Region

RIYADH — Saudi Arabia sought to distance itself on Saturday from the air force trainee who carried out a fatal shooting at an American naval base.

The Saudi military trainee reportedly condemned the US as a "nation of evil" before going on a rampage on Friday at Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida, killing three people and wounding eight.

The hashtag "Saudis stand with America" gained traction on social media after King Salman telephoned President Donald Trump to denounce the shooting as "heinous" and pledge cooperation with American officials to investigate the incident.

The king added in the phone call on Friday that the shooter, who was gunned down by police, "does not represent the Saudi people".

The family of the shooter, identified as Mohammed Al Shamrani, echoed the same sentiment.

The pro-government Okaz newspaper quoted one of his uncles, Saad al-Shamrani, as saying that his actions do not reflect the "humanity and loyalty of his family" to the kingdom's leadership.

Prince Khalid Bin Salman, the king's younger son and the deputy defence minister, offered his "sincerest condolences" to the families of the victims.

"Like many other Saudi military personnel, I was trained in a US military base, and we used that valuable training to fight side by side with our American allies against terrorism and other threats," Prince Khalid said on Twitter.

"A large number of Saudi graduates of the Naval Air Station in Pensacola moved on to serve with their US counterparts in battlefronts around the world, helping to safeguard the regional and global security. [The] tragic event is strongly condemned by everyone in Saudi Arabia."

'Owe a debt' 

The incident is unlikely to affect Washington's close relations with Riyadh, with both governments seeking military and diplomatic cooperation to counter Shiite power Iran.

Seeking to emphasise the close ties, many Saudis on social media highlighted American media reports about two exchange students from Saudi Arabia who drowned last year in Massachusetts after rushing into a river to rescue two small children.

But Florida Governor Ron DeSantis suggested Riyadh should offer compensation to the victims.

“The government of Saudi Arabia needs to make things better for these victims, and I think they’re going to owe a debt here given that this is one of their individuals,” DeSantis told US media.

Saudi citizens strongly rejected the view on social media, with one Twitter user saying: “The government of Saudi Arabia is not responsible for every single individual with a Saudi passport.”

Relatives of the victims of the 2001 attacks are also suing Saudi Arabia for compensation even though Riyadh has strongly denied complicity in the attacks.

BAGHDAD — Iraq's anti-regime protesters gathered in the capital and south on Saturday, grieving but defiant after 17 were killed in an attack demonstrators described as "slaughter".

The protest movement faced another worrying turn on Saturday after an armed drone targeted the home of Iraqi cleric Moqtada Sadr, an attack his office said could lead to "civil war".

The dramatic developments have threatened to derail the anti-government rallies rocking Iraq since October, the largest and deadliest grassroots movement in decades.

Late Friday, at least 17 people were killed and dozens wounded when unidentified gunmen attacked a large building where protesters had camped out for weeks, medics said.

"Government forces were one kilometre away and didn't interfere," said a young volunteer medic who had treated wounded people overnight.

The violence pushed the protest toll past 440 dead and nearly 20,000 wounded, according to an AFP tally compiled from medics, police and a national rights commission.

Under stormy skies on Saturday, young men in central Baghdad prayed over an Iraqi flag to mourn those who died the previous night.

They sobbed heavily, their shoulders shaking.

Small clusters of protesters stood near the charred parking complex that was attacked, as larger crowds flocked to nearby Tahrir Square.

"They fired intensely, mercilessly on the protesters," one witness told AFP.

"They wouldn't let us evacuate the wounded. It was slaughter."

'Civil war' 

After the attack, panicked demonstrators sent out calls through social media for people to join the rallies in Tahrir, hoping to gain strength in numbers.

"I came after the incident and there were tonnes of people in Tahrir and by Al Sinek," one demonstrator told AFP.

Many of the new arrivals appeared to be members of Saraya Al Salam (Peace Brigades), which is headed by Sadr.

The notoriously versatile cleric was one of the main sponsors of the current government but then backed the protests.

The cleric sent his followers into the streets after Friday's attack "to protect protesters", a Saraya source told AFP.

They are nicknamed "blue helmets" after their standard headgear, and witnesses said they were visible in large numbers in Tahrir before dawn on Saturday.

But just a few hours later, Sadr's home in the shrine city of Najaf was hit by an apparent mortar round dropped by a drone, sources from his party told AFP.

"Only the external wall was damaged," one of them said, adding that Sadr was currently in Iran.

Dozens of his supporters flocked to his home on Saturday to show support, waving Iraqi flags and the cleric's picture while chanting, "We are all your soldiers!"

"This is a clear attack that could kindle a war — maybe a civil war — in Iraq. Self-restraint is essential," Sadr's spokesman Salah Al Obeidi told AFP.

'Bring them to justice' 

Protesters have long been wary of any partisan support, fearing it could delegitimise their movement or push it towards chaos.

The tensions continued into Saturday, when truckloads of armed men briefly blocked a main road near Tahrir, firing their weapons and shouting, witnesses said.

Army units then deployed on the street.

Further south in Nasiriyah, the usual rallies swelled with crowds also upset over the previous night's developments, an AFP correspondent said.

"We are coming in solidarity with Baghdad", one said.

In Diwaniyah, another protest hotspot, thousands turned out early on Saturday but security forces, too, deployed in larger numbers.

And preparations were under way in Najaf, where most of the country's Shiite Muslims are buried, for the funerals of those killed late Friday.

In the first comment on the incident from a senior official, President Barham Saleh called on authorities to "identify the criminals and bring them to justice".

Diplomats in Baghdad said they were "outraged and deeply saddened at last night's killings" and urged the government hold the perpetrators accountable.

The country has a complex security apparatus including the military, various police forces and the Hashed al-Shaabi, a mostly Shiite network including factions backed by Iran.

The Hashed initially backed Iraq's government against the protests, but switched sides after an intervention by the country's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani.

The youth-dominated rallies have brought down the prime minister, Adel Abdel Mahdi, and political blocs have been holding talks this week to agree on a replacement.

Sistani insisted on Friday he was not part of those talks but urged they remain free of "foreign interference," an apparent warning to Iran, Iraq's influential neighbour.

The US on Friday slammed the presence of Tehran's pointman on Iraq, Major General Qasem Soleimani, as "a huge violation of Iraqi sovereignty."

It also slapped sanctions on three Iraqi Hashed leaders it accused of involvement in the deadly crackdown.

CAIRO — Standing at the foot of the towering Great Sphinx of Giza, Zahi Hawass revels in his reputation as an indefatigable yet controversial figure in the enigmatic world of Egyptology.

With the early morning sun-kissed pyramids behind him, the 72-year-old dubbed "the Egyptian Indiana Jones" posed casually for photos sporting his trademark cowboy hat.

"This is a real archaeologist's hat. Harrison Ford's was a fake," he joked with AFP, referring to the American actor and star of the Indiana Jones movies.

Hawass, who has appeared in dozens of documentaries about ancient Egypt, is himself a star attraction for a luxury archaeological tour organised by an operator based in Poland.

A larger-than-life character, who sees himself as "the custodian of Egyptian antiquities", he evokes in the same breath ancient deities and Pharaohs as well as his own name.

Regaling tour participants with stories of his archaeological adventures, he boasts of his international achievements and cheerfully poses for selfies.

The high energy show is all part of his rambunctious performance for the eager crowd who fork out almost 10,000 US dollars each for two weeks of travel basking in his knowledge on all things Pharaonic.

Despite his swagger, Hawass says he never once imagined he would have such a meteoric rise in the often dry and dusty world of archaeology.

"When I was young, I wanted to be a lawyer... I was a very bad student," he told AFP.

On a whim, a few friends advised him to study archaeology, and he fell instantly in love.

One day while out on a dig everything clicked when he uncovered a statue. "I thought to myself, I've found my passion," he said.

Today several decades later, he divides his time between digs in southern Egypt, his Cairo office, a daily sports workout and a multitude of prestigious conferences both at home and abroad.

But his flamboyant showmanship when enthusiastically unearthing Egypt's ancient treasures to a global audience has ruffled many in his esteemed academic community.

Some peers accuse him of being a businessman cashing in on his celebrity. And he admits that $150 per entrance ticket to one of his conferences is a little steep.

But to those who accuse him of lacking empirical rigour in his fieldwork, he hits back and points to his many awards.

"I have made some major discoveries," he said citing the tombs of the pyramid builders in Giza in the 1990s or the golden mummies of Bahariya Oasis, eastern Egypt, in 1996.

Fayza Haikal, professor of Archeology at the American University of Cairo (AUC), said his research methods are "serious".

"Like all stars, he has his fans and detractors," she said.

Hourig Sourouzian, a renowned Armenian archaeologist working in Upper Egypt, is more generous in his assessment.

He maintains Hawass has been a dynamic "engine" for Egyptology, translating to lucrative research grants from governments and funding bodies.

Hawass was head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities from 2002 to 2011 and then briefly minister of antiquities in early 2011.

It was a portfolio especially created for him. But he had to give it up right after the 2011 revolution that unseated  Hosni Mubarak.

Employees hurled abuse at him amid charges of nepotism and accusations of smuggling antiquities to overseas buyers as he was escorted out of the Egyptian Museum.

He left in a haze of corruption allegations along with other Mubarak allies.

A case brought against him was overturned and the charges dropped on legal technicalities. Hawass maintains his innocence and boasts that the case never made it to court.

Under President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, he remains an influential figure in the field, and he is effusive in his praise of the general-turned-politician saying he "saved Egypt".

There have been rumours of a bitter rivalry between him and the current minister of antiquities, Khaled El Enany, but Hawass dismisses such talk saying his successor is "doing a very good job".

"Enany when he came he depended on the people that I trained," he said. "And he calls me for advice all the time."

Disparagingly, Hawass continues to describe the 2011 uprising as a "stupid revolution" lamenting that the political turbulence delayed the opening of his brainchild, the Grand Egyptian Museum.

The gigantic museum, overlooking the Giza pyramids, is now set to open to the public in 2020 five years later than originally planned.

Hawass hopes it will lure back tourists after a slump since the revolution and a string of deadly terror attacks.

More than 11 million tourists visited Egypt in 2018 some drawn by many recent discoveries in which he was involved.

"We can say anything we want, but Zahi is the best ambassador for Egypt and archaeology," said Sourouzian.

BAGHDAD — Crowds backing a paramilitary force close to Iran flooded the Iraqi capital's main protest camp on Thursday, rattling anti-government demonstrators who have denounced Tehran's role in their country.

Their flash-protest hinted at a new effort to delegitimise or intimidate the regime change movement and came after the apparent torture and death of a 19-year-old girl taking part in the rallies. 

Since October, the youth-dominated protest movement in Iraq's capital and Shiite-majority south has slammed the entrenched political class as corrupt, inept and beholden to neighbouring Iran.

Iran holds vast sway among Iraq's ruling figures and military actors, chiefly the Shiite-majority Hashed Al Shaabi armed network. 

On Thursday, several thousand people waving sticks, Iraqi flags and the Hashed’s logo marched to Tahrir Square, the epicentre of anti-government protests in the capital. 

Some carried portraits of Hashed fighters killed while battling extremists and of the country’s top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani.

The Hashed first backed Iraq’s government against the protests, but after Sistani’s intervention last week, it dropped its support. 

The new crowds carried signs opposing “vandals”, referring to those attacking public or private property in the rallies, but protesters sensed something more threatening. 

“They’ve ruined it,” said one demonstrator, while another muttered, “It’s going to get messy.” 

Gruesome deaths 

“They came here to clear us out and end the protests,” said Tamim, a 30-year-old demonstrator wearing a protective vest.

There were no confrontations on Thursday, but Harith Hasan of Carnegie’s Middle East Centre said the developments could increase tensions. 

“This could be the beginning of a competition or conflict to occupy the public space,” he wrote on Twitter. 

And Toby Dodge, director of the Middle East Centre at the London School of Economics, said it appeared to be “a new tactic to ‘crowd out’ or close the space down available to the demonstrators”.

Activists in Baghdad and elsewhere have already been subject to threats, kidnappings and even killings in what they say are attempts to keep them from demonstrations.

In one particularly gruesome case, the bruised body of 19-year-old Zahra Ali was left outside her family home late Monday, her father told AFP.

She had been missing since that morning. 

“We had been distributing food and drink to protesters in Tahrir and we had never been threatened, but some people took pictures of us,” Ali Salman said.

“The court established she had suffered electrical shocks,” he added.

‘Take a stance’ 

Mass rallies have rocked Iraq’s capital and south since early October, first denouncing government graft and a lack of jobs before moving to broader demands for deep-rooted regime change. 

Nearly 430 people have been killed and 20,000 wounded since demonstrations erupted, according to an AFP toll compiled from medics, police and a national commission.

The victims’ families have been demanding justice for their loved ones and many of them hit the streets of Iraq’s southern Diwaniyah on Thursday. 

They joined thousands of other protesters, mostly teachers and students taking part in a general strike, AFP’s correspondent said.

“The authorities are putting off the issue of who killed our sons and brothers in the protests,” said Assaad Malek, whose brother died in protest-related violence.

“They should take a tough stance and severely punish the officers and SWAT forces who killed my brother,” he added.

A verdict for security force members accused of violence against protesters in Diwaniyah was scheduled for Thursday, but the session was indefinitely postponed.

On Sunday, an Iraqi court sentenced a police officer to death after convicting him of killing demonstrators, the first such sentence in the two months of deadly unrest.

In the southern hotspot of Nasiriyah, hundreds gathered at the main protest camp in the city centre, joined by delegations from the province’s powerful tribes.

Tribal dignitaries intervened last week to tamp down tensions between protesters and security forces after more than two dozen people were killed in a bloody crackdown.

A spree of violence left several dozen dead in the south last week, ultimately paving the way for the embattled prime minister, Adel Abdel Mahdi, to resign at the weekend.

President Barham Saleh has been formally tasked with naming a successor, but such decisions typically come only after drawn-out horsetrading among factions. 

Iran’s pointman on Iraq, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Qasem Soleimani, has been in Baghdad to rally political forces around a new premier.

Parliament, which is set to meet on Thursday afternoon, has meanwhile focused on a new electoral reform law.

GAZA CITY, Palestine  — In the Palestinian enclave of Gaza, without a cinema for 30 years, a few hundred people walk the red carpet to a rare film screening — held on the street.

The opening of the Red Carpet Human Rights Film Festival on Wednesday evening had been expected to take place inside the Amer Cinema, which has been abandoned for three decades.

But it was moved at the last minute in unclear circumstances, with a screen erected in the street outside the cinema, a grey building with the letters peeling off.

The festival's executive director, Muntaser Al Sabaa, said organisers had been told by the cinema's owners that they could no longer use it as a venue.

"Suddenly they told us: 'We are sorry but the situation is dangerous'. They said: 'We are afraid'.

"What happened is incomprehensible. We don't know who told this partner to block the permit to open the cinema."

The organisers said that they had obtained the necessary permits to host the festival in the cinema.

The Gaza Strip is run by Islamist movement Hamas, which enforces rules based on a strict conservative interpretation of Islam.

Since seizing control in 2007 they have prevented events they consider immoral. The interior ministry in Gaza did not respond to a request for comment. 

The week-long festival was scheduled to show 45 documentaries and is part-funded by the Palestinian Authority, based in the West Bank and dominated by the rival Fateh movement of president Mahmud Abbas.

"We chose Amer Cinema for its strong symbolism and to send a message that cinema buildings still exist in Gaza and people have the right to enjoy shows," Sabaa said.

The enclave of two million people has not had a working cinema since the last ones closed during the first Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, in the late 1980s.

In the end around 200 people sat outside to watch the opening film, the documentary “Gaza” by Irish directors Andrew McConnell and Garry Keane.

The film, which documents the lives of a number of Palestinians over several years, has won critical acclaim.

With a chill in the air, at times the audience clapped, while others looked saddened by the tale of daily woes in the Israeli-blockaded territory.

“I came with my wife and daughter to watch,” said Fathi Omar. “I was hoping to see the opening film on the screen [inside].”

“When we travel to Egypt, we go to the cinema to see the new films. The cinema has a unique feel.”

Actress and theatre director Dania Ziara said that she was happy that the screening had gone ahead.

“But I would have been even happier if the show was in the cinema. In the street it is very noisy.”

Jonathan Conlon, representative of Ireland in Palestine, told AFP it was “very special to attend the screening of a film made by two Irishmen who were able to overcome so many obstacles to complete this extraordinary documentary of life in Gaza”.

“More than anything, I think, the film shows the great humanity — and the hopes — of ordinary Gazans.”

By Adel Zaanoun

WASHINGTON — The United States said it would name an ambassador to Sudan for the first time in 23 years as it welcomed the country's new reformist civilian leader.

The United States hailed early steps taken by Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok to "break with the policies and practices of the previous regime", whose ties with radical Islamists and brutal domestic campaigns had made Sudan a pariah in the west.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Wednesday that the United States would appoint an ambassador to Khartoum, subject to Senate confirmation, and that Sudan would restore full-level representation in Washington.

"This is a historic step to strengthen our bilateral relationship," Pompeo wrote on Twitter.

In an accompanying statement, Pompeo praised Hamdok’s civilian-led transitional government for launching “vast reforms”.

Hamdok has “demonstrated a commitment to peace negotiations with armed opposition groups, established a commission of inquiry to investigate violence against protestors, and committed to holding democratic elections at the end of the 39-month transition period”, Pompeo said.

Hamdok, a British-educated former diplomat and UN official, is the first Sudanese leader to visit Washington since 1985.

However, he had a low-key welcome, meeting the State Department number-three, David Hale. Both Pompeo and President Donald Trump were away on foreign travel.

Hamdok also met with senior lawmakers and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who said he welcomed the new government’s “stated commitment to respecting human rights, fighting corruption and reforming Sudan’s economy”.

Hamdok took charge in August after months of demonstrations led by young people that brought down veteran strongman Omar Al Bashir and then a military council that had tried to stay in power.

The protests were triggered by discontent over the high cost of bread and other economic concerns.

Still seeking removal from terrorism blacklist 

The United States had tense relation with Bashir, who took power in 1989 and embraced Islamism, including welcoming Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden.

After the 1998 attacks on US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the United States fired a missile that destroyed a major pharmaceutical factory in Sudan over allegations, fiercely disputed since, that it produced a nerve agent.

In one legacy that still tarnishes relations, the United States classifies Sudan as a state sponsor of terrorism, a designation that the new government calls a severe impediment to foreign investment.

US officials, while voicing sympathy for Sudan’s appeals, say that removal of the designation is a legal process that will take time.

In talks at the US Congress, lawmakers pledged support for the new government but said Sudan must reach a settlement with families of the victims of the embassy bombings as well as the 2000 attack on the USS Cole, allegedly backed by the then-regime.

Lawmakers “raised lingering concerns about the need for financial transparency within the security sector and about remaining elements of the old regime who may still support international terrorism”, said a statement by the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Hamdok addressed the issue in a statement from his office.

“A key programme of the new transitional government is to fight terrorism, and in order to have stability in the region there has to be a regional and international programme to fight terrorism,” he said.

Mnuchin meanwhile spoke to Hamdok about combatting money laundering and terrorism financing, the Treasury Department said.

Tensions also soared over Bashir’s scorched-earth crackdown in the parched western region of Darfur, a campaign that the United States described as genocide as it pressed for the prosecution of Bashir.

The United Nations estimates that about 300,000 people were killed and 2.5 million displaced in the conflict, as Sudanese troops targeting ethnic groups suspected of supporting rebels raped, killed, looted and burned villages.

Hamdok last month traveled to Darfur where he met hundreds of victims of the conflict and assured them that he was working on their demands for lasting peace.

ANKARA — Turkey will host a summit on Syria in February with the leaders of France, Germany and Britain amid ongoing tensions over the conflict, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in comments published Thursday.

It follows their meeting on Tuesday in London on the sidelines of the NATO summit.

Deep differences remain over Turkey's offensive in October against Kurdish militants in northern Syrian, who had been a key ally for the West against Daesh. 

That triggered a bitter verbal exchange between Erdogan and French President Emmanuel Macron ahead of the NATO summit. 

But Macron said their four-way meeting had helped "clear up misunderstandings" despite the continuing refusal by Western powers to label Syrian Kurdish militants as terrorists. 

"We agreed that we would do this four-way summit at least once a year. The second summit will be in Istanbul in February," Erdogan said, according to state news agency Anadolu.

He criticised the insistence of the three leaders on when Turkey would leave northern Syria.

“We said to them: ‘What is your business there? Do you have a border?’ No. ‘Are you harassed by any fire?’ No. ‘Are there attacks?’ No.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin is also due to visit Istanbul on January 8, with Syria and energy issues on the agenda.