Middle Orient

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.

(Reuters) – Following are brief descriptions of the main protagonists in the Turkish court case in which the ruling AK Party is charged with Islamist activities: TAYYIP ERDOGAN, PRIME MINISTER

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey’s military said on Sunday its fighter jets hit 12 Kurdish separatist targets in northern Iraq’s Qandil region in an operation that started at midnight.

JENIN, West Bank (Reuters) – Hamas and Fatah carried out tit-for-tat arrests of each other’s followers on Sunday after deadly Gaza bomb attacks fuelled tension between the Palestinian factions.

CAIRO (Reuters) – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas rejected accusations by Gaza’s Islamist Hamas rulers that his Fatah movement was behind a deadly bomb attack that killed five Hamas gunmen and a girl in Gaza two days ago.

(Reuters) – Following are security developments in Iraq at 1045 GMT on Sunday. FALLUJA – A bomb wounded Zeki al-Mohammedi, a member of the Anbar provincial council and head of the Falluja branch of the Iraqi Islamic Party, and killed two of his bodyguards in Falluja, 50 km (30 miles) …

GAZA (Reuters) – Hamas security forces clashed with gunmen from the Army of Islam, an al Qaeda-inspired group, in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, part of a security crackdown following a surge in internal violence.

GAZA (Reuters) – Bomb blasts rocked a cafe and a Hamas politician’s home in the Gaza Strip on Friday, killing at least one Palestinian in one of the biggest flare-ups in internal violence since Islamists seized the enclave a year ago.