Abu Dhabi:  Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Airways has said that it would suspend flights to Qatar after the United Arab Emirates was among major Gulf states to sever ties with Doha in an unprecedented regional crisis, said a report from AFP on Monday.

Etihad said flights would stop on Tuesday, after the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain said they would cut all air, land and sea links with Qatar within 24 hours.

Etihad, which operates four return flights to Doha daily, said the measure will be in place “until further notice”.

Other carriers from the three Gulf countries, including Dubai’s Emirates, are likely to announce similar measures.

The unprecedented measures against Doha include ordering Qatari citizens to leave within 14 days and banning citizens of the three Gulf states from travelling to Qatar.

Doha airport, along with airports in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, have become major hubs after Emirates, Etihad and Qatar Airways seized a significant chunk of transcontinental travel on routes linking Western countries with Asia and Australasia.

(Agencies)

The Emir of Qatar Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani (Credit: Reuters)

Cairo: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Monday cut diplomatic ties with Qatar, accusing it of supporting terror groups including the Muslim Brotherhood and interfering in its internal affairs.

“Qatar’s policy threatens Arab national security and sows the seeds of strife and division within Arab societies according to a deliberate plan aimed at the unity and interests of the Arab nation,” Al Ahram news quoted an Egyptian Foreign Ministry statement as saying.

The four countries announced they would withdraw their diplomatic staff from Qatar, and also the closure of its airspace and borders severing land, sea and air contact within the next 24 hours.

According to Saudi state news agency SPA, authorities announced that Qatari troops would be pulled from the ongoing war in Yemen due to Doha’s “practices that strengthen terrorism” and its support to groups “including Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, as well as dealing with the rebel militias”, reports the BBC.

In an official statement, Bahrain said Qatar has interfered with its internal affairs, engaged in negative media coverage against it, and supported terrorist activities and armed groups, as well as financed Iranian-backed groups that are responsible of vandalism and violence in the country, reports Xinhua news agency.

The country has asked Qatari diplomats to leave the country within 48 hours.

The UAE has also accused Qatar of “supporting, funding and embracing terrorism, extremism and sectarian organisations”, according to state news agency WAM.

Monday’s move comes after Qatar alleged that hackers last month took over the site of its state-run news agency and published what it called fake comments from its ruling emir about Iran and Israel, Al Ahram reported.

Its Gulf Arab neighbours responded with anger, blocking Qatari-based media, including the Doha-based satellite news network Al Jazeera.

In March 2014, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Bahrain had recalled their ambassadors from Qatar its alleged backing of then-Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, a Muslim Brotherhood member.

However, eight months later they returned their ambassadors as Qatar forced some Brotherhood members to leave the country and quieted others.

(Agencies)

US military reports 484 civilian deaths by US-led coalition strikes, but outside monitors put the number much higher.

Nearly 200,000 civilians are caught in an area of about eight-square kilometres in Mosul [Karim Sahib/AFP]

by Al Jazeera

The US military said that coalition attacks on ISIL targets in Syria and Iraq have killed more than 480 civilians since mid-2014 – a tally that is far below those of outside monitors.

US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement on Friday that it added an additional 132 civilians deaths to its April report, a sharp increase from 352 it previously reported in late April.

However, that total, which only includes civilian deaths through April, was still far short of what non-governmental organisations and monitors have estimated.

Airwars, a London-based collective of journalists and researchers that tracks civilian deaths in Syria and Iraq, estimated more than 3,800 non-combatants have been killed since the US-led coalition’s operations began in August 2014.

Mosul offensive

CENTCOM’s estimate includes 105 civilians killed in a US-led air raid in March against a building in the Iraqi city of Mosul, the single deadliest incident for civilians arising from a coalition strike since anti-ISIL operations began in Iraq and Syria nearly three years ago.

Separately, Al Jazeera’s sources recently said more than 120 civilians were killed in less than a week as Iraqi forces – backed by coalition air power – move to take the remaining pockets of territory held by ISIL in Mosul.

In a statement emailed to Al Jazeera earlier on Friday by the Operation Inherent Resolve press office, the coalition said it “is aware of allegations of civilian casualties”.

It added that the “coalition and Iraqi security forces are making every attempt to safeguard civilians as they liberate the city from ISIS terrorists who are using snipers to target civilians trying to flee the city … The coalition takes all allegations of civilian casualties serious and will assess the allegations”.

The battle to recapture the last stronghold of ISIL in Iraq has now entered its eighth month.

Iraqi government forces, backed by US advisers, artillery and air support, have cleared the east and most of western Mosul and are now focused on controlling the Old City with Iraqi civilians paying a heavy price.

“We moved out and got frightened by heavy air strikes,” one civilian who escaped the fighting in western Mosul told Al Jazeera. “We fled after our house was destroyed by mortar shelling.”

The close-quarter fighting has intensified with reports that ISIL fighters have gathered at the historic al-Nuri Mosque – a centuries-old structure famous for its leaning minaret – to make a last stand as Iraqi forces encircle the armed group in its de facto capital after capturing the city in 2014.

Nearly 200,000 civilians are caught in an area of about eight-square kilometres.

Al Jazeera’s Osama bin Javaid, reporting from Erbil, just east of Mosul, said observers are pushing the Iraqi military and the US-led coalition to take care of civilians, despite the intensity of combat against ISIL.

“Saving people is proving to be easier said than done,” Javaid said. “Aid workers and rights groups have been repeating their concerns that in the process to push ISIL out, Iraqi forces must make sure that civilians are not caught in the crossfire.”