Middle Orient

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – Falah Mohammed peered over his shoulder as he spoke of how militants threatened to kill him and his family unless he quit his government job.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Sunni Arab neighborhood patrols have been vital to cutting violence in Iraq. But how the Shi’ite-led government handles their future could foster sectarian reconciliation or start a new round of bloodshed.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli authorities and settlers have seized large tracts of land in the occupied West Bank for security zones around Jewish settlements beyond an Israeli-built barrier, a human rights group said on Thursday.

Israel has annexed thousands of hectares of West Bank land beside the barrier it is building, according to an Israeli rights group.

Two Israeli rights groups have accused their government of tearing Palestinian families apart by curtailing the right to live in the West Bank.

A member of the pro-Syrian opposition in Lebanon has been killed in a car bombing south-east of the capital, Beirut, security officials have said.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran protested Tuesday against Israeli threats to kidnap President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and use force against the Islamic Republic, declaring that it would not hesitate to act in self-defense.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran’s Energy Ministry plans to build a dam and hydropower plant in Azerbaijan, an Iranian official said.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Hezbollah chief Seyed Hassan Nasrallah said on Monday that any Israeli attack on Lebanon depended on the Iranian nuclear issue and the Israel-Syria talks.

Cairo – Egyptian Intelligence Chief Omar Soleiman will meet in Cairo with a delegation from the Palestine Democratic Union on Wednesday to discuss ways to end the inter-Palestinian conflict.