Middle Orient

KISMAYO, Somalia (AFP) — Muslim gunmen opened fire Monday on crowds protesting the overnight Islamist takeover of Somalia’s key port of Kismayo, with conflicting reports of casualties.

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) — The African Union will add 4,000 troops to its extended Darfur peacekeeping mission, bringing the number of police and soldiers in western Sudan to 11,000, a spokesman for the AU said on Monday.

SANAA (AFP) — Four French nationals kidnapped by Yemeni tribesmen two weeks ago have been freed and are well, state-owned news agency Saba said Monday.

RABAT (Reuters) — Morocco’s once secretive socialists have launched a mass membership drive to boost their chances at polls next year in which their message of secular modernity faces a challenge from resurgent Islamists.

RABAT (Reuters) — Morocco’s once secretive socialists have launched a mass membership drive to boost their chances at polls next year in which their message of secular modernity faces a challenge from resurgent Islamists.

TRIPOLI (AP) — A thaw in US-Libyan relations was well under way, Libyan newspapers reported Sunday, after US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met her Libyan counterpart on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert held a groundbreaking, secret meeting 10 days ago with a senior Saudi Arabian official, the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot reported Monday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) — Iraq’s leaders stepped back from the brink of a political crisis on Sunday in the hope of preventing a dispute over local control of oilfields erupting into all-out sectarian civil war.

RAMALLAH — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh are set to resume negotiations over forming a unity government this week, as Hamas signalled that a deal could be struck.

BEIRUT (AP) — An anti-Syrian Christian leader dismissed Hizbollah’s victory in its war with Israel as thousands of his supporters rallied Sunday in a show of strength that highlighted Lebanon’s sharp divisions.