Syrian rebel infighting kills 5 near Iraq border
BEIRUT – Al-Qaida-affiliated rebels battled more moderate Syrian opposition fighters in a town along the Iraq border on Saturday, killing at least five people in the latest outbreak of infighting among the forces opposed to President Bashar Assad’s regime.
Clashes between rebel groups, particularly pitting al-Qaida-linked extremist factions against more moderate units, have grown increasingly common in recent months, undermining the opposition’s primary goal of overthrowing Assad.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Saturday’s fighting took place in the town of al-Boukamal between the al-Qaida-linked Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant against more mainstream rebel groups.
Observatory director Rami Abdul-Rahman said the more moderate rebels used mosque loudspeakers Friday to demand the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant leave Boukamal. When it was clear Saturday the ISIL had no plans to decamp, the mainstream groups attacked, Abdul-Rahman said. Three mainstream rebels and two ISIL fighters were killed in the clashes, he said.
Syrian opposition elects interim prime minister
ISTANBUL – The main Western-backed opposition group in Syria has elected an interim prime minister as it seeks to firm up its standing as a viable political alternative there.
The Syrian National Coalition voted during a meeting in Istanbul on Saturday to name Ahmad Saleh Touma, a dentist and longtime political activist, to lead the group. Touma’s election comes as the United States and Russia have agreed to a deal to secure and destroy Syria’s chemical weapons and are seeking a breakthrough on broad talks to end the long and deadly Syrian civil war.
Touma will be charged with organizing governance in parts of Syria controlled by disparate rebel factions. He later said in a speech that they will work on returning Syria to a state that respects human life and rights.
Egypt’s Mubarak waves, grins as trial resumes
CAIRO – An Egyptian judge on Saturday named top security officials to testify in the retrial of former President Hosni Mubarak on charges related to the killings of around 900 protesters during the 2011 uprising that led to his ouster.
The 85-year-old longtime autocrat’s previous conviction for failing to stop the killings was overturned on appeals earlier this year, leaving still-open questions about who ordered the use of deadly force against protesters and who carried out those orders.
The naming of former prison and top intelligence officials in the case appeared to intertwine Mubarak’s trial with accusations facing his successor, Mohammed Morsi, who was ousted in a popularly-backed coup July 3 just one year after his election.
Morsi has been held since at an undisclosed military facility and is being investigated on allegations that he and other Muslim Brotherhood leaders conspired with the Palestinian Hamas group in the neighboring Gaza Strip to escape from prison during the anti-Mubarak uprising.
That allegation was raised again in court Saturday by defense lawyers who suggested that Hamas militants were behind the attacks on prisons and police stations in the northern Sinai Peninsula, which borders Gaza.
As the trial resumed, the army continued its largest offensive in years against militants in northern Sinai. Security officials said Saturday they uncovered explosives aimed at an Egyptian border post near a tunnel from Gaza, with a detonating wire leading back through a tunnel to Gaza.
Funeral bombing, attacks kill 25 in Iraq
BAGHDAD – A suicide bomber attacked a funeral Saturday in northern Iraq attended by members of an ethnic minority, part of a series of assaults that killed at least 25 across the country, officials said.
Iraq is weathering its deadliest bout of violence in half a decade, raising fears the country is returning to a period of widespread killing such as that which pushed it to the brink of civil war after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. More than 4,000 people have been killed in violent attacks since the start of April, including 804 just in August, according to United Nations figures.
In the suicide attack, the bomber detonated his explosive belt inside a tent during the afternoon ceremony held by members of the Shabak minority near the city of Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad.
Authorities said the blast in the village of Arto Kharab killed at least 20 people and wounded 35. The funeral was for a member of the Shabak minority who had died of natural causes, officials said.
Associated Press
