Middle Orient

PARIS (Reuters) – Iran is arming the Taliban in Afghanistan, U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said on Tuesday, accusing Tehran of fuelling insurrection around the Middle East and misjudging the international mood.

NCRI – In an article on Thursday, June 7th, Iraqi newspaper Al-Iraq-el-Yom stated:  Experience has proved that behind Iranian regime’s propaganda, there always hides some serious and vicious weakness and no one should be tricked by it.

NCRI – On Friday, June 8th, in an interview with the Iraqi television Al-Mostagheleh, politician Ghasem Barisom said: Iraqis are being killed every day with Iranian bullets. Iranian regime does not observe any political principle and is only after its own gains in Iraq.

An alarming series of arrests by the FBI alerted everyone wondering how far the arms of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its subordinate Quds Force can extend.

TEHRAN (Reuters) — Iran will make the United States “regret” its detention of five Iranians in Iraq since early this year, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said on Tuesday.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The UN Security Council gave strong backing to the Lebanese government’s fight against gunmen holed up in a Palestinian refugee camp and reiterated its “deep concern” about mounting evidence that arms are being smuggled across the border from Syria.

ANKARA (AFP) — Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan Tuesday indicated he would resist calls from the influential military for an incursion into neighbouring northern Iraq to pursue Turkish Kurd rebels taking refuge there.

BAGHDAD (AP) — Suspected Sunni insurgents bombed and badly damaged a span over the main north-south highway leading from Baghdad on Tuesday — the third bridge attack in as many days in an apparent campaign against key transportation arteries.

GAZA (Reuters) — Palestinians battled across Gaza on Tuesday in what looked ever more like civil war as the forces of President Mahmoud Abbas rounded on those of the Islamist prime minister and their unity government headed for collapse.

BEIRUT (AP) — The Red Cross pledged Tuesday to continue assistance in a battle-scarred Palestinian refugee camp despite the death of two volunteers as Lebanese troops, backed by heavy artillery barrages, chipped away at Islamists barricaded in dense neighbourhoods still housing thousands of civilians.