Middle Orient

Scotland’s high court must hear a new appeal by Libyan intelligence agent Abdel Basset Al Megrahi against his conviction for the 1988 Lockerbie airliner bombing, an independent review body said on Thursday.

A roadside bomb killed two soldiers in Somalia’s chaotic capital Mogadishu on Thursday, witnesses said, hours after two aid workers were shot dead in an overnight attack in the north of the country.

A possible rape charge against disgraced President Moshe Katsav has been dropped after he accepted a plea bargain for sexual offences on Thursday, in the worst scandal involving an Israeli leader.

A car bomb killed 25 people on Thursday at a busy intersection in Baghdad where minibuses pick up and drop off passengers, while a roadside bomb killed three British soldiers in the southern Iraqi city of Basra.

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.