Region

TRIPOLI — Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar's capture of the strategic city of Sirte on Monday was a major setback for Tripoli's UN-recognised government, analysts say.

The fresh advance by Haftar's self-styled Libyan National Army comes as Turkey deploys troops — 35 so far, in a training capacity — to bolster the beleaguered Government of National Accord.

Diplomatic efforts to contain the spiralling crisis saw Turkey and Russia on Wednesday call for a ceasefire, despite supporting opposing sides of the conflict.

But Libya's rival factions have not yet responded.

Sirte was controlled by forces loyal to the GNA after they expelled Daesh fighters from the coastal city in 2016.

But after a local Salafist militia switched sides, the city fell without fighting to Haftar's Libya Arab Armed Forces (LAAF), which has been fighting to seize Tripoli from the GNA since last April.

The hometown of Muammar Qadhafi, Sirte paid a heavy price after the longstanding dictator was ousted in a 2011 NATO-backed rebellion.

Many in Sirte welcomed Haftar’s forces as they did not support the GNA — whose forces are mostly former anti-Qadhafi rebels from Misrata, a city between Sirte and Tripoli.

New front? 

Along with undermining the morale of GNA forces, “the loss of Sirte will significantly reduce [their] military and strategic position vis-a-vis” the LAAF, said Jalel Harchaoui, a researcher at the Clingendael Institute.

Since Haftar launched his Tripoli offensive, his troops have also mobilised to block any potential counterattack on Libya’s “oil crescent” in the northeast, under Haftar’s control since 2016.

Haftar feared GNA forces could use Sirte’s airbase to carry out strikes on his eastern stronghold, according to Harchaoui.

Threats from Sirte against the LAAF, until recently known as the Libyan National Army, “constituted a kind of sword of Damocles hanging over Haftar”, he said.

The loss of Sirte also puts pressure on the eastern flank of pro-GNA forces defending the capital in Tripoli’s southern suburbs, Harchaoui added.

According to Emad Badi of the Middle East Institute, Haftar is looking to turn Misratan forces towards Sirte in order to weaken Tripoli’s defences.

His forces may look to open a new front against Misrata, 200 kilometres east of Tripoli, which previously blocked their advance west, according to Hamish Kinnear, an analyst at Verisk Maplecroft.

“Misratan militias will prioritise protecting their home city” if the LAAF advances on it, he said.

“This will put enormous pressure on the GNA’s war effort in Tripoli itself.”

‘Important setback’ 

“Strategically, the loss of Sirte makes it much more difficult for GNA-affiliated forces to harass Haftar’s supply lines,” said Wolfram Lacher, a researcher at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.

The loss of Sirte comes as Turkey is sending troops to support the GNA against Haftar, who is supported by Ankara’s rivals the United Arab Emirates and Egypt.

Russia is also accused of sending fighters to support Haftar, something Moscow denies.

While Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has made grand pronouncements about supporting Tripoli, in reality he will be forced to proceed slowly, Harchaoui said.

Turkey may decide to defend limited territory, such as downtown Tripoli and other enclaves, he said.

But “the loss of Sirte makes Turkish support all the more urgent for the GNA,” said Lacher.

While Turkish drones have resumed attacking pro-Haftar forces in recent days, the GNA still needs greater air capabilities, Lacher
told AFP.

Advisers are already helping GNA troops fly the drones and jam signals from Haftar’s unmanned aircraft, experts say.

The Turkish deployment may in large part be a propaganda move aimed at halting Haftar’s Tripoli offensive, the analysts believe.

Erdogan on Wednesday appeared alongside his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Istanbul to call for a ceasefire in Libya from Sunday.

The pair united to issue a joint statement calling for a truce “supported by the necessary measures to be taken for stabilising the situation on the ground”.

Haftar meanwhile was in Rome on Wednesday for talks with Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte.

BEIRUT — Lebanon banned former auto tycoon Carlos Ghosn from travel on Thursday and asked Japan to hand over his file on financial misconduct charges, as Tokyo urged the fugitive businessman to return.

The 65-year-old businessman — for years venerated in Japan for turning around once-ailing Nissan — fled while awaiting trial on charges including allegedly under-reporting his compensation to the tune of $85 million.

His shock arrival in his native Lebanon last month was the latest twist in a story worthy of a Hollywood plot and prompted outrage from the Japanese government as well as from Nissan.

A day after Ghosn made an impassioned defence in front of world media of his decision to jump bail and flee Japan, Ghosn on Thursday gave testimony to Lebanese prosecutors over an Interpol "red notice" urging his arrest.

"The state prosecution issued a travel ban for Ghosn, and asked for his file from the Japanese authorities," a judicial source told AFP.

A second judicial source said Ghosn had been asked to hand over his French passport and banned from travelling abroad until his judicial file arrived from Japan.

"According to what is inside the file, if it appears that the crimes he is accused of in Japan require being pursued in Lebanon, he will be tried," the source added.

"But if it doesn't require being pursued under Lebanese law, then he will be free."

At Japan's request, Lebanon's judiciary received a "red notice" from Interpol last week urging Ghosn's arrest.

A "red notice" is a request to police across the world to provisionally detain a person pending extradition, surrender or similar legal action. It is not an arrest warrant.

But Lebanon does not have an extradition agreement with Japan.

Ghosn also made a statement to prosecutors on Thursday on a report submitted by Lebanese lawyers that he had travelled to Israel as head of Renault-Nissan, despite a ban on Lebanese visiting it. 

Lebanon and Israel are technically still at war.

In early 2008, Ghosn travelled to Israel to announce the production of electric vehicles there with the cooperation of Renault-Nissan.

At a press conference in Beirut on Wednesday, Ghosn apologised to the Lebanese people for having visited it.

"I went as a Frenchman because of a contract between Renault and an Israeli company," said Ghosn, who holds French, Lebanese and Brazilian nationalities.

"I always come back to Lebanon and nothing has ever happened before," he said.

At his first public appearance since his escape to Lebanon, he said he had been forced to flee Japan because he would not get a fair trial.

"There was no way I was going to be treated fairly... this was not about justice," he told reporters, responding to questions in English, Arabic, French and Portuguese.

The ex-chairman of Nissan-Renault faces four charges of financial misconduct in Tokyo, which he alleges were cooked up by disgruntled executives at Nissan in collusion with Japanese prosecutors.

Japan's Justice Minister Masako Mori on Thursday said the accusations were "baseless" and urged Carlos Ghosn to return and make his case in court.

"If defendant Ghosn has anything to say on his criminal case, he should make his argument in a Japanese court and present concrete evidence," she said.

"If he claims innocence, he should face a trial under the justice system in Japan, where he was doing business, and he should submit evidence to prove his claims," Mori said.

The businessman was out on bail in Tokyo when he launched his escape plan, and said he decided to flee after his lawyers told him he could wait five years for a verdict.

He also accused prosecutors of imposing strict conditions on contacts with his wife Carole in a bid to "break" him.

Prosecutors in Tokyo this week obtained an arrest warrant for Carole, who is also in Lebanon, alleging she lied to a Japanese court.

On Wednesday, Ghosn refused to shed any light on how he managed to slip past authorities and flee Japan at the end of December — an astonishing feat given his high-profile status and the restrictions he faced.

Under his bail terms, his passports were confiscated, his home monitored and his internet access limited to a computer at his lawyer's office.

TEHRAN — A Ukrainian airliner crashed shortly after take-off from Tehran Wednesday killing all 176 people on board, mainly Iranians and Canadians.

Search-and-rescue teams were combing through the smoking wreckage of the Boeing 737 flight from Tehran to Kiev but officials said there was no hope of finding anyone alive.

The vast majority of the passengers on the Ukraine International Airlines flight were non-Ukrainians, including 82 Iranians and 63 Canadians, officials said.

The crash occurred with tensions high in the Middle East and shortly after Tehran launched missiles at bases in Iraq housing US troops.

However, there was no immediate indication of foul play and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned against "speculating" on the cause of the disaster.

The US aviation authority said it had banned US-registered carriers from flying over Iraq, Iran and the Gulf, and airlines including Lufthansa and Air France suspended flights through Iraqi and Iranian airspace.

Footage released by Iranian state media showed a field on fire and the smouldering wreck of the plane.

Body bags were lined up on the ground and the passengers' personal items — including luggage, clothes, a Santa Claus doll and a boxing glove — were scattered in the debris.

UIA, the ex-Soviet country's privately owned main carrier, said flight PS752 took off from Tehran airport at 6:10am and disappeared from radars minutes later.

It slammed into farmland at Khalaj Abad, in Shahriar county, about 45 kilometres northwest of the airport, Iranian state media said.

Children, students 

on board 

Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that Ottawa would work to ensure a thorough investigation.

“This morning, I join Canadians across the country who are shocked and saddened” by the crash, he said.

“Our government will continue to work closely with its international partners to ensure that... [it] is thoroughly investigated, and that Canadians’ questions are answered.”

Trudeau’s Foreign Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne had earlier said Ottawa was in touch with Kiev over the crash.

As well as the Iranians and Canadians, the passengers included 10 Swedes, four Afghans, three Germans and three Britons, Ukraine’s foreign minister said. Eleven Ukrainians including the nine crew were among the victims.

Canada is home to a large Iranian expatriate community and UIA offers discount flights between Tehran and Toronto, with a transit in Kiev.

UIA released a list of the names and birth years of passengers. At least 25 were under the age of 18.

Two passengers registered on the flight did not board before take-off, Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s national security council, told reporters.

The airline said the Boeing 737 had been built in 2016 and checked only two days before the accident. It was Kiev-based UIA’s first fatal crash.

“The plane was in working order,” UIA company President Yevgeniy Dykhne told a briefing in Kiev where he choked back tears. “It was one of our best planes with a wonderful crew.”

The airline is in part owned by Igor Kolomoisky, a controversial Ukrainian businessman with ties to Zelensky.

The president, who cut short a vacation in Oman to return to Kiev, ordered an investigation into the crash and a sweeping check of “all civilian aircraft” in the country.

“I ask everyone to keep from speculating and putting forth unconfirmed theories about the crash,” Zelensky wrote on Facebook.

Iranian state media reported that the plane caught fire after crashing, but a video aired by the state broadcaster appeared to show the plane already on fire as it fell from the night sky.

‘Something catastrophic’ 

Iran on Wednesday fired more than a dozen ballistic missiles at Iraqi bases housing the US military, in the first action of its promised revenge for the US killing of a top Iranian general.

“There is a lot of speculation at the moment it has been shot down I think that is not going to be the case at all,” said Stephen Wright, a professor of aircraft systems at Tampere University in Finland.

“Planes fly the same routes day in, day out,” he said. “You don’t tend to put... missiles next to international airways for obvious reasons.”

He added: “It could be a bomb or it could be some sort of catastrophic breakup of the aircraft.”

The aircraft was not one of the MAX models fitted with anti-stall systems that have been linked with two other recent crashes of Boeing 737s.

Boeing, which has been roiled by a nine-month crisis after the 737 MAX model was grounded, tweeted on Wednesday: “We are in contact with our airline customer and stand by them in this difficult time. We are ready to assist in any way needed.”

UIA Vice President Igor Sosnovskiy told reporters in Kiev that the airline doubted its crew was at fault.

“[The chances] of a crew error are minimal, we simply are not considering them,” he said.

Black boxes recovered 

A statement posted on the Ukrainian embassy website in Iran saying the crash was caused by an engine malfunction and ruling out an act of terror was later redacted, saying all information would be provided by an official commission.

A Ukrainian source told AFP the statement had been changed because the embassy had used unverified reports.

Prime Minister Oleksiy Goncharuk said Kiev was negotiating with Iranian authorities to allow Ukrainian investigators to travel to the crash site.

Iran’s civil aviation authority said search-and-rescue teams had found the airliner’s two black boxes but that it would not hand them over to Boeing or US authorities.

Meanwhile, the United States on Wednesday urged “complete cooperation” with a probe into a Ukrainian flight’s crash in Iran, which has rejected giving the Boeing plane’s black boxes to arch-rival Washington.

“The United States calls for complete cooperation with any investigation into the cause of the crash,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement, without naming Iran directly.

Pompeo offered condolences to the loved ones of the 176 people who were all killed on board, most of whom were Iranian or Canadian.

“The United States will continue to follow this incident closely and stands prepared to offer Ukraine all possible assistance,” he said.

ISTANBUL/BRUSSELS — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin called on Wednesday for a ceasefire in Libya after talks in Istanbul, where they also inaugurated a "historic" gas pipeline.

The leaders used a joint statement to call for a truce from midnight on Sunday "supported by the necessary measures to be taken for stabilising the situation on the ground" in Libya, where they are seen as supporting opposing sides.

Last week, Turkey sent its first troops to help defend the UN-backed Tripoli government and Erdogan says there are 2,500 Russian mercenaries supporting renegade strongman Khalifa Haftar  a claim denied by Moscow.

EU leaders met the head of Libya's UN-recognised government on Wednesday, with Germany warning the country could deteriorate into a "second Syria".

Fayez Al Sarraj, whose beleaguered Government of National Accord is facing an offensive by rival forces who control the country's east, met EU diplomatic chief Josep Borrell, who cautioned that Libya was facing a "watershed point".

He also met EU Council President Charles Michel and German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, who told reporters that "we want to prevent Libya from becoming the scene of a proxy war or Libya becoming a second Syria".

Borrell's and Maas' warnings came after military strongman Khalifa Haftar's forces  who have support from the UAE, Egypt and Russia  seized control of the coastal city of Sirte as part of his drive to take Tripoli and oust the GNA.

The EU pledged to "step up efforts towards a peaceful and political solution" in a statement released afterwards, hoping the so-called Berlin process  UN-sponsored talks planned for the German capital  can offer a way out.

Maas, who a day earlier took part in emergency talks on Libya with his French, British and Italian counterparts, said Sarraj had given his full support to the Berlin process and pledged to “push ahead with what is to be agreed there both a ceasefire and an arms embargo with the neighbouring states, but also above all the political process under the aegis of the United Nations”.

No date has been fixed for the Berlin conference, but Maas suggested it could happen in the coming weeks.

Borrell, who on Tuesday condemned Turkey for “interference” in the Libya conflict, earlier in the day warned that the situation in Libya was becoming increasingly perilous.

Michel is due in Turkey this weekend for talks with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, while Borrell plans to meet other Libyan leaders including Haftar in search of a breakthrough.

Ankara says it has sent 35 Turkish troops who are carrying out training and coordination tasks to support the GNA, insisting they will not take part in any fighting.

Libya has been plunged into chaos since a 2011 NATO-backed uprising that killed longstanding Muammar Qadhafi, and is now divided between the GNA and Haftar’s rival authorities based in the country’s east.

NAIROBI — Somali Islamist group Al Shabaab on Wednesday warned Kenya "will never be safe", threatening tourists and calling for more attacks on US interests after they stormed an American base at the weekend.

The Al Qaeda linked group said its attack on Camp Simba, in which three Americans were killed and several aircraft destroyed, should serve as a "warning" and Kenya should withdraw its forces from Somalia while they still "have the chance".

Kenya sent troops into Somalia in 2011 as part of an African Union peacekeeping mission fighting against Al Shabaab, and has seen several brutal retaliation attacks both on its troops in Somalia and civilians in Kenya.

"Withdraw all your forces from our Muslim lands while you still have the chance. Otherwise brace yourselves for the worst and prepare for perilous times ahead, because Kenya will never be safe and Kenyans will never sleep soundly at night," the statement said.

"Tourists and travellers visiting the country are hereby warned that there will no longer be any safe sightseeing or safari trips in Kenya."

The statement comes almost a year after the January 15 siege of the upscale Dusit hotel complex in Nairobi left 21 dead. Previous attacks have killed 67 at the Westgate shopping centre in 2013 and 148 at Garissa University in 2015.

The ability of the group to strike a military base with a US presence stunned the country, and police have been on high alert after an increase of cross-border raids.

The Camp Simba attack came a week after a car bomb left 81 dead in Mogadishu, and on Wednesday another vehicle packed with explosives left four dead.

The statement also urged extremists to “make US interests in Kenya their primary target”.

In a statement issued Sunday, Al Shabaab referred to an increase in US military air strikes under President Donald Trump, accusing the US of “strafing villages from above and indiscriminately bombarding innocent women and children”.

AFRICOM said in April it had killed more than 800 people in 110 strikes in Somalia since April 2017.

Observers say the Islamist group has shown remarkable resilience after more than a decade of efforts to combat it, retaining the capacity to inflict major damage despite losing control of several urban centres.

PARIS — Esmail Qaani, the new commander of the shadowy Quds Force of Iran's Revolutionary Guards after the killing of Qasem Soleimani, represents a continuity choice at a hugely combustible moment for Tehran but lacks the charismatic aura of his storied predecessor.

Qaani, formerly Quds Force deputy commander, was named by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the immediate aftermath of the killing of Soleimani in an American strike that raised the risk of open conflict with the United States to unprecedented levels.

Appointing Qaani, Khamenei said the "orders remain exactly the same" for the Quds Force, part of the elite Revolutionary Guards and charged notably with its extraterritorial operations —  making the force a key player in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen.

Like Soleimani, who was hailed in Iran after his death as a martyr, Qaani is a veteran of the grinding 1980-1988 war with Iraq which dominated the early years of the Islamic republic after the ousting of the pro-US shah and still marks its political culture today.

"I think that in the short-[to]-medium term there will be some continuity. We'll hear a lot of harsh rhetoric, so as to keep awake the message of 'resistance'," said Annalisa Perteghella, research fellow at the Italian Institute for International Political Studies (IPSI).

 'Uncharted territory' 

But Qaani does not appear to share the charisma of Soleimani, who made a speciality of openly being photographed with fighters on the frontline and was seen by some as the de-facto number two in the country.

"Qaani does not have Soleimani's charisma, neither his understanding of the Arab Levant," said Perteghella. "So there could be changes and adjustments over the long term."

"But we're really entering uncharted territory," she told AFP.

Following the killing of Soleimani, tensions between Iran and the United States have reached a level unprecedented since the 1979-1981 Tehran US embassy hostage crisis that prompted a rupture in relations that has never healed.

Iran launched strikes early Wednesday against bases housing American troops in Iraq in retaliation for the killing, a riposte Khamenei described as a "slap in the face" for the US.

But analysts fear that more unconventional and asymmetrical attacks on US targets in the region may follow, a strategy that could involve the Quds Force.

The Quds Force has close contact with militias backed by Iran such as the Hizbollah group in Lebanon, or others in Iraq. In Yemen, it gives "moral support" to the Houthi rebels, according to the Revolutionary Guards.

It has been active on the ground in the Syria conflict as both Russia and Iran intervened to bolster Bashar Assad and is believed by analysts to have sustained significant losses.

'Personalities replaceable' 

Thomas Flichy de La Neuville, chair of geopolitics at the Rennes School of Business, described Soleimani as someone with a "great power of persuasion and great psychological power".

Yet, analysts believe that four decades after the Islamic Revolution, institutions like the Revolutionary Guards have the structures in place to withstand even the loss of a major personality like Soleimani.

Soleimani "was in every sense replaceable; Iran is set up to be able to organise its operations of influence irrespective of the personalities", said Francois Heisbourg, special adviser at the Foundation for Strategic Research (FRS) in Paris.

Qaani, who joined the Revolutionary Guards as a young man at the onset of the Iran-Iraq war, is believed to have become deputy head of the Quds Force in the late 1990s, focusing more on operations in the east such as Afghanistan and Pakistan, while his boss Soleimani focused on Arab states in the Middle East.

Ali Alfoneh, senior fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, said there is likely "to be greater continuity than change in the Quds Force" under Qaani's leadership.

But he added: "It is difficult to expect Qaani, the bureaucrat, to emulate his predecessor's charismatic leadership," noting that Soleimani's decision to be the public face of the group and expose himself to danger had led to him being killed.

By Stuart Williams

MOGADISHU —  At least four people were killed, including a senior government official, when a car bomb exploded close to a checkpoint near Somalia's parliament in the capital Mogadishu on Wednesday, police said.

A plume of thick black smoke was seen over the city and witnesses said a number of vehicles were on fire.

Islamist group Al Shabaab claimed the attack, after a rise in activity in recent days by the Al Qaeda linked group which has seen it inflict mass casualties in Somalia and attack a US military base in Kenya.

"Explosives were packed in a vehicle which the security forces think was trying to pass through the checkpoint, but because he could not do that, the suicide bomber detonated it," said police officer Adan Abdullahi.

"Initial reports we have received indicate four people were killed and more than 10 others were wounded in the blast."

Bile Ismail, the manager of finances at the ministry for women and human rights, was among those killed, relatives and colleagues told AFP.

"We have indeed lost a brother and good friend in the blast this morning," Abdiqani Omar, the ministry's former director general, told AFP.

"He was sitting in the car waiting in line at the checkpoint when the blast occurred and his body [was] badly burned inside the car," he added.

'There was chaos' 

Abdirahman Mohamed, who was at a nearby grocery store when the blast occurred, said he saw several corpses.

"I saw the dead bodies of several people, some of them killed by shrapnel inside their vehicles. There was chaos... and ambulances reached the scene soon after the blast," he said.

Shamso Ali, another witness, described "smoke and chaos along the road, the blast was very heavy".

"Thanks to God I was a distance away but I saw the smoke and several vehicles caught on fire," he said.

Mogadishu is regularly hit by attacks by Al Shabaab, which has fought for more than a decade to topple the Somali government.

The powerful blast comes after Al  Shabaab claimed a car bombing in Mogadishu on December 28 that killed 81 people.

That attack, which hit a busy checkpoint in the southwest of the city, was Somalia's deadliest assault in two years. Scores were wounded.

Al Shabaab has also managed to expand its network in the region, especially in Kenya which has suffered several devastating attacks in retaliation for sending troops into Somalia in 2011.

On Sunday, three US citizens died and several aircraft and military vehicles were destroyed when Al Shabaab stormed a military base in Kenya's coastal Lamu region.

Also on Sunday, just hours after the attack, police arrested three men who tried to force their way into a British military training camp in the central Kenyan town of Nanyuki.

The Al Qaeda-linked group has in the past carried out bloody sieges against civilians in Kenya, such as the upmarket Westgate Mall in 2013 and Garissa University in 2015.

The uptick in attacks comes almost a year since the January 15 siege on an upscale Nairobi hotel which left 21 people dead.

In recent statements, Al Shabaab has referred to an increase in US military air strikes under President Donald Trump, accusing Washington of killing innocent civilians.

AFRICOM said in April it had killed more than 800 people in 110 strikes in Somalia since April 2017.