Region

MUNICH, Germany — International efforts to mediate between Tehran and the US are being thwarted by President Donald Trump's advisers misleading him into thinking the Iranian regime is collapsing, the country's foreign minister said on Saturday.

France and Japan have both sought to foster dialogue between the two foes in recent months in a bid to calm spiralling tensions, but without success.

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Trump was being badly advised and this had led him to reject overtures from French President Emmanuel Macron and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

"Unfortunately the suggestions by Macron and by Abe and others have all fallen on deaf ears because President Trump has been convinced that we are about to collapse, so he doesn't want to talk to a collapsing regime," Zarif said at the Munich Security Conference.

"I believe President Trump unfortunately does not have good advisers. He's been waiting for the Iranian government's collapse since he withdrew from the nuclear deal."

The nuclear accord that curbed Iran's nuclear programme has been slowly crumbling since Trump pulled out in 2018 and reimposed tough sanctions, despite European efforts to save it.

The US and Iran have also been at loggerheads over the Islamic republic's ballistic missile programme and its interference in regional conflicts around the Middle East.

Tensions came to a head in January when the US killed top Iranian Gen Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike in Baghdad, prompting fears of all-out war.

Zarif said retaliatory rocket attacks by Iran on US-used bases in Iraq soon after the Soleimani killing were the end of the military response.

But he suggested a possible informal response by hinting at "consequences from the population" — likely a veiled reference to Iran's network of proxy militias across the Middle East.

Zarif said Trump suffered bad advice from his hawkish former national security advisor John Bolton, the architect of Washington's "maximum pressure" strategy on Iran.

"Now today with John Bolton gone unfortunately somebody else is trying to mimic John Bolton and promise the president that killing Soleimani will bring people to dance in the streets of Tehran and Baghdad," Zarif said.

While the Iranian minister did not name those he thought were misleading Trump, he has traded barbs repeatedly with his US counterpart Mike Pompeo.

And his mention of dancing in the street was an apparent reference to a tweet by Pompeo following the killing of Soleimani.

MUNICH, Germany — Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Saturday that victory over terrorist groups in Idlib was "unavoidable" as Moscow backs an intensifying military operation by the Syrian army on the last major rebel bastion.

"The victory over terrorists is unvoidable" in Idlib, Lavrov told the Munich Security Conference, as tensions rise between Moscow and Ankara, which backs Syria's opposition forces.

Syria's northwestern Idlib province is held by an array of rebels dominated by the Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (HTS) extremist group, which is led by members of the country's former Al Qaeda franchise.

The HTS group "controls a major part of the Idlib security zone and that's a problem", Lavrov said in comments translated into English.

He called the area "one of the last hotbeds of terrorism" in war-ravaged Syria.

The top Russian diplomat said it was "difficult" to distinguish "normal opposition from terrorists" because the fighters were trying to use civilians "as a shield".

Earlier on Saturday, Lavrov met his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu on the sidelines of the Munich gathering.

In a tweet, Cavusoglu described their meeting as "positive".

Tensions over Idlib soared after Damascus killed 14 Turks earlier this month.

The Turkish military has 12 observation posts in the northwestern province of Idlib, the last rebel-held bastion in Syria.

The posts were set up after a 2018 Russia-Turkey deal agreed in Sochi to prevent a regime offensive. But in recent months, Syrian President Bashar Al Assad has pressed an assault supported by Russian air strikes.

After the Turks' deaths, Ankara and Moscow became embroiled in a war of words over who had not fulfilled the conditions of the Sochi deal.

Earlier on Saturday, Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay insisted Ankara had “fulfilled its responsibilities” after Russia accused Turkey of failing to “neutralise terrorists” in Idlib.

The United Nations says 800,000 people have fled the region since December.

The Syrian army has made new gains in northwestern Syria on Friday, further chipping away at the country’s last major rebel pocket, a war monitor said.

The army is now securing areas along a key highway they seized from extremists and allied rebels this week.

On Friday, they pushed west of the M5 motorway which connects Syria’s four largest cities and is economically vital for the government, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

In an attempt to consolidate a “security belt” around the road, they seized a key base on Friday that they had lost to rebels in 2012, the Britain-based monitor said. 

Located 12 kilometres west of Aleppo city, Base 46 was the site of a brutal confrontation between government forces and rebels in the early phase of Syria’s civil war.

RIYADH — A Saudi fighter jet crashed in conflict-torn Yemen, the Riyadh-led military coalition backing the government said Saturday, as the country's Iran-backed Houthi rebels claimed to have shot it down.

The Tornado aircraft came down Friday in northern Al-Jawf province during an operation to support government forces, the coalition said in a statement, in a rare crash that marks a setback for a military alliance known for its air supremacy.

The statement released by the official Saudi Press Agency did not specify the fate of the crew or the cause of the crash, which comes amid an upsurge in fighting between the warring parties that threatens to worsen Yemen’s humanitarian crisis.

The Houthi rebels said they will release footage showing the launch of its “advanced surface-to-air missile” and the moment it downed the jet.

The insurgents reported multiple coalition air strikes on Saturday in the Houthi-controlled area where the plane went down as local residents gathered near the wreckage, according to the rebels’ Al Masirah television.

The bombing raids left “dozens” of people dead or wounded, Al Masirah added, a report that could not be immediately verified by local aid workers.

‘Massively expanded arsenal’ 

The escalation follows fierce fighting around the Houthi-held capital Sanaa, with the rebels seen to be advancing on several fronts towards Hazm, the regional capital of Al Jouf.

The province of Al-Jouf has been mostly controlled by the Houthis, but with its capital still in the hands of the Saudi-backed government.

The coalition intervened against the Houthis in 2015, first with air and naval forces before ground forces were also brought into the fray.

The fighting has killed tens of thousands of people, most of them civilians, and sparked what the United Nations calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

If the Houthi claim is confirmed, the rare downing of a coalition warplane signals the rebels’ growing military arsenal.

“At the start of the conflict the Huthis were a ragtag militia,” Fatima Abo Alasrar, a scholar at the Middle East Institute, told AFP. 

“Today they have massively expanded their arsenal with the help of Iran and its proxy Hizbollah,” Lebanon’s powerful Shiite movement.

Yemen’s Houthi rebels are in possession of new weapons similar to those produced in Iran, according to a UN report obtained by AFP earlier this month, in potential violation of a UN arms embargo.

Some of the new weapons, which the rebels have possessed since 2019, “have technical characteristics similar to arms manufactured in the Islamic Republic of Iran”, said the report, compiled by a panel of UN experts tasked with monitoring the embargo.

The panel didn’t say whether the weapons were delivered to the Houthis directly by the Iranian government, which has repeatedly denied sending them arms.

The coalition, separately, has been widely criticised for the high civilian death toll from its bombing campaign, which has prompted some Western governments to cut arms deliveries to the countries taking part.

On Wednesday, the coalition said it would put on trial military personnel suspected of being behind deadly air strikes on Yemeni civilians.

The cases being investigated include a 2018 air strike on a school bus in the northern region of Dahyan that killed at least 40 children, Saudi-based Arab News said.

ISTANBUL — Turkey on Thursday threatened to use force against "radicals" in Syria's Idlib province after Russia accused Ankara of failing to "neutralise" extremist groups under a 2018 deal.

"Force will be used in Idlib against those who do not abide by the ceasefire, including the radicals," Defence Minister Hulusi Akar was quoted as saying by the official Anadolu news agency.

"Any form of measure will be taken," he said.

Idlib — the last opposition bastion in Syria — is held by an array of rebels dominated by the Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (HTS) radical group, which is led by members of the country's former Al Qaeda franchise.

The Syrian army has pressed ahead with an offensive in the region since December, killing more than 380 civilians, according to the monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The killing of 14 Turks in Idlib in government shelling has fuelled tensions between Ankara and Damascus.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday accused Russia of committing "massacres" in Idlib and threatened to strike government forces anywhere in Syria if the slightest harm is done to Turkish troops.

In return, Moscow accused Ankara of failing to honour the 2018 deal, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying the Turkish side "had taken upon itself an obligation to neutralise terrorist groups" in Idlib.

Under the bilateral agreement, radical groups were required to withdraw from a demilitarised zone in the Idlib region.

'No military victory' 

As Turkey and Russia traded accusations over the escalation in Idlib, US special envoy for Syria James Jeffrey held closed-door talks with Turkish officials in Ankara on Wednesday.

Washington has thrown full support for its NATO ally’s response to the Syrian government fire in Idlib.

Jeffrey, in comments published on Thursday on the official Twitter account of the US Embassy in Turkey, voiced US support for Ankara’s “legitimate” interests in Syria.

“Our job is to convince [Russia, Iran and Syria] that they are not going to have a military victory,” he said.

Turkey, which already hosts more than 3.7 million Syrians, fears a further influx of refugees fleeing violence in Idlib.

The two countries have been on a collision course over US support for Kurdish militants fighting against the Daesh terror group in Syria, deemed as terrorists by Ankara.

Under the bilateral deal with Russia, Turkey has also set up 12 observation posts in Idlib — three of which were encircled by Assad’s forces, according to Turkish officials.

Erdogan has now given Damascus until the end of the month to push back its forces outside the military locations.

Turkey has sent reinforcements including troops and artillery to beef up its observation posts in recent days following the series of exchanges with the Syrian army.

Akar said: “We are sending additional units to establish a ceasefire and make it long-lasting. We will control the field.”

GAZA CITY — Off a bumpy dirt road in Gaza city, a group of children stood outside a half-open factory door, desperate to get their hands on what was being made inside.

"We want chocolate!" they shouted at a worker as he left the Al Arees factory, which despite daunting obstacles churns out treats ranging from chocolate-covered biscuits to a Gazan version of a world famous spread, dubbed here 'Natalia'.

Buckling in the face of candy-crazed kids, the man popped behind the door and returned with enough free chocolate to rot their growing teeth.

Al Arees’s products are Gazan but their components are not, as few of the basic raw ingredients are produced in the impoverished Mediterranean coastal strip.

The factory relies on chocolate from as far as Argentina, sugar from African countries and dried eggs from The Netherlands, with other essentials imported from Turkey and Israel.

Israel controls all goods that enter Gaza, imposing a blockade that tightened after the tiny enclave was seized by the Islamist group Hamas in 2007. Israel has waged three aggressions against Gaza since 2008. 

Double customs fees 

Gaza has no airport. Goods for the strip are usually brought into Ashdod, an Israeli port around 35 kilometres north of the strip.

Getting them into Gaza requires patience and money.

“From Ashdod we pay for workers and trucks that take these goods to the Kerem Shalom border crossing [between Gaza and Israel],” said Wael Ai, head of Al Arees.

“Then you take them out of the truck for checks, then onto another truck from Gaza and after about 500 metres you have another checkpoint for Hamas,” he added.

“I pay customs twice,” he told AFP, meaning once in Ashdod where Israel collects fees on behalf of the official Palestinian government based in the West Bank and then in Gaza to Hamas.

Due to Gaza’s electricity shortages, Ai has installed three fuel-guzzling generators. “If you want anything done in Gaza you have to do it yourself,” he said.

‘Natalia’ 

Nutella may be a global phenomena, but Gazans clamour for Natalia, their own version of a chocolate and hazelnut spread.

Local factories also make Crimpos, a large marshmallow coated in a thick layer of chocolate.

The treats are popular, but not necessarily profitable.

Four hundred grams of Natalia sells for just 3 or 4 shekels (about a 1$) while Crimpos sell for as little as 5 shekels per box of 20.

With Gaza’s unemployment rate at nearly 50 per cent, there is little space to raise prices domestically.

And exports to more lucrative markets are largely banned by Israel, which permits some vegetables and clothing to be sold abroad but not processed food.

Maher Al Tabbaa of the Gaza Chamber of Commerce insisted that factories in the strip make attractive products that are “forbidden from leaving Gaza”.

First exports of Gaza sweets 

“They are banned from being exported even to the West Bank,” he added.

“In Gaza we have a limited market, so the banning of exports weakens the industry.”

Despite ongoing tensions, Israel and Hamas have reached a series of agreements over the past year that have slightly eased tensions.

That fragile accord led to an event in December which, for a Gazan producer, could fairly be described as momentous: for the first time in years Gaza exported sweet goods.

Eight tonnes of Crimpos were cleared for export to Bahrain, crossing through Israel and the West Bank to Jordan, and onward to the Gulf Arab state.

“What I exported was one day’s work only,” said Wael Al Wadiya, chairman of Sarayo Alwadiya company that made the Krembos.

“Right now we have 150 employees at the company. If they open the door to exports we will have people working three shifts — each one eight hours.”

“So the number will go from 150 to between 300 and 450.”

But in recent days the situation has slipped backwards again.

After increased Gaza rocket fire following Trump’s peace proposal, Israel again tightened the export rules and cancelled 500 permits for Gazans to work in Israel.

But Wadiya remains optimistic.

“If you can succeed in Gaza, you can succeed anywhere.”

By Guillaume Lavallee and Joe Dyke