Middle Orient

BAGHDAD — The second bombing at the Samarra shrine will test Moqtada Sadr’s political skills and clarify what control he has over his feared Mehdi Army militia.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) — A former UN Middle East envoy quit his job last month making bitter allegations that UN policy in the region had failed because it was subservient to US and Israeli interests, according to a leaked document.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) — Three Sunni mosques were torched and mortar bombs hit Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone on Thursday, police said, despite curfews imposed after suspected Al Qaeda gunmen hit a revered Shiite shrine.

BEIRUT (AP) — Angry mourners blamed Syria and vented anger at its ally Hizbollah Thursday as the crowd laid to rest Lebanese legislator Walid Eido, the latest victim of a wave of assassinations of anti-Syrian figures.

AMMAN (Petra) — His Majesty King Abdullah on Thursday called for taking all possible measures to stop inter-Palestinian fighting and bring to an end bloodshed and the state of chaos prevailing in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas militants overran the main security headquarters of the Fatah organization in the Gaza Strip on Thursday and targeted remaining key facilities under Fatah control.

NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer expressed solidarity Tuesday (June 12th) with Turkey’s fight against terrorism, while also urging Ankara to show “maximum restraint” in dealing with Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) bases in northern Iraq.

TEL AVIV (AFP) — Veteran statesman Shimon Peres was elected president of Israel on Wednesday, finally winning his first vote for top office and crowning a record-breaking career spanning more than half a century.

MALAKAL, Sudan — The pair of white river launches marked with United Nations insignia leapt forward as the sailors opened the throttles, cutting deep trenches into the dark waters of southern Sudan’s Blue Nile.

IN A BOLD BLOW to Iraqi hopes for peace, suspected Al Qaeda bombers toppled the towering minarets of Samarra’s revered Shiite shrine on Wednesday, adding new provocation to old wounds a year after the mosque’s golden dome was destroyed.