby Crusader castle of Crac des Chevaliers, a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Syrian air force helicopters dropped barrel bombs in the central city of Hama and in Damascus province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said on Thursday.

WARSAW — US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel on Thursday voiced concern over Syria’s delay in handing over its chemical weapons arsenal and pressed Damascus to solve the problem.

“I do not know what the Syrian government’s motives are — if this is incompetence — or why they are behind in delivering these materials”, Hagel told reporters in Warsaw, adding that “they need to fix this.”

The world’s chemical watchdog said Wednesday that Damascus had handed over less than 5 per cent of the most dangerous chemicals in its armoury.

Just two shipments of around 16 metric tonnes each of so-called Category 1 chemicals have left Syria’s port of Latakia this month as part of an internationally backed disarmament plan supervised by the UN and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

“The United States is concerned that the Syrian government is behind in delivering the chemical weapons on time,” Hagel said, speaking alongside Polish Defence Minister Tomasz Siemoniak.

“The Syrian government has to take responsibility to respect the commitment that had been made.”

Hagel said he raised the issue with Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu on Wednesday, asking him “to do what he could to influence the Syrian government”.

In Washington, the White House also called on the Syrian regime to make good on its commitment to hand over its chemical weapons.

“It is the Assad regime’s responsibility to transport those chemicals safely to facilitate their removal,” said White House spokesman Jay Carney.

“We expect them to meet their obligations to do so”.

The UN Security Council backed a US-Russian deal last year to eliminate Syria’s vast chemical arsenal.

The agreement was brokered as a way to avert US missile strikes that Washington threatened after a chemical attack near Damascus that the US and other Western governments blamed on the regime.

Under the agreement, Syria’s entire chemical arsenal is supposed to be eliminated by
June 30.

Syria has declared around 700 tonnes of its most-dangerous chemicals and 500 tonnes of less dangerous precursor chemicals, which only become toxic when mixed with other compounds.

Almost all the chemicals and precursors, except for isopropanol which is to be destroyed within the war-torn country, are supposed to be removed by
February 5.

BAGHDAD — Iraqi forces killed four militants and ended a hostage crisis after attackers stormed a Baghdad government building Thursday, as nationwide violence took January’s death toll past 900 with elections looming.

The brazen assault on a building in the northeast of the capital comes as security forces grapple with intensifying violence and an extended standoff with anti-government fighters in the western province of Anbar.

It is likely to raise fresh concerns about the capabilities of Iraq’s security forces amid fears the April 30 polls could be partially delayed, as was the case for provincial elections in April 2013.

Six militants wearing suicide vests initially attempted to storm the building, which houses a transport ministry state-owned company, by blowing up a minibus rigged with explosives at the main gate, according to police at the scene.

When the explosion did not go off, one of the attackers blew himself up to clear the way for his fellow militants, followed by a second bomber who set off his vest at an inner gate.

The four remaining fighters then took hostages in the building for several hours before they were eventually killed by security forces, interior ministry spokesman Brigadier General Saad Maan said.

At least two people were killed in the attack overall, including a policeman, and eight others wounded, according to Maan.

A police colonel and an interior ministry official confirmed the account and the toll.

“At the time of the attack, the employees in the building behaved very wisely and shut all their doors,” Maan told AFP. “They kept all the employees inside.”

“The whole operation is now finished, everything is under control.”

Security forces had sealed off the surrounding area, which is home to other government offices, including the headquarters of the transport ministry and a human rights ministry building.

Elsewhere in the Iraqi capital on Thursday, bombings near a market and a restaurant in the Shiite-majority neighbourhoods of Kasra and Talbiyah killed six people, officials said.

They struck hours after car bombs ripped through Baghdad Jadidah, Shuala and Talbiyah, which are predominantly Shiite, leaving nine people dead on Wednesday evening.

Attacks on Wednesday also hit the capital’s outskirts, as well as the northern cities of Mosul and Tuz Khurmatu, killing seven others.

Toll three times higher

Violence has killed at least 911 people in Iraq this month, more than three times the toll for January 2013, according to an AFP tally based on reports from security and medical officials.

No group claimed responsibility for the ministry assault and the bombings, but Sunni militants affiliated with the Al Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) have mounted similar attacks in Baghdad.

Iraqi officials on Wednesday, meanwhile, published a rare photograph purportedly of ISIL leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, the first of its kind released by an official source.

The black-and-white picture, which provides a rare glimpse of the man leading a militant group blamed for killing countless Iraqis, shows a balding man with a beard wearing a suit and tie.

The latest bloodletting comes as security forces are locked in battles with militants, including those affiliated with ISIL, in Anbar, a mostly-Sunni desert region west of Baghdad that shares a border with Syria.

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

Security forces have been locked in battles in Ramadi, where militants hold several neighbourhoods, and have carried out operations in rural areas of Anbar province.

Anti-government fighters also hold all of Fallujah, on Baghdad’s doorstep.

ISIL has been involved, and witnesses and tribal leaders in Fallujah say the group has tightened its grip on the city, but other militant groups have also taken part in the battles.

The standoff has forced more than 140,000 people to flee their homes, the UN refugee agency said, describing it as the worst displacement in Iraq since sectarian conflict in 2006-2008.

Washington has provided Baghdad with weaponry to help it combat militants and also plans to sell Iraq 24 Apache attack helicopters, but diplomats and analysts say the Shiite-led government must do more to reach out to the disaffected Sunni community in order to undercut support for militancy.

BEIRUT — A United Nations agency delivered food to a rebel-held Damascus district on Thursday, alleviating the plight of thousands of people trapped for months by a Syrian army siege.

The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which cares for Palestinian refugees, said it had distributed 1,000 food parcels in Yarmouk camp, its biggest delivery there yet.

UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness said the aid was the first to reach Yarmouk since January 21 when 138 food parcels were sent in. Each parcel can feed a family of up to 8 for about 10 days, meaning the people’s needs still far outstrip aid deliveries.

“We hope to continue and increase substantially the amount of aid being delivered,” said Gunness. “With each passing hour their need increases.”

Syria’s state news agency SANA confirmed the aid delivery, saying Yarmouk’s residents were “held hostage by armed terrorist groups” — its usual description of rebel forces.

UNRWA had blamed the authorities for preventing its convoy from reaching the neighbourhood on Sunday. Two weeks earlier, aid convoys turned back after a government escort was fired on.

Some 15 people are reported to have died from malnutrition in Yarmouk, originally an impoverished Palestinian refugee camp which now houses 18,000 Palestinians, as well as some Syrians.

Opposition activists say the government is using hunger as a weapon of war. Damascus accuses rebels of firing on aid convoys and says it fears food and medicine will go to armed groups.

Syrian state television said Al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front had fired on aid workers and wounded several people during the distribution. The anti-Assad Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that unknown assailants had fired bullets.

It was not clear if this had prevented some of the aid from reaching Yarmouk’s residents and UNRWA did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the incident.

At peace talks between the two sides in Geneva, the United Nations is trying to negotiate passage for an aid convoy for 2,500 people also under siege in the old city of Homs.

Gaining access for relief groups to reach an estimated 250,000 people trapped by fighting in Yarmouk, Homs and other areas is seen as a test for the peace talks, which began last week and have not yet produced substantive results.

Syria’s conflict began with popular protests against President Bashar Assad in March 2011, but evolved into a civil war after a crackdown by security forces led to an armed uprising. More than 130,000 people have been killed and about six million have fled their homes.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama appears to have prevailed, for now, in a campaign to stop Congress from passing new sanctions on Iran he fears could derail nuclear diplomacy.

Several Democratic senators who previously backed a bipartisan sanctions bill publicly stepped back after Obama threatened a veto during his State of the Union address on Tuesday.

Several sources familiar with behind-the-scenes manoeuvring on the bill say a number of other Democratic senators signed up for more sanctions had privately recoiled from a damaging vote against their own president.

The developments appear, in the short term, to have checked momentum behind the bill, which had appeared headed for a veto-proof majority in Congress.

“I am strongly supporting the bill but I think a vote is unnecessary right now as long as there’s visible and meaningful progress” in the negotiations, Senator Richard Blumenthal told AFP, after first expressing reservations earlier this month.

Democratic Senator Chris Coons made a similar declaration at a post-State of the Union event hosted by Politico.

“Now is not the time for a vote on an Iran sanctions bill,” he said.

Another Democratic Senator, Joe Manchin, now hopes Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will not bring it up.

“I did not sign it with the intention that it would ever be voted upon or used upon while we’re negotiating,” Manchin told MSNBC television.

“I signed it because I wanted to make sure the president had a hammer if he needed it and showed him how determined we were to do it and use it if we had to.”

The White House mounted an intense campaign against a bill it feared would undermine Tehran’s negotiators with conservatives back home or prompt them to ditch diplomacy.

Obama aides infuriated pro-sanctions senators by warning the measure could box America into a march to war to halt Tehran’s nuclear programme if diplomacy died.

The campaign included a letter to Reid from Democratic committee chairs urging he put off a sanctions vote.

Another letter was orchestrated from a group of distinguished foreign policy experts.

Multi-faith groups also weighed in and coordinated calls from constituents backing Obama on nuclear diplomacy poured into offices of key Democrats.

The campaign appears for now to have overpowered the pro-sanctions push by hawkish senators and the Israel lobby, whose doubts on the Iran nuclear deal mirror those of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Senator Johnny Isakson, a Republican co-sponsor of the legislation, said: “It looks like we’re kind of frozen in place.”

Those behind the anti-sanctions campaign though privately concede they may have won a battle, not a war.

The push for new sanctions will flare again ahead of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s (AIPAC) annual conference in March, which Netanyahu is expected to address.

It could also recur if the talks on a final pact extend past the six-month window set by the interim deal.

But for now, groups that supported the push against sanctions celebrated.

“This is a major victory, a crucial victory for the American public who don’t want to see a war,” said Kate Gould of the Friends Committee on National Legislation.

“For right now, it looks like it’s not going to be brought up,” she said but warned “there’ll be other efforts to try and sabotage the process”.

The liberal pro-Israel lobby group J Street played a major role in the anti-sanctions push.

Vice president Alan Elsner said the group “continues to work hard to persuade lawmakers not to take action that risks sabotaging the negotiations with Iran.

“We’re happy that more and more senators are seeing the logic of our argument,” he added.

Republican Senator Mark Kirk, who help write the sanctions law, pledged to fight on.

“The American people — Democrats and Republicans alike — overwhelmingly want Iran held accountable during any negotiations,” said Kirk.

He said his bill, also the brainchild of the Foreign Relations Committee’s Democratic Chairman Robert Menendez, was an “insurance policy” against Iran’s development of nuclear weapons.

The White House did not just chafe at the bill’s new sanctions, but also at a clause requiring a final deal to include a complete dismantling of Iran’s entire nuclear infrastructure.

Analyst say such a perfect solution — desired by Israel — is not realistic.

The White House, no doubt keen to avoid antagonising lawmakers on such a sensitive issue, declined to comment on the developments.

But Obama put the case for the interim deal, which freezes aspects of Iran’s nuclear programme in return for an easing of some sanctions, in his speech on Tuesday.

“If this Congress sends me a new sanctions bill now that threatens to derail these talks, I will veto it,” he warned.

He offered political cover to Democrats and sought to convince waverers he would back new sanctions if diplomacy failed.

That message would also have been picked up in Iran as negotiators gear up for new talks Obama says have less than a 50-50 chance of yielding a final deal.