Middle Orient

DAMASCUS (AFP) — Iran’s parliament speaker on Sunday warned Israel against any attempt to attack its nuclear facilities, and promised to “teach it a lesson” if it did. “If Israel does something stupid and attacks our nuclear facilities like it did in Iraq, we promise to teach it a lesson …

DUBAI (AP) — Iran’s president has denied telling a newspaper that his government might curtail oil sales if Iran is referred to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions over its nuclear programme. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad “never had an interview, either oral or written, with the Khaleej Times,” the president’s …

AMMAN — Foreign Al Qaeda militants waging a campaign of suicide car bombings in Iraq plan to send some fighters home in preparation for similar operations in their own countries, the Iraqi interior minister said on Sunday. Interior Minister Bayan Jabor said documents found with Abu Azzam, said to be …

LONDON (AFP) — Army morale and recruitment are suffering because troops are seen as “guilty by association” with Prime Minister Tony’s Blair’s decision to invade Iraq, Britain’s top soldier claimed in comments published here Sunday. General Sir Michael Walker, chief of the defence of staff, also said, in an interview …

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The top US commander in Iraq said on Sunday that training of Iraqi security forces was “on track” playing down earlier comments that only one Iraqi battalion was able to operate independently. “The development of the Iraqi security forces is very much on track,” General George Casey, …

WASHINGTON (AFP) — President George W. Bush will this week attempt to rally Americans wavering on Iraq, as senior aides warn a quick exit for US troops could sow a deadly harvest of future terror attacks on US soil. Officials say Bush will give a “significant” speech on Thursday, the …

BAGHDAD (AP) — A woman, disguised in a man’s robes and headdress, slipped into a line of army recruits and detonated explosives strapped to her body Wednesday, killing at least six recruits and wounding 35 near the border with Syria — the first known suicide attack by a woman in …

BAGHDAD (Reuters) — Iraqis expressed fury on Wednesday over the three-year jail sentence for Lynndie England, the US soldier notorious for holding a naked inmate by a leash in Abu Ghraib prison, saying it exposed American hypocrisy. They said the sentence would have been more harsh had she been convicted …

VIENNA (AFP) — Egypt Wednesday proposed the creation of a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East and blasted Israel for standing in the way, at a meeting in Vienna of the UN atomic watchdog. Israel, believed to be the only state in the region with nuclear weapons, said it was …

EL ARISH — Farhan Adel Farhan says he was electrocuted, blindfolded and suspended by the wrists when Egyptian police questioned him over bombings in the Sinai Peninsula last October. “Under torture, you can say things that never happened,” said Farhan, 33, who was among hundreds rounded up in the north …