Middle Orient

A suicide bomber targeted a foreign military convoy in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday, slightly wounding one soldier, said a spokesman for NATO-led forces.

Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski said on Wednesday Poland would not withdraw a 1,000-strong troop contingent from Iraq after Poland’s ambassador was injured in an attack on his convoy in Baghdad.

Gunmen kidnapped 13 Iraqi men on Wednesday after stopping four cars at a fake checkpoint in the town of Khalis, 80 km (50 miles) north of Baghdad, a security source said.

Following are security developments in Iraq at 12 p.m. EDT on Tuesday.

 One U.S. soldier was killed and 10 were wounded in combat operations in central Baghdad on Sunday, the U.S. military said on Tuesday.

Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian during a raid in the southern Gaza Strip on Wednesday, Palestinian hospital workers said.

Syria began requiring visas for Iraqis entering the country Monday, hoping to stem the flow of refugees fleeing violence in their homeland, a Syrian official said.

US seeks to dissolve the central government in Baghdad through dividing Iraq into Shiite, Sunnite and Kurd-residing regions, advisor to the former Iraqi prime minister said, adding that the US troops have handicapped Nuri al-Maliki’s administration.

Lebanese groups can disappoint the Untied States through cooperating with each other in the presidential elections, deputy head of the Lebanese Hezbollah group Sheikh Naim Qasem said.

New York – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has challenged the United States’ objection to a preliminary deal signed by Turkey and Iran over the summer to deepen their bilateral cooperation in the energy field, saying that the deal concerned solely the two neighboring countries.