Middle Orient News

ATHENS (Reuters) – Two boats carrying activists from 17 countries will leave the Mediterranean island of Cyprus next week bound for Gaza in a bid to break an Israeli blockade of the Palestinian territory, organizers said on Tuesday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – A major pilgrimage of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Shi’ites to a Baghdad shrine passed peacefully on Tuesday, a day after three female suicide bombers killed 35 people among crowds of pilgrims.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkey’s military said its fighter jets attacked Kurdish separatist targets in northern Iraq on Tuesday and killed a number of guerrillas.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Thousands of Iraqi soldiers and police launched a major security operation in northeastern Diyala province on Tuesday in the latest move by the government to stamp its authority over militants.

KABUL (Reuters) – Afghanistan said on Tuesday that after the Pakistani prime minister made a commitment to U.S. President George W. Bush to secure the border with Afghanistan, it was now time for Pakistan to take action.

NICOSIA (Reuters) – Peace talks on ethnically- divided Cyprus this September offer possibly the best chance in years for a deal that has been eluding the island for decades, a senior United Nations envoy said on Tuesday.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Bombs killed 15 people and wounded around 140 in Istanbul late on Sunday, just hours ahead of a court case over banning the governing party that has plunged Turkey into political turmoil.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Gunmen opened fire on Shi’ite pilgrims in southern Baghdad on Sunday, killing seven, as thousands made their way to a revered shrine in the Iraqi capital, police said.

CAIRO (Reuters) – An Egyptian criminal court found the owner of a Red Sea ferry not guilty of manslaughter on Sunday over the deaths of more than 1,000 passengers when the vessel caught fire and sank in 2006, court sources said.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – The Constitutional Court begins deliberating on Monday on whether the ruling AK Party has engaged in Islamist activities and should be closed, a case that has plunged Turkey into political and economic uncertainty.