Members of the Civil Defence carry an injured man on a stretcher at a site hit by what activists said was a barrel bomb dropped by regime forces in Aleppo yesterday.

Reports of the talks came as a US State Department official said that several Americans have been detained in Yemen

AFP
Riyadh


Oman is hosting unprecedented talks between delegations from the US and Yemen’s Shia rebels aimed at finding a solution to the Yemen war, a Yemeni government spokesman said yesterday.
“The discussions between the Houthi (rebels) and the American delegation are being held at the request of the Americans,” said Rajah Badi, spokesman of the Yemeni government exiled in Saudi Arabia.
The meeting is the first since a Saudi-led coalition launched an air war against the Houthis on March 26 to restore the legitimacy of Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
Hadi and his government fled to Saudi Arabia after the Houthis challenged his authority and overran much of the country.
The foreign minister of Iran, which Saudi Arabia accuses of arming the Houthis despite Tehran’s repeated denials, held talks on Tuesday in Oman about ending the conflict in Yemen.
“We discussed ways to send humanitarian aid, establish a ceasefire and start dialogue between the Yemeni groups,” Foreign Minister Mohamed Javad Zarif told Iranian state television from Muscat.  
Badi said the Shia delegation arrived in Muscat several days ago “on a plane chartered by the Americans”, adding that the talks are led by Saleh al-Sammad, who heads the Houthis’ political bureau.
Reports of the talks came as a US State Department official said yesterday that several Americans have been detained in Yemen, while media reports said four US citizens were being held by Shia rebels.
The Washington Post reported that the Americans were believed to be held by the Houthis in a prison near Sanaa, and that US efforts to secure their release had faltered, hampered by the fact that Washington has no direct links to the rebels.
The State Department had seen the “reports that several US citizens have recently been detained in Yemen”, the official said.
“We are doing everything we can to get these individuals released,” the official said, but would not say how many were held or who was holding them.
“The protection of US citizens abroad is a top priority,” he added, saying for privacy and safety reasons no further information could be given.
US officials, quoted by the Post, said none of those held were US government employees.  
Three of the prisoners were believed to work in the private sector, while a fourth was a dual US-Yemen citizen.
Washington closed its embassy in Sanaa in February and has temporarily relocated its ambassador and staff in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
US officials said that efforts to secure the release of the Americans had been mainly through “intermediaries including humanitarian groups that continue to have a presence in Sanaa”, the Post said.
One of the prisoners had been approved to be released in recent days, but the rebels went back on their decision, the Post said.
He had initially been detained for overstaying his visa, but then the rebels accused him of travelling to “sensitive” areas in Yemen, a US official told the Post.
A fifth American, identified by the daily as Sharif Mobley, is being held on terrorism charges brought against him more than five years ago, the paper said.

UN envoy slams Syria raids on civilian areas

AFP
Beirut


The UN envoy to Syria condemned regime bombing of civilian areas as “totally unacceptable” after more than 140 people were killed in a day of heavy air raids.
Barrel bombs dropped by President Bashar al-Assad’s helicopters killed 84 civilians, including children, in the northern province of Aleppo on Saturday, a monitoring group said.
“The news of aerial bombing by Syrian helicopters on a civilian area of the Aleppo neighbourhood of Al Shaar deserves the most strong international condemnation,” UN envoy Staffan de Mistura said in a statement.
“The use of barrel bombs must stop,” he said. “All evidence shows that the overwhelming majority of the civilian victims in the Syrian conflict have been caused by the use of such indiscriminate aerial weapons.”
He said it was “totally unacceptable that the Syrian air force attacks its own territory in an indiscriminate way, killing its own citizens”.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said regime air strikes throughout Syria killed at least 141 people on Saturday, including 20 in a rebel-controlled village in northwest Idlib.  
It said 22 people were killed in raids on the northeastern militant-dominated town of Al Shadadeh.  
Its toll did not include another 43 people—including fighters from the Islamic State group and their families—killed in a government raid on the same town.  
Air raids also killed civilians in Damascus, Deir al-Zor and Daraa provinces, the monitor said.  
Syria’s conflict, which began in March 2011, has left more than 220,000 people dead and forced millions to flee.   
Several rounds of peace talks have made no headway and the UN envoy’s efforts to broker a ceasefire in the second city of Aleppo were rejected by rebel factions.
Regime barrel bombs—crude weapons made of containers packed with explosives—have often struck schools, hospitals and markets in Syria.  
But the toll from the Saturday raids, which also targeted a market in the IS-controlled town of Al Bab, was among the highest.
“This is further shocking proof of the horrific and indiscriminate methods the Assad regime is using to kill and injure innocent civilians, including children,” said British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond.
The tactic of carrying out air attacks on built-up areas after battleground losses has become common practice for Syria’s regime, which ceded swathes of territory in May.
“The regime has always dropped barrel bombs in this war, but it is intensifying its strikes believing it can compensate for territorial losses,” said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman.
His group has documented 17,000 barrel bombings by the Syrian regime since October.
Aerial raids continued yesterday, with three civilians killed in a second barrel bomb attack on Al Bab.  
Syria’s state news agency said eight civilians were killed when “terrorists fired rockets on the Al Aathamiyeh neighbourhood in Aleppo”.  
Following defeats in Idlib’s provincial capital and at a massive military base nearby, government forces also lost the ancient city of Palmyra to IS on May 21.  
The militants demolished Palmyra’s notorious government prison on Saturday, razing what was for decades a symbol of abuses against regime opponents.