Region

BEIRUT — Lebanese demonstrators set up barricades and parked cars across key roads Monday to protest corruption and press their demands for a radical overhaul of their country's sectarian political system.

Defying pleas from Lebanon's top leaders, protesters sought to keep the country on lockdown for a 12th consecutive day by cutting off some of the main thoroughfares, including the main north-south highway.

The protesters — who are demanding better services as well as an end to corruption and sectarian politics — continued to block roads on Monday afternoon, despite rainfall.

Their unprecedented mobilisation — sparked by a proposed tax on voice calls via messaging apps on October 17 — has quickly morphed into a massive grassroots push to drive out a political elite which has remained virtually unchanged in three decades.

Lebanon's political leaders have appeared shell-shocked, trying simultaneously to express sympathy for the protest movement while warning of chaos in the case of a power vacuum.

"If the corrupt ruling class doesn't feel like the country is crippled we will not see any results," said 21-year-old Ali, who was among a group of demonstrators blocking a key road in the capital on Monday morning.

 Couches and footballs 

Central bank chief Riad Salame warned on CNN Lebanon was on the verge of economic collapse unless an "immediate solution" could be found to end the protests.

A poster urging motorists to block roads with their cars started circulating on social media on Sunday night.

By the next day, some major routes were closed off by hundreds of angle-parked vehicles, others by groups of protesters sitting on the road.

Schools and banks have been closed for more than a week.

The Lebanese security forces had been expected to make a new attempt at reopening the roads as the country faced more paralysis.

The army and the country’s top security agencies had agreed at the weekend to a military-led plan to clear roadblocks, but their efforts have been met with resistance from demonstrators.

In the southern city of Sidon, the army scuffled with protesters blocking the city’s northern entrance on Monday morning, injuring three, said an AFP correspondent.

In Beirut, activists converted a main artery in the centre of the city into an open-air living room, furnished with couches and rugs.

They shot footballs across streets which on a regular Monday would have been jammed with motorists streaming in from Beirut’s northern suburbs.

Most residents have backed road closures, and business owners on Sunday night called for a general strike in solidarity, but political officials and flustered motorists have in recent days accused demonstrators of robbing people of their livelihoods.

“We are not closing all the roads. There are always side roads people can use,” said Yusra, a 16-year-old in central Beirut.

“We don’t want to stand against the people but we also don’t want to go back to the way things were before the revolution,” she told AFP.

So far, the unprecedented protest movement has been relatively incident-free, despite tensions with the armed forces and attempts by party loyalists to stage counterdemonstrations.

In one of the most serious incidents, the army opened fire on Friday to confront a group of protesters blocking a road in the northern city of Tripoli, wounding at least six people.

On Sunday, tens of thousands of protesters joined hands nationwide to form a 170-kilometre human chain stretching from Tripoli to Tyre in the south.

The event drew Lebanese of all ages and backgrounds, many of them draped in the national cedar flag.

Organisers said the event symbolised a national civic identity that has emerged since the start of the protests on October 17.

The rallies have been remarkable for their territorial reach and the absence of political or sectarian banners, in a country often defined by its divisions.

The leaderless protest movement is driven mostly by a young generation of men and women born after the 1975-1990 civil war.

Lebanon’s reviled political elite has defended a belated package of economic reforms and appeared willing to reshuffle the government, but protesters have stayed on the streets.

More than a quarter of Lebanon’s population lives in poverty, according to the World Bank.

BAGHDAD — The Iraqi army on Monday announced it would impose an overnight curfew in the capital as students and schoolchildren joined spreading protests to demand an overhaul of the government.

Swathes of Iraq have been engulfed by demonstrations over unemployment and corruption this month that have evolved into demands for regime change.

The rallies have gathered despite temporary curfews, threats of arrest and violence that has left nearly 240 people dead, including five protesters in Baghdad on Monday.

The military said cars and foot traffic would be barred in the capital for six hours starting at midnight.

The move sparked concern security forces want to clear out main gathering places like the capital's Tahrir Square, occupied by demonstrators for four consecutive nights.

Security forces there have relied heavily on tear gas to keep protesters from storming the Green Zone, which hosts government offices and foreign offices.

But protesters had otherwise been allowed to set up tents in Tahrir and taken over multi-storey buildings there since Thursday in a marked departure from the response to protests during the first week of this month.

They were joined in the past 24 hours by a huge contingent of students, who joined despite stern warnings by the higher education minister and the prime minister’s office that they should “stay away”.

“No school, no classes, until the regime collapses!” boycotting students shouted on Monday in Diwaniyah, 180 kilometres south of the capital.

Diwaniyah’s union of universities and schools announced a 10-day strike on Monday “until the regime falls”, with thousands of uniformed pupils and even professors flooding the streets.

Young protesters still gathered on Monday morning in the southern cities of Nasiriyah, Hillah and Basra.

In Kut, most government offices were shut for lack of staff.

In Baghdad, demonstrators gathered on campuses and in Tahrir Square.

“Qusay Al Suhail [the higher education minister] said not to come down into the streets. But we say: No nation, no class!” one student protester said.

“All we want is for the government to immediately submit its resignation. Either it resigns, or it gets ousted.”

About 60 per cent of Iraq’s 40-million-strong population is under the age of 25.

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

Anger at inequality and accusations that government corruption was fuelling it sparked protests in Baghdad on October 1 that have since attracted growing numbers of young people.

On Monday, a small group of students brought kits to Tahrir Square to treat people affected by tear gas along with cans of Pepsi — believed to alleviate discomfort when spashed on the face.

“It’s my first day at the protests. I told my mom I’m going to class, but I came here instead!” a girl with curly hair told AFP.

In the province of Diyala, which had so far been calm, two members of the provincial council resigned in solidarity with the rallies.

Even in the holy city of Najaf, dozens of young clerics-to-be took to the streets.

The protests are unprecedented in recent Iraqi history for their ire at the entire political class, with some even criticising traditionally revered religious leaders.

“We want the parliament to be dissolved, a temporary government, an amended constitution and early elections under United Nations supervision,” a demonstrator in Baghdad told AFP.

“That’s what the people want. We don’t want another solution.”

Parliamentary
paralysis 

On Monday, Iraq’s parliament voted to dissolve the provincial councils, cancel the extra privileges of top officials and summon embattled Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi for questioning.

Abdel Mahdi has proposed a laundry list of reforms, including hiring drives, increased pensions and promises to root out corruption.

Iraqi President Barham Saleh has also held discussions with the UN on electoral reform and amendments to the 2005 constitution, but they have not appeased protesters.

In solidarity with demonstrators, four lawmakers resigned late on Sunday, and the largest parliamentary bloc has been holding an open-ended sit-in since Saturday night.

Saeroon, the bloc tied to firebrand cleric Moqtada Sadr, said it was dropping its support for Abdel Mahdi.

The move has left the premier more squeezed than ever, as Saeroon was one of the two main sponsors of his government.

The other was Fatah, the political arm of the Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary force, which has said it would continue to back the central government.

Several Hashed offices have been torched in recent days in southern Iraq, prompting vows of “revenge” from its leaders.

Sadr responded Sunday, warning them: “Do not champion the corrupt. Do not repress the people.”

GENEVA — The UN voiced hope Monday that a meeting this week of a committee tasked with amending Syria's constitution can open the door to a broader political process for the war-ravaged country.

"I do believe that the Constitutional Committee's launch should be a sign of hope for the long-suffering Syrian people", UN envoy to Syria Geir Pedersen told reporters in Geneva ahead of the committee's first meeting on Wednesday.

The UN last month announced the long-awaited formation of the committee to include 150 members, split evenly between Syria's government, the opposition and Syrian civil society.

Pedersen pointed out that the establishment of the committee "marks the first political agreement between the government of Syria and the opposition."

The UN envoy, who is due to meet with the foreign ministers of Russia, Turkey and Iran on Tuesday, before the Constitutional Committee launch, also said he enjoyed the "full support and backing on this from a united international community."

"It could be a door-opener to a broader political process," Pedersen said.

Once all 150 meet for a two-day opening ceremony in Geneva starting on Wednesday, 45 of them will begin work drafting the document itself.

Consensus? 

Pedersen said the aim would be to reach consensus on all issues, and where that is not possible, changes would only be made with a 75 per cent majority vote in the committee to avoid having any one side "dictate" the process.

Critics meanwhile warn that the high bar could lead to stagnation.

It also remains unclear how long the process could take.

Pedersen said there was no deadline, but stressed that the parties had agreed "to work expeditiously and continuously”.

The UN envoy acknowledged that "the Constitutional Committee alone cannot and will not resolve the Syrian conflict”.

He insisted that the committee's work needed to "be accompanied by other concrete steps and confidence-building measures, among the Syrians themselves and among Syria and the international community”.

He especially called for both sides to release abductees and detainees, in particular women and children.

Constitutional review is a central part of the UN-led effort to end the war in Syria, which has killed more than 370,000 people and displaced millions since erupting in 2011 with the repression of anti-government protests.

But the mandate of the committee has not been precisely defined — it remains unclear if it will aim to write a new constitution or adjust the existing one.

Some experts have expressed surprise that President Bashar Al Assad's government agreed to participate in the process.

They question how much the committee is likely to achieve with Russian-backed Assad's grip on power appearing to get stronger and stronger with each passing month.

That is particularly true since Turkey and its Syrian proxies on October 9 launched a cross-border attack against Kurdish fighters in northeastern Syria after an announced US military pullout.

A ceasefire agreement reached last week basically allows Damascus, its main ally Moscow, and Ankara to carve up the Kurds' now-defunct autonomous region.

Pedersen appealed for all ceasefire agreements to be respected, and also urged a nation-wide ceasefire.

"We do believe that the fighting going on is just another proof of the importance of getting a serious political process under way that can help sort out the problems in all of Syria," he said.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Sunday said that elusive Daesh leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi was killed, dying "like a dog", in a daring, nighttime raid by US special forces deep in northwest Syria.

Trump told the nation in a televised address from the White House that US forces killed a "large number" of Daesh militants during the raid which culminated in cornering Baghdadi in a tunnel, where he set off a suicide vest.

"He ignited his vest, killing himself," Trump said.

"He died after running into a dead-end tunnel, whimpering and crying and screaming all the way," Trump said, adding that three of Baghdadi's children also died in the blast.

Trump said that the raid — which required flying more than an hour by helicopter in both directions from an undisclosed base — had been accomplished by help from Russia, Syria, Turkey and Iraq.

Special forces “executed a dangerous and daring nightime raid in northwestern Syria and accomplished their mission in grand style”.

At its height, Daesh controlled swaths of Iraq and Syria.

In addition to oppressing the people it governed, Daesh planned or inspired terrorism attacks across Europe, while using expertise in social media to lure large numbers of foreign volunteers.

It took years of war, in which Daesh became notorious for mass executions and sickening hostage murders, before the “caliphate’s” final slice of territory in Syria was seized this March.

The death of Baghdadi comes as a big boost for Trump, whose abrupt decision to withdraw a small but effective deployment of US forces from Syria caused fears that it would give Daesh remnants and sleeper cells a chance to regroup.

Trump took a storm of criticism, including from his own usually loyal Republican Party.

In keeping with his liking for showmanship, Trump had teased the news late Saturday with an enigmatic tweet saying merely that “Something very big has just happened!”

Scorched vehicle 

A war monitor said US helicopters dropped forces in an area of Syria’s Idlib province where “groups linked to the… [Daesh]“ were present.

The helicopters targeted a home and a car outside the village of Barisha in Idlib province, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which is based in Britain but relies on a network of sources inside Syria for its information.

The operation killed nine people including a Daesh senior leader called Abu Yamaan as well as a child and two women, it said.

An AFP correspondent outside Barisha saw a minibus scorched to cinders by the side of the road, and windows shattered in a neighbour’s house surrounded by red agricultural land dotted with olive trees.

A resident in the area who gave his name as Abdel Hameed said he rushed to the place of the attack after he heard helicopters, gunfire and strikes in the night.

“The home had collapsed and next to it there was a destroyed tent and vehicle. There were two people killed inside” the car, he said.

From the outskirts of Barisha, an inhabitant of a camp for the displaced also heard helicopters followed by what he described as US-led coalition air strikes.

They “were flying very low, causing great panic among the people”, Ahmed Hassawi told AFP by phone.

Another resident, who gave his name as Abu Ahmad and lives less than 100 metres away from the site of the destroyed house, said he heard voices “speaking a foreign language” during the raid.

The AFP correspondent said the area of the night-time operation had been cordoned off by Hayat Tahrir Al Sham, a group dominated by members of Syria’s former Al Qaeda affiliate controlling Idlib.

Between the trees, bulldozers could be seen at the site, clearing out the rubble.

‘Joint intelligence’

Turkey, which has been waging an offensive against the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northeast Syria in recent weeks, had “advance knowledge” about the raid, a senior Turkish official said.

“To the best of my knowledge, Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi arrived at this location 48 hours prior to the raid,” the official told AFP.

The commander-in-chief of the SDF, who have been fighting Daesh in Syria, said the operation came after “joint intelligence work” with American forces.

Trump also said that Iraq had been “very good” over the raid.

He said no US soldiers were wounded, despite “doing a lot of shooting” and “a lot of blasting”. The only US casualty was a military dog in the tunnel with the trapped Islamic State leader.

Long pursued by the US-led coalition against Daesh, Baghdadi has been erroneously reported dead several times in recent years.

$25 million reward 

Baghdadi — an Iraqi native believed to be around 48 years old — was rarely seen.

After 2014 he disappeared from sight, only surfacing in a video in April with a wiry grey and red beard and an assault rifle at his side, as he encouraged followers to “take revenge” after the group’s territorial defeat.

His reappearance was seen as a reassertion of his leadership of a group that — despite its March defeat — has spread from the Middle East to Asia and Africa and claimed several deadly attacks in Europe.

The US State Department had posted a $25 million reward for information on his whereabouts.

In September, the group released an audio message said to be from Baghdadi praising the operations of Daesh affiliates in other regions.

It also called on scattered Daesh fighters to regroup and try to free thousands of their comrades held in jails and camps by the SDF in north-eastern Syria.

BAGHDAD — Iraqi students joined anti-government protests in Baghdad on Sunday, ramping up the street pressure on Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi who also faced a sit-in from parliament's largest bloc.

The capital and country's south have been rocked by a second wave of demonstrations since Thursday, with protesters digging in despite tear gas, curfews and violence that has left more than 60 dead.

On Sunday morning, students could be seen joining demonstrations in the capital, with activists saying about a dozen schools and universities had decided to shut their doors and take part in protests en masse.

In the emblematic Tahrir Square, young girls in school uniforms with rucksacks were seen trekking through streets littered with tear gas canisters.

Hundreds of protesters had hunkered down in the square, defying heavy tear gas use overnight and pledging to "weed out" the political class.

"We're here to bring down the whole government — to weed them all out!" one protester said, the Iraqi tricolour wrapped around his head.

The protests are unprecedented in recent Iraqi history for their ire at the entire political class, including Abdel Mahdi, parliament speaker Mohammed Al Halbussi and even traditionally revered religious leaders.

They have also been exceptionally violent, with 157 dead in the first set of rallies and 63 dead in the latest round.

"We don't want a single one of them. Not Halbussi, not Abdel Mahdi. We want to bring down the regime," the protester said.

Women were also seen in larger numbers, including a young nurse who said she was protesting "for the generation that's coming".

“Our generation is psychologically tired, but it’s alright as long as this is for the next one,” she said. 

Curfews, arrests 

Renewed protests also flooded the streets of Najaf, Hilla, Karbala and Diwaniyah in the south. 

In the oil-rich port city of Basra, police enforced a strict curfew and said it arrested “saboteurs” who had infiltrated the protesters.

This week’s demonstrations are the sequel to six days of anti-government rallies that erupted October 1.

Sparked by outrage at corruption, unemployment and poor services, they evolved into demands for an overhaul of the political system and a new constitution.

On Saturday, Iraqi President Barham Saleh met with the United Nations’ top representative in the country Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert to discuss electoral reform and amendments to the constitution, which dates back to 2005.

Abdel Mahdi has also proposed a laundry list of reforms including hiring drives, increased pensions and promises to root out corruption.

Oil-rich Iraq is the OPEC oil cartel’s second biggest producer, but one in five people live in poverty and youth unemployment stands at 25 per cent, according to the World Bank.

Beyond the street, Abdel Mahdi also faces new pressure from parliament, whose largest bloc has been holding an open-ended sit-in since Saturday night to back the rallies. 

“The sit-in is ongoing and open until protester demands are met and the reforms promised by the PM are enacted,” said MP Salam Al Hadi, a member of Saeroon — an alliance between populist cleric Moqtada Al Sadr and Iraq’s Communist Party.

The move has left Abdel Mahdi more squeezed than ever, as Saeroon was one of the two main sponsors of his government.

Elite troops deploy 

The other was Fatah, the political arm of the Hashed Al Shaabi paramilitary force which said it would continue to back the central government.

The one-time allies now find themselves on opposite sides of the protest movement. 

The Hashed was founded in 2014 to fight the Daesh terror group but its factions have since been ordered to incorporate into state security services.

Several of their offices have been torched in recent days in southern Iraqi cities, hinting at a new violent phase.

Dozens of protesters have died while storming or setting fire to the offices of Asaib Ahl Al Haq, the Badr Organisation and others, according to medics and police.

Hashed commanders have threatened revenge, and its second-in-command Abu Mahdi Al Muhandis said Sunday his force “is ready to stand against discord”.

The UN has warned “armed spoilers” could derail efforts at peaceful protests in Iraq, saying it was “tragic” to see renewed violence in the country. 

A government probe found “excessive force” was used to quell the first week of protests and in a noticeable change, there have been no reports of live ammunition in Baghdad in recent days.

Most of those killed since Thursday have been shot in the Shiite-majority south, but medics and protesters in the capital have reported trauma wounds from tear gas canisters.

On Sunday, security forces were positioned on the edges of Tahrir, while elite Counterterrorism Service troops and armoured vehicles were seen in surrounding districts. 

The CTS said it had deployed its units to “protect vital infrastructure”, and its forces were not seen in Tahrir.

BEIRUT — Tens of thousands of Lebanese protesters successfully formed a human chain running north-south across the entire country on Sunday to symbolise newfound national unity.

Demonstrators joined hands from Tripoli to Tyre, a 170-kilometre chain running through the capital Beirut, as part of an unprecedented cross-sectarian mobilisation.

Tension has mounted in recent days between security forces and protesters, who have blocked roads and brought the country to a standstill to press their demands for a complete overhaul of the political system.

Lebanon's reviled political elite has defended a belated package of economic reforms and appeared willing to reshuffle the government, but protesters who have stayed on the streets since October 17 want more.

On foot, by bicycle and on motorbikes, demonstrators and volunteers fanned out along the main north-south highway. 

“The idea behind this human chain is to show an image of a Lebanon which, from north to south, rejects any sectarian affiliation,” Julie Tegho Bou Nassif, one of the organisers, told AFP.

“There is no political demand today, we only want to send a message by simply holding hands under the Lebanese flag,” the 31-year-old history professor told AFP.

On the Beirut seafront, men, women and children held hands, some carrying Lebanese flags and many singing the national anthem, an AFP photographer said.

‘Dignified life’ 

In the northern city of Tripoli, where more than half the population lives under the poverty line, some had painted the Lebanese national symbol of a cedar tree on their faces, an AFP reporter said.

“We’re expressing our demand for a dignified life and our dream as youth for a decent future,” 30-year-old participant Tariq Fadli told AFP.

In the southern city of Tyre, protesters standing in a line held the edges of a long Lebanese flag, local television showed. 

A young boy played with it, making it billow up and down.

The protests have been remarkable for their territorial reach and the absence of political or sectarian banners, in a country often defined by its divisions.

The leaderless protest movement, driven mostly by a young generation of men and women born after the 1975-1990 civil war, has even been described by some as the birth of a Lebanese civic identity.

The army has sought to reopen main roads across the country, where schools and banks have been closed for more than a week.

In one of the most serious incidents, the army opened fire on Friday to confront a group of protesters blocking a road in Tripoli, wounding at least six people. 

But the unprecedented protest movement has been relatively incident-free, despite tensions with the armed forces and attempts by party loyalists to stage counter-demonstrations.

Protesters have been demanding the removal of the entire ruling class, which has remained largely unchanged in three decades.

Many of the political heavyweights are former warlords seen as representing little beyond their own sectarian or geographical community.

Brink of collapse 

The protesters see them as corrupt and incompetent and have so far dismissed measures proposed by the political leadership to quell the protests.

“We’ve had the same people in charge for 30 years,” said Elie, a 40-year-old demonstrator walking in central Beirut on Sunday morning with a Lebanese flag.

Prime Minister Saad Hariri on Monday announced a package of economic reforms which aims to revive an economy that has been on the brink of collapse for months.

His coalition partners have supported the move and warned that a political vacuum in times of economic peril risked chaos.

But the protesters have accused the political elite of desperately attempting to save their jobs and have stuck to their demands for deep, systemic change.

In a now well-established routine, entire families of volunteers showed up early on the main protest sites Sunday to clean up after another night of protests and parties.

After dusk, the central Martyrs’ Square in Beirut and other protest hubs in Lebanon — including the relatively conservative city of Tripoli — turn into a vast, open ground where protesters dance, sing or organise political meetings.

SANJAK SAADOUN, Syria — Kurdish forces said Sunday they will redeploy away from the entire length of Syria's northern border in compliance with a Russian-Turkish agreement that will see them replaced by Damascus-backed forces.

The Kurd-led Syrian Democratic Forces "is redeploying to new positions away from the Turkish-Syrian border" in accordance with the deal signed in Sochi last week, they said in a statement. 

"Syrian border guards affiliated with the central government will deploy along the entire length of Syria's border with Turkey," the statement added.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor has said Kurdish-led SDF started pulling out of some areas at the eastern end of the border on Thursday.

On Sunday, an SDF spokesman said Kurdish fighters were withdrawing from border positions. 

Mustefa Bali said they will redeploy to positions around 30 kilometres away from the frontier. 

On Sunday, an AFP correspondent in the Sanjak Saadoun border area near the northern Syrian town of Amuda saw SDF military vehicles carrying personnel and heavy artillery heading south.

The convoy was travelling on a road that connects Amuda to the city of Hasakeh, where Kurdish fighters are present. 

Syrian state television said that 45 vehicles withdrew from Sanjak Saadoun.

The Damascus government welcomed the pullout which it said is being carried out in coordination with the Syrian army, state news agency SANA reported Sunday quoting a foreign ministry statement.

Earlier this week Russia and Turkey signed a deal that will see Russian military police and Syrian border guards “facilitate the removal” of Kurdish People’s Protection Units, which form the backbone of the SDF, from within 30 kilometres of the border.

The Turkey-Russia agreement was reached after marathon talks between President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Vladimir Putin in the Black Sea resort of Sochi on Tuesday. 

Russian military police conducted the first patrols on Wednesday.

The deal follows the decision by US President Donald Trump to withdraw US troops who were allied with Kurdish forces that bore the brunt of the fight against the Daesh extremist group in Syria.

In a statement on Sunday, the SDF said it had accepted the deal.

“After extensive discussions with the Russian Federation on our previous objection to some terms of the memorandum, we agreed to the implementation of the deal,” it said.