DIYARBAKIR, Turkey – Turkey’s top general said on Friday a bomb attack which killed five people including three children in the city of Diyarbakir would only strengthen Turkey’s resolve to crack down on Kurdish separatist guerrillas.

RAMALLAH, West Bank – Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad criticized Israel on Friday for a major military operation in the West Bank, saying such intervention was ruining a Western-backed internal Palestinian security plan.

ISLAMABAD – Violence may erupt in volatile Pakistan in the run-up to February elections but a six-week postponement of the polls has not fueled unrest, the head of a European Union observer mission said on Friday.

ISTANBUL – Turkish police have detained more than 40 suspected members of the outlawed Turkish Islamist militant group Hezbollah, state news agency Anatolian said on Friday.

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey – The death toll from a bomb explosion in southeast Turkey’s largest city has risen to five, including three children, and the number of injured stands at 110, security sources said on Friday.

GAZA – Israeli troops killed two Palestinian Hamas gunmen and wounded three others in the Gaza Strip on Friday, the Islamist faction and hospital officials said.

TEHRAN (FNA) Tehran’s interim Friday Prayers leader Ayatollah Mohammad Emami Kashani called on Iranians to watch out for any wasteful use of the country’s heavily subsidized energy supplies, cautioning that Iranians are the only world nation consuming cheap energy supplies extravagantly.

TEHRAN (FNA) Iranian Vice-President for Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Seyed Ahmad Moussavi was assigned as Tehran’s ambassador to Damascus.

TEHRAN (FNA) Iran’s deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Seyed Abbas Araghchi was appointed as the country’s ambassador to Japan.

TEHRAN (FNA) Libya has hinted it will not support further sanctions on Iran if its nuclear file goes back to the UN Security Council.