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  • Bush military plan for Iraq 'lost cause'

    A call went out yesterday for US troops to leave Iraq now, stating that President George W Bush's plan to stabilise the country through military means is a lost cause. "It is time for the US to leave Iraq, without any more delay than the Pentagon needs to organise an orderly exit," the The New York Times wrote yesterday in a rare, single-issue editorial.. More

  • Civil suit filed against Suharto

    Prosecutors in Indonesia have filed a civil lawsuit against former President Suharto, to recover state funds they say went missing under his rule. They are seeking $440m (£219m) they say disappeared from a scholarship fund, and a further $1.1bn in damages. Prosecutors have been under pressure to file a civil case, since the courts blocked a criminal.. More

  • Iraqi Kurds tortured prisoners

    The US-based rights group, Human Rights Watch, has issued a report detailing torture and abuses in security prisons in the Kurdish area of northern Iraq. It found a consistent pattern of abuse involving detainees being subjected to beatings and stress positions, and allegations of electric shock torture. The Kurds have been running their own affairs.. More

  • Wanted men 'control Red Mosque'

    Pakistan's religious affairs minister has said wanted Islamic militants are in control of a besieged mosque in the capital, Islamabad. Ejaz-ul-Haq said the militants were holding women and children hostage inside the Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque. The Pakistani army has kept a tight grip on the mosque since fighting flared there last Tuesday. The.. More

  • Deadly blasts hit Iraq

    A suicide truck bomber has killed 23 Iraqi army recruits and wounded 27 others after he rammed into their vehicle while they were travelling on a road south of Baghdad, police and an army official said. They said the incident on Sunday took place near the town of Haswa. Two other blasts, nearly simultaneous car bombs, left at least eight people.. More

  • Israel approves prisoner releases

    The Israeli cabinet has approved the release of 250 Palestinian prisoners who are members of Fatah in a gesture of support for Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president. Sunday's move comes after Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, agreed to the release of the Palestinian prisoners two weeks ago during a meeting with Abbas in Egypt. "I think.. More

  • Pakistani soldier dies in Red Mosque clash

    A senior soldier has been killed in the latest clashes with Islamist students barricaded inside a mosque in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad. The army said the commando officer had been overseeing an operation to blast holes in the walls of the Red Mosque. Troops were carrying out the attack in an attempt to allow women and children trapped inside.. More

  • Sri Lanka fights rebels at sea

    The Sri Lankan military says that fierce fighting has erupted between the navy and Tamil Tiger separatists off the country’s east coast. D K P Dassanayake, navy spokesman, said the sea battle broke out when 15 rebel boats tried to attack naval boats patrolling off Kallarawa, a fishing village in the eastern Trincomalee district on Saturday. The.. More

  • Up to 150 feared dead in Iraq blast

    Up to 150 people are feared to have been killed by a lorry bomb in a crowded market in the northern Iraqi village of Amirli. Many homes in the small community were destroyed when a suicide bomber detonated a powerful bomb on a lorry loaded with bricks, security and administration officials said on Saturday. Emergency workers in northern Iraq told.. More

  • Pakistan issues mosque ultimatum

    Pakistan's president has issued an ultimatum to radical Islamists barricaded inside an Islamabad mosque. President Pervez Musharraf told mosque leaders to free women and children and surrender "or they will be killed". He spoke after troops outside the mosque stopped a delegation of Islamist politicians from entering to negotiate with those inside... More

  • Iranians visit captives in Iraq

    Iranian officials have for the first time been allowed to visit five prisoners held by US forces in Iraq. The five have been detained by the US military in northern Iraq since they were captured in Irbil in January. "Three Iranian diplomats including the ambassador in Baghdad visited the five detainees in Iraq," Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari.. More

  • 'Shots fired' at Musharraf plane

    Pakistani police have sealed off a house in the city of Rawalpindi amid reports of an attempt to shoot down President Pervez Musharraf's plane. Reports say the house was under the flight path of Gen Musharraf's plane. A photographer for the Reuters news agency said there were two large guns mounted on the roof of the house. A military spokesman.. More

  • Gaza raids kill 11 Palestinians

    Eleven Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in a cross-border raid by Israeli forces in an area east of Gaza City. Nine of the dead were members of the military wing of Hamas, the Islamist movement that controls Gaza. One was a member of the Islamic Jihad group. Palestinian medics said the eleventh person to die was a civilian, and that children.. More

  • Clashes in south Iraq kill five

    Clashes between Iraqi police and Shia militants in southern Iraq have left five people dead. The police in the town of Samawa said the fighting broke out on Thursday with militiamen loyal to the Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr. Also in southern Iraq, four Iraqi soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb near the town of Hilla. In south Baghdad, a car.. More

  • 'Warnings' fired at Pakistan mosque

    Pakistani security forces have fired a series of "warning blasts" near Islamabad's Red Mosque, or Lal Masjid, in a bid to step up pressure on students inside to surrender, a security official said. About eight explosions and sporadic gunfire were heard during a period of 20 minutes, witnesses said. "They were warning blasts. We have not yet entered.. More