Middle Orient

BEIRUT — Heavy fighting between Israel and Hizbollah fighters paralysed efforts to reach 100,000 people trapped in southern Lebanon on Saturday, aid workers said, despite a UN Security Council resolution to end the war.

BAGHDAD (AP) — US forces raided a funeral gathering and detained 60 men suspected of links with an Al Qaeda cell blamed for a spate of car bomb attacks in Baghdad, the US military said Saturday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) — US and Italian shipyards are favoured to win tenders to build 19 ships and patrol boats for the fledgling Iraqi navy to enable it to take over security of Iraq’s vital off-shore oil terminals, a naval official said.

TYRE — The lights went out across Tyre Saturday for the first time since the war began, but finally there is a hint of optimism that the end may be in sight.

IBL EL SAQI, Lebanon — During Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, a Norwegian UN peacekeeper at a junction checkpoint stepped forward and hailed approaching Israeli military vehicles. He was gunned down on the spot.

King discusses Lebanon crisis with Prodi, renews support for Siniora’s plan to end war MARJAYOUN (Reuters) — Hizbollah fighters fought Israeli troops who seized a key town in southeast Lebanon on Thursday, as the United States and France moved closer to a breakthrough in diplomatic efforts to end the four-week-old …

NAJAF (Reuters) — A suicide bomber killed at least 35 people and wounded more than 120 on Thursday near one of Shiite holiest sites, the Imam Ali shrine in the southern Iraqi city of Najaf. An Iraqi Sunni insurgent group said it had carried out the attack, the bloodiest since …

‘This nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom, to hurt our nation’ — Bush LONDON (AP) — British authorities said they averted “mass murder” in the skies by thwarting an alleged plot to blow up passenger planes …

BEIRUT — Hospitals were running out of food, fuel and other supplies in southern Lebanon on Thursday and aid groups said fighting and a ban on movement meant they could not reach thousands trapped in the area.

BEIRUT (AFP) — The medical relief organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) announced Thursday that it would defy an Israeli threat to bomb any vehicle moving south of Lebanon’s Litani River, an area that includes the port city of Tyre.