Middle Orient News

DUBAI (AP) — Ships packed with 17,000 sailors and US marines moved into the Persian Gulf Wednesday as the US navy staged another show of military force off Iran’s coast — just days before the US start of direct talks with Iran in Baghdad.

BAGHDAD — From hiding, possibly in Iran, anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr is believed to be honing plans to sweep into the power vacuum made all the more intense by news that his chief Shiite rival has lung cancer. And he’s betting the US won’t keep its troops in Iraq …

LONDON (AFP) — Amnesty International said on Wednesday in its annual report that Iraq continued its descent into civil war in 2006 and that both Israel and Hizbollah committed war crimes during their 34-day conflict.

ANKARA (AP) — A suicide bomber carried out the attack that killed six people and injured dozens in Turkey’s capital, using methods similar to those of a Kurdish rebel group, a senior official said Wednesday.

BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraqi police dragged a body from the Euphrates River on Wednesday and said it was one of three American soldiers abducted in an ambush claimed by Al Qaeda. The US military has yet to identify the victim and pressed ahead with its search through sweltering flatlands south …

GAZA CITY (AFP) — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas convened talks on Wednesday hoping to consolidate a truce between rival factions in Gaza and revive a ceasefire with Israel after bloodshed that has cost 90 lives.

NAHR BARED REFUGEE CAMP  (AP) — Lebanon’s defence minister issued an ultimatum Wednesday to gunmen barricaded in this Palestinian refugee camp to surrender or face a military onslaught, as the army reinforced its positions, raising fears of what could be a bloody showdown.

AMMAN (JT) — Queen Rania on Wednesday joined UNICEF in an international appeal for Iraqi children, urging the global community to act on their behalf and noting that those affected by violence and displacement have reached a critical point. 

An bomb in a suitcase has ripped through a building in the town of Aley, in the mountains east of the Lebanese capital. A senior security official said five people had been wounded in the explosion which was at the main roundabout of the resort on Wednesday evening.

ANKARA (Reuters) —  A bomb outside a crowded shopping mall in Turkey’s capital Ankara killed five people and injured at least 60 people on Tuesday, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said.