Middle Orient

A roadside bomb exploded Thursday alongside the convoy of a prominent Shiite cleric whose high-level political ties have made him the target of past assassination attempts. The imam was not injured, but several bodyguards were wounded.

China hopes Iran would address the international community’s concern over its nuclear issue positively, Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing said yesterday.

Those who sign up will be shipped off to villages with names like Tikrit and Fallujah, where they’ll don dishdashas and head scarves and live in crowded huts surrounded by rumbling tanks and the crackle of machine guns. Their neighbors will be Shiites and Sunnis, soldiers and insurgents.

WASHINGTON – After starting the 110th Congress with a big antiwar mandate, Democrats are scrambling to find a way forward on an issue that is driving wedges deep into their new majority.

A car bomb ripped through a bustling shopping district in a religiously mixed neighborhood of western Baghdad on Wednesday, killing at least 10 people and wounding about 20 as the U.S.-Iraqi security operation entered its third week.

Israel has denied seeking permission from the United States to fly warplanes over Iraq as part of its preparations to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities. In a statement to Israel Radio on Sunday, Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh denied such arrangements existed and accused “international authorities who prefer to avoid dealing …

Israeli troops disguised as Palestinians killed an Islamic Jihad commander and two activists in Jenin on Wednesday in a new crackdown in the north of the occupied West Bank.

By opening the door to a high-level dialogue with Iran and Syria, the US appears to be embracing a diplomatic strategy that its critics have long said was essential to stabilise Iraq.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki invited neighbouring countries and world powers on Wednesday to a March 10 meeting in Baghdad, saying he hoped it would help bring reconciliation and support for his government.

Leaders of two nations faced with strong international pressure — Iran for its nuclear programme and Sudan because of the conflict in Darfur — closed ranks on Wednesday as Sudan’s Omar Bashir and visiting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran gushed in support of one another.