Middle Orient

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – The U.S. military will carefully manage the growth of neighborhood police units credited with helping to curb violence in Iraq, aiming ultimately to move many into public work roles, a spokesman said on Thursday.

KABUL (Reuters) – Afghanistan’s army will reach a targeted strength of a trained force of 70,000 within four months, but that will be insufficient to stand against internal and external threats, a government spokesman said on Sunday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraq’s army said on Sunday it had offered to escort the leader of the main Sunni Arab political bloc out of his home, where he has been confined for three days in a standoff that has threatened to worsen sectarian tension.

(Reuters) – One U.S. soldier was killed and three were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded near their patrol in eastern Baghdad, the U.S. military said.

TEHRAN (Reuters) – A Japanese student kidnapped by bandits in Iran is healthy and has spoken to his family in the past few days, an Iranian official said on Sunday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Kurdish officials insisted on Sunday that there had been no Turkish military incursion into northern Iraq, describing as baseless Ankara’s claims that significant losses had been inflicted on Kurdish rebels.

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iran hanged three convicted drug smugglers in the central city of Qom on Sunday, Iranian media said, in the latest public execution in the Islamic state.

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- Syria’s acting deputy foreign minister stressed that his country would not allow anyone to impair Tehran-Damascus consolidated and cordial relations.

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- An earthquake measuring 3.8 on the Richter scale jolted the district of Basmanj in the vicinity of Tabriz in Iran’s northwestern province of Eastern Azerbaijan on Sunday.

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- Iran stressed that it would not accept any assignment or expectations beyond the law, alluding to the West’s call for a stop of its nuclear enrichment program.