UNITED NATIONS: A Western proposal for fresh UN sanctions on Iran includes a call for restricting new Iranian banks abroad and urges “vigilance” against the Islamic Republic’s central bank, diplomats said on Friday. Speaking on condition of anonymity, Western diplomats familiar with negotiations on the draft proposal — which Washington worked on with Britain, France [...]
March 6, 2010 | Posted in
MIDDLE EAST |
Read More »
DUBAI: The Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was injected with a strong sedative before being suffocated in his hotel room by suspected Mossad agents, Dubai police have revealed. The results of a toxicology report released today show that the Hamas commander was paralysed by an injection of succinylcholine, a fast-acting muscle relaxant. He was then suffocated [...]
March 3, 2010 | Posted in
MIDDLE EAST |
Read More »
BAGHDAD: Suicide bombers attacked two police stations and a hospital in a city northeast of Baghdad on Wednesday, killing at least 31 people and wounding 48 others before a parliamentary election. The attacks were the bloodiest in the immediate run-up to a parliamentary election on Sunday that is seen as pivotal for the war-scarred nation [...]
March 3, 2010 | Posted in
MIDDLE EAST |
Read More »
CAIRO: Former IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei, who says he is prepared to run in elections against President Hosni Mubarak, told AFP on Saturday that political change is the only way to avoid unrest in Egypt. “Change is coming for sure,” ElBaradei said in a telephone interview. “Change by peaceful means is the only way to [...]
February 27, 2010 | Posted in
MIDDLE EAST |
Read More »
SYDNEY: Israel’s Mossad has regularly faked Australian passports for its spies, an ex-agent said on Thursday, as anger grew over the use of foreign travel documents for an alleged assassination. Former Mossad case officer Victor Ostrovsky told ABC public radio that the spy agency had used Australian passports for previous operations before last month’s hit [...]
February 26, 2010 | Posted in
MIDDLE EAST |
Read More »
DUBAI: Police widened their search in the hunt for the killers of a top Hamas militant in a luxury hotel, saying 15 new Western passport holders are now suspects, with the total number sought now 26. A police statement said the 15, including the holders of six British and three French passports, are being sought [...]
February 25, 2010 | Posted in
MIDDLE EAST |
Read More »
JERUSALEM: Israel’s parliamentary opposition leader on Tuesday praised the assassination of a Hamas commander by Mossad in Dubai last month, in the first such comment from a top official. Tzipi Livni of the centrist Kadima Party said the death of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was good, but she did not indicate who was behind the killing. “The [...]
February 24, 2010 | Posted in
MIDDLE EAST |
Read More »
TEHRAN: Iran has arrested top Sunni militant leader Abdolmalek Rigi who has been accused of masterminding a series of deadly bombings and killings, local media reported on Tuesday. Tehran based Arabic news channel Al-Alam said that he has been arrested in the “east of the country”, while the Fars news agency is quoting the Iranian [...]
February 23, 2010 | Posted in
MIDDLE EAST |
Read More »
RABAT: Morocco’s government, under fire after 41 worshippers died when a 400-year-old minaret collapsed, plans to double spending this year on rebuilding decaying mosques, Islamic affairs minister Ahmed Toufiq said. But Toufiq, whose ministry controls the north African country’s 50,000 mosques, warned that similar tragedies could happen before the delicate restoration work is completed, reports [...]
February 22, 2010 | Posted in
MIDDLE EAST |
Read More »
DUBAI: Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, the Hamas official assassinated in Dubai, was betrayed by a close associate, the emirate’s police chief claimed as it emerged today that the Palestinian’s murderers used more fake Irish passports. Lieutenant General Dhahi Khalfan Tamim described whoever leaked details of Mahbouh’s arrival to his assassins as “the real killer”, Abu Dhabi’s al-Khalij [...]
The hit squad that killed a senior Hamas official in Dubai may have entered the country using diplomatic passports, officials in the Emirates said yesterday as they called on Britain and other European countries whose documents were forged to launch a full inquiry. “There is still information that Dubai police will not make public for [...]
February 22, 2010 | Posted in
EUROPE |
Read More »
TEL AVIV/TEHRAN: Israel’s Air Force on Sunday introduced a fleet of huge pilotless planes that can remain in the air for a full day and fly as far as the Persian Gulf, putting Iran within their range. The new aircraft, called the Heron TP, has a wingspan of 86 feet, making it the size of [...]
On Thursday, the same day that Israel’s ambassador to Britain was asked to tell the British government if he knew anything about the apparent use of cloned British passports by suspects in the assassination of a Hamas official in Dubai last month, his embassy’s official Twitter feed posted a joking reference to the killing. After [...]
February 22, 2010 | Posted in
MIDDLE EAST |
Read More »
RABAT: At least 36 people died and 71 were injured after the minaret of a historic 18th century mosque collapsed in the central Moroccan city of Meknes during Friday prayers, the interior ministry said. Local officials said the toll could mount. “The minaret and part of the roof fell on the congregation which had gathered [...]
February 20, 2010 | Posted in
MIDDLE EAST |
Read More »
LONDON: Britain has flatly denied any foreknowledge of a Mossad plan to assassinate a top official of the Palestinian group Hamas, in Dubai, amidst angry accusations in Whitehall that Israel is seeking to deflect blame from itself by implicating others. British government sources dismissed as “nonsense” a report claiming the Israeli secret service had given [...]
February 20, 2010 | Posted in
EUROPE,
FEATURED NEWS |
Read More »
DUBAI: Interpol should help arrest the head of Mossad if Israel’s spy agency was responsible for the killing of a Hamas commander in Dubai, the emirate’s police chief said today. In comments to be aired on Dubai TV, Lieutenant General Dahi Khalfan Tamim called for Interpol to issue “a red notice against the head of [...]
February 19, 2010 | Posted in
MIDDLE EAST |
Read More »
RAMADI: A suicide bomber killed at least 13 people and wounded 21 on Thursday in Iraq’s increasingly turbulent western Anbar province, a senior Iraqi army official and police told Reuters. A medical source said Ramadi’s main hospital had received 13 bodies and 26 people had been wounded. Separately, in the violent city of Mosul [...]
February 18, 2010 | Posted in
MIDDLE EAST |
Read More »
JERUSALEM: A key security operative of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas was under arrest in Syria tonight on suspicion of having helped an alleged Israeli hit squad identify Mahmoud al-Mabhouh before he was assassinated in Dubai. Palestinian sources in the Gulf confirmed Nahro Massoud, a Hamas security official, was in detention and under interrogation in [...]
February 18, 2010 | Posted in
MIDDLE EAST |
Read More »
LONDON: Britain last night fired the first shot in a potentially explosive diplomatic row with Israel by calling in the country’s ambassador to explain the use of faked British passports by a hit squad who targeted a Hamas official in Dubai. The Israeli ambassador has been summoned to the Foreign Office to “share information” about [...]
February 18, 2010 | Posted in
EUROPE |
Read More »
LONDON: Gordon Brown stepped into the growing international row over the alleged use of fake passports by the assassins of a Hamas leader in Dubai by promising a full investigation. As demands were made for the Israeli ambassador to be summoned to the Foreign Office to answer allegations that the Mossad security service was behind [...]
February 17, 2010 | Posted in
EUROPE |
Read More »
