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BEIRUT — Demonstrators in Lebanon blocked roads and trickled into streets across the country for a tenth consecutive day Saturday.

The demonstrators — who have thronged towns and cities across Lebanon since October 17 — are demanding the removal of the entire political class, accusing many across different parties of systematic corruption.

Numbers have declined since October 20, when hundreds of thousands took over Beirut and other cities in the largest demonstrations in years, but could grow again over the weekend.

The chief of Lebanon's Hizbollah on Friday called on his supporters to leave the streets, warning that any Cabinet resignation would lead to "chaos and collapse" of the economy.

He also said that the protesters were being manipulated by "foreign powers" who wanted to leverage the unrest, shortly after his supporters clashed with demonstrators in Beirut.

His statement sowed divisions among Hizbollah supporters, some of whom were still protesting on Saturday morning. 

Hassan Koteiche, 27, from a Hizbollah stronghold in Beirut, said he agreed with most of Nasrallah's "excellent" speech, but had some reservations. 

"This does not mean we are against his discourse but there is a divergence in opinion," he told AFP.

“The main thing I disagree with is his belief that if the government or parliament falls then we would have no alternative,” he added.

“That is not true. We have alternatives. We have noble and uncorrupt people,” who can govern. 

‘We will stay’ 

Main roads remained closed across the country on Saturday morning, as the army tried to reopen key routes.

Northeast of Beirut, dozens of demonstrators formed a human chain to prevent the army from removing a dirt berm blocking a sea-side road. 

In central Beirut, they sat cross-legged on a key artery that connects the capital to its suburbs and surrounding regions but the army later cleared them and opened the road.

Nearby, droves of volunteers swept streets and collected rubbish after protests went late into the night, with people dancing on the street and in and abandoned former movie theatre.

Demonstrators who had slept in tents near Martyrs Square, said they were still defiant on the tenth day of their protest movement, despite attempts by Hizbollah to rattle protesters. 

“We will stay on the streets,” said Rabih al-Zein, a 34-year-old from the Shiite-stronghold of Tyre, which saw unprecedented demonstrations over the past week. 

“The power of the people is stronger than the power of the parties,” he told AFP in central Beirut, adding that Hizbollah supporters would not keep them from demonstrating. 

Lebanon’s largely sectarian political parties have been wrong-footed by the cross-communal nature of the largely peaceful protests.

Waving Lebanese flags rather than the partisan colours normally paraded at demonstrations, protesters have been demanding the resignation of all of Lebanon’s political leaders.

“All of them means all,” has been a popular slogan.

Counter-demonstrations 

In recent days, loyalists of Hizbollah and the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) — a Christian party founded by President Michel Aoun — mobilised counterdemonstrations across the country, sparking scuffles with demonstrators and journalists.

The Iran-backed Hizbollah, considered a terrorist organisation by Israel and the United States, is the only movement not to have disarmed after Lebanon’s 15-year civil.

Hundreds of its supporters gathered in the group’s strongholds in Beirut’s southern suburbs and the southern cities of Nabatiyeh and Tyre on Friday after Nasrallah’s speech, brandishing party flags.

In central Beirut, they clashed with protesters, prompting riot police to intervene to break up the fight.

In Nabatiyeh on Saturday, dozens of anti-government demonstrators returned to the streets, with a protester saying he was counting on the army and security forces to protect them from party loyalists. 

In a suburb north of Beirut, dozens of FPM loyalists staged a counter demonstration to express their support for the embattled president. 

Lebanon endured a devastating civil war that ended in 1990 and many of its current political leaders are former commanders of wartime militias, most of them recruited on sectarian lines.

Persistent deadlock between them has stymied efforts to tackle the deteriorating economy, while the eight-year war in neighbouring Syria has compounded the crisis.

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

ANKARA — President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday that Turkey would "clear terrorists" on its border in northern Syria if Syrian Kurdish militia did not withdraw by the end of a deadline agreed with Russia.

"If the terrorists are not cleared at the end of the 150 hours, we will take control and clean it ourselves," Erdogan said during a speech in Istanbul, referring to the YPG militia which Turkey views as a "terrorist" offshoot of Kurdish PKK insurgents.

Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed a deal in the Black Sea resort of Sochi on Tuesday in which Moscow will "facilitate the removal" of the fighters and their weapons from within 30 kilometres of the border.

The deadline ends at 6:00 pm local time (15:00 GMT) on October 29.

Despite his threat, Erdogan said Turkey had "to a large extent" reached its goal in terms of setting up a "safe zone" to protect against attacks from the so-called Daesh extremist group and the Kurdish YPG militia.

Turkey has repeatedly criticised US support to the YPG, who spearheaded the fight against Daesh under the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) banner.

For Ankara, the YPG is as dangerous as the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), blacklisted as a terror group by Turkey and its Western allies.

Erdogan also urged the international community to support establishing a "safe zone" for some of the 3.6 million Syrian refugees in Turkey.

"If there is no support for the projects we are developing for between one and 2 million in the first stage for their return, we will have no option but to open our doors, and let them go to Europe," he warned.

After similar threats were accused of being blackmail, Erdogan insisted he was "not blackmailing anyone" but "putting forward a solution".

Earlier this month, Turkey and the US reached an agreement on the YPG's withdrawal from a 120-kilometre zone between Tal Abyad and Ras Al Ain following Ankara's operation supporting Syrian proxies against the Kurdish fighters, which began on October 9.

The US said this had been completed within five days and in return, Ankara agreed to halt its offensive.

But Erdogan on Saturday said the US was unable to "clean the area" of the YPG.

"They sent us a written statement saying they had cleared the area after 120 hours, but unfortunately, they could not clean the area," Erdogan said.

The Turkish defence ministry earlier Saturday said there had been "harassment and attacks with mortars and sniper shootings" by the YPG in the 120-kilometre area during reconnaissance-surveillance and clearing activities.

'Unrealistic' German plan 

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu earlier Saturday said a German suggestion for an international force to establish a "safe zone" in northern Syria was not realistic.

Speaking at a press conference in Ankara alongside his German counterpart Heiko Maas, Cavusoglu said: "At this point, we don't find it really realistic."

Earlier this week, German Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer suggested a "security zone" could allow international forces, including European troops, to resume the fight against Daesh as well as to "stabilise the region".

Maas also appeared to pour cold water on Kramp-Karrenbauer's idea, saying that he and Cavusoglu "had no time for issues of a theoretical nature because the people in Syria don't have time for theoretical debates".

"We are told by everyone that this is not a realistic proposal," Maas added.

Maas represents Merkel's junior, centre-left coalition partners the SPD, while Kramp-Karrenbauer is leader of the chancellor's conservative CDU party.

The German government has been sharply divided over Kramp-Karrenbauer's plan.

The commander of Kurdish forces in Syria has welcomed the plan, as has the US, but so far it has gained little further traction and few details are available.

QAMISHLI, Syria — Kurdish forces in north-eastern Syria left several positions along the long border with Turkey on Thursday, complying with a deal that sees Damascus, Ankara and Moscow carve up their now-defunct autonomous region.

Russian forces have started patrols along the flashpoint frontier, filling the vacuum left by a US troop withdrawal.

An AFP correspondent saw a Russian patrol set off from the town of Qamishli westwards along the Turkish border flying Russian flags, accompanied by Kurdish security forces.

US President Donald Trump has praised the agreement reached in Sochi by NATO member Turkey and Russia and rejoiced that US personnel were leaving the "long blood-stained sand" of Syria, leaving just a residual contingent behind "where they have the oil".

The deal signed in the Black Sea resort by Syria's two main foreign brokers gives Kurdish forces until Tuesday to withdraw to a line 30 kilometres from the border.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces had pulled out of some areas at the eastern end of the border on Thursday.

“The SDF have withdrawn from positions between Derbasiyeh and Amuda in the Hasakeh countryside,” the Britain-based war monitor’s head, Rami Abdel Rahman, said.

Fighters of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) — the main component of the SDF — remained in many positions along the 440 kilometre, he added.

The observatory also reported clashes near the town of Tal Tamr between SDF fighters and some of the Syrian former rebels paid by Turkey to fight ground battles.

SDF commander Mazloum Abdi on Twitter accused the Turkish-led forces of violating the truce on the eastern front of Ras Al Ain.

“The guarantors of the ceasefire must carry out their responsibilities to rein in the Turks,” he added on Twitter.

The events were set to provoke “forceful” discussion at a NATO defence minister meeting in Brussels on Thursday and Friday but Ankara risked little because of its strategic position, diplomats said.

Russian and Syrian government forces were deploying across the Kurdish heartland to assist “the removal of YPG elements and their weapons”.

Kurdish forces had already vacated a 120-kilometre segment of the border strip — an Arab-majority area between the towns of Ras Al Ain and Tall Abyad.

The SDF withdrawal from that area came after Turkey and its Syrian proxies launched their deadly cross-border offensive on October 9.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hopes to use the pocket to resettle at least half of the 3.6 million Syrian refugees his country hosts.

Under the Sochi deal, the area will remain under the full control of Turkey, unlike the rest of the projected buffer zone which will eventually be jointly patrolled by Turkey and Russia.

Some 300,000 people have fled their homes since the start of the Turkish offensive and many Kurds among them seem unlikely to return.

Oil wells 

US forces pulled back from the border area earlier this month, in a move the Kurds saw as a betrayal but which Trump had discussed since last year.

The autonomous Kurdish administration in Syria had hoped that the sacrifices made in the name of the international community to help crush the Daesh terror group’s “caliphate” would pay off.

But Trump has been keen to keep a promise to remove his troops from Syria, where Daesh’s “caliphate” was eliminated in March but where conflict continues.

“Let someone else fight over this long blood-stained sand,” he said in a White House speech on Wednesday.

Some US forces remain in eastern districts of Syria, where government forces have been deploying but have not yet re-established full control.

“We have secured the oil and, therefore, a small number of US troops will remain in the area where they have the oil,” Trump said on Wednesday.

The Syrian government is keen to reclaim the northeast, which is home to the country’s main oilfields and some of its most fertile farmland.

BEIRUT — Lebanon's president offered on Thursday to meet the protesters whose week-old mobilisation to demand a complete overhaul of the political system has brought the country to a standstill.

But Michel Aoun's first speech since the start of the unprecedented protest movement was met with disdain by demonstrators who see him and the entire political class as part of the problem, not the solution.

Sparked on October 17 by a proposed tax on free calls made through messaging apps such as Whatsapp, the protests have morphed into a cross-sectarian street mobilisation against a political system seen as corrupt and broken.

In his speech, Aoun told protesters he was "ready to meet your representatives... to hear your demands".

He suggested that a government reshuffle might be needed, an option that other leaders have hinted they would consider — but which would fall far short of demonstrators' demand that the entire government quit.

Prime Minister Saad Hariri on Monday presented a package of reforms, including cutting ministerial salaries, but the rallies have continued, crippling Beirut and other major cities.

"The reform paper that was approved will be the first step to save Lebanon and remove the spectre of financial and economic collapse," Aoun said.

"It was your first achievement because you helped remove obstacles in front of it and it was adopted in record speed," he told the protesters.

But dozens of demonstrators listening to the speech on loudspeakers outside parliament booed it, an AFP reporter said.

'All of them to go' 

Protester Jad Al Hajj, a mechanical engineering student, described Aoun's speech as "meaningless" and vowed to stay in the street.

“We want him to go and for this era to end — for all of them to go,” he told AFP.

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

Almost three decades since the end of Lebanon’s civil war, political deadlock has stymied efforts to tackle mounting economic woes compounded by the eight-year civil war in neighbouring Syria.

In previous days, tens of thousands have gathered all over Lebanon, with largely peaceful rallies morphing into raucous celebrations at night.

But in central Beirut’s Martyrs’ Square on Thursday, numbers were far lower, the AFP correspondent said.

Outside parliament in the afternoon, security forces intervened to quell tensions between protesters over chants against the leader of Shiite movement Hezbollah, local and state media said. One person was injured.

As rain poured down on the capital, others sought shelter in an iconic abandoned cinema on the edge of the square nicknamed “the Egg”.

The British embassy in Beirut joined the United States in urging Lebanese leaders to respond to the “legitimate” frustrations of citizens.

In his speech, Aoun said he respected the right of protesters to speak up but urged them to open key roads that they have blocked.

Amnesty International said demonstrators peacefully cutting off roads was a legitimate form of protest and warned the army against dispersing them by force.

Demonstrators again closed thoroughfares around the capital early Thursday, AFP correspondents and Lebanese media reported.

Sitting on the pavement of a major east-west artery, a 30-year-old said he had been protesting since the first day.

“People think we’re playing but we’re actually asking for our most basic rights: water, food, electricity, healthcare, pensions, medicine, schooling,” he said.

Banks, schools and universities remained closed.

The president also echoed calls to stamp out graft in Lebanon, which ranked 138 out of 180 countries in Transparency International’s 2018 corruption index.

“Every person who stole public money should be held accountable but it is important his sect doesn’t defend him blindly”, he said.

On Wednesday, a state prosecutor pressed charges against former prime minister Najib Mikati over allegations he wrongly received millions of dollars in subsidised housing loans, charges he denies.

The timing of the move was seen by some as a nod to protesters.

On Wednesday, the army deployed in the streets, sparking fears of clashes.

But protesters faced the troops with chants of “peaceful, peaceful” and a video of one soldier seemingly in tears was shared widely online.

In the southern Shiite-majority city of Nabatieh, police however tried to disperse protesters by force, leaving several injured, the National News Agency said.

Demonstrators returned to protest in the city Thursday, some taking part in a traditional dabkeh dance.

MOSUL, Iraq — Two high-tech replicas of iconic Assyrian statues destroyed by the Daesh group in northern Iraq were unveiled on Thursday at the University of Mosul.

The real “lamassu” — massive statues of winged bulls with human faces — had adorned a royal throne room in the ancient city of Nimrud for centuries, and one was later exhibited in the Mosul Museum.

But terrorists destroyed the originals after they swept across northern Iraq in 2014, blowing up Nimrud and filming themselves taking hammers to pre-Islamic artefacts they deemed heretical.

Iraqi troops recaptured Mosul in mid-2017, but the museum has remained shuttered and the lamassu in ruins.

Using 3D recordings of lamassu fragments, the Spanish Factum Foundation created copies, erected this week outside the student library at the University of Mosul.

“This gift is a message of hope that Mosul has returned to normal and its people must build their city,” Spanish Ambassador Juan Jose Escobar said at the statues’ unveiling.

Ahmad Qassem, a professor of history at the University of Mosul, said the lamassu’s hybrid figure is highly symbolic.

“The head symbolises wisdom, the wings speed, and the body — a mix of a bull and a lion — represent strength,” he told AFP.

And Factum founder Adam Lowe told AFP the replicas now had their own meaning.

“We want them to be here as a symbol, a demonstration of what’s possible with technology when people work together to share cultural heritage, share understanding, and share our historical culture that links us all together,” he said.

“Now they’re sitting in front of the entrance to the student building and I hope they’ll guard everyone for many years to come,” said Lowe.

University student Ilaf Muhannad said she was elated to see her university house them.

“I’m so happy today to see the lamassu statues placed here, because it represents the civilisation and heritage of Mosul. We demand the Iraqi government work on returning everything stolen from Mosul,” she said.

BRUSSELS — Turkey’s military operation in Syria was expected to spark “forceful” discussion at a NATO defence ministers’ meeting on Thursday, but Ankara risks little from its allies because of its strategic position, diplomats said.

The issue dominated the two-day gathering in Brussels, with Turkey isolated among the 29 member states because of its incursion this month against Kurdish fighters, considered “terrorists” by Ankara but key in the fight against the Daesh in Syria.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has refused to condemn Turkey, saying it has “legitimate security concerns” along its border with Syria.

On arrival on Thursday, he confirmed the ministers “will address the situation in northeast Syria” where he said a Turkey-US “ceasefire” accord struck last week had reduced fighting.

Diplomats described exchanges with Ankara’s representatives as “frank”. But they admitted that Turkey’s location at the gates of the Middle East and next to Russia gave it a strategic value weightier than the objections.

While discussions “are going to be forceful... there is no question of sanctioning Ankara or excluding Turkey [from NATO] — there is no procedure for that”, a high-ranking diplomat said.

US Defence Secretary Mark Esper, speaking at a think tank conference in Brussels before the meeting, said Turkey was “heading in the wrong direction”, especially with its deal struck this week with Russia to jointly patrol a “safe zone” in Syria that Ankara aims to set up.

“Turkey put us all in a very terrible situation and I think the incursion’s unwarranted,” Esper said.

He defended the withdrawal of US troops from northern Syria to leave a clear path for the Turkish operation.

“I was not about to put less than 50 US soldiers in between a 15,000-man-plus Turkish army preceded by Turkish militia and jeopardise the lives of those servicemen”. Nor was he “about to start a fight with a NATO ally”, he said.

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday summed up American strategy in Syria more bluntly, saying: “Let someone else fight over this long blood-stained sand.”

German idea for troops 

Turkey’s actions, its rapprochement to Russia and its threat to its European allies in NATO to unleash a wave of refugees if they dared criticise the assault in Syria have unnerved many in the transatlantic alliance.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan compounded concerns on Tuesday by agreeing with Russian leader Vladimir Putin to have Russian forces clear Kurdish militia out of Turkey’s “safe zone” and deploy forces to jointly patrol it.

Germany has floated the idea of an international force with a European component to establish a security zone in north-eastern Syria.

Although the US embraced it, the initiative appeared to be getting little traction.

German Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer had said she would raise the plan with her counterparts at the NATO meeting, but she was late to the start of the meeting on Thursday.

Stoltenberg said the German proposal would need UN approval to be implemented and therefore “needs to be discussed more in detail before any decision can be made”.

Belgium’s Defence Minister Didier Reynders said that “in principle we are in favour of such an agreement to work together — but than again, the situation is totally different now” with the Turkey-Russia agreement in northern Syria.