Middle Orient

MANAMA (AFP) — Some 300 Muslim religious figures opened a two-day conference in Bahrain Wednesday in support of the Prophet Mohammad following the row over his depiction in cartoons in European papers.

KUWAIT CITY — This tiny Gulf country is increasingly nervous — as are some of its neighbours — about Iran’s controversial nuclear programme, right across the water. But heading into a key summit, Arab leaders overall are divided, and publicly squabbling, over how to defuse a crisis that has caused …

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) — Violence is surging in Sudan’s south as well as its western Darfur region, fuelled by government inaction even after years of global attention, UN envoy Jan Pronk told the Security Council on Tuesday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) — Gunmen wounded dozens of Shiite pilgrims and killed two in Baghdad on Wednesday, raking their vehicles with machinegun fire in the latest outbreak of sectarian violence that is threatening Iraq with civil war.

CLEVELAND, Ohio (AFP) — US President George W. Bush defended his Iraq war strategy Monday, as the conflict entered its fourth year amid mounting sectarian strife and lower-than-ever support in the United States.

BAGHDAD (AP) — Suspected insurgents marked the third anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq Monday with roadside bombings that killed at least eight policemen, and authorities reported finding 15 more bullet-riddled bodies, one of them a 13-year-old girl, dumped in the capital and in the Tigris River south of …

RAMALLAH — Fateh-affiliated gunmen stormed government buildings, briefly took over a power plant and blocked a vital road in the Gaza Strip on Monday, as the coastal strip lurched from humanitarian crisis to security chaos.

BRUSSELS — After a quarter of a century in exile, the leader of Syria’s outlawed Muslim Brotherhood scents power after forming a coalition with secular, nationalist, liberal, communist and Kurdish opposition parties.

BAGHDAD (AP) — American and Iraqi troops pushing through a desolate area of Iraq’s Sunni Arab heartland rounded up dozens more suspected insurgents, including alleged killers of a television journalist, US and Iraqi officials said Saturday. The three-day-old sweep through villages 60 miles north of Baghdad stirred growing unease among …

BAGHDAD (AP) — US forces, joined by Iraqi troops, on Thursday launched the largest airborne assault in nearly three years, targeting insurgent strongholds north of the capital, the military said.The US military said the offensive dubbed Operation Swarmer was aimed at clearing “a suspected insurgent operating area” northeast of Samarra …