Region

BEIRUT — Pictures of rebels and forces loyal to President Bashar Assad laughing and shaking hands after a local ceasefire have sparked outrage on both sides, shocked at the outpouring of goodwill after three years of fierce bloodletting.

The images came from a media trip organised by the Syrian government to the Damascus suburb of Babila, the latest in a series of districts to agree a truce that most opposition critics say works in Assad’s favour.

Heavy fighting continues throughout most of Syria. The localised truces have been agreed mostly around Damascus and have ended prolonged government sieges on those rebel-held areas, many of which were waged for more than a year and caused severe hunger to the point of illness and death.

“I felt like I would have a stroke, looking at those pictures,” said a local activist, called Mohammed, speaking on Skype from the nearby rebel-held district of Jobar, which has not yet agreed any form of ceasefire. “How can they forget how those forces have starved our people for over a year, how they bombed us mercilessly for months?”

Some rebels in the Damascus suburbs said the pictures were staged, arguing the rebel gunmen were actually pro-Assad militias dressed to look like opposition fighters. Others said the pictures were real.

Reuters photographers were among the journalists at the Babila media tour, but there was no way to confirm the identity of those photographed.

Whether the scenes were genuine or faked, the photos — which show armed combatants from both sides chatting and relaxed — stood in stark contrast to the chilly atmosphere on display at the second round of “Geneva II” peace talks last week. Diplomats failed to make any progress.

Rebels and Assad forces who agreed to the truces will now work joint checkpoints and patrols using the name of “Local Defence Committees”.

Local ceasefires have been a goal of Assad’s forces as a way to halt the fighting around the president’s seat of power, the capital Damascus. The army sieges, which include near-daily bombardment, have halted rebel advances and cut off supply lines, but have been unable to dislodge the rebels.

‘World turned upside down’

Commentators on both sides were particularly incensed by an image of a female member of the pro-Assad paramilitary group, known as the National Defence Forces, smiling as she spoke to a rebel fighter. Posters on both pro-rebel and pro-Assad Facebook pages called the woman in the picture a “whore”.

“Hey everyone, what is going on in this country? A soldier is kissing a terrorist and girls from the National Defence Forces are making eyes with the terrorists,” said one post on a pro-Assad Facebook page. “The world has been turned upside down, the blood of our brothers and children and the honour of our women has been forgotten.”

Syria’s conflict began as popular street protests against four decades of Assad family rule but, after a violent security crackdown, transformed into a civil war that has killed more than 140,000 people and driven millions from their homes.

The government has commissioned “reconciliation committees” using local dignitaries from the Damascus suburbs to offer the truces, according to a local rebel spokesman, Bara Abdelrahman, speaking by Skype from the opposition-held suburb of Douma.

Neighbouring Harasta is said to be the next target for the committees, he said. Rebels detained a group of representatives in Harasta this week, he said, after they met with civilians at a mosque to present a truce offer without fighters present.

“They told them to get the rebels to stop attacking the main highway and then they could get in food and medicine. And honestly, people are exhausted here and hungry, so they started to pressure the rebels and ask why not?” he said.

“These committees were turning people against us.”

The deals in each town are broadly the same. They require rebels to raise the government flag and get the siege lifted in return. Most allow rebels to maintain control inside the districts if they give up heavy weaponry.

Even those in support of local ceasefires, however, say such truces are not a sign that local fighters on the ground actually have a better rapport than jet-setting diplomats.

“The regime here was tired of endless strikes with no result and the people tired of being hungry. Of course some areas were going to accept. But the way they got these agreements was through starvation,” said one activist, who asked not to be named. “This isn’t actually a model of reconciliation, whatever the pictures show.”

BAGHDAD/HILLA — Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki defended his government’s counterterrorism strategy and vowed to defeat Al Qaeda as bombs exploded in Baghdad and another Iraqi city on Tuesday, killing at least 49 people.

Maliki said the battle against militancy in Iraq was part of a larger struggle emanating from the civil war in Syria that poses a threat to the wider Middle East and the entire world, and appealed for international support.

“Iraq has defeated Al Qaeda before, and we have a holistic strategy to defeat Al Qaeda again,” Maliki wrote in an editorial published on Tuesday on the website of US international affairs journal Foreign Policy.

“Because Al Qaeda believes in blowing people up, not in winning people over, it can be beaten, must be beaten, and will be beaten.”

Maliki said Iraq had begun discussions with US officials to resume training for its counterterrorism forces.

Last year was Iraq’s bloodiest since sectarian violence began to abate in 2008. Sunni Islamist insurgents have been regaining ground in the country over the past year and in recent weeks overran several towns.

Critics say Maliki’s own policies are at least partly to blame for reviving an insurgency that climaxed in 2006-07.

Many in Iraq’s once-dominant Sunni minority feel they have been sidelined in the Shiite-led political order that took shape following the US-led invasion in 2003. Some fellow Shiites also accuse Maliki of amassing power and abusing it.

Influential Shiite cleric Moqtada Al Sadr, who announced his withdrawal from politics at the weekend, said Iraq was governed by “wolves thirsty for blood and money”, alluding to Maliki as a “dictator and tyrant”.

Sadr, who led revolts against US forces in Iraq before their pullout and went on to become a major force in the government, said he had decided to retire in order to distance himself from a “failed, corrupt and unjust government”.

“Whenever a Shiite, Sunni or Kurd objects to them, they accuse him of sectarianism or being a terrorist,” he said in his first speech since dissolving his movement on Saturday.

Car bomb explosions

In Tuesday’s attacks, car bombs exploded in predominantly Shiite districts of Baghdad and the southern city of Hilla, police and medical sources said. No group immediately claimed responsibility for any of the attacks, but Shiites are a target for Sunni Islamist militants.

At least 35 people were killed in seven car bomb explosions inside Hilla, 100km south of Baghdad, and the nearby towns of Haswa, Mahaweel and Mussayab. A further 90 people were wounded.

“I was sitting in my shop when suddenly a powerful blast smashed the front window,” said Ali Mousa, whose mini-market was near the site of one bomb in central Hilla. “I went out to see what happened and saw bodies on the ground and wounded people bleeding and shouting for help.”

Hilla police chief, Major General Abbas Abid, blamed groups linked to Al Qaeda.

“Al Qaeda terrorist groups stand behind today’s attacks in Hilla to confuse the security forces and cause high casualties among civilians,” he said. “They are criminals and they never get enough of innocent blood.”

Fourteen more people were killed in explosions in Baghdad. In one, a bomb inside a parked vehicle exploded near a bus station in the Bayaa district, killing five, the sources said. There were also blasts in the Amil, Ilam and Shurta districts.

In northern Iraq, troops were fighting to wrest control of Sulaiman Pek from Sunni militants who took over parts of the town last Thursday and raised the black flag of the Islamic state in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) over it.

At least four policemen were killed in Sulaiman Pek, 160km north of Baghdad, when a mortar round fired by the army during clashes with militants on Tuesday struck the wrong target.

ISIL is active in neighbouring Syria and seeks to establish a Sunni state spanning the border into Iraq: “The spillover from Syria is the most important factor in the upsurge of violence in Iraq over the past year,” Maliki said.

The city of Fallujah in Iraq’s Sunni-dominated province of Anbar has been under siege by the army since early January, when militants, among them ISIL, overran it after security forces cleared a site where Sunnis were protesting against Maliki.

Deteriorating security in Anbar has raised doubts that parliamentary elections can be held nationwide in April as scheduled. Maliki said he would not allow militants to “undermine [Iraq’s] emerging democratic institutions”.

Sadr encouraged people to vote but said he himself would not take part or back any side.

“All should widely participate in election in order not to let the government fall into untrustworthy and malicious hands.”

BEIRUT — Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri urged Kuwait to keep trying to build bridges between Iran and Saudi Arabia to encourage a rapprochement between two regional heavyweights backing opposite sides in Syria’s civil war.

Wedged between three big regional powers — Shiite Muslim Iran, Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia and Shiite-led Iraq at the northern end of the Gulf, Kuwait has tried to maintain good relations with all three in recent years. The oil-exporting Gulf Arab state is a Sunni Muslim monarchy but has a sizeable Shiite minority active in politics and business.

All of this makes Kuwait a potential go-between in the intractable conflict between Syrian President Bashar Assad — whose strongest regional ally is Iran — and Saudi-backed Sunni rebels trying to overthrow him.

Berri spoke during a visit to Kuwait two days after Lebanon formed a new government in a possible step towards curbing the sectarian violence that has spilled over into Lebanon from neighbouring Syria.

“I requested that all the Gulf [Arab] countries and in particular Emir Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad play a mediating role between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” Berri told the Kuwaiti newspaper Al Rai in the remarks published on Tuesday.

“The emir has worked and will work in this context, and he will try as much as possible to bring together the points of view,” Berri said, referring to Kuwait’s leader.

Sheikh Sabah was foreign minister for four decades before becoming emir and is often described as one of the top diplomats in the Gulf region. He was dubbed the “dean of Arab diplomacy” for helping restore relations with Arab states that supported Saddam Hussein’s Iraq during the 1990-91 Gulf War when Kuwait was occupied by Iraqi forces.

Region divided over Syria war

Iran has been a stout ally of Assad in his battle with a Sunni Muslim-led armed uprising bent on ending 44 years of his family’s rule.

The Islamic republic has provided military support and billions of dollars in economic aid to Assad, whose Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shiite Islam which is dominant in Iran.

Saudi Arabia, for its part, has provided funding and support to various rebel groups, including the Western-backed Syrian National Coalition and more radical Islamist factions.

Berri is the highest ranking Shiite in Lebanese officialdom and an ally of Iran and Assad. His Amal movement is part of a Lebanese alliance including Hizbollah, a powerful Shi’ite militant movement that has sent fighters to aid Assad.

“My larger goal on the topic of Iranian-Saudi rapprochement ... is for the benefit of Lebanon and of Syria,” said Berri. He blamed the breakdown of peace talks in Geneva last week on Iran’s exclusion from the conference.

“It would have been better to invite Iran to Geneva and to have Saudi-Iranian rapprochement,” he said.

The United Nations rescinded its invitation to Iran to participate in the “Geneva 2” talks at the last minute under pressure from the opposition delegation, which threatened to withdraw altogether.

Berri also called on Monday for Lebanon’s presidential elections to be held before May 25 in accordance with constitutional procedures.

Lebanon announced the formation of a new government on Saturday after a 10-month political deadlock during which spillover violence from Syria worsened internal stability.

The small Mediterranean state has been struck by car bombs, rocket attacks and street fighting linked to the nearly three-year conflict in Syria, where more than 140,000 people have been killed and millions displaced.

BIKFAYA, Lebanon — A week ago, Lebanon was without a government and facing the prospect of an even deeper crisis come May, when President Michel Sleiman’s term was set to expire with no agreement on his replacement.

But in a matter of days, a degree of hope has returned to the politics of a country plunged into crisis by the war in neighbouring Syria. Lebanon has a government after nearly a year without one, fuelling hope that a new president will follow.

Amin Gemayel, president for six years during Lebanon’s own 1975-90 civil war, attributed the breakthrough to fears the state might be on the verge of total collapse, and “regional understandings” — Lebanese parlance for a greenlight from states that wield influence here, particularly Saudi Arabia and Iran.

“After the formation of this government, and the way it has been formed, there is a greater degree of optimism,” Gemayel said in an interview at his 16th century ancestral home in Bikfaya, a Christian town in the mountains northeast of Beirut.

“We know that this consensus is delicate and fragile, therefore we are working hard to strengthen this minimum degree that has been achieved, and to turn it into something more stable and long-lasting,” said the head of Christian party Kataeb, which has three ministers in the new Cabinet.

“Electing a president is a fundamental element,” he added.

Prime Minister Tammam Salam finally managed to pull his government together after 11 months on Saturday, grouping politicians from across a political spectrum divided by the Syria war and other conflicts that predate it.

They include Shiite Hizbollah, an ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad and Iran, and the Future Movement of heavyweight Sunni politician Saad Hariri, an ally of Saudi Arabia — one of the main sponsors of the Syrian opposition.

The government convened for the first time on Tuesday.

Lebanon’s parliament must now elect a new president by the end of May. The vote requires a two-thirds quorum.

But parliament has also fallen victim to the political crisis. It has not convened since last May, when it extended its term after a failure to agree on a new election law.

Gemayel, part of the Hariri-led March 14 alliance, said a presidential election would help revive state institutions hit by paralysis.

“There is no presidential election in Lebanon without a minimum degree of consensus,” he said. “It is a difficult mission, but not an impossible one.”

Asked if he had a preferred candidate for the post, reserved for a Maronite Christian according to Lebanon’s sectarian power-sharing system, Gemayel said it was too early to discuss names.

Confronting radicals

The new government faces challenges including a massive influx of Syrian refugees and a security risk posed by radical Sunni Islamist militants sympathetic to the anti-Assad rebellion and responsible for recent bombings in Hizbollah areas.

Political sources say the government would not have come to pass without the approval of both Iran and Saudi Arabia — states whose rivalry has fuelled conflict across the Middle East in countries including Syria, Iraq and Lebanon.

It signals a decision by both states to shield Lebanon from further repercussions of the Syria conflict, they say.

Gemayel said Iran appeared set on improving relations with Saudi Arabia, which in turn might be ready to normalise ties with Tehran pending resolution of their regional disputes.

He heaped criticism on Hizbollah for fighting alongside Assad’s forces in Syria, saying it had brought violent repercussions to Lebanon in the form of militant attacks.

But he also praised Hizbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah for saying that it was up to the Lebanese state to confront the domestic security challenge.

Security forces last week managed to apprehend a man described as the Al Qaeda-linked mastermind of a recent string of car bomb attacks. Gemayel attributed the success to a unity of purpose among Lebanese on fighting such militancy.

Hariri vowed to combat Sunni radicalism last week in what Gemayel described as a courageous speech.

Lumping together the political breakthrough with the security forces’ achievements, Gemayel said: “All of this makes me more optimistic that Lebanon will be able to pass through this test, and that Lebanese leaders reach the hoped-for consensus, even at a minimum level.”

“At the very least, we will have preserved Lebanon.”

VIENNA — Six world powers and Iran began talks on Tuesday in pursuit of a final settlement on Tehran’s contested nuclear programme in coming months despite caveats from both sides that a breakthrough deal may prove impossible.

Senior US and Iranian officials met separately for nearly 90 minutes on the sidelines of the negotiations in Vienna. Details were not given, but such bilateral talks were inconceivable before the 2013 election of Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate, as president of Iran. US-Iranian dialogue is seen as crucial to any breakthrough nuclear agreement.

“We’re only at the very beginning of this process,” a diplomat told Reuters on condition of anonymity after US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman’s meeting with Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi.

Sherman headed the US delegation, while Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and Araqchi led Tehran’s negotiating team at the table with Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the man with the final say on all matters of state in the Islamic republic, declared again on Monday that talks between Tehran and six world powers “will not lead anywhere” — while also reiterating that he did not oppose the delicate diplomacy.

Hours later a senior US administration official also tamped down expectations, telling reporters on Monday that it will be a “complicated, difficult and lengthy process” and “probably as likely that we won’t get an agreement as it is that we will”.

It is the first round of high-level negotiations since a November 24 interim deal that, halting a decade-long slide towards outright conflict, has seen Tehran curb some nuclear activities for six months in return for limited relief from sanctions to allow time for a long-term agreement to be hammered out.

The stakes are huge. If successful, the negotiations could help defuse many years of hostility between Iran — an energy-exporting giant — and the West, ease the danger of a new war in the Middle East, transform power relationships in the region and open up vast new possibilities for Western businesses.

The talks — expected to last two or three days — began on Tuesday morning at the United Nations complex in Vienna. The venue was to shift later to a luxury city centre hotel where the chief negotiators were staying.

A spokesman for European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, overseeing the talks on the powers’ behalf, said bilateral meetings between delegations were under way.

Araqchi sounded upbeat about the initial 40-minute discussions but appeared to draw a line against Tehran’s ballistic missile programme being addressed in any future talks.

“We had good discussions ... and we are trying to set an agenda. If we can agree on an agenda in the next two to three days, it means we have taken the first step. And we will move forward based on that agenda,” he said. “This agenda ... will be about Iran’s nuclear programme and nothing else, nothing except Iran’s nuclear activities can be discussed.”

He was answering a question about Iran’s ballistic missile work after US officials said they want Tehran to accept limitations on any nuclear-capable missile technology as part of any long-term deal reached by Iran and the powers.

There may be other sticking points in the talks. Iran says it will not cede its “right” to install advanced centrifuges to refine uranium, signalling defiance in a manner that may irk the United States and its European allies.

Despite his public scepticism about chances for a lasting accord with the West, Khamenei made clear Tehran was committed to continuing the negotiations between Iran and the six powers.

“What our officials started will continue. We will not renege. I have no opposition,” he told a crowd in the northern city of Tabriz on Monday to chants of “Death to America” — a standard reflexive refrain since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Western diplomats said it was difficult to predict the chances of getting an final agreement with Tehran over the next six months that would be acceptable to all sides. “The one thing we know is they want the sanctions to go away, which will work in our favour,” a Western diplomat told Reuters.

During a decade of fitful dialogue with world powers, Iran has rejected allegations by Western countries that it is seeking a nuclear weapons capability. It says it is enriching uranium only for electricity generation and medical purposes.

Tehran has defied UN Security Council demands that it halt enrichment and other proliferation-sensitive activities, leading to a crippling web of US, EU and UN sanctions that has severely damaged the OPEC country’s economy.

Khamenei’s approval of serious negotiations with the six powers despite the scepticism he shares with hardline conservative supporters, diplomats and analysts say, is driven by Iran’s worsening economic conditions, analysts say.

Another major factor was the Iranians’ overwhelming election last year of Rouhani, who is determined to relieve Tehran’s international isolation based on “constructive interaction” with the West.

Curbing uranium enrichment

The goal of the talks for the United States and its European allies is to extend the time that Iran would need to produce enough fissile material for a viable nuclear weapon.

For that goal to be achieved, experts and diplomats say, Iran would have to limit enrichment to a low concentration of fissile purity, deactivate most of its centrifuges now devoted to such work, curb nuclear research to ensure it has solely civilian applications and submit to more intrusive monitoring by UN anti-proliferation inspectors.

Khamenei and other Iranian officials have often made clear that they could not accept any such cuts in nuclear capacities. The trick will be devising compromises that powerful hardline constituencies on both sides can live with.

Western governments appear to have given up on the idea, enshrined in a series of Security Council resolutions since 2006, that Iran should totally halt the most disputed aspects of its programme — all activities related to uranium enrichment at the underground Natanz and Fordow plants and production of plutonium at the planned Arak heavy water reactor.

Diplomats privately acknowledge that Iran’s nuclear programme is now too far advanced, and too much a cornerstone of Iran’s national pride, for it to agree to scrap it entirely.

But while Iran may keep a limited enrichment capacity, the West will insist on guarantees that mean any attempt to build a nuclear bomb would take long enough for it to be detected and stopped, possibly with military action.

Israel, which criticised the November deal as an “historic mistake” as it did not dismantle its archenemy’s enrichment programme, made its position clear ahead of the Vienna talks.

“We are giving a chance for [a] diplomatic solution on condition that it provides a comprehensive and satisfactory solution that doesn’t leave Iran with a nuclear breakout capability,” Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz said.

“In other words, that it doesn’t leave [Iran] with a system by which to enrich uranium by means of centrifuges, nor any other capabilities that would permit it to remain close to a bomb,” Steinitz he told Israeli radio.

While cautioning the talks will take time, the US official said Washington does not want them to run beyond a six-month deadline agreed in November. The late July deadline can be extended for another half year by mutual consent.

ADEN — Yemeni authorities have foiled an attack on the oil refinery in Aden and arrested 27 suspected Al Qaeda militants linked to the operation, police said Monday.

The thwarted strike was the latest in a series of attacks targeting security forces and vital installations, including oil pipelines, in a country grappling with a thorny political transition.

Security forces in the southern port city foiled at dawn Saturday “a terrorist attack by members of Al Qaeda”, said Aden Police Deputy Commissioner Najeeb Al Mughalas, quoted on the defence ministry webite, 26sep.net.

He said police and army units captured six gunmen who were headed for the refinery in a car, before making other arrests.

“In total, 27 terrorists were arrested, including some leaders of the Qaeda network,” he added.

Mughalas declined to give details on the attack when asked by AFP, saying only that “the operation was in the preparation phase” when it was thwarted.

Poverty-stricken Yemen relies on its limited oil and gas resources for exports that generate much-needed revenues.

The oil ministry said in December that frequent attacks on oil and gas pipelines have cost Yemen $4.75 billion in losses between March 2011 and March 2013. 

BAGHDAD — Powerful Iraqi Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr’s announced exit from politics two months before elections may be a “gift” to rivals but could also be another temporary withdrawal, experts say.

Sadr’s political career began with his fierce opposition to the presence of foreign troops in Iraq after the 2003 US-led invasion, and has spanned more than a decade.

His rise, aided by the reputations of two famed relatives — including his father, Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Mohammed Sadiq Al Sadr — who were killed during Saddam Hussein’s rule, eventually translated into political clout.

At the time of his weekend announcement, Sadr’s movement held six Cabinet posts, the deputy speakership of parliament and 40 seats in the legislature.

“I announce my non-intervention in all political affairs and that there is no bloc that represents us from now on, nor any position inside or outside the government nor parliament,” Sadr said in a statement.

His exit so close to parliamentary elections in April may “benefit other [Shiite] parties,” said Aziz Jabr, a political science professor at Baghdad’s Mustansiriyah University.

One of the main beneficiaries could be Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki, a Shiite whom Sadr has criticised as a “dictator,” he said.

Maliki “got rid of him without making a major effort, and it is like a gift”, said Jabr.

Kirk Sowell an Amman-based political risk analyst and the publisher of Inside Iraqi Politics, said that if Sadr’s bloc loses votes in April, they may go to the Shiite Fadhila Party and Maliki.

“Almost all of Sadr’s gain in 2010 came at Fadhila’s expense. Maliki could also benefit since their bases overlap quite a bit,” Sowell said.

Sadr was the commander of the Mehdi Army, a widely feared militia that battled US forces and played a key role in the brutal Sunni-Shiite sectarian conflict in which thousands of people were killed.

He later suspended the militia’s activities.

In recent years, his focus has increasingly shifted to religious studies in both Iran and Iraq that have taken him out of the country for extended periods of time.

Some commentators said there were potential downsides to his exit for Iraq, including political writer Sarmad Al Taie, who said the cleric has become a “supporter of the path of political reform, and worked to reduce sectarian tensions”.

Possibility of return

It was not immediately clear whether Sadr’s withdrawal was temporary or permanent, and he has left politics previously only to resurface later on.

Sadrist officials were unable to offer explanations for what they said was a surprise announcement, that has left some wondering if Sadr will still make a political comeback.

Sadr “usually backs out of the political limelight when he is physically threatened” or “when the Sadrist movement has to do something politically expedient that Sadr wants to disassociate from,” said Michael Knights, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Of Sadr’s possible return, Knights said: “Nothing is permanent in Iraq except death.”

But Sadr’s decision to quit politics this time has a more final air than past announcements.

“He had a period when he was in Iran unofficially out of politics a few years ago, then last fall he had his ‘self-isolation’ from politics that lasted just a few weeks,” Sowell said.

“All these actions have been aimed at trying to give himself a greater degree of religious authority,” he said.

But Sadrist MPs announcing their resignations “makes this appear more serious” than past departures, said Sowell.

Sadr has also ordered the closure of his movement’s political offices but said that others related to social welfare, media and education will remain open.

CAIRO — Egyptian police said Monday a suicide bomber was likely behind an attack on a tour bus that killed three South Koreans and signalled a possible change in tactics by militants who have mainly targeted security forces.

The bombing on Sunday, near the Taba border crossing with Israel, was the first targeting tourists since the military overthrow of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July sparked a militant campaign that has killed scores of police and soldiers.

A shift to “soft targets” such as tourists would further damage Egypt’s foundering tourism industry as army chief Abdel Fattah Al Sisi is expected to announce a presidential bid which will focus on law-and-order and economic recovery.

After reviewing CCTV footage of the attack, police said they believe a suicide bomber had boarded the tourist bus and detonated explosives near the door.

“The preliminary investigation shows some tourists disembarked to get their bags. A man walked to the bus. There was an explosion when he reached the third step,” interior ministry spokesman Hany Abdel Latif told AFP.

The tourists were all members of the same church group from the central South Korean county of Jincheon and were on a 12-day trip through Turkey, Egypt and Israel. They were about to cross into Israel when the attack occurred.

The South Korean ambassador to Egypt, Kim Young-so, told Seoul’s MBN TV station that the bus bombing appeared to be a “suicide bombing by a terrorist”.

Al Qaeda inspired Ansar Beit Al Maqdis group, based in the Sinai Peninsula, has deployed several suicide bombers in attacks on police, as well as in a failed attempt to assassinate interior minister Mohamed Ibrahim in September.

Militants have killed dozens of tourists in sporadic attacks over the past several decades, mostly recently in a 2009 bombing that killed a French tourist in Cairo.

Militants regroup

Police under now deposed president Hosni Mubarak had all but stamped out Islamist militancy after a spate of Sinai resort bombings between 2004 and 2006.

But the three-year period of lawlessness and unrest after Mubarak’s overthrow in 2011 has allowed the militants to regroup in the restive Sinai peninsula and to branch out to the Nile Delta.

“A continuation in attacks on tourists would mean a shift in strategy by jihadist groups that until now targeted the military and police,” said Issandr El Amrani of the International Crisis Group.

“But that cannot be judged after one attack,” he added.

The head of Egypt’s Chamber of Tourism said the attack could have been aimed at hitting the tourism industry, one of Egypt’s top revenue generators.

“The attack aimed at harming tourism in general,” said Elhami Al Zayat.

Sunday’s bombing came as a court in Cairo began trying Morsi and 35 co-defendants on charges of espionage and collusion with militants to launch attacks in Egypt.

Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically elected and civilian president, was ousted after a year in power amid massive protests demanding his resignation.

The military-installed government has since accused Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood of masterminding the attacks that have also targeted police headquarters in Cairo.

The Brotherhood, now designated as a terrorist group, publicly renounced violence decades ago and denies involvement in the attacks.

The deadliest attacks have been claimed by the Sinai-based Ansar Beit Al Maqdis group, whose leadership is drawn from militant bedouin who want an Islamist state in the peninsula.

DUBAI — Iran’s supreme leader vowed to continue nuclear talks resuming with world powers on Tuesday despite some reservations, in his strongest sign of support for moderate President Hassan Rouhani’s push to resolve the conflict peacefully.

Iranian negotiators will hold a second round of talks with the United States and five other world powers aimed at a definitive settlement of the dispute, which led to global economic sanctions against Iran.

Tuesday’s talks look to build on an earlier interim accord binding Iran to suspend some sensitive parts of its uranium enrichment in return for modest sanctions relief.

“What our officials started will continue. We will not renege. I have no opposition,” said Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to a crowd in northern city of Tabriz on Monday. “But I will say again: there is no use... it will not lead anywhere.”

US and its Western allies suspect Iran of trying to develop atomic weapons, a charge Tehran has steadfastly denied, insisting that its nuclear programme is peaceful.

The initial deal, reached in Geneva last November, angered Islamic hardliners who accused the government of selling out to the West by making concessions on a matter of national pride.

Khamenei, whose powers transcend all others in the Islamic republic, stopped short of endorsing the hardliners’ charges but warned moderates not to get carried away with talk of better ties with traditional arch-foe, the United States.

Warning against US

Tehran and Washington haven’t had official ties since after the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled the US-backed Shah, and Khamenei has vetoed any initiative for rapprochement.

“Don’t try to dress up America and erase its past record of terror, violence and ugliness,” Tasnim news agency quoted Khamenei as saying.

“The nuclear issue is just a hype. American officials are already raising other issues like human rights and missile threat.”

Iran’s deteriorating economy and President Rouhani’s landslide election in June has revived efforts to reach out to the West in hopes of easing tension and drawing badly needed foreign investment.

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who leads the Iranian delegation at the negotiations, told Iran’s official news agency IRNA before leaving for Vienna that “the path will continue and will bear results, even without US support. If it doesn’t succeed, everything will revert to the old ways...”

“Under the present circumstances, [our] talks with America are solely on the nuclear matter, but we have no fear about addressing other issues,” he said, referring to bilateral ties with Washington.

Zarif, who has been singled out for attacks by hardliners, said he had full mandate to pursue negotiations with the five nuclear powers the United States, Russia, China, France and Britain plus Germany according to guidelines set by the leader.

“We don’t have to pause at every step and ask for permission,” he said.

DAMASCUS — The Free Syrian Army (FSA) has sacked its leader after the Western-backed rebels suffered repeated setbacks, amid signs of an escalation in fighting that has already killed more than 140,000 people.

Activists warned Monday that regime troops are preparing a ground offensive against Yabrud, the last rebel-held stronghold in the strategic Qalamun region near Lebanon’s border, after days of aerial bombardment.

On the diplomatic front, US Secretary of State John Kerry slammed Russia on Monday for “enabling” Syria’s President Bashar Assad to stay in power, after Geneva peace talks broke off without any result at the weekend.

Moscow dismissed the allegation and accused the United States of failing to ensure that a “truly representative opposition delegation” attended the talks.

Key rebel backer Saudi Arabia blamed the Syrian regime’s “obstinacy” for the failure.

The sacking of rebel military commander Selim Idriss was announced Sunday by the FSA, which said he was being replaced by Brigadier General Abdelilah Al Bashir, another army deserter.

Colonel Qassem Saadeddine of the rebel coalition said the decision was taken because of “the paralysis within the military command these past months” and the need to “restructure”.

A Syrian opposition source told AFP that Idriss — who was appointed in December 2012 — had faced criticism for battlefield failings.

These included “errors and carelessness in combat” and “poor distribution of weapons” to rebels, the source said.

The FSA has taken a beating in recent months not only from regime forces but also from Islamist fighters who have joined the battle to unseat Assad.

Considered the “moderate” rebel group, the FSA was once Syria’s strongest armed opposition force but is now increasingly marginalised by Islamists, including Al Qaeda-inspired groups.

Local truce in effect

The official SANA news agency said the army on Monday recaptured an Alawite village in central Hama province where rebels “massacred” civilians earlier this month.

In the Damascus area, meanwhile, a local truce went into effect in the southern suburb of Babbila, the latest in a series of local ceasefires in flashpoints around the capital.

An AFP reporter who visited the area under official escort said talks are taking place to arrange similar agreements in other areas.

Analysts said that with the failure of the latest round of peace talks, the regime and rebels are likely to ratchet up military operations.

“I fear that the failure of the Geneva talks will lead to military escalation — it will probably get worse before it gets better,” said Volker Perthes, director of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.

“Both sides will try to show that they can change the balance on the ground in their favour, and that they aren’t forced to negotiate out of weakness.”

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, reported a surge of fighting Monday around Yabrud, on a strategic highway linking Damascus and the central city of Homs.

The head of the Observatory, Rami Abdel Rahman, told AFP Syrian warplanes dropped explosive-packed barrels on the town’s outskirts, and that fighting had erupted in the nearby rebel-held towns of Ras Al Maara and Al Sahel.

Pro-regime newspaper Al Watan reported that troops were battling jihadists around Yabrud, including fighters from Al Nusra Front, Al Qaeda’s branch in Syria.

Activ

ists say fighters from the Lebanese Shiite movement Hizbollah are helping regime forces in the Yabrud offensive.

Hizbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah on Sunday vowed that his group would help defeat the rebels, saying in a televised address it was only a “question of time”.

Diplomatic efforts stumble

The flare-up comes as diplomatic efforts to try to end the conflict seem to have ground to a halt.

A second round of US and Russian-backed peace talks between regime representatives and the opposition broke down on Saturday in Geneva with no date set for another.

US Secretary of State John Kerry said in Jakarta that the Damascus regime “stonewalled” in Geneva with “increased support from Iran, from Hezbollah and from Russia”.

“Russia needs to be a part of the solution and not be distributing so much more weapons and so much more aid that they’re in fact enabling Assad to double-down.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov hit back, telling reporters in Moscow that the opposition delegation in Geneva did not include some of the most important members of the National Coalition umbrella group.

“They [Washington] assured us that they will be doing everything possible to ensure there is a truly representative opposition delegation,” Lavrov said.

“For now, they have been having trouble doing this.”