Middle Orient

GAZA, June 13 (Xinhua) — A peaceful rally held in Gaza City under the call of an Egyptian mediating delegation was under fire on Wednesday afternoon, left two Palestinian civilians dead and 17 others wounded, witnesses and paramedics said.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Tuesday held a session of talks with visiting Jordanian King Abdullah II at the presidential palace on the latest developments in the regional and bilateral relations.

PARIS (Reuters) – Iran is arming the Taliban in Afghanistan, U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said on Tuesday, accusing Tehran of fuelling insurrection around the Middle East and misjudging the international mood.

NCRI – In an article on Thursday, June 7th, Iraqi newspaper Al-Iraq-el-Yom stated:  Experience has proved that behind Iranian regime’s propaganda, there always hides some serious and vicious weakness and no one should be tricked by it.

NCRI – On Friday, June 8th, in an interview with the Iraqi television Al-Mostagheleh, politician Ghasem Barisom said: Iraqis are being killed every day with Iranian bullets. Iranian regime does not observe any political principle and is only after its own gains in Iraq.

An alarming series of arrests by the FBI alerted everyone wondering how far the arms of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its subordinate Quds Force can extend.

TEHRAN (Reuters) — Iran will make the United States “regret” its detention of five Iranians in Iraq since early this year, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said on Tuesday.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The UN Security Council gave strong backing to the Lebanese government’s fight against gunmen holed up in a Palestinian refugee camp and reiterated its “deep concern” about mounting evidence that arms are being smuggled across the border from Syria.

ANKARA (AFP) — Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan Tuesday indicated he would resist calls from the influential military for an incursion into neighbouring northern Iraq to pursue Turkish Kurd rebels taking refuge there.

BAGHDAD (AP) — Suspected Sunni insurgents bombed and badly damaged a span over the main north-south highway leading from Baghdad on Tuesday — the third bridge attack in as many days in an apparent campaign against key transportation arteries.