Middle Orient

BAGHDAD (AFP) — The US military confirmed on Thursday that a body found floating in the Euphrates was one of three American soldiers snatched by Al Qaeda 12 days earlier, as a bomb attack hit civilian mourners at a funeral in western Iraq. Lieutenant Colonel Josslyn Aberle of US command …

LUXEMBOURG (Reuters) — Iran is probably three to eight years away from producing a nuclear bomb if it so chooses, the head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog warned on Thursday.

DUBAI (AP) — US sanctions against Iran have caused damage to the country’s economy, Iranian business leaders and analysts say, even as the UN Security Council prepares to consider additional measures to force Iran to curb its nuclear programme.

AMMAN — Shaker Youssef Absi, the Palestinian who heads a shadowy militant group blamed for this week’s violence in Lebanon, is not a terrorist but a nationalist who seeks an end to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands, his family says.

DAMASCUS (AFP) — Syria’s President Bashar Assad is a would-be reformer who is now gearing up for a second seven-year term having refused to bow to international calls for reform. Assad, running in a no-contest referendum on Sunday, came to power in July 2000 with the reputation of a modernist, …

TRIPOLI  (AP) — Heavy exchanges of gunfire erupted late Thursday between Lebanese troops besieging a Palestinian refugee camp and Islamic militants holed up inside, breaking a two-day-old truce.

NABLUS (Reuters) —  Israeli forces seized a Palestinian Cabinet minister and more than 30 other officials on Thursday in a new phase of a crackdown on Hamas that a United Nations envoy described as “troubling”.

Senior Turkish cabinet ministers and police officials held an emergency meeting on Wednesday (May 23rd) to discuss new measures against terrorism, less than 24 hours after a powerful bomb blast in Ankara left six people dead and more than 100 wounded.

DUBAI (AP) — Ships packed with 17,000 sailors and US marines moved into the Persian Gulf Wednesday as the US navy staged another show of military force off Iran’s coast — just days before the US start of direct talks with Iran in Baghdad.

BAGHDAD — From hiding, possibly in Iran, anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr is believed to be honing plans to sweep into the power vacuum made all the more intense by news that his chief Shiite rival has lung cancer. And he’s betting the US won’t keep its troops in Iraq …