Briefs

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Warring Islamists

KUWAITIS woke up on Monday to news of more fierce clashes between security forces and Islamist militants, five of whom were killed.

Five police officers were injured in the clashes, which were triggered by a house raid in the southern neighbourhood of Al-Qurain.

Security forces captured the "leader of a terrorist cell" in the raid, a top Kuwaiti security source told CNN.

The assault on the safe-house for militants was a "spectacular success", said Interior Ministry spokesman, Adel Al-Hashash. He vowed that police would pursue militants holed up in several locations in the neighbourhood.

The Monday fighting was the second straight day Kuwaiti security forces had battled militants. It came one day after three suspected militants and one policeman were killed in a shoot-out in Kuwait City, where Western embassies have warned of new attacks.

Earlier in January, four people died in clashes between security forces and alleged Al-Qaeda-linked militants, opposed to the presence of Western civilians and US soldiers in the oil-rich Gulf state. More than 25 Kuwaiti and Saudi suspects have since been arrested and accused of planning attacks on Western targets.

Rebellion spreads east

THE SUDANESE government imposed a curfew in Port Sudan, where 15 demonstrators were wounded in clashes with government forces.

The clashes came three days after members of eastern Sudanese tribes, dominated by the ethnic Beja, presented a list of demands to the governor of Sudan's eastern Red Sea province, including greater wealth and power sharing. The Beja also ask the government for recognising the Beja Congress as the only representative of the people of eastern Sudan.

But the Sudanese government reacted angrily to the demands exerting more force. Sudanese police went on a rampage in districts of Port Sudan inhabited by ethnic Beja shooting demonstrators.

Press reports said at least seven people were seriously wounded in the rampage, in which soldiers hurled hand grenades into houses several kilometres from the scene of the protests.

Outlying regions of Sudan are reviewing relations with Khartoum after the peace deal between the government and southern rebels. The permanent deal allows southerners to vote on their secession after a six-year transitional period.

Meanwhile, the Khartoum government is still battling rebels in the western Sudanese province of Darfur. Khartoum is attempting to divert the wrath of the United Nations, which on Friday accused the Sudanese Air Force of bombing a town in Darfur.

Sudanese officials said that they would probe the UN report, and also promised to punish the troops if found guilty. "Armies all over the world have committed mistakes and it is possible that an isolated bombing attack took place. If this is so, we will punish the offenders," Sudanese Interior Minister Abdel-Rahman Mohamed Hussein told Reuters.

Iran in the dock

THE EUROPEAN Union rejected on Tuesday a call by Iran to speed up talks on the Islamic republic's disputed nuclear programme, insisting the pace of negotiations was right and that the dialogue was on track.

"The issue is not pace but substance," EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana's spokeswoman Cristina Gallach explained.

Iran, which denies United States' accusations that it is seeking to produce nuclear weapons, has agreed to freeze potentially arms-related uranium enrichment activities while the talks continue but has shown impatience with the dialogue launched last December.

Gholam Reza Aqazadeh, head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, told reporters that he had called for an acceleration of the talks.

Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Hassan Rohani also insisted that Iran will resume enrichment if the EU talks, which have no formal deadline, show no progress. A new round is due soon, with 7 February mooted as a possible date. Aqazadeh said he hoped the next encounter would be "more precise and targeted".

Mending fences

DELAYED by snowstorms that paralysed large parts of northern Algeria last week, Algeria's ruling National Liberation Front (FLN) opened a party congress on Sunday.

The party leaders touted the meeting as a new effort to heal the rift that was sparked over last year's presidential election. Holding a majority in the legislature, the FLN was divided between supporters of President Abdul-Aziz Bouteflika and his former right-hand man and prime minister Ali Benflis over who should represent the party in the April 2004 election.

Benflis won the party's backing for a presidential bid, but his opponents within the FLN persuaded Bouteflika to run as an independent in the election, which he won effortlessly. Benflis rejected the results, quit as leader of the FLN, along with the party's political bureau.

Tug-of-war

LIBYAN leader Muammar Gaddafi this week again denied allegations that Libya had been involved in a plot to assassinate Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah Bin Abdul-Aziz.

"We have a good relationship with Saudi Arabia," he told Time magazine. "My personal relationship with Prince Abdullah is a good one. This is a fabricated case, an intentionally destructive thing. We see America paying so much attention to (Abdullah), as if he were its citizen. They have not learned from the past," he said. "The list of accusations against Libya is very long. They all proved false. We are still in a vicious circle. Accusing Libya of being a country that sponsors terrorism is a very dangerous thing," the Libyan leader added. "That has psychological repercussions. Libya could argue, 'Since I am still on the terrorist list, why not commit terrorism, which I am accused of anyway. Why should I pay the price without getting something in return?"