Region

DERBASIYEH, Syria — Turkey started joint patrols with Russia in northern Syria Friday to verify whether Kurdish forces have withdrawn from a key border zone in compliance with a deal reached between Ankara and Moscow.

It follows an agreement they signed in the Black Sea resort of Sochi last week which gave Kurdish forces 150 hours to withdraw from a band of territory along Syria's border with Turkey, in a process that Russia said was now complete.

The patrols add to the complicated mix of forces operating along the frontier, including US troops who inspected an eastern section on Thursday for the first time since US President Donald Trump said last month his country was withdrawing.

They began on Friday near the border town of Derbasiyeh — from which Kurdish fighters have already pulled out — and lasted around four hours, an AFP correspondent on the Turkish side of the border reported.

The soldiers had headed to the east of Derbasiyeh in a convoy of Turkish and Russian military vehicles to patrol a strip of territory several dozen kilometres long, according to Turkish military sources.

The Russian army said in a statement that the convoy consisted of nine vehicles, protected by an armoured personnel carrier, covering more than 110 kilometres.

Turkey intends to set up a "safe zone" 30 kilometres deep, in which some of the 3.6 million Syrian refugees it is hosting could be resettled.

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres said he would "consider the proposal", stressing the need for the "voluntary, safe and dignified" return of refugees, during a visit to Istanbul on Friday where he met with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Temporary deal 

Last week's Sochi agreement between Ankara and Moscow halted a Turkish operation launched against Kurdish forces in northeastern Syria on October 9, which left hundreds dead and prompted tens of thousands to flee their homes.

Under the deal, Turkey is to assume control over one 120 kilometre wide section in the centre of the border, while Syrian government forces are to deploy to the east and west.

Along the whole length of the border, a 10-kilometre deep buffer zone is to be created on the Syrian side, which will be jointly patrolled by Russian and Turkish troops.

The Kurds spearheaded a US-backed military campaign against the Daesh terror group that deprived the militants’ of their final sliver of Syrian territory in March this year but Ankara views the Kurdish forces as “terrorists”.

Abandoned by their ally Washington — which early last month pulled its own troops back from the border area, effectively allowing Turkey to attack — the Kurds turned to Damascus which swiftly deployed its forces, reclaiming swathes of territory it lost as long ago as 2012.

President Bashar Assad said on Thursday the Sochi agreement was “temporary,” and will eventually pave the way for his government to retake Syria’s northeast.

UN Syria Envoy Geir Pedersen on Friday voiced hope over talks in Geneva between the Syrian government, opposition and civil society.

Pedersen said he was “very impressed” that the sides were meeting at all to discuss amending the country’s constitution ahead of possible elections as part of a UN peace plan.

Crowded border 

Nearly 100 kilometres from the site of the joint patrols in Derbasiyeh, a convoy of five US armoured vehicles was seen patrolling on Thursday in a zone north of the town of Qahtaniyah.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it was part of an eastern stretch of the border where US forces are seeking to maintain a presence.

“They want to prevent Russia and the regime from reaching parts of the border that lie east of the city of Qamishli,” the de facto capital of Syria’s Kurdish minority, observatory head Rami Abdul Rahman said.

A spokesman for the US-led coalition said its forces are transiting on routes near the border as Washington “withdraws troops from northern Syria and repositions some troops to the Deir Ezzor region”, near the border with Iraq.

Washington has begun reinforcing positions in Deir Ezzor province with extra military assets in coordination with the SDF to prevent the Daesh group and others from gaining access to oil fields in the area, a US defence official has said.

Trump last month said a “small number” of US troops would stay to “secure the oil”.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israel carried out retaliatory strikes on Gaza on Saturday killing a Palestinian and wounding two others, following two nights of rocket attacks that were the first since September.

Hamas, the Islamist rulers of Gaza, denounced a “serious escalation” and said Israel will be held “responsible for the consequences” of the raids.

Dozens of pre-dawn strikes targeted Hamas bases and those of allied militant groups, a Gaza security source said.

The Israeli army said the strikes targeted “a wide range of Hamas targets”, including a naval base, a military compound and a weapons manufacturing plant.

The Hamas-run health ministry identified the person killed as Ahmed Al Shehri, 27. It did not say whether he was affiliated with any armed group. Two other Palestinians were seriously wounded, the ministry said.

Hundreds of Palestinians attended Shehri’s funeral on Saturday in the southern Gaza Strip, an AFP correspondent said.

The sound of explosions had been heard across the tiny but densely populated territory, AFP correspondents said.

After daybreak, curious onlookers gathered around a large crater scooped out of the sandy soil by the force of one of the blasts.

A Hamas source said it had fired at the Israeli aircraft carrying out the raids and the Israeli military confirmed fresh “incoming fire”.

“The Zionist enemy bears full responsibility for the consequences,” of the pre-dawn air raids, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said in a statement.

He said the strikes targeted “innocent civilians” and represented a “serious escalation”.

Sworn enemies 

Local officials in Gaza said installations of Islamic Jihad, another prominent militant group operating in the coastal enclave, were also hit.

The Israeli military said eight of the rockets were intercepted by air defences.

Air raid sirens sounded in Israeli communities near the border.

One family’s house was hit, without causing any casualties, the army said, posting a picture of damage to a building on Twitter.

It was the second consecutive evening that the army reported rocket fire from Gaza, shattering a calm that had lasted since September 12.

In August, a spate of rocket attacks, retaliatory air strikes and clashes along the border had raised fears of an escalation as a general election approached in Israel.

Those polls — Israel’s second general election this year — took place on September 17, but have yet to yield a new government.

Sworn enemies Israel and Hamas have fought three wars in the Palestinian enclave since 2008.

Analysts say a fourth round remains likely.

Crippling blockade 

There have been repeated bouts of violence between Hamas and Israel over the past year as the Islamists have sought to improve on the terms of a UN- and Egyptian-brokered truce first hammered out in November last year.

In return for Hamas silencing the rockets, Israel agreed a package of measures to ease the crippling blockade it has imposed on Gaza for more than a decade.

They included allowing in millions of dollars in aid from Hamas ally Qatar to pay for fuel for the territory’s sole power station and cash for salaries and grants to tens of thousands of needy families.

The truce has also seen Israel expand the distance it allows Gaza fishermen out into the Mediterranean — although Israel reduces it or even cuts it to zero in response to violence from the enclave.

The Palestinians have also pressed on with weekly demonstrations along the Gaza-Israel border first launched in March last year.

The protests have frequently drawn live fire from Israeli forces stationed along the heavily fortified border fence.

More than 90 Palestinians were wounded in this Friday’s demonstrations, the health ministry said.

BEIRUT  — Lebanese protesters faced off with security forces Thursday as they tried to block reopened roads and prevent their unprecedented non-sectarian push for radical reform from petering out.

The resignation of Prime Minister Saad Hariri's government on Tuesday had been met with cheers from the crowds seeking the removal of a political class seen as corrupt, incompetent and sectarian.

The fall of the government under pressure from the street had led to an easing of the lockdown that has crippled the country of six million inhabitants.

While some life returned to the streets of Beirut and other cities this week, die-hard protesters were reluctant to lose one of the few forms of leverage they have to press demands that go far beyond the Cabinet's resignation.

"Giving up is out of the question," said Tarek Badoun, 38, one of a group of demonstrators blocking the main flyover in central Beirut.

The tug-of-war between demonstrators seeking to block roads and security forces under orders to reopen the country for business repeated itself on Thursday.

The mass mobilisation, which has seen hundreds of thousands protest nationwide, has so far been largely bloodless, despite sporadic scuffles with counter-demonstrators from the established political parties.

Some schools have reopened this week and banks were due to reopen on Friday, as the protests piled more economic pressure on a country that has been sliding towards default in recent months.

'Running out of steam' 

"The political class is banking on the protests running out of steam, that much is clear," said Karim Bitar, a professor of international relations in Paris and Beirut.

“It hopes the Lebanese, choked by economic hardship, will resume their daily lives,” he said.

President Michel Aoun has asked Hariri’s government to stay on in a caretaker capacity until a new one can be formed, but Lebanon has entered a phase of acute political uncertainty, even by its own dysfunctional standards.

Aoun, who was elected president exactly three years ago, was expected to give a speech later on Thursday.

With a power-sharing system organised along communal and sectarian lines, the allocation of ministerial posts can typically take months, a delay Lebanon’s donors say the debt-ridden country can ill afford.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said it was “essential for Lebanon’s future that a new government be formed rapidly to carry out the reforms that the country needs”.

The new government would need to “address the legitimate aspirations expressed by Lebanese and take the decisions indispensable to the country’s economic recovery”, he said.

France is a major donor to Lebanon and retains significant influence in its former colony.

Consultations for the formation of a new government have not yet started, such is the rift between Hariri and his coalition rivals, according to a political source involved in discussions.

The source said that consultations are scheduled to begin on Monday.

“We have decided to stay on the streets because we don’t feel like the government is serious about speeding up the formation of a cabinet,” said Mohammad, 39, who was demonstrating near the northern city of Tripoli.

Among the possible scenarios is one in which Hariri would return to the helm of revamped line-up that includes technocrats, one of the demands of the protesters.

“A technocratic government is a possibility,” political analyst Amal Saad-Ghorayeb said.

“It would have to ensure a short-term stabilisation of the economy, which has spiralled out of control these past weeks, while ensuring economic reforms pass quickly, otherwise mass protests will erupt once again,” she added.

Ghassan Al Azzi, a political science professor at the Lebanese University, said there was a concern among protesters “that a technocratic government would still include party loyalists”, such as Hariri.

The Hizbollah movement headed by Hassan Nasrallah was a key player in the outgoing Cabinet and had warned repeatedly against the chaos a government resignation could cause.

Hizbollah is allied to the Christian movement of President Michel Aoun, who had also counselled against a mass resignation.

He is thought to be insisting on keeping his son-in-law Gebran Bassil, who is Lebanon’s foreign minister and one of the most reviled figures among protesters, in government.

MOGADISHU — Tucking into fresh seafood on a boat anchored in clear turquoise waters, which serves as a floating restaurant, Ahmed Yusuf can hardly believe he is in Mogadishu.

Nearby, on the pristine white shores of Lido beach, children scamper in pursuit of a football while locals stroll along or take a dip in the shallows of a notoriously shark-infested stretch of ocean.

In a city plagued by regular bombings by the Al Shabaab, leisure-seeking residents throng the beach which has seen a boom in construction of restaurants, prompting some business owners to get creative.

In January this year Abdulkadir Mohamed Ibrahim, a 48-year-old Somali entrepreneur who returned to his country from Italy, built and fitted out a double-decker boat with plush chairs and tables where diners can enjoy fresh seafood, a fresh breeze, and a sense of normalcy.

“Sometimes I don’t feel I’m in Mogadishu,” said customer Yusuf, who works for a non-governmental organisation.

“There is the sound of the waves and I watch the beautiful ocean while enjoying fresh seafood on the boat. I hope that we will have more of these kinds of businesses.”

Ibrahim had previously tried to launch several businesses in Mogadishu, such as a travel agency, which were ultimately unsuccessful, before stumbling upon the idea for the restaurant “La Lanterna”.

“When we saw developed countries that have floating restaurant boats which carry tourists, we came up with the idea of a restaurant where people can have a splendid time — and now we have a floating restaurant in Mogadishu,” he told AFP.

Ibrahim said customers would place their orders two days before their booking, so food can be prepared onshore and brought aboard, as the boat does not have space for a kitchen. However, it does have fridges for cold beverages.

The sea can be choppy sometimes, but customers happily grip their plates as they dine, and sometimes enjoy a long ride out to sea when it is calm.

“I built this boat with the help of friends and it has got a capacity of 40 people at the moment, but I am planning to expand the capacity to 50 in the future,” Ibrahim said.

“The sea is dark at night and there are no boats here at Lido beach except ours, so that is why I called it ‘the Lantern’, in Italian.”

‘People need entertainment’ 

Several restaurants began popping up along Lido beach after Al Shabaab was chased out of the devastated capital by African Union peacekeepers fighting alongside government troops in 2011.

Improved security also saw a return of Somalis from the diaspora after the 1991 overthrow of president Siad Barre’s military regime ushered in decades of chaos and civil war.

The beach — a rare public space in the city — became a popular spot.

This made it a target for the Al Qaeda-affiliated Al Shabaab, which continues to stage regular strikes on the city and in 2013 and 2016 launched deadly attacks on beachfront restaurants with suicide bombers, grenades and gunmen.

“Security of customers is the main concern... we try to ensure that people are searched properly before they board the boat. It is not as easy as coming to the beach where everybody has access,” said Ibrahim.

“We started this business and I hope others will follow suit. People need entertainment after days of work and stress and we are making reservations for more clients every day. Our aim is also to attract investors and tourists.”

Fadumo Ahmed Mohamud is visiting the restaurant for the first time on a visit home from the United Kingdom.

“This place is very beautiful, and the country is making relative improvement. Today we had our lunch on board the big boat on our beautiful ocean. This is an amazing experience which I never imagined these days, in this place,” she said.

The NGO worker Yusuf said he spends most weekends at Lido Beach and often dines at La Lanterna.

“It kills your stress as soon as you are boarded, I don’t fear blasts and suicide bombs because you distance yourself from the big buildings and enjoy the ocean,” he said.

BAGHDAD — The future of Iraq's embattled premier was in the hands of his onetime parliamentary backers Wednesday, as they deliberated over his ouster after mass anti-government protests that have left more than 240 dead.

Massive rallies broke out in Iraq's capital and south this month against corruption and unemployment, spiralling into angry calls for a total government overhaul.

By Wednesday, demonstrators were waiting to see whether the first fruit of their struggle — the ouster of Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi — was finally within reach.

"Isn't it the people who have the power? Isn't it the people who put them all there?" asked protester Athir Malek, 39.

He had come from Diwaniyah, 200 kilometres further south, to join the biggest rallies so far in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square, where celebration was in the air.

They were joined on Wednesday by the United Nations’ top representative in Iraq, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, who called again for a national dialogue to “unite against the perils of division and inaction”.

Parliament has demanded that the premier appear “immediately” for questioning amid speculation he will face a no-confidence vote.

Abdel Mahdi, 77, came to power last year through a tenuous partnership between populist cleric Moqtada Sadr and paramilitary chief Hadi Al Ameri.

No alternative?

The kingmakers’ alliance has since drifted apart and protests widened the rift, with Sadr’s Saeroon bloc, the biggest in parliament, endorsing the demonstrators.

The Hashed Al Shaabi paramilitary force, whose political arm Fateh is parliament’s second-biggest bloc and is chaired by Ameri, has so far backed the government.

Several Hashed offices were torched in southern Iraq last week, further straining ties.

But Sadr extended an invitation to Ameri late Tuesday to coordinate on a no-confidence vote in Abdel Mahdi and using Twitter to urge the premier to “Get out!”

Hours later, Ameri announced he and Sadr would “work together to achieve the people’s demands”, hinting he may agree to a vote on the premier’s future.

Sadr took to Twitter again on Wednesday to pile on pressure, warning that keeping Abdel Mahdi would “turn Iraq into Syria or Yemen”, both engulfed in bloody wars.

Meanwhile, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told Iraqis they should find legal ways to resolve crises instead of hitting the streets.

“The people of Iraq and Lebanon have some demands that are rightful, but they should know these demands can only be realised within the legal frameworks,” said Khamenei.

Iraq’s former prime minister Iyad Allawi shot back: “Sowing fear while explaining there’s no alternative... is a false pretext.”

‘Back to square one’ 

As rumours swirled that Abdel Mahdi’s days were numbered, people rallied in Tahrir for a seventh consecutive day on Wednesday.

Despite violence that has left more than 240 people dead and more than 8,000 wounded, they have defied orders to clear the streets.

The largest numbers yet — tens of thousands — flooded Tahrir overnight amid blaring horns, fireworks and loud Iraqi music.

Demonstrators have shrugged off a litany of government reform plans and called for a new constitution, reworked electoral law and mass resignations from a government they see as corrupt.

“They should all quit and we should have a national salvation government,” said Alaa Khdeir, 63.

While the premier’s departure would be seen as a “victory” for demonstrators, it would “give protests a break but not break them”, said Maria Fantappie, an Iraq analyst at the International Crisis Group.

“Even an election with the same election law would bring same figures into parliament and the same process as last year in selecting the prime minister, which puts you once again at square one,” Fantappie said.

Since the US-led invasion that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003, Iraq’s political system has been gripped by clientelism, corruption and sectarianism.

The country is ranked by Transparency International as the 12th most corrupt in the world.

That means getting a job in government — by far the country’s biggest employer — is often secured with bribes or connections.

Anger at the state of affairs had been swelling among the youth, who make up 60 per cent of Iraq’s nearly 40 million people.

Youth unemployment stands at 25 per cent, while one in five live below the poverty line, despite the vast oil wealth of OPEC’s second-largest crude producer.

Inequality and corruption have been major rallying cries for protesters.

“We want to take back everything they stole,” said 55-year-old Hussein Nuri.