Middle Orient

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Al Qaeda fighters kidnapped 15 Iraqi women and children after attacking two villages north of Baghdad on Thursday and killing a religious leader who had been trying to form an anti-Al Qaeda tribal alliance.

RAMALLAH (AP) – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday denied recent Israeli news reports that secret peace talks have made progress on some of the most sensitive issues at the heart of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

AMMAN  – Hamas supremo Khaled Mishaal said efforts to end the bitter feud with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas were deadlocked because of Israeli and US meddling, and insisted his men would stay in control of Gaza.

LEBANESE AUTHORITIES HAVE arrested two Palestinians in connection with a roadside bombing that targeted UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon last month, a security official said Thursday.

ANKARA (AFP) – A Turkish court on Thursday charged an Egyptian with alleged ties to Al Qaeda and a Turkish accomplice with hijacking a plane carrying more than 140 people, the Anatolia news agency said. The court in the southern city of

Iraq’s leaders today agreed on the agenda for a key political summit called by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in a bid to salvage Iraq’s unity government. Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, a Sunni Arab, said agreement came on the second day of preparatory talks involving some of the country’s most senior …

Iraq’s embattled Nouri al-Maliki came to Syria on Monday on his first visit here as prime minister amid efforts to garner neighbors’ support for curbing violence at home.

Iraqi officials say a roadside bomb has killed the governor of the southern Shi’ite majority province of Muthanna.

Officials in Jerusalem said on Wednesday that Syria’s declarations that it did not want a war were important but that its actions would determine the future, Israel Radio reported.

The cooperation between Iran and Syria has recently broadened in a variety of areas, including the military, security, economic and scientific spheres.