Middle Orient

SAMARRA, Iraq (Reuters) – A ring of scaffolding around charred bricks is all that now stands in place of the golden dome that adorned one of Shi’ite Islam’s holiest shrines.

Israel’s Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni has underlined her commitment to continue peace talks.Greeting French counterpart Bernard Kouchner, the Israeli Prime Minister-in-waiting said she would press ahead with US-sponsored peace negotiations.

In Turkey, thousands of people have gathered to pay their respects to 15 soldiers killed, according to military officials, by Kurdish fighters in the south-east of the country.

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – Eleven Iraqis were killed on Sunday during a U.S. raid on a home in northern Iraq in which a suicide bomber detonated an explosive vest among civilians inside, the U.S. military said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – In Iraq’s national museum a frieze shows Assyrian King Sargon II, who ruled an empire from what is now northern Iraq, storming a rampart as soldiers pile decapitated heads before him.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Two U.S. Black Hawk helicopters collided while landing at an American combat outpost in northern Baghdad on Saturday, the U.S. military said.

Eleven people have been killed as a suicide bomber blew himself up during an American raid in the Iraqi city of Mosul, the US military says.

DIWANIYA, Iraq (Reuters) – The Polish military marked the end of its five-year partnership with U.S. forces in Iraq on Saturday and prepared to withdraw.

ANKARA (Reuters) – Fifteen Turkish soldiers were killed in clashes with Kurdish PKK separatist rebels in southeast Turkey Saturday, CNN and other media said.

The head of Syria’s nuclear programme has said that the country’s military sites will remain off-limits to international nuclear inspectors.