Middle Orient

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.

Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul vowed Tuesday to defend the country’s secular traditions as he announced a fresh bid for the presidency despite deep-rooted opposition over his Islamist past.

Suicide bombings in a northern Iraqi town Tuesday targeted a religious minority in one of the deadliest attacks in Iraq in months.

In the nine months since she was born, tiny Fatima Jubouri first lost her father, then gunmen killed her mother and uncle and she was left alone and uncared for in a pile of garbage in Baghdad.

A Polish soldier was killed Tuesday in eastern Afghanistan, the Polish Defense Ministry said. He is the first from the European nation to die in the Afghan conflict, according to a CNN count of NATO casualty figures.

Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu easily won re-election as head of the rightist Likud party and pledged on Wednesday to reclaim Israel’s leadership.