KOHAT, Pakistan (Reuters) – Pakistani security forces backed by helicopter gunships have killed 15 Taliban militants and captured 60 in an operation that began mid-week in a troubled northwestern town, the military said on Sunday.

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Pakistan is committed to supporting the U.S.-led global coalition fighting al Qaeda and the Taliban but will not allow allied foreign forces to operate on its territory, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani said.

BEN GURION AIRPORT, Israel (Reuters) – Britain’s Gordon Brown will discuss a way ahead in Middle East peace moves and announce new aid for the Palestinians during his first visit as prime minister to Israel and the Palestinian territories, which began late on Saturday, British officials said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Prime Minister Gordon Brown flew into Baghdad on Saturday and said he wanted to reduce British troop levels in Iraq, although he refused to set a timetable for their departure.

EIN AL-HILWEH, Lebanon (Reuters) – Two people were killed on Saturday in a gunbattle between members of the Fatah faction and Sunni Islamist militants at a Palestinian refugee camp in south Lebanon, camp officials said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraq’s main Sunni Arab bloc rejoined the Shi’ite-led government on Saturday in a breakthrough for national reconciliation after parliament approved its candidates for several vacant ministerial posts.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – A U.S.-based investment group laid the foundation stone for a $100 million luxury hotel in Baghdad on Saturday, a move Iraqi officials said showed the country was open for business with violence at a four-year low.

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey (Reuters) – Ten members of the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) were killed in clashes with Turkish military forces in southeastern Turkey late on Friday, security sources said on Saturday.

BERLIN (Reuters) – Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told a German magazine he supported prospective U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s proposal that U.S. troops should leave Iraq within 16 months.

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Eighty-three percent of Pakistanis want President Pervez Musharraf to be removed and judges he sacked restored, according to a survey released by the U.S.-based International Republican Institute on Thursday.