Islamic World

Jerusalem, July 13: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected criticism about Israel’s past failure to curb the Iranian nuclear activities, saying Israel never dallied on the issue.

“The prime minister is not willing to discuss directly the way in which Israel governments have dealt with the Iranian threat neither in the past nor at the present,” Netanyahu’s bureau said in a statement, referring to comments made by his senior aide in an interview with Haaretz.

Tel Aviv, July 13: Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Monday questioned the legitimacy of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

The controversial leader of the ultra-nationalist Israel Beiteinu coalition party told Israel Radio that Abbas represents “at best half the (Palestinian) people.”

Abbas, elected in January 2005 presidential elections, saw his term as president officially end last January.

Kabul, July 13: An American service member has been killed in an insurgent attack in eastern Afghanistan, the U.S. military said.

Sunday’s attack in the town of Bargh-e-Matal in Nuristan province also wounded some other troops, said Lt. Cmdr. Christine Sidenstricker. She did not have an exact number of wounded.

Sidenstricker did not provide more details on the attack, saying only that it was not a roadside bomb or suicide bomber.

London, July 13: A survey published Monday showed that public opinion in Britain for the Afghanistan campaign is evenly divided, while support has increased since troops were deployed in Helmand province in 2006.

The survey, carried out by ICM for The Guardian newspaper at the end of last week, when eight soldiers died within 24 hours, found that support for Britain’s role stood at 46 per cent.

The figure is up by 15 per cent from 2006, when the same question was last asked.

Ankara, July 13: Turkey’s energy minister says his country doesn’t rule out the possibility of joining Iran and Russia in the Nabucco gas pipeline in the future.

Taner Yildiz told private NTV television that Tehran and Moscow may be involved in the EU- and US-backed project planned to pump gas from the Caspian Sea to Europe via Turkey.

“We should not be surprised if we see Russia as a supplier one day,” Yildiz said. “We can also easily see Iran in this project as a supplier in the future.”

Jerusalem, July 13: Israel’s illegal settlers in the West Bank have set fire to more than 120 hectares of Palestinian land, the Ministry of Agriculture says.

In a series of attacks since the spring, settlers have gone on the offensive, attacking Palestinian farmers particularly in villages surrounding the cities of Nablus and al-Khalil (Hebron), the Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture said on Sunday.

Dubai, July 13: Customs officials at the Dubai International Airport have foiled two bids of smuggling narcotics into the country and arrested two Asian passengers who concealed 80 capsules of heroin in their stomach, the WAM news agency reported Sunday.

The first attempt was aborted when officials at the airport forced a suspicious looking passenger to go through the body scan machine and found him hiding 50 capsules of the contraband drug. Initially, neither the X-ray detectors nor the manual search of his luggage revealed anything suspicious.

Kabul, July 13: Five police personnel were killed in a roadside bomb blast in central Afghanistan, while Afghan and coalition forces killed 12 militants in the southern region, officials said.

The police personnel were driving in a private vehicle Saturday afternoon in Charkh district of Logar province when they were hit by a roadside bomb, Mustafa Khan Mosseni, the provincial police chief said.

NATO-led international military forces in Kabul said that the attack left four policemen dead and one wounded, who was treated by the alliance medics at the scene.

Tehran, July 13: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad blamed Germany for the murder of an Egyptian woman in a German courtroom and said it should face U.N. condemnation, state media reported.

Marwa El-Sherbiny, 31, mother of a 3-year-old and three months pregnant, was stabbed 18 times by a man against whom she was testifying during an appeal hearing in Dresden on July 1, German prosecutors said.

Her killer also stabbed her husband, whom German police then mistook for the attacker and shot in the leg, prosecutors said.

Washington, July 13: President Barack Obama has ordered his national security team to investigate reports that US-led troops suffocated 2,000 alleged Taliban prisoners in Afghanistan.

Obama told CNN in an interview on Sunday that if US forces have violated international norms, he wants to know about it.

“I think that, you know, there are responsibilities that all nations have even in war,” Obama said.

Washington, Jully 13: The US Ambassador to Iraq Christopher Hill has escaped an attempt on his life after a bomb exploded near the vehicle he was riding in.

The incident occurred in Dhi Qar province in southern Iraq on Sunday, the embassy said in a statement. Hill heard a bang and then drove through a cloud of smoke, the statement added.

The ambassador and the embassy personnel remained unharmed in the attack, it said.

Paris, July 13: The international media rights body, Reporters Without Borders, Sunday expressed concern about the ‘growing repression’ of journalists and cyber-dissidents in the post-election period in Iran.

The organisation also called for the immediate release of 41 journalists detained by authorities following anti-government demonstrations that began after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected a month ago.

Mogadishu, July 13: Somali government troops backed by African Union peacekeepers battled insurgents in clashes that killed at least 43 people in north Mogadishu, residents and officials said.

Somalia’s government and a 4,300-strong AU force (AMISOM) have been unable to take control of rebel strongholds in Mogadishu and other parts of the Horn of Africa nation despite international support and training.

Kabul, July 13: A bomb blast killed two U.S. Marines in Afghanistan’s dangerous south, where thousands of American troops have deployed in a massive operation to oust Taliban fighters from the country’s opium poppy region, officials said Sunday.

Some 4,000 Marines moved into Helmand province this month, the largest Marine operation in Afghanistan since the 2001 U.S. invasion. They have met little head-on resistance but remain vulnerable to guerrilla tactics like suicide and roadside bombs.

Jeddah, July 13: The issue of those expatriates in Saudi Arabia who convert to Islam and then revert to their earlier religion because of not receiving enough care has drawn the attention of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY).

According to Saleh Al Wohaibi, secretary-general of WAMY, many of the more than 200 cooperative dawa centres across the Kingdom had failed to take care of converts. “This has resulted in many of them returning back to their old ways,” he said.

Kabul, July 12: Mainly British and Afghan troops have killed up to 200 insurgents in a major assault on Taliban strongholds in southern Afghanistan launched three weeks ago, the Afghan interior ministry said Sunday.

Thousands of NATO-led US Marines, British troops and Afghan security forces have been fighting their way into some of the most dangerous insurgent strongholds in the southern province of Helmand for weeks.

The operations are designed to clean out areas of rebels to allow Afghans to vote in presidential and provincial council elections due on August 20.

Tehran, July 12: Five Iranian officials who were held in Iraq for more than two years by U.S. forces on suspicion of aiding local Shiite militants returned to Iran Sunday, where their return was hailed as a victory for Iran.

The five diplomats flew to Tehran from Iraq on Sunday and were met at the airport by a cheering crowd of onlookers who carried the men on their shoulders and put garlands of flowers around their necks.

Tehran, July 12: A senior Iranian cleric strongly condemns the killing of Egyptian Marwa al-Sherbini, dubbed ‘Hijab martyr,’ in a courtroom in Germany.

Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Taskhiri, Secretary-General of the World Forum for Proximity of Islamic Schools of Thought, characterized the ‘heart-rending disaster’ in the German court as clear proof of the West’s racist and biased stances towards Islam and Muslims, IRNA reported.

Dubai, July 12: Telecom operator Zain surged to lift the Kuwait index yesterday and Oman’s benchmark rallied as new index weightings were introduced, but trading was lackluster across the Gulf Arab region.

Dubai’s index rose 1.4 percent, Bahrain made its largest gains for two weeks with a 0.5 percent rise and Kuwait edged 0.2 percent higher after a late rally. Egypt’s benchmark climbed 2.8 percent on the final day of the Egyptian fiscal year.

Riyadh, July 12: The Passport Department has launched an awareness campaign — entitled Your Passport Is Your Identity, Its Protection Is Your Responsibility — calling on Saudi citizens to look after their passports while abroad.

The campaign has been launched to inform Saudis to keep away from visiting dangerous locations when abroad and to never pawn their passports. The campaign began at the start of the school vacation when thousands of Saudis head abroad to enjoy summer holidays, Al-Watan newspaper reported.

Jeddah, July 12 : Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah will open the newly expanded Prince Abdul Mohsen bin Abdul Aziz Airport in the industrial city of Yanbu during his tour of Madinah province.

An official statement carried by the Saudi Press Agency on Saturday said King Abdullah would begin his several-day tour of the province on Sunday. He will launch a number of industrial, human welfare and development projects during the tour.

Tehran, July 12: Israel’s plans to buy US F-35 fighters indicate its desire to be able to penetrate the Russian air defense systems Iran and Syria are set to receive, a report says.

F-35 fighter aircraft can make the S-300 air defense systems ineffective, as computer simulations have shown that the new US stealth fighters outperform Russian missiles, Ria Novosti cited officials in Tel Aviv as saying.

Tehran, July 12: Iran’s OPEC governor says a claim that demand for Iran’s crude oil has declined in the world markets is a ‘complete lie’.

Seyyed Mohammad-Ali Khatibi strongly dismissed a report by an international institute, which had stated that the demand for Iran’s crude oil has dropped in the first four months of 2009 as a result of political tension in the country.

“So far no unusual issue has been reported in the amount of demand for Iran’s crude oil,” Khatibi told Mehr news agency in an interview.

Tehran, July 12: A senior judicial official says efforts to track down Jundullah ringleader Abdulmalek Rigi are proceeding very well with the help of Interpol.

Ebrahim Hamidi, the head of the judiciary in the restive southeast province of Sistan-Baluchestan, said Sunday that Iranian security forces and Interpol– the world’s international police force– are working together to discover the whereabouts of Rigi.

According to Hamidi, the Tehran government has sought help from Interpol because the Jundullah terror group is operating from beyond the country’s borders.

Cairo, July 12: Egyptian authorities have refused to allow ‘Viva Palestina’ activists trying to carry humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip to cross into the Sinai Peninsula.

The largest-ever US aid convoy to help the people of Gaza was stopped at the Suez Canal on Saturday on its way to Al Arish, where the rest of the group and supplies will join them before heading for the border crossing into Gaza.

The activists are part of a convoy of at least 200 people — all Americans, including Charles Barron, a New York City Councilman — that plan to be in Gaza by July 13.