WAAJID, Somalia, July 23 (UPI) -- Somalia has edged closer to war as Ethiopian troops moved into a second Somali town and government-Islamist peace talks were canceled, it was reported Sunday.
Ethiopian troops now control an airstrip in the northern Somali town of Waajid, near the Ethiopian border, and were also in Baidoa to back up Somalia's interim government, the Independent said.
Ethiopia strongly backs the UN-supported government of President Abdullahi Yusuf an... (more)
President Vladimir Putin is set to keep US oil companies out of a lucrative gas field in the latest sign of the deteriorating relationship between Moscow and Washington.
The Russian leader is expected to favour Norwegian companies and reject bids by America's Chevron and ConocoPhillips after failing to secure backing from the United States for his country's attempt to join the World Trade Organisation.
The tit-for-tat snub will be a blow to US companies scrambling f... (more)
In the driveway of Tyre's Government hospital yesterday the sour smell of rotting flesh mingled with spray paint as the chief coroner wrote the names of the dead on their coffins.
Empty wood caskets, which had been neatly stacked by a large white freezer truck - one of two being used to store the bodies of many of those killed during Israel's bombardment of south Lebanon - were now being filled; 86 of the 150 corpses in the truck were to be buried in the afternoon.
BBC travels with Hezbollah party operatives into the southern suburbs of Beruit. In bombing Hezbollah's headquarters here, Israel has turned the entire area into a wasteland with no signs of life. 500,000 civilians once lived in these suburbs. Israe... (more)
BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) -- Thousands of Israeli troops are massing on the Lebanese border as Lebanon's president warned Friday his army is "ready to defend" the country should Israel launch a full-scale ground invasion.
The Israel Defense Forces said it was calling up to 6,000 troops for reinforcements along the border as leaflets were dropped urging Lebanese residents to leave their homes and move north of the Litani River 25 miles (40 kilometers) from the Israeli border. ... (more)
(CNN) -- Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah apologized for an attack that killed two Israeli Arab children in northern Israel, saying the youngsters were "martyrs for Palestine."
In a Thursday interview with Arabic-language news network Al-Jazeera, Nasrallah accepted responsibility for the Wednesday attack, while conceding that an apology to the family was not sufficient.
"To the family that was hit in Nazareth -- on my behalf and my brothers', I apologize to t... (more)
Russian and German intelligence services are using contacts to Middle East extremists in a bid to win the freedom of three Israeli soldiers being held by militants, a report said Friday.
According to the DPA news agency, the German Federal Intelligence Agency (BND) — in tandem with Russian intelligence — is seeking to activate long-standing links to both Hamas and Hezbollah, said the Berlin Zeitung newspaper quoting unnamed officials.
IDF distributed pamphlets throughout Strip, warning civilians that if they are hiding weapons, ammunition in houses, their lives are endangered and must leave their homes. "From now on, things will be managed differently," said source in Southern Command to ynet
The military policies on the northern front are now being applied on the southern front as well. The Israel Defense Forces distributed pamphlets last night (Wednesday) throughout the Gaza Strip warning residents of the a... (more)
Ynet has learned that in light of the security situation dozens of incarcerated IDF soldiers will be released from military prisons and returned to their units.
“In times such as these it is important that soldiers with important duties remain in their units and prepare for any event, even if this means releasing them from jail early,” a military source told Ynet.
Until now four soldiers were pleased to hear of their imminent release from prison. ... (more)
Those among you who like your skies darkened by black helicopters are invited to mosey on down to the remote Chinese village of Huangyangtan which hosts what must be the strangest military installation ever spotted by the Google Earth Community:
Zooming in for a closer look, we have what appears to be a 900x700m scale model of a mountainous landscape...
... (more)
The US is giving Israel a window of a week to inflict maximum damage on Hizbullah before weighing in behind international calls for a ceasefire in Lebanon, according to British, European and Israeli sources.
The Bush administration, backed by Britain, has blocked efforts for an immediate halt to the fighting initiated at the UN security council, the G8 summit in St Petersburg and the European foreign ministers' meeting in Brussels.
Beirut, 19 July (AKI) - Israeli warplanes targeted for the first time a Christian area of eastern Beirut on Wednesday morning. No one was reportedly injured in the attack. Two trucks were hit near the department store 'Abc' in the heart of the Ashrafiyah neighbourhood. The two vehicles were however not reportedly transporting missiles as initially thought. Residents panicked and took to the streets after the raid. "We aren't safe here anymore," Ratiba Naaman told Adnkronos International (AKI).... (more)
The number of Iraqi civilians being murdered or killed in the current fighting has been revealed for the first time by the United Nations. It is far higher than previous estimates.
Some 3,149 people were killed in June alone, or more than 100 a day, and the figure is likely to rise higher this month because of tit-for-tat massacres by Sunni and Shia Muslims. Some 120 Shias were killed in two attacks earlier in the week and gunmen yesterday kidnapped 20 employees of a government a... (more)
Nearly nine out of 10 Israelis say the country's aerial campaign in Lebanon is justified and almost 60 percent say Israel should fight until Hezbollah is destroyed, according to a poll published Tuesday.
The Dahaf poll, published in the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot, found that 81 percent of Israelis want the offensive to continue. Another 78 percent are satisfied with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's performance.
And 72 percent said they backed Defense Minister Amir Per... (more)
Israel is in the best position militarily in its history to mount air strikes against Iran, after a decade of buying U.S.-produced long-range aircraft, penetrating bombs and aerial refueling tankers.
Tel Aviv has ratcheted up the volume in attacking the hard-line Islamic regime as it fights the Iranian-backed Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. In the past, Israeli politicians have talked openly of attacking Iranian nuclear sites to prevent the U.S.-designated terror state from bui... (more)
Nine Lebanese soldiers were killed when Israeli war planes attacked a Lebanese Army post. The Lebanese Army has made an effort to stay neutral during this conflict, and yesterday, US President George W. Bush was accidentally recorded saying that the US was not blaming the Lebanese government for the actions of Hezbollah.
Israel has begun an investigation into the targeting of the Army base.
The following video report was aired on UK's Channel Four.
Twelve-year-old Nour lay heavily bandaged and fighting for her life in a hospital in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre. She is one of many children killed and injured in Israeli air strikes on this Mediterranean port in past days.
"We are praying for her," said Fatima, a laboratory technician doubling as a nurse at Jabal Amal hospital, which is overloaded with the victims of the air strikes. Ali, the doctor treating Nour, said he did not know whether she would survive her injurie... (more)
U.S. war commanders think some level of American forces will be needed in Iraq until 2016 and those forces will receive continued support from the vast majority of Iraqis.
At the tactical level, the U.S. is getting better at detecting deadly improvised explosive devices (IEDs), especially using unmanned spy planes. But the enemy is growing more sophisticated. A raid on an IED factory earlier this year netted two bomb-makers who hold master's degrees in chemistry and physics --... (more)
President George W. Bush believes suspicions of Iran's involvement in the escalating Middle East violence are legitimate, he tells Newsweek in an exclusive interview. "There's a lot of people who believe that the Iranians are trying to exert more and more influence over the entire region and the use of Hizbullah is to create more and more chaos to advance their strategy," says Bush in Newsweek's July 24 cover story "Meltdown" (on newsstands Monday, July 17).
LEBANON last night warned it faced "real annihilation" by Israel who had dramatically escalated the violence of its campaign after Hezbollah rockets hit the city of Haifa.
"We are facing a real annihilation carried out by Israel," Information Minister Ghazi Aridi said after an emergency cabinet meeting.
"Israel is using internationally prohibited weapons against civilians," he said.
He did not elaborate on the weapons allegedly used. But Lebanese medi... (more)
Our intelligence sources in Lebanon have reported to us exclusively that Israel is now using poison gas and depleted uranium shells on towns in the south of Lebanon. Residents of the small village of Kasarshoba became violently ill, experiencing severe vomiting, after the Israelis hit the village with poison gas. In other cases, underground shelters in southern Lebanon were hit by Israeli depleted uranium shells. Our sources also report that the entire southern suburbs of southern Beirut, with a... (more)
