Activists: Israeli strike kills 42 Syrian soldiers

BEIRUT (AP) — Israel's weekend airstrike on a military complex near the Syrian capital of Damascus killed at least 42 Syrian soldiers, a group of anti-regime activists said Monday, citing information from military hospitals.

The Syrian government has not released a death toll, but Syrian state media have reported casualties in Sunday's predawn airstrike, Israel's third into Syria so far this year.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said about 150 soldiers are normally stationed in the area that was targeted, but that it was not clear how many were there at the time of the strike.

Israel's government has not formally confirmed involvement in strikes on Syria. However, Israeli officials said the strikes were meant to prevent advanced Iranian weapons from reaching Lebanon's Hezbollah militia, an ally of Syria and foe of Israel.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss covert military operations.

Israel on Monday signaled a return to "business as usual," with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arriving in China for a scheduled visit,

Syria and its patron Iran have hinted at possible retribution over the strikes, though the rhetoric in official statements has been relatively muted.

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi warned Monday that Israel was "playing with fire," but gave no other suggestions of possible consequences, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.

Syria's government called the attacks a "flagrant violation of international law" that has made the Middle East "more dangerous." It also claimed the Israeli strikes proved Israel's links to rebel groups trying to overthrow Assad's regime.

Israeli officials have indicated they will keep trying to block what they see as an effort by Iran to send sophisticated weapons to Lebanon's Hezbollah militia ahead of a possible collapse of Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime.

Israel has repeatedly threatened to intervene in the Syrian civil war to stop the transfer of what it calls "game-changing" weapons to Hezbollah, a Syrian-backed group that battled Israel to a stalemate during a month-long war in 2006.

Since carrying out a lone airstrike in January that reportedly destroyed a shipment of anti-aircraft missiles headed to Hezbollah, Israel had largely stayed on the sidelines. That changed this weekend with the pair of airstrikes, including an attack near a sprawling military complex close to Damascus early Sunday that set off a series of powerful explosions.

A senior Israeli official said both airstrikes targeted shipments of Fateh-110 missiles bound for Hezbollah. The Iranian-made guided missiles can fly deep into Israel and deliver powerful half-ton bombs with pinpoint accuracy. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was discussing a covert military operation.

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Activists: Dozens killed in Syrian village

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Activists say dozens killed in Syrian village

BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian troops backed by pro-government gunmen swept into a Sunni village in the mountains near the Mediterranean coast on Thursday, killing dozens of people, including women and children, and torching homes, activists said.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that at least 50 people — and possibly as many as 100 — were killed in the violence in Bayda, a village outside the city of Banias. It cited witnesses who said some of the dead were killed with knives or blunt objects and that dozens of villagers were still missing.

Syria's civil war has largely split the country down religious lines, and the violence in Bayda appeared to have sectarian overtones. The village is primarily inhabited by Sunni Muslims, who dominate the country's rebel movement, while most of the surrounding villages are home to members of President Bashar Assad's Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

With the conflict now in its third year, the sectarian divide in the country is worsening. There has been heavy fighting raging between Sunni and Shiite villages in the area of Qusair, near the Lebanese border. Islamic extremists who have joined the rebels have destroyed Christian liquor stores, and sometimes refer to their dead adversaries with derogatory names insulting their sects.

Observatory director Rami Abdul-Rahman said there was heavy fighting in Bayda early Thursday that left at least six government troops dead and more than 20 wounded. He said regime troops backed by gunmen from nearby Alawite villages returned in the afternoon and eventually overran Bayda.

In the aftermath, telephone and Internet service to the village was cut and the area remained under regime control, making it impossible to verify the day's final death toll, Abdul-Rahman said.

But if confirmed, the violence would be the latest in a string of alleged mass killings in Syria's bloody civil war. Last month, activists said government troops killed more than 100 people as they seized two rebel-held suburbs of Damascus.

Some 70,000 people have been killed and thousands of others maimed, injured or missing in Syria since the uprising against Assad began in March 2011, according to the United Nations. Both the U.N. Human Rights Council and the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria have published multiple reports documenting crimes committed during the civil war, including the slaughter of more than 100 civilians in the central region of Houla last May blamed on pro-regime militiamen.

The conflict's humanitarian toll has accelerated as the fighting on the ground has grown more intense, and neither side appears willing to find a political solution at the moment. The rebels are trying to expand upon their gains in the past year that have put them in control of much of northern Syria as well as a growing foothold in the south along the border with Jordan.

The regime, meanwhile, has pushed an offensive to shore up its hold on Damascus and the corridor leading from the capital through the central city of Homs and on to the mountainous Mediterranean coastal area, which is the Alawite heartland.

The government made gains Thursday to secure its grip on Homs, seizing control of the Wadi Sayeh district in the heart of the city, the Observatory said. The neighborhood is strategically important for the Assad regime as its forces try to dislodge opposition fighters from several central neighborhoods that have been under rebel control for more than a year.

The regime pounded rebel-held districts with artillery and carried out at least one airstrike on a residential neighborhood, killing seven people, four of them children, according to the Observatory.

Regaining full control of Homs would be a psychological blow to the opposition, which considers the city a symbol of Syria's uprising, inspired by other Arab Spring revolts against authoritarian rulers around the Middle East. The city, the third largest in the nation, was the scene of massive street protests against Assad's regime in the early months of the uprising. Since then, it has seen some of the worst urban warfare of the conflict.

While Assad's forces advanced in Homs, they suffered a setback in the northern city of Aleppo, where rebels overran the headquarters of the government's anti-terrorism forces, according to the Aleppo Media Center activist group.

The building is located near the central prison where many of regime opponents, activists and their family members are believed to be held. Rebel fighters have for weeks battled government troops in the area in an attempt to storm the facility and free the prisoners.

In recent weeks, government forces have been on a counter offensive to reverse rebel gains in and around Aleppo, where the opposition controls entire neighborhoods and much of the countryside surrounding the city.

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Associated Press writers Bassem Mroue and Barbara Surk in Beirut contributed to this report.

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Egypt: Arrest warrants issued for five activists

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt's top prosecutor has issued arrest warrants for five rights activists on suspicion of inciting violence against members of the president's Muslim Brotherhood.

A statement posted Monday on the attorney general's official Facebook page said all five have also been banned from traveling abroad.

The warrants came one day after Islamist President Mohammed Morsi sternly warned his opponents, saying he may be close to taking unspecified measures to protect the nation.

They also followed the issuing of summons for a larger group of politicians and activists for questioning over clashes on Friday outside the Brotherhood's office, the worst between the group's members and opponents in three months.

The five activists are: Alaa Abdel-Fattah, Ahmed Douma, Karim El-Shaer, Hazem Abdel-Azim and Ahmed Ghoneimi.

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Egypt prosecutor orders activists arrested

By Tom Perry

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's prosecutor general on Monday ordered the arrest of five prominent political activists he accused of inciting violence against President Mohamed Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood, a move the opposition decried as a reversal for democracy.

The arrests seemed certain to deepen mistrust in an already polarized political landscape, further complicating Mursi's efforts to build bridges with his opponents ahead of parliamentary polls the opposition has threatened to boycott.

Those ordered arrested included Ahmed Douma and Alaa Abd El-Fattah, a leading blogger who rose to international prominence during the protests that led to the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak in 2011. The five were also banned from travel. A sixth was summoned for questioning.

Abd El-Fattah, who was arrested under Mubarak and the military council that replaced him, said in a statement he would head to the prosecutor general's office on Tuesday.

A symbol of the uprising that swept Mubarak from power, he described the warrant as proof of the "corruption of the case and the prosecutor general's bias in favor of the Muslim Brotherhood".

The prosecutor's office said in a statement the five stood accused of inciting "aggression against people, the destruction of property and disturbing civil peace" in street battles near the Muslim Brotherhood's headquarters on Friday.

The arrest warrants follow a threat on Sunday by Mursi to take steps to protect the nation following the clashes. Mursi said "necessary measures" would be taken against any politicians found to be involved.

At least 130 people were hospitalized in the fighting.

The two sides traded blame for the fighting. It was the latest in a series of violent demonstrations targeting Mursi and the Brotherhood, the Islamist group that propelled him to power in last June's election.

"We feel under threat. We feel this a total reversal for democracy and we expect the worst," said Khaled Dawoud, a spokesman for the National Salvation Front, an alliance of non-Islamist parties that came together last year to oppose Mursi.

The rift between the Brotherhood and its secular-minded opponents has deepened since Mursi was elected president and spasms of street violence have obstructed his efforts to revive an economy battered by unrest.

Mursi's opponents accuse him and the Brotherhood of seeking to dominate the post-Mubarak era. The Brotherhood has in turn accused the opposition of failing to respect democratic rules.

The arrest warrants followed a formal legal complaint filed by the Brotherhood on Monday against 169 people, including leaders of political parties, it accused of inciting or carrying out Friday's violence.

SATISFYING THE BROTHERHOOD BASE

Abdel-Moneim Abdel-Maksoud, the Brotherhood's lawyer, submitted 54 video clips and 155 photos as evidence, adding in a statement that last Friday's violence "had nothing to do with the blessed January 25 revolution" - a reference to the uprising that toppled Mubarak.

Mursi's remarks on Sunday were in part seen as a response to anger within Brotherhood ranks: their offices have been routinely ransacked and torched in recent months.

"The greater issue now for them is how to manage the anger of their base and their members. These members are agitating to fight back," said Yasser El-Shimy, an analyst with the International Crisis Group. "The leadership has to show its base that there are other routes to combat the attacks," he said.

April 6, a pro-democracy activist movement, echoed criticism against the prosecutor general. He was appointed late last year by Mursi in disputed circumstances and his removal is one of the opposition's demands.

"To the prosecutor general - why do arrest warrants only happen when there are clashes at the Brotherhood headquarters?" it wrote on its Facebook page.

Mohamed Abolghar, head of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party, said: "I am really, very worried about political freedom, media freedom - they are in extreme danger.

"The possibilities of having free elections are getting narrower and narrower. In this situation, how can you have free elections in Egypt?" he said in a telephone interview.

Opposition fears were compounded on Sunday evening by what witnesses said was a violent protest by Islamists at the headquarters of privately owned TV stations critical of Mursi.

They attacked three cars trying to pass through the gates. "We saved ourselves by a miracle," said Hassan Nafaa, a prominent commentator who was in one of the vehicles attacked, along with Hafez Abu Seada, a leading rights activist.

The Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights, which is headed by Abu Seada, filed a complaint to the prosecutor general's office over the attack.

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Tolba; Editing by Jon Hemming)

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Egypt top prosecutor orders arrest of 5 activists

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt's top prosecutor issued arrest warrants on Monday for five rights activists on suspicion of inciting violence against members of the president's Muslim Brotherhood.

A statement posted on the attorney general's official Facebook page said all five have also been banned from traveling abroad. The prosecutor also issued summons for a sixth activist, Nawara Negm, daughter of Egypt's best known satirical poet, for questioning over the same allegations.

The warrants came a day after Islamist President Mohammed Morsi sternly warned his opponents, saying he may be close to taking unspecified measures to protect the nation. The warning came during a speech in which the president was visibly angry, shouting and pounding on the table at times.

Monday's warrants followed the issuing of summonses earlier in the day for a larger group of politicians and activists for questioning over clashes on Friday outside the Brotherhood's office, the worst between the group's members and opponents in three months. Nearly 200 people were injured in the clashes.

The five activists are: Alaa Abdel-Fattah, Ahmed Douma, Karim El-Shaer, Hazem Abdel-Azim and Ahmed Ghoneimi. They were at the forefront of both the 18-day uprising against longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak in 2011 and a subsequent campaign against the army generals who succeeded him and ruled for nearly 17 months.

Abdel-Fattah told The Associated Press minutes after news of the warrants broke that he was consulting with his lawyers on what to do next.

The warrants are a significant escalation in the ongoing tug of war between Morsi and his Islamist allies in one camp and a mostly secular and liberal opposition backed by moderate Muslims, minority Christians and a large segment of educated and urban women in the other.

The political turmoil in which Egypt has been engulfed for most of the two years since Mubarak's ouster has been compounded by a worsening economy and tenuous security. Friday's violence has left the prospect of a dialogue between the two sides slim at best.

Morsi also vowed on Sunday to bring to account politicians found to have incited the violence on Friday outside the Brotherhood's Cairo headquarters.

The larger group summoned by the prosecutors include former presidential candidate Khaled Ali, former lawmaker Ziad el-Oleimi, TV presenter Buthaina Kamel and senior opposition politician Mohammed Aboul-Ghar.

Kamel, who works for state TV, told the AP she has yet to receive the official summons, but that when she does she will consult with lawyers over whether to go. She said she was at the scene of Friday's clashes but did not take part in the violence.

"I did not do as much as throw a rock," she said. "It is my right to participate peacefully in a protest."

Separately, the Brotherhood's legal adviser said he had filed complaints with the attorney general, Egypt's top prosecutor, against a total of 169 individuals, including political party leaders he alleges were involved in Friday's violence. In comments to reporters, Abdel-Moneim Abdel-Maqsoud called on the attorney general to take statements from 276 people whom he said were victims of the violence. He said his complaints were backed up by video footage and photographs.

Friday's violence was rooted in an incident a week earlier, when Brotherhood members beat up activists who were spray-painting graffiti against the group outside its headquarters, in an eastern district of Cairo. In response, anti-Brotherhood activists called for a protest there Friday. Both sides brought out hundreds of supporters, and the scene quickly turned to mayhem, with beatings committed by both sides.

In Sunday's address, Morsi, who took office in June as Egypt's first freely elected president, departed from prepared comments at a women's rights conference to deliver a scathing attack against his opponents. The president suggested that he may have to resort to "emergency" measures to deal with his opponents. He accused his foes of using paid thugs to sow chaos and the media of inciting violence.

He made no mention of any particular opposition group or politician and did not refer directly to Friday's clashes. However, his animated comments left little doubt that they were directed at the National Salvation front, the main opposition coalition, and former members of the Mubarak regime.

Alluding to Mubarak-era figures who have been acquitted in court of a range of charges, Morsi said he respected the law and judicial rulings, but added: "There is a president of the republic and there are emergency measures if any of them makes even the smallest of moves that undermines Egypt or the Egyptians."

"Their lives are worthless when it comes to the interests of Egypt and Egyptians," he said, pounding on the table. "I am a president after a revolution, meaning that we can sacrifice a few so the country can move forward. It is absolutely no problem."

Morsi also criticized the media, arguing that it was being used for political aims. The comments echoed similar accusations made by the Brotherhood regularly in recent weeks. Dozens of Islamists are currently staging a sit-in outside the studios of TV networks critical of the president.

On Sunday, the Islamists pelted police with rocks and sought to prevent talk show hosts and guests from going in or out of the complex, located in a suburb west of the capital. Police responded with tear gas. Protesters also threw stones at cars carrying talk show guests, including veteran rights activist Hafez Abou Saeda. The sit-in continued on Monday.

The Cabinet, led by Morsi ally Prime Minister Hesham Kandil, condemned the sit-in protest and violence against network workers, saying it was not the appropriate method to express opinions.

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Activists say Syrian regime bombs rebel-held city

BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian government airstrikes have killed at least 14 people in the northern province of Raqqa less than a week after rebels seized the area's provincial capital, their first since the start of Syria's civil war, anti-regime activists said Sunday.

The city of Raqqa, home to a half million people before Syria's uprising, could prove a test case for how rebels administer areas they capture. The rebel groups that led the battle for the city are strongly Islamist, some of them extremists, and videos released over the weekend indicate some fighters have summarily executed prisoners.

Recent government airstrikes, meanwhile, show the limits of rebel control. Even if they hold the ground, they can do little about the government's air force, which often bombards areas recently captured by the rebels, killing fighters and civilians alike.

Two airstrikes in Raqqa province killed at least 14 people, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Sunday. The attacks took place the day before, it said.

A video posted online from Raqqa city showed the dead bodies of seven people scattered in a street with destroyed buildings nearby. An off-camera narrator says they were killed in an airstrike.

The Observatory said at least seven others were killed in a separate strike Saturday near the province's eastern border.

Over the last year, Syria's rebels have greatly expanded the territory they hold in northern Syria, mostly in the provinces of Idlib and Aleppo that abut the Turkish border. In February, they extended their control into Raqqa province, seizing a hydroelectric dam on the Euphrates river. After storming a central prison, they seized most of Raqqa city on March 4, solidifying their control over the next two days.

Raqqa is the first of Syria's provincial capital cities to fall completely under rebel control.

Rebel actions since taking the city have raised concerns about how they will administer the area.

A number of videos have surfaced in recent days that show dead government soldiers and security officials lying on the ground, their heads bearing gunshot wounds.

One video showed rebels driving the dead body of a military intelligence official around in the back of a pickup truck to show it off. At one point, they lay out his body in a street next to another body. Both have large holes in their heads.

"No one hurt me more than this man!" a voice off-camera yells.

Rights groups have reported summary executions of regime officials and troops following the capture of other areas, especially of pro-government militiamen known as "shabiha" whom rebels say are guilty of atrocities. Rebels groups in some area have set up courts to try prisoners, though it is unclear whether they live up to international standards of due process.

Another video from Raqqa posted on Saturday shows three bodies in a street in pools of blood.

"These are the dogs of military intelligence and they were executed in Clock Square," a voice says, referring to a city landmark.

Other captured regime officials appear to have been kept alive.

Another video posted Saturday showed the provincial governor, Hassan Jalalil, along with the head of President Bashar Assad's ruling Baath party sitting in front of the black flag of Jabhat al-Nusra, an extremist rebel group the U.S. has designated a terror group.

The two were captured by rebels when they stormed the governor's palace on March 4.

In the videos, the second man, Suleiman al-Suleiman, says that before his capture he was scared that rebels were extremists.

"But my view has changed, and I have seen that Jabat al-Nusra has a religious program that follows Allah and his prophet," he said.

There was no way to establish if he was speaking under duress.

All videos appeared authentic and corresponded with other reporting by The Associated Press.

Syria's crisis began with anti-regime protests in March 2011 and has since spiraled into a civil war pitting government forces against hundreds of rebels groups.

The Syrian government portrays the war as fueled by an international conspiracy carried out by terrorists that seeks to weaken the country.

The U.N. says more than 70,000 people have been killed in the violence.

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Activists: Syrian regime bombs rebel-held city

BEIRUT (AP) — Anti-regime activists say the Syrian government has bombed the northwestern city of Raqqa, killing at least seven people less than a week after rebel fighters seized most of the city from government troops.

An activist video posted online shows the dead bodies of seven people lying in a street with buildings destroyed nearby. An off-camera narrator says they were killed in an airstrike. The video appeared authentic and corresponded with other reporting done by The Associated Press.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Sunday that the attack took place the day before.

Raqqa was the first provincial capital in Syria to fall under rebel control.

The U.N. says more than 70,000 people have been killed in almost two-years of violence in Syria.

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Saudi accuses activists of lying to stir protests

BURAIDAH, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia on Thursday accused online activists of using social media to stir up protests, banned in the kingdom, by distributing "false information" about the number of people detained by the security apparatus.

Concern over the fate of the kingdom's thousands of security detainees, who the government says are Islamist militants, has prompted demonstrations, culminating in the arrest of 161 people at a protest last week in the central city of Buraidah.

The accusation, delivered during a news conference in Buraidah, underscored the government's concerns over the impact of reports distributed via social media that many long-term detainees have not been brought to trial, and that police treated women protesters disrespectfully.

Last week's protest was the latest in a string of demonstrations by relatives of detainees in the capital Riyadh and Qassim Province, heartland of the kingdom's ultra-conservative Wahhabi school of Islam.

In January more than 100 Wahhabi clerics wrote to King Abdullah, pressing him to address the issue swiftly, a significant step given the paramount role of religion in Saudi society and top clerics' backing of the protest ban.

"There are people who misuse the social networking and try to send false information," Maj. Gen. Mansour Turki, the Interior Ministry's security spokesman, said.

"They use (it) to make some families go outside and try to protest, saying you should release our husbands or our fathers or our sons," he added.

Families of some detainees say their jailed relatives have been held for years without charge or trial, have been mistreated while in detention or continue to be held after their sentences were completed.

JAILED

Human rights activists say people who merely called for political change or elections have been jailed on the same grounds, something the authorities deny.

Al Qaeda launched a series of deadly attacks against foreigners and government targets from 2003-06, prompting a heavy crackdown on Islamist militants. Al Qaeda's regional wing, now based in Yemen, has sworn to end al-Saud rule.

Turki said 2,772 people were now held in security prisons. One local human rights activist, whose trial for "electronic crimes" will reach a verdict on Saturday, previously had estimated the figure was as high as 30,000.

In last week's protest in Buraidah, some protesters burned photographs of the interior minister, King Abdullah's nephew Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, underscoring the strong emotions the issue evokes.

The move was almost unprecedented in a country named for the al-Saud dynasty and where most businesses still display portraits of the king and crown prince.

"People here in Qassim are angry with the Interior Ministry. People have died in prison. People have gone mad in prison. But thank God the clerics in Qassim are all good. They have spoken on our behalf," said Huda al-Araini, whose husband has been held for nine years.

Turki said activists had pushed detainees' relatives who had attended the protests to lie about their treatment by police.

"Some people... try to make some of the protesters go and accuse the policemen of mistreating them or being very offensive when they deal with them," he said.

(Reporting By Angus McDowall; Editing by Michael Roddy)

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