Region

TEHRAN — Iran said on Saturday that the novel coronavirus has claimed 97 more lives, raising the country's total to 611, as the number of confirmed cases jumped again.

Health Ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour said that "1,365 fresh cases have been added to the number of confirmed infections in the past 24 hours", bringing the total to 12,729.

Jahanpour told a televised news conference that more than 4,300 of those with confirmed infections had recovered so far.

Tehran province had the highest number of new cases with 347, followed by Isfahan with 155 and the northern region of Alborz with 134.

"Naturally, the number of confirmed cases will increase" even more as Iran steps up its laboratory sampling and tests, he said.

The outbreak in Iran is one of the deadliest outside of China, where the disease originated.

But Tehran's markets were still crowded despite calls for people to stay at home, with many shopping ahead of the country's New Year holidays which start on March 20.

The ministry said on Friday that the average age of those who died was 67. The youngest was a three-year-old leukaemia sufferer and the oldest 91.

Four times as many men as women died from the novel coronavirus.

But in some of Iran's provinces alcohol poisoning was killing even more people than the virus.

At least 92 have died from drinking methanol after rumours circulated that it can help to cure or protect from the virus, and the number has been on the rise for the past few days.

'Big nightmare' 

Iran is also preparing for its traditional fire festival, or Chaharshanbe Soori, held annually on the last Wednesday evening before the spring holiday of Nowrouz.

Iranians traditionally jump over fires and light fireworks to celebrate the event, with many suffering burns and being hospitalised.

The interior ministry has ordered firefighters and medical services to be on the alert, but the head of a hospital specialising in the treatment of burns suggested the government ban the ceremony amid the virus outbreak.

"People suffering burns while the coronavirus is out there is a big nightmare," Mostafa Dehmardei, head of Tehran's Motahari hospital, told semi-official news agency ISNA.

Several politicians and officials, both sitting and former, have been infected with the new coronavirus, and some have died from the illness.

The latest suspected case of infection was Ali Akbar Velayati, who advises Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on foreign policy.

Iran's official coronavirus committee also held its meeting chaired by President Hassan Rouhani on Friday via videoconference.

Pictures of the meeting that have been released show ministers with masks tuning in from their offices.

The foreign ministry on Friday thanked other countries for sending aid in the form of cash and medical equipment to combat the outbreak.

The government and people of Iran would "never forget their friends" at a time of hardship, spokesman Abbas Mousavi tweeted.

He thanked Azerbaijan, Britain, China, France, Germany, Japan, Qatar, Russia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.

Iran said on Thursday that it has sought immediate financial assistance from the International Monetary Fund to help it fight the virus, in what would be its first such loan in decades.

DEIR HASSAN, Syria — First he lost three fingers, later his hearing in one ear. Then all at once, both his legs and eyes. Ibrahim al-Ali was wounded every time he tried to escape Syria's war.

In a camp for the displaced near the Turkish border, the 33-year-old father of four shows the scars he has sustained in a conflict now entering its tenth year.

His eyes sealed shut, he runs his fingers along a long lesion below his chest, cuts on his arm, as well as discoloured scars on his scalp, neck and waist.

Leaning forward on the edge of a thin mattress, the former blacksmith gently exercises one of his amputated legs, cut off just below the knee.

Ali did not always look like this. In an image on his smartphone, he appears as a dapper young man dressed in dark blue tracksuit and holding a baby girl.

But violence in Syria’s last major rebel pocket has pursued him everywhere for years, robbing him of what he enjoyed most in life.

“I can’t carry my children anymore,” he says, slim arms clad in a stripey brown pullover and resting on his thighs.

“I can’t work, or even move.”

Ali and his family are among nearly one million people who have been displaced in northwestern Syria since December by a Russia-backed regime offensive.

For hundreds of thousands like him, it was just the latest of multiple displacements in recent years.

Map of conflict 

Ali’s body is like a map of his miraculous but horrific journey through the increasing violence in northwestern Syria.

Inside a small breeze-block house, he swipes his hand slowly over the floor to find his cup of coffee, brings it to his lips, and tells his story.

He was first wounded in 2013, right after he fled his native village of Shaizar in Hama province due to heightened hostilities.

In the nearby town of Latamneh, Ali was hit by regime barrel bombs, pieces of shrapnel piercing his wrist and arms.

That same year, he and his family fled further north to the town Maaret Hurma in Idlib province, where regime shelling pummelled their house, and severed three fingers on his left hand.

In early 2014, he relocated to the village of Kafr Sajna, also in Idlib, where shrapnel from an air strike punctured his chest and broke parts of his ribcage.

After three years of seemingly endless wounds, in 2016 Ali moved to farmlands outside the town of Khan Sheikhun.

“I almost survived the entire year without an injury,” he says.

But in its very last month, another attack wounded his head and right ear, robbing him of his hearing on that side.

He uprooted his family yet again, heading back north to Sheikh Mustafa, where they would remain safe for a whole 12 months.

Syria’s war has killed more than 390,000 people since it started in 2011.

 ‘The worst yet’

In mid-2018, however, Ali would suffer his worst injuries yet.

On his way back home from work, he stepped on a landmine that blew off his legs and ravaged his eyes.

“That was the last day I saw the world,” he says.

Today, Ali hauls himself onto a wheelchair, and his younger brother pushes him outside into the sun, clutching a smiling young boy riding along on his lap.

After the landmine, Ali spent one month in a coma in neighbouring Turkey.

“I woke up unable to see anything,” he says.

“The world was pitch black.”

When he returned to Syria, the war showed no sign of letting up.

“We had to keep escaping,” Ali says.

Eventually, he moved into his brother’s modest home in the displacement camp, where he and his family now reside.

A ceasefire has halted fighting since last weekend, but Ali describes his current circumstances as “the worst yet”.

“In the camps, we don’t have a home or even basic amenities,” he says.

As the war grinds on, Ibrahim will probably have to leave again, although it is unclear where to.

One thing, however, is certain for the young man twice arrested during the uprising for protesting against President Bashar Assad’s regime.

“If I were to be cut open and if my neck was to be sliced off and my head severed, I wouldn’t accept for me or my children to live under Assad’s rule.”

BAGHDAD — Iraqi and United Nations officials scrambled Thursday to contain the fallout from an unprecedented rocket attack that killed three US-led coalition members and threatened yet another escalation of Iran-US tensions.

Within hours of the attack on Taji air base, north of Baghdad — the deadliest in years on a base used by US forces in Iraq — an air strike killed more than two dozen Iran-aligned fighters in neighbouring Syria.

It marked a dramatic uptick in violence less than three months after rockets killed a US contractor in northern Iraq, unleashing a round of tit-for-tat attacks between Washington and Tehran on Iraqi soil.

Fearing an even bloodier flare-up this time, Iraqi officials and the United Nations were quick to condemn the coalition deaths.

Iraq's military command said it was "a serious security challenge" and pledged to open an investigation.

President Barham Saleh and parliament speaker Mohammed Al Halbussi condemned a "terrorist attack" which targeted "Iraq and its security".

The UN mission in Iraq called for "maximum restraint on all sides".

“These ongoing attacks are a clear and substantial threat to the country, and the risk of rogue action by armed groups remains a constant concern,” it said.

“The last thing Iraq needs is to serve as an arena for vendettas and external battles.”

Kataeb Hizbollah hails attack 

Wednesday’s attack was the 22nd on US interests in Iraq since late October.

It saw a volley of 18 rockets slam into the Taji base, one of about a dozen facilities across Iraq where coalition forces are posted.

The coalition confirmed three of its personnel were killed and around a dozen more wounded.

One of the dead was a member of the Royal Army Medical Corps, Britain confirmed. A US military official told AFP the other two were a US soldier and an American contractor.

There was no immediate word on Iraqi casualties and no group claimed responsibility.

Kataeb Hizbollah, a faction within Iraq’s Hashed Al Shaabi paramilitary alliance, hailed the attack and its perpetrators, without saying they were behind it.

“We believe it is the best time for popular, nationalist forces to resume operations to oust the evil attackers,” the group said in a statement.

Kataeb Hizbollah also criticised “those who were quick to denounce and express their sympathy”, in a hint at top Iraqi officials who had condemned the rocket attack.

In late December, the US accused Kataeb Hizbollah of killing an American contractor at a base in northern Iraq and carried out air strikes on western Iraq that killed 25 of its fighters.

Days later, a US drone strike killed senior Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani and Hashed Deputy Chief Abu Mahdi Al Muhandis near Baghdad airport.

Iran then launched its own strikes on a western Iraqi base, leaving dozens of US troops suffering from brain trauma.

Hashed factions have repeatedly pledged to avenge Muhandis’s death in their own way.

Hashed hammered in Syria 

Within hours of Wednesday’s attack, an air strike near the Syrian-Iraqi border town of Albu Kamal killed 26 Iran-aligned Iraqi fighters, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The US-led coalition denied carrying out any raids overnight on either Syria or Iraq.

Both the coalition and Israel have targeted Iran-backed fighters in Syria, whom they fear could be transferring missiles from their regional foe Iran.

The Hashed also blamed Israel and the US for a string of unexplained explosions last year.

Post-Saddam Iraq counts years of close ties with both Iran and the United States, and Baghdad has been put in an increasingly difficult position by the spiralling tensions between its allies.

In January, Iraqi lawmakers voted to oust all foreign troops from Iraq in reaction to the killing of Soleimani and Muhandis.

Some 5,200 US troops are stationed in Iraq as part of the coalition formed in 2014 to fight the Daesh terror group.

While Daesh has lost all of the territory it once held in Iraq and Syria, sleeper cells remain capable of carrying out attacks on both sides of the border.

On Sunday, two US soldiers were killed north of Baghdad while helping Iraqi forces battle Daesh remnants.

US officials have previously told AFP they considered the Hashed a bigger threat than Daesh, given the frequency and accuracy of rocket attacks on US troops that could be traced back to the paramilitaries.

ALGIERS — Former Algerian foreign minister Ramtane Lamamra is being considered as UN envoy to Libya, diplomatic sources said on Thursday, after Ghassan Salame resigned from the post earlier this month.

When asked if UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres had put forward Lamamra, a diplomatic source said, “You’re right”.

Two other diplomats — one African and one European — likewise said Lamamra’s name had been proposed. Both spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Lamamra, 67, served as Algeria’s foreign minister from 2013 to 2017 and as African Union commissioner for peace and security from 2008 to 2013. He has been a mediator in several African conflicts, notably in Liberia.

Stephanie Turco Williams of the United States will be acting envoy “until the appointment of a successor for Ghassan Salame”, Guterres said in a statement on Wednesday evening.

Williams has been Deputy Special Representative for Political Affairs at the UN Mission in Libya since 2018 and has more than 24 years’ experience in government and international affairs.

Salame announced his resignation on March 2, citing health reasons.

He had worked for months to bring about a ceasefire in Libya after eastern-based military commander Khalifa Haftar launched an offensive last April to seize the capital Tripoli, seat of the UN-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA).

A January ceasefire brokered by Turkey and Russia has repeatedly been violated.

Salame, a Lebanese appointed in 2017, struggled to organise elections and bring rival parties together for talks on ending the conflict.

Libya has been mired in turmoil since the 2011 overthrow and death of longtime dictator Muammar Qadhafi. It has since become divided between the GNA and rival authorities based in the country’s east.

Algeria has been seeking involvement in efforts to find a settlement to the conflict, which threatens regional stability.

During a January meeting of African leaders, Algeria offered to host a reconciliation forum on Libya, the African Union said at the time.

Algiers also hosted talks with Libya’s neighbours earlier that month.

Algeria and Libya share a border of almost 1,000 kilometres.

WASHINGTON — The US Congress on Wednesday gave its final approval to a bid to restrain President Donald Trump from attacking Iran, a sign of lawmakers’ alarm after soaring tensions.

A month after the resolution cleared the key hurdle of the Senate, which is controlled by Trump’s Republican Party, the Democratic-led House of Representatives voted 227-186 to approve the measure that bars any military action against Iran without an explicit vote from Congress.

But the resolution is virtually certain to be vetoed by Trump, and the coalition of most Democrats and a handful of war-sceptic Republicans lacks the votes to override him.

“If President Trump is serious about his promise to stop endless wars, he will sign this resolution into law,” said Senator Tim Kaine, the Democrat who spearheaded the move.

The House voted moments after a rocket fired on a military base north of Baghdad killed an American soldier, a British soldier and a US contractor, in the deadliest such attack on foreign forces in Iraq in several years.

A similar attack in December that killed a US contractor set off a chain of escalation after the United States blamed it on Iranian-aligned Iraqi Shiite militias.

On January 3, Trump ordered a drone strike that killed Iran’s most powerful general, Qassem Soleimani, at the Baghdad airport.

Supporters of the resolution said they wanted to ensure that Congress has the unique power to declare war, as outlined in the US Constitution.

“There are a lot of countries in the world where one person makes the decision. They’re called dictators,” said Representative Steny Hoyer, the second highest-ranking Democrat in the House.

“Our Founding Fathers did not want dictators running America,” he said.

Representative Mike McCaul, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, denounced the resolution and said that it should instead state that Trump’s killing of Soleimani made Americans safer.

“The enemies of our country are watching this debate right now. They need to know darn well that if you kill Americans, you will pay the price,” McCaul said in a floor speech met with loud cheers from Republicans.

Six Republicans and six Democrats crossed party lines in the House. In the Senate, eight Republicans had bucked their leadership, with one complaining that a briefing by the Trump administration on Iran had been the worst he had ever heard on any military issue.

The resolution, if it becomes law, would not stop Trump or future US presidents from taking military action if they determine there is an imminent threat from Iran.

The Soleimani strike angered Iraqi leaders, who called for the ouster of US forces. Some questioned whether Shiite militias carried out the attack in a country that still is trying to eliminate Islamic State fighters.

Trump, who has vowed to pull troops around the world and recently sealed a deal with Afghanistan’s Taliban insurgents, responded furiously to Iraqi threats to boot out US forces, threatening to impose sanctions.

About 5,200 US forces are stationed in Iraq as part of an international coalition formed in 2014 to confront the Islamic State group. The jihadists captured vast swathes of territory after the earlier departure of US forces, who toppled Saddam Hussein in a 2003 invasion that turned disastrous.

TRIPOLI — Despite advice from health authorities to shun public gatherings, Moayed Al Missaoui and friends watched an Italian Serie A football match in a buzzing cafe in the Libyan capital Tripoli.

While the novel coronavirus has affected more than 100 countries since December, many in Libya believe their war-torn country's isolation may lessen the threat.

For the television spectators, turmoil since a 2011 revolution that turned Libya into a no-go zone has finally come up with a positive side.

The constant closures of Tripoli’s only functioning airport and limited links with the outside world have so far buffered the north African country from COVID-19, unlike many of its neighbours.

“We’re sheltered from the virus in Libya, whose capital is under siege and where land and air links are closed,” said Moayed, a university student.

He said his country “has nothing to fear” from the virus, even as the number of cases across 105 countries and territories on Tuesday stood at over 114,000 with more than 4,000 deaths.

The fans were glued to the television as it beamed back pictures of an empty stadium, silent apart from the referee’s whistles and the shouts of coaches, in sharp contrast to the boisterousness inside the cafe. 

Italy has now suspended all sporting events until April 3, including the Serie A league, whose matches had already gone behind closed doors as the country under lockdown grapples with the COVID-19 crisis.

“Our Italian neighbours are denied the pleasure of going to watch matches in stadiums and even cafes and other public places, something that gives us real pleasure,” Moayed said with a broad smile.

Diya Abdel Karim, a fellow Italian football enthusiast, said it was “sensible” to take a more laid-back approach in Libya for the time being.

“It’s better not to stir fear and panic among people so the authorities can apply preventive sanitary measures without pressures,” said Diya, a dentist.

“But we have to remain vigilant.”

Some less sanguine 

According to Libyan authorities, so far not a single case of COVID-19 has been recorded in the country, which faces Italy across the Mediterranean.

Libya’s centre for disease control, the Tripoli-based CNLM, said it has readied measures to be adopted if the virus infiltrates the country.

“The virus has circled Libya from all sides. Our neighbours have confirmed cases so we must monitor the cross-border threat,” CNLM President Badreddine Al Najjar told AFP.

Although immediate neighbours such as Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria have announced cases, “we can’t yet speak of a pandemic”, he said.

Chronic insecurity in Libya led to the closure in 2014 of most Western embassies and travel advice for their nationals to steer clear of the country.

But despite being relatively cut off, said Najjar, Libyan health workers aim to have isolation and quarantine stations up and running next week.

Some Libyans have been less sanguine about the new threat in a country where nine years of warfare have cost hundreds of thousands of lives and displaced 150,000 people.

Stocks of sanitary products such as hand wipes, masks and gloves have been running short in Libyan pharmacies, said Mounir Al Hazel, who heads a medical imports firm.

“Tradesmen, pharmacists and individuals... are gearing up for shortages,” he said, adding that profiteers have been gouging prices.

NABLUS — A Palestinian teenager was shot dead by Israeli forces during confrontations in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, the Palestinian health ministry announced.

Mohammed Hamayel, 15, "died as a result of being shot in the face with live ammunition by the [Israeli] occupation" during clashes in Nablus in the northern West Bank, a ministry statement said.

The Israeli froces said a "violent riot" had taken place with roughly 500 Palestinians hurling rocks and setting tyres on fire. 

"We are aware of a report regarding a killed Palestinian and several injured. The incident will be reviewed," an Israeli forces statement said.

An AFP correspondent in Nablus said hundreds of Palestinians had gathered in an area south of the city in response to information that Israeli settlers would arrive and seize some land.

Confrontations broke out from early morning, with Israeli forces firing tear gas, live ammunition and rubber bullets to break up the demonstration.

Some officers were wearing masks seemingly to protect themselves from the coronavirus, an AFP photographer at the scene said.

Official Palestinian news agency Wafa said 17 people were wounded.

Two remained in serious condition, a medical source said.

ANKARA — President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday he would keep Turkey's border open for refugees until the EU had met all his demands, while comparing Greece's response to the crisis to the Nazis. 

"Until all Turkey's expectations, including free movement, ... updating of the customs union and financial assistance, are tangibly met, we will continue the practice on our borders," he said in a televised speech.

Turkey's decision at the end of February to reopen its border for refugees sparked a row with Brussels, as well as harsh exchanges with Greece.

Greece has tear-gassed thousands of migrants trying to break through and been accused of beating and stripping migrants of their belongings if they made it across the border.

"There is no difference between what the Nazis did and those images from the Greek border," Erdogan said. 

Greece has denied using violence and accused Turkey of pushing desperate people into dangerous attempts to enter Europe.

Erdogan said he opened the gates in order to pressure Europe into providing greater assistance with the Syrian conflict, where Turkey has fought to push back a government offensive on the last rebel stronghold of Idlib.

"With the warming of the weather in the spring, the influx of irregular migrants heading to Europe will not be limited to Greece but spread all over the Mediterranean," he warned. 

But he reiterated that Turkey hopes for a fresh agreement with Brussels ahead of the next EU leaders' summit on March 26. 

Turkey already hosts some four million refugees — most of them Syria — and fears another mass influx as the regime, backed by Russia and Iran, pushes to retake Idlib. 

Although Erdogan and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin agreed a ceasefire for the province last week, previous deals have proved temporary and the Turkish president said Wednesday that minor violations have already been reported. 

Turkey agreed to stop migrant departures under a 2016 deal with Brussels, but says it has not received all of the six billion euros promised, nor have several other demands been met, including enhanced trade and visa arrangements.