National News

NEW DELHI // France’s defence minister will visit New Delhi this week in a fresh bid to secure a troubled deal to sell 126 Rafale fighter jets after a three-year delay and new questions about its cost. Jean-Yves Le Drian will meet his counterpart Manohar Parrikar and other officials on Monday and Tuesday to prevent the sale’s collapse ahead of an upcoming visit to Paris by India’s prime minister Narendra Modi. French company Dassault Aviation won the right in January 2012 to enter exclusive negotiations with India to supply 126 Rafale fighters, with experts saying a final deal could be worth US$12 billion (Dh44.1bn). The idea is for Dassault to supply 18 of the twin-engine fighters later this year while the remaining 108 would be made by state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd under technology transfer agreements with India. But negotiations have proved fraught, both under Mr Modi’s government and its Congress predecessor, while a committee which is looking into the...

Munich // The international coalition battling ISIL in Iraq and Syria is winning back territory and depriving the extremists of key funds, US secretary of state John Kerry said. Mr Kerry said that while defeating the group would be a long battle, there were signs the strategy adopted by more than 60 countries was working. Since August there have been 2,000 air strikes by the coalition, Mr Kerry told a global security conference in Munich. The UAE has played a key role in those attacks and on Saturday announced it had moved a squadron of F-16 fighter jets to Jordan to support the kingdom against the militants after they burnt alive a Jordanian pilot. Jordan has launched 56 airstrikes against ISIL’s weapons depots, training centres and military barracks since the group released a video of Maaz Al Kassasbeh’s execution, Jordan’s air force chief said on Sunday. Mr Kerry denounced the group’s “new level of depravity” and said the coalition’s efforts had helped re...

BEIRUT // Damascus receives information about the US-led coalition’s airstrikes against ISIL in Syria, president Bashar Al Assad said on Tuesday. “Sometimes, they convey a message, a general message,” he said in an interview with the BBC in Damascus. “There is no dialogue. There’s, let’s say, information, but not dialogue. “There’s no direct cooperation,” said Mr Al Assad, adding that the messages came to Damascus through third parties. “More than one party, Iraq and other countries. Sometimes they convey messages, general messages. But there’s nothing tactical,” he said. Damascus has grudgingly accepted the airstrikes against ISIL in its territory that began on September 23 last year, but has repeatedly criticised the coalition for failing to coordinate with it. Syrian officials say the raids cannot defeat ISIL unless the international community starts co-operating with Syrian troops on the ground. But Washington has ruled out co-operating with Mr...

NEW YORK // When Jordanian air force pilot Maaz Al Kassasbeh ejected from his F-16 above ISIL-controlled Raqqa last December, his chances of evading capture — and thus of survival — began to diminish rapidly after an hour. Combat search and rescue veterans call this the “golden hour” after a pilot is downed behind enemy lines, when the chances for rescue and surviving injuries are greatest. But in truth, the Jordanian airman probably had even less time. It was daytime and the nearest populated areas were held by ISIL; beyond that was the open desert. The US launched an “intensive airborne search” operation immediately after the plane went down, according to a State Department spokeswoman, who declined to give any details on how long it took the aircraft to arrive. That is likely because the nearest search and rescue units were more than 1,100 kilometres away, on a military base in Kuwait. “Not having a rescue package nearby could have cost the pilot his capture,” sa...

NEW YORK // Barack Obama formally asked the United States Congress on Wednesday to pass a new legal authorisation for military action against ISIL extremists that would be limited to three years. The draft bill also opens the door for US combat forces in Syria and Iraq in “limited circumstances” while prohibiting “enduring offensive ground combat operations”. The White House draft appeared to be an attempt to tread the middle ground between the demands of Republican hawks who have criticised Mr Obama for not committing enough resources to fight ISIL and Democrats who have been deeply wary of entering another conflict in the Middle East just as the US president has tried to draw 14 years of war to a close. For opposite reasons, legislators from both parties have called on Mr Obama to seek their cooperation in drafting the new law, and though the White House has said it is already on firm legal footing in launching attacks on ISIL, it appears to be finally acceding to...

WASHINGTON // Iran’s supreme leader has sent a secret but non-committal letter to US president Barack Obama in response to American overtures, amid talks to strike a nuclear accord, according to the Wall Street Journal. The newspaper cited an Iranian diplomat as saying Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had written to Mr Obama in response to the president’s letter sent in October. Mr Obama’s correspondence had suggested potential US-Iranian cooperation in fighting ISIL if a deal on Iran’s nuclear programme was struck, the diplomat told the newspaper in a report published on Friday. The supreme leader’s response was “respectful” but non-committal, the diplomat was quoted as saying. Mr Khamenei has the final word on all matters of state in Iran. Current and former US officials who viewed the correspondence said Mr Khamenei’s letter outlined a string of abuses he claimed the US had committed against the Iranian people during the past 60 years. Neither the White House nor t...

From Fidel Castro’s rebel headquarters to Guantanamo Bay, one of Cuba’s tourist trails begins with a bracing three-hour mountainside trek and ends with a journey past sugar plantations and along roads lined with tamarind trees. Those points of departure and destination stand as powerful symbols of two opposing cultures that are at last edging towards an uneasy rapprochement. For more than half a century since Mr Castro’s revolution toppled the hated Batista regime, Cuba has been the enemy at the door of the United States. At its nearest point, the defiant Communist state lies just 145 kilometres from the Florida coast. But it is out of bounds to all but a trickle of American visitors. Now, a cautious charm offensive by president Barack Obama, reciprocated in Havana, looks likely to end this relic of the Cold War. Hurdles remain: the US says its Guantanamo naval base is non-negotiable while Raúl Castro, the Cuban president since 2006 when ill health forced hi...

PHOENIX // Kayla Mueller was in a detention cell in Syria, face to face with her boyfriend who was posing as her husband. Had she told her captors she was married to Omar Alkhani, she might have been freed from the hands of ISIL militants, he said. Instead, she denied being his wife. Mr Alkhani had hoped to plead for her release, but he left empty-handed. He said he saw Mueller’s face for just a few seconds when guards uncovered it to show it was the American hostage from Prescott, Arizona. The guards told Mueller, 26, that Mr Alkhani would not be harmed if she told the truth, so she apparently stuck to honesty to save him rather than take the slim chance to save herself, he said. “Since she’s American, they would not let her go anyway. No sense to stay here, both of us,” Mr Alkhani said. “Maybe she wanted to save me. Maybe she didn’t know I came back to save her.” Thinking about others first was Mueller’s nature. She had long been content without spending the w...

New York // The emergence of an ISIL affiliate in Libya could prompt a renewed look in Washington at coordination between the US and Egypt. The White House has maintained chilly relations with the Sisi government as questions remain over Egypt’s internal politics and what exactly Cairo has to offer in the fight against extremists. The first clues about how the Obama administration will respond to Egypt’s bombing of ISIL targets in eastern Libya in response to the militants’ murder of 21 Christian Egyptian migrant workers may emerge this week at a three-day Washington conference on countering extremism. On Tuesday, Cairo called for an urgent international response to back up its strikes. After meetings at the UN Security Council, the Egyptian foreign minister, Sameh Shoukry, will attend the conference on Wednesday or Thursday, along with foreign ministers and other officials from more than 60 countries. White House officials said on Monday that the fight against ...

WASHINGTON // US president Barack Obama on Wednesday urged Western and Muslim leaders to unite to defeat the “false promises of extremism” and reject militants’ claims to represent Islam. “The terrorists do not speak for a billion Muslims,” Mr Obama told delegates from 60 countries at a White House summit on countering radicalism. “They try to portray themselves as religious leaders, holy warriors,” he said. “They are not religious leaders, they are terrorists.” After brutal attacks in Europe and the Middle East, Mr Obama said more must be done to prevent groups like ISIL and Al Qaeda from recruiting and radicalising. The battle, he said, was as much for hearts and minds as one waged by the military on the ground and in the air. The “ideologies, the infrastructure of extremists, the propagandists, the recruiters, the funders who radicalise and recruit or incite people to violence,” must be tackled. He challenged critics at home and moderate governments a...

ABU DHABI // The president of the US-UAE Business Council has described comments linking Arabian Gulf airlines such as Emirates and Etihad Airways to the September 11 terrorist attacks as “disappointing and irresponsible”. In an open letter, Danny Sebright said the comments made by Richard Anderson, the chief executive of Delta Air Lines, had “no place in the current debate over open skies” adding that the UAE had been a great ally to America. He said: “The 9/11 attacks were a national and global tragedy. Civilised countries and leaders condemned them in the strongest possible way.” Among them, he said, was Sheikh Zayed, the founding President of the UAE, who said at the time that the “criminal acts” of 9/11 should “prompt a strong international alliance to eradicate terrorism and all those who provide assistance to it or harbour it”. “The UAE is one of the US’s closest and most reliable defence and security partners in the global fight against terrorism and ext...

NEW YORK // Washington and Abu Dhabi are launching a new media initiative to tackle the radical religious narratives that have helped draw a small but dangerous number of young Muslims to support violent groups like ISIL, Barack Obama announced on Thursday at a White House conference on countering extremism. “We need to do more to help lift up voices of tolerance and peace, especially online,” the US president said. “That’s why the United States is joining…with the UAE to create a new digital communications hub to work with religious and civil society and community leaders to counter terrorist propaganda.” No further details on the initiative were immediately available. Mr Obama was speaking on the final day of a three-day conference, attended by foreign ministers and other officials from over 60 countries, focused on formulating and coordinating strategies to address the underlying factors that lead to violent radicalisation, as well as stopping the flow of foreign...

DHAKA // The death toll in a ferry accident in central Bangladesh soared to 69 on Monday, after emergency workers recovered more bodies from the wreckage of an overcrowded boat that sank after colliding with a cargo vessel. Authorities said “several” people were still unaccounted for after the ferry sank within two minutes of the collision on Sunday, making it impossible for passengers below deck to escape. It is the second deadly boat accident in a fortnight in Bangladesh, which is heavily reliant on ferries for transport but has a poor safety record. “This morning the bodies were found in the boat after it was raised and dragged to the shore,” police inspector Abdul Muktadir said after a salvage vessel raised the sunken ferry from the water. “The death toll is now 69,” he said. Government administrator Rashida Ferdous said most of the estimated 150 people on board had been accounted for. Those who were on the upper deck were able to swim away or were rescu...

ABOARD THE CHARLES DE GAULLE // A French aircraft carrier launched operations in the Arabian Gulf on Monday as Paris stepped up its participation in the US-led military campaign against ISIL. Four Rafale fighter jets took off in the morning from the Charles de Gaulle as it sailed about 200 kilometres off the coast north of Bahrain. Seven weeks after extremist attacks killed 17 people in Paris, defence minister Jean-Yves Le Drian vowed France would face the militant threat head-on. “This threat, jihadist terrorism, wants to reach our citizens, our interests, our values. France’s response will be total firmness,” Mr Le Drian said as he launched operations aboard the aircraft carrier. France launched Operation Chammal in support of the US-led coalition against ISIL in September. The Charles de Gaulle left its home port in Toulon on January 13 for a five-month mission that will include eight weeks in the Arabian Gulf working alongside the USS Carl Vinson as part...