Middle Orient

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The UN envoy trying to promote a political solution to the four-year conflict in Darfur said the road to negotiations has become even more complicated because of the increasing number of rebel groups.

MOGADISHU (AP) — The international community is willing to help Somalia as long as there is “progress on the ground”, the United Nations’ political chief said during a four-hour trip to the Somali capital.

BEIRUT — The people of Beirut have turned to private security contractors using sniffer dogs, surveillance cameras and explosives detectors as government forces fail to prevent repeated bomb attacks.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) — Iraq accused Turkey of “intensively shelling” part of its northern Kurdish region this week and handed Ankara’s envoy a protest letter on Saturday which warned such actions could harm relations.

GAZA CITY (AP) — Palestinian fighters broke through Israel’s heavily fortified Gaza border and battled troops inside Israel for about two hours Saturday, in an abortive attempt to abduct an Israeli soldier in which one of the raiders was killed but the military said no soldiers were harmed.

NAHR BARED (Reuters) — Five Lebanese soldiers were killed on Saturday in the latest bout of heavy fighting against Al Qaeda-inspired gunmen entrenched in a Palestinian refugee camp, a military source said.

Israeli tanks and troops have pushed into the southern Gaza Strip where they have traded gunfire with members of the armed wing of the Hamas movement, the army and Hamas have said.

CAIRO — Israel is behaving like Nazi Germany and has turned into a “Zionist” ghetto with a lot of paranoia about its existence as it builds a separation wall and uses military force as the only language to solve crises, the former Knesset speaker, Avraham Burg, has said.

Delegation from the Palestinian Arab Front travels to Cairo to take part in the factional dialogues

ANKARA, Turkey — Chief of General Staff Yasar Buyukanit reacted harshly to an AP report which suggested the Turkish Army had entered northern Iraq, telling reporters Thursday (June 7th) that the army “is no reckless hoodlum”.