AMMAN – A Jordanian parliamentary committee has urged the government to investigate the fate of "around 1,000" Jordanians who are believed to be held prisoners in Iraq, the head of the committee said Thursday.

"We have sent an urgent letter to the foreign ministry asking it to obtain information on the fate of the prisoners from the US military ruler in Iraq and the Iraqi foreign minister," deputy Jamal Dmur told Al Dustour daily.

He said the message was sent after 22 inmates were killed and more than 90 others wounded Tuesday in a mortar attack on Abu Gharib, a US-run prison west of Baghdad where 4,500 prisoners are held.

"We want to know if any Jordanians are among the dead or wounded after the latest attack on Abu Gharib prison," Dmur, who heads the parliamentary committee on public freedoms and citizens' rights, told the newspaper.

Dmur said that "around 1,000 Jordanians are held in different prisons in Iraq according to the information received by the committee" from their relatives.

Earlier this year the US-led coalition occupying Iraq released 35 Jordanian nationals from jails in Iraq, most of whom were held in Umm Qasr, southern Iraq.

RIYADH – The Saudi Arabian cabinet has expressed its “distress” with the unrest in Iraq, reiterating earlier calls for an “essential” United Nations role there.

JERUSALEM – Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon’s controversial disengagement plan looks set to win the backing of his party, Likud, after his main rival, finance minister Binyamin Netanyahu, said he would vote for the project.

TEHRAN – Iran’s President Mohammad Khatami has reshuffled his cabinet, aimed at boosting economy-related portfolios. Finance minister Tahmasb Mahazeri was replaced by labor minister Safdar Hosseini, who was succeeded by cabinet newcomer Naser Khaleghi.

TEHRAN – An earthquake measuring 4.0 on the Richter scale shook Bam in southeastern Iran on Tuesday – months after a quake killed tens of thousands of people on December 26, 2003.

RIYADH – A Saudi man found guilty of murdering a compatriot after a bitter quarrel was beheaded by the sword in the capital, Riyadh, on Tuesday. The execution of Saif Bin Muhammad Zgiby was the third this year.

KUWAIT CITY – Kuwait’s main Islamist groups have called on the government to reject the appointment of Richard LeBaron as the new US envoy to the emirate because he served in Israel. LeBaron is currently deputy chief of the US mission in Tel Aviv.

PRISTINA, SERBIA-MONTENEGRO – Four Jordanian members of the UN police force in Kosovo have been questioned over a shooting incident between members of the force, in which two Americans and a Jordanian were killed. The incident reportedly followed a dispute over the situation in Iraq.

ANKARA – Turkey reinforced ties with neighboring Azerbaijan on Monday, when Turkish foreign minister Abdullah Gul said his country would not re-open its border with Armenia, days after visiting Azeri President Ilham Aliyev.

DOHA – NATO plans to disclose in June a “cooperation initiative” between the Atlantic alliance and the Middle East, assistant secretary-general Gunther Altenburg said during a visit to Qatar on Monday.

MOSCOW – Two Russian policemen and an agent from the FSB intelligence service were killed during the siege of a suspected Chechen rebel holdout in a republic neighboring Chechnya last weekend.

RIYADH – At least five people died in flooding that swept away roads and houses in southern Saudi Arabia last weekend. The bodies were recovered from three valleys in the mountainous Jizan province bordering Yemen.

TUNIS – About 100 suspected illegal immigrants, rescued by a Tunisian cargo ship from a boat that went missing south of Sicily, docked in Tunisia on April 17. The passengers, identified as sub-Saharan Africans, were escorted to the Tunisian border.

DOHA – Russia said on Sunday that it would respect a Qatari court’s ruling in the case of two Russian agents accused of assassinating a former Chechen president in Doha, after talks between Russia’s security council chief Igor Ivanov and Qatari foreign minister Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassem Bin Jabr Al Thani.

ROME – Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has accepted an invitation to visit Iran this year, according to an official statement issued on Sunday, following his meeting with Iranian foreign minister Kamal Kharazi.

WASHINGTON – The US chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Richard Myers, has urged Syria to stop foreign fighters using the country to make their way into Iraq.

AMMAN – Canadian aid worker Fadi Fadel, who was held hostage for more than a week in Iraq, underwent medical checks in Jordan on Sunday, following his release.

AMMAN – A Saudi sailor and his Jordanian accomplice have appeared in court accused of smuggling weapons into Jordan. They were arrested after the sailor allegedly managed to smuggle a Kalashnikov rifle into Jordan during a trial run.

JERUSALEM – The main Israeli suspect in a string of anti-Arab attacks, Eliran Golan, has been deemed “mentally unfit” to stand trial on charges linked to nine bombings, including one at a mosque in Haifa that injured a woman in August 2001.

BRUSSELS – The European Union should not stand idly by while the conflict in Iraq further deteriorates, Belgian foreign minister Louis Michel said on Sunday, urging the EU to make efforts to calm the situation.

DUBLIN – A top Libyan official warned Ireland in 1986 of his government’s plan to give the Irish Republican Army $50 million to assassinate the then-British prime minister Margaret Thatcher and her family, according to classified Irish government files.

TOKYO – Japan has sent Iraq $91,000 worth of judo and soccer equipment as part of its humanitarian assistance package. The Japanese have pledged $5 billion toward Iraq’s reconstruction.

SANAA – A measles epidemic has claimed the lives of 35 children in northern Yemen, in an epidemic that medical officials say is spreading rapidly. Vaccinations are not available in the area.

AMMAN – An epidemic of German measles is spreading rapidly in Jordan, with 600 cases registered in a two week period. Despite a vaccination campaign earlier this month, the health ministry said a total of 5,000 cases are expected to develop.

RIYADH – Saudi Arabia is taking preventive measures to stop the infiltration of allegedly “poisonous” Israeli seeds that would spoil Saudi soil, according to an official, although no evidence of such attempts has been provided.

RABAT – Moroccan police arrested two men in the western industrial town of Berrechid, 30 kilometers (20 miles) south of Casablanca on Tuesday, in connection with the May 2003 bomb attacks in Casablanca on foreign, Jewish, and business targets that cost 45 lives, including those of 12 suicide bombers.

MADRID – Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero is due to visit Morocco on April 24, to strengthen relations currently dominated by last month’s Madrid train bombings, carried out by Moroccan extremists, in which nearly 200 people were killed.

MADRID – A Spanish judge has charged four Algerian suspected Islamic extremists with possessing bomb-making equipment and association with a terrorist organization.

TRIPOLI – The European Union’s arms embargo on Libya will remain in force until Germany agrees to lift it, according to British junior foreign minister Mike O’Brien. The UN lifted its arms embargo on Libya in September 2003.

ROME – Islamic fundamentalist terrorist groups have established links with the Neapolitan mafia, according to Italian prosecutor Pier Luigi Vigna, who told La Repubblica that the two groups had shared the same safe houses.

RABAT – The Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group, accused of carrying out the Madrid train bombings in March and the Casablanca suicide attacks last year, is a “derivative” of Al Qaeda, according to Aujourd’hui le Maroc.

ADDIS ABABA – Libya is to start dismantling its remaining chemical weapons stockpile in the next few months, the international Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said on Tuesday.

CASABLANCA – An appeal court in Casablanca has overturned the conviction on defamation charges of three Moroccan journalists from Aujourd’hui le Maroc, after they accused Spanish journalist Ignacio Cembrero, of Spain’s AlPais, of being a spy.

PRETORIA – Ibrahim Ali Abu Bakar Tantoush, a Libyan man allegedly linked to the Al Qaeda network, was granted bail on Tuesday and ordered to return to a South African court to face possible extradition to Libya.

ALGIERS – Algeria’s outgoing head of government, Ahmed Ouyahia, was named on Monday by newly reelected President Abdel Aziz Bouteflika to head the country’s new government.

ALGIERS – Defeated Algerian presidential candidate Ali Benflis resigned from his post as secretary-general of the National Liberation Front (FLN) on Monday. Benflis won only 6.42 percent of the vote in the April 8 elections.

PARIS – French President Jacques Chirac is to visit Libya “very soon,” Libyan Prime Minister Shukri Ghanim said during a visit to Paris on Monday. Chirac’s office said the trip had only been agreed to “in principle.”