Region

CAIRO — Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Sisi on Wednesday opened a suspension bridge over the Nile touted as the world’s widest, one of a series of military-led, mega-projects designed to improve infrastructure and provide jobs.

The bridge, which crosses the Nile just north of central Cairo, is a key link in a highway stretching from the Red Sea in the east to Egypt’s north-western Mediterranean coast, and is meant to help reduce congestion in the capital.

Traffic ground to a halt in parts of central Cairo on Wednesday morning as Sisi travelled to open the bridge with ministers and military generals.

At its widest, the bridge has six traffic lanes in each direction and measures 67.3 metres across. A regional director for the Guinness Book of World Records present at the opening said that makes it the world’s widest suspension bridge.

Around 1 million cubic metres of concrete as well as 1,400km of steel wire for 160 suspension cables were used in its construction, according to a presentation given at the formal opening. 

The bridge crosses the Nile’s Warraq Island, which has an estimated 100,000 residents, some of whom have protested against planned demolitions on the island and plans to develop it into a “modern residential community”.

On an inspection visit to the suspension bridge last month, Sisi denied reports the island could be sold to investors and said the state could not forcefully evict residents.

Other prestige projects launched under Sisi include an expansion of the Suez Canal, completed in 2015, and the building of a new capital in the desert east of Cairo that is currently under construction.

MOSUL, Iraq — Watheq Mahmud is pursuing an advanced engineering degree but the textbooks he needs are often missing in his native Mosul, the Iraqi city where terrorists burned volumes and destroyed libraries. 

To track down the books, he has had to travel 400km south to Baghdad, and even a further 600km to Basra. 

“Everything is reversed today. Mosul used to be the hub for students and researchers from all across Iraq and the Arab world,” said Mahmud, 33.

“But today, Mosul’s people are forced to leave their city in search of education, books and resources,” he added. 

For centuries, Mosul was known for its artists and writers, for libraries brimming with books in multiple languages and for housing Iraq’s first printing press. 

But when Daesh seized the city in 2014, it banned any texts deemed un-Islamic and burned treasured archives. 

And although Mosul has been back in government hands since 2017, its young academics see the barren bookshelves as part of Daesh’s dark legacy. 

“It’s extremely hard for a researcher to complete his dissertation because there are so few resources available,” Abdulhamid Mohammad, a 34-year-old pursuing a doctorate in history, told AFP. 

Roa Al Hassan, who is studying food science, fears much of her city’s written riches will never be recovered.

“Some books were never digitally available, and now they’ll be lost forever,” she lamented. 

 Looted, burned 

One of Mosul’s most prominent literary hubs was the Central Library, erected in 1921 in the eastern Faysaliyah quarter. 

It housed books ranging from donated novels to rare volumes, fragile manuscripts and old blueprints.

The library even held books in the Syriac language, produced in the 19th century by Iraq’s first printing press, across the Tigris River in Mosul’s west. 

Mosul also boasted several large government collections, a library of religious texts, the Mosul University library, dozens of archives linked to churches and mosques and even more private bookstores along Nujaifi Street, nicknamed “Culture Boulevard”. 

Those gems were all destroyed in February 2015, when Daesh fighters looted the Central Library and systematically destroyed other collections, despite howls of protest locally. 

Some experts say Daesh set aside precious manuscripts to sell on the black market, along with ancient artifacts retrieved from heritage sites it had destroyed. 

The Iraqi government’s recapture of Mosul in 2017 facilitated support to restock the libraries, with donated volumes arriving from all over the world.

“We had 16,338 books before the library was looted and ruined,” said Jamal Ahmad Hesso, the associate director of the Central Library.

The library has received 11,758 volumes but is still missing more than a quarter of its previous content, said Hesso.

Mosul’s main religious archive once housed around 58,000 books. It now holds 48,000, according to its keeper, Shamel Lazem Tah. 

“Among them were 4,361 rare and important manuscripts that were all stolen by Daesh,” said Tah, 41.

They included “Al Muhit al-Burhani”, a key text in Islamic jurisprudence that dated back 900 years. 

‘What it once was’ 

Mosul University, too, was ravaged by Daesh’s three-year rule over the city, said Agriculture Professor Mohammad Abdallah. 

“The university library lost more than 1 million scientific and academic books, including more than 3,500 valuable prints,” he told AFP. 

“Manuscripts, periodicals more than 300 years old, copies of the Quran dating back to the ninth century — all of them were looted or burned,” Abdallah said.

Around 90 to 95 per cent of the library’s contents were lost.

Slowly but surely, the university is restocking: Nearly 100,000 books were donated from other colleges and non-governmental agencies, both inside and outside Iraq. 

“The university is determined to rebuild its library so it can be what it once was — a rich resource of knowledge and academia,” Abdallah told AFP.

While most of the current stocks are donations, some volumes remain from Mosul’s original archives — survivors of Daesh. 

“More than 3,000 books were saved. We have also stored away the remnants of another 4,000 destroyed books,” said Mosul University librarian Omar Tufiq. 

Abu Mohammad, 33, was one of the Mosul residents who contributed to the rescue effort. 

“I rescued more than 750 books; one of my friends and I,” he said. 

He hid the literary treasures in the cellar of an abandoned home.

“When the library was being burned, we carried them away in small bags, despite it being dangerous,” Mohammad. 

By Stephen Kalin, Alexander Cornwell and Dahlia Nehme

RIYADH/DUBAI — Attacks on Saudi tankers and other vessels off the coast of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) this week exposed vulnerabilities in the security of a key oil-shipping route amid rising tensions between the United States, Iran and Gulf Arab states.

The operation near the Strait of Hormuz appeared designed to test the resolve of the United States and its Sunni Muslim allies without triggering a war, after Washington tightened sanctions on Iran and beefed up its military presence nearby.

The UAE has not characterised the sabotage or blamed anyone, but US national security agencies believe proxies sympathetic to or working for Iran may have been behind it, a US official has said. Tehran has distanced itself from the incident, which no one has claimed. 

“This is a pin-prick event, a little needle-like jab at the maritime trade going into the Strait of Hormuz,” said Gerry Northwood, chairman of risk management and security firm MAST.

The attack took place off Fujairah emirate, just outside the Strait, a narrow waterway separating Iran from the Arabian Peninsula where a fifth of global oil consumption passes from Middle East producers.

Two days later, Saudi Arabia said armed drones had hit two oil pumping stations in the kingdom, an attack claimed by the Iran-aligned Houthis in neighbouring Yemen.

The US Navy’s Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet is tasked with protecting commercial ships in the area. The British and French navies maintain a presence, while Saudi Arabia and the UAE have high-tech naval capacities.

But Gulf Arab states are struggling to build an effective system to defend against drones and low-tech sabotage attempts, Eurasia Group said in a note.

“There are hundreds, if not a few thousand, small boats moving in that area every day. Many of these vessels are smugglers operating between Iran and the Gulf states,” said Norman Roule, a retired senior US intelligence officer.

“This will make it difficult, but not impossible, to trace any small vessels which may have been involved in the operation.”

Port security in Dubai, the region’s trading hub, was unchanged, a spokeswoman for the government media office said.

But the UAE may still face pressure to increase patrols.

“The UAE needs to send a signal to reassure the shipping industry that Fujairah is safe and this is not going to happen again,” a Western diplomat in Abu Dhabi said.

Questions remain

More than three days on, little information has been provided on where the ships were when they were attacked, what sort of weapon was used and who did it.

Navigational data indicated at least some of the ships may have been within nine nautical miles of the shore, well within the UAE’s territorial sea. Saudi Arabia’s energy minister has said at least one of them was further out, in the UAE’s exclusive economic zone where international law largely applies.

Reuters and other journalists taken on a tour off the Fujairah coast saw a hole at the waterline in the hull of a Norwegian ship, with the metal torn inwards. A Saudi tanker they viewed showed no sign of major damage.

Maritime security sources told Reuters that images suggest the damage was likely caused by limpet mines attached close to the waterline with less than 4kg of explosives. One source said the level of coordination and use of mines were likely to rule out militant groups such as Al Qaeda.

“It’s not those guys seeking publicity, it’s someone who wants to make a point without necessarily pointing in any given direction,” said Jeremy Binnie, Middle East and Africa editor for Jane’s Defence Weekly. “It’s below the threshold [or war].”

Jean-Marc Rickli, head of global risk and resilience at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, said the attacks could be a message that Iran has means to disrupt traffic.

Saudi state oil company Aramco said output and exports were not disrupted by the attack on the pumping stations, but it temporarily shut the East-West pipeline to evaluate its condition.

‘Red line’

Both attacks targeted alternative routes for oil to bypass Hormuz. Fujairah Port is a terminal of the crude pipeline from Abu Dhabi’s Habshan oilfields. The Saudi East-West line takes crude from eastern fields to Yanbu Port, north of Bab Al Mandeb.

The commander of Iran’s revolutionary guards said last year that Tehran would block exports through the waterway if countries heeded US calls to stop buying Iranian oil. 

US officials have said closing the Strait would be crossing a “red line” and pledged action to reopen it.

The waterway separates Iran and Oman, linking the Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and Arabian Sea. The Strait is 33km wide at its narrowest point, but the shipping lane is just 3km wide in either direction.

Even during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, when the two sides sought to disrupt oil exports by attacking ships in what was known as the Tanker War, shipping did not stop although insurance rates spiked.

JBC Energy Research Centre said Fujairah would continue to be seen as a reliable bunkering hub, especially with a US strike group arriving in the region and navies from Britain, France and China available to assist.

“No matter who is behind this,” Rickli said, “it contributes to heightened tensions in the region and leads to a situation where an incident could trigger a larger response”.

KHARTOUM — Sudan's opposition alliance blamed military rulers on Tuesday for renewed street violence complicating efforts to negotiate a handover to civilian power after last month's ouster of President Omar Al Bashir. 

At least four people died and dozens were injured during protests on Monday as the Transitional Military Council (TMC) and opposition Declaration of Freedom and Change Forces (DFCF) said they had reached a partial agreement for transition.

Gunfire rang out in the capital into the night after paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) — whose head is deputy of the military council — had patrolled the streets using tear gas and guns to disrupt demonstrations.

The protesters, who want to keep pressure on the military for a swift handover, were back on Tuesday, blocking roads and bridges with bricks and rocks, images on social media showed.

"The bullets that were fired yesterday were Rapid Support Forces bullets and we hold the military council responsible for what happened yesterday," Khalid Omar Youssef, a senior figure in the DFCF, told a news conference.

"While they claimed that a third party was the one who did so, eyewitnesses confirmed that the party was in armed forces vehicles and in armed forces uniforms, so the military council must reveal this party."

‘He meant to kill me’

Monday's fatalities were the first in protests for several weeks after months of demonstrations led to Bashir's fall. 

The victims included a military police officer and three demonstrators, state TV said. An opposition-linked doctors' committee said there was a fifth fatality after another man died on Tuesday from wounds sustained on Monday.

The military council, which took over after overthrowing the long-ruling Bashir last month, blamed the violence on saboteurs unhappy with the transition deal.

“There are groups ambushing the revolution who were disturbed by the results reached today and are working to abort any agreement,” it said in a statement late on Monday.

The opposition and military were meeting again on Tuesday to discuss two sticking points: the military-civilian balance of power in transitional bodies and the timeframe for elections.

Talks would wrap up on Wednesday, Youssef said.

The United States backed the opposition alliance in pinning the blame for Monday’s chaos on the military for trying to remove roadblocks set up by protesters. 

“The decision by security forces to escalate the use of force, including the unnecessary use of tear gas, led directly to the unacceptable violence later in the day that the TMC was unable to control,” said the US embassy in Khartoum.

One hospital in Khartoum said it received more than 60 wounded on Monday as well as three dead bodies. 

Some arrived with gunshot wounds in the shoulder, chest and other body parts, Amar Abu Bakr, executive director of the Moalem Medical City Hospital, told Reuters. 

“There are also a number of wounds resulting from sharp objects, and others from beatings by sticks,” he said.

One wounded patient said a shooter was about 20 metres away when he took aim. “He shot at my chest... he meant to kill me, not to scare or terrorise,” said protester Raed Mubarak.

HODEIDA, Yemen — Yemen's Houthi rebels have handed over security of key Red Sea ports to the "coastguard" but much work remains to remove military equipment, the UN said Tuesday.

The rebel pullback is part of a hard-won truce agreement struck in Sweden in December between Yemen's Saudi-backed government and the Iran-aligned Houthis.

But the government has accused the insurgents of merely handing over the ports to their own forces in different uniforms.

The UN said Sunday it had been monitoring the withdrawal of the Houthi rebels from the Hodeida, Saleef and Ras Issa terminals.

A UN team was there on Tuesday to verify the redeployment.

Its head, General Michael Lollesgaard, welcomed the handover "of the security of the ports to the coastguard", according to a UN statement.

"There is still a lot of work to be done on the removal of the manifestations, but cooperation has been very good.

"UN teams will continue to monitor these initial steps in an impartial and transparent manner."

Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam wrote on Twitter that the rebels "have completed their commitment in implementing the first phase of redeployment". 

The city's port serves as a lifeline for millions in the impoverished Arabian Peninsula country, which has been pushed to the brink of famine by more than four years of devastating war.

Last year's deal was hailed as a breakthrough that offered the best chance so far of ending the war in Yemen, where a coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates is fighting on the government's side.

The agreement stipulates a full ceasefire, followed by a withdrawal of rival forces from the city of Hodeida and its surroundings.

But although the violence has largely stopped in Hodeida, there have been intermittent clashes and the promised redeployment of the warring parties away from the front lines has failed to materialise.

Lollesgaard said Yemen’s warring parties were continuing to express their committment to the truce deal.

“Full implementation of this agreement is critical for returning peace and stability to Yemen, and ensuring effective humanitarian access into the country where million continue to be in need of life-saving assistance,” he said.

The Yemen conflict has killed tens of thousands of people since the Saudi-led military coalition intervened in support of the beleaguered government in March 2015, according to the World Health Organisation.

The fighting has triggered what the United Nations describes as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with 3.3 million people still displaced and 24.1 million — more than two-thirds of the population — in need of aid.

The UN Security Council is due to hear a briefing on Hodeida on Wednesday amid increased Gulf tensions following a Houthi-claimed drone attack on two pumping stations on a major pipeline.

The attacks were “a response to the aggressors continuing to commit genocide against the Yemeni people”, Abdulsalam tweeted.

The 1,200-kilometre pipeline reportedly hit on Tuesday serves as an alternative for Saudi crude exports if the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Gulf were to be closed.

Iran has repeatedly threatened to close the strait in case of a military confrontation with the United States.

The reported pipeline attacks came after the UAE said four ships, including the two Saudi oil tankers, were damaged in “sabotage attacks” off the emirate of Fujairah, close to the Hormuz, on Sunday.

Saudi Arabia said its two tankers suffered “significant damage” but there was no oil spill.