Middle Orient

Lebanese troops raided a cave hideout of Islamic gunmen in the hills of northern Lebanon on Thursday and killed six fighters, as the violence continued to spread from a Palestinian refugee camp where the military has been battling an Al Qaeda-inspired group.

JORDAN ON THURSDAY expressed hope that new Middle East envoy Tony Blair help resume peace talks between the Palestinians and Israelis.

A multimillion-dinar residential city will be built near Zarqa to tackle overcrowding and help citizens on low and limited incomes buy suitable housing.

There’s an odd myth about Gordon Brown. His views on the war in Iraq are said to be unknown. Whether the myth is put out by Brownites to hint that change is imminent or by wishful thinkers on both left and right who desperately hope for a new Downing Street …

General Yasar Buyukanit, chief of the Turkish Army General Staff, called again on Wednesday (June 27th) for a cross-border operation against the terrorist organisation Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in northern Iraq.

Iran is training fighters in Iraq and helping to plan attacks there despite diplomatic pressure for change, U.S. officials said on Wednesday, while violence around the Arab state killed at least 19 people.

The head of the Turkish armed forces insisted Wednesday on the need for a military incursion into northern Iraq to hunt down Turkish Kurd rebels based there, but said he needed the government’s green light to do so.

America’s No. 2 diplomat in Iraq predicted progress by fall on bringing together Iraq’s feuding factions as violence claimed more lives Wednesday, including 14 people killed in a late night car bombing near a Shiite shrine in the capital.

Tony Blair was Wednesday named special envoy of the Middle East peace Quartet shortly after stepping down as British prime minister and tasked with spearheading efforts to create a Palestinian state.

Israeli army incursions into the Gaza Strip killed at least 12 Palestinians on Wednesday, including eight fighters and a 12-year-old boy, in the bloodiest fighting Gaza has seen since Hamas took control there two weeks ago.