Region

WASHINGTON –– Mediators seeking to end fierce fighting in South Sudan have made “progress” in negotiating a ceasefire, a US official said Wednesday, adding differences still remained over releasing political prisoners.

Representatives from an East African bloc, known as IGAD, had Wednesday travelled to Juba to visit 11 allies of sacked vice president Riek Machar who have been detained by South Sudan President Salva Kiir.

The negotiators and western diplomats, led by the United States, have been pressuring Kiir’s government to free the men to boost the peace talks being held in Ethiopia.

“We believe that they need to be present at the IGAD talks for discussions on political issues in order for them to be productive,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.

The mediators had also spoken with Kiir and presented the parties with “a draft proposal on a cessation of hostilities and on the release of political detainees”.

“The discussions have made progress on a proposed cessation of hostilities,” Psaki told reporters.

“Disagreements remain on the issue of the release of political detainees. Obviously, the discussions are continuing, but that’s where things stand at this moment.”

The unrest erupted on December 15 as a clash between rival army units loyal to Kiir and Machar, and has escalated into war between government troops and a loose alliance of ethnic militia forces and mutinous army commanders.

Thousands of people have already been killed, aid workers say, while more than 200,000 have fled their homes.

A rebel spokesman indicated that there would be no imminent truce in the country unless the government freed the group of alleged coup plotters.

But IGAD said in a statement on returning to Juba that the prisoners had urged that any ceasefire should not be held up by arguments over their release.

They “stated that their status as detainees should not be an impediment to reaching an agreement on cessation of hostilities”, IGAD said.

Washington, which was the prime backer of South Sudan’s 2011 independence from Sudan, has also called for the fighting to stop.

“We do not believe the release of detainees should be a precondition for a halt to the fighting. Both sides need to drop preconditions for the talks and agree to an immediate cessation of hostilities,” spokesman for the Africa bureau Will Stevens told AFP.

BAGHDAD –– Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki is facing one of the biggest challenges of his eight-year rule, with key areas on Baghdad’s doorstep outside government control just months before general elections.

He is also often accused of marginalising and targeting Iraq’s Sunni Arab minority, many members of which oppose his government, and has presided over a sharp increase in violence in the country to levels not seen in five years.

The city of Fallujah, just 60 kilometres west of Baghdad, has been out of government hands for days, while parts of Anbar provincial capital Ramadi, farther west, are also under the control of militants.

But analysts believe that if the 64-year-old Maliki is able to obtain some type of security victory, he may yet be able to emerge relatively unscathed and focus attention away from other failings, as he has done in the past.

“Maliki faces the biggest challenge since 2006,” said Ihsan Al Shammari, a political science professor at Baghdad University.

“The issue of Fallujah is related to the issue of terrorism and its importance exceeds other files such as services,” which Maliki’s government has also failed to improve, Shammari said.

“The biggest challenge is ISIL,” he said, referring to Al Qaeda-linked group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, which has been active in the fighting in both Fallujah and Ramadi.

But “if Maliki succeeds in containing the situation” in Anbar, it will be a major boost for the premier ahead of parliamentary polls scheduled for April 30.

Fighting erupted near Ramadi on December 30, when security forces cleared a year-old Sunni Arab anti-government protest camp.

The violence spread to Fallujah, and militants moved in and seized the city and parts of Ramadi after security forces withdrew.

The loss of Fallujah is strategically important due to its proximity to the capital, and symbolically signficant because it was the target of two major assaults by American forces in which they saw some of the heaviest fighting since the Vietnam War.

More generally, Iraq has suffered a surge in violence to levels not seen since 2008, when the country was just emerging from a brutal period of sectarian killings that left tens of thousands dead.

“Entering into military operations without clear coordination with the residents of the area will lead to a major disaster,” Issam Al Faili, a political science professor at Mustansiriyah University in Baghdad, said of Fallujah.

“There are fighters experienced in urban warfare in the city,” who know Fallujah well, Faili said.

If he succeeds in Fallujah, Maliki will likely use it for political gain in the runup to the polls, as he did with the “Charge of the Knights” operation in Basra in 2008, Faili said.

But in Basra, Shiite security forces were fighting Shiite militants, Faili noted, while this time they would be fighting in a Sunni city.

Additionally, Iraqi forces had to fall back on American assistance during the operation, which they cannot do now, as US forces departed at the end of 2011.

Maliki, who was born near the city of Karbala, south of Baghdad, has faced repeated accusations of sectarianism from Sunni Arabs who ruled the country for decades before the 2003 US-led invasion.

Widespread anger among Iraqi Sunnis has fuelled the rise in violence in the country that began last year, experts say.

But Maliki, who fled Iraq in 1980 to escape execution by Saddam Hussein’s regime, still enjoys the backing of the United States, though some US lawmakers have expressed concerns over how he would employ advanced American weaponry.

“Maliki relies on Western, and especially American, support,” said Hamid Fadhel, a Baghdad University political science professor.

“It is clear that the American position is a strong message to Maliki’s opponents, especially the Sunni Arabs who tried to convey a message that Maliki is targeting them,” Fadhel said.

BEIRUT — The UN agency for Palestinian refugees warned Thursday of “extreme human suffering” in Syria’s Yarmouk camp, with state media saying “terrorists” had blocked aid from entering.

Since September, at least 15 people have died from hunger in the camp, which came under tight regime siege around a year ago after rebels took control of the area.

UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness said food shortages continue and that the absence of medical care had led to women dying in childbirth.

“The profound civilian suffering in Yarmouk deepens, with reports of widespread malnutrition and the absence of medical care, including for those who have severe conflict-related injuries and... women in childbirth, with fatal consequences for some women,” he said.

“Residents, including infants and children, have been subsisting for long periods on diets of such things as stale vegetables, animal feed and cooking spices dissolved in water.”

He said residents –– both Palestinian and Syrian –– were experiencing “extreme human suffering in primitively harsh conditions”, and urged humanitarian access to the camp.

“Syrian authorities and other parties must allow and facilitate safe and open humanitarian access,” he said.

But state television said a convoy carrying aid for the estimated 20,000 residents trapped in the camp had been blocked from entering by “terrorist gangs”.

“Terrorist gangs in the Yarmouk camp prevented the entry of an aid convoy carrying some 5,000 food parcels for those trapped in the camp,” it said.

“The gangs opened heavy fire to prevent them from entering,” it added.

Yarmouk was once home to some 170,000 people but tens of thousands have fled since fighting began in the camp.

Syria is officially home to nearly 500,000 Palestinian refugees, around half of whom have been displaced by the conflict that broke out in March 2011, becoming refugees for a second time.

CAIRO –– Courts on Thursday jailed 113 supporters of Egypt’s deposed Islamist president Mohamed Morsi to up to three years for taking part in unauthorised and violent protests, judicial sources said.

One Cairo misdemeanour court condemned 63 Morsi supporters to three years in prison and fined them 50,000 Egyptian pounds ($7,200, 5,250 euros) each over protests in November, the officials said.

They can post bail of 5,000 pounds to stay out of jail until an appeal hearing.

The government installed by the military after Morsi’s ouster passed a law in November banning all but police-sanctioned protests, amid a crackdown on Islamists that has killed more than 1,000 people in street clashes.

Another Cairo court sentenced 24 Morsi supporters to three years for being in a “terrorist gang” and attacking policemen in a protest, the officials said.

A Cairo court also sentenced 26 students from Al Azhar University to two years and a half in jail for vandalism and clashes in the university’s dormitory in November.

Pro-Morsi students have regularly clashed with police in protests on campuses, relative safe havens for Islamists whose street rallies are now immediately dispersed by police.

In December, the government declared Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood a “terrorist organisation” after accusing the group of responsibility for a suicide car bombing at a police building that killed 15 people.

The Brotherhood condemned the attack, which was claimed by an Al Qaeda-inspired militant group.

The “terrorist” designation carries harsh penalties for offenders, including possible death sentences for the movement’s convicted leaders and five-year jail terms for protesters.

Promoting the Brotherhood can also lead to prison sentences.

Since Morsi’s overthrow last July 3, his supporters have staged near daily protests calling for his reinstatement.

The protests often descend into clashes with police and civilian opponents.

In December, a court sentenced 139 Morsi supporters to two years in prison over violence in July.

Thousands of people have been arrested in the crackdown on the Islamists, including most of the Brotherhood’s leadership.

Morsi is himself on trial for allegedly inciting the killings of opposition protesters during his turbulent year in power.

TUNIS — Tunisia’s Islamist Prime Minister Ali Larayedh resigned on Thursday to make way for a caretaker government in an agreement with secular opponents to complete the country’s transition to democracy.

Three years after its uprising against autocrat Zine Al Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisia is in the final stages of establishing a full democracy before new elections that would be a rare bright spot in an unstable region.

Tunisia’s new premier, technocrat Mehdi Jomaa, must tackle subsidy cuts sought by international lenders to curb the small North African country’s deficit and also confront a growing threat from Islamist militants.

Illustrating the continued fragility, troops in the southern city of Tatouine fired into the air and police used tear gas on Thursday to disperse protests over economic hardship.

To end months of political crisis, Larayedh’s moderate Islamist party Ennahda agreed late last year to a deal to hand over to an independent Cabinet led by Jomaa, who will govern until the election.

“I have just handed my resignation to the president,” Larayedh told reporters. “The president will appoint the new prime minister, Mehdi Jomaa, shortly and he will present his new Cabinet in the next few days.”

One of the most secular countries in the Arab world, Tunisia has struggled with divisions over the role of Islam and the rise of Islamist radicals since the uprising in 2011 that inspired other revolts in the region.

Model transition

Tunisia’s largely peaceful transition has been widely watched as a model for other nations struggling with instability since their own “Arab Spring” revolts.

But the killings of two secular Tunisian opposition leaders by gunmen last year galvanised Ennahda’s secular foes, who took to the streets to demand the government resign, accusing it of being too lax with hardliners.

After months of wrangling, Ennahda reached a compromise with the main opposition Nidaa Tounes and its allies to resign once parties had finished a new constitution, set a date for fresh elections and appointed a body to oversee the vote.

Much of that agreement has now been implemented. The national assembly is voting on the last clauses of the new charter this week and on Wednesday night the assembly appointed a nine-member electoral commission.

International lenders want Tunisia to trim public subsidies to cut a budget deficit estimated to have hit 6.8 per cent of national output last year. But the cuts will raise fuel and food costs and may spark further discontent among Tunisians.

The International Monetary Fund has still to disperse a $500 million portion from a $1.5 billion loan for Tunisia.

After two days of protests and strikes backed by labour unions in several cities over a hike in vehicle taxes, Larayedh said on Thursday the government would suspend the reform.

Troops and police intervened to repel hundreds of protesters in Tatouine after they attacked two police stations and an Ennahda party office, the state news agency TAP said.

No injuries were reported and local residents said the army had brought the situation under control later in the day.

Authorities say Islamist militants from the Ansar Al Sharia group, whose leader pays allegiance to Al Qaeda, are also a growing menace for a country heavily reliant on foreign tourism.

A suicide bomber blew himself up at a popular beach resort late last year — Tunisia’s first such attack in a decade.

Islamist parties who rose to political power after the 2011 revolts in Egypt and Libya have fared less well than Ennahda, whose compromise with secular opponents will allow them to again take part in elections this year.

Egypt’s democratically elected president Mohamed Morsi faces trial after the military ousted him and Libya’s Muslim Brotherhood-allied party is locked in a political crisis with its secular foes in the country’s parliament.

JALAZOUN, West Bank –– Residents of Palestinian refugee camps burnt tyres and closed roads in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Thursday in protests stemming from a month-long strike by the UN agency that operates the camps.

The demonstrations came as the Palestinian economy falters and while aid agencies struggle to cope with deepening refugee crises related to the civil war in neighbouring Syria.

Scores of youths blocked a main road outside the Jalazoun refugee camp north of the de facto Palestinian capital of Ramallah, as well as roads linking other camps inside the city, to vent their anger over a lack of services normally provided by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

“The trash here is piled up so high we can’t even sleep at night for the smell,” said camp resident Mahdi Ahmed, 20.

“The UNWRA strike has gone on for 35 days, and there are no clinics, no jobs, no education. What hope is there for this generation? We’re being strangled little by little.”

A Palestinian labour union went on strike last month over salaries. UNRWA employs more than 5,000 Palestinians in its 19 camps for some 730,000 West Bank refugees.

The union also objected to a one-off $140 bonus their counterparts in Jordan received.

Diplomatic sources told Reuters the bonus, suggested in part by the United States, aimed at shoring up stability in Jordan, which has taken in over 600,000 refugees from Syria and is already home to more than 2 million Palestinian refugees.

Priorities

Many refugees fear UNRWA is slowly disengaging from its aid activities and believe the international community owes them support since it recognised Israel amid the war that led to its founding in 1948 — during which they fled or were driven from their homes to Gaza, the West Bank and surrounding countries.

The UN agency has said it is trying to end the strike but does not have funds to meet the wage demands. It also says its employees get paid at least 20 per cent and in some cases 80 per cent more than public-sector employees in equivalent fields.

“The general Palestinian public seems increasingly appalled,” UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness told Reuters.

“The strike has deprived some 51,000 children of an education, shut down 42 health facilities, denied 5,800 of the most vulnerable refugees urgently needed relief services and withheld financial support from 5,100 refugee families.”

Unemployment and poverty in the Palestinian territories both hover around 25 per cent. The aid-dependent Palestinian Authority is hard pressed to pay even its own workers.

UNRWA union spokesman Shaker Al Rishq said few agency employees were paid above Palestinian government salaries and that UNRWA staff in neighbouring countries were paid far more.

“The people are furious with the agency, not with our strike. We will engage in steps to escalate our action. Twenty-seven employees have been on hunger strike for 17 days, and some of them are in the hospital,” he said.

The issue of refugees is a major stumbling block for US-backed peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians which have struggled to make progress after a three-year pause.

Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said last week he would not approve a final peace resolution that allowed “even one single [refugee]” to return to “Israeli soil”.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has said the issue must be solved according to a 2002 peace initiative backed by Arab countries, which envisions a partial return and compensation.

WASHINGTON –– US House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner on Thursday said President Barack Obama should authorise a more active American role in Iraq but he stopped short of calling for the participation of US troops.

Boehner, responding to a question at a weekly press conference about growing violence in Iraq, said that a new US troop presence was “not called for at this time”.

But Boehner, a Republican, said the Obama administration could aid the Iraqi army with additional equipment. Earlier this week, the administration said it would hasten deliveries of military hardware to Iraq.

BAGHDAD — A suicide bomber blew himself up at a military recruiting centre in Baghdad on Thursday, killing at least 21 people in an attack likely meant to send a message to the government and would-be army volunteers over the Iraqi troops’ ongoing push to retake two cities overrun by Al Qaeda militants.

The blast struck as an international rights group warned of the apparent use of indiscriminate mortar fire in civilian areas by Iraqi forces in their campaign to reassert control over the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi.

Al Qaeda-linked fighters overran parts of both cities in the Sunni-dominated Anbar province last week, seizing control of police stations and military posts, freeing prisoners and setting up their own checkpoints.

Iraqi troops, backed by pro-government Sunni militiamen, since have been clashing with the fighters and carrying out air strikes against their positions in an effort to reassert control of the cities.

Tribal leaders in Fallujah, 65 kilometres west of Baghdad, have warned Al Qaeda fighters there to leave to avoid a military showdown.

The United States, whose troops fought bloody battles in Fallujah and Ramadi, has ruled out sending American troops back in but has been delivering missiles to help bolster Iraqi forces, with more on the way.

Vice President Joe Biden has spoken to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki twice this week, voicing support for his government’s efforts to regain control of the cities and urging him to continue talks with local, tribal and national leaders.

Iran, too, is watching the unrest with alarm as it shares American concerns about Al Qaeda-linked militants taking firmer root in Iraq. It has offered to supply military equipment and advisers to help fight militants in Anbar should Baghdad ask for assistance.

Human Rights Watch said on Thursday that Iraqi forces appear to have used mortar fire indiscriminately in civilian areas in recent days in their effort to dislodge militants in Anbar, and that some residential areas were targeted with mortar shells and gunfire even though there was no signs of an Al Qaeda presence in those specific areas.

The New York-based group said its allegations were based on multiple accounts provided by Anbar residents.

It also warned that a government blockade of Ramadi and Fallujah is limiting civilian access to food, water and fuel, and that “unlawful methods of fighting by all sides” has caused civilian casualties and major property damage.

Several approaches to Fallujah have been blocked by Iraqi troops, and only families with children were being allowed to leave with “extreme difficulty” through two checkpoints that remained open, the rights group said. It added that single men were being denied exit from the city.

“Civilians have been caught in the middle in Anbar, and the government appears to be doing nothing to protect them,” the group’s Mideast director, Sarah Leah Whitson, said in a statement.

Iraqi government officials could not immediately be reached for comment to respond to the rights group’s allegations.

The warning came a day after the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross voiced concerns about growing humanitarian threats in the area as food and water supplies start to run out.

Emergency shipments of food, water, blankets and other essential items have begun reaching families displaced by the fighting in Anbar, the UN said Thursday.

Some of the initial supplies were delivered to families left stranded in schools and mosques across Fallujah.

More than 11,000 families have been displaced because of the fighting, according to UN records.

The Baghdad attacker Thursday morning detonated his explosives outside the recruiting centre in the Iraqi capital’s central Allawi neighbourhood as volunteers were waiting to register inside, a police official said. At least 35 people were wounded in the blast, he said.

A hospital official confirmed the casualty numbers. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to talk to the media.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but suicide attacks are the hallmark of Al Qaeda’s Iraq branch, known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

Thursday’s attack on the recruiting centre appears to be in retaliation for the military’s offensive and an effort to dissuade potential new recruits from bolstering the Iraqi army’s ranks.

It followed an attack late Wednesday by gunmen who struck at army barracks in Diyala province, north of Baghdad, killing at least 12 soldiers.

Al Qaeda militants, emboldened by their gains in the civil war in neighbouring Syria, have sought to position themselves as the champions of Iraq’s disenchanted Sunnis against the Shiite-led government, even though major Sunni tribes in Anbar and elsewhere oppose the group’s extremist ideology and are in some cases fighting against it.

Sectarian tensions have been on the rise for months in Sunni-dominated Anbar province as minority Sunnis protested what they perceive as discrimination and random arrests by the Shiite-led government. Violence spiked after the December 28 arrest of a Sunni lawmaker sought on terrorism charges and the government’s dismantling of a year-old anti-government Sunni protest camp in the provincial capital of Ramadi.

DAMASCUS — Syrian rebels overran the Aleppo headquarters of the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) Wednesday, as claims emerged that ISIL had massacred prisoners there in cold blood.

They were reportedly also pressing ISIL in Raqa, the only provincial capital lost by the regime of President Bashar Assad and a stronghold of the group.

The operation in Aleppo came a day after ISIL’S` spokesperson threatened to “crush” opposition fighters who have attacked the group in several provinces.

“There are hardly any ISIL members left in the city of Aleppo,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Elsewhere, a diplomat announced two Swedish reporters missing in Syria since November had been freed.

And the fractious Syrian opposition National Coalition said it was postponing until January 17 a final decision on whether to attend peace talks in Switzerland.

On the ground, ISIL battled moderate and Islamist rebels in clashes that first erupted on Friday and have killed at least 385 people, including 56 civilians.

ISIL’s headquarters in a hospital in Aleppo’s Qadi Askar neighbourhood was overrun by opposition fighters, who reportedly freed dozens of prisoners.

But a video posted online Wednesday claimed ISIL had previously executed at least nine prisoners after handcuffing, blindfolding and shooting them in the head.

The coalition denounced “these acts, which perpetuate the regime’s methods to kill free voice, suppress liberty and violate... fundamental human rights”.

Late Tuesday, ISIL spokesperson Abu Mohammad Al Adnani issued a defiant message, urging fighters to “crush them [the rebels] totally and kill the conspiracy at birth”.

“None of you will remain, and we will make of you an example to all those who think of following the same path,” he added.

Adnani also warned that ISIL had declared war on the Coalition and chiefs of the opposition Free Syrian Army.

“Everyone who belongs to this entity is a legitimate target for us, in all places, unless he publicly declares his rejection of that group and of fighting the mujahedeen [jihadist fighters].”

His message came hours after the head of Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, Al Nusra Front, urging an end to the fighting.

Abu Mohammad Al Jolani warned the fighting “risks costing us dearly on the ground if it continues” and urged all fighters “to give priority to the fight against the regime”.

The Nusra Front, Al Qaeda’s official affiliate in Syria, was established in mid-2011 with help from ISIL’s Iraqi precursor.

The Iraqi group’s chief later sought to merge with Al Nusra, but they spurned an alliance and pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda chief Ayman Al Zawahiri.

Since then, they have functioned separately, with Al Nusra largely neutral in the latest fighting.

But the observatory said Al Nusra fighters were pressing ISIL in Raqa, to the east of Aleppo.

It said they had captured a former regime political security office held by ISIL and were shelling the nearby governor’s office, said to be the group’s headquarters.

In Damascus, a security source told AFP the infighting benefited Syria’s regime, calling it a settling of scores by nations backing different rebel groups.

Regime operations continued Wednesday, with the observatory reporting at least eight people killed in air raids on Tal Rifaat in Aleppo province.

Elsewhere, Sweden’s ambassador confirmed that two journalists missing in Syria since November had been freed.

Swedish media named them as Niclas Hammarstroem and Magnus Falkehed.

At least 25 journalists have been killed in Syria since the conflict began in March 2011, and more than 30 are thought to be missing.

Both the regime and its opponents have been accused of abducting and killing journalists.

In Istanbul, a fiercely debated National Coalition meeting ended without a decision on attending peace talks in Switzerland on January 22.

The general assembly decided to postpone the decision until January 17.

And in The Hague, the world’s chemical watchdog called for Syria to speed up handing over its arsenal for destruction, after missing a key deadline.

The joint OPCW-UN mission said Tuesday that a first cargo of chemicals had been brought to Latakia and transferred to a Danish vessel, but all Syria’s most dangerous chemicals were supposed to have left the country by December 31.

Even so, mission head Sigrid Kaag expressed guarded optimism that the mid-year target for destroying the entire arsenal can still be met.