Middle Orient

President Bashar al-Assad of Syria has recently said that Iran’s ties with the Arab states of the Persian Gulf region was as important to Syria as its bilateral relations with Iran, it was reported here on Thursday.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited unsupported children and young adults living in a social welfare complex in southern Tehran on thursday.

India welcomes formation of the Palestinian National Unity Government resulted from efforts made by all Palestinian parties, it was reported here Thursday.

The United States has informed the Indian government that it is opposed to the building of a pipeline to carry gas from Iran to India via Pakistan, US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said.

The Secretary-General of the United Nations was forced to duck behind the podium at a press conference in Baghdad today when a suspected rocket attack shook the building he was in and sent debris falling from the ceiling.

Members of a Hamas-led police force clashed on Thursday with gunmen loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction in a second straight day of factional fighting since the formation of a unity government.

British soldiers fired plastic bullets at inmates in a British-run prison in Iraq after several guards were attacked while serving them food, a British military official said on Thursday.

Efforts to resolve the Lebanon political crisis seem to have reached a dead end. Leaders on Tuesday blamed each other for obstructing what was considered an imminent deal that would have satisfied the minimum demands of both the majority and the opposition.

Police defused a small bomb at the American University of Beirut on Thursday in what appeared to be the latest of a series of attempts to cause explosions in Lebanon, security officials said.

In a message on the occasion of the new Iranian year 1386, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Khamenei named the new Iranian year 1386, the year of national unity and Islamic solidarity.