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U.S. would welcome new EU sanctions on Iran: official

By Gabriela Baczynska

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Any move by the European Union to impose new sanctions on Iran over its ballistic missile program and alleged involvement in Middle East conflicts would be “interesting and helpful”, a U.S. administration official said on Tuesday.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who has taken a more hawkish line on Iran than predecessor Barack Obama, has said Tehran’s missile program should be curbed and wants to punish Tehran over its role in Yemen and Syria.

Trump has also dealt a blow to an international 2015 deal on Iran’s nuclear program by disavowing Iran’s compliance with its terms. The U.S. Congress now has until mid-December to decide whether to reimpose economic sanctions on Iran that had been lifted in exchange for it limiting its nuclear activity.

But the EU, which normally coordinates closely with Washington on international sanctions, has been lobbying hard to preserve the nuclear accord, saying it should be kept separate from missile and regional security matters.

Last week, French President Emmanuel Macron mooted the possibility of fresh sanctions, saying he was “very concerned” about Iran’s missile program following the firing of a missile from Yemen into Saudi Arabia.

“It would certainly be a very interesting and probably helpful move on the part of the EU,” the U.S. administration official told reporters in Brussels when asked if Washington wanted the EU to pursue fresh restrictions on Iran.

The missile fired into Saudi Arabia from Yemen on Nov. 4 was intercepted near Riyadh airport and there were no casualties. Saudi Arabia, which intervened against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen’s war in 2015, accuses the Islamic Republic of supplying missiles and other weaponry to the Houthis.

Tehran denies this and it also rejected Macron’s remarks, saying its missile program was solely defensive and not linked to the nuclear pact, which European powers, Russia and China – the other parties to the 2015 deal – say is vital to containing Middle East tensions.

EU WARY OF NEW SANCTIONS ON IRAN

And there is no consensus in the EU, where imposing any sanctions requires the unanimity of all 28 member states, on any new punitive measures, a fact made clear by the bloc’s top diplomat after chairing foreign minister talks on Monday.

“We didn’t discuss, not today, not last week (and) I don’t foresee any discussion also in the future, further sanctions from the EU side on Iran,” EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini told reporters when asked about Macron’s comments.

“Ballistic missiles are not in the scope of the (nuclear deal),” she said. “This is a discussion and a proposal that was never raised at our table in these recent months and I don’t foresee this happening in the near future.”

Iran and Saudi Arabia are locked in a struggle for Middle East predominance. Their rivalry flared again earlier this month with the resignation of Saudi-backed Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri, who blamed an alleged assassination plot against him and accused Tehran and its heavily armed Lebanese ally Hezbollah of sowing conflict in the Arab world.

The U.S. administration official declined to say what the Congress might do in the wake of Trump’s action but said any new U.S. sanctions would be targeted narrowly at people and entities involved directly in the areas of concern.

“We should expect to see a continued use of the U.S. sanctions tool in the areas such as proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, support for terrorist organizations and the deterioration of human rights inside Iran.”

The U.S. official also said the West should keep up pressure on Russia as long as it does not reverse its 2015 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine or implement its side of a peace deal for Ukraine’s east, gripped by a Moscow-backed insurgency.

The EU’s own economic sanctions on Moscow, which restrict business with the Russian energy, defense and financial sectors, are currently in place until the end of January 2018.

(Reporting by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Erdogan swipes at Russia, U.S. missions in Syria

ANKARA/SOCHI (Reuters) – Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan took swipes at U.S. and Russian interventions in Syria on Monday and said if countries truly believed a military solution was impossible, they should withdraw their troops.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump said in a joint statement on Saturday they would continue to fight against Islamic State in Syria, while agreeing that there was no military solution to the country’s wider, six-year-old conflict.

“I am having trouble understanding these comments,” Erdogan told reporters before flying to Russia for talks with Putin. “If a military solution is out of the question, then those who say this should pull their troops out.

“Then a political method should be sought in Syria, ways to head into elections should be examined… We will discuss these with Putin,” he said.

After more than four hours of talks with Putin in the southern Russian resort of Sochi, Erdogan said the two leaders had agreed to focus on a political solution to the conflict.

“We agreed that the grounds to focus on a political solution (in Syria) have been formed,” he said.

Putin said Russia would continue to work on Syria with Turkey and their efforts were yielding results: “The level of violence has definitely been reduced, favorable conditions are being created for the progression of a inter-Syrian dialogue.”

Neither leader went into more specific detail. Asked if the two discussed Erdogan’s earlier comments, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the talks were about more complex issues which could not be made public, according to RIA news agency.

Turkey has been annoyed by both Russian and U.S. missions in Syria. Before his trip to Russia, Erdogan said both Moscow, which backs President Bashar al-Assad, and Washington, which armed Syrian YPG Kurdish forces Ankara sees as allied to separatists fighting in southeastern Turkey, had set up bases.

“The United States said it would completely leave Iraq, but it didn’t. The world is not stupid, some realities are being told differently and practiced differently,” he said.

He said the United States had 13 bases in Syria and Russia had five. The YPG has said Washington has established seven military bases in areas of northern Syria. The U.S.-led coalition says it does not discuss the location of its forces.

Russia has been a strong supporter of Assad, whose removal Erdogan has demanded, and Moscow’s military intervention two years ago helped turn the conflict in the Syrian president’s favor.

Turkish troops have also fought in Syria to halt the advance of Kurdish YPG forces along its frontier.

“We attach great importance to the joint steps Turkey and Russia will take on (the) defense industry,” Erdogan said.

His remarks follow Turkey’s recently completed purchase of Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile systems, a defense deal that Turkey’s Western allies see as a snub to the NATO alliance.

The weapon cannot be integrated into NATO defenses.

Ankara says it is making agreements with the Franco-Italian EUROSAM consortium to develop, produce and use its own sources for air defense system.

(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu and Ece Toksabay in ANKARA, Olesya Astakhova in SOCHI and Ezgi Erkoyun in Istanbul; Writing by Dominic Evans and Jack Stubbs; Editing by Ralph Boulton and Peter Graff, William Maclean)

Iran ends quake rescue operations, hungry survivors battle cold

By Parisa Hafezi

ANKARA (Reuters) – Iranian officials said there was little chance of finding more survivors from the earthquake that shook parts of western Iran on Sunday, killing at least 450 people, and rescue operations had now been called off, state television said on Tuesday.

Survivors, many left homeless by the 7.3 magnitude earthquake that struck villages and towns in a mountainous area bordering Iraq, battled overnight temperatures just above freezing and faced another bleak day on Tuesday in need of food and water.

President Hassan Rouhani arrived in the morning in the stricken area in Kermanshah province and promised that the government would “use all its power to resolve the problems in the shortest time”.

At least 14 provinces in Iran were affected by the quake which destroyed two whole villages, damaged 30,000 houses and left thousands of people injured.

Thousands of people huddled in makeshift camps while many others chose to spend a second night in the open, despite low temperatures, because they feared more tremors after some 193 aftershocks, state television said.

A homeless young woman in Sarpol-e Zahab, one of the hardest-hit towns, told state TV that her family was exposed to the night cold because of lack of tents.

“We need help. We need everything. The authorities should speed up their help,” she said.

Television showed rescue workers combing through the rubble of dozens of villages immediately after the quake. But Iranian officials said chances of finding any more survivors were remote.

“The rescue operations in Kermanshah province have ended,” Pir-Hossein Kolivand, head of Iran’s Emergency Medical Services, said.

Iran’s top authority, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, offered his condolences on Monday and called on government agencies to do all they could to help.

Iranian army, the elite Revolutionary Guards and its affiliated Basij militia forces were dispatched to affected areas on Sunday night.

A woman reacts next to a dead body following an earthquake in Sarpol-e Zahab county in Kermanshah, Iran. Tasnim News Agency/Handout via REUTERS

BITTER COLD

Hospitals in nearby provinces took in many of the injured, state television said, airing footage of survivors waiting to be treated. Hundreds of critically injured were dispatched to hospitals in Tehran.

Iran’s Red Crescent said emergency shelter had been provided for thousands of homeless people, but a lack of water and electricity as well as blocked roads in some areas hindered aid supply efforts.

“People in some villages are still in dire need of food, water and shelter,” governor of Qasr-e Shirin Faramarz Akbari said.

The mayor of Ezgeleh, a city in Kermanshah, said 80 percent of their buildings had collapsed and they desperately needed tents with elderly people and babies as young as one-year-old sleeping in the cold for two straight nights.

In an interview with state television Nazar Barani asked people to send them fuel, milk, water and food as emergency services were too slow and providing limited provisions.

A local man told ISNA news agency that “people are hungry and thirsty. There is no electricity. Last night I cried when I saw children with no food or shelter.”

More than 30,000 houses in the area were damaged and at least two villages were completely destroyed, Iranian authorities said.

Houses in Iranian villages are often made of concrete blocks or mudbrick that can crumble and collapse in a strong quake. Some people are angry that among the collapsed buildings were houses that the government has built in recent years under its affordable housing program.

Photographs posted on Iranian news websites showed rescue workers digging people out of collapsed buildings, cars smashed beneath rubble and rescue dogs trying to find signs of life under the twisted remains of collapsed buildings.

“More people will die because of cold. My family lives in a village near Sarpol-e Zahab. I cannot even go there. I don’t know whether they are dead or alive,” Rojan Meshkat, 38, in the Kurdish city of Sanandaj told Reuters by telephone.

Iran is crisscrossed by major fault lines and has suffered several devastating earthquakes in recent years, including a 6.6 magnitude quake in 2003 that reduced the historic southeastern city of Bam to dust and killed some 31,000 people.

The quake, centered in Penjwin in Iraq’s Sulaimaniyah province in the Kurdistan region, killed at least six people in Iraq and injured more than 68. In northern Iraq’s Kurdish districts, seven were killed and 325 wounded.

A man gestures inside a damaged building following an earthquake in Sarpol-e Zahab county in Kermanshah, Iran. REUTERS/Tasnim News Agency

(Writing by Parisa Hafezi in Ankara, additional reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin in London, Editing and Nick Macfie and Richard Balmforth)

Hezbollah media unit: Islamic State leader reported in Syrian town

BEIRUT (Reuters) – A Hezbollah-run media unit said on Friday Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was reported to have been in the Syrian town of Albu Kamal during the Syrian army and its allies’ operation to clear it.

The military unit did not say what had happened to Baghdadi, give further details or identify its sources.

The U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State said on Friday it had no “releasable information” on Baghdadi’s whereabouts.

Syria’s army declared victory over Islamic State on Thursday, saying its capture of the jihadists’ last town in the country marked the collapse of their three-year rule in the region.

But the army and its allies are still fighting Islamic State in desert areas close to Albu Kamal near the border with Iraq, the Syrian army said on Thursday.

On Friday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Islamic State has taken back control of half of Albu Kamal.

The capture of the border town had sealed “the fall of the terrorist Daesh organization’s project in the region”, an army statement said on Thursday, using the Arabic acronym for Islamic State.

An audio message purported to be from Baghdadi was released in September. Baghdadi declared himself caliph and heir to Islam’s historic leaders from the great medieval mosque in Iraq’s Mosul in 2014.

(This version of the story was refiled to clarify source in headline)

(Reporting by Sarah Dadouch; Editing by Samia Nakhoul, Tom Perry and Andrew Roche)

Jailed German-Turkish reporter sees Turkey drifting toward fascism

BERLIN (Reuters) – Deniz Yucel, a German-Turkish journalist detained by Ankara since February, has accused Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan of subjecting his entire society to a “regime of fear” and said Turkey is drifting toward fascism.

Yucel, 44, a correspondent for the newspaper Die Welt, made the remarks in a lengthy interview with the German newspaper die tageszeitung to be published on Saturday.

Turkish authorities arrested Yucel, on Feb. 14 on charges of propaganda in support of a terrorist organization, during a wave of arrests prompted by a failed coup attempt in July 2016.

Germany is backing a complaint filed by Yucel with the European Court of Human Rights, and has repeatedly called for him and other Germans being held in Turkey to be released.

The detentions have contributed to a sharp deterioration in relations between the two NATO allies.

In total, Ankara has jailed more than 50,000 people pending trial and suspended or dismissed some 150,000 state workers including teachers, judges and soldiers since the coup, which Turkey blames on the movement of U.S-based cleric Fethullah Gulen. Gulen has denied any role, and condemned the coup.

Yucel told the newspaper he remained in solitary confinement at Silivri prison, west of Istanbul. “Solitary confinement is torture,” he said.

Yucel also said that even his prison guards were afraid of making a wrong move: “A regime of fear is not directed solely at its critics, but also affects members of the oppressive apparatus.”

He said Erdogan himself had the most to fear: “He knows what to expect if he loses power, and that is why he is subjecting the whole society to his regime of fear.”

Yucel said he hoped the European Court would act quickly on his case after a Nov. 28 deadline for Turkey to submit its position, but that he was not sure what to expect.

He said that, like many of Erdogan’s critics, he was disappointed that the court had rejected cases brought by teachers and government workers affected by the crackdown, which Erdogan says is necessary to guarantee Turkey’s stability.

“But I also know the European Court of Human Rights was founded to deal with individual human rights violations, not to stop a whole country drifting into fascism,” he said.

The newspaper said the interview had been conducted in writing via Yucel’s lawyers.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Hezbollah says Saudi declares war on Lebanon, detains Hariri

Lebanon's Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah is seen on a video screen as he addresses his supporters in Beirut, Lebanon November 10,

By Tom Perry and Ellen Francis

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Hezbollah’s leader said on Friday that Saudi Arabia had declared war on Lebanon and his Iran-backed group, accusing Riyadh of detaining Saad al-Hariri and forcing him to resign as Lebanon’s prime minister to destabilize the country.

Hariri’s resignation has plunged Lebanon into crisis, thrusting the small Arab country back to the forefront of regional rivalry between the Sunni Muslim monarchy Saudi Arabia and Shi’ite revolutionary Islamist Iran.

Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said Saudi Arabia’s detention of Hariri, a long-time Saudi ally who declared his resignation while in Riyadh last Saturday, was an insult to all Lebanese and he must return to Lebanon.

“Let us say things as they are: the man is detained in Saudi Arabia and forbidden until this moment from returning to Lebanon,” Nasrallah said in a televised speech.

“It is clear that Saudi Arabia and Saudi officials have declared war on Lebanon and on Hezbollah in Lebanon,” he said. His comments mirror an accusation by Riyadh on Monday that Lebanon and Hezbollah had declared war on the conservative Gulf Arab kingdom.

Riyadh says Hariri is a free man and he decided to resign because Hezbollah was calling the shots in his government. Saudi Arabia considers Hezbollah to be its enemy in conflicts across the Middle East, including Syria and Yemen.

Western countries have looked on with alarm at the rising regional tension.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned other countries and groups against using Lebanon as vehicle for a larger proxy fight in the Middle East, saying Washington strongly backed Lebanon’s independence and respected Hariri as a strong partner of the United States, referring to him as prime minister.

“There is no legitimate place or role in Lebanon for any foreign forces, militias or armed elements other than the legitimate security forces of the Lebanese state,” Tillerson said in a statement released by the U.S. State Department.

The French foreign ministry said it wanted Hariri to be fully able to play what it called his essential role in Lebanon.

Hariri has made no public remarks since announcing his resignation in a speech televised from Saudi Arabia, saying he feared assassination and accusing Iran and Hezbollah of sowing strife in the Arab world.

Two top Lebanese government officials, a senior politician close to Hariri and a fourth source told Reuters on Thursday that the Lebanese authorities believe Hariri is being held in Saudi Arabia.

Nasrallah said Saudi Arabia was encouraging Israel to attack Lebanon. While an Israeli attack could not be ruled out entirely, he said, it was unlikely partly because Israel knew it would pay a very high price. “I warn them against any miscalculation or any step to exploit the situation,” he said.

“Saudi will fail in Lebanon as it has failed on all fronts,” Nasrallah said.

Riyadh has advised Saudi citizens not to travel to Lebanon, or if already there to leave as soon as possible. Other Gulf states have also issued travel warnings. Those steps have raised concern that Riyadh could take measures against the tiny Arab state, which hosts 1.5 million Syrian refugees.

AOUN TELLS SAUDI ENVOY HARIRI MUST RETURN

Hariri’s resignation unraveled a political deal among rival factions that made him prime minister and President Michel Aoun, a political ally of Hezbollah, head of state last year.

The coalition government included Hezbollah, a heavily armed military and political organization.

Hariri’s resignation is being widely seen as part of a Saudi attempt to counter Iran as its influence deepens in Syria and Iraq and as Riyadh and its allies battle Iranian-allied Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Aoun told Saudi Arabia’s envoy on Friday that Hariri must return to Lebanon and the circumstances surrounding his resignation as prime minister while in Saudi Arabia were unacceptable, presidential sources said.

An “international support group” of countries concerned about Lebanon, which includes the United States, Russia and France, appealed for Lebanon “to continue to be shielded from tensions in the region”. In a statement, they also welcomed Aoun’s call for Hariri to return.

In the first direct Western comment on Hariri’s status, France and Germany both said on Friday they did not believe Hariri was being held against his will.

“Our concern is the stability of Lebanon and that a political solution can be put in place rapidly,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told Europe 1 radio.

“As far as we know, yes: we think (Hariri) is free of his movements and it’s important he makes his own choices,” he said.

Tillerson told reporters on Friday there was no indication that Hariri was being held in Saudi Arabia against his will but that the United States was monitoring the situation.

Posters depicting Lebanon’s Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri, who has resigned from his post, are seen in Beirut, Lebanon, November 10, 2017. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir

STUCK BETWEEN ANTAGONISTIC INTERESTS

On Thursday, Hariri’s Future Movement political party said his return home was necessary to uphold the Lebanese system, describing him as prime minister and a national leader.

Aoun has refused to accept the resignation until Hariri returns to Lebanon to deliver it to him in person and explain his reasons.

Top Druze politician Walid Jumblatt said it was time Hariri came back after a week of absence “be it forced or voluntary”.

Jumblatt said on Twitter there was no alternative to Hariri.

In comments to Reuters, Jumblatt said Lebanon did not deserve to be accused of declaring war on Saudi Arabia. “For decades we’ve been friends,” he said.

“We are a country that is squeezed between two antagonistic interests, between Saudi Arabia and Iran,” he said. “The majority of Lebanese are just paying the price … Lebanon can not afford to declare a war against anybody.”

The Saudi foreign minister accused Hezbollah of a role in the launching of a ballistic missile at Riyadh from Yemen on Saturday. Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said Iran’s supply of rockets to militias in Yemen was an act of “direct military aggression” that could be an act of war.

Nasrallah mocked the Saudi accusation that Iran and Hezbollah were behind the firing of the missile from Yemen, saying Yemenis were capable of building their own missiles.

(Reporting by Dominiqu Vidalon and John Irish in Paris, Sarah Dadouch, Lisa Barrington, Laila Bassam and Tom Perry in Beirut; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Peter Graff)

Britain, Russia clash over Syria at chemical weapons body

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Britain accused Russia on Thursday of carrying out a “thinly veiled political attack” against the head of the world’s chemical weapons watchdog, escalating a row over the body’s investigation into toxic attacks in Syria.

The comments, made during a session at the Hague-based Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), were the latest sign of deep political division at the body over the Syrian conflict.

In an Oct. 26 report the U.N.-OPCW investigation team blamed the Syrian government for an April 4 attack using the banned nerve agent sarin in the opposition-held town of Khan Sheikhoun, killing around 80 people. The Syrian government has denied using chemical weapons and Moscow rejected the findings.

The mechanism was established in 2015 by the U.N. Security Council to identify individuals, organizations or governments responsible for chemical attacks in Syria. Its mandate expires on Nov. 17, but its work is incomplete.

Moscow is poised to veto efforts by Britain, France, Germany and the United States to extend the mandate.

A draft Russian-Iranian proposal circulated at the OPCW and seen by Reuters called for a new investigation, to be based on samples taken from the attack site. The Syrian government itself has already presented samples from the scene to the investigation team, which tested positive for sarin.

“It is a thinly veiled political attack on the professional integrity of the director general,” the British delegation said in a statement, referring to the OPCW’s outgoing Turkish head, Ahmet Uzumcu. “It seeks to undermine the capability and competence of the (OPCW).”

The Russian delegation at the OPCW could not be reached for comment.

Syria joined the OPCW after a sarin attack on Aug. 21, 2013, killed hundreds of people in Ghouta, a district on the outskirts of Damascus. It has said it declared and destroyed all its chemical stockpile, but chemical attacks continue in the country’s civil war [L4N1L24LP].

(Reporting by Anthony Deutsch; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Deep in Yemen war, Saudi fight against Iran falters

By Noah Browning

MARIB, Yemen (Reuters) – At a hospital in the Yemeni city of Marib, demand for artificial limbs from victims of the country’s war is so high that prosthetics are made on site in a special workshop.

A soldier with an artificial arm hitches up his robe to reveal a stump where his leg once was. He is angry that authorities have done little to help him since he was wounded.

“I was at the front and a mortar exploded near me. We fought well, but now I get no salary, no support from the government or anyone. They just left us,” said Hassan Meigan.

More than two years into a war that has already left 10,000 dead, regional power Saudi Arabia is struggling to pull together an effective local military force to defeat the Iranian-aligned Houthi movement that has seized large parts of Yemen.

The dysfunction is a reminder to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that his campaign to counter arch-enemy Iran in the Middle East, including threats against Tehran’s ally Hezbollah, may be hard to implement.

During a rare visit to a large area of Yemeni territory controlled by the pro-Saudi government, journalists saw a patchwork of mutually suspicious army units, whose loyalty to disparate regions and commanders has hindered their war against Houthi fighters.

Some soldiers appeared to be hunkering down in their bases rather than joining the fight. Those who do fight say salaries go unpaid for months. The front lines have barely moved for months.

Saudi Arabia has sought to create a unified military force based in Marib, but these troops have failed to eject the Houthis from the nearby capital Sanaa, where the Saudis see the rebels as a threat to their national security.

With Saudi politics in turmoil after a wave of high-profile arrests and Iranian influence growing, Yemeni officers recognize the importance of an effective army but acknowledge that success still eludes them.

“Empowering the National Army and unifying all weapons and authority under it is our goal. This is what we’re trying to accomplish so we can end the war with a military victory,” Brigadier General Marzooq al-Seyadi, a top Yemeni commander, told Reuters.

“The difficulties until now in achieving this in the face of local and ideological factors have posed problems … but with the aid of the Arab Coalition and the United States, which provides daily advice and support to our side, we will succeed.”

A coalition spokesman, Colonel Turki al-Malki, said in September that the mission was to back Yemen “whether it’s inside the country by supporting the Yemeni National Army or defending the borders and territory of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia”.

Sunni Saudi Arabia has led the mostly Gulf Arab coalition against the Shi’ite Houthis, since they seized the Yemeni capital and fanned out across the country.

But the Houthis’ rump state in Yemen’s Western highlands has weathered thousands of Saudi-led air strikes that have been aided by refueling and intelligence from the United States.

Denying they are a pawn of Iran, the Houthis say they are fighting to fend off a mercenary army in the thrall of the Gulf and the West.

The group launched a missile toward Riyadh’s main airport on Saturday, which Saudi Arabia said was a declaration of war by Tehran.

But after years of fighting that have ravaged the deeply poor country with hunger and disease, even some of Saudi Arabia’s staunchest allies in Yemen say they are angry at being manipulated from abroad.

“We’re fighting as proxies … (Western powers) can end the war in Yemen. They can pressure Iran and Saudi Arabia, solve their issues and their differences,” said Ali Abd-Rabbu al-Qadhi, a lawmaker and tribal leader from Marib.

“It’s Yemeni blood that’s being shed … We’re one society with common roots and one religion, but the international conflict has brought us to where we are,” said al-Qadhi, who wore a holstered pistol over his traditional Yemeni sarong.

ONWARD TO SANAA

Despite the lack of progress on the battlefield, some soldiers on the dusty streets of Marib appeared eager to fight.

“Onward to Sanaa, God willing!” smiled Abdullah al-Sufi, 20, whose khaki fatigues hung loose on his gangly frame.

“We know there are foreign conspiracies on Yemeni soil, there are problems, there are setbacks. But we are fighting for our country and for our homes, that’s the important thing.”

As war started in March 2015, after Saudi Prince Mohammed sent in troops, Yemen’s most powerful units had already sided with Houthi militiamen to rain rockets and tank fire on Marib, which the fledgling new army and allied tribes repelled.

In the most ambitious military adventure in their history, troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates took part in that fight, but were stung by scores of combat deaths.

The Arab forces have largely pulled back to a support role in bases far from the front line.

Now units trained by Saudi Arabia fight in scattered theaters with little obvious coordination, loyal to different parties and local leaders in a society awash with guns and notorious for its fickle politics.

The kingdom supports brigades adhering to Sunni Islam’s puritanical Salafi school in Western Yemen, while also backing the Muslim Brotherhood around Marib and loyalists of exiled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi in the south.

Additionally, the United Arab Emirates, – the other key Gulf power in the anti-Iran war effort in Yemen – has armed and trained formidable units across southern and eastern Yemen.

To add to the confusion, these fighters despise the Houthis as well as pro-Saudi units in northern Yemen.

YOUNG MARTYRS

Displayed on walls all over Marib, portraits of slain soldiers are captioned with poems praising them as “martyrs” and “lions.”

“My son is sixteen. He said ‘dad, give me a gun, I want to fight.’ He goes to the front now. No father is happy with this, but what can we do? This is a war, this is the situation we’re in,” said one Marib veteran.

Yemen’s government also appears to be living through difficult times.

President Hadi has been in Riyadh since being ejected from his country by the Houthis, and sources said his hosts have banned him from traveling for over a month, citing poor security in Yemen. Officials in his office denied the reports.

But the Saudi response this week to the Houthi ballistic missile – to close all ports, borders and airspace, the majority of which are nominally under Hadi’s control – appeared to deal an unprecedented rebuke to their ally.

Activist Khalid Baqlan expressed the fear of many young people and professionals that the errors of a weak government and foreign powers were hollowing out Yemeni society.

“What we’re seeing is not the building of real state institutions but the empowerment of groups with competing agendas who could fight in the future, benefiting no one,” said Baqlan, from the Saba Youth Council, a civil society group.

“There has to be a political solution, it’s the only way to save the country.”

Yemen’s stalemated war: http://tmsnrt.rs/2zshXBc

(Editing by Giles Elgood)

Turkish nationalist opposition seeks to secure parliamentary future

By Ercan Gurses

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey’s nationalist opposition will seek support from the ruling AK Party to lower a 10 percent threshold to enter parliament, a party official said on Thursday, in a sign that a new rival political party could shake up Turkish politics.

Former interior minister Meral Aksener broke with the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and formed her own Iyi Parti (“Good Party”) last month, posing a challenge to the MHP and to President Tayyip Erdogan’s AK Party.

Speaking to reporters in Ankara, MHP Deputy Chairman Semih Yalcin said his party, which could fall below the threshold if Iyi Parti’s apparent early popularity is sustained, would push to lower the barrier.

“The MHP has preparations regarding the (threshold) electoral law, and this will be discussed depending on the offers we receive (from the AK Party),” Yalcin said, a day after MHP leader Devlet Bahceli called the threshold “too harsh”.

Since 1982, political parties in Turkey have needed to win at least 10 percent of votes to be represented in the 550-seat parliament. The country faces presidential and parliamentary elections in 2019.

A recent poll suggested that Aksener’s party could overtake the main opposition secular CHP and push the MHP and pro-Kurdish opposition HDP out of parliament by forcing their share of the vote below the current threshold. It would also cut into the AK Party share of the vote.

The Islamist-rooted AK Party, led by Erdogan, is a broad organization, counting among its ranks nationalists and religious conservatives.

“Will they (Iyi) win 20 percent or one percent? We will see… Everyone will see how they hold up after they stand in front of the people in 2019,” Yalcin said of the Iyi Parti.

The MHP won as much as 18 percent of votes in a 1999 parliamentary election but slipped below the threshold at 9.5 percent in 2002. It has exceeded 10 percent since then.

Under an executive presidential system approved in an April referendum, the president will be given expanded powers. The number of MPs will be increased from 550 to 600, while the parliament’s authority will be reduced.

Critics argue that lowering the threshold, and the resulting change in the composition of parliament, would not have any great impact under the new presidential system.

The AK Party, founded by Erdogan, has dominated Turkish politics since 2002, holding a majority in parliament for 15 years. After winning almost 50 percent of votes in the latest parliamentary elections in 2015, Erdogan and party officials said they aimed to win more than half the votes in 2019.

(Writing by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Ece Toksabay)

Syria declares victory over Islamic State

By Angus McDowall and Sarah Dadouch

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syria’s army declared victory over Islamic State on Thursday, saying its capture of the jihadists’ last town in the country marked the collapse of their project in the region.

The army and its allies are still fighting Islamic State in desert areas near Albu Kamal, the last town the militant group had held in Syria, near the border with Iraq, the army said.

But the capture of the town ends Islamic State’s era of territorial rule over the so-called caliphate that it proclaimed in 2014 across Iraq and Syria and in which millions suffered under its hardline, repressive strictures.

Yet after ferocious defensive battles in its most important cities this year, where its fighters bled for every house and street, its final collapse has come with lightning speed.

Instead of a battle to the death as they mounted a last stand in the Euphrates valley towns and villages near the border between Iraq and Syria, many fighters surrendered or fled.

In Albu Kamal, the jihadists had fought fiercely, said a commander in the pro-Syrian government military alliance. But it was captured the same day the assault began.

This sealed “the fall of the terrorist Daesh organization’s project in the region”, an army statement said, using an Arabic term for Islamic State.

The fate of its last commanders is still unknown — killed by bombardment or in battle, taken prisoner but unidentified, or hunkered into long-prepared hideouts to plot a new insurgency.

The last appearance of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who declared himself caliph and heir to Islam’s historic leaders from the great medieval mosque in Iraq’s Mosul, was made in an audio recording in September.

“Oh Soldiers of Islam in every location, increase blow after blow, and make the media centers of the infidels, from where they wage their intellectual wars, among the targets,” he said.

Mosul fell to Iraqi forces in July after a nine-month battle. Islamic State’s Syrian capital of Raqqa fell in October to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a U.S.-backed alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias, after four months of fighting.

But all the forces fighting Islamic State in Syria and Iraq expect a new phase of guerrilla warfare, a tactic the militants have already shown themselves capable of with armed operations in both countries.

Western security chiefs have also said its loss of territory does not mean an end to the “lone-wolf” attacks with guns, knives or trucks plowing into civilians that its supporters have mounted around the world.

MIDDLE EAST CHAOS

As it did after previous setbacks, Islamic State’s leadership may now stay underground and wait for a new opportunity to take advantage of the chaos in the Middle East.

It might not have long to wait. In Iraq, a referendum on independence in the northern Kurdish region has already prompted a major confrontation between its autonomous government and Baghdad, backed by neighboring Iran and Turkey.

In Syria, it was two rival campaigns that raced across the country’s east this year, driving back Islamic State — the Syrian army backed by Russia, Iran and Shi’ite militias, and an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias backed by the United States.

Syrian officials and a senior advisor to Iran have indicated the Syrian army will now stake its claim to Kurdish-held territory. Washington has not yet said how it would respond to a protracted military campaign against its allies.

Aggravating the region’s tensions — and raising the possibility of turmoil from which Islamic State could benefit — is a contest for power between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

It has developed a religious edge, pitting Shi’ite groups supported by Iran against Sunni ones backed by Saudi Arabia, infusing the region’s wars with sectarian hatred.

A senior Iranian official this week spoke from Syria’s Aleppo of a “line of resistance” running from Tehran to Beirut, an implicit boast of its region-wide influence.

In recent days the rivalry has again escalated as Riyadh accused Lebanese Hezbollah of firing a missile from the territory in Yemen of another Iranian ally, the Houthi movement.

Hezbollah is a critical part of the Tehran-backed alliance helping Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. It was Hezbollah fighters who played the key role in ousting Islamic State from Albu Kamal, a commander in that alliance told Reuters.

ISLAMIC STATE’S FALLEN ‘STATE’

Baghdadi’s declaration of a caliphate in 2014 launched a new era in jihadist ambition. Instead of al Qaeda’s strategy of using militant attacks against the West to spur an Islamist revolution, the new movement decided to simply establish a new state.

It led to a surge in recruitment to the jihadist cause, attracting thousands of young Muslims to “immigrate” to a militant utopia slickly realized in propaganda films.

Islamic State’s leadership ranks included former Iraqi officials who well understood the running of a state. They issued identity documents, minted coins and established a morality police force.

Unlike previous jihadist movements that relied on donations from sympathizers, Islamic State’s territorial grip gave it command of a real economy. It exported oil and agricultural produce, levied taxes and traded in stolen antiquities.

On the battlefield, it adapted its tactics, using heavy weaponry captured from its enemies during its first flush of military success, adding tanks and artillery to its suicide bombers and guerrilla fighters.

It imprisoned and tortured foreigners, demanding ransoms for their release and killing those whose countries would not pay in grotesque films posted online.

The number of those treated in this way was as nothing to the multitude of Syrians and Iraqis Islamic State killed for their behavior, words, sexuality, religion, ethnicity or tribe. Some were burned alive, others beheaded and some dropped from the roofs of tall buildings.

Captured women were sold as brides at slave auctions. But as Islamic State was pushed from territory in recent months, there were pictures of women pulling off face veils and smoking previously banned cigarettes.

(Reporting By Angus McDowall, Sarah Dadouch and Lisa Barrington; Writing by Angus McDowall; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

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