Region

ISTANBUL — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday said his country's patience with US efforts to create a safe zone in northern Syria was running out, indicating an operation was imminent.

The two NATO allies, Turkey and the United States, agreed in August to establish a buffer zone to keep Syrian Kurdish militants away from the Turkish border and help repatriate refugees.

Erdogan has repeatedly threatened to launch a unilateral operation against the US-backed Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) if the buffer zone was delayed.

"At the current stage, we have no other choice other than to proceed on our own path," he said in the televised speech.

“We have tried every path. We have been extremely patient,” he said. “We cannot afford to lose a single day.”

The YPG, which controls a swathe of land east of the Euphrates in northern Syria, is a key partner for Washington in the fight against the Daesh, but Ankara says it is a “terrorist” offshoot of Kurdish separatists in its own territory.

Erdogan has hoped the buffer zone will kill two birds with one stone, saying it will also allow the return of up to two million Syrian refugees.

“We are of course aware of the economic, social and cultural challenges caused by 3.6 million refugees because the Syrian crisis has been protracted,” he said.

He accused Western countries of deliberately refusing to share the refugee burden, saying they did so “to bring our country to its knees”.

“I am asking you: Is Turkey a weak country that can accept such an imposition, blackmailing and vile game?”

The Turkish military has twice launched cross-border operations into Syria against the YPG and Islamic State group, in 2016 and 2018.

RIYADH — A US navy official visited Saudi Arabia to discuss maritime defence coordination following last month's twin attacks on key oil facilities in the kingdom.

Riyadh joined a US-led force to protect Gulf shipping as tensions with Iran soared after the September 14 attacks that temporarily knocked out half of the OPEC giant's production.

"The visit was an opportunity to discuss our mutual efforts going forward to coordinate defence against provocation and attack," said Vice Admiral Jim Malloy, commander of US Naval Forces in the Middle East, according to a statement released on Tuesday.

It added the visit focused on the Saudi navy’s role in “efforts to strengthen and reinforce defences against the Iranian aggression”.

Malloy met with Saudi navy commander Fahad Al Ghofaily in Riyadh on Sunday, three days after the Pentagon announced it was sending 200 troops with Patriot missiles to bolster the kingdom’s defences.

The US has pushed for the creation of a US-led operation dubbed the International Maritime Security Construct to safeguard trade and the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz.

It has so far been joined by Australia, Britain and the United Arab Emirates, as well as Bahrain, the Gulf island state which is home to the US Fifth Fleet.

The initiative followed a number of mystery attacks on oil tankers and facilities in and around the strategic waterway through which a third of the world’s seaborne oil passes.

Tensions have risen further since Saturday when twin attacks blamed by Washington and Riyadh on Tehran hit the world’s largest oil processing plant and a major oilfield in Saudi Arabia.

Iran has repeatedly denied it was responsible, saying that the attacks were carried out by Yemeni rebels as they themselves have claimed.

European countries have declined to join the US-led force for fear of harming their efforts to rescue a landmark 2015 nuclear accord between Iran and major powers.

TEHRAN — Iran's judiciary on Tuesday announced it had convicted four people on charges of spying for the United States or Britain, sentencing one of them to death.

"Last week, a person accused of espionage for an American [intelligence]service was sentenced to death by a revolutionary court," judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili told a press conference.

Esmaili did not name the accused but said the identity would be revealed if the verdict is confirmed by the supreme court.

The spokesman also did disclose the names of the other three, each sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Ali Nafariyeh and Mohammad-Ali Babapour were convicted of spying for the US and fined $55,000, the amount they were allegedly paid for collaborating with Washington.

Mohammad Amin-Nassab was found guilty of spying for Britain.

Tehran announced in July it had dismantled a CIA spy ring, arresting 17 suspects and sentencing some of them to death.

Iranian authorities said the arrests were carried out between March 2018 and March 2019.

US President Donald Trump dismissed the claim as “totally false”.

In mid-September, Iran charged three detained Australians with spying, after the reported arrest of a travel-blogging
couple and an academic.

DUBAI — The son of murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who has denied a financial settlement with the government, spoke out in defence of the kingdom Tuesday ahead of the first anniversary of the killing.

Khashoggi was killed and dismembered at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018, in an operation that reportedly involved 15 agents sent from Riyadh. His body was never found.

Eleven unidentified suspects have been on trial in Riyadh, with five of them facing the death penalty.

Salah Khashoggi said he had "full confidence" in the judicial system, and hit out at opponents he said were seeking to exploit the case.

"A year has gone by since the passing of my beloved father. During this time, opponents and enemies in the East and West sought to exploit his case... to undermine my country and leadership," he said in a tweet.

"I will not accept that his memory and case be taken advantage of to achieve that after his passing," said Salah, who resides in the kingdom.

"I have full confidence in the kingdom's judicial system and in its ability to serve justice to those behind this heinous crime," he said.

BAGHDAD — Iraq's premier has said for the first time that his government had "indications" Israel was behind some attacks on paramilitary bases this summer, but stopped short of making an explicit accusation.

The Hashed Al Shaabi force has blamed the series of explosions at its bases and arms depots on Israel and the US, but the central government had so far said it was still investigating.

In a first, Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi told Al Jazeera television in an interview aired Monday that those investigations were nearing a conclusion.

"Some of the investigations carried out by Iraqi authorities provided important indications that Israel was behind some of these attacks," he said, in excerpts of the interview seen by AFP.

Abdel Mahdi said he had even "heard from the Americans" that Israel was involved but that his government still lacked "tangible evidence".

The blasts at five Hashed bases have been a threat to Baghdad’s precarious balancing act between its two main allies, Washington and Tehran.

Top Hashed officials said the US was broadly “responsible” but specifically blamed Israeli drones for an August 25 strike that killed a Hashed fighter near Iraq’s western border with Syria.

The Pentagon has denied responsibility and said it is cooperating with Iraq’s investigations, while Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement.

The Iraqi government had thus far said it was studying evidence of foreign involvement, and even last week Abdel Mahdi told reporters there was no conclusive proof.

But MP Ahmad Al Assadi said on Friday that he and fellow parliamentarians were briefed on Israeli involvement by Faleh Al Fayyadh, the premier’s national security advisor and head of the Hashed.

“He told us that the investigative committees proved that at least three of the incidents were external attacks, including two by Israel,” he told AFP.

Assadi, who is also a leading Hashed official, said he did not know why the government had not made those results public.

The Hashed was established in 2014 from mostly-Shiite armed groups and volunteers to fight Daesh, and is now formally part of Iraq’s armed forces.

The US and Israel fear some units are an extension of their arch-foe Iran and have been equipped with precision-guided missiles.

Israel has admitted to carrying out hundreds of strikes on pro-Iran paramilitary units in neighbouring Syria, which added fuel to suspicions it was behind those in Iraq.

Last month, Iraq’s foreign ministry threatened to submit a complaint to the United Nations once the investigations were complete.

ALEPPO, Syria — Among the destroyed buildings of Syria's Aleppo, a battered sign between two army checkpoints welcomes visitors to an area earmarked to become a beacon of post-war reconstruction.

"The industrial city of Aleppo thanks you for your visit," it reads.

Once the country's powerhouse, Aleppo was devastated by Syria's ongoing civil war before Russia-backed government forces expelled the last rebels in late 2016 after a devastating siege.

As some of the city is slowly rebuilt, the Russian army this week showed reporters around, as Moscow seeks to highlight its role in reconstruction of the war-torn country.

Several factories have reopened in the almost three years since the fighting ended in Aleppo, large parts of which were flattened.

At Katerji Engineering and Mechanical Industries, 1,000 people are employed in metalworking jobs. About a fifth of the workers recently returned to Aleppo.

"We started work again a year ago and today we have four operational warehouses," said Salah Mitar, the engineer in charge.

"We hope to expand to 11 by 2020," he told AFP, as employees bustled around him in one huge warehouse.

But Mitar said international sanctions against President Bashar Assad's government and associated businessmen meant the factory cannot import sophisticated machinery.

The two main shareholders of Katerji Engineering and Mechanical Industries — Hussam and Baraa Katerji — are targeted by European Union and US sanctions respectively.

The factory was under rebel control until Aleppo's recapture and production ground to a halt during fighting.

For the past eight months since the factory reopened, employee Khaled said he had received a good salary.

But "very high prices in town" still make life difficult for him and his family, said the 38-year-old father of five.

After fuel shortages the government blames on sanctions, the value of the Syrian pound fell to its lowest level ever on the black market earlier this month.

'Customers will return' 

Aleppo's UNESCO-listed historic centre and its centuries-old covered markets are also returning to life.

The frontline once ran through the old souqs, but today large parts of the historical trading centre have been restored.

Workers still shovel rubble in some alleys, as coffee shops and stalls — most still empty — prepare to receive merchandise.

Among them, 59-year-old Abdel Rahman Mahmud could not wait to see shoppers back in his two-decade-old shop, where he will resume selling soap and spice.

"Customers will return. I'm sure of it. We just need to wait a bit," said the trader, who lost a son in the war.

The civil war has killed more than 370,000 people and displaced millions since starting in 2011 with the repression of anti-government protests.

But, Mahmud said, "our lives have changed a lot these past few years. Things are a lot better — we have electricity, water."

Russian pipes and cables 

President Bashar Assad's government has won back large parts of the country from rebels and extremists since Russia intervened militarily on its side in 2015.

After blistering military campaigns and Russia-brokered surrender deals, Damascus now controls more than 60 per cent of Syria and is looking to rebuild with Russian support.

Moscow says it has delivered thousands of tonnes of water pipe and hundreds of kilometres of high-tension cable to improve water and power supplies.

Its military police on the ground have deterred looters, Russia says.

Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, a longtime Kremlin protege with vast resources, has offered to fund the restoration of Aleppo's centuries-old Umayyad Mosque after it was damaged in the fighting.

But in the east of the city, residential neighbourhoods once under rebel control still largely lie in ruin.

Flattened apartment blocks lie on either side of deserted streets, dotted only by army checkpoints.

And just 10 kilometres away, fighting has continued.

The city lies east of the rebel-run region of Idlib, where a Russia-announced ceasefire has largely held in recent weeks, despite sporadic bombardment.

The governor of Aleppo province, Hussein Diab, said fighting wounded 123 people in the province in September.

JOHANNESBURG — The African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council (PSC) believes that it needs to play a greater role in finding a solution to Libya’s ongoing political and military crisis.

The PSC asserted this in a statement following the African ministerial meeting, organised by Morocco, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting in New York.

Expressing deep concern over the civil war raging on the outskirts of the capital Tripoli, the statement proposed the appointment of a joint AU-UN envoy to Libya, before warning that the country’s instability could have far-reaching implications for the security and stability of the region and the continent as a whole.

Meanwhile, following previous reports of foreign intervention fuelling the ongoing fighting in Tripoli between forces loyal to the internationally-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) and the self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) under the command of renegade General Khalifa Haftar, the presidential council confirmed that the belongings of Russian mercenaries had been discovered south of the capital after it was reported last week that three Russian mercenaries had been killed in air strikes targeting the LNA.

Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, France, Italy, Turkey and Russia all stand accused of supporting opposing sides in the fight to take Tripoli.