Middle Orient

SEOUL, Feb. 1 (Yonhap) — A South Korean delegation of parliamentarians and businessmen arrived in Amman, Jordan, on Thursday to meet with Iraqi provincial government officials about joint oil development and other economic development projects for the war-torn country, Seoul officials said Thursday.

The most recent fighting in the Gaza Strip, which has left many dead, confirms that the internal strife plaguing the Palestinian occupied territories since the rise of Hamas to power in January 2006

Local authorities clamped a total curfew on the Shiite holy city of Najaf in central Iraq on Friday to thwart attacks a day after 73 people died from twin suicide bombings in nearby Hilla.

BAGHDAD — The Iraqi government Thursday invited Iran and Syria to Baghdad for talks next month on regional security, amid growing tension and accusations by the Bush administration of foreign meddling in Iraqi affairs.

Hezbollah crossed the international border and kidnapped two uniformed Israeli soldiers who have been held incognito since 12 July. Several more IDF soldiers were killed in the incident and its aftermath. Hezbollah fired more than 4,500 missiles

JERUSALEM (AP) – In seven hours of testimony and intense questioning, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Thursday defended his much-criticized actions during the war in Lebanon before a commission whose findings could determine his political fate.

A long-awaited National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, presented to President Bush by the intelligence community yesterday, outlines an increasingly perilous situation in which the United States has little control and there is a strong possibility of further deterioration, according to sources familiar with the document.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The situation in Iraq is perilous, with Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence surpassing al Qaeda as the most immediate threat to U.S. goals, according to a long-awaited intelligence report, The Washington Post reported on Friday.

Without speaking a word, police officer Ahmed Eid Majood, guarding one of the entrances to the bazaar in the southern Iraqi city of Hilla, lunged toward the man and wrapped his arms around his body.

RAMALLAH — Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has approved a rerouting of Israel’s separation barrier to take in two more illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank, the Israeli media reported yesterday.