Middle Orient

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) – Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian boy during clashes with stone-throwing protesters on Tuesday in the occupied West Bank, hospital officials and witnesses said.

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.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraqi and U.S. forces now control virtually all of Iraq and Baghdad’s troops might be able to take on security responsibility for the whole country by the end of 2009, the top U.S. general in Iraq said on Monday.

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.

(Reuters) – At least 13 people died and up to 100 were wounded on Sunday when two bombs exploded in a shopping district in Istanbul, on the eve of Constitutional Court hearings that could end with the closure of Turkey’s governing AK Party.