A STRING OF car bombs and other blasts killed at least 54 Iraqis on Tuesday, including 17 outside Baghdad’s most venerated Sunni mosque, while US troops battled Shiite gunmen in Baghdad.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israelis are puzzling over the prospect of peace with Syria after their two foreign intelligence agencies gave dramatically different assessments of recent diplomatic overtures from Damascus.

MOGADISHU (AP) — Somalia government and Ethiopian troops advanced towards the country’s capital Tuesday as Islamist fighters retreated, bloodied by a week of artillery and mortar attacks but promising a “new phase” in the war — a chilling pronouncement from a movement that has threatened suicide attacks.