Popular Muslim cleric visits Gaza, bolsters Hamas

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — An influential Muslim preacher is making one of the most high-profile visits to the Palestinian territory since the Islamic Hamas seized control in 2007.

Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a prominent scholar in Qatar who is widely-respected in the Muslim world, arrived Wednesday in the Gaza Strip for his first visit there as a top cleric.

The visit has bolstered Hamas after facing years of Israeli and Egyptian blockades. The U.S., the European Union and Israel consider Hamas a terror group.

Turkey's prime minister is also planning to visit later this month, despite U.S. pressure to delay the trip.

Al-Qaradawi's visit also deepens the bitter division between Gaza's hard-line Islamist rulers and the West Bank's Western-backed Palestinian leaders.

West Bank officials are angered by the visit because it emboldens its Hamas rivals.

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Israeli PM visits China after Syria strikes

BEIRUT (AP) — Israel signaled a return to "business as usual" on Monday, a day after its aircraft struck targets in Syria for the second time in 48 hours in an unprecedented escalation of Israeli involvement in the Syrian civil war.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu left Israel after a meeting of his security Cabinet and arrived in China for a scheduled visit on Monday, a possible indication that Israel does not expect an immediate retaliation.

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

Still, the back-to-back airstrikes, though not officially acknowledged by the Israeli government, raised new concerns about a regional war.

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 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 over the weekend with a pair of airstrikes, including an attack near a sprawling military complex close to the Syrian capital of 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.

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.

Syria's information minister, Omran al-Zoubi said Syria has the right and duty "to defend its people by all available means."

Tzahi Hanegbi, an Israeli lawmaker who is close to Netanyahu, said Monday that Israel's aim is to "keep advanced weapons from Hezbollah as soon as intentions are exposed and refrain from tension with Syria."

"So if there is activity, then it is only against Hezbollah and not against the Syrian regime," Hanegbi told Israel Radio. "In that context you must see the fact that Israel doesn't officially admit to its operations, and that the prime minister left yesterday for China and (there is) the feeling of business as usual."

Israeli defense officials believe Assad has little desire to open a new front with Israel when he is preoccupied with the survival of his regime.

More than 70,000 people have been killed since the uprising against Assad erupted in March 2011, and Israeli officials believe it is only a matter of time before Assad is toppled.

Still, Israel was taking precautions. Israel's military deployed two batteries of its Iron Dome rocket defense system to the north of the country Sunday. It described the move as part of "ongoing situational assessments."

Hezbollah fired some 4,000 rockets into Israel during the 2006 war, and Israel believes the group now has tens of thousands of rockets and missiles.

The Iron Dome deployment followed a surprise Israeli drill last week in which several thousand reservists simulated conflict in the north. In another possible sign of concern, Israel closed the airspace over northern Israel to civilian flights on Sunday and tightened security at embassies overseas, Israeli media reported. Israeli officials would not confirm either measure.

Israel's deputy defense minister, Danny Danon, would neither confirm nor deny the airstrikes. He said, however, that Israel "is guarding its interests and will continue to do so in the future."

Israeli defense officials have identified several strategic weapons that they say cannot be allowed to reach Hezbollah. They include Syrian chemical weapons, the Iranian Fateh-110s, long-range Scud missiles, Yakhont missiles capable of attacking naval ships from the coast, and Russian SA-17 anti-aircraft missiles. Israel's airstrike in January destroyed a shipment of SA-17s meant for Hezbollah, according to U.S. officials.

Israeli officials said the Fateh-110s reached Syria last week. Friday's airstrike struck a Damascus airport where the missiles were being stored, while the second series of airstrikes early Sunday targeted the remnants of the shipment, which had been moved to three nearby locations, the officials said.

None of the Iranian missiles are believed to have reached Lebanon, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing a classified intelligence assessment.

The attacks pose a dilemma for the embattled Assad regime.

If it fails to respond, it looks weak and opens the door to more airstrikes. But any military retaliation against Israel would risk dragging the Jewish state and its powerful army into a broader conflict. With few exceptions, Israel and Syria have not engaged in direct fighting in roughly 40 years.

The airstrikes come as Washington considers how to respond to indications the Syrian regime may have used chemical weapons in its civil war. President Barack Obama has described the use of such weapons as a "red line," and the administration is weighing its options.

The White House declined for a second day to comment directly on Israel's air strikes in Syria, but said Obama believes Israel, as a sovereign nation, has the right to defend itself.

Iran condemned the airstrikes, and a senior official hinted at possible retribution from Hezbollah.

Gen. Masoud Jazayeri, assistant to the Iranian chief of staff, told Iran's state-run Arabic-language Al-Alam TV that Tehran "will not allow the enemy (Israel) to harm the security of the region." He added that "the resistance will retaliate to the Israeli aggression against Syria."

"Resistance" is a term used for Hezbollah and the Palestinian Hamas, another anti-Israel militant group supported by Iran.

Iran has provided both financial and military support to Hezbollah for decades and has used Syria as a conduit for both. If Assad were to fall, that pipeline could be cut, dealing a serious blow to Hezbollah's ability to confront Israel.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon spoke to Arab League Secretary-General Nabil ElAraby by telephone Sunday and both shared their "grave concern" over the air strikes, U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said.

Ban called on all sides "to exercise maximum calm and restraint, and to act with a sense of responsibility to prevent an escalation of what is already a devastating and highly dangerous conflict," Nesirky said.

___

Federman reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press writer Ian Deitch in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

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South Korea summons Japan envoy over war shrine visits, Abe remarks

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea summoned the Japanese ambassador in Seoul on Thursday in protest over visits by senior officials and lawmakers to a shrine seen by Japan's neighbors as a symbol of wartime aggression, the Yonhap news agency reported.

South Korea's Yonhap said the South's foreign ministry had called in Tokyo's envoy in protest over the shrine visits and comments made by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

China and South Korea chastised Japan after more than 160 lawmakers visited Tokyo's Yasukuni shrine this week.

That followed a symbolic offering made by Abe to the shrine and a visit by Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso and two other ministers at the weekend.

Such visits to the shrine, a regular occurrence during religious festivals, have long angered Asian nations where the scars of Japan's past militarism still run deep.

The shrine honors Japan's war dead, as well as 14 leaders convicted as war criminals by an Allied tribunal.

Earlier this week, South Korea's foreign minister canceled a trip to Tokyo, and Beijing said this week's events showed Japanese leaders continued to deny the nation's militaristic past.

Abe, however, was unapologetic.

"It is only natural to honor the spirits of the war dead who gave their lives for the country. Our ministers will not cave in to any threats," Abe told a parliamentary panel on Wednesday.

"It is also my job to protect our pride, which rests on history and tradition."

While defending his actions, Abe also said he was open to dialogue with China and others. Tokyo was also discussing a possible trip by defense officials to Beijing to ease tensions.

Japanese media said the delegation could leave as soon as Thursday, but the defense ministry said details were still being worked out.

Tensions also heated up in a Sino-Japanese row over disputed islands, known as the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China, after a flotilla carrying Japanese nationalists sailed near the rocky islets and China sent eight surveillance ships.

The recurring flare-ups in tensions between Japan, South Korea and China have been a source of concern for Washington, which is keen to secure cooperation from Seoul, Tokyo and Beijing in reining in reclusive North Korea.

(Reporting by Ju-min Park in SEOUL and Kaori Kaneko in TOKYO; Writing by Tomasz Janowski; Editing by Paul Tait)

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Pope visits St. Peter's tomb under Vatican

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis on Monday took an emotional, close-up look at the tomb of Peter, the church's first pontiff, buried beneath St. Peter's Basilica, the Vatican said.

By doing so, Francis became the first pontiff to visit the necropolis, where pagans and early Christians were buried, since extensive archaeological excavations were conducted at the ancient site decades ago, the Vatican said.

The 45-minute "visit of devotion to the tomb of St. Peter" was private, the Vatican said, but it later released a video of it.

The basilica was built over the location where early Christians would gather in secret, at a time of persecution in ancient Rome, to pray at an unmarked tomb believed to be that of Peter, the apostle Jesus chose to lead his church.

The Vatican first said Francis would pray at Peter's tomb, but later said he prayed instead in the basilica.

The new pope "paused in silent prayer, in profound and emotional meditation" in the Clementine Chapel in the vast basilica that is "the closest place (in the basilica) to the tomb of the Prince of the Apostles," it said.

During a tour of the necropolis conducted by its director and an Italian cardinal, the pope "climbed up a bit, got closer to the place where the tomb of St. Peter lies, exactly under the central altar and the dome of the basilica," the Vatican said.

Francis walked down the entire main street of the ancient city of the dead, the statement said. The streets of the necropolis are similar to those of ancient Rome, only they are flanked by tombs instead of shops and apartments.

The Vatican said Francis walked to the necropolis entrance from the hotel on the Vatican grounds where he lives, took the tour and later — after paying homage at the tombs of several popes in another underground level known as the grottoes, including Pius XII, Paul VI and John Paul I — strolled back to his residence.

The underground excursion was a sharp departure from how popes in past years often spent the day after Easter, known in Italy as "little Easter." Those pontiffs would head to Castel Gandolfo, the Vatican palace in the Alban Hills, a short drive from Rome.

But that oasis of sprawling gardens and strolling paths in the quaint hill town is occupied by the predecessor of Francis, Benedict XVI, who spent the last hours of his papacy there before becoming the first pope in 600 years to retire. Benedict is staying in Castel Gandolfo until a monastery at the Vatican in Rome can be readied for him.

Many Italians spend "little Easter" by having a picnic lunch in the countryside or in city parks, and Francis told Romans and tourists who gathered in St. Peter's Square at noon Monday to see him to "have a good lunch." Francis said he was praying that Easter would inspire the faithful so that "hatred gives way to love, lies to truth," and that it would especially comfort those in "most need of trust and hope."

He spoke to them from the studio window of the apartment in the Apostolic Palace overlooking the square. Benedict and popes before him lived there, but so far Francis, who stresses simplicity, has declined to move into the quarters.

Instead, he has continued to stay at the Vatican hotel, where, as Buenos Aires archbishop, he stayed with fellow cardinals to elect Benedict's successor. They chose him, Jorge Bergoglio, the first pontiff from South America.

St. Peter's mission was to continue to preach the message of Jesus and reach more souls. Francis, as a Jesuit, is steeped in the evangelizing mission of the church, and the necropolis tour brings him back to the origins of the church in its simplest years as a community of Christians professing their faith in defiance of the crackdown by Roman emperors.

Peter himself was among the Christian martyrs during Nero's reign. He is believed to have been crucified, head down, on the Vatican hill.

Constantine, the first Christian emperor, had an early basilica built on the slopes of the Vatican Hill, burying the pagan and Christian cemetery — necropolis means 'city of the dead' — that surrounded Peter's burial site.

The current basilica, named after St. Peter, was constructed over the earlier basilica that was deemed unsafe and demolished in the late 15th century.

The Baroque master architect Bernini designed the bronze canopy over the central altar over the spot of Peter's burial site. The current basilica was planned as an awe-inspiring monument that would project the image of a powerful church.

Under popes of the last century, extensive excavations were carried out of the sprawling necropolis. In 1965, archaeologists said they had found the bones of Peter in an area near an ancient Greek inscription saying "Peter is here."

Part of a nearby necropolis came to light in 2003 during construction of a parking lot.

A few years ago, the Vatican unveiled the largest and most luxurious of the pagan tombs under St. Peter's Basilica, that of a family of former slaves.

Guided tours of the necropolis, upon appointment, have been one of the most sought-after attractions for tourists to the Vatican.

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Rockets explode in southern Israel as Obama visits: police

By Steve Keating ORLANDO, Florida, March 20 (Reuters) - Rory McIlroy's decision to skip the Arnold Palmer Invitational surprised the tournament host, who expressed his disappointment on Wednesday that the world number one was not at Bay Hill this week. The 83-year-old Palmer said he had jokingly suggested he might break McIlroy's arm if he did not show up but did not try to force the young Northern Irishman into making an appearance. "Frankly, I thought he was going to play, and I was as surprised as a lot of people when he decided he was not going to play," said Palmer. ...

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Syrian opposition head visits rebel areas in north

BEIRUT (AP) — The chief of the Syrian National Coalition has, for the first time, visited rebel-held areas near the embattled city of Aleppo in northern Syria.

Aleppo, the nation's largest city, has been a major front in the nearly 2-year-old conflict. Government forces and rebels have been locked in a stalemate there since July.

Mouaz al-Khatib met Sunday with Syrians living in two suburbs of Aleppo that are controlled by the opposition.

A coalition statement says the goal of his trip to Manbah and Jarablus was to inspect the living conditions of residents there.

The opposition controls large swathes of land around Aleppo, and several areas within the city while the government maintains controls of others.

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Opposition leader visits Syria amid Assad offensive

AMMAN (Reuters) - Opposition leader Moaz Alkhatib visited rebel-held towns in north Syria for the first time on Sunday as rebel fighters seized an army outpost from President Bashar al-Assad's forces outside the contested northern city of Aleppo, activists said.

The capture of the police academy at Khan al-Asal, used by Assad's forces as an artillery base to support troops still holding around 40 percent of the northern city, came after days of fighting in which rebels killed 150 soldiers, while sustaining heavy casualties, they said.

In an attempt to consolidate those gains on the ground and strengthen links between Assad's military and civilian foes, Alkhatib crossed into northern Syria from neighboring Turkey and toured the towns of Jarablus and Minbij.

Earlier he attended a meeting of 220 rebel commanders and opposition campaigners in the Turkish city of Gaziantep to elect an administration for Aleppo province, home to 6 million people.

Alkhatib, a 52-year-old former preacher at the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, was chosen in November to head the coalition of political opposition to Assad. He won modest pledges of support for the rebels from Western and Arab ministers in Rome last week.

He has also said he is ready for talks with representatives of Assad's government to help find a political solution to a conflict which erupted nearly two years ago and has descended into a civil war in which around 70,000 people have been killed.

Assad, in an interview with British newspaper The Sunday Times, said his government was prepared to talk to fighters who lay down their weapons but insisted he would not leave the country or step aside under foreign pressure.

"We are ready to negotiate with anyone, including militants who surrender their arms," he said according to a transcript released by state media. However there would be no talks with "terrorists who are determined to carry weapons," he added.

"We have to be clear about this. We have opposition that are political entities and we have armed terrorists. We can engage in dialogue with the opposition but we cannot engage in dialogue with terrorists. We fight terrorists."

Alkhatib's opposition coalition says that any talks must focus on Assad's departure -- the objective of the 23-month uprising -- while rebel leaders have set even tougher conditions, insisting he depart before they start talks.

But Assad, who inherited power from his father in 2000, said he was not going anywhere. "No patriotic person will think about living outside his country. I am like any other patriotic Syrian," he told the newspaper.

In response to calls from some Western and Arab governments for him to go, Assad replied: "Only (the) Syrian people can tell the president: stay or leave, come or go."

BASE CAPTURED

Opposition activists say the capture of Khan al-Asal base, 7 km (5 miles) southwest of Aleppo, comes as a boost to a joint opposition military command set up last year with Western and Arab backing to try to counter the growing military prowess of the al Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra.

"It is a locally made victory achieved by a myriad of brigades from the rural west of Aleppo. It shows that you don't have to have a foreign name to achieve victory," activist Abu Mujahed told Reuters from the area.

He said the brigades who took the site were mostly Islamist but did not subscribe to al Qaeda ideology. He added that an army academy on the western edge of the city is the last major barrier between the rebels and Assad's forces inside Aleppo.

Video footage showed Colonel Abdelbasset Tawil of the joint command of the Free Syrian army reading a statement declaring the seizure of the site among a group of commander of various brigades. "These honorable forces will continue to fight until the downfall of the Assad gang," Tawil said.

The walled complex at Khan al-Asal was turned into an army barrack from where artillery and rocket launchers gave cover for Assad's forces holding around 40 percent of Aleppo, the opposition sources said.

Video footage released by the rebel Farouq Brigade showed a rebel-driven tank firing at the base before its capture. Other videos showed fighters touring the site after it fell, stamping on a large picture of Assad and shouting: "We will get to you."

Further east, Iraqi military sources said Iraq shut a border crossing with Syria on Sunday after rebels seized the Syrian side of the frontier post close to the Syrian town of Yaarabiya.

"Iraqi authorities were ordered to shut off Rabia border crossing until further notice because of the Syrian government's lack of control over the other side of the post," police said.

Military sources said blast walls now blocked off the border crossing and employees had been evacuated, though both sides of the crossing were calm and there was no sign of Syrian troops or the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) forces across the border.

In Amman, Jordan's national carrier Royal Jordanian said it had stopped flying over Syrian air space for security reasons. The airline stopped its regular flights to Damascus last year along with some other carriers.

(Editing by Dominic Evans and Stephen Powell)

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