Middle Orient News

Syrian President Bashar Assad all but ruled out his country’s participation in a US-sponsored international peace conference on the Middle East, suggesting in an interview published Thursday that the meeting has no chance for success.

Ferryman Hisham freely acknowledges that the poor and dangerous conditions of Baghdad’s roads that drive residents of the capital to despair are, for him at least, a godsend.

Nasib Lahoud, a presidential nominee from the 14th of March Coalition, stressed that the next president of Lebanon should be elected through a consensus among all political groups of his country, saying Lebanon’s president should receive equal support from all political groups.

Shi’ite pilgrims converged on the Iraqi city of Najaf on Wednesday amid tight security for their first major religious ceremony since clashes between Shi’ite militias killed 52 people in nearby Kerbala in August.

The U.S. military said on Wednesday it had discovered a list of some 500 al Qaeda militants recruited to fight in Iraq from a range of European, Middle East and north African countries.

A suicide bomber targeted a foreign military convoy in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday, slightly wounding one soldier, said a spokesman for NATO-led forces.

Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski said on Wednesday Poland would not withdraw a 1,000-strong troop contingent from Iraq after Poland’s ambassador was injured in an attack on his convoy in Baghdad.

Gunmen kidnapped 13 Iraqi men on Wednesday after stopping four cars at a fake checkpoint in the town of Khalis, 80 km (50 miles) north of Baghdad, a security source said.

Following are security developments in Iraq at 12 p.m. EDT on Tuesday.

 One U.S. soldier was killed and 10 were wounded in combat operations in central Baghdad on Sunday, the U.S. military said on Tuesday.