Region

BAGHDAD — Iraqi forces killed four militants and ended a hostage crisis after attackers stormed a Baghdad government building Thursday, as nationwide violence took January’s death toll past 900 with elections looming.

The brazen assault on a building in the northeast of the capital comes as security forces grapple with intensifying violence and an extended standoff with anti-government fighters in the western province of Anbar.

It is likely to raise fresh concerns about the capabilities of Iraq’s security forces amid fears the April 30 polls could be partially delayed, as was the case for provincial elections in April 2013.

Six militants wearing suicide vests initially attempted to storm the building, which houses a transport ministry state-owned company, by blowing up a minibus rigged with explosives at the main gate, according to police at the scene.

When the explosion did not go off, one of the attackers blew himself up to clear the way for his fellow militants, followed by a second bomber who set off his vest at an inner gate.

The four remaining fighters then took hostages in the building for several hours before they were eventually killed by security forces, interior ministry spokesman Brigadier General Saad Maan said.

At least two people were killed in the attack overall, including a policeman, and eight others wounded, according to Maan.

A police colonel and an interior ministry official confirmed the account and the toll.

“At the time of the attack, the employees in the building behaved very wisely and shut all their doors,” Maan told AFP. “They kept all the employees inside.”

“The whole operation is now finished, everything is under control.”

Security forces had sealed off the surrounding area, which is home to other government offices, including the headquarters of the transport ministry and a human rights ministry building.

Elsewhere in the Iraqi capital on Thursday, bombings near a market and a restaurant in the Shiite-majority neighbourhoods of Kasra and Talbiyah killed six people, officials said.

They struck hours after car bombs ripped through Baghdad Jadidah, Shuala and Talbiyah, which are predominantly Shiite, leaving nine people dead on Wednesday evening.

Attacks on Wednesday also hit the capital’s outskirts, as well as the northern cities of Mosul and Tuz Khurmatu, killing seven others.

Toll three times higher

Violence has killed at least 911 people in Iraq this month, more than three times the toll for January 2013, according to an AFP tally based on reports from security and medical officials.

No group claimed responsibility for the ministry assault and the bombings, but Sunni militants affiliated with the Al Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) have mounted similar attacks in Baghdad.

Iraqi officials on Wednesday, meanwhile, published a rare photograph purportedly of ISIL leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, the first of its kind released by an official source.

The black-and-white picture, which provides a rare glimpse of the man leading a militant group blamed for killing countless Iraqis, shows a balding man with a beard wearing a suit and tie.

The latest bloodletting comes as security forces are locked in battles with militants, including those affiliated with ISIL, in Anbar, a mostly-Sunni desert region west of Baghdad that shares a border with Syria.

It is the first time militants have exercised such open control in Iraqi cities since the peak of violence that followed the 2003 US-led invasion.

Security forces have been locked in battles in Ramadi, where militants hold several neighbourhoods, and have carried out operations in rural areas of Anbar province.

Anti-government fighters also hold all of Fallujah, on Baghdad’s doorstep.

ISIL has been involved, and witnesses and tribal leaders in Fallujah say the group has tightened its grip on the city, but other militant groups have also taken part in the battles.

The standoff has forced more than 140,000 people to flee their homes, the UN refugee agency said, describing it as the worst displacement in Iraq since sectarian conflict in 2006-2008.

Washington has provided Baghdad with weaponry to help it combat militants and also plans to sell Iraq 24 Apache attack helicopters, but diplomats and analysts say the Shiite-led government must do more to reach out to the disaffected Sunni community in order to undercut support for militancy.

BEIRUT — A United Nations agency delivered food to a rebel-held Damascus district on Thursday, alleviating the plight of thousands of people trapped for months by a Syrian army siege.

The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which cares for Palestinian refugees, said it had distributed 1,000 food parcels in Yarmouk camp, its biggest delivery there yet.

UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness said the aid was the first to reach Yarmouk since January 21 when 138 food parcels were sent in. Each parcel can feed a family of up to 8 for about 10 days, meaning the people’s needs still far outstrip aid deliveries.

“We hope to continue and increase substantially the amount of aid being delivered,” said Gunness. “With each passing hour their need increases.”

Syria’s state news agency SANA confirmed the aid delivery, saying Yarmouk’s residents were “held hostage by armed terrorist groups” — its usual description of rebel forces.

UNRWA had blamed the authorities for preventing its convoy from reaching the neighbourhood on Sunday. Two weeks earlier, aid convoys turned back after a government escort was fired on.

Some 15 people are reported to have died from malnutrition in Yarmouk, originally an impoverished Palestinian refugee camp which now houses 18,000 Palestinians, as well as some Syrians.

Opposition activists say the government is using hunger as a weapon of war. Damascus accuses rebels of firing on aid convoys and says it fears food and medicine will go to armed groups.

Syrian state television said Al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front had fired on aid workers and wounded several people during the distribution. The anti-Assad Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that unknown assailants had fired bullets.

It was not clear if this had prevented some of the aid from reaching Yarmouk’s residents and UNRWA did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the incident.

At peace talks between the two sides in Geneva, the United Nations is trying to negotiate passage for an aid convoy for 2,500 people also under siege in the old city of Homs.

Gaining access for relief groups to reach an estimated 250,000 people trapped by fighting in Yarmouk, Homs and other areas is seen as a test for the peace talks, which began last week and have not yet produced substantive results.

Syria’s conflict began with popular protests against President Bashar Assad in March 2011, but evolved into a civil war after a crackdown by security forces led to an armed uprising. More than 130,000 people have been killed and about six million have fled their homes.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama appears to have prevailed, for now, in a campaign to stop Congress from passing new sanctions on Iran he fears could derail nuclear diplomacy.

Several Democratic senators who previously backed a bipartisan sanctions bill publicly stepped back after Obama threatened a veto during his State of the Union address on Tuesday.

Several sources familiar with behind-the-scenes manoeuvring on the bill say a number of other Democratic senators signed up for more sanctions had privately recoiled from a damaging vote against their own president.

The developments appear, in the short term, to have checked momentum behind the bill, which had appeared headed for a veto-proof majority in Congress.

“I am strongly supporting the bill but I think a vote is unnecessary right now as long as there’s visible and meaningful progress” in the negotiations, Senator Richard Blumenthal told AFP, after first expressing reservations earlier this month.

Democratic Senator Chris Coons made a similar declaration at a post-State of the Union event hosted by Politico.

“Now is not the time for a vote on an Iran sanctions bill,” he said.

Another Democratic Senator, Joe Manchin, now hopes Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will not bring it up.

“I did not sign it with the intention that it would ever be voted upon or used upon while we’re negotiating,” Manchin told MSNBC television.

“I signed it because I wanted to make sure the president had a hammer if he needed it and showed him how determined we were to do it and use it if we had to.”

The White House mounted an intense campaign against a bill it feared would undermine Tehran’s negotiators with conservatives back home or prompt them to ditch diplomacy.

Obama aides infuriated pro-sanctions senators by warning the measure could box America into a march to war to halt Tehran’s nuclear programme if diplomacy died.

The campaign included a letter to Reid from Democratic committee chairs urging he put off a sanctions vote.

Another letter was orchestrated from a group of distinguished foreign policy experts.

Multi-faith groups also weighed in and coordinated calls from constituents backing Obama on nuclear diplomacy poured into offices of key Democrats.

The campaign appears for now to have overpowered the pro-sanctions push by hawkish senators and the Israel lobby, whose doubts on the Iran nuclear deal mirror those of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Senator Johnny Isakson, a Republican co-sponsor of the legislation, said: “It looks like we’re kind of frozen in place.”

Those behind the anti-sanctions campaign though privately concede they may have won a battle, not a war.

The push for new sanctions will flare again ahead of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s (AIPAC) annual conference in March, which Netanyahu is expected to address.

It could also recur if the talks on a final pact extend past the six-month window set by the interim deal.

But for now, groups that supported the push against sanctions celebrated.

“This is a major victory, a crucial victory for the American public who don’t want to see a war,” said Kate Gould of the Friends Committee on National Legislation.

“For right now, it looks like it’s not going to be brought up,” she said but warned “there’ll be other efforts to try and sabotage the process”.

The liberal pro-Israel lobby group J Street played a major role in the anti-sanctions push.

Vice president Alan Elsner said the group “continues to work hard to persuade lawmakers not to take action that risks sabotaging the negotiations with Iran.

“We’re happy that more and more senators are seeing the logic of our argument,” he added.

Republican Senator Mark Kirk, who help write the sanctions law, pledged to fight on.

“The American people — Democrats and Republicans alike — overwhelmingly want Iran held accountable during any negotiations,” said Kirk.

He said his bill, also the brainchild of the Foreign Relations Committee’s Democratic Chairman Robert Menendez, was an “insurance policy” against Iran’s development of nuclear weapons.

The White House did not just chafe at the bill’s new sanctions, but also at a clause requiring a final deal to include a complete dismantling of Iran’s entire nuclear infrastructure.

Analyst say such a perfect solution — desired by Israel — is not realistic.

The White House, no doubt keen to avoid antagonising lawmakers on such a sensitive issue, declined to comment on the developments.

But Obama put the case for the interim deal, which freezes aspects of Iran’s nuclear programme in return for an easing of some sanctions, in his speech on Tuesday.

“If this Congress sends me a new sanctions bill now that threatens to derail these talks, I will veto it,” he warned.

He offered political cover to Democrats and sought to convince waverers he would back new sanctions if diplomacy failed.

That message would also have been picked up in Iran as negotiators gear up for new talks Obama says have less than a 50-50 chance of yielding a final deal.

CAIRO — Unknown only two years ago, the head of Egypt’s military, Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, is riding on a wave of popular fervour that is almost certain to carry him to election as president. Many Egyptians now hail him as the nation’s saviour after he ousted the Islamists from power and as the only figure strong enough to lead.

Still, if he becomes president, Sisi runs enormous risks.

His presidency would enmesh the military even deeper into politics, putting the credibility of the powerful institution on the line if he fails to resolve the country’s woes. Turmoil may only increase with a backlash from Islamists, who now despise Sisi for his ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi and for the brutal crackdown on their ranks that has arrested thousands and killed hundreds since.

And there is little indication of how he would rule.

Secular critics fear a return of an autocracy similar to that led by Hosni Mubarak for nearly 30 years until his ouster in 2011’s popular uprising. Sisi has said it is impossible to return to Mubarak’s style of rule and that the country must move to democracy. But elements of Mubarak’s police state — including top security officials and the business elite — are among his fervent supporters, and the crackdown on Islamists has already expanded into a wider suppression of dissent.

Many Sisi fans tout him as a new Gamal Abdel-Nasser, who rose to the presidency after the 1952 coup that toppled the monarchy and became a charismatic strongman, inspiring the nation with grand projects like the building of the Aswan High Dam and his vision of Arab nationalism.

A personality cult unseen in the country since Nasser’s era has swiftly risen up around Sisi. It depicts him as pious and modest, sensitive and emotional yet firm and decisive, a patriot rooted in the common folk of his childhood home Al Gamaliya, a corner of Cairo’s Medieaval Islamic City seen as embodying the country’s best traditions.

As president, that popularity could enable Sisi to push through potentially controversial changes. In unpublished footage from an interview with an Egyptian newspaper that was recently leaked, for example, he talks of lifting subsidies on food and fuel “all of a sudden”. The subsidies are a gigantic drag on the government budget that economists agree must be reformed — but since Egypt’s impoverished population relies on them, attempts at reform has repeatedly fallen apart. [The comments also point to how Nasser comparisons only go so far: Sisi has expressed support for faster privatisation in the economy, reversing Nasser’s socialist legacy.]

Conceivably, Sisi could even be the only player powerful enough to force reconciliation with Islamists — an idea that has become politically unspeakable amid the fervour to crush the Brotherhood. Some officials have suggested he is a relative dove among more hardline anti-Brotherhood officers in the military and security forces, though so far he has shown nothing but support for the crackdown on the group, which was launched after giant rallies he called for in July to “mandate” him to fight terrorism.

The dramatic shows of popularity now could mean little later in a divided nation that has turned against two rulers the past three years. The difference this time is the overt commitment that the military, Egypt’s most powerful institution, has invested after its top body of generals, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, publicly gave its backing to a Sisi candidacy on Monday.

“The military’s reputation is bound up with an Sisi presidency,” said Michael Hanna, an Egypt analyst and senior fellow at the Century Foundation in New York.

If Sisi cannot stop the mounting insecurity and the further deterioration of the economy, the public backlash could come against the military as an institution, a situation that “if anything, could create divisions within the military,” he said.

Sisi knows the dangers. During Morsi’s presidency, when Islamists and their opponents were clashing in the streets, he warned in speeches that if the military intervened in the political conflict, it could take decades for it to return to the barracks. In a meeting with army officers late in 2012, he warned that military interference in politics is dangerous for both the state and the army, pointing to Syria, where the military backed President Bashar Assad against an uprising and the nation crumbled into civil war.

“It is not patriotism to take sides ... this is not my business,” he said. “The vendetta won’t end, the divisions will continue and chaos will persist for two, five, ten years. The Syrian state is over.”

Sisi has not announced that he will run, though Egyptian media trumpet that he will imminently. This week, Sisi was promoted from general to field marshal, the military’s highest rank, a step seen by many as a final honour before he leaves the military, a step required by law before he could run.

The 59-year-old Sisi was the head of military intelligence before he was named by Morsi as army chief and defence minister. His inner circle remains filled with spymasters. Among them is Mahmoud Hegazy, the current military intelligence chief whose daughter is married to one of Sisi’s sons; Murad Mawafi, the former chief of general intelligence; and Farid Tohami, that agency’s current head.

The Brotherhood learned the dangers of trying to read Sisi.

Morsi elevated him apparently believing he would be dependent on the Brotherhood. A Morsi aide, Wael Haddara, wrote after the coup that Sisi was chosen because he was the youngest of the top brass, “so it was hoped he doesn’t have cronies and has no real backing” within the military.

Many in the Brotherhood leadership thought he was sympathetic to the Islamist movement, since he was known as a pious Muslim. That belief was so pervasive that one of the most vehement critics of the Islamists in the media, TV personality Tawfik Okasha, at the time warned that Sisi was “the Muslim Brotherhood’s man in the military”. Now Okasha is a fervent Sisi cheerleader.

A paper that Sisi wrote while studying at the US War College in 2006 shows a political mind well aware of what underpinned Mubarak’s police state and of the challenges of creating a democracy.

He says democracy can only come in the Mideast in its own form, meaning anti-US Islamist parties must be allowed to participate and “legitimately elected parties [should] be given the opportunity to govern.” He writes that Mideast democracies will have to reflect the region’s Islamic culture — “established upon Islamic beliefs”, though not a theocracy.

He criticises the region’s autocracies for fixing elections, relying on patronage and controlling the media, all features of Mubarak’s rule. One obstacle to democracy, he writes, is that police and military in Arab states are loyal to regimes and ruling parties, not the nation.

He concludes that building democracy could take a transition as long as 10 years, and that populations must be prepared by improving education and reducing poverty.

Proponents believe a strongman like Sisi is needed to guide that transition.

Sisi would head a broken political system. After Mubarak’s fall, Islamists had the strongest political parties, particularly Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood, and dominated elections the past three years. Most of them will likely continue to boycott politics for the foreseeable future. That leaves the field to the fragmented and weak secular-leaning parties, which have little grassroots support.

Little is known about Sisi’s private life. His wife, Intissar, a cousin he married nearly 30 years ago, has never been seen in the media. The couple has three sons and a daughter. Two of his sons and his daughter graduated from the military college, and the third son works in the Administrative Oversight Agency.

Sisi grew up in Cairo’s Gamaliya district, a centuries-old neighbourhood of historic mosques immortalised in the novels of Egypt’s Nobel literature laureate Naguib Mahfouz. Nearby is the historic bazaar Khan Al Khalili, a main tourist attraction, and Sisi’s father had a shop selling wooden antiques. The bazaar has been hit hard since tourists largely disappeared in the turmoil since Mubarak’s ouster, and its streets are plastered with Sisi posters now, with shopowners hoping he can bring stability.

One neighbour, Ali Hossan, who now runs one of the pro-Sisi campaign offices, remembered him as “very quiet and not sociable”, focused on two things — his studies and helping in his father’s shop.

One critic, Ahmed Maher, the leader of the secular youth activist group April 6, which led protests against Mubarak, sarcastically gave his backing to a Sisi run in a letter from prison, saying it would fuel a new revolution against the military. Maher was jailed in December to serve a three-year prison sentence for violating a new draconian law virtually banning protests. He blamed Sisi for abuses of detained protesters during the anti-Mubarak uprising.

“Let us see the blunt rule of the military instead of the concealed one,” he wrote.

GENEVA — International mediator Lakhdar Brahimi said on Wednesday that he does not expect to achieve anything substantive in the first round of Syria talks ending on Friday, but hoped for a more productive second round starting about a week later.

His sombre assessment came as the two sides took a first tentative step forward by agreeing to use the same 2012 roadmap as the basis of discussions to end the three-year civil war, though they disagreed about how talks should proceed.

“We talked about the TGB [Transitional Governing Body], but of course it is a very, very preliminary discussion and more generally of what each side expects,” Brahimi told reporters.

Asked his expectations for the first week-long round expected to end on Friday, he said: “To be blunt, I do not expect that we will achieve anything substantive.”

“I am very happy that we are still talking, but the ice is breaking slowly. But it is breaking,” he said, adding that he was not disappointed.

Opposition and government sides said they agreed to use the “Geneva communique”, a document endorsed by world powers at a conference in June 2012, and which sets out the stages needed to end the fighting and agree on a political transition.

“We have agreed that Geneva 1 is the basis of the talks,” opposition spokesman Louay Al Safi told reporters.

The Syrian government delegation, which had earlier submitted its own document that it wanted the talks to focus on, said it would use the Geneva communique, with reservations. Syrian state television said the government wanted to discuss the text of Geneva 1 “paragraph by paragraph”.

While the opposition wants to start by addressing the question of the transitional governing body that the talks aim to create, the government says the first step is to discuss “terrorism”.

There was still no sign of a breakthrough in attempts to relieve the suffering of thousands of besieged residents of the rebel-held Old City of Homs, an issue that had been put forward to break the ice and build confidence at the start of the talks.

“We also tried to see what is happening over the humanitarian issues, in particular about Homs. Negotiations between the United Nations and the Syrian authorities are still ongoing,” Brahimi said of the stalled UN aid convoy.

First issue

“Mr Brahimi said tomorrow they are going to discuss terrorism because stopping terrorism is the first issue that should be handled,” said Bouthaina Shaaban, an adviser to Syrian President Bashar Assad.

The Geneva communique refers to the government and “armed opposition groups”, but there is no mention of “terrorism” or “terrorists”, terms used by the Syrian government to describe those fighting to overthrow Assad.

The opposition delegation wants discussion of the transitional governing body to come first, including its size and responsibilities, Safi said.

“They seem to be more ready to discuss that issue, but still they are trying to push it to the back of the discussion. We told them this has to come first, because nothing else can be achieved unless we can form the transitional governing body.”

The opposition says transitional arrangements must include the removal of Assad, which the government rejects.

Despite contradictory interpretations of Geneva 1 by the two sides, organisers of the talks at United Nations headquarters in Geneva have made it a priority to keep the process going and dissuade either side from walking out.

The absence from the talks of powerful Islamist groups opposed to Assad, and of Iran, Assad’s main regional ally, has put a major question mark over what can be achieved.

The United States and Russia, the joint sponsors of the conference, agreed on Wednesday to increase pressure on the two sides to reach a compromise, Russia’s state-run RIA news agency reported, citing an unnamed diplomatic source.

Brahimi said he was in touch with both powers and hoped that they would exert greater influence in the future.

A Western diplomat said it was positive that the parties were still at the table.

“We don’t think this is a process that should last years, but it’s clear that after three years of civil war, a week isn’t going to resolve it,” the diplomat said.

“What we hope is that by the end of the week there will be sufficient common ground so that they agree to meet again and hopefully something tangible comes out on the humanitarian side.”

The opposition wants the government to allow in a UN aid convoy for 2,500 people under siege in the Old City of Homs, but the government has said it needs to be sure the food and medicine will not go to armed groups or terrorists.

“It is still stalled, as far as I know,” said Patrick McCormick, spokesman of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

A spokeswoman for the UN World Food Programme, which is waiting to deliver a month’s rations to the Old City, devastated by shelling and fighting, also said there was no movement.

UN Human Rights chief Navi Pillay has previously said international law requires all sides to permit free passage of food and medicines, and starvation of civilians as a method of combat may amount to a war crime.

Access to Homs and other besieged areas holding an estimated 250,000 people is seen as a proving ground for the peace talks.

The government has encircled hundreds of thousands of people across Syria, blocking off food and medicine. Rebels have also besieged 45,000 people in two Shiite Muslim towns in the north.

The Syrian opposition is willing to lift a siege on three pro-government villages as part of a wider deal, its spokesman said on Tuesday.

Damascus has said women and children may leave the Old City of Homs but that it wants the opposition to provide a list of men seeking to do so, before they may leave, Brahimi said this week.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — A pending US framework proposal to propel stumbling Israeli-Palestinian peace talks forward chipped away on Wednesday at a troubled alliance between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and an ultranationalist ally in his governing coalition.

No date has been announced for US Secretary of State John Kerry to unveil his blueprint, but new skirmishing between the prime minister and far-right partner Naftali Bennett suggested crunch time was near.

Bennett’s Jewish Home Party advocates annexation of some of the West Bank — occupied territory that Palestinians seek for a state — and it has threatened to end its partnership with Netanyahu if, he says, any handover of land of biblical significance to Jews were in the offing.

In a hard-hitting speech to an international security conference on Tuesday, Bennett aired veiled criticism of Netanyahu — sending a signal that he believed the Israeli leader was primed to accept Kerry’s peace guidelines.

“Neither our forefathers nor our descendants will forgive the Israeli leader who gives away our land and divides our capital,” said Bennett, an Orthodox Jew who often emphasises a biblical connection to the West Bank and Jerusalem.

In a speech at the same Tel Aviv security forum, Netanyahu said Kerry would offer “American positions” and that “Israel does not have to agree to anything the Americans present”.

Israeli officials, speaking anonymously, were livid over Bennett’s accusations. A senior member of Jewish Home, Housing Minister Uri Ariel, told Israel Radio on Wednesday he was mediating a “crisis” between Bennett and Netanyahu.

Amid the bickering, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman laid out the broad outlines of what he said was the “expected” Kerry framework proposal. An Israeli political source gave a similar account.

Phased withdrawal envisaged

According to the report, the plan entails an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and all claims, following a phased Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, with unprecedented security arrangements in the strategic Jordan Valley.

The pullout, the newspaper said, will not include certain settlement blocs but Israel will offer Israeli territory to the Palestinians in compensation.

The proposal further envisages the Palestinians having their capital in East Jerusalem and recognising Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people. It will not include any right of return for Palestinian refugees to Israel.

Palestinians under President Mahmoud Abbas in limited self-ruled areas of the West Bank seek a state covering the entire territory and the Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as their capital. Israel pulled settlers out of Gaza in 2005 but Hamas Islamists sworn to Israel’s destruction now rule the enclave.

Israel has insisted on a long-term security presence in the Jordan Valley — forming the West Bank’s eastern border — under any peace deal, a position rejected by Palestinian leaders.

The future of settlers on land Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war was the core of the Netanyahu-Bennett flareup.

On Saturday, an unidentified Netanyahu aide said the Israeli leader would insist Jewish settlers have a right to remain under Palestinian rule in any future peace deal.

It was, political sources later conceded, a calculated attempt to portray Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas as a naysayer unwilling to accept the notion of a Jewish minority in his country — while Netanyahu had an Arab minority in his own.

The exercise backfired, however, when attention shifted to Bennett’s angry reaction on Facebook, where he demanded Netanyahu “immediately refute this dangerous proposal”.

Bad blood between Bennett, who once served as a senior Netanyahu aide, is nothing new. The main opposition Labour Party has said it would be prepared to replace Jewish Home in the coalition to prevent its collapse over peace issues.

The coalition controls 68 of parliament’s 120 seats, of which Jewish Home holds 12 and Labour 15.

TRIPOLI — Libya’s interior minister said he escaped unharmed from an assassination attempt in Tripoli Wednesday, defiantly vowing not to give in to “intimidation”.

Seddik Abdelkarim, who is also deputy prime minister, told reporters his convoy came under fire on the road to the airport, without causing casualties.

Avoiding any specific accusation of blame, he said the attack was the work of “persons who want to obstruct the stabilisation process” in Libya.

“We will not be intimidated by bullets or bombs... We will not accept directives or threats from anyone,” said the minister.

The official LANA news agency reported earlier that his car came under “a barrage of bullets”.

Libya has grappled with widespread unrest since rebels overthrew and killed long-ruling dictator Muammar Qadhafi in a NATO-backed uprising in 2011.

The attack came less than three weeks after the assassination of deputy industry minister, Hassan Al Droui, who was shot in Qadhafi’s hometown of Sirte on January 12.

The uprising left Libya awash in weapons looted from Qadhafi’s vast arsenals, complicating the government’s efforts to rein in former rebels who effectively control much of the country.

Libya has seen near-daily attacks on security forces, particularly in and around the eastern city of Benghazi, cradle of the revolt.

TUNIS — A government of independents, tasked with steering Tunisia to fresh elections, took the oath on Wednesday, replacing an Islamist-led administration under a hard-won deal to end months of political turmoil.

The swearing-in of Prime Minister Mehdi Jomaa’s government comes three days after the national assembly finally adopted a new constitution three years after the Arab Spring revolution.

Foreign leaders have welcomed the quickening moves to get the political transition back on track in Tunisia, which, despite its own problems, is seen as a beacon of hope compared with other Arab Spring nations like Libya and Egypt which remain mired in instability and political turmoil.

The formal transfer of power took place at the presidential palace after a marathon overnight parliamentary session in which Jomaa’s line-up was finally approved by 149 votes to 20 with 24 abstentions.

The new ministers took the oath of office in front of secular President Moncef Marzouki who described the ceremony as a “historic moment” for the North African country.

“The new government will know how to assume its responsibilities, and will certainly meet with success in its mission to oversee the runup to fresh elections later this year,” Marzouki said in comments reported by national news agency TAP.

Outgoing Islamist premier Ali Larayedh and Jomaa met earlier in the day to discuss government policies and pressing issues facing Tunisia three years after the overthrow of longtime dictator Zine Al Abidine Ben Ali.

Larayedh and Jomaa, who served as industry minister in the outgoing government, highlighted “the difficulties to overcome in achieving fair and transparent elections” due later this year, the government said in a statement.

The formation of a new government comes after weeks of horse-trading and is the cornerstone of a roadmap to end a political crisis that has plagued Tunisia since the assassination of two opposition MPs by suspected jihadists in 2013.

Under the hard-won deal reached late last year, the Islamist-led government agreed to relinquish power in return for the mainly secular opposition ending its boycott of work on drawing up the new constitution.

The moderate Islamist Ennahda won the country’s first free elections in October 2011, nine months after Ben Ali’s ouster.

But in power it was accused by the opposition of pursuing an Islamist agenda and of failing to address persistent social unrest or rein in jihadists blamed for a spate of deadly attacks.

The constitution was forged during two years of acrimonious debate, including on the role of Islam and women’s rights, but the text finally approved is regarded as the most modern in the Arab world.

Speaking on Sunday when he presented his Cabinet line-up to lawmakers, Jomaa said his top priority would be to create the right conditions for parliamentary and presidential elections, that Ennahda has said are likely to take place in October.

The final decision on the election dates will be taken by the newly appointed electoral body ISIE.

Western leaders have called on Jomaa’s government to do all it can to organise transparent elections to end the polarisation in Tunisian politics that has stoked persistent social unrest.

European Union foreign police chief Catherine Ashton urged it to deploy “all the means of the state” to hold credible elections as swiftly as possible.

The election run-up will also be closely watched by foreign investors eager for a return to political stability.

International credit rating agency Fitch called the approval of Tunisia’s new constitution an “important step”, but warned of the challenges in confronting violence and social discontent.

“The elections will test the extent to which social polarisation has permanently reduced political stability and are no guarantee against further social and political fragmentation,” it warned.

BEIRUT — Besieged since June, nearly 20,000 people in Damascus’ Yarmouk Palestinian camp are so desperate for food that many eat stray animals and some women have resorted to prostitution, according to residents reached via the Internet.

“Many here have slaughtered, and eaten cats and dogs, and even a donkey,” said Yarmouk resident Ali, who was a university student when Syria’s revolt erupted in 2011.

“One man who killed a dog couldn’t find any meat to eat on its body, because even the dogs are starving,” he told AFP via Skype.

“What was unimaginable a few months ago is normal now.”

Once a refugee camp, Yarmouk evolved generations ago into a bustling commercial and residential district, where both Syrians and Palestinians resided.

In 2011, it was home to some 150,000 Palestinians registered in Syria after waves of displacement forced their ancestors to seek shelter following Israel’s establishment.

When war spread to areas of Damascus in the summer of 2012, thousands of people from other parts of the capital fled to Yarmouk, swelling its population further.

But Yarmouk soon became a war zone too, as Syrians taking up arms against President Bashar Al Assad’s regime moved into the camp.

Some Palestinians joined the rebels, others backed pro-regime groups, mainly the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC).

In June, the army imposed a total blockade on Yarmouk, which covers an area of just over two square kilometres.

Most residents had fled by then, but, according to the United Nations, 18,000 civilians remain.

Seven months later, food and medical supplies have all but run out, with prices skyrocketing to up to $100 for a kilogram of rice, residents say.

“The situation is so desperate that women are selling their bodies to men who stocked up food before the siege was imposed, for just a cup of rice or bulgur,” said Ali.

“Imagine the feeling of a father unable to feed his children, as they wail from hunger,” he added.

Seventy-eight people, including 25 women and three children, have died as a result of the shortages, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Of these, 61 died in the past three months, according to the Observatory, which relies on a network of activists and doctors inside the country for its reports.

Milk powder for babies, vaccines for infants

Tasked with meeting the Palestinian refugees’ needs, the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) has struggled to secure access to the camp.

Only two convoys have made it into Yarmouk in recent months, bringing in a scant 138 parcels of food aid.

According to UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness, “the aid allowed in... so far is shockingly inadequate to meet the dire needs of these (18,000) civilians”.

The needs include “powder milk for babies, polio vaccines for infants and basic foodstuffs”, said Gunness.

On January 18, the government said it would facilitate aid access.

“However, the agency is extremely disappointed that... the assurances given by the authorities have not been backed by action on the ground to facilitate the regular, rapid entry into Yarmouk of the substantial quantities of relief required to make a difference to thousands of civilians,” Gunness told AFP.

While regime and opposition representatives are meeting in Geneva for peace talks and to negotiate aid access for Homs in central Syria, it appears Yarmouk’s fate is not being addressed.

PFLP-GC spokesman Anwar Raja blamed the rebels, whom he described as “terrorists”, for the camp’s plight.

“There was an agreement for the Palestinian armed men inside the camp to pressure non-Palestinian armed men to leave,” Raja said, referring to rebels.

“We hope the people will push on the Palestinian armed groups that had pledged to pressure the other armed groups, including Al Nusra (Front, an Al Qaeda affiliate)... to create a better atmosphere to ensure aid gets in.”

For his part, Wissam Sbaaneh, a member of the Palestinian Jafra Foundation, blamed the PFLP-GC and the army.

“People are asking for milk powder for children and vaccines. What on earth would the fighters want milk powder for?” said Sbaaneh, mocking a PFLP-GC claim that the civilians are being held “hostage” by the armed opposition.

Sbaaneh also said other armed groups, barring the jihadists, have honoured the agreement with the regime, and that “civilians are ready to pressure Al Nusra if the regime proves it is being serious”.

Indeed on Monday, the Observatory reported a demonstration in the camp against Al Nusra Front.

Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman insisted the siege must be lifted altogether.

“Civilians are being starved in order to force them to turn against the rebels. It is a war crime to besiege areas where civilians are present,” Abdel Rahman told AFP.