Syrian rebels make slow headway in south

AMMAN (Reuters) - The revolt against President Bashar al-Assad first flared in Deraa, but the southern border city now epitomizes the bloody stalemate gripping Syria after 22 months of violence and 60,000 dead.

Jordan next door has little sympathy with Assad, but is wary of spillover from the upheaval in its bigger neighbor. It has tightened control of its 370-km (230-mile) border with Syria, partly to stop Islamist fighters or weapons from crossing.

That makes things tough for Assad's enemies in the Hawran plain, traditionally one of Syria's most heavily militarized regions, where the army has long been deployed to defend the southern approaches to Damascus from any Israeli threat.

The mostly Sunni Muslim rebels, loosely grouped in tribal and local "brigades", are united by a hatred of Assad and range from secular-minded fighters to al Qaeda-aligned Islamists.

"Nothing comes from Jordan," complained Moaz al-Zubi, an officer in the rebel Free Syrian Army, contacted via Skype from the Jordanian capital Amman. "If every village had weapons, we would not be afraid, but the lack of them is sapping morale."

Insurgents in Syria say weapons occasionally do seep through from Jordan but that they rely more on arsenals they seize from Assad's troops and arms that reach them from distant Turkey.

This month a Syrian pro-government television channel showed footage of what it said was an intercepted shipment of anti-tank weapons in Deraa, without specifying where it had come from.

Assad's troops man dozens of checkpoints in Deraa, a Sunni city that was home to 180,000 people before the uprising there in March 2011. They have imposed a stranglehold which insurgents rarely penetrate, apart from sporadic suicide bombings by Islamist militants, say residents and dissidents.

Rebel activity is minimal west of Deraa, where military bases proliferate near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

Insurgents have captured some towns and villages in a 25-km (17-mile) wedge of territory east of Deraa, but intensifying army shelling and air strikes have reduced many of these to ruin, forcing their residents to join a rapidly expanding refugee exodus to Jordan, which now hosts 320,000 Syrians.

However, despite more than a month of fighting, Assad's forces have failed to winkle rebels out of strongholds in the rugged volcanic terrain that stretches from Busra al-Harir, 37 km (23 miles) northeast of Deraa, to the outskirts of Damascus.

Further east lies Sweida, home to minority Druze who have mostly sat out the Sunni-led revolt against security forces dominated by Assad's minority, Shi'ite-rooted Alawite sect.

"KEY TO DAMASCUS"

As long as Assad's forces control southwestern Syria, with its fertile, rain-fed Hawran plain, his foes will find it hard to make a concerted assault on Damascus, the capital and seat of his power, from suburbs where they already have footholds.

"If this area is liberated, the supply routes from the south to Damascus would be cut," said Abu Hamza, a commander in the rebel Ababeel Hawran Brigade. "Deraa is the key to the capital."

Fighters in the north, where Turkey provides a rear base and at least some supply lines, have fared somewhat better than their counterparts in the south, grabbing control of swathes of territory and seizing half of Aleppo, Syria's biggest city.

They have also captured some towns in the east, across the border from Iraq's Sunni heartland of Anbar province, and in central Syria near the mostly Sunni cities of Homs and Hama.

But even where they gain ground, Assad's mostly Russian-supplied army and air force can still pound rebels from afar, prompting a Saudi prince to call for outsiders to "level the playing field" by providing anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons.

"What is needed are sophisticated, high-level weapons that can bring down planes, can take out tanks at a distance," Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former intelligence chief and brother of the Saudi foreign minister, said last week at a meeting in Davos.

Saudi Arabia and its fellow Gulf state Qatar have long backed Assad's opponents and advocate arming them, but for now the rebels are still far outgunned by the Syrian military.

"They are not heavily armed, properly trained or equipped," said Ali Shukri, a retired Jordanian general, who argued also that rebels would need extensive training to use Western anti-tank or anti-aircraft weapons effectively even if they had them.

He said two powerful armored divisions were among Syrian forces in the south, where the rebels are "not that strong".

It is easier for insurgents elsewhere in Syria to get support via Turkey or Lebanon than in the south where the only borders are with Israel and Jordan, Shukri said.

Jordan, which has urged Assad to go, but seeks a political solution to the crisis, is unlikely to ramp up support for the rebels, even if its cautious policy risks irritating Saudi Arabia and Qatar, financial donors to the cash-strapped kingdom.

ISLAMIST STRENGTH

"I'm confident the opposition would like to be sourcing arms regularly from the Jordanian border, not least because I guess it would be easier for the Saudis to get stuff up there on the scale you'd be talking about," said a Western diplomat in Amman.

A scarcity of arms and ammunition is the main complaint of the armed opposition, a disparate array of local factions in which Islamist militants, especially the al Qaeda-endorsed Nusra Front, have come to play an increasing role in recent months.

The Nusra Front, better armed than many groups, emerged months after the anti-Assad revolt began in Deraa with peaceful protests that drew a violent response from the security forces.

It has flourished as the conflict has turned ever more bitterly sectarian, pitting majority Sunnis against Alawites.

Since October, the Front, deemed a terrorist group by the United States, has carried out at least three high-profile suicide bombings in Deraa, attacking the officers' club, the governor's residence and an army checkpoint in the city centre.

Such exploits have won prestige for the Islamist group, which has gained a reputation for military prowess, piety and respect for local communities, in contrast to some other rebel outfits tainted by looting and other unpopular behavior.

"So far no misdeeds have come from the Nusra Front to make us fear them," said Daya al-Deen al-Hawrani, a fighter from the rebel al-Omari Brigade. "Their goal and our goal is one."

Abu Ibrahim, a non-Islamist rebel commander operating near Deraa, said the Nusra Front fought better and behaved better than units active under the banner of the Free Syrian Army.

"Their influence has grown," he acknowledged, describing them as dedicated and disciplined. Nor were their fighters imposing their austere Islamic ideology on others, at least for now. "I sit with them and smoke and they don't mind," he said.

The Nusra Front may be trying to avoid the mistakes made by a kindred group, Al Qaeda in Iraq, which fought U.S. troops and the rise of Shi'ite factions empowered by the 2003 invasion.

The Iraqi group's suicide attacks on civilians, hostage beheadings and attempts to enforce a harsh version of Islamic law eventually alienated fellow Sunni tribesmen who switched sides and joined U.S. forces in combating the militants.

Despite the Nusra Front's growing prominence and its occasional spectacular suicide bombings in Deraa, there are few signs that its fighters or other rebels are on the verge of dislodging the Syrian military from its southern bastions.

Abu Hamza, the commander in the Ababeel Hawran Brigade, was among many rebels and opposition figures to lament the toughness of the task facing Assad's enemies in the south: "What is killing us is that all of Hawran is a military area," he said.

"And every village has five army compounds around it."

(Writing by Alistair Lyon; Editing by Alastair Macdonald)

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U.N. rights inquiry says Israel must remove settlers

GENEVA (Reuters) - U.N. human rights investigators called on Israel on Thursday to halt settlement expansion and withdraw all half a million Jewish settlers from the occupied West Bank, saying that its practices could be subject to prosecution as possible war crimes.

A three-member U.N. panel said private companies should stop working in the settlements if their work adversely affected the human rights of Palestinians, and urged member states to ensure companies respected human rights.

"Israel must cease settlement activities and provide adequate, prompt and effective remedy to the victims of violations of human rights," Christine Chanet, a French judge who led the U.N. inquiry, told a news conference.

The settlements contravened the Fourth Geneva Convention forbidding the transfer of civilian populations into occupied territory and could amount to war crimes that fall under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the United Nations report said.

"To transfer its own population into an occupied territory is prohibited because it is an obstacle to the exercise of the right to self-determination," Chanet said.

In December, the Palestinians accused Israel in a letter to the United Nations of planning to commit what it said were further war crimes by expanding Jewish settlements after the Palestinians won de facto U.N. recognition of statehood, and said Israel must be held accountable.

Israel has not cooperated with the probe set up by the Human Rights Council last March to examine the impact of settlements in the territory, including East Jerusalem. Israel says the forum has an inherent bias against it and defends its settlement policy by citing historical and Biblical links to the West Bank.

Israel's foreign ministry swiftly rejected the report as "counterproductive and unfortunate". The Palestine Liberation Organisation welcomed its "principled and candid" findings.

"The only way to resolve all pending issues between Israel and the Palestinians, including the settlements issue, is through direct negotiations without pre-conditions. Counterproductive measures - such as the report before us, will only hamper efforts to find a sustainable solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict," Israel's Yigal Palmor said.

"The Human Rights Council has sadly distinguished itself by its systematically one-sided and biased approach towards Israel. This latest report is yet another unfortunate reminder of that."

But Hanan Ashrawi, a top PLO official told Reuters: "This is incredible. We are extremely heartened by this principled and candid assessment of Israeli violations...This report clearly states the Israel is not just violating the 4th Geneva Convention, but places Israel in liability to the Rome Statute under the jurisdiction of the ICC."

The independent U.N. investigators interviewed more than 50 people who came to Jordan in November to testify about confiscated land, damage to their livelihoods including olive trees, and violence by Jewish settlers, according to the report.

"The mission believes that the motivation behind this violence and the intimidation against the Palestinians as well as their properties is to drive the local populations away from their lands and allow the settlements to expand," it said.

"CREEPING ANNEXATION"

About 250 settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, have been established since 1967 and they hold an estimated 520,000 settlers, according to the U.N. report. The settlements impede Palestinian access to water and farm lands.

The settlements were "leading to a creeping annexation that prevents the establishment of a contiguous and viable Palestinian state and undermines the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination," it said.

Chanet said: "To maintain such a system of segregation you need strict police and army control. It means a lot of checkpoints, violation of freedom of movement, no access to natural resources, demolition of houses and sometimes even destroying the trees."

After the General Assembly upgraded the Palestinians status at the world body, Israel said it would build 3,000 more settler homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem - areas Palestinians wanted for a future state, along with the Gaza Strip.

The U.N. human rights inquiry said that the International Criminal Court had jurisdiction over the deportation or transfer by the occupying power of its own population into the territory.

Chanet, asked whether the violations constituted war crimes that could be tried at the Hague-based court, said: "These offences are falling into the provision of article 8 of the ICC statutes. Article 8 of the ICC statute is in the chapter of war crimes, that is the answer."

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; additional reporting by Ori Lewis and Noah Browning in Jerusalem; Editing by Jon Boyle)

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France backs possible U.N. force in Mali

PARIS (Reuters) - French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian on Thursday backed the idea of sending a United Nations peacekeeping force into Mali, saying France would play a role in any such plan.

The U.N. Security Council is to begin discussing the possibility of deploying U.N. troops in the stricken West African nation, envoys said of an idea it had previously been uncomfortable with before France's recent military intervention.

The French military on Wednesday took control of the airport in Kidal, the last town held by al-Qaeda-linked rebels, and is planning to quickly hand over to a larger African force, whose task will be to root out insurgents in their mountain redoubts.

U.N. envoys have said sending in a peacekeeping force would offer clear advantages over an African-led force, as it would be easier to monitor human rights compliance and the United Nations could choose which national contingents to use in the force.

"This development is extremely positive and I want this initiative to be carried through," Le Drian said on France Inter radio, adding that France would "obviously play its role".

French has deployed some 4,500 troops in a three-week ground an air offensive, aimed at breaking Islamists' 10-month hold on towns in northern Mali.

After taking back the major Saharan towns of Gao and Timbuktu at the weekend, Le Drian confirmed that troops were still stuck at the airport in Kidal, where bad weather was preventing them from entering the town.

Many are now warning of the risk of ethnic reprisals as displaced black Malians take up arms to return to their liberated towns.

(Reporting By Vicky Buffery; editing by Mark John)

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Dawn attack shook Damascus military complex

AMMAN (Reuters) - The force of the dawn attack on a Syrian military site outside Damascus on Wednesday shook the ground, waking nearby residents from their slumber with up to a dozen blasts, two sources in the area said.

"We were sleeping. Then we started hearing rockets hitting the complex and the ground started shaking and we ran into the basement," said a woman who lives adjacent to the sprawling Jamraya site north-west of the Syrian capital.

The resident, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity over a reported strike in the area by Israel on Wednesday morning, said she could not tell whether the explosions which woke her were the result of an aerial attack.

Details of the strike remain sketchy and, in parts, contradictory. Syria said Israeli warplanes, flying low to avoid detection by radar, crossed into its airspace from Lebanon and struck the Jamraya military research center.

But diplomats, Syrian rebels and regional security sources said the planes hit a weapons convoy heading from Syria to Lebanon, apparently destined for President Bashar al-Assad's ally Hezbollah, and the rebels said they - not Israel - hit Jamraya with mortars.

Another source who has a relative working inside Jamraya reported that a building inside the complex had been cordoned off on Wednesday employees believed it had been hit. Flames could be seen rising from the area after the attack, they said.

"It appears that there were about a dozen rockets that appeared to hit one building in the complex," the source, who also asked not to be identified, told Reuters.

"The facility is closed today," he added.

Israeli newspapers on Thursday quoted foreign media for reports on the strike. Journalists in Israel are required to submit articles on security and military issues to the censor, which has the power to block any publication of material it deems could compromise state security.

MISSILE PROGRAMME

The Jamraya research center is in the town of Jamraya, 8 miles from the border with Lebanon, surrounded by heavily militarized areas including several army bases and artillery sites on the Qasioun mountain range, which overlooks Damascus proper 3 miles to the east.

Diplomats in the Middle East familiar with Jamraya described it as a crucial element of Syria's missile program, and say it also has a chemical weapons facility. There have been no suggestions any chemical weapons were hit in Wednesday's strike.

People who visited Jamraya recently say it is surrounded by walls 3 to 4 meters high and guarded by plain-clothed agents.

They say that recently shabbiha militia forces loyal to Assad deployed around it, and tanks moved into a residential housing section of the facility.

Asked about rebel attacks in the area, they said there had been some attempts to target the tanks with mortars but were not aware of any rebel activity in the last few days.

Three months ago rebels killed 21 elite Republican Guards in an ambush on an army minibus in the district of Qudsayya, just south of Jamraya, activists said.

A statement from the joint military council of the Free Syrian Army described Jamraya as "one of the biggest shabbiha strongholds", where it said Iranian, Russian and Hezbollah members were helping develop chemical and other weapons including 'barrel bombs' used by Assad's air force.

The rebels fired "six 120 millimeter mortars... a big part of (the complex) has been destroyed", it said.

(Additional reporting by Mariam Karouny; writing by Dominic Evans; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

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Egypt politicians renounce violence at crisis talks

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's feuding politicians renounced violence on Thursday after being summoned by the country's most influential Muslim scholar to talks to end the deadliest unrest since President Mohamed Mursi took power.

It remains to be seen whether the pledge to end confrontation will halt a week of bloodshed on the streets that killed nearly 60 people. Opposition groups did not cancel new demonstrations scheduled for Friday.

But participants at the meeting, including leaders of Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood and its secular rivals, described their joint statement as a major step towards ending a conflict that has made the most populous Arab state seem all but ungovernable two years after an uprising toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

The meeting was convened by Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayyeb, head of the thousand-year-old al-Azhar university and mosque, one of the few institutions still seen as neutral in a society that has become increasingly polarized.

He told politicians that a national dialogue, "in which all elements of Egyptian society participate, without any exclusion, is the only tool to resolve any problems or differences.

"Political work has nothing to do with violence or sabotage and the welfare of everyone and the fate of our nation depends on respect for the rule of law," the sheikh said.

Participants signed a document pledging to renounce violence and agreed to set up a committee of politicians from rival groups to work out a program for further talks.

"We come out of the meeting with a type of optimism," liberal politician Mohamed ElBaradei said. "Each of us will do what we can, with goodwill, to build trust once again among the factions of the Egyptian nation."

Saad el-Katatni, head of the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, called it "an historic day".

"Everyone in the meeting expressed readiness to make concessions to make this experiment succeed," he said.

Al-Azhar, one of the main seats of learning in Sunni Islam worldwide, has tended to keep itself above Egypt's political fray. Its extraordinary intervention follows a warning by the army chief on Tuesday that street battles - which erupted last week to mark the second anniversary of the uprising that toppled Mubarak - could bring about the collapse of the state.

SPIRIT OF THE REVOLUTION

The opposition accuses Mursi of betraying the spirit of the revolution by concentrating too much power in his own hands and those of the Brotherhood, a decades-old underground Islamist movement banned under Mubarak. The Brotherhood accuses its foes of trying to topple Egypt's first elected leader.

Participants at Thursday's meeting included Katatni and the Brotherhood's deputy leader Mahmoud Ezzat. Television footage showed them sitting opposite liberals ElBaradei and Amr Moussa, respectively former heads of the U.N. nuclear watchdog and the Arab League, and leftist Hamdeen Sabahi.

The streets have grown quieter in the past few days, and on Wednesday authorities scaled back a curfew imposed on three Suez Canal cities where most of the week's blood was spilt.

Nevertheless, even as Thursday's meeting was under way, a statement issued by opposition parties including Sabahi's Popular Current reiterated a call for demonstrations at the presidential palace in Cairo on Friday.

"The wave of revolutionary anger that erupted in the Egyptian provinces to express the Egyptian people's rejection of the continuation of the same policies - even if the faces have changed - will continue and go on to stress its legitimate demands in achieving the goals of the revolution," it said.

Attending the meeting was a partial reversal for the opposition alliance, which had previously spurned Mursi's call for talks, demanding that the president first agree to include opponents in a national unity government.

"Discussions concluded that there is no solution to the problems of the nation's democratic transition other than through dialogue, and dialogue must have foundations and guarantees, and not preconditions," the Brotherhood's Katatni said.

The secularists are nonetheless likely to continue to press for inclusion in a national unity government, a call also backed by the hardline Islamist Nour party in an unlikely alliance of Mursi's critics from opposite ends of the political spectrum.

The Brotherhood rejects a unity government as an attempt by Mursi's foes to take power they could not win at the ballot box.

The crisis forced Mursi to cut short a visit to Europe on Wednesday that had been intended to lure investment to Egypt. While in Berlin, the president sidestepped calls for a unity government, saying the next cabinet would be formed after parliamentary elections due in April.

UNREST TARNISHES MURSI'S RISE

The rise of an elected Islamist president in the Arab world's most populous state after generations of secularist military rule is probably the most important outcome of the wave of Arab revolts over the past two years.

But Mursi's seven-month rule has been tarnished by the civil unrest, worsening an economic crisis that forced Cairo to sell off most of its reserves to keep its currency from crashing.

The past week's violence followed weeks of demonstrations last year against a new constitution, as Mursi failed to unite Egyptians despite the Brotherhood winning repeated elections.

Ejijah Zarwan, who analyses Egyptian politics for the European Council on Foreign Relations, said Thursday's intervention by al-Azhar was important, but it was far from clear whether it would be enough to calm the streets.

"It's a good first step. Certainly it will help the formal opposition to be very clearly on record as opposing violence," he said. But he added: "The people fighting the police and burning buildings are not partisans of any political party. They might not even vote."

"There's a political crisis and there's a social and economic crisis. A negotiated solution to the political crisis will certainly help but it's just a necessary first step towards resolving the social and economic crisis."

(Reporting by Tom Perry; Additional reporting by Omar Fahmy and Yasmine Saleh; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Paul Taylor)

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Russia scraps law enforcement deal with U.S. in new blow to ties

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia scrapped a law enforcement agreement with the United States on Wednesday, further turning back the clock on a "reset" in relations since President Vladimir Putin's return to the Kremlin last year.

An order to end the deal, signed by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, was posted on the government's website. It said the agreement, under which Washington provides financial assistance for law enforcement and drugs control programs, "does not address current realities and has exhausted its potential".

Lawmaker Alexei Pushkov, a Putin ally who heads the parliamentary committee on international affairs, welcomed the move.

"Russia is reformatting its relationship with the USA: this is already the third agreement cancelled in the last half-year. We are saying farewell to our dependence on 'Power No. 1'," he said on Twitter.

Since Putin's return to the Kremlin in May, his foreign policy rhetoric has become increasingly focused on external threats, including from the United States which Russia has accused of trying to meddle in Russian politics.

Moscow was infuriated by a U.S. human rights bill that barred Russians accused of human rights abuses from entering the United States and freezed any assets they have there.

It responded with a bill in December imposing similar measures and banned the adoption of Russian children by American families, clouding what was left of the "reset" in ties hailed by U.S. President Barack Obama at the start of his first term.

Moscow also outlawed U.S.-funded "non-profit organizations that engage in political activity" and last October ordered the U.S. Agency for International Development to cease operations in Russia, saying Washington was using the mission to interfere in politics.

The government statement on Wednesday said Russia's Foreign Ministry had been told to inform U.S. authorities about the withdrawal from the 11-year-old law enforcement agreement. The U.S. Embassy in Moscow declined immediate comment.

REDUCING U.S. INFLUENCE

Russia announced last October that it was withdrawing from a decades-old agreement under which Washington helped it dismantle nuclear and chemical weapons. Russia argued it now had the power and finances to carry out disarmament itself.

Dmitry Trenin, director at the Carnegie Moscow Center think tank, said Putin was playing on Russians' patriotism by portraying Washington as a meddling foreign power in an attempt to cast dissenters as traitors working for an outside threat.

"Mr. Putin's goal is to reduce as much as he can U.S. influence on Russia internally," he said.

"I'm sure there will be a lot of damage but they believe the pay-off will be bigger: whoever opposes the leadership here will be seen as a fifth column who is doing the bidding of the United States, unpatriotic at minimum and very likely a traitor."

Several members of a protest movement against Putin, which started after allegations of vote rigging after a 2011 parliamentary election, have been portrayed by the media as being on the payroll of foreign countries.

The United States withdrew from a bilateral civil society group earlier this month to protest against what it said was Moscow's clampdown on civil rights and public activism.

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov described the U.S. human rights bill, named after lawyer Sergei Magnitsky who died in detention in 2009, as "odious", but said Moscow wants constructive ties with the United States.

Trenin said that while Russia was likely to continue to reduce the United States' presence in the country, Moscow was unlikely to cut major initiatives. Russia allows the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force to use a rail route through its territory to transport equipment.

He added that some of recent deal-breaking with the United States was being driven by a desire to shed its image as an aid recipient.

(Additional reporting by Gabriela Baczynska)

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U.N.'s Ban decries "horrors" in Syria, urges end to war

KUWAIT (Reuters) - Denouncing "unrelenting horrors" in Syria's war, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appealed on Wednesday for an end to the violence and more aid to address a situation he said was catastrophic and worsening by the day.

"How many more people will be killed if the current situation continues?" Ban said, addressing a donors conference in Kuwait aimed at raising money for U.N. humanitarian work.

"I appeal to all sides and particularly the Syrian government to stop the killing ... in the name of humanity, stop the killing, stop the violence," the U.N. leader said.

Syrian opposition activists said at least 65 people were found shot dead with their hands bound in the embattled northern city of Aleppo on Tuesday, the latest reported massacre over the course of 22 months of conflict.

They blamed militiamen loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, while the government blamed the Islamist rebel Nusra Front. It was impossible to confirm who was responsible given Syria's restrictions on access for independent media.

More than 60,000 people have been killed in all, according to a U.N. estimate, since the conflict began as a peaceful movement for democratic reform and escalated into an armed rebellion after Assad tried to crush the unrest by force.

An official of the Gulf Cooperation Council, a grouping of six Gulf Arab states, said a total of $1 billion had been pledged at the meeting by midday, after promises of $300 million each from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.

The United Nations warned on Monday that without more money it would not be able to help millions of Syrians and appealed for donations at the aid conference to meet its $1.5 billion target.

Four million Syrians inside the country need food, shelter and other aid and more than 700,000 more are estimated to have fled to countries nearby.

SCALE OF CRISIS ESCALATES

King Abdullah of Jordan told the gathering that Syrians had taken refuge in his country in their hundreds of thousands but Amman's ability to help was at its limits. "We have reached the end of the line, we have exhausted our resources," he said.

U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos said that Syrian agriculture was in crisis, hospitals and ambulances had been damaged and even painkillers were unavailable.

Harsh winter weather had made matters worse, and people lack winter clothes, blankets and fuel, with women and children particularly at risk, she said, adding:

"We are watching a human tragedy unfold before our eyes."

The conference was seeking pledges of $1 billion of aid for Syria's neighbors hosting refugees and another $500 million to fund humanitarian work for 4 million Syrians afflicted by the civil war inside the country.

The aid would fund operations for the first half of this year, but the United Nations has so far received pledges covering just 18 percent of the target, unveiled last month as the scale of Syria's humanitarian crisis escalated sharply.

Even if pledges are made, aid groups have found in the past that converting promises into hard cash can take time.

Nevertheless, there was early positive news for the gathering when the oil-rich states of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the UAE each pledged $300 million in aid.

Kuwait's emir, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, told the meeting "horrifying reports" of violence had raised questions about Syria's future and aid efforts had to be redoubled.

SEXUAL VIOLENCE, DETENTIONS

But Ban said much more remained to be done. "The situation in Syria is catastrophic and getting worse every day," he said.

"Every day Syrians face unrelenting horrors," he said, including sexual violence and detentions.

Iran, a close ally of Assad, said the blame for the humanitarian crisis lay with opposition fighters who had come to Syria from abroad.

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said the government and its Syrian opponents should "sit and talk and form a transitional government".

"Those who are causing these calamities are mercenaries who have come to Syria from outside the country," he said. For an interactive timeline on Syria, please click on http://link.reuters.com/rut37s

(Reporting by Sylvia Westall, Ahmed Hagagy, Sami Aboudi, Mahmoud Habboush and Mirna Sleiman; Writing by William Maclean; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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Israel hits target in Syria border area: sources

LONDON (Reuters) - Israeli forces attacked a convoy on the Syrian-Lebanese border overnight, a Western diplomat and regional security sources said on Wednesday, as concern has grown in the Jewish state over the fate of Syrian chemical and advanced conventional weapons.

The sources, four in total, all of whom declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue, had no further information about what the vehicles may have been carrying, what forces were used or where precisely the attack happened.

In the run-up to the raid, Israeli officials have been warning very publicly of a threat of high-tech anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles reaching Israel's enemies in the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah from Syria. They have also echoed U.S. concerns about Syria's presumed chemical weapons arsenal.

The Lebanese army reported a heavy presence of Israeli jets over its territory throughout the night.

"There was definitely a hit in the border area," one security source said. A Western diplomat in the region who asked about the strike said "something has happened", without elaborating.

An activist in Syria who works with a network of opposition groups around the country said that she had heard of a strike in southern Syria from her colleagues but could not confirm it. A strike just inside Lebanon would appear a less diplomatically explosive option for Israel to avoid provoking Syrian ally Iran.

Israeli Vice Premier Silvan Shalom said on Sunday that any sign that Syria's grip on its chemical weapons was slipping, as President Bashar al-Assad fights rebels trying to overthrow him, could trigger Israeli intervention.

Israeli sources said on Tuesday that Syria's advanced conventional weapons would represent as much of a threat to Israel as its chemical arms should they fall into the hands of Islamist rebels or Hezbollah guerrillas based in Lebanon.

Interviewed on Wednesday, Shalom would not be drawn on whether Israel was operating on its northern front, instead describing the country as part of an international coalition seeking to stop spillover from Syria's two-year-old insurgency.

"The entire world has said more than once that it takes developments in Syria very seriously, developments which can be in negative directions," he told Israel Radio, recalling that President Barack Obama has warned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad of U.S. action if his forces use chemical weapons.

"The world, led by President Obama who has said this more than once, is taking all possibilities into account," Shalom added. "And of course any development which is a development in a negative direction would be something that needs stopping and prevention."

BORDER STRIKE

Whether the strike took place within Syrian territory, or over the border in Lebanon, could affect any escalation from the incident. Iran, Israel's arch-foe and one of Damascus's few allies, said on Saturday it would consider any attack on Syria as an attack on itself. During and since Israel's 2006 war with Hezbollah, there have been unconfirmed reports of Israeli strikes on convoys just after they entered Lebanon from Syria.

Israel has long made clear it claims a right to act preemptively against enemy capabilities. Alluding to this, air force chief Major-General Amir Eshel on Tuesday said his corps was involved in a covert and far-flung "campaign between wars".

"This campaign is 24/7, 365 days a year," Eshel told an international conference. "We are taking action to reduce the immediate threats, to create better conditions in which we will be able to win the wars, when they happen."

He did not elaborate on any operations, but did single out the threat Israel saw from Syria's arsenal, calling it "huge, part of it state-of-the-art, part of it unconventional".

Israel fought an inconclusive war in Lebanon with Iranian-backed Hezbollah in 2006. Its aircraft then faced little threat, though its navy was taken aback when a cruise missile hit a ship off the Lebanese coast. Israeli tanks suffered losses to rockets and commanders are concerned Hezbollah may get better weaponry.

Israeli jets regularly enter Lebanese airspace, but its forces have been more discreet about Syrian incursions.

Israel's bombing of a suspected Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007, though revealed by then U.S. President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, is still not formally acknowledged by the Israelis.

According to Bush, then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert sought to keep the matter quiet so as to reduce the risk of Assad feeling public pressure to retaliate. Syria and Israel are technically at war but have not exchanged fire in a significant way in decades.

A U.N. force sits on the line, north of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, where a ceasefire ended their last war in 1973.

Israeli media reported this week that the country's national security adviser, Yaakov Amidror, was sent to Russia and its military intelligence chief Major-General Aviv Kochavi to the United States for consultations.

Shashank Joshi of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London said that there are indications that Hezbollah is training near chemical weapons sites in Syria, with which the Shi'ite Lebanese militia has historically had a strong alliance.

"We also know that (Syria's) use of tactical ballistic missiles has been escalating - presumably as air power becomes harder to use in contested areas, and rebels seize larger targets like bases that are amenable to missile attack," he said.

Worries about Syria and Hezbollah have sent Israelis lining up for government-issued gas masks. According to the Israel post office, which is handling distribution of the kits, demand roughly trebled this week.

"It looks like every kind of discourse on this or that security matter contributes to public vigilance," its deputy director Haim Azaki told Israel's Army Radio. "We have really seen a very significant jump in demand."

(Reporting by Myra MacDonald; Writing by Oliver Holmes; Editing by Alastair Macdonald)

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Merkel urges Egypt's Mursi to hold crisis dialogue

CAIRO/BERLIN (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Egypt's Islamist president on Wednesday to open a dialogue with all political forces in the crisis-ridden Arab country after a week of violence that has killed more than 50 people.

President Mohamed Mursi flew to Germany to try to convince Europe of his democratic credentials, but in a sign of the political tensions back home, he restricted his trip to a few hours and canceled a planned Paris leg.

"One thing that is important for us is that the line for dialogue is always open to all political forces in Egypt, that the different political forces can make their contribution, that human rights are adhered to in Egypt and that of course religious freedom can be experienced," Merkel told Mursi at a joint news conference.

The Egyptian leader, who has faced months of protests by liberal and youth groups opposed to a new Islamic constitution, replied that dialogue was possible and that Egypt would be a state based on the rule of law, not run by the military.

But he refused to give a commitment sought by the opposition to form a national unity government, saying that would be for the new parliament to decide after elections expected in April.

Two more protesters were shot dead before dawn near Cairo's central Tahrir Square on the seventh day of what has become the deadliest wave of unrest since Mursi took power in June.

The army chief warned on Tuesday that the state was on the brink of collapse if Mursi's opponents and supporters did not end street battles that have marked the two-year anniversary of the revolt that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

Mursi is due to return to Cairo later in the day.

Near Tahrir Square on Wednesday morning, dozens of protesters threw stones at police who fired back teargas, although the scuffles were brief.

"Our demand is simply that Mursi goes, and leaves the country alone. He is just like Mubarak and his crowd who are now in prison," said Ahmed Mustafa, 28, a youth who had goggles on his head to protect his eyes from teargas.

Opposition politician Mohamed ElBaradei called for a meeting of the president, ministers, the ruling party and the opposition to halt the violence. But he also restated the opposition's precondition that Mursi first commit to seeking a national unity government.

Mursi's critics accuse him of betraying the spirit of the revolution by keeping too much power in his own hands and those of his Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist movement banned under Mubarak which won repeated elections since the 2011 uprising.

Mursi's supporters say the protesters want to overthrow Egypt's first democratically elected leader. The unrest has prevented a return to stability ahead of parliamentary elections due within months, and worsened an economic crisis that has seen the pound currency tumble in recent weeks.

The worst violence has been in the Suez Canal city of Port Said, where rage was fuelled by death sentences passed against soccer fans for deadly riots last year. Mursi responded by announcing on Sunday a month-long state of emergency and curfew in Port Said and two other Suez Canal cities.

Protesters have ignored the curfew and returned to the streets. Human Rights Watch called for Mursi to lift the decree.

Mursi was keen to allay the West's fears over the future of the most populous Arab country in his meetings with Merkel and powerful industry groups in Berlin.

"DISTURBING IMAGES"

"We have seen worrying images in recent days, images of violence and destruction, and I appeal to both sides to engage in dialogue," German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said in a radio interview on Wednesday ahead of Mursi's arrival.

Germany's "offer to help with Egypt's transformation clearly depends on it sticking to democratic reforms", he added.

Germany has praised Mursi's efforts in mediating a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinians in Gaza after a conflict last year, but became concerned at Mursi's efforts to expand his powers and fast-track a constitution last year.

Berlin was also alarmed by video that emerged in recent weeks showing Mursi making vitriolic remarks against Jews and Zionists in 2010 when he was a senior Brotherhood official. Germany's Nazi past and strong support of Israel make it highly sensitive to anti-Semitism.

Mursi's past anti-Jewish remarks were "unacceptable", Westerwelle said. "But at the same time President Mursi has played a very constructive role mediating in the Gaza conflict."

Asked about those remarks at the news conference with Merkel, Mursi said they had been taken out of context and he was not against the Jewish faith.

Egypt's main liberal and secularist bloc, the National Salvation Front, has so far refused talks with Mursi unless he promises a unity government including opposition figures.

"Stopping the violence is the priority, and starting a serious dialogue requires committing to guarantees demanded by the National Salvation Front, at the forefront of which are a national salvation government and a committee to amend the constitution," ElBaradei said on Twitter.

Those calls have also been backed by the hardline Islamist Nour party - rivals of Mursi's Brotherhood. Nour and the Front were due to meet on Wednesday, signaling an unlikely alliance of Mursi's critics from opposite ends of the political spectrum.

Brotherhood leader Mohamed El-Beltagy dismissed the unity government proposal as a ploy for the Front to take power despite having lost elections. On his Facebook page he ridiculed "the leaders of the Salvation Front, who seem to know more about the people's interests than the people themselves".

German industry leaders see potential in Egypt but are concerned about political instability.

"At the moment many firms are waiting on political developments and are cautious on any big investments," said Hans Heinrich Driftmann, head of Germany's Chamber of Industry and Commerce.

Mursi's supporters blame the opposition for preventing an economic recovery by halting efforts to restore stability. The opposition says an inclusive government is needed to bring calm.

(Additional reporting by Yasmine Saleh and Marwa Awad in Cairo, Stephen Brown and Gernot Heller in Berlin and Arshad Mohammed in Washington; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Giles Elgood and Paul Taylor)

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French troops deploy in last of Mali rebel strongholds

DOUENTZA, Mali (Reuters) - French troops took control on Wednesday of the airport of Mali's northeast town of Kidal, the last urban stronghold held by Islamist rebels, as they moved to wrap up the first phase of a military operation to wrest northern Mali from rebel hands.

A three-week ground and air offensive by French forces aimed at initially ending a 10-month Islamist rebel occupation of major towns is expected to eventually hand over to a larger African force.

The Africans' task will be rooting out insurgents hiding in the desert and mountains near Algeria's border.

"They (the French) arrived late last night and deployed in four planes and some helicopters," Haminy Belco Maiga, president of Kidal's regional assembly of Kidal, told Reuters.

However, the deployment of French troops to remote Kidal puts them in direct contact with pro-autonomy Tuareg MNLA rebels operating there.

The Tuaregs, whose separatist rebellion last year was hijacked by the Islamist radicals, say they are ready to fight al Qaeda, but many Malians blame them for triggering the collapse of democracy and division with their northern revolt.

France's military operation in its former West African colony involves around 3,500 troops on the ground backed by warplanes, helicopters and armored vehicles. It is aimed at heading off the risk of Mali being used as a springboard for jihadist attacks in the wider region or Europe.

French and Malian troops retook the major Saharan trading towns of Gao and Timbuktu at the weekend.

There were fears that many thousands of priceless ancient manuscripts held in Timbuktu, a UNESCO World Heritage site, might have been lost during the rebel occupation, but experts said the bulk of the texts were safe.

The United States and European governments strongly support the Mali intervention and are providing logistical and surveillance backing but do not intend to send combat troops.

The MNLA rebels, who want greater autonomy for the desert north, said they had moved fighters into Kidal after Islamists left the town earlier this week.

"For the moment, there is a coordination with the French troops," said Moussa Ag Assarid, the MNLA spokesman in Paris.

There were no reports of Malian government troops being in the town.

The MNLA took up arms against the Bamako government a year ago, seeking to carve out a new independent desert state.

After initially fighting alongside the Islamists, by June they had been forced out by their better armed and financed former allies, who include al Qaeda North Africa's wing, AQIM, a splinter wing called MUJWA and Ansar Dine, a Malian group.

RISK OF ATTACKS, KIDNAPPINGS

But as the French wind up the successful first phase of their offensive, doubts remain about just how quickly the U.N.-backed African intervention force, known as AFISMA and now expected to exceed 8,000 troops, can be fully deployed in Mali to hunt down the retreating al Qaeda-allied insurgents.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said the French military operation, codenamed Serval (Wildcat), was planned to be a lightning mission that would last just a few weeks to avoid getting bogged down.

"Liberating Gao and Timbuktu very quickly was part of the plan. Now it's up to the African countries to take over," he told the Le Parisien daily. "We decided to put in the means and the necessary number of soldiers to strike hard. But the French contingent will not stay like this. We will leave very quickly."

Fabius warned that things could now get more difficult, as the offensive seeks to flush out insurgents with experience of fighting in the desert from their wilderness hideouts.

"We have to be careful. We are entering a complicated phase where the risks of attacks or kidnappings are extremely high. French interests are threatened throughout the entire Sahel."

An attack on the In Amenas gas plant in Algeria earlier this month by Islamist fighters opposing the French intervention in Mali led to the deaths of dozens of foreign hostages and raised fears of similar reprisal strikes across North and West Africa.

NEED FOR RECONCILIATION

While the French operation has made destroying Islamist fighters, positions and assets with air strikes a priority, analysts say a long term solution for Mali hinges on finding a political settlement between the northern communities and the southern capital Bamako.

Interim President Dioncounda Traore said on Tuesday his government would aim to hold national elections on July 31.

After months of being kept on the political sidelines, the MNLA said they were in contact with West African mediators who are trying to forge a national settlement to reunite Mali.

"We reiterate that we are ready to talk with Bamako and to find a political solution. We want self-determination, but all that will be up to negotiations which will determine at what level both parties can go," Ag Assarid said.

However, there have been cases in Gao and Timbuktu and other recaptured towns of reprisal attacks and looting of shops and residences belonging to Malian Tuaregs and Arabs suspected of sympathizing with the MNLA and the Islamist rebels.

France has called for international observers to be deployed to ensure human rights abuses are not committed.

"Reconciling the Tuaregs with their Malian co-citizens will be extremely complicated," said Francois Heisbourg, a special adviser at the Foundation for Strategic Research, a Paris-based think-tank.

(Additional reporting John Irish and Emmanuel Jarry in Paris, David Lewis and Pascal Fletcher in Dakar; Writing by David Lewis; Editing by Pascal Fletcher)

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Army warning: unrest pushing Egypt to brink

CAIRO, Egypt (Reuters) - Egypt's army chief said political strife was pushing the state to the brink of collapse - a stark warning from the institution that ran the country until last year as Cairo's first freely elected leader struggles to contain bloody street violence.

Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a U.S.-trained general appointed by President Mohamed Mursi last year to head the armed forces, added in a statement on Tuesday that one of the primary goals of deploying troops in cities on the Suez Canal was to protect the waterway that is vital for Egypt's economy and world trade.

Sisi's comments, published on an official army Facebook page, followed 52 deaths in the past week of disorder and highlighted the mounting sense of crisis facing Egypt and its Islamist head of state who is struggling to fix a teetering economy and needs to prepare Egypt for a parliamentary election in a few months that is meant to cement the new democracy.

Violence largely subsided on Tuesday, although some youths again hurled rocks at police lines in Cairo near Tahrir Square.

It seemed unlikely that Sisi was signaling the army wants to take back the power it held for six decades since the end of the colonial era and through an interim period after the overthrow of former air force chief Hosni Mubarak two years ago.

But it did send a powerful message that Egypt's biggest institution, with a huge economic as well as security role and a recipient of massive direct U.S. subsidies, is worried about the fate of the nation, after five days of turmoil in major cities.

"The continuation of the struggle of the different political forces ... over the management of state affairs could lead to the collapse of the state," said General Sisi, who is also defense minister in the government Mursi appointed.

He said the economic, political and social challenges facing the country represented "a real threat to the security of Egypt and the cohesiveness of the Egyptian state" and the army would remain "the solid and cohesive block" on which the state rests.

Sisi was picked by Mursi after the army handed over power to the new president in June once Mursi had sacked Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, in charge of Egypt during the transition and who had also been Mubarak's defense minister for 20 years.

DEEPLY POLARISED

The 58-year-old previously headed military intelligence and studied at the U.S. Army War College. Diplomats say he is well known to the United States, which donates $1.3 billion in military aid each year, helping reassure Washington that the last year's changes in the top brass would not upset ties.

One of Sisi's closest and longest serving associates, General Mohamed el-Assar, an assistant defense minister, is now in charge of the military's relations with the United States.

Almost seven months after Mursi took office, Egyptian politics have become even more deeply polarized.

Opponents spurned a call by Mursi for talks on Monday to try to end the violence. Instead, protesters have rallied in Cairo and Alexandria, and in the three Suez Canal cities - Port Said, Ismailia and Suez - where Mursi imposed emergency rule.

On Tuesday, thousands were again on the streets of Port Said to mourn the deaths of two people in the latest clashes there, taking the total toll in Mediterranean port alone to 42 people. Most were killed by gunshots in a city where weapons are rife.

Mohamed Ezz, a Port Said resident speaking by telephone, heard heavy gunfire through the night. "Gunshots damaged the balcony of my flat, so I went to stay with my brother," he said.

Residents in the three canal cities had taken to the streets in protest at a nightly curfew now in place there. The president's spokesman said on Tuesday that the 30-day state of emergency could be shortened, depending on circumstances.

In Cairo on Tuesday afternoon, police again fired teargas as stone-throwing youths in a street near Tahrir Square, the centre of the 2011 uprising. But the clashes were less intense than previous days and traffic was able to cross the area. Street cleaners swept up the remains of burnt tires and other debris.

Street flare-ups are a common occurrence in divided Egypt, frustrating many people desperate for order and economic growth.

Although the general's comments were notably blunt, Egypt's military has voiced similar concerns in the past, pledging to protect the nation. But it has refused to be drawn back into a direct political role after its reputation as a neutral party took a pounding during the 17 months after Mubarak fell.

WARY MILITARY

"Egyptians are really alarmed by what is going on," said Cairo-based analyst Elijah Zarwan, adding that the army was reflecting that broader concern among the wider public.

"But I don't think it should be taken as a sign that the military is on the verge of stepping in and taking back the reins of government," he said.

In December, Sisi offered to host a national dialogue when Mursi and the rivals were again at loggerheads and the streets were aflame. But the invitation was swiftly withdrawn before the meeting went ahead, apparently because the army was wary of becoming embroiled again in Egypt's polarized politics.

Protests initially flared during the second anniversary of the uprising which erupted on January 25, 2011 and toppled Mubarak 18 days later. They were exacerbated in Port Said when residents were angered after a court sentenced to death several people from the city over deadly soccer violence.

Since the 2011 revolt, Islamists who Mubarak spent his 30-year rule suppressing have won two referendums, two parliamentary elections and a presidential vote.

But that legitimacy has been challenged by an opposition that accuses Mursi of imposing a new form of authoritarianism. Mursi's supporters says protesters want to overthrow Egypt's first ever democratically elected leader by undemocratic means.

The army has already been deployed in Port Said and Suez and the government agreed a measure to let soldiers arrest civilians as part of the state of emergency. Sisi reiterated that the army's role would be support the police in restoring order.

The instability has provoked unease in Western capitals, where officials worry about the direction of a powerful regional player that has a peace deal with Israel. The United States condemned the bloodshed and called on Egyptian leaders to make clear violence was not acceptable.

Mursi's invitation to rivals to a national dialogue with Islamists on Monday was spurned by the main opposition National Salvation Front coalition, which described it as "cosmetic".

The only liberal politician who attended, Ayman Nour, told Egypt's al-Hayat channel after the meeting ended late on Monday that attendees agreed to meet again in a week.

He said Mursi had promised to look at changes to the constitution requested by the opposition but did not consider the opposition's request for a government of national unity. Mursi's pushing through last month of a new constitution which critics see as too Islamic remains a bone of contention.

(Additional reporting by Yasmine Saleh and Omar Fahmy in Cairo, Yusri Mohamed in Ismailia and Abdelrahman Youssef in Alexandria; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Alastair Macdonald)

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Niger gives green light to U.S. drone deployment: source

NIAMEY (Reuters) - Niger has given permission for U.S. surveillance drones to be stationed on its territory to improve intelligence on al Qaeda-linked Islamist fighters in northern Mali and the wider Sahara, a senior government source said.

The U.S. ambassador to Niger, Bisa Williams, made the request at a meeting on Monday with President Mahamadou Issoufou, who immediately accepted it, the source said.

"Niger has given the green light to accepting American surveillance drones on its soil to improve the collection of intelligence on Islamist movements," said the source, who asked not to be identified.

The drones could be stationed in Niger's northern desert region of Agadez, which borders Mali, Algeria and Libya, the source said.

A spokesperson for the United States' African Command (AFRICOM) declined to comment.

The United States already has drones and surveillance aircraft stationed at several points around Africa. Its only permanent military base is in the small country of Djibouti in the Horn of Africa, more than 3,000 miles from Mali.

After her talks with Issoufou, Williams told reporters they had discussed economic and military cooperation and development issues. She also expressed Washington's appreciation for the French-led military mission to expel an alliance of al Qaeda-linked fighters from northern Mali.

French and Malian troops retook control of the ancient trading town of Timbuktu on Monday, as they drove deep into the heart of the desert region the size of Texas seized by Islamist fighters last year.

Washington has provided military transport planes to airlift men and equipment into Mali but said it will not send combat troops.

The head of the U.S. Africa Command, General Carter Ham, visited Niger last month. The poor, landlocked West Africa state has said it wants to have closer security cooperation with Washington.

(Reporting by Abdoulaye Massalatchi, Additional reporting by John Irish in Paris; Writing by Daniel Flynn. Editing by Jeremy Gaunt.)

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UK ups offer for Mali, African anti-Islamist effort

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain on Tuesday boosted its offer of aid to help France fight Islamist rebels in Mali, and pledged troops to help other African governments in the region counter a rising tide of Islamist radicalism.

Up to 240 British troops could be deployed as part of two missions to train African troops, 40 in Mali as part of a European Union mission, and a further 200 in anglophone West African countries, Prime Minister David Cameron's spokesman said.

At least 70 more British personnel could be involved in logistical and support missions. "It is an African operation in support of the Malian government and we think that the right way to do this is for regionally-led forces to take the lead," the spokesman said, adding Britons would take no combat role.

The increased logistical support for France includes a ferry to transport troops and equipment to Africa, and allowing France and its allies to use Britain for air-to-air refueling.

Britain has also offered to set up a "Combined Joint Logistics Headquarters" in Mali, but France believes such a facility is not needed, Cameron's spokesman said, adding it would be kept under review.

A decision on whether to send up to 200 British soldiers on West African training missions is expected to be taken soon after African Union-led discussions in Addis Ababa, while talks are taking place in Brussels over troops for Mali.

(Reporting by Mohammed Abbas; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

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Passenger plane crash kills 21 in Kazakhstan

KYZYL TU, Kazakhstan (Reuters) - A passenger plane crashed in thick fog near Kazakhstan's commercial capital Almaty on Tuesday and broke into pieces when it hit the ground, killing all 21 people on board.

After several hours, rescue teams recovered the plane's flight recorder, the central communications service for Kazakhstan's president said on its Twitter page.

A list published by the prosecutor-general's office showed there had been 16 passengers and five crew members on board.

The Canadian-built Bombardier Challenger CRJ-200 belonged to private Kazakh airline SCAT. It came down near the village of Kyzyl Tu about 5 km (3 miles) from Almaty's airport.

"There was no fire, no explosion. The plane just plunged to the earth," Yuri Ilyin, deputy head of the city's emergencies department, told Reuters near the scene.

Parts of the plane could be seen in the thick snow. Tractors and other heavy vehicles were being used cut paths through the snow to the wreckage but journalists were kept at a distance from the crash site.

It was the second fatal plane crash in the former Soviet republic in just a over a month.

Visibility at Kyzyl Tu was only about 20 to 30 meters (yards), and much of the area around Almaty was veiled in fog when the plane crashed at around 1 p.m. (2 a.m. ET).

"The preliminary cause of the accident is bad weather," Deputy Almaty Mayor Maulen Mukashev told reporters. "Not a single part of the plane was left intact after it came down."

The plane had been on its way from the city of Kokshetau in northern Kazakhstan to Almaty in the southeast, Mukashev said.

SCAT, which has been operating since 1997, runs an extensive domestic service and has some international flights.

Alexander Gordeyev, deputy head of Almaty's airport, said the weather had been bad but planes were being allowed to land.

A military transport airplane crashed in bad weather on December 25 near the southern Kazakh city of Shymkent, killing all 27 on board. Prosecutors have said a combination of technical problems, bad weather and human error caused that accident.

(Additional reporting and writing by Dmitry Solovyov; Editing by Louise Ireland and Timothy Heritage)

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Sixty-five found executed in Syria's Aleppo: activists

BEIRUT (Reuters) - At least 65 people, apparently shot in the head, were found dead with their hands bound in a district of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on Tuesday, activists said.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which says it provides objective information about casualties on both sides of Syria's war from a network of monitors, said the death toll could rise as high as 80. It was not clear who had carried out the killings.

Opposition activists posted a video of a man filming at least 51 muddied male bodies alongside what they said was the Queiq River in the rebel-held Bustan al-Qasr neighborhood of Aleppo.

The bodies had gunshot wounds to their heads, and their hands were bound. Blood was seeping from their heads and some of them appeared to be young, possibly teenagers, and dressed in jeans, shirts and sneakers.

The Queiq River rises in Turkey and travels through government-held districts of Aleppo before it reaches Bustan al-Qasr.

"They were killed only because they are Muslims," said a bearded man in another video said to have been filmed in central Bustan al-Qasr after the bodies were removed from the river. A pickup truck with a pile of corpses was parked behind him.

It is hard for Reuters to verify such reports from inside Syria because of restrictions on independent media.

Government forces and rebels in Syria have both been accused by human rights groups of carrying out summary executions in the 22-month-old conflict, which has claimed more than 60,000 lives.

Rebels pushed into Aleppo, Syria's most populous city, over the summer, but are stuck in a stalemate with government forces. The city is divided roughly in half between the two sides.

The revolt started as a peaceful protest movement against more than four decades of rule by President Bashar al-Assad and his family, but turned into an armed rebellion after a government crackdown.

More than 700,000 people have fled, the United Nations says.

REBELS FIGHT KURDS

In the eastern city of Deir al-Zor, insurgents including al Qaeda-linked Islamist fighters captured a security agency after days of heavy fighting, according to an activist video issued on Tuesday.

The fighters freed prisoners from the building, it added.

The video, posted online, showed men armed with assault rifles cheering as they stood outside a building that they said was a local branch of Syria's intelligence agency.

Some of the fighters carried a black flag with the Islamic declaration of faith and the name of the al-Nusra Front, which has ties to al Qaeda in neighboring Iraq. The video also showed tanks, which appeared to be damaged, and a room containing weapons.

The war has become heavily sectarian, with rebels who mostly come from the Sunni Muslim majority fighting an army whose top generals are mostly from Assad's Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam. Assad has framed the revolt as a foreign-backed conspiracy and blames the West and Sunni Gulf states.

Fighting also took place in the northern town of Ras al-Ain, on the border with Turkey, between rebels and Kurdish militants, the Observatory said.

The insurgents have been battling fighters of the Kurdish People's Defence Units for about two weeks in the area, and scores of people have died in the violence.

(Reporting by Alexander Dziadosz and Oliver Holmes; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

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France fears Islamist rise in Syria unless opposition helped

PARIS (Reuters) - France's foreign minister said on Monday Syria risks falling into the hands of Islamist militant groups if supporters of the Syrian opposition do not do more to help it in a 22-month-old revolt against President Bashar al-Assad.

Addressing the opening of a conference in Paris with senior members of the Syrian National Coalition, Laurent Fabius said the meeting must focus on making the opposition politically and militarily cohesive to encourage international assistance.

"Facing the collapse of a state and society, it is Islamist groups that risk gaining ground if we do not act as we should," he said. "We cannot let a revolution that started as a peaceful and democratic protest degenerate into a conflict of militias."

Western concern over the growing strength of jihadist militants fighting autonomously in the disorganized ranks of anti-Assad rebel forces is rising. This has hindered international aid to the moderate Syrian National Coalition opposition and may push it more into the arms of conservative Muslim backers, diplomatic sources say.

The meeting, which brought together Western and Arab nations and the three vice-presidents of the coalition, aims to tackle the lack of cohesion that has led to broken promises of aid.

Coalition vice-president Riad Seif said "time is not on our side" and that the opposition no longer wanted pledges of support that would not be followed through on.

"We need an interim or transitional government to provide assistance to millions of Syrians in liberated zones and to help bring the collapse of the (Assad) regime," he said.

"From the beginning we said we should be based in Syria, but so far we haven't received any money to run a government."

HALF A BILLION DOLLARS

Since its formation in November, the coalition has failed to gain traction on the ground in Syria and its credibility has been undermined by its inability to secure arms and cash.

Seif said the coalition lacked the financial or military means to set up within Syria and support civilians on the ground. "We are looking with our friends at how we can protect the liberated zones with defensive weapons and we are discussing how to get billions of dollars to create a budget," he said.

"But if we don't have this budget there is no point having a government. It makes no sense."

George Sabra, another coalition vice-president, said the coalition needed at least $500 million to launch a government.

But its disunity - it failed last week to form a transitional government [ID:nL6N0AQ0RX] - has deterred the West from boosting assistance, especially sophisticated arms and ammunition insurgents are crying out for.

"We also need weapons. We needed them from the first minute," Sabra said. "At the last meeting of Friends of Syria, they recognized our rights to defend ourselves. (But) what does that mean if we cannot provide help to victims?"

The insurgents have seized territory in the north and east of Syria, including several border crossings, and made some inroads into Assad's dominance in major cities. But Assad's air power and far superior weaponry have limited rebel advances.

France said last week there was no sign Assad was about to be overthrown, reversing previous statements that he could not hold out long, while Jordan's King Abdullah said the authoritarian Syrian leader would consolidate his grip for now.

Fabius said the Paris meeting had three objectives: to address the needs of the vulnerable Syrian population, pursue internal structuring, bring opposition fighting units of the Free Syrian Army under its political authority and prepare the post-Assad transition.

However, he sidestepped the question of arming the rebels, underlining the wariness of Western countries about spreading weapons to Islamists in Syria and across the volatile region.

The European Union is set to review its arms embargo on Syria at the end of February.

(Reporting By John Irish; Editing by Vicky Buffery and Mark Heinrich)

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French seal off Mali's Timbuktu, rebels torch library

GAO, Mali (Reuters) - French and Malian troops on Monday sealed off Timbuktu, a UNESCO World Heritage site, after fleeing Islamist rebel fighters torched several buildings in the ancient Saharan trading town, including a priceless manuscript library.

Without a shot being fired to stop them, 1,000 French soldiers including paratroopers and 200 Malian troops seized the airport and surrounded the centuries-old Niger River city, looking to block the escape of al Qaeda-allied fighters.

The retaking of Timbuktu followed the swift capture by French and Malian forces at the weekend of Gao, another major northern Malian town which had also been occupied by the alliance of Islamist militant groups since last year.

A two-week intervention by France in its former Sahel colony, at the request of Mali's government but also with wide international backing, has driven the Islamist rebel fighters northwards out of towns into the desert and mountains.

A French military spokesman said the assault forces at Timbuktu were being careful to avoid combat inside the city so as not to damage cultural treasures and mosques and religious shrines in what is considered a seat of Islamic learning.

But Timbuktu's mayor, Ousmane Halle, reported that fleeing Islamist fighters had torched a South African-funded library in the city containing thousands of priceless manuscripts.

"The rebels set fire to the newly-constructed Ahmed Baba Institute built by the South Africans ... this happened four days ago," Halle Ousmane told Reuters by telephone from Bamako. He said he had received the information from his chief of communications who had travelled south from the city a day ago.

Ousmane was not able to immediately say how much the concrete building had been damaged. He added the rebels also torched his office and the home of a member of parliament.

The Ahmed Baba Institute, one of several libraries and collections in the city containing fragile ancient documents dating back to the 13th century, is named after a Timbuktu-born contemporary of William Shakespeare and houses more than 20,000 scholarly manuscripts. Some were stored in underground vaults.

The French and Malians have faced no resistance so far at Timbuktu, but they face a tough job of combing through the labyrinth of ancient mosques and monuments and mud-brick homes between alleys to flush out any hiding Islamist fighters.

"We have to be extremely careful. But in general terms, the necessary elements are in place to take control," French army spokesman Lieutenant Thierry Burkhard said in Paris.

Timbuktu member of parliament El Hadj Baba Haïdara told Reuters in Bamako the Islamist rebels had abandoned the city. "They all fled. Before their departure they destroyed some buildings, including private homes," he said.

The United States and European Union are backing the French-led Mali operation as a strike against the threat of radical Islamist jihadists using the West African state's inhospitable Sahara desert as a launch pad for international attacks.

They are helping with intelligence, airlift of troops, refueling of planes and logistics, but do not plan to send combat troops to Mali.

FRANCE: MALI "BEING LIBERATED"

"Little by little, Mali is being liberated," French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told France 2 television.

At Gao, more than 300 km (190 miles) east of Timbuktu, jubilant residents danced to music in the streets on Sunday to celebrate the liberation of this other ancient Niger River town from the sharia-observing rebels.

A third northern town, the Tuareg seat of Kidal, in Mali's rugged and remote northeast, remains in the hands of the Islamist fighters, a loose alliance that groups AQIM with Malian Islamist group Ansar Dine and AQIM splinter MUJWA.

With its cultural treasures, Timbuktu had previously been a destination for adventurous tourists and international scholars.

The world was shocked by its capture on April 1 by Tuareg desert fighters whose separatist rebellion was later hijacked by Islamist radicals who imposed severe sharia law.

Provoking international outrage, the Islamist militants who follow a more conservative Salafist branch of Islam destroyed dozens of ancient shrines in Timbuktu sacred to moderate Sufi Moslems, condemning them as idolatrous and un-Islamic.

They also applied amputations for thieves and stoning of adulterers under sharia, while forcing women to go veiled.

On Sunday, many women among the thousands of Gao residents who came out to celebrate the rebels' expulsion made a point of going unveiled. Other residents smoked cigarettes and played music to flout the bans previously set by the Islamist rebels.

"THREAT OF TERRORISM"

As the French and Malian troops push into northern Mali, African troops from a U.N.-backed continental intervention force expected to number 7,700 are being flown into the country, despite severe delays due to logistical problems.

Outgoing African Union Chairman President Thomas Boni Yayi of Benin at the weekend scolded AU states for their slow response to assist Mali while former colonial power France took the lead in the military operation.

Yayi put the cost of the African intervention force, now revised upwards, at $1 billion and said up to 10 African countries may be required to send troops.

Burkina Faso, Benin, Nigeria, Senegal, Togo, Niger and Chad are providing soldiers. Burundi and other nations have pledged to contribute.

The AU is expected to seek hundreds of millions of dollars in logistical support and funding for the African Mali force at a conference of donors to be held in Addis Ababa on Tuesday.

Yayi also urged other NATO members and Asian countries to follow France's lead and send troops to Mali. "We have to free the Sahel belt from the threat of terrorism," he said.

(Additional reporting by Richard Valdmanis in Sevare, Mali, Bate Felix in Dakar, Alexandria Sage and Emmanuel Jarry in Paris, Tiemoko Diallo in Bamako, Richard Lough and Aaron Masho in Addis Ababa; Writing by Pascal Fletcher)

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Grief turns to anger after Brazil club fire; band in custody

SANTA MARIA, Brazil (Reuters) - Relatives of the 231 people who died in a Brazilian nightclub fire demanded answers on Monday as to how it could have killed so many people, while police questioned the club's owner and members of the band whose pyrotechnics show allegedly caused the tragedy.

Several coffins, many draped with flags of the victims' favorite soccer teams, lined a gymnasium that has become a makeshift morgue since the fire in the early hours on Sunday, one of the world's deadliest such incidents in a decade.

The death toll was revised down overnight from 233 to 231, as officials said some names had been counted twice.

Eighty-two people remained hospitalized in and around the southern city of Santa Maria. At least 30 of them were in serious condition.

As shell-shocked residents attended a marathon of funerals starting in the pre-dawn hours on Monday, the focus began to shift to what will likely be a barrage of police investigations, lawsuits and recriminations aimed at politicians and others.

"We can't trust in the ability of city hall, or the police, or anybody who permits a party with more a thousand people under these conditions," said Erica Weber, who was accompanying her daughter to a funeral for one of her classmates.

Most of the dead were suffocated by toxic fumes that rapidly filled the Kiss nightclub after the band set off a pyrotechnics display at about 2:30 a.m, witnesses said.

State prosecutor Valeska Agostini told Reuters one of the club's owners and members of the band had been taken into police custody to answer questions although no arrests or criminal charges are likely until after the investigation is completed.

The band's guitarist, Rodrigo Lemos Martins, 32, said he doubted the band was responsible for the blaze. "There were lots of wires (in the ceiling), maybe it was a short circuit," Folha de S.Paulo newspaper quoted him as saying.

The band's accordion player, Danilo Jaques, 30, was among those killed but the other five members survived.

It seems certain others will share the blame for Brazil's second-deadliest fire ever. The use of a flare inside the club was a clear breach of security regulations, fire officials said, and witnesses said bouncers initially tried to prevent people from fleeing from the one functioning exit because they believed they were trying to skip out on their bar tabs.

Clubs and restaurants in Brazil are generally subject to a web of overlapping safety regulations, but enforcement is uneven and owners sometimes pay bribes to continue operating.

The investigation of the Kiss fire could drag on for years. After a similar fire at an Argentine nightclub in 2004 killed 194 people, more than six years passed before a court found members of a band criminally responsible for starting the blaze and causing the deaths.

That tragedy also provoked a massive backlash against politicians and led to the removal of the mayor of Buenos Aires.

Valdeci Oliveira, a legislator in Brazil's Rio Grande do Sul state where the weekend tragedy took place, said on his Twitter feed that he and his colleagues would seek to ban pyrotechnics displays in closed spaces such as nightclubs.

"It won't bring anybody back but we're going to introduce the bill," Oliveira said.

(Additional reporting by Eduardo Simões in São Paulo; Editing by Todd Benson and Bill Trott)

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Iran sends monkey into space, showing missile progress

DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran said on Monday it had launched a live monkey into space, seeking to show off missile delivery systems that are alarming to the West given Tehran's parallel advances in nuclear technology.

The defiance ministry announced the launch as world powers sought to agree a date and venue with Iran for resuming talks to resolve a nuclear standoff with the West before it degenerates into a new Middle East war.

Efforts to nail down a new meeting have failed repeatedly and the powers fear Iran is exploiting the diplomatic vacuum to hone the means to produce nuclear weapons.

The Islamic Republic denies seeking weapons capability and says it seeks only electricity from its uranium enrichment so it can export more of its oil wealth.

The powers have proposed new talks in February, a spokesman for the European Union's foreign policy chief said on Monday, hours after Russia urged all concerned to "stop behaving like children" and commit to a meeting.

Iran earlier in the day denied media reports of a major explosion at one of its most sensitive, underground enrichment plants, describing them as Western propaganda designed to influence the nuclear talks.

An defense ministry said the space launch of the monkey coincided "with the days of" the Prophet Mohammad's birthday, which was last week, but gave no date, according to a statement carried by the official news agency IRNA.

The launch was "another giant step" in space technology and biological research "which is the monopoly of a few countries," the statement said.

The monkey was sent up in a Kavoshgar rocket dubbed "Pishgam" (Pioneer), reaching a height of more than 120 km (75 miles), IRNA said.

"This shipment returned safely to Earth with the anticipated speed along with the live organism," Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi told the semi-official Fars news agency. "The launch of Kavoshgar and its retrieval is the first step towards sending humans into space in the next phase."

Iran's English-language Press TV displayed photographs of the monkey inside its capsule, but did not say if these were from before or after the launch.

There was no independent confirmation of the launch.

SIGNIFICANT

The West worries that long-range ballistic technology used to propel Iranian satellites into orbit could be put to delivering nuclear warheads.

Bruno Gruselle of France's Foundation for Strategic Research, said that if the monkey launch report were true it would suggest a "quite significant" engineering feat by Iran.

"If you can show that you are able to protect a vehicle of this sort from re-entry, then you can probably protect a military warhead and make it survive the high temperatures and high pressures of re-entering," Gruselle said.

The monkey launch would be similar to sending up a satellite weighing some 2,000 kg (4,400 pounds), he said. Success would suggest a capacity to deploy a surface-to-surface missile with a range of a few thousand kilometers (miles).

The Islamic Republic announced plans in 2011 to send a monkey into space, but that attempt was reported to have failed.

Nuclear-weapons capability requires three components - enough fissile material such as highly enriched uranium, a reliable weapons device miniaturized to fit into a missile cone, and an effective delivery system, such as a ballistic missile that can grow out of a space launch program.

Iran's efforts to develop and test ballistic missiles and build a space launch capability have contributed to Israeli calls for pre-emptive strikes on Iranian nuclear sites and billions of dollars of U.S. ballistic missile defense spending.

MANOEUVRING OVER NEXT TALKS

A spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said the powers had offered a February meeting to Iran, after a proposal to meet at the end of January was refused.

"Iran did not accept our offer to go to Istanbul on January 28 and 29 and so we have offered new dates in February. We have continued to offer dates since December. We are disappointed the Iranians have not yet agreed," Michael Mann reporters.

He said Iranian negotiators had imposed new conditions for resuming talks and that EU powers were concerned this might be a stalling tactic. The last in a sporadic series of fruitless talks was held last June.

Iranian officials deny blame for the delays and say Western countries squandered opportunities for meetings by waiting until after the U.S. presidential election in November.

"We have always said that we are ready to negotiate until a result is reached and we have never broken off discussions," IRNA quoted Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi as saying.

Salehi has suggested holding the next round in Cairo but that the powers wanted another venue. He also said that Sweden, Kazakhstan and Switzerland had offered to host the talks.

In Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a news conference: "We are ready to meet at any location as soon as possible. We believe the essence of our talks is far more important (than the site), and we hope that common sense will prevail and we will stop behaving like little children."

Ashton is overseeing diplomatic contacts on behalf of the powers hoping to persuade Tehran to stop higher-grade uranium enrichment and accept stricter U.N. inspections in return for civilian nuclear cooperation and relief from U.N. sanctions.

IRAN DENIES FORDOW BLAST

Reuters has been unable to verify reports since Friday of an explosion early last week at the underground Fordow bunker, near the holy Shi'ite Muslim city of Qom, that some Israeli and Western media said wrought heavy damage.

"The false news of an explosion at Fordow is Western propaganda ahead of nuclear negotiations to influence their process and outcome," IRNA quoted deputy Iranian nuclear energy agency chief Saeed Shamseddin Bar Broudi as saying.

In late 2011 the plant at Fordow began producing uranium enriched to 20 percent fissile purity, well above the 3.5 percent level normally needed for nuclear power stations.

Western governments say the higher-grade enrichment marks a notable step towards weapons-grade uranium, even though it is below the 90 percent level suitable for nuclear bombs.

Iran says its enhanced enrichment is to make fuel for a Tehran research reactor that produces isotopes for medical care.

Diplomats in Vienna, where the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency is based, said on Monday they had no knowledge of any incident at Fordow but were looking into the reports. One Western diplomat said he did not believe them to be correct.

The U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency, which regularly inspects Iranian nuclear sites including Fordow, had no immediate comment.

Iran has accused Israel and the United States of trying to sabotage its nuclear program with cyber attacks and assassinations of its nuclear scientists. Washington has denied any role in the killings while Israel has declined to comment.

(Additional reporting by William Maclean and Marcus George in Dubai, Justyna Pawlak in Brussels, Fredrik Dahl in Vienna; Writing by Mark Heinrich; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

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Violence flares in Egypt after emergency law imposed

CAIRO (Reuters) - A man was shot dead on Monday in a fifth day of violence in Egypt that has killed 50 people and prompted the Islamist president to declare a state of emergency in an attempt to end a wave of unrest sweeping the Arab world's biggest nation.

Emergency rule announced by President Mohamed Mursi on Sunday covers the cities of Port Said, Ismailia and Suez. The army has already been deployed in two of those cities and cabinet approved a measure to let soldiers arrest civilians.

A cabinet source told Reuters any trials would be before civilian courts, but the step is likely to anger protesters who accuse Mursi of using high-handed security tactics of the kind they fought against to oust President Hosni Mubarak.

Egypt's politics have become deeply polarized since those heady days two years ago, when protesters were making most of the running in the Arab Spring revolutions that sent shockwaves through the region and Islamists and liberals lined up together.

Although Islamists have won parliamentary and presidential elections, the disparate opposition has since united against Mursi. Late last year he moved to expand his powers and push a constitution with Islamist leanings through a referendum, punctuated by violent street protests.

Mursi's call for a national dialogue meeting on Monday to help end the crisis was spurned by his main opponents.

They accuse Mursi of hijacking the revolution, listening only to his Islamist allies and breaking a promise to be a president for all Egyptians. Islamists say their rivals want to overthrow by undemocratic means Egypt's first freely elected leader.

Anti-Mursi protesters were out on the streets again in Cairo and elsewhere on Monday, the second anniversary of one of the bloodiest days in the revolution that erupted on January 25, 2011, and ended Mubarak's iron rule 18 days later.

CONCERNS

Hundreds of demonstrators in Port Said, Ismailia and Suez, cities which all lie on the economically vital Suez Canal, had turned out against Mursi's decision on Sunday within moments of him speaking. Activists there pledged to defy a curfew that starts at 9 p.m. (1700 GMT).

Instability in Egypt has raised concerns in Western capitals, where officials worry about the direction of a key regional player that has a peace deal with Israel.

The political unrest has been exacerbated by street violence linked to death penalties imposed on soccer supporters convicted of involvement in stadium rioting a year ago.

In Cairo on Monday, police fired volleys of teargas at stone-throwing protesters near Tahrir Square, cauldron of the anti-Mubarak uprising. A 46-year-old bystander was killed by a gunshot, a security source said. It was not clear who opened fire.

"We want to bring down the regime and end the state that is run by the Muslim Brotherhood," said Ibrahim Eissa, a 26-year-old cook, protecting his face from teargas wafting towards him.

Propelled to the presidency in a June election by the Muslim Brotherhood, Mursi has lurched through a series of political crises and violent demonstrations, complicating his task of shoring up the economy and of preparing for a parliamentary election to cement the new democracy in a few months.

"The protection of the nation is the responsibility of everyone. We will confront any threat to its security with force and firmness within the remit of the law," Mursi said, angering many of his opponents when he wagged his finger at the camera.

The president offered condolences to families of victims of violence and also called a dialogue meeting on Monday at 6 p.m. (11 a.m. ET) between Islamist allies and their liberal, leftist and other opponents to discuss the crisis.

The main opposition National Salvation Front coalition rejected the offer as "cosmetic and not substantive" and set several conditions that have not been met in the past, such as forming a national salvation government. They also demanded that Mursi announce his responsibility for the bloodshed.

SECURITY MEASURES

"We will send a message to the Egyptian people and the president of the republic about what we think are the essentials for dialogue. If he agrees to them, we are ready for dialogue," opposition politician Mohamed ElBaradei told a news conference.

The opposition Front has distanced itself from the latest flare-ups but said Mursi should have acted far sooner to impose security measures that would have ended the violence.

"Of course we feel the president is missing the real problem on the ground, which is his own policies," Front spokesman Khaled Dawoud said after Mursi made his declaration.

Other activists said Mursi's measures to try to impose control on the turbulent streets could backfire.

"Martial law, state of emergency and army arrests of civilians are not a solution to the crisis," Ahmed Maher of the April 6 movement that helped galvanize the 2011 uprising said. "All this will do is further provoke the youth. The solution has to be a political one that addresses the roots of the problem."

Thousands of mourners joined funerals in Port Said for the latest victims in the Mediterranean port city. Seven people were killed there on Sunday when residents joined marches to bury 33 others who had been killed a day earlier, most by gunshot wounds in a city where arms are rife.

Protests erupted there on Saturday after a court sentenced to death several people from the city for their role in deadly soccer violence last year, a verdict residents saw as unfair. The anger swiftly turned against Mursi and his government.

Rights activists said Mursi's declaration was a backward step for Egypt, which was under emergency law for Mubarak's entire 30-year rule. His police used the sweeping arrest provisions to muzzle dissent and round up opponents, including members of the Brotherhood and even Mursi himself.

Heba Morayef of Human Rights Watch in Cairo said the police, still hated by many Egyptians for their heavy-handed tactics under Mubarak, would once again have the right to arrest people "purely because they look suspicious", undermining efforts to create a more efficient and respected police force.

"It is a classic knee-jerk reaction to think the emergency law will help bring security," she said. "It gives so much discretion to the Ministry of Interior that it ends up causing more abuse, which in turn causes more anger."

(Additional reporting by Yasmine Saleh in Cairo and Yusri Mohamed in Ismailia; Editing by Giles Elgood and Peter Millership)

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Third bomb attack in 24 hours kills eight Afghan police

KABUL (Reuters) - A roadside bomb killed eight policemen in Afghanistan's volatile southern province of Kandahar, police said on Sunday, the third deadly attack by insurgents against police in 24 hours.

Twenty police have been killed across Afghanistan since midday on Saturday, a level of violence that underlines concern over how the 350,000-strong Afghan security forces will manage once most NATO-led troops withdraw by the end of next year.

In the latest attack, the police in Kandahar had just finished defusing a roadside bomb and had arrested three men suspected of being Taliban insurgents when the blast occurred late on Saturday.

"As they were leaving the area another bomb went off near their vehicle, killing eight policemen and two suspects," said Kandahar Police Chief Abdul Raziq.

Six police and a third Taliban suspect were wounded.

That blast came hours after 10 police officers, including the provincial counter-terrorism chief, were killed in an attack in northern Kunduz province. Another two police were killed in a bombing in eastern Ghazni province.

Eleven years into the NATO-led war against Taliban insurgents, violence has been increasing against Afghan security forces, sparking concern that they will not be able to take over all security responsibilities by the middle of this year.

(Reporting By Hamid Shalizi; Writing by Dylan Welch; Editing by Amie Ferris-Rotman and Paul Tait)

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