BEIRUT (AP) — Syria hotly opposed deployment of an international force along its border to prevent arms shipments to Hizbollah, and Israel on Wednesday called the situation in Lebanon “explosive”, as the ceasefire was shaken by artillery shells and explosions that killed three Lebanese soldiers and an Israeli.

BAGHDAD (AP) — Kurds on Wednesday told of entire families killed in chemical weapons attacks against their villages in the 1980s, saying survivors plunged their faces into milk to end the pain from the blinding gas or fled into the hills on mules as military helicopters fired on them.

Two Western journalists kidnapped in Gaza earlier this month were shown in footage released yesterday by a previously unknown group calling themselves the Holy Jihad Brigades.