Middle Orient

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Nine Kurdish troops were killed when suspected al Qaeda gunmen attacked an Iraqi army checkpoint in Diyala province north of Baghdad on Thursday, police said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraq will have to cut food rations in 2008 because of insufficient funds, Trade Minister Abdul Falah al-Sudany said.

SULAIMANIYA, Iraq (Reuters) – Eight Kurdish Peshmerga troops and three militant gunmen were killed in a battle northeast of Baghdad on Thursday, a spokesman for the Kurdish forces said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Ear, nose and throat specialist Abu Samir laments that he has only one colleague left to call after an exodus that has robbed Iraq of about 70 percent of its most qualified doctors.

GENEVA (Reuters) – The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Thursday it had carried out its first visit to security detainees held by Iraq’s central government.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Treasury Department on Thursday put seven people it said were backing the Iraqi insurgency from Syria on a list that forbids U.S. citizens from having any dealings with them.

GAZA (Reuters) – Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian in the Gaza Strip on Friday, local medical workers said.

MAZAR-I-SHARIF BASE: “The situation is getting more dangerous,” said Lieutenant Colonel Jorst Fohmann at a base of about 1,400 German soldiers at Mazar-i-Sharif in northern Afghanistan.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Lebanon’s presidential election is unlikely to take place on Friday as planned because rival leaders have yet to finalize a political deal to make the army chief president, political sources said on Thursday.

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Thursday he did not oppose dialogue with rival Hamas Islamists but reiterated the group must first relinquish control of the Gaza Strip.