BEIRUT (AP) — Italian soldiers moved into southern Lebanon with trucks and armoured vehicles Sunday in the first big wave of a UN troops to monitor a ceasefire between Israel and Hizbollah fighters. Lebanese officials scoffed at an Israeli call for peace talks.

BAGHDAD (AP) — Authorities on Sunday announced the capture of Al Qaeda in Iraq’s No. 2 leader, who they blame for “brutal and merciless” terror operations, including the bombing of a Shiite shrine last winter that touched off months of sectarian bloodletting and pushed Iraq towards civil war.

TEHRAN (AP) — UN Secretary General Kofi Annan found little satisfaction at the close of a two-day visit to Iran on Sunday, snubbed by the country’s leader over international demands for Tehran stop enriching uranium and ignored in warnings not to use questions about the Holocaust to incite hatred.

GAZA CITY (AFP) — Efforts to free an Israeli soldier captured by fighters in the Gaza Strip appeared to gain speed Sunday with reports that Israel might release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the man.

ERBIL (AFP) — The president of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region launched a scathing attack on Iraqi Arab leaders Sunday over their opposition to his order banning the national flag from public buildings.

QANA — Qana residents whose village was targeted in a devastating air strike in July suspect the true aims of the strengthened UN force being assembled in south Lebanon are to protect Israel and further US goals in the Middle East.

ANKARA — Some Turks see participating in the Lebanon peacekeeping force as a chance to reassert Turkish influence in the region, decades after their Ottoman Empire ruled across southeastern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.

CAIRO (AP) — Rebels in Sudan’s war-torn region of Darfur said Sunday that government forces backed by bomber aircraft are pursuing a week-old offensive.

“A considerable part of the report covered Iran’s extensive cooperation with the Agency and its inspectors,” Asefi said according to a statement released by the Foreign Ministry’s Information and Press Bureau.

Addressing a fervent congregation of the people in the northwestern city of khoy on the second day of his three-day tour of the northwestern West Azarbaijan province on Friday