Tag Archives: Al Qaeda

U.S. warns about possible al Qaeda attacks in Virginia, Texas, NY

The rising sun lights One World Trade as it stands over the Manhattan borough of New York, U.S.,

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. intelligence officials have warned local authorities in New York, Texas and Virginia about possible attacks by al Qaeda on Monday, a day before the U.S. presidential election, CBS News reported on Friday, citing unnamed sources.

No specific locations were mentioned, but U.S. intelligence officials alerted joint terrorism task forces about the possible threat, CBS reported.

The FBI did not comment specifically on the report. “The counterterrorism and homeland security communities remain vigilant and well-postured to defend against attacks here in the United States,” it said in a statement on Friday.

The bureau was working closely with federal, state and local law enforcement to identify and disrupt any potential threats, it said.

Reuters could not immediately verify the report, and officials at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The potential for violent clashes is darkening an already rancorous presidential race between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump, on top of the threat of computer hacking and fears that Russia or other state actors could spread political misinformation online or tamper with voting.

And while federal and state authorities are beefing up cyber defenses against potential electronic attacks on voting systems ahead of Election Day, others are taking additional steps to guard against possible civil unrest or violence.

Local authorities in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Wisconsin and Florida told Reuters they were not boosting election-related law enforcement personnel or resources above 2012 levels.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey, Doina Chiacu in Washington and Nate Raymond in New York; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

Gunmen attack American university in Kabul, students flee

A wounded man lies inside an ambulance following an attack at American University of Afghanistan in Kabul, Afghanistan

By Hamid Shalizi

KABUL (Reuters) – Suspected militants stormed the Kabul campus of the American University of Afghanistan on Wednesday with some students jumping from second floor windows to escape the gunfire and explosions, witnesses and officials said.

Foreign staff and dozens of pupils were trapped in the compound hours after the attack began at about 6:30 p.m. (10 a.m. ET).

News of casualties was sketchy, but the head of hospitals in the Afghan capital said at least one person had been killed and 14 students wounded in the assault.

“Many students jumped from the second floor, some broke their legs and some hurt their head trying to escape,” Abdullah Fahimi, a student who escaped, told Reuters. He injured his ankle making the leap.

“We were in the class when we heard a loud explosion followed by gunfire. It was very close. Some students were crying, others were screaming.”

A senior interior ministry official said that elite Afghan forces had surrounded the university and witnesses at the scene said special forces had entered the walled compound where gunfire that had lasted for more than an hour had since stopped.

“There are two gunmen hiding inside the building and a clearing operation is ongoing to eliminate them,” interior ministry spokesman, Sediq Sediqqi, said.

CAR BOMB

Ahmad Mukhtar, another student who fled the scene, said the gunmen had got into the university buildings despite security measures including three or four armed guards and watchtowers.

He added that he believed the attack had started at the main gate into the compound.

“I finished my class and was about to leave when I heard a few gunshots and a huge explosion, followed by more gunfire,” he said. “I ran toward the emergency exit with other students, climbed the wall and jumped outside.”

Kabul police chief, Abdul Rahman Rahimi, told Reuters that the attack began with a car bomb and several attackers had entered the campus.

Islamist militant groups, mainly the Afghan Taliban and a local offshoot of Islamic State, have claimed a string of recent atrocities aimed at destabilizing the country and toppling the Western-backed government of President Ashraf Ghani.

No one has claimed the university attack.

It is the second time this month that the university or its staff have been targeted.

Two teachers, an American and an Australian, remain missing after being abducted at gunpoint from a road nearby on Aug. 7.

Taliban insurgents control large swathes of Afghanistan, and local armed forces are struggling to contain them, especially in the provinces of Helmand to the south and Kunduz to the north.

NATO ended its combat mission in December 2014, but thousands of troops remain to train and assist Afghan forces, while several thousand more U.S. soldiers are engaged in a separate mission focusing on al Qaeda and Islamic State.

(Writing by Mike Collett-White; Editing by Louise Ireland)

Attempt at U.S.-Russia cooperation in Syria suffers major setbacks

john kerry and sergei lavrov

By Tom Miles and John Walcott

GENEVA/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s attempt to elicit Russian military cooperation in the fight against Islamic State in Syria suffered two potentially crippling blows on Thursday.

First, the Syrian army said it had cut off all supply routes into the eastern part of the city of Aleppo – Syria’s most important opposition stronghold – and President Bashar al-Assad’s government asked residents to leave the city.

That move, U.S. officials speaking on condition of anonymity said on Thursday, appeared to be an effort to pre-empt a U.S. demand that Russia and Syria reopen a major road into the divided northern city before talks could begin on creating a joint intelligence center to coordinate air attacks against Islamic State.

Then al Qaeda’s Syrian branch announced on Thursday it was terminating its relationship with the global network created by Osama bin Laden and changing its name to remove what it called a pretext by the United States and other countries to attack Syrians.

Although one U.S. official called it “a change in name only,” the move complicates the American proposal to limit the Russians and Syrians to targeting only Nusra and IS, not other rebel groups supported by Washington and its allies in the coalition against Islamic State.

“By disavowing its ties to al Qaeda – which, incidentally, it did with al Qaeda’s blessing – Nusra has made it harder to isolate it from more moderate groups, some of whose members may join it now because it’s more powerful than some of the groups they belong to now,” said the official.

U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said Washington has been clear about its concerns over the announcement of the humanitarian corridor and that its view of the Nusra Front had not changed despite its name change.

“But we also remain committed to the proposals reached by the United States and Russia to better enforce the cessation of hostilities in Syria and provide the space needed for a resumption of political talks. If fully implemented in good faith, they can achieve a measure of success that has eluded us thus far,” Kirby told Reuters.

“As the secretary made clear, however, we are pragmatic about these efforts, and we will look to Russia to meet its commitments as we will meet ours. That will be the primary, determining factor of success here,” he added.

FALTERING PROPOSAL

The twin U.S. goals in Syria have been ending the violence that already has claimed some 400,000 lives, according to United Nations estimates, and seeking a political process to replace Assad, whom President Barack Obama has said “must go.”

But while Washington and Moscow have both expressed hope they can find a way to cooperate against IS, Kerry’s proposal was already in trouble due to the competing objectives of the Cold War-era foes as well as resistance from U.S. military and intelligence officials.

U.S. officials questioned Russian and Syrian claims that their aim in evacuating civilians from Aleppo was to clear the way for humanitarian assistance to reach the besieged city, where 200,000-300,000 civilians remain with only two to three weeks of food on hand.

“Why would you evacuate a city that you wanted to send humanitarian aid to?” asked one official. “At first glance, that would appear to be a unilateral effort by Moscow and Assad to pre-empt Kerry’s demand for ending the siege of Aleppo before starting negotiations on the larger issues. If the proposal isn’t dead, it seems to be pretty badly wounded.”

U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura wants a deal as soon as possible so he can restart peace talks within a month and aid flows can resume.

(Reporting by Tom Miles in Geneva and John Walcott in Washington, additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed; editing by G Crosse)

Bin Laden’s son threatens revenge for father’s assassination

Newspaper headlines and clippings are posted on a wall inside a staff office at the White House in Washington May 2, 2011, the morning after U.S. President Barack Obama announced the death of Osama bin Laden.

DUBAI (Reuters) – The son of slain al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has threatened revenge against the United States for assassinating his father, according to an audio message posted online.

Hamza bin Laden promised to continue the global militant group’s fight against the United States and its allies in the 21-minute speech entitled “We Are All Osama,” according to the SITE Intelligence Group.

“We will continue striking you and targeting you in your country and abroad in response to your oppression of the people of Palestine, Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia and the rest of the Muslim lands that did not survive your oppression,” Hamza said.

“As for the revenge by the Islamic nation for Sheikh Osama, may Allah have mercy on him, it is not revenge for Osama the person but it is revenge for those who defended Islam.”

Osama bin Laden was killed at his Pakistani hideout by U.S. commandos in 2011 in a major blow to the militant group which carried out the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

Documents recovered from bin Laden’s compound and published by the United States last year alleged that his aides tried to reunite the militant leader with Hamza, who had been held under house arrest in Iran.

Hamza, now in his mid-twenties, was at his father’s side in Afghanistan before the 9/11 attacks and spent time with him in Pakistan after the U.S.-led invasion pushed much of al Qaeda’s senior leadership there, according to the Brookings Institution.

Introduced by the organization’s new chief Ayman al-Zawahiri in an audio message last year, Hamza provides a younger voice for the group whose aging leaders have struggled to inspire militants around the world galvanized by Islamic State.

“Hamza provides a new face for al Qaeda, one that directly connects to the group’s founder. He is an articulate and dangerous enemy,” according to Bruce Riedel of Brookings.

(Reporting By Asma Alabed; Editing by Noah Browning and Janet Lawrence)

Al Queda warns of grave consequences if Boston marathon bomber executed

File photo of Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in this handout photo presented as evidence by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Boston

CAIRO (Reuters) – Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri has warned the United States of the “gravest consequences” if Boston marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev or any other Muslim prisoner is executed.

Tsarnaev, named in a new online video message from Zawahri, was sentenced last year to death by lethal injection for the 2013 bomb attack, which killed three people and injured more than 260.

“If the U.S. administration kills our brother the hero Dzhokhar Tsarnaev or any Muslim, it … will bring America’s nationals the gravest consequences,” Zawahri said.

Zawahri, who became al Qaeda’s leader after U.S. forces killed Osama bin Laden in 2011, urged Muslims to take captive as many Westerners as possible, especially those whose countries had joined the “Crusaders’ Campaign led by the United States”.

The veteran Egyptian-born Islamist, shown wearing white robes and sitting in front of green velvet drapes, said the Western captives could then be exchanged for Muslim prisoners.

Western powers “are criminals and they only understand the language of force”, he added.

The nearly hour-long video, which included images of Tsarnaev, gave no indication of the location of Zawahri, believed to be based close to the Afghan-Pakistan border.

Tsarnaev carried out the Boston bombings along with his older brother Tamerlan, who was killed in a confrontation with police soon after. No organization claimed responsibility.

Tsarnaev is being held at the “Supermax” high-security prison in Florence, Colorado, while his attorneys appeal his death sentence.

Legal wrangling over Tsarnaev’s fate could play out for years or even decades. Just three of the 74 people sentenced to death in the United States for federal crimes since 1998 have been executed.

(Reporting by Mostafa Hashem; Writing by Amina Ismail; Editing by Andrew Roche)

Phillippines confirms execution of Canadian by al Qaeda

Philippine President Aquino arrives at a session of the ASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

By Allison Martell and Manuel Mogato

TORONTO/MANILA (Reuters) – The Philippines confirmed on Tuesday the execution of a Canadian who had been held hostage by the al Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf Islamist militant group on a remote southern island with three other people since September 2015.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in Toronto on Monday that it appeared the second execution of a Canadian hostage by Abu Sayyaf in recent months had taken place.

That was later confirmed in Manila.

“We strongly condemn the brutal and senseless murder of Mr. Robert Hall, a Canadian national, after being held captive by the Abu Sayyaf group in Sulu for the past nine months,” outgoing Philippines President Benigno Aquino said in a statement.

A Philippines military spokesman said earlier a severed head had been found near a Catholic cathedral on a remote southern island late on Monday. No identification had been made yet.

Hall was taken captive by the militants with three others from an upscale resort on Samal island, hundreds of miles east of Jolo. Another Canadian who was held captive, former mining executive John Ridsdel, was executed by the group in April.

A Norwegian man and a Filipina are still being held.

Trudeau told reporters that “Canada holds the terrorist group who took Mr. Hall hostage fully responsible for this cold-blooded and senseless murder”.

He said Sunday’s attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, and the killing of Hall “serve as devastating reminders for all of us, the vicious acts of hatred and violence cannot be tolerated in any form”.

Abu Sayyaf, based in the south of the mainly Roman Catholic Philippines, is known for kidnapping, beheadings and extortion.

Security is precarious in the southern Philippines despite a 2014 peace pact between the government and the largest Muslim rebel group that ended 45 years of conflict.

In Manila, President-elect Rodrigo Duterte’s national security adviser said Duterte’s new government, which takes charge on June 30, would “take a stronger action against lawlessness in the south”.

“We cannot allow this situation to continue, this should end once and for all,” Duterte’s adviser Hermogenes Esperon told Reuters.

Abu Sayyaf had initially demanded one billion pesos ($21.7 million) each for the detainees, but it lowered the ransom to 300 million pesos each early this year.

Preliminary intelligence reports in the Philippines indicated Hall had been beheaded 10 minutes after a 3 p.m. deadline lapsed in the mountains outside Jolo’s Patikul town.

Philippine media had already quoted Abu Raami, a spokesman for Abu Sayyaf, confirming the execution.

(Reporting by Allison Martell in TORONTO and Manuel Mogato in MANILA; Editing by W Simon and Paul Tait)

Islamist militants exploit chaos as combatants pursue peace in Yemen

Followers of Houthi movement

By Mohammed Ghobari and Noah Browning

CAIRO/DUBAI (Reuters) – Islamic State efforts to exploit chaos may have brought Saudi-backed forces and Iran-allied Houthis tentatively closer at peace talks in Yemen’s civil war, but a deal seems unlikely in time to avert collapse into armed, feuding statelets.

Ferocious conflict along Yemen’s northern border between Saudi Arabia and Iran-allied Ansurallah, a Shi’ite Muslim revival movement also called the Houthis, defied two previous attempts to seal a peace. But a truce this year and prisoner exchanges mean hopes for a third round of talks are higher.

The threat from an emerging common enemy may be galvanizing their efforts. Islamic State appears to be behind a dizzying uptick in suicide attacks and al Qaeda fighters continue to hold sway over broad swathes of the country that abuts Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter.

Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said on Thursday the kingdom sought to prioritize fighting militants in Yemen over its desultory arm-wrestle with entrenched Houthi insurgents.

“Whether we agree or disagree with them, the Houthis are part of the social fabric of Yemen … The Houthis are our neighbors. Al Qaeda and Daesh are terrorist entities that must be confronted in Yemen and everywhere else,” Jubeir tweeted, using the Arabic acronym for Islamic State.

Now largely stalemated, the conflict has killed at least 6,200 people – half of them civilians – and sent nearly three million people fleeing for safety.

Despite the relative lull during talks, hostility continues. Saudi Arabia has pounded its enemies with dozens of air strikes. Houthis have responded with two ballistic missile launches.

If the parties seize the opportunity, an unlikely new status quo may reign by which Houthis and Saudis depend on each other for peace.

“This could mean a massive re-ordering of Yemen’s political structure, and the conflict so far has already produced some strange bedfellows,” said Adam Baron, a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

The Houthis ousted the internationally recognized government in 2014 in what it hailed as a revolution but which Sunni Gulf Arab countries decried as a coup benefiting Shi’ite rival Iran.

Pounding the Houthis and their allies in Yemen’s army with air strikes beginning on March of 2015, a Saudi-led alliance soon deployed ground troops and rolled back their enemies toward Sanaa, held by the Houthis.

A near-blockade imposed by the Saudi-led coalition and frontlines which ebb and flow across villages and towns have deprived nearly 20 of 25 million people of access to clean water and put yet more in need of some form of humanitarian aid.

“SURRENDER”

Of the countries where pro-democracy “Arab Spring” uprisings in 2011 ultimately led to outright combat, Yemen’s United Nations-sponsored peace process arguably shows the most promise.

Unlike with Libya and Syria, representatives of Yemen’s warring sides meet daily in Kuwait and argue over how to implement U.N. Security Council resolutions and share power.

But while keeping Yemen’s parties talking for this long was an accomplishment, getting them to live together in Sanaa and share power remains a distant dream.

Yemeni Foreign Minister Abdel-Malek al-Mekhlafi accused the Houthis of resisting a U.N. Security Council Resolution from last April to disarm and vacate main cities.

“There is a wide gap in the debate, we are discussing the return of the state … they are thinking only of power and demanding a consensual government,” he told Reuters.

Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdel-Salam said on his facebook page: “The solution in Yemen must be consensual political dialogue and not imposing diktats or presenting terms of surrender, this is unthinkable.”

But a diplomatic source in Kuwait said that through the fog of rhetoric, a general outline of a resolution has been reached.

“There is an agreement on the withdrawal from the cities and the (Houthi) handover of weapons, forming a government of all parties and preparing for new elections. The dispute now only centers around where to begin,” the source said.

FEUDING STATELETS

All parties will be aware the danger of a collapse into feuding statelets is growing. The Houthis are deepening control over what remains of the shattered state it seized with the capital in 2014.

Footage of the graduation ceremony of an elite police unit last week showed recruits with right arms upraised in an erect salute, barking allegiance not just to Yemen but to Imam Ali and the slain founder of the Houthi movement – a move critics say proves their partisan agenda for the country.

Meanwhile the Houthis’ enemies in the restive, once independent South agitate ever more confidently for self-rule.

Militiamen in Aden last week expelled on the back of trucks more than 800 northerners they said lacked proper IDs and posed a security risk.

The tranquility amid the gardens and burbling fountains of the Kuwaiti emir’s palace hosting the talks have not impressed residents of Yemen’s bombed-out cities, who despair whether armed groups can ever be reined in.

“All the military movements on the ground suggest the war will resume and that both parties are continuing to mobilize their fighters on the front lines,” said Fuad al-Ramada, a 50-year old bureaucrat in the capital Sanaa.

(Writing By Noah Browning; editing by Ralph Boulton)

Yemeni government forces kill 800 plus al Qaeda fighters

People inspect damage at a site hit by Saudi-led air strikes in the al Qaeda-held port of Mukalla city in southern Yemen

DUBAI (Reuters) – Yemeni government forces and their allies killed more than 800 al Qaeda fighters when they advanced into the port city of Mukalla, the Saudi-led pro-government coalition said.

Yemeni and Emirati soldiers seized the seaport on Sunday, depriving the group of the stronghold that has enabled it to amass a fortune during the country’s civil war.

“In its first hours, the operation resulted in killing more than 800 members of al Qaeda and a number of their leaders while the rest fled,” the coalition said in a statement carried by Saudi state news agency SPA late on Sunday.

Local Yemeni officials and residents said on Sunday that some 2,000 Yemeni and Emirati troops advanced into Mukalla, taking control of its maritime port and airport and setting up checkpoints throughout the southern coastal city.

They also said they had witnessed little fighting during the offensive.

(Reporting by Ahmed Tolba in Cairo, writing by Sami Aboudi; editing by John Stonestreet)

Syria’s Assad shows no willingness to compromise

Syria's President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview with Russia's RIA news agency

By Samia Nakhoul

CAIRO (Reuters)- – As the Syria peace talks resume next week, President Bashar al-Assad, backed militarily by Iran and Russia, shows no willingness to compromise, much less step aside to allow a transition Western powers claim is the solution to the conflict.

Threatened by rebel advances last year, Assad is now pumped up with confidence after Russian air strikes reversed the tide and enabled his army to recover lost ground from Sunni insurgents as well as the jihadis of Islamic State.

While Syria experts doubt he can recapture the whole country without an unlikely full-scale ground intervention by Russia and Iran, they also doubt President Vladimir Putin will force him out – unless there is a clear path to stability, which could take years.

Instead, Russia’s dramatic military intervention last September — after five years of inconclusive fighting between Assad and fragmented rebel groups mostly from Syria’s Sunni majority — has tilted the balance of power in his favour and given him the upper hand at the talks in Geneva.

The main target of the Russian air force bombardment was mainstream and Islamist forces that launched an offensive last summer. Only recently have Russia and Syrian forces taken the fight to Islamic State, notably by recapturing Palmyra, the Graeco-Roman city the jihadis overran last year.

The Russian campaign, backed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and Shi’ite militia such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah, has for now outmatched the rebels, including the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front and units supported by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, and the United States.

REBELS LOSE MOMENTUM

Dealing with those groups rather than Islamic State seemed the main aim of Moscow’s intervention, analysts say.

“The Russian intervention fundamentally reshaped the Syrian conflict,” says Kheder Khaddour from the Carnegie Middle East Center. “The momentum of the rebels does not exist any more.”

Putin, diplomats say, weakened the opposition to coax it into accepting a settlement on Russian and Syrian terms. That does not mean the “transitional authority” sought by the U.S. and its allies, but a government expanded to include elements of the opposition, with Assad at its head for the immediate future.

Russia still wants Assad to lead the transition to the elections, while the opposition and its regional allies, including the United States and Europe, insist he should step down. So far no compromises are in sight.

“We need things to advance in the coming weeks. If the political process is just about putting a few opposition people in nominal cabinet posts then this isn’t going to go very far,” said a European diplomat close to the talks..

“If there isn’t a political transition the civil war will continue and Islamic State will benefit from it,” he said.

Fawaz Gerges, author of ISIS: A History, said: “At this point the Russians have the upper hand in dictating a solution. The Americans are playing on Russia’s playing field.”

UNCERTAINTY

His judgment is underlined by Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, who boasted in a recent interview that “the Americans understand they can do nothing without Russia. They can no longer solve serious problems on their own”.

Yet uncertainty surrounds Moscow’s intentions, after Putin suddenly withdrew part of his forces from Syria last month. That led to speculation among Assad’s enemies that Russia was contemplating whether to ditch Assad – an outcome many Syria watchers find highly improbable.

“The key issue remains when and if the Russians will act to facilitate this transition. It’s unclear, and we get the feeling that the recent talks didn’t change much in the Russian position,” the European diplomat said.

“I don’t think the upcoming round will reach any real decisions on the political process, he added.

Gerges says the partial pull-back sent a message to the Americans that Russia is a rational and credible force that is interested in a diplomatic settlement.

It was also intended as a jolt to Assad, by then so emboldened at the way Russia and Iran had transformed his weak position that he was announcing plans to recapture all of Syria.

“The message to the Assad regime was that Russia doesn’t play by Assad’s playbook, it doesn’t want to get down in Syria’s quagmire (but) wants to cut its losses,” Gerges believes.

But it is far from clear that Assad interprets these messages the same way.

Last month, he dismissed any notion of a transition from the current structure, as agreed by international powers, calling instead for “national unity” solution with some elements of the opposition joining the present government.

“The transition period must be under the current constitution, and we will move on to the new constitution after the Syrian people vote for it,” Assad told Russia’s Sputnik news agency.

ASSAD “WILL NOT GO QUIETLY”

Faisal al-Yafai, a leading commentator from the United Arab Emirates, says Russia “played its cards in Syria very cleverly, but miscalculated in one aspect”.

“They assumed that once the (Assad) regime felt secure, it would be more willing to negotiate. In fact, the opposite has happened”.

“There’s a limit to the pressure that Russia can exert on Assad. Assad absolutely will not go quietly — and certainly not when there is no real alternative to him, even within the regime,” says al-Yafai.

Robert Ford, the former U.S. ambassador to Syria and now a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington, agrees that Russia may not be able to compel Assad to go.

The secret police backbone of Assad’s rule remains intact, he says, and “Assad seems confident again, after his much more sober tone last summer. The Russians may have helped him too much, such that Assad can maintain control of key cities and roads for a long time”.

Ford also drew attention to the competition over Syria between Russia and Iran, Assad’s two main allies. Moscow’s emphasis is on its traditional relations with the Syrian military establishment, while Tehran focusses on the militia network it built with Hezbollah to shore up the regime.

“Assad is plenty smart to know how to play one country off against the other. I am not even sure Russia would test its heavy pressure capacity against that of Iran in Damascus. The Russians know they might lose”, Ford said.

Russia’s involvement in Syria has given it greater insight into the structure of the Assad rule, constructed to intermesh the Assad family and allies from its minority Alawite community with the security services and military command.

ASSAD BUOYANT

Khaddour from Carnegie says Russia now realises the circumstances for a transition do not yet exist, because removing Assad might unravel the whole power structure.

“There is a problem within the regime. It is not capable of producing an alternative to itself internally,” says Khaddour, adding the only concession it has made – simply to turn up in Geneva – was the result of Russian pressure.

With limits to Russian and Iranian influence on a newly buoyant Assad, few believe the Geneva talks will bring peace.

“If the Russians felt it was time for a solution they would have reached an understanding with the Americans to give up on Assad without giving up on the Alawites. The circumstances are not ripe yet for a solution,” says Sarkis Naoum, a leading commentator on Syria.

The diplomat added: “The fundamental question is still whether the Russians are serious and want this to happen.”

“Nobody knows what’s in their mind and I’m not sure they even know.”

(Additional reporting by John Irish; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Yemen peace talks expected in Kuwait next month, official says

CAIRO (Reuters) – Talks aimed at ending Yemen’s war are expected in Kuwait next month along with a temporary ceasefire, a senior Yemeni government official said, raising the prospect of an end to violence that has killed thousands.

There have already been several failed attempts to defuse the conflict in Yemen, which has drawn in regional foes Saudi Arabia and Iran and triggered a humanitarian crisis in the Arab world’s poorest country.

On Tuesday Saudi-led airstrikes targeting al Qaeda-linked militants in eastern Yemen killed and wounded dozens of people, a provincial governor and medics said.

“The talks will be on April 17 in Kuwait, accompanied by a temporary ceasefire,” the Yemeni official said, declining to be named. There were two inconclusive rounds of peace talks in Switzerland last year.

A Saudi-led coalition began a military campaign in Yemen a year ago with the aim of preventing Iran-allied Houthi rebels and forces loyal to Yemen’s ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh from taking control of the country.

There was no immediate response from the Houthi militia regarding the prospect of talks. A prisoner swap and pause in combat on the border with Saudi Arabia earlier this month had raised hopes of a push to end the war.

Tuesday’s Saudi-led airstrikes hit an area west of Mukalla, a port city and capital of the Hadramout province. Residents said at least 30 militants were killed and many more wounded. A spokesman for the Saudi-led alliance was not immediately available for comment.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), an affiliate of the global Sunni Muslim militant organisation, has expanded its foothold in the country as the government focuses on its battle with the Houthi rebels.

The United Nations says more than 6,000 people have been killed since the start of the Saudi-led military intervention whose ultimate aim is to restore President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi following his ousting by Houthi and pro-Saleh forces.

“It has been a terrible year with air strikes, shelling and localized violence. An already very impoverished country has been put at a very sharp end,” Jamie McGoldrick, U.N. Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Yemen, told reporters in Geneva.

One in ten Yemenis is displaced, he said, adding that half of those killed and injured were civilians.

He said U.N. special envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed had been in the capital Sanaa over the past few days for discussions with parties involved and also was in Riyadh.

“What they are hoping for is to put in place a ceasefire of some kind or a cessation of hostilities for a week or so prior to the talks and build confidence,” he said.

The spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition and Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir have said that any peace talks can take place only between Hadi and the Houthis, and through the U.N. special envoy.

(Additional reporting by Mohamed Mukashaf in Aden and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Writing by Sylvia Westall; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Richard Balmforth)