Middle Orient

KUT — For thousands of years fishermen have drawn their livelihoods out of the brown waters of the mighty Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which teem with species found nowhere else in the world.

BAGHDAD (AFP) — Roadside bombings killed seven US soldiers and an interpreter, the military said on Sunday, putting May on track to be one of the deadliest months for US forces in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion.

JT with AFP dispatches ISRAELI DEPUTY PRIME Minister Shimon Peres on Sunday urged Arab countries to hold talks with the Jewish state on the peace initiative they reendorsed in March.

GAZA (Reuters) — Israel escalated its strikes against Gaza fighters on Sunday, killing eight Palestinians in an aerial assault that struck the home of a promiment Hamas politician, medics and a source in the Islamist group said.

TRIPOLI (AFP) — Fierce gunbattles raged in Lebanon on Sunday between soldiers and shadowy Islamist fighters accused of links to Al Qaeda, leaving 40 dead in the bloodiest such clashes in seven years. Lebanese troops staged a broad daylight assault on a building in Tripoli where fighters from Fateh Al …

SAMARRA — The heavy wooden doors of the Golden Mosque open on to an ethereal hall clad in thousands of intricately arranged blue and silver tiles decorated with flowing Arabic script.

SOUTHERN SHUNEH (AP) — The bloodshed in Gaza threatens to keep badly needed economic aid from the Palestinians who already suffer from rising unemployment and a lack of basic services, a UN official aiding Palestinians warned Saturday.

SOUTHERN SHUNEH (AP) — Iran plans to lecture the United States during an upcoming meeting in Baghdad on what it said were mistakes that Washington made in its war on Iraq, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Saturday.

BASRA (Reuters) — Britain’s Tony Blair, on his last visit to Iraq as prime minister, said on Saturday he had no regrets about his part in the US-led invasion that removed Saddam Hussein.

GAZA CITY (AFP) — Rival Palestinian factions clinched a new ceasefire deal on Saturday to end a week of violence that has left more than 50 dead as Israel continued to pound targets across Gaza, killing one Palestinian.