Middle Orient

The death toll for private contractors in the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has topped 1,000, a stark reminder of the risks run by civilians working with the military in roles previously held by soldiers.

Security forces in northern Iraq’s Kurdistan, the heartland of the Kurdish minority long tormented by Saddam Hussein, routinely torture detainees with beatings and electric shocks and hold hundreds of prisoners for long periods without charge, a human rights group said Tuesday.

Iraq’s Cabinet on Tuesday approved an amended draft oil law — a key plank to help unite the country’s warring communities — and forwarded the bill to the parliament.

Yemen’s president said on Tuesday that security authorities knew Al Qaeda was plotting attacks in the impoverished country, after a suicide car bomber killed seven Spanish tourists and two local drivers.

Israel and the Palestinian government of President Mahmoud Abbas have resumed security talks after a long break, both sides said Tuesday, a new sign of cooperation between Israel and Palestinian moderates after the Islamic Hamas took over Gaza.

King Abdullah will travel today to France for talks with President Nicolas Sarkozy on Middle East issues and bilateral ties, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

According to the source inside the command of the Mujahideen during the past four months (March-June 2007), as a result of active offensive operations and diversionary attacks, units of Chechen Armed Forces have established a firm control over the most of the mountain-woody areas in southern Chechnya.

More than 17 people have been killed and hundreds wounded in a gunbattle between security forces and Lal Mosque students here Tuesday that led to put red security alert across the country, said police and hospital sources.

An Al-Qaeda leader in Iraq boasted before last week’s failed bombings in London and Glasgow that his group was planning to attack British targets and that “those who cure you will kill you,” The Times newspaper revealed Wednesday.

Released BBC correspondent Alan Johnston, kidnapped March 12 in Gaza by a group calling itself the Army of Islam, described his nearly four months in captivity as being “buried alive.”