Middle Orient

Seven of the most important Sunni-led insurgent organisations fighting the US occupation in Iraq have agreed to form a public political alliance with the aim of preparing for negotiations in advance of an American withdrawal, their leaders have told the Guardian.

Egypt opened shelters on Thursday to house hundreds of Palestinians stranded at the closed border with the Gaza Strip for fear that some could resort to sleeping on the streets, an Egyptian official said.

Chief of General Intelligence Omar Suleiman visited America this week to discuss a range of strategic issues with US administration officials, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and CIA Director Michael Hayden.

A Mideast peace conference called for by President Bush will take place in September on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York, an Egyptian envoy said Thursday.

Egypt on Thursday said it had sent medical and food aid to thousands of Palestinians stranded for over a month in increasingly dire conditions on the border with the Gaza Strip.

Four people were killed in Mogadishu Wednesday in continuing violence a day before the resumption of the troubled peace talks.

The United States faces an increased threat of attack from Al Qaeda, which will likely try to use battle-hardened associates in Iraq to strike inside the United States, an intelligence report warned on Tuesday.

Libya said on Wednesday the ball is in Europe’s court over the fate of six foreign medics reprieved from a death sentence for infecting children with the AIDS virus but who are still anxiously waiting to return home after eight years behind bars.

Israel has been passing messages to Syria for months through Turkey and has yet to receive assurances peace talks would lead Damascus to sever ties with Iran, Hamas and Hizbollah, officials said on Wednesday.

The top Iraqi leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq has been arrested and told interrogators that Osama Ben Laden’s inner circle wields considerable influence over the group, the US command said Wednesday.