Middle Orient

The Nevada Democrat said he has been “somewhat gingerly approaching this…. No longer. There is a civil war going on in Iraq. In the last two months, more than 6,000 Iraqis have been killed.

The secretary-general blamed Hezbollah for triggering the crisis and accused it of holding Lebanon hostage with its campaign against Israel.

BEIRUT (CNN) — Israeli bombing in Lebanon during the past week has crippled the country’s economy, reversing what had promised to be a boom year, the nation’s finance minister said Thursday.

Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said earlier that up to 500,000 people had been forced from their homes by Israeli airstrikes that began last week after Hezbollah guerrillas seized two Israeli soldiers in cross-border raid.

Tony and Monika Esseily and their three children were winding up a vacation in Lebanon when Israeli airstrikes began July 12.

While thousands of Westerners have been bussed, flown and shipped out of Lebanon as Israel continues to bomb the country, some are struggling to get out.

Israeli troops were reportedly fighting Hezbollah militants in two locations near the border.

TYRE — Ghassan Bourji says he has run out of insulin for his two diabetic children and heart medication for his mother because Israeli bombardment has cut supplies to his village of Rmadiyeh in south Lebanon.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — The spectre of Israel sinking into the “quagmire” of Lebanon as when hundreds of troops were killed in 1982 has put an anti-Hizbollah ground offensive on hold, military officials said Wednesday.

BAGHDAD (AFP) — Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Maliki said Wednesday he was looking for ways to end the presence in his country of the Iranian opposition group, the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran.