Middle Orient

RAMALLAH, West Bank – The top Palestinian security official said on Saturday his government was dismantling militant groups, including those connected to President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction.

RAFAH, Gaza Strip – Hamas Islamists called on Egypt on Saturday to open its shuttered border crossing with the Gaza Strip to let more than 2,000 Palestinians return to their Gaza homes from the annual haj pilgrimage in Mecca.

KARACHI – Benazir Bhutto was shot in the head, a close aide who prepared her body for burial said on Saturday, dismissing as “ludicrous” a government theory that she died after hitting her head on a sunroof during the suicide attack.

CAIRO – Arab foreign ministers will hold an emergency meeting soon to discuss Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations and Israeli settlement policy, Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said on Saturday.

GAZA – Hamas Islamists who control the Gaza Strip have barred supporters of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction from holding an anniversary rally for the movement next week, Hamas officials said on Saturday.

DUBAI  – Ten Saudis returned home on Saturday from detention in the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay where al Qaeda militants are held, the Saudi Interior Ministry said.

KARACHI – Three supporters of slain former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto were shot dead on Saturday, one by masked gunmen and two others by security forces as a mob tried to force itself into an oilfield, police said.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan – Al Qaeda-linked Pakistani militant Baitullah Mehsud was not involved in the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, his spokesman said on Saturday, and blamed the government for killing her.

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency) Iran’s Agriculture Minister Mohammad Reza Eskandari and Turkish Foreign Trade Minister Kursad Tuzmen discussed issues of mutual interest in Ankara.

A parked car bomb in central Baghdad killed 10 people and wounded 66 on Friday, police said.