Yemen defense chief resumes work from Aden

16 March 2015 Monday

Yemeni Defense Minister Mahmoud al-Subaihi on Monday visited a civilian airport, a military camp and a military airport in Aden in his first official activity since his arrival to the southern city eight days ago.

According to their official website, al-Subaihi had also met generals at a military camp and toured Aden's Badr military airport.

Al-Subaihi met with military leaders in the city and called for stepped-up measures to protect Aden's public facilities, the website noted.

The defense minister arrived in Aden on March 8 after fleeing capital Sanaa, where he had been put under house arrest by the Shiite Houthi group.

President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, who likewise fled to Aden last month, has since been trying to strengthen his grip on power.

The Houthis have remained in control of Sanaa since last September. In February of this year, they issued a constitutional declaration dissolving Yemen's elected parliament and establishing a national assembly.

Yemen has remained in turmoil since 2011.

Source: World Bulletin.
Link: http://www.worldbulletin.net/todays-news/156659/yemen-defense-chief-resumes-work-from-aden.

Rival Yemeni camps entrench as Iran flights arrive

March 01, 2015

SANAA, Yemen (AP) — An Iranian airplane delivered supplies to Yemen's Shiite rebel-held capital on Sunday, while the president gained support from influential tribal and provincial leaders in signs that the rival camps seeking to rule the rapidly unraveling country are entrenching their positions.

The first direct flight from Shiite powerhouse Iran to Sanaa was carrying 12 tons of medical supplies as well as tents and Red Crescent aid workers, Iran's deputy ambassador Rasai Ebadi told The Associated Press. It came a day after rebel Houthi representatives signed an agreement in Tehran to set up 14 direct weekly flights between the two countries.

The move underscored how the rebels, who are widely suspected of being backed by Iran, are strengthening their grip over state institutions and exercising sovereign power in Sanaa even as the country's president insists he is still in charge after fleeing to the south.

"The Houthis want to show they're not disconnected from the world, that they are not desperate, so they're reviving relations with Iran," said Yemen analyst Hisham al-Omeisy. "The flights are a bit peculiar and people are surprised. Yemenis don't usually fly to Iran, for tourism or work or medical treatment, so 14 weekly flights seems like a bit too much. The point of the medical supplies was to kill the rumor that more weapons will be coming in to support the Houthis," he added.

Western embassies shut down and evacuated staff from Sanaa last month after the rebels stormed the presidential palace and placed President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi and his Cabinet ministers under house arrest. Hadi, who still claims to be the country's ruler, later managed to flee to the southern city of Aden.

While Russia, China, Iran and Oman have kept their embassies operating in Sanaa, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have moved theirs to Aden. On Sunday, Qatar too said it would open its embassy there.

Hadi received local officials in Aden Sunday, along with influential tribal leaders and elders from the provinces of Jawf, Marib and Bayda, who assured him of their backing, local television stations reported, adding that Hadi again accused the Houthis of launching a coup against Yemen's legitimate leadership.

Meanwhile state news agency SABA, controlled by the Houthis, said the rebels' new governing council sent a delegation to Tehran Sunday for several days. Saleh al-Samad, a former Hadi adviser who headed the delegation, said the group would discuss furthering economic and political cooperation.

"Relations between Yemen and Iran were brotherly and positive but suffered under previous governments which were influenced by countries leading to a negative impact of relations with Iran," he said in comments carried by SABA.

In Sanaa, Yemeni airport, security and transportation officials greeted the Iranian Mahan Air flight, an Airbus 310, which the Iranians say will be followed by further humanitarian aid. Analyst al-Omeisy said that with Hadi and the Houthis on a collision course, suspicion of weapons shipments via the Iranian flights will be high.

"They're headed for a showdown — the Houthis know it and so do the Iranians. There's a lot of speculation that the flights could eventually contain material other than medical supplies," he said. "In any case, the Houthis control the airport so in the end nobody knows or will know what exactly is passing through," he added.

Rohan reported from Cairo.

Shiite rebels say Yemen President Hadi 'wanted for justice'

February 24, 2015

SANAA, Yemen (AP) — Yemen's Shiite rebels said Tuesday that President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who fled the rebel-controlled capital earlier this month and has begun reconstituting his authority in the south, is "wanted for justice."

The move escalated a crisis that threatens to split the Arab world's poorest country between the Houthi rebels, who control the capital Sanaa and much of the north, and Hadi, who enjoys wide support in the formerly independent south.

The growing chaos also threatens to undercut U.S. efforts to combat Yemen's powerful al-Qaida affiliate, which has been linked to several failed attacks on the United States and claimed responsibility for the assault on a French satirical magazine last month.

In the latest sign of the country's growing lawlessness, a Frenchwoman working for the World Bank was kidnapped Tuesday in front of a ministry building in Sanaa, where several Western countries, including France, have shuttered their embassies. No one claimed responsibility for the abduction.

The rebel-run state news agency SABA quoted the Houthis' Revolutionary Committee as saying Hadi's "reckless and erratic actions harmed the Yemeni people," and called on the international community to consider him a fugitive.

The group warned state employees and even diplomatic missions against dealing with Hadi as president, saying they would be "held accountable." The Houthis hail from the Shiite Zayidi minority, which makes up about a third of Yemen's population, and swept down from their northern strongholds last year, seizing the capital in September.

Last month the rebels seized the presidential palace and placed Hadi, his prime minister and the Cabinet under house arrest, demanding political concessions. Hadi and his government resigned in protest.

The rebels then finalized their takeover by dissolving parliament and declaring their Revolutionary Committee to be the country's highest political body. Last week Hadi fled to Aden, where he retracted his resignation and declared himself the country's legitimate leader. He has since been holding meetings with tribal leaders, security officials, members of the dissolved parliament and officials from several parties who have flocked to Aden to express their support. A politician from the Islamist Islah party was detained by the Houthis on his way to Aden, the party said.

On Tuesday Hadi replaced the intelligence and police chiefs in Aden as part of a shake-up to remove supporters of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, now allied with the Houthis, according to security officials. The officials spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to brief the press.

On Tuesday Hadi ordered the Defense Ministry to move the army's headquarters to Aden and to take orders only from him. But with the army in shambles, divided over tribal and political loyalties, it's not clear how much power Hadi has over the troops.

The international community largely supports Hadi. The United Nations Security Council on Tuesday extended sanctions on Saleh and two Houthi leaders for another year. The council had imposed a travel ban and an asset freeze on the three in November.

On Monday the Houthis warned Prime Minister Khaled Bahah and his Cabinet -- all of whom had resigned when Hadi did -- to return to their posts or face arrest. Houthi militiamen prevented one minister from fleeing to Aden on Monday.

Abdel-Azizi al-Gobari, the leader of a small anti-corruption party who met with Bahah on Tuesday, said the prime minister would only take orders from Hadi. Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, as the Yemeni franchise is known, meanwhile held a meeting with tribal leaders in the southern Shabwa province, an al-Qaida member told The Associated Press.

The Houthis have battled al-Qaida's Yemeni branch and vowed to destroy the group, but the rebels also employ hostile rhetoric toward the West. The Houthis are widely believed to receive Iranian backing, though they deny the allegations.

A tribal source in Beihan confirmed the talks, in which he said tribal leaders had warned the jihadi group not to drag them into a war with the Houthis. The tribal source and the al-Qaida member spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

A Georgian region is fertile ground for Islamic State

May 21, 2015

BIRKIANI, Georgia (AP) — In the summer of 2012, a former Georgian Army corporal who had served prison time for illegal possession of ammunition burned his photo albums and quit his native village.

Tarkhan Batirashvili had wanted to become a policeman, but couldn't get hired. Now, this offspring of a Christian father and a Muslim mother was about to start a new chapter in his military career — one in which he would be credited with some of Islamic State's most stunning battlefield victories and rise to senior rank.

Last September, the U.S. Treasury Department placed Batirashvili — who now calls himself Omar al Shishani and is believed by some to be Islamic State's chief of military operations — on its list of "specially designated global terrorists." But to some in the Pankisi, the mountainous region of northeastern Georgia where he was born in 1986, the ginger-bearded commander is a hero and a role model.

To follow the path he blazed, as many as 200 of his young countrymen have left their villages. Batirashvili's father Temur is aghast. "It's monstrous what's going on in the valley, that they are deceiving these kids and they're leaving to fight in a foreign land," the 72-year-old man told visitors to his one-story stone house in the hamlet of Birkiani. "My son should not be in Syria."

The Pankisi is home to an estimated 5,000-7,000 descendants of Muslim Chechens who settled here in the 19th century. In the village of Omalo, locals say, a green-tile roofed building is used by preachers from the Wahhabi branch of Sunni Islam to enlist volunteers for jihad.

Residents say the recruiters promise money and provide ground transportation to Tbilisi airport more than 120 miles (200 km) away, as well as prepaid plane tickets to Turkey. "They are selling our children," said Shariat Tsintsalashvili. "They earn dollars from it, drive around in expensive four-wheel drive vehicles. It's a total mafia."

On April 2, her 16-year-old grandson Muslim Kushtanashvili and schoolmate Ramzan Bagakashvili, 18, joined the valley's recruits to Islamic State. That Thursday, the teens left as usual for their school in Omalo, next door to the building used by the Wahhabis. They never came home.

Muslim called friends later to say he was in Turkey. Then word came back the 10th grader had crossed into Syria. A legal minor, Muslim also had no passport, so his family can't understand why Georgian border guards let him fly out of the country. Interior Minister Vakhtang Gomelauri has vowed an investigation and punishment for those responsible, but Muslim's family suspect authorities are protecting the recruiters.

Bagakashvili's mother agrees. "Here they are stirring up things, recruiting youths," Tina Alkhanashvili said. "You can't get authorities to watch them." Within weeks, Georgian officials reported three more boys from the valley had disappeared.

Chechen wedding scandal, leader's defiance put Putin in bind

May 19, 2015

MOSCOW (AP) — The groom is approaching 50, a silver-haired boss in the Chechen strongman's feared police force. The bride is 17, a shy beauty reportedly devastated at the idea of wedding a man nearly three times her age.

Many Russians expressed outrage over the nuptials, causing a firestorm in the media and putting Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov — a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin — on the defensive. The wedding went forward over the weekend anyway, the bride deathly pale and her voice barely audible as she agreed to marry Nazhud Guchigov, who reportedly was taking her as his second wife as allowed by Islamic, but not Russian, law.

Kadyrov's chief of staff played the best man, clutching the bride by the elbow to control her every step, and Kadyrov himself danced a folk dance at the wedding reception. The scandal comes amid a tug-of-war between Kadyrov and Russian federal law enforcement, which escalated after the slaying of charismatic Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov. Kadyrov's defiance in shielding Chechen suspects in the killing has aggravated longstanding tensions between him and Russian security agencies. That creates a headache for Putin, left with the delicate task of moderating the conflict to avoid destabilizing the region.

The tensions are unlikely to spark open hostilities or lead to Kadyrov's removal. But they reflect an apparent effort by the Kremlin to cut the 38-year-old Chechen leader down to size and make him obey the rules — even as Putin continues to stand by Kadyrov.

Kadyrov has enjoyed an exclusive relationship with Putin, who saw him as the linchpin for peace in Chechnya after two devastating separatist wars that killed tens of thousands. In exchange for restoring stability, Putin gave Kadyrov, a former rebel, carte blanche to run the region in the North Caucasus as his personal fiefdom and funded a costly reconstruction.

The relationship goes beyond Realpolitik. Putin, a macho judo master, and Kadyrov, a gruff red-head with a penchant for boxing, have developed a close personal relationship. Kadyrov has issued a stream of adulatory statements, calling himself Putin's "foot soldier" and launching diatribes at the West and Putin's domestic opponents. And with Kadyrov's apparent blessing, Chechens have poured into eastern Ukraine to fight alongside pro-Russian rebels.

Putin's patronage has allowed Kadyrov to effectively shed federal controls. He makes it clear he listens to the president and nobody else. And he has imposed some Islamic rules, overruling federal law, allowing men in Chechnya to take several wives and introducing a tight dress code for women.

Lavish reconstruction projects along with Kadyrov's promotion of Islamic law and his rejection of federal controls have helped swell his popularity, enhancing stability. The Kremlin, in turn, has sheltered the Chechen leader from criticism over killings, abductions, torture and other abuses by his feared security forces.

Federal police and security services have been all but invisible in Chechnya, unable to make a move without Kadyrov's permission. That has worried many, who say the much-touted order in Chechnya hinges on the Putin-Kadyrov relationship and could be upset quickly if it falls apart.

"Kadyrov's behavior long has caused irritation," said Grigory Shvedov, editor-in-chief of the Caucasian Knot, an online news portal focusing on the Caucasus. Kadyrov's protective shield started to crack after Nemtsov was gunned down on Feb. 27 just outside the Kremlin, and federal investigators quickly tracked down and arrested five alleged perpetrators, all Chechen. The suspected triggerman was an officer in Kadyrov's police force.

The top brass in Russian law-enforcement agencies, who have always detested the Chechen leader, saw Nemtsov's killing as an opportunity to settle scores. But Putin, while calling the slaying a "disgrace" for Russia, awarded Kadyrov with a medal underlining his support.

The Chechen leader was at first openly defiant, praising the suspected triggerman as a good patriot and a deeply religious man. When federal investigators tried to get to another key suspect, a senior officer in the Chechen police force, they were unable to interrogate him in Chechnya, where he enjoyed police protection.

Despite the setback, federal law enforcers kept up the pressure. In April, police in southern Russia made a surprise foray into Chechnya to nab a suspect in a separate criminal case, and shot the man dead when he resisted arrest.

A day later, a furious Kadyrov ordered his forces to shoot to kill any police from outside the region if they dared to venture into Chechnya. With the brash statement, Kadyrov sought to burnish his credentials as a ruler on par with Putin and above federal law.

He may have hoped that Putin would side with him once again. But Kadyrov miscalculated. While Putin did not publicly comment, his spokesman said in a steely statement that Chechen police should unconditionally obey federal authority.

Realizing his blunder, Kadyrov quickly backed off and offered new pledges of loyalty, saying he would step down if ordered to do so. The tensions have abated, but the investigation into Nemtsov's killing remains deadlocked.

The latest blow to Kadyrov came earlier this month, when a leading independent newspaper reported that the 46-year-old Guchigov was forcing a 17-year-old into becoming his second wife by blocking her village so she couldn't leave.

Kadyrov stood by the police chief, saying the girl and her family voluntarily agreed to the wedding. The Chechen leader also fired his information minister, accusing him of failing to quash what he described as slanderous reports.

The teenage bride, blushing and looking down, told a news portal controlled by the Kremlin that she faced no intimidation. The Russian children's rights ombudsman also said he looked into the case and found no violations.

The wedding took place Saturday in Chechnya's capital, with the bride looking stiff as she was escorted by Kadyrov's black-clad chief of staff. The quiet resolution of the scandal signaled that Moscow had decided that Kadyrov had been taught a lesson and there was no need to push things further.

In past years, Kadyrov's men have operated with impunity not just in Chechnya but also on the streets of Moscow. In 2008, one of Kadyrov's most prominent foes was shot dead just outside Russian government headquarters. Several Chechens were convicted of perpetrating the attack, but the organizers have never been found. Two years earlier, another Kadyrov rival with ties to federal security was shot and killed in central Moscow.

Russian media reported that Chechen businessmen have dramatically expanded their clout in Moscow under Kadyrov, and some members of his feared security forces have been permanently deployed there to help protect Chechen interests and act as musclemen in business disputes. Some reports claimed that Chechens have even challenged the murky economic interests of Russia's law enforcement agencies, which have considered themselves omnipotent under Putin.

With a multi-pronged attack on Kadyrov, federal law-enforcement chiefs clearly want to reorder the rules of the game and strip Kadyrov of his exclusive status. Putin himself may welcome the idea, sensing that the Chechen strongman was shaking his "vertical of power."

"I wouldn't exclude Kadyrov's dismissal," Shvedov said, arguing that the Chechen's purported role as a guarantor of stability may be overestimated, and that a new conflict in Chechnya was unlikely even if he were arrested, because Kadyrov's men wouldn't take up arms against Putin.

But others believe that Putin still sees Kadyrov as key to Chechen peace. Alexei Malashenko, a Chechnya expert with Carnegie Endowment's Moscow office, said that Kadyrov has reaffirmed his special status by pushing through the wedding despite the media uproar. He said that while tensions between Kadyrov and law enforcement chiefs will likely continue, Putin can be expected to stand by the strongman.

"It makes no sense to replace him," he said. "It will lead to infighting and instability in Chechnya."

Chechen commander in Ukraine drawn into Russian intrigue

April 12, 2015

LYSYCHANSK, Ukraine (AP) — From a dimly lit room at his base in eastern Ukraine, the commander of a battalion of Chechens fighting Russia-backed rebels looked shaken as TV broadcast news of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov's slaying. Adam Osmayev hailed Nemtsov as a "true hero" both for condemning Russia's war against separatists in Chechnya and for decrying Russian intervention in the current conflict in Ukraine.

"Watch them try to tie Ukraine to this (murder) in some way," Osmayev added. He was half-joking. But two weeks later, Kremlin-friendly Russian newspapers published reports based on unidentified sources in the security services that accused the Ukrainian government and also Osmayev himself of ordering the Feb. 27 murder of Nemtsov in central Moscow in an attempt to destabilize Russia.

Osmayev denies involvement and no evidence has been presented linking him to the hit on Nemtsov, who was a relentless critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Attempts to implicate the British-educated Chechen commander appear to be part of efforts aimed at deflecting attention from anyone close to Putin, including his security services and the powerful leader of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov.

Within days of Nemtsov's assassination, investigators arrested five Chechens, including a senior officer in Kadyrov's police force, and charged them with carrying out the killing. All five have denied the charges.

The arrests heralded a crisis in relations between the Kremlin and Kadyrov, who rules Chechnya like a personal fiefdom. With generous subsidies from Moscow, he has rebuilt the region after two separatist wars and has relied on his feared security forces to track down and kill foes. His men have steadily expanded their sway beyond Chechnya to control lucrative businesses in Moscow and elsewhere in Russia.

Leaders of federal law enforcement agencies have watched Kadyrov's growing power with dismay and have made no secret of their desire to curb him. Some observers speculated that the killing might have been ordered by Kadyrov's enemies in the federal government — an attempt to prompt Putin to fire or at least punish the Chechen leader.

If such a plan existed, it underestimated Putin's reliance on Kadyrov. The relative stability in Chechnya is seen as one of Putin's main achievements, and he sees the burly red-haired Chechen strongman as key to maintaining the status quo.

Putin quickly sent a signal that he intended to stand by Kadyrov by awarding him the Order of Honor for distinguished public service, a day after Kadyrov spoke out in defense of the arrested Chechens.

The arrests were a rare case in which federal law enforcement agents managed to nab a member of Kadyrov's security force, but the investigation then seemed to fizzle. Russian media, citing investigators, have pointed to a possible link between the suspected triggerman, Zaur Dadaev, and his commander, Ruslan Geremeyev, a senior officer in the Chechen police force. But Geremeyev is in Chechnya and off limits to federal investigators.

Russian newspapers have floated a variety of theories about the killing that have muddied the waters — a possible attempt to defuse tensions with Kadyrov. Some reports claimed that investigators believe Dadaev and his suspected accomplices could have acted on their own, even though most observers agree that a senior officer in Kadyrov's security force would not have acted without sanction from his superiors.

Dadaev, in turn, has rescinded his initial testimony, saying he was beaten and pressured to confess. The reports pointing to Osmayev, a Kadyrov foe, were seen as part of these efforts to deflect attention.

"State-controlled media have put forward a theory that is politically satisfying for Russia's security forces, the Kremlin, Kadyrov and all of their rival groups — namely, that Chechen Adam Osmayev ordered Nemtsov's murder," political analyst Georgy Bovt wrote in a commentary published in The Moscow Times.

Osmayev, 33, has a troubled history with both Kadyrov and Putin. After graduating from Wycliffe College, a prestigious private school in Britain, and attending the University of Buckingham, he returned to his native Chechnya shortly after the second war there ended in 2000. He worked alongside his father, who had been appointed the head of Chechnya's state oil company.

Chechnya at that time was led by Kadyrov's father. After his assassination in 2004, power passed to his son, Ramzan, and his relationship with the Osmayevs quickly deteriorated in a dispute over lucrative energy contracts. The Osmayevs fled to Ukraine.

In February 2012, Adam Osmayev was arrested at Russia's behest and charged with planning an assassination attempt against Putin. Ukraine at the time had a pro-Kremlin government. Osmayev spent three years in detention until being released in November 2014 by Ukraine's new Western-leaning government.

Shortly after his release, he joined a battalion formed by prominent Chechen commander Isa Munayev to fight against Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. When Munayev was killed on Feb. 1, Osmayav took over the command.

His battalion includes several dozen Chechens, many with combat experience gained in the separatist wars in their homeland against Russian army troops. They regularly get calls from Ukrainian army units asking them to carry out reconnaissance missions or diversionary raids behind rebel lines.

Hundreds of Chechens also are fighting on the separatist side. They first joined the rebels last summer in the early stages of the conflict, and with their combat gear and professional demeanor they stood out among what was then a ragtag local force. Kadyrov has described pro-Russia Chechens fighting in Ukraine as volunteers, the same explanation the Kremlin provides for the Russians among the separatist forces.

Osmayev said he has few doubts that the perpetrators of Nemtsov's killing have ties to Kadyrov, but that the security services now need a convenient scapegoat whose guilt would be easily acceptable to the Russian general public.

"The fact the FSB is . trying to somehow implicate me in Nemtsov's murder is utterly ridiculous," Osmayev said, "but not hard to believe now that I am involved in the situation here in Ukraine."

Lynn Berry and Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed to this report.

Sudan's al-Bashir returns home from South Africa

June 15, 2015

KHARTOUM, Sudan (AP) — Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir arrived in Khartoum on Monday to cheers of supporters after leaving South Africa, where a court had ordered his arrest based on an international warrant for war crimes charges.

Al-Bashir raised a stick in the air as he stepped out of the plane, waving to a few hundred supporters who greeted him at the airport. Some chanted "God is Great" while others cried with joy. A South African court ruled that al-Bashir, who was attending an African Union summit, should be arrested. The ruling came after al-Bashir left.

Al-Bashir, in office since a 1989 military coup, is wanted by the International Criminal Court on war crimes allegations linked to the conflict in Sudan's Darfur region. At the Khartoum airport, supporters of the president raised posters reading "Lion of Africa" scribbled next to a picture of al-Bashir in military uniform and carried a coffin with a white sheet wrapped around it reading: "The ICC to its last resting place."

Sudanese Foreign Minister Ibrahim Ghandour said: "The president will continue his participation (in international events) as usual and the attempts to distract us will not sway us." In Geneva, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the International Criminal Court's authority must be respected.

However, a Pretoria court's ruling that al-Bashir should be arrested came after he had left the country and in defiance of an earlier court order that he should remain in the country while judges deliberated on the matter.

Judge Dunstan Mlambo criticized the South African government for failing to heed the instructions of the court. "It is of concern to this court that we issued orders and then things just happened in violation of those orders," Mlambo said.

International Criminal Court Deputy Prosecutor James Stewart said in an interview with The Associated Press in The Hague, where the court is based, that "in our view it was very clear" that South Africa should have detained al-Bashir so he could have been brought to trial in The Hague.

"Their obligation was to arrest President al-Bashir," Stewart told AP. "I think, however, what is important to remember is that we act really in the interest of victims," he added. "The concern of the prosecutor is for the victims of dreadful atrocities and these victims are Africans."

The International Criminal Court's charges against al-Bashir stem from reported atrocities in the conflict in Darfur in which 300,000 people were killed and 2 million displaced in the government's campaign, according to U.N. figures.

South African officials have declined to comment, though William Mokhari, an attorney for the South African government, said African leaders at the summit in Johannesburg had immunity. Leaders of the African Union are cautious about interfering in each other's affairs and highlighting alleged human rights abuses on a continent with a history of conflict. Critics of the International Criminal Court also say it has unfairly targeted African leaders. But Stewart said most of the African cases were initiated by African governments themselves.

At one point, Mokhari, the South African government lawyer, told the judges that there was no risk of al-Bashir "disappearing" while he attended the summit. But soon after he uttered those words, South African journalist Erika Gibson tweeted photographs of what she said was Sudan's presidential jet taking off from a South African military base. Sudanese state media then said al-Bashir had left South Africa and that a news conference will be held at the Khartoum airport upon his arrival.

Elise Keppler, international justice acting director for U.S.-based Human Rights Watch, said an opportunity to bring al-Bashir to justice had been missed. "By allowing this shameful flight, the South African government has disregarded not only its international legal obligations, but its own courts," she said in a statement.

Al-Bashir appeared in a group photo with other African heads of state on Sunday at the summit. The African Union had previously asked the ICC to stop proceedings against sitting presidents and said it will not compel any member states to arrest a leader on behalf of the court.

In a government notice published June 5, South Africa's minister of international affairs, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, signed an agreement granting diplomatic immunity to delegates participating in the African Union summit.

The Southern Africa Litigation Centre, a rights group, had gone to court to press for al-Bashir's arrest. In March, the International Criminal Court halted proceedings against Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta after the prosecution said it did not have enough evidence against him. Kenyatta, who is attending the summit in Johannesburg, was charged in 2011 as an "indirect co-perpetrator" in postelection violence that left more than 1,000 people dead in 2007 and 2008. He always maintained his innocence.

Kenyan Deputy President William Ruto is on trial for crimes against humanity in the election-related violence.

Michael Corder in The Hague and Christopher Torchia in Pretoria, South Africa, contributed to this report.