Middle East Aggregator

Anti-U.S. Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is threatening a new uprising if an American-Iraqi crackdown against his followers continues.

The cleric says he is giving his final warning to the Iraqi government to stop working with the U.S. military against him or he will "declare an open war until liberation."

Saturday's statement has been posted on al-Sadr's Web site.

The threat to lift a more than seven-month-old cease-fire comes amid fighting between al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia and U.S.-Iraqi troops in Baghdad's Sadr City and the southern city of Basra.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki also has said the Sadrists will be politically isolated if the Mahdi Army isn't disbanded. (AP)

Labels: Iraq, Mehdi Army, U.S.

A British journalist held hostage for more than two months has praised the Iraqi army's "bravery" in rescuing him.

Troops stormed the house where Richard Butler was being held, overcame his guards and rescued him on Monday.

The photojournalist, who works for the US television network CBS, had been kidnapped in Basra in February.

In a statement to CBS News, Mr Butler also appealed for hostages "regardless of nationality" to be set free and returned to their families.

Mr Butler's statement said: "First and foremost I'd like to thank all those that were involved in working for my freedom, especially the Iraqi army whose bravery under fire actually won my freedom.

"I would also like to express my deepest thanks to my colleagues at CBS who worked tirelessly on my behalf and looked after my family in my absence.

"At no time during my captivity was I mistreated. (BBC)

Labels: Iraq

Former US President Jimmy Carter has ended a controversial visit to the Syrian capital Damascus.

During the visit, he held intensive talks with Khaled Meshaal, leader of militant Palestinian movement Hamas.

The talks have been strongly criticised by the current US administration and by Israel, both of which regard Hamas as a terrorist organisation.

They focused on two main issues - a possible Israeli-Palestinian prisoner exchange, and some kind of truce.

Hamas says it is open to both ideas, but of course there would have to be something in return.

On the prisoner exchange - which would include the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, captured by Hamas in Gaza nearly two years ago - it has demanded the release of several hundred Palestinian detainees held by Israel.

Under a truce, Hamas would stop firing rockets into Israel - and the Israelis would halt attacks on Gaza.  (BBC)

Labels: Hamas, Israel, Palestine, Syria, U.S.

Iran's ambassador to Iraq on Saturday denounced U.S. military operations in Baghdad's Shiite militia stronghold of Sadr City, saying they had led to the deaths of innocent people and threatened to aggravate an already tense situation.

The comments by Ambassador Hassan Kazemi Qomi came after police and hospital officials reported that 12 people had died in overnight clashes in Sadr City.

U.S. and Iraqi troops backed by air power have largely blocked off the southern section of the sprawling district in a bid to prevent Shiite militia fighters led by the Mahdi Army of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr from firing rockets at the U.S.-protected Green Zone.

Iraqi troops also kept up the pressure on Shiite militants in the southern city of Basra, where they fanned out through a Mahdi Army stronghold. (AP)

Labels: Iran, Iraq, Mehdi Army, U.S.

At least 18 Palestinians, including children and other unarmed civilians, were killed by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday. More than 30 others were injured in attacks by Israeli planes and by ground forces using tanks in the Gaza Strip.
Those killed included Reuters cameraman Fadel Shana, who was struck by fire from an Israeli tank. He had travelled to the scene in a car clearly marked "TV-Press". He was killed as he started to film the tank.
Amnesty International has called on the Israeli government to immediately order a full and independent investigation into the killings of Palestinian civilians by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip.
"Yesterday’s strikes, which the Israeli army launched after the killing of three soldiers in combat, appear to have been carried out with disregard for civilian life,” said Amnesty International. "There seems to be a culture of impunity within the Israeli forces which is contributing to routine use of reckless and disproportionate force." (Amnesty International)

Labels: Amnesty International, Israel, Palestine

Pakistan's ambassador to Afghanistan, who went missing in February in the Khyber region, appeared on Arabic television on Saturday saying he was being held by the Taliban and urged Islamabad to meet their demands.

Ambassador Tariq Azizuddin appeared in a video tape on Al Arabiya television surrounded by armed militants to make his first public statement since going missing.

"We were kidnapped by mujahideen from the Taliban," the ambassador, wearing an open-necked shirt and looking calm, said in the remarks which were translated from Urdu into Arabic.

"I suffer health problems such as high blood pressure and heart pains," said the bespectacled and grey-bearded ambassador, who gestured to his armed captors in an arid, hilly region. (Reuters)

Labels: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Taliban

GAZA (Reuters) - Hamas militants rammed bomb-laden vehicles into a key Israeli border crossing with the Gaza Strip on Saturday, killing at least three of the militants and wounding 13 Israeli soldiers.

The bombing at Kerem Shalom was the third major Palestinian attack in less than two weeks on Israeli border crossings used to transfer limited supplies of humanitarian goods and fuel to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, home to 1.5 million people.

Two other Palestinians, including a Hamas militant and a civilian, were killed in separate Israeli air strikes in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, the Islamist group said.

Israel tightened its economic and military blockade of the coastal enclave after Hamas seized control in June from secular Fatah forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Israeli Gen. Yoav Galant described the attack at Kerem Shalom as the most sophisticated since Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. Israel, which still controls Gaza's air space, coastal waters and goods crossings, has accused Iran and Syria of providing Hamas fighters with advanced training and equipment. (Reuters)

Labels: Hamas, Israel, Palestine

The German government expressed its consternation on Friday after Israeli settlers in the Occupied West Bank city of Hebron threatened and insulted a visiting German parliamentary delegation. A German Foreign Ministry spokesman said it had sent a note of protest to Israel's Foreign Ministry about Wednesday's "regrettable" incident and that it had contacted the office of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. "This is a very unhappy incident that we took note of with great surprise," the spokesman said, without giving further details about what happened. Delegation member Jerzy Montag said Wednesday that Israeli police did nothing to protect them and that they have changed the program for their one-week visit as a result. The incident follows an historic visit to Israel in March by German Chancellor Angela Merkel when she pledged her unwavering support for the Jewish state 60 years after it was founded in the aftermath of the Nazi Holocaust. (AFP)

Labels: Germany, Israel, Settlements

The deputy head of the UN atomic watchdog Olli Heinonen is to visit Tehran on Monday for talks on suspicions the Iranian nuclear program has military aims, the student news agency ISNA reported. "In the two-day trip, the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) director for safeguards operations Herman Nackaerts will accompany Heinonen," the news agency quoted an unidentified official at Iran's atomic energy organization as saying on Friday.

The official said the talks would focus on "purported studies" - an apparent reference to information handed over to the UN watchdog alleging that Iran has been carrying out weaponization studies.

"Since there is a difference of opinion between Iran and the agency over the examination of the purported studies, the Monday talks will be focused only on reaching a solution for examining this issue," the official said. (AFP)

Labels: IAEA, Iran, Nuclear Power, U.N.

The International Press Institute (IPI), a media watchdog, condemned on Friday the killing in the Gaza Strip this week of a Palestinian cameraman working for the Reuters news service. "IPI condemns this killing in the strongest possible terms and calls on the Israeli military to conduct an independent, timely and transparent investigation into the incident," IPI director David Dadge said in a statement. The media watchdog also noted that journalists working in conflict areas were protected under the Geneva Conventions and must not be targeted. Fadel Shana, 23, was killed on Wednesday by a shell fired from an Israeli tank he was filming from several hundred meters away during a military incursion into Gaza that killed 17 other Palestinians, Reuters said. The agency noted that he had been standing next to a jeep clearly marked with "TV" and "Press" stickers. (AFP)

Labels: Israel, Palestine

The United Nations on Friday launched preparatory work between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots to pave the way for peace talks in June. Thirteen working groups and technical committees have been tasked with reaching convergence on key issues to give fully fledged reunification talks a chance to succeed.

A ceremony took place at the UN compound in Nicosia to launch a process many diplomats see as the divided island's "best chance" for ending 34 years of conflict and division.

"We have heard and said much about the current climate of optimism in Cyprus at the renewed hope for progress in the peace process. As you look at the heads of the working groups and technical committees, you see the reason for this optimism," said UN chief of mission Elizabeth Spehar. "We hope concrete results can be achieved through this process over the coming weeks that provide a solid basis for the two leaders to move forward."

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is waiting on the results from these bi-communal panels before appointing a special envoy to assist in major talks. (AFP)

Labels: Cyprus, Turkey, U.N.

Iraqi security forces backed up by the U.S. military killed four Mahdi Army militiamen and captured 11 others Friday, the Interior Ministry said, in heavy street fighting in the Shiite district of Sadr City. Two other militia fighters were killed in a clash south of Baghdad, the ministry said.

Using a sandstorm for cover, Mahdi Army fighters loyal to anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said they repelled convoys of Iraqi and American armored vehicles trying d to push deeper into Sadr City. American officials say Sadr City is being used as the base for mortar and missile attacks on the Green Zone, the fortified Baghdad enclave that houses many U.S. and Iraqi government offices.

Maj. Mark Cheadle, a U.S. military spokesman, said the Iraqi army was under attack along one of its routes in Sadr City late Friday. But he said the Iraqi army continued to hold its positions in Sadr City and was organizing a counterattack as a sandstorm lifted and American helicopters began to fly.

He said the Iraqi forces were in the lead, rather than U.S. troops, and were reacting with their own forces, including armored vehicles and ground troops. One soldier was wounded, he said.  (Washington Post)

Labels: Iraq, Mehdi Army, U.S.

Israel would exchange as many as 400 Palestinian prisoners to secure the release of an Israeli soldier who has been held by Palestinian militants for nearly two years under a deal being negotiated with the assistance of Egyptian mediators, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said yesterday.

While the broad outlines of a possible agreement have been previously reported by anonymous sources, Aboul Gheit is the first senior official to publicly acknowledge that Israel is indirectly negotiating with Hamas, the armed Islamist group that controls the Gaza Strip.

The art of Middle East diplomacy is normally to keep silent -- or off the record -- about uncomfortable truths. But speaking to the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, Aboul Gheit provided an unusually detailed account of the deal that is slowly taking shape. (Washington Post)

Labels: Egypt, Israel, Palestine

"God is Great," screamed a man seconds before he blew himself up, killing 10 people in a restaurant in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province in western Iraq. A series of suicide bombings have shown over the past week that al-Qa'ida in Iraq, though battered by defections over the past year, is striking back remorselessly at Sunni Arab leaders who ally themselves to the US.

In another attack in the village of Albu Mohammed, south of Kirkuk, an elderly man thought by guards to be too old to be a bomber, walked unsearched into a tent filled with mourners attending the funeral of two Sunni tribesmen who had been killed after they joined al-Sahwa, the Awakening Council, as the pro-US Sunni group is called. The man detonated the explosives hidden under his long Arab robes, killing at least 50 people.

A vicious civil war is now being fought within Iraq's Sunni Arab community between al-Qa'ida in Iraq and al-Sahwa while other groups continue to attack American forces. In Baghdad on a single day the head of al-Sahwa in the southern district of Dora was killed in his car by gunmen and seven others died by bombs and bullets in al-Adhamiya district. (Independent)

Labels: Al Qaeda, Iraq, U.S.

The dark-haired 22-year-old in black T-shirt, blue jeans and red Crocs is understandably hesitant as he sits at a picnic table in the incongruous setting of a beauty spot somewhere in Israel. We know his name and if we used it he would face a criminal investigation and a probable prison sentence.

The birds are singing as he describes in detail some of what he did and saw others do as an enlisted soldier in Hebron. And they are certainly criminal: the incidents in which Palestinian vehicles are stopped for no good reason, the windows smashed and the occupants beaten up for talking back – for saying, for example, they are on the way to hospital; the theft of tobacco from a Palestinian shopkeeper who is then beaten "to a pulp" when he complains; the throwing of stun grenades through the windows of mosques as people prayed. And worse.

The young man left the army only at the end of last year, and his decision to speak is part of a concerted effort to expose the moral price paid by young Israeli conscripts in what is probably the most problematic posting there is in the occupied territories. Not least because Hebron is the only Palestinian city whose centre is directly controlled by the military, 24/7, to protect the notably hardline Jewish settlers there. He says firmly that he now regrets what repeatedly took place during his tour of duty. (Independent)

Labels: Israel, Palestine

A Taliban commander blamed for the deadliest attack on U.S. troops since they entered Afghanistan in 2001 has been killed in a shootout with security forces in Pakistan, American and Pakistani officials said.

Police killed Ahmad Shah, also known as Mullah Ismail, at a roadblock near the northwestern city of Peshawar, a senior Pakistani intelligence official said. Two U.S. security officials confirmed Shah's death in a shootout and said Pakistani authorities had his body.

All three officials spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

U.S. and Afghan officials have described Shah, who also went by the name Mullah Ismail, as the leader of Taliban militants who ambushed a group of U.S. commandos in June 2005 and shot down a Chinook helicopter sent to rescue them. Sixteen American special forces members died on the helicopter. (AP)

Labels: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Taliban, U.S.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas told Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday he was optimistic about a Middle East peace summit proposed by Moscow, but Washington struck a more cautious note.

Russia, a mediator in the Middle East, sees a would-be conference it wants to hold in Moscow as a follow-up to a meeting in the U.S. town of Annapolis in November that relaunched peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

"We believe the Moscow conference will be successful and help to achieve progress towards the Middle East settlement," Abbas told Putin at the start of their meeting at the Russian leader's residence in Novo-Ogaryovo outside Moscow.

Diplomats said the conference would dominate the men's closed-door talks. (Reuters)

Labels: Israel, Palestine, Russia, U.S.

Followers of anti-U.S. Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr denounced the American military's construction of a concrete wall through their Sadr City stronghold in Baghdad, the scene of renewed clashes Friday between his militiamen and U.S. and Iraqi troops.

The wall - a concrete barrier of varying height up to about 12 feet - is being built along a main street dividing the southern portion of Sadr City from the northern, where al-Sadr's Mahdi Army fighters are concentrated.

American commanders hope that construction of the Sadr City wall, which began Tuesday, will effectively cut off insurgents' ability to move freely into the rest of Baghdad and hamper their ability to fire rockets and mortars at the Green Zone, the central Baghdad district where government offices and the U.S. Embassy are located.

Such walls have gone up in many other Baghdad neighborhoods and have been effective in cutting violence as the movement of insurgents was curtailed. But they have also raised some complaints from residents over difficulties in moving in and out through checkpoints. (AP)

Labels: Iraq, Mehdi Army, U.S.

The US's most senior general was "hoodwinked" by top Bush administration officials determined to push through aggressive interrogation techniques for terror suspects held at Guantánamo Bay, the Guardian can reveal.

The development led to the US military abandoning its age-old ban on the cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners.

General Richard Myers, the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff from 2001 to 2005, wrongly believed that inmates at Guantánamo and other prisons were protected by the Geneva conventions and from abuse tantamount to torture.

The way he was duped by senior officials in Washington - who believed the Geneva conventions and other traditional safeguards were out of date - is disclosed in a devastating account of their role, extracts from which will be published in tomorrow's Guardian.

In his new book, Torture Team, Philippe Sands QC, a professor of law at University College London, reveals:

• Senior figures in the Bush administration pushed through previously outlawed measures with the help of unqualified and inexperienced military officials at Guantánamo.

• Myers believes he was a victim of "intrigue" by top lawyers at the department of justice, the office of the vice president, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld's defence department.

• Myers wrongly believed interrogation techniques had been taken from the army's field manual. (Guardian)

Labels: Guantanamo, Torture, U.S.

Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip is an "atrocity," former US president Jimmy Carter said after meeting with Hamas officials in Cairo. Carter also said he had asked Hamas officials to stop rocket attacks into Israel and defended his controversial meetings with the Palestinian terrorist group, saying it was necessary to talk to all parties to achieve peace.

Carter met Thursday for the second straight day with Hamas officials, holding talks with some of the group's leaders from the Gaza Strip in the Egyptian capital.

He is expected Friday in Syria - the latest stop on a tour he calls a private Middle East peace mission - where he said he will meet with Hamas's exiled political chief Khaled Mashaal, as well as Syrian President Bashar Assad.

The meetings with Hamas, which Washington considers a terror organization, have drawn sharp criticism from Israeli and US officials. (JPost)

Labels: Israel, Palestine, U.S.

Former US President Jimmy Carter is holding talks with exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Syria.

Ways of including Hamas in peace talks and the fate of an Israeli prisoner are expected to be on the agenda.

Mr Carter has also met the Syrian and Israeli presidents during his Middle East tour to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Other senior Israelis have snubbed Mr Carter, but one minister has said he is willing to break policy and meet Hamas.

Mr Carter, awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, brokered the 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty, the first between Israel and an Arab state.

Mr Meshaal, who survived an assassination attempt by Israeli agents in 1997, became Hamas political chief after Israel's killing of the group's founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, in March 2004. (BBC)

Labels: Hamas, Israel, Palestine, Syria, U.S.

Fadel Shana was killed when an Israeli tank shot a shell, that struck his clearly marked press vehicle. He was filming the tank from a distance when it happened.

From Reuters:

"A medical examination shows metal darts from an Israeli tank shell that explodes in the air caused the death of Reuters cameraman Fadel Shana.

Hundreds of relatives and fellow journalists attended the funeral procession for the 23-year-old Reuters cameraman.

Israel hasn't yet said if it will comply with the demand of Reuters Editor-in-Chief David Schlesinger for a swift and impartial investigation into the circumstances of Fadel Shana's death."

Labels: Israel, Palestine

Iraqi troops cordoned off the Basra office of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr on Friday and prevented his followers from praying in a move that seems sure to inflame tensions between the government and militiamen.

The U.S. military confirmed that in a separate incident earlier this week, a unit of Iraqi troops fending off Sadr's fighters abandoned their post in the cleric's east Baghdad stronghold of Sadr City.

The battle in Sadr City is being seen as a key test for Iraq's army after a botched crackdown on the militiamen in the southern city of Basra last month, which sparked violent clashes across southern Iraq and in Baghdad.

The upturn in fighting has fuelled concerns that a period of declining violence credited to last year's "surge" in U.S. troop levels is coming to an end, just as the American reinforcements are returning home.

Interior Ministry spokesman Major-General Abdul-Karim Khalaf told Reuters on Friday that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki had ordered government troops to take possession of all government buildings in Basra within 48 hours. (Reuters)

Updates:

*Iraqi troops cordon off Shi'ite cleric's office (VOA)

*U.S. says Iraqi troop unit abandoned post in Sadr City (AP)

Labels: Iraq, Mehdi Army

Pope Benedict XVI Friday launched a spirited defense of human rights and multilateralism, and called for greater dialogue between cultures in a landmark address to the UN General Assembly.

Dressed in his white robes, the 81-year-old pontiff reminded all 192 UN member states of their duty to protect their people from human rights abuses.

"Every state has the primary duty to protect its own population from grave and sustained violations of human rights," he told a packed assembly on his first visit to UN headquarters since becoming pope three years ago.

"If states are unable to guarantee such protection, the international community must intervene with the juridical means provided in the United Nations Charter," he said.

At a 2005 summit here, world leaders committed themselves for the first time to endorse the concept of "responsibility to protect" their people from genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes and crimes against humanity. (AFP)

Labels: Human Rights, U.N.

The son of the new chief of the Dutch military and another Dutch soldier serving with NATO-led forces were killed in an explosion in Afghanistan on Friday.

Taliban insurgents claimed responsibility for the blast, which occurred at a time of rising violence following a traditional winter lull in fighting.

The Dutch Defence Ministry said in a statement there were no indications that the attack was specifically targeted at the 23-year-old son of chief of joint staffs Peter van Uhm, who took over command of the Dutch military on Thursday.

"The contrast with yesterday's festivities, when command was handed over to General Van Uhm, could not have been bigger," Defence Minister Eimert van Middelkoop told a news conference in the Hague. (Reuters)

Labels: Afghanistan, Taliban

Al-Qaida's No. 2 said in an audiotape released Friday that the United States will lose whether it stays in Iraq or withdraws, and he sneered that President Bush just wants to pass the problem on to his successor.

The message from Ayman al-Zawahri released early Friday on a militant Web site appeared to be one of the most quickly prepared tapes produced by al-Qaida - referring to Congressional testimony only last week by the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, in which he recommended a halt to further U.S. troop withdrawals until after July.

Bush said last week he would give Petraeus all the time needed to reassess U.S. troop strength in Iraq after the current drawdown of U.S. troops ends in July.

"The truth is that if Bush keeps all his forces in Iraq until doomsday and until they enter hell, they will only see crisis and defeat by the will of God," said al-Zawahri, the deputy of al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden.

"If the American forces leave, they will lose everything. And if they stay, they will bleed to death," he said. (AP)

Labels: Al Qaeda, Iraq

Nato forces mistakenly supplied food, water and arms to Taliban forces in southern Afghanistan, officials today admitted.

Containers destined for local police forces were dropped from a helicopter into a Taliban-controlled area of Zabul province.

The coalition helicopter had intended to deliver pallets of supplies to a police checkpoint in Ghazni, a remote section of Zabul late last month.

By mistake they were dropped some distance from the checkpoint where it was taken by the Taliban, the Internal Security Affairs Commission of the Wolesi Jirga — the Afghan parliament's lower house — was told.

Hamidullah Tukhi, a local politician from Zabul, told the parliamentary commission that the consignment had been taken by a local Taliban commander.

A Nato spokesman said the pallets were carrying rocket propelled grenades, ammunition, water and food.

Afghan politicians have said they do not believe the drop was an accident. (Guardian)

Labels: Afghanistan, NATO, Taliban

Russia has agreed to cancel $4.5bn (£2.3bn) of Libyan debt in exchange for major contracts for Russian firms.

The announcement came during a visit to Tripoli on Thursday by the Russian President, Vladimir Putin.

The two countries signed deals on energy co-operation, military assistance and construction of a 500km (310-mile) railway line in Libya.

Libya was a big importer of Soviet weaponry during the Cold War, when it accumulated large debts.

Russia's state gas monopoly Gazprom plans large-scale exploration and production projects with Libya's national energy company. They will include liquefied natural gas installations and gas-fired electricity plants in Libya.

Russia will provide the technology for Libya to build a major rail link between Sirte and Benghazi. Construction is expected to take four years. (BBC)

Labels: Libya, Russia

A member of Yemen's governing party is reported to have been shot dead in the volatile north of the country.

Witnesses say gunmen opened fire on a car carrying the MP, Saleh Hendi, and several of his bodyguards.

The attack took place in the north-western province of Saada, a region where government troops have been battling a Zaidi Shia rebellion.

Fighting resumed earlier this year, six months after the government and rebels had agreed a ceasefire.

Hundreds of people have been killed since the rebellion broke out in 2004. (BBC)

Labels: Yemen

Iran's UN Mission on Thursday rejected allegations by US officials that the country is supporting the insurgency in Iraq, calling the claims "unfounded" and "baseless."

The mission cited "false" allegations against Iran by senior US officials including by President George W. Bush and at recent US Congressional hearings.

Last week, Gen. David Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq, told Congress that Iranian-backed "special groups" pose "the greatest long-term threat to the viability of a democratic Iraq" in unchecked. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the US will be as aggressive as possible to counter the increase in Iranian support for militias.

Earlier this year, Bush called Iran "the world's leading state sponsor of terror" and said Iran funds militant groups and sends arms to Shiite extremists in Iraq.

In its statement responding to allegations about its relations with Iraq, Iran's UN Mission said these "allegations are but futile efforts to distract the international community's attention, along with that of the US public opinion." (AP)

Labels: Iran, Iraq, U.N., U.S.

A suicide bomber killed 24 people and wounded more than 30 as they prepared for evening prayers outside a mosque in south-west Afghanistan yesterday.

The attack took place at the central mosque in Zaranj, the capital of Nimroz province, with the district chief of police among the dead.

Most of those killed and wounded were civilians, including children and old men.

It is the third such attack to have hit the province this month.
Local authorities are unclear whether there was more than one bomber.

Suicide attacks in Afghanistan have risen in the past year, with the Taliban launching more than 140 such missions - the highest number since the group was ousted from power by a US-led invasion in 2001. (Guardian)

Labels: Afghanistan

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday she had no plans to meet Iranian officials at an international conference in Kuwait next week aimed at stabilizing and developing Iraq. Rice also said Washington was still waiting for Saudi Arabia to send an ambassador to Baghdad as part of increased US efforts to involve Arabs more in rebuilding Iraq and helping "shield" it from Iran's "nefarious influences."

"No, I don't intend to meet the Iranians, that is not in the plan," Rice said. "Let me just say, the Iranians will be at the meeting. I'm not trying to suggest they won't be. But, no, I don't have any plans to meet them."

The conference, which was held previously in Egypt and Turkey, will be attended by Iraq's neighbors, UN Security Council permanent members including the US and other Group of Eight developed nations.

Iran, which is vehemently opposed to the US military presence in Iraq, said it will attend the meeting, though it has not made clear at what level. (AFP)

Labels: Iran, Iraq, U.S.

Iran has freed a women's rights activist in her 50s whose arrest prompted a public protest letter signed by hundreds of her fellow campaigners, the Kargozaran newspaper reported on Thursday. It said women's rights and environmental activist Khadijeh Moghaddam, 56, had been freed Wednesday following her arrest on suspicion of "acting against national security" on April 8.

Moghaddam's bail of 1 billion rials ($110,000) was paid by an unidentified individual.

She has been described as a pioneer in environmental protection in Iran, working for better waste management and protesting against deforestation.

She has also been involved with the "1 million signatures" campaign - an attempt to change Iranian laws that discriminate against women by collecting signatures online and in person.

Some 600 activists signed the letter demanding that "Khadijeh Moghaddam's illegal detention end as soon as possible," reformist media reports said earlier this week. (AFP)

Labels: Free Speech, Human Rights Watch, Iran, Womens Rights

Palestinians held demonstrations across the Occupied West Bank Thursday in honor of Prisoner's Day and over 11,000 Palestinians held in Israeli jails.

In the north around 2,000 people gathered in the heart of Nablus, waving Palestinian flags and holding large, framed portraits of loved ones, an AFP correspondent said.

"The issue of Palestinian and Arab prisoners is very important  and we cannot talk of peace with the [Israeli] occupation without the release of all Palestinian prisoners," said Nablus Governor Jamal al-Muhaisen.

Demonstrators held banners reading "No peace without the release of prisoners" and "Prisoners, Jerusalem, refugees, and borders are red lines for all the Palestinian people." (AFP)

Labels: Israel, Palestine

Trying to stem the infiltration of militia fighters, U.S. forces have begun to build a massive concrete wall that will partition Sadr City, the densely populated Shiite neighborhood in the Iraqi capital.

The construction, which began Tuesday, is intended to turn the southern quarter of Sadr City near the international Green Zone into a protected enclave, secured by Iraqi and U.S. forces, where the Iraqi government can undertake reconstruction efforts.

"You can't really repair anything that is broken until you establish security," said Lieutenant Colonel Dan Barnett, commander of the 1st Squadron, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment, who is attached to the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division. "A wall that isolates those who would continue to attack the Iraqi Army and coalition forces can create security conditions that they can go in and rebuild."

On Wednesday, cranes lifted heavy concrete blocks into place. The barriers were implanted on Al Quds Street, a major thoroughfare that separates the Tharwa and Jamilla districts to the south from the heart of Sadr City to the north. (IHT)

Labels: Iraq, Mehdi Army, U.S.

The Israeli government revealed plans Friday to build 100 homes in two Jewish settlements - one of them deep in the West Bank - in violation of its pledge to freeze settlement expansion.

Palestinian officials said the new construction in the settlements of Ariel and Elkana is undermining U.S.-backed efforts to reach a peace deal by the end of 2008.

Since a U.S.-hosted Mideast peace conference in November, Israel has announced several new building projects in areas of Jerusalem claimed by the Palestinians for their future state. However, Friday's announcement marked the first time the Israeli government approved construction deep in the West Bank.

An Israeli security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the new construction apparently is part of ongoing negotiations between the Israeli government and Jewish settler leaders. Approval for the 100 homes came in return for the recent voluntary evacuation of two small unauthorized settlement outposts, the official said. (AP)

Labels: Israel, Palestine, Settlements, U.S.

Afghanistan's Supreme Court has confirmed more than 100 death sentences, raising fears over the fate of Sayed Pervez Kambaksh, the student journalist on death row.

Mr Kambaksh is in jail, pending an appeal, after he was sentenced to death for circulating an article which poked fun at Islam by questioning women's rights. His case sparked international protests because it was held behind closed doors, in a religious court, and he was denied a defence lawyer.

But the Supreme Court's decision to endorse so many death penalties demonstrates its willingness to execute people despite grave concerns over the country's flawed legal processes.

Mr Kambaksh's family led new protests yesterday, condemning the court's decision, and demanding a moratorium on the death penalty. His brother, Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi, said: "It is a warning to the whole of the Afghan people. The Afghan judiciary shouldn't have the ability to pass the death sentence. The whole system is corrupted... Lots of people are facing the death penalty for no reason. (Independent)

Labels: Afghanistan

B'Tselem released a report on Thursday claiming that Reuters cameraman Fadel Shana'a was killed by a Flechette shell, based upon the results of the slain photojournalist's autopsy. B'Tselem is demanding that the IDF's Judge Advocate General immediately prohibit the use of the Flechette-based weapons system.

The Flechette shell is an anti-personnel weapon generally fired from a tank, which explodes in the air and releases thousands of small metal darts, which disperse in a conical arch of approximately 300 by 90 meters.

B'Tselem claimed that circumstances in the Gaza Strip render the use of Flechette shells illegal due to the wide dispersal area of the darts which, when used in populated areas, constitutes a type of indiscriminate firing, and thereby endangers innocent civilians, in violation of international humanitarian law.

Reuters footage released on Wednesday showed the final moments of agency cameraman Fadel Shana as he filmed an IDF tank firing, moments before apparently being hit by the shell.

Subsequent footage showed the Reuters jeep on fire, and Shana's body lying next to it. Shana's jeep was marked "press" and witnesses said the cameraman was wearing an identifying flak jacket. (JPost)

Labels: B'Tselem, Israel, Palestine

There is a heightened sense in the security establishment that a broad-scale ground incursion inside the Gaza Strip is necessary this summer to deal a severe blow to Hamas's infrastructure, sources in Jerusalem said Wednesday, following the death of three soldiers in a Gaza ambush.

According to the sources, the incursion - similar but more difficult than Operation Defensive Shield in the West Bank in 2002 - would not take place until about a month or a month-and-a-half after US President George W. Bush's planned visit here in mid-May. By then, the last of the world's leaders to have come here to celebrate the country's 60th anniversary would have left. The timing would also place the operation in the middle of summer, considered an optimal time for this type of operation.

The sources said there was recognition that such an operation would be extremely costly, both in terms of soldiers and Palestinians killed. Nevertheless, the operation is being considered out of a widespread sense that the current situation in the Gaza Strip cannot continue festering indefinitely. (JPost)

Labels: Egypt, Israel, Palestine

Afghan and foreign forces killed several dozen Taliban insurgents on Thursday in separate clashes in Afghanistan, officials said.

After the traditional winter lull, violence has increased in recent weeks in Afghanistan.

Twenty Taliban fighters were killed in a joint operation by Afghan and NATO forces in the southern province of Zabul, a senior provincial police official, Faridullah Khogiani, said.

In neighboring Ghazni province, 10 insurgents died after a botched ambush against a joint Afghan and U.S.-led convoy on a highway in Ghazni province, a provincial official said.

In another clash in the same province, the Afghan National Army killed three more Taliban guerrillas, the defense ministry said in a statement. (Reuters)

Labels: Afghanistan, Taliban

Iran has been displaying its military power at a ceremony to mark the country's annual army day.

Speaking at the parade, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran was the most powerful nation in the world.

The country's strength was such that no major power would dare to challenge its security, he said.

Official media claimed the ceremony included the largest ever show of aerial strength, with a fly past by almost 200 aircraft.

There was also a huge military parade, with missiles displayed on trucks. (BBC)

Labels: Iran

Iran's progress in developing uranium enrichment is slow and recent additions to its nuclear fuel production complex have only been older-model centrifuges, the head of the U.N. atomic watchdog chief said on Thursday.

Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Iran had between 3,300 and 3,400 centrifuges of the 1970s vintage P-1 type operational in the Natanz enrichment hall, up from 3,000 at the end of last year.

He urged Iran to refrain from speeding up its enrichment campaign until a dispute between the Islamic Republic and world powers over suspicions about its nuclear intentions was resolved.

Iran says it wants to produce nuclear fuel only for electricity so it can export more oil.

However, the United Nations has imposed three sets of sanctions on Tehran for hiding the work from the IAEA until 2003, failing to prove to inspectors since then that it is wholly peaceful and refusing to suspend the program. (Reuters)

Labels: IAEA, Iran, Nuclear Power

A suicide bomber struck the funeral of two anti-al-Qaida Sunni tribesmen in a town north of Baghdad on Thursday, killing at least 50 people and wounding dozens, police said.

The blast was the latest this week to break a period of relative calm in Sunni areas, raising concerns that Sunni insurgents are reorganizing at a time when U.S. and Iraqi troops are battling Shiite militiamen elsewhere.

Over the past months, Sunni insurgent violence has eased with the increase in U.S. troops and the growth of so-called Awakening Councils, groups of Sunni tribesmen and former insurgents who have joined American forces in fighting al-Qaida-linked militants.

Thursday's attack took place in the town of Albu Mohammed about 90 miles north of Baghdad, during the funeral of two brothers who belonged to the local Awakening Council and had been killed in an attack a day earlier, police said. (AP)

Labels: Iraq

Thousands of Palestinians marched through Gaza City on Thursday at the funeral procession of a cameraman killed while covering a day of fighting that killed 20 Palestinians and three Israeli soldiers.

Three Gaza militants who tried to carry out a new attack on a border crossing were stopped by Israeli troops, the army said. One attacker was killed, another was wounded and a third fled the scene, the army said. Kerem Shalom, a crossing used to deliver humanitarian supplies to Gaza, was closed after the attack.

Israel has limited the flow of goods into Gaza since the Hamas militant group seized control of the area last June, and tightened the blockade in recent weeks following intensified rocket attacks from Gaza. (AP)

Labels: Israel, Palestine

Israeli troops killed a Palestinian militant and a teenager today during a raid in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian officials said.

Islamic Jihad said the militant was Bilal Komel, 25, a military commander long-wanted by Israel.

The second was identified as 19-year-old Ayed Zakarna. They were shot after Israeli soldiers surrounded the house in which they were believed to be hiding.

An Israeli army spokeswoman said troops fired at militants after they refused to leave a car parked in the driveway of the home, in the Qabatiya refugee camp near the city of Jenin.

Today's raid followed the deadliest day in Gaza for a month, when 17 Palestinians, most of them civilians, and three Israeli soldiers, were killed. (Guardian)

Labels: Israel, Palestine