A regularly updated column of news briefs from around the region

Iraqi sportsmen killed 'for wearing shorts'

BAGHDAD - Gunmen in Baghdad killed the coach of the Iraqi national tennis team and two players, reportedly for wearing Western-style tennis shorts, an Iraqi Olympic official said on May 26. The coach, Hussein Ahmed Rashid, was murdered along with two of his players, Nasser Ali Hatem and Wissam Adel Auda, outside his home in the capital's southern Saidiyah neighborhood on Thursday.

A witness said that fundamentalists had been distributing leaflets recently warning residents of the area not to wear shorts. Last week 15 members of the Iraqi Taekwondo team have been kidnapped for $100,000 in ransom, and in February a former Iraqi wrestling champion was gunned down.

British soldier cleared over drowning of Iraqi teenager

LONDON - A British soldier was cleared on May 25 of manslaughter over the drowning of a 15-year-old Iraqi boy in southern Iraq in May 2003. Vice Judge Advocate General Michael Hunter at a military trial in Colchester, eastern England, found that Lance Corporal James Cooke, 22, of the Irish Guards, was not guilty of manslaughter on legal grounds, but gave no reasons or explanation.

The court martial continues of three other soldiers accused of killing the teenager, who could not swim and drowned after struggling in "obvious distress" after being forced at gunpoint into a canal in Basra city, prosecutors said.

Sharon to be moved to rehab clinic

JERUSALEM - Former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, who has been comatose in a Jerusalem hospital since suffering a stroke in January, will be moved next week to a rehabilitation clinic, an official said. "Sharon is going to move to the Sheba Medical Center at the beginning of next week," Yael Bosem Levy, a spokeswoman for the Hadassah hospital where he is being treated, said. The spokeswoman said that there was no specific reason for Sharon's move, which has been on the cards for some time.

Palestinians, Libyans seek asylum in Croatia

ZAGREB - A group of 17 recently detained would-be illegal immigrants - all but one Palestinian, and some of them children - are seeking asylum in Croatia, the interior ministry said on May 25. Croatia's maritime police detained the group of 16 Palestinians and one Libyan after stopping a fishing boat sailing without a flag near an islet close to the southern Adriatic town of Dubrovnik. Police believe that the immigrants were attempting to reach Italy, but the boat's engine had broken down and currents dragged them toward Croatia.

UAE to rebuild quake-hit hospital in Pakistan

MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan - The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is to rebuild the main hospital in earthquake-ravaged Pakistani Kashmir at a cost of up to $20 million, officials said on May 25. "A 400-bed hospital equipped with the latest facilities would be constructed to support and help our affected brethren," Juma Mubarak Aljunaibi, a representative of the UAE president, said.

The massive 7.6 magnitude quake on October 8, 2005 claimed more than 73,000 lives, seriously injured nearly 70,000 people and left 3.3 million homeless in Pakistan. More than 1,000 also died in Indian Kashmir.

Tunis rights group vows to flout ban

TUNIS - Tunisia's official human rights group said on May 25 that it would press ahead with a planned conference at the weekend despite a legal ruling banning it from doing so. "Our conference is coming up in a very difficult political landscape, amid serious threats from the authorities," said Mokhtar Trifi, president of the Tunisian Human Rights League. The gathering of human rights groups from Africa and the Arab world is scheduled to take place on Saturday and Sunday at the organization's Tunis headquarters.

Iran security forces kill five militants

TEHRAN - Iranian security forces have killed five suspected hardline Sunni militants believed to have been involved in roadside murders in the restive southeast of the country, police said on May 25. Quoted by state television, the police information center said that the five were killed in a district of Zahedan, the provincial capital of Sistan-Baluchestan province. An Iranian guard was killed and another injured during the operation.

Afghan arrested with heroin valued at $1mn

DUSHANBE - Police in Tajikistan have arrested an Afghan national attempting to smuggle 63 kilograms (139 pounds) of heroin through the Central Asian country, a spokesman said on May 25. The 35-year-old was carrying 27 kilos of cannabis in addition to the heroin when he entered Tajikistan across the southern border from Afghanistan, said police spokesman Khudoinazar Asoyev. The value of the haul was close to $1 million, police experts said.

Saddam nephew arrested in Beirut

BEIRUT - A nephew of deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein has been arrested in Beirut on suspicion of crimes against the Iraqi people, Lebanese and Iraqi officials said on May 24. A Lebanese security source said that Bashar Sabawi was arrested within the past 48 hours as he was about to leave the country.

Bashar's father Sabawi Ibrahim Al Hassan Al Tikriti was arrested on the Syrian border in February 2005 on charges of funding the insurgency. Bashar's brother Ayman, also accused of being involved in the insurgency, was arrested in May 2005 during an operation in Saddam's hometown of Tikrit.

Al Qaeda denies link to suspect in Jordan

PARIS - An Al Qaeda-linked umbrella group in Iraq on May 24 denied any link to a suspect whose alleged confessions were aired on Jordanian television, in an Internet statement posted on an Islamist Website. "We don't even know the individual shown on Jordanian television," the Mujahideen Consultative Council said.

The suspect confessed on Tuesday to murdering a Jordanian driver in Iraq and abducting two Moroccan embassy employees last year who were handed over to the Al Qaeda group in Iraq run by Jordanian-born fugitive Abu Mussab Al Zarqawi. Jordanian authorities identified the suspect as "an important figure in the Al Qaeda in Iraq organization" when they announced his arrest on Monday.

Kuwait opens registration for legislative election

KUWAIT CITY - Candidate registration is to begin on May 25 for Kuwait's parliamentary election, which was announced last week after parliament was dissolved due to a political crisis, the interior ministry said on Wednesday. The election itself will be held on June 29. Candidates have 10 days to submit their registrations, the ministry said in a statement.

Under the law, all candidates must be Kuwaiti by birth, over 30 years old, know how to read and write Arabic, be registered on the electoral roll and never have been convicted of committing a crime. Women, who were enfranchised a year ago, will take part in the elections for the first time as both voters and candidates.

'Criminals' explode bomb in Tel Aviv

JERUSALEM - A bomb exploded on May 24 in a car park on the outskirts of Israel's commercial capital Tel Aviv but without causing any casualties, a police spokesman said. Initial indications were that the explosion in Ramat Gan was the work of criminals rather than Palestinian militants, army radio reported.

Demonstrations rock Tehran universities

TEHRAN - Two of the Iranian capital's main universities have been rocked by overnight protests and clashes between students and police, press reports said on May 23. Some 40 police were lightly injured in front of the Tehran University dormitories in protests against the changing of university heads and the forced retirement of some professors.

Students at the Amir Kabir University in Tehran demonstrated over interference in student elections. The student news agency ISNA said that protestors shouted slogans including "we don't want the Islam of the Taliban" and "death to reactionaries and dictatorship".

Turkey, Greece arrest 200 illegals

ISTANBUL & ATHENS - Turkish authorities apprehended 51 foreign immigrants attempting to cross into Europe from Turkey over the last two days, the Anatolia news agency reported on May 23. The immigrants - Somalians, Palestinians, Iranians, Mauritanians and Moroccans - said that they had hoped to continue on from neighboring Greece to various other European countries, said Anatolia.

Also Greek police arrested 142 people trying to cross the country's borders illegally in three different groups by truck and boat from Turkey. Seventy-three people - from Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia and the Palestinian Territories - were found in a refrigerator truck in Kavala in northwest Greece. Another 32 people were rescued off the island of Chios from a leaky wooden boat. A second boatload of 37 illegal immigrants was found on May 22 off the island of Samos.

Denmark to open new Mideast embassies

COPENHAGEN - Denmark will open new embassies throughout the Mideast in a bid to improve relations after a cartoon furor that tarnished its image in the Muslim world. "We will have a greater presence in the region in the future, which means that we will have more embassies," foreign minister Per Stig Moeller told Danmark Radio on May 23. Moeller did not specify which countries were under discussion but the Jyllands-Posten newspaper reported that Morocco and Jordan are first in line since Denmark currently only has consulates in the two Arab countries.

Israeli court rejects Jerusalem barrier appeal

JERUSALEM - Israel's supreme court on May 23 rejected an appeal by Palestinians living on the outskirts of East Jerusalem against the construction of a new section of its West Bank separation barrier. Residents of Al Azaria, a Jerusalem suburb that is technically in the West Bank, had filed a petition against building work on the barrier, which will cut them off from the holy city. But judges ruled on Tuesday that the defense ministry had taken adequate consideration of the barrier's impact on residents versus Israel's security needs.

Holocaust memorial requests asylum for Darfur refugees

JERUSALEM - The chairman of Israel's memorial to the 6 million Jews killed in the Nazi Holocaust during World War II has requested the state grant political asylum to refugees fleeing the Darfur conflict in Sudan. The Yad Vashem memorial in Jerusalem confirmed that it requested Israel grant asylum to a group of refugees from Darfur who have been held in administrative detention after entering the Jewish state illegally.

Bush, Abdullah discuss Iraq

WASHINGTON - US President George W. Bush spoke by telephone on May 22 with Jordan's King Abdullah about the newly-formed Iraqi government, the White House said. Frederick Jones, spokesman with the National Security Council, said that the two leaders conferred on a number of issues related to Iraq, but declined to provide further details about the dialogue.

Their discussion came on the heels of this weekend's breakthrough formation of a permanent Iraqi government, led by Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki, and against a backdrop of continued violence across Iraq.

47 Islamist 'terrorists' sentenced in Morocco

RABAT - Forty-seven Islamists were sentenced to prison on May 22 for their part in a terrorist cell known as the Casablanca Group, judicial officials said. They were convicted of forming a criminal group with the intention to commit terrorist acts and attack the public order, as well as conducting unauthorized public meetings and activities and creating and using fake administrative documents, officials said.

Two in the alleged group were given the toughest sentence of 15 years, three received 12 years, nine were handed 10-year jail terms, and the rest received penalties ranging from three months to eight years.

Agent claims Swiss told him to frame Arab teacher

GENEVA - A Swiss martial arts expert, who converted to Islam while working as an undercover agent, claims that Swiss security officers tried to get him to frame a Muslim scholar. Swiss officials countered that Claude Covassi - who now lives in Egypt - made up his story to avoid jail for selling anabolic steroids while he was teaching Thai boxing or because he may be having money problems or he is possibly working with terrorists, the Los Angeles Times has reported.

Covassi said that his handlers wanted him to smear Hani Ramadan, a teacher and brother of Tariq Ramadan, a scholar barred from entering the United States after he was offered a teaching position at Notre Dame University. Covassi told the Times that he had found no evidence that Ramadan has links to terrorist groups in Iraq.

Jordan to parade Al Qaeda in Iraq member

AMMAN - Jordan has arrested a senior member of the Al Qaeda in Iraq militant group whose confessions will be broadcast on state television on May 23 evening, a senior official said on May 22. "The Jordanian intelligence services have arrested an important figure in the Al Qaeda in Iraq organization led by Abu Mussab Al Zarqawi and his testimony will be broadcast by Jordanian television on Tuesday evening," the official said. The official declined to elaborate on the identity of the detainee or the manner of his capture.

Tunisian fisherman shot dead by Libyan patrol boat

TUNIS - A Tunisian fisherman on a trawler in international waters in the Mediterranean was killed on May 21 by gunfire from a Libyan patrol boat, the Tunisian TAP news agency reported on May 22. A Tunisian foreign ministry official quoted by TAP expressed his "profound regrets following the shots fired on Sunday by a Libyan naval vessel at a Tunisian trawler, resulting in the death of a Tunisian fisherman". The official noted surprise at the extreme measures employed by the Libyan patrol.

Kidnapped former Afghan governor found dead

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Afghan police on May 22 found the body of a former provincial governor who was kidnapped a day earlier with an ex-police chief, police said. Armed men snatched the one-time governor of Paktika province, Mohammad Ali Jalali, along with the former police chief of the same province and another man on May 21. Jalali's body was found dumped in a remote area while the other two men were freed. No one has claimed responsibility for the abduction.

Syria's Assad threatened Rafiq Hariri, son says

MOSCOW - Syrian President Bashar Al Assad personally threatened Lebanon's former prime minister Rafiq Hariri before he was killed in a bomb attack in February 2005, Hariri's son, Saad, claimed in an interview published on May 22 in Russia. "There were threats," said Saad Hariri. His father "told me that he had been threatened", his son is quoted as saying in an article published on Monday in the Russian daily Vremia Novostei. Asked whether he knew if Bashar Al Assad had "personally threatened" his father, Saad Hariri said "Yes".

Countries paid Iraq hostage ransoms

LONDON - Though denying it publicly, France, Germany and Italy secretly paid $45 million to buy freedom for hostages in Iraq, a Times of London report has said. The newspaper said that ransom documents show sums of $2.5 million to $10 million per person have been paid over the past 21 months by the three countries. Turkey, Romania, Sweden and Jordan and some US companies are said to have paid for hostages to be freed, the Times said.

Jordan names new ambassador to Israel

AMMAN - Jordan said on May 22 that it has appointed a career diplomat as its new ambassador to Israel. "Ali Ayed, the director of the prime minister's political bureau, has been named ambassador to Israel," a senior official said. The new ambassador is a career diplomat who served briefly as Jordan's charge d'affaires in Tel Aviv between January and April 2005. Ayed was also charge d'affaires in Washington from 1997 until 2001 and from that date until 2004 he was a close aide to the Jordanian foreign minister.

Landmines kill one Turkish soldier, wound another

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey - A Turkish soldier was killed and another wounded on May 22 in separate landmine explosions blamed on Kurdish rebels in the east and southeast of the country. A mine believed to have been planted by rebels from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party exploded as a military vehicle was passing near Lice, in the southeastern province of Diyarbakir, killing one soldier. A similar explosion near Baskale, in Van province, wounded a soldier.

Tunisia evicts Swiss human rights activist

TUNIS - Tunisian police on May 21 arrested and deported a Swiss member of the human rights group Amnesty International who was attending a meeting in Tunis. "Yves Steiner was invited on Sunday to leave Tunisian territory after behaving in violation of the laws of the country and in a manner that could disturb public order," an official said, without elaborating. An Amnesty spokesman in Switzerland confirmed that Steiner left Tunis on a plane bound for Paris.

Moscow, Riyadh to jointly fight terror

RIYADH - Russia and Saudi Arabia will form a joint committee to combat terror, Russia's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said on May 21 in Riyadh, in a further sign of warming ties between the two countries. "We have agreed to set up a joint committee to combat terror with representatives from the ministries of foreign affairs and other officials and this committee will have its first meeting soon," Lavrov told reporters in a joint press conference in Riyadh with his Saudi counterpart Prince Saud Al Faisal.

Kuwait clears ex-Guantanamo inmates

KUWAIT CITY - A Kuwaiti court acquitted on May 21 five former inmates of Guantanamo accused of fighting against US forces in Afghanistan under the former Taliban regime, their lawyer said. Mubarak Al Shimmari said that his clients were cleared of the charges, but did not give further details. The five were repatriated to Kuwait last November 4 after spending almost four years at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

"Why should we put these people on trial for the sake of appeasing our friend the United States?" their lawyer said. Other defense lawyers had also challenged the evidence provided by the public prosecution, saying that it was entirely based on interrogations by US officers in the prison.

Egypt detains woman with revolver magazines

CAIRO - Egyptian police detained a Palestinian woman at the Rafah border crossing on May 21 for trying to enter the Gaza Strip with three magazines for revolvers, a security source said. Police arrested Sabah Abdullah Al Nagar, 41, after finding the empty magazines in her bag shortly before she left for the Palestinian territories, the source added.

Iran's traffic police want tougher fines

TEHRAN - Iran's traffic police chief has demanded a huge increase in fines for traffic violations amid worsening carnage on the Islamic republic's roads. "At the moment, the fines are not working as a deterrent. They should increase," the head of Iran's traffic police, Mohammad Rouyanian, was quoted as saying by the Kargozaran newspaper. "For example, the fine for speeding is 200,000 [Iranian] riyals [$22], but it should increase to 1 million riyals," he said.

Decrepit vehicles - many of them more than 20 years old - as well as poor road conditions, general contempt for driving laws and the reckless behavior of bus or truck drivers who are often under the influence of drugs, are blamed for the annual death toll.

Ahmadinejad is a 'miracle', says new book

TEHRAN - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a "miracle", according to a new book about the hardline leader set to hit the Islamic republic's bookstores in the coming days. The conservative Fardanews Website said that the book was "written as a tribute to Iran's sixth president" who scored a shock election win 11 months ago.

The author of Ahmadinejad: the Third Millennium Miracle is Fatemeh Rajabi, the wife of government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham. "In her book, Rajabi will express her belief and the reasons to prove Ahmadinejad is a third millennium miracle on earth," the report added, without giving any further details.

Former Turkish PM Ecevit in 'serious' condition

ANKARA - Veteran politician Bulent Ecevit, a five-time prime minister of Turkey, remains in "serious" condition in an induced coma after suffering a brain hemorrhage on May 18, his doctors said on May 21. "Mr. Ecevit's vital signs are stable, but his general condition remains serious," the GATA military hospital, where he is being treated, said in a statement. "He will be kept in induced come for some more time so that an edema in his brain can be resolved," it added. It had been widely expected that doctors would start to gradually wake him up on Sunday morning.

Malaysia to give $16mn to Palestinians

SHARM EL SHEIKH, Egypt - Malaysia pledged on May 21 to donate $16 million to the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority after a Western aid freeze left its Hamas-led government in financial crisis. Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi made the pledge at a meeting of political and business leaders at the World Economic Conference in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm El Sheikh.

Iran says kidnapped diplomats are alive

TEHRAN - Iran on May 21 insisted that four Iranian diplomats kidnapped in 1982 in Lebanon by members of former Christian warlord Samir Geagea are alive and held in arch-foe Israel. "We consider them all to be alive, until the time we are presented with proof that they have been martyred," Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters. "They are alive and are held by the Zionist regime, and we holding Zionist regime accountable," he added.

Tehran and the Lebanese Shia Muslim movement Hizbullah have repeatedly claimed that the four missing Iranians are still alive and in Israeli custody, after being handed over by the Lebanese Forces militia to then ally Israel. Geagea has said that the four Iranian diplomats died in captivity at least 20 years ago.

Israel releases funds for Palestinian medicine

JERUSALEM - The Israeli government decided on May 21 to release 50 million shekels ($11 million) in customs duties collected on behalf of the Palestinian Authority to fund the purchase of medical equipment for residents of the West Bank and Gaza, the prime minister's office said. The decision to release the funds was taken by Ehud Olmert's cabinet ahead of the new Israeli prime minister's departure to Washington for a summit with US President George W. Bush.

Syria frees three dissidents

DAMASCUS - Syria released three of a dozen detained dissidents on May 20. "The authorities yesterday freed Khaled Khalifa, Abbas Abbas and Kamal Chekho," the president of the National Organization for Human Rights in Syria, Ammar Al Qorabi, said. Since last Sunday, Syria has conducted a wave of arrests following the publication of a petition calling for the authorities to finally recognize Lebanese independence.

Road death toll reaches 44 in Turkey

ANKARA - The death toll from a road accident in southern Turkey has reached 44, most of the victims believed to be illegal immigrants from Afghanistan and Bangladesh, officials told the Anatolia news agency on May 20. The accident occurred on May 19 when a truck packed with illegal immigrants rammed a trailer truck from behind near a toll booth on a highway near the town of Osmaniye.

Egypt arrests youths with bomb near Gaza border

CAIRO - Egyptian police arrested three Palestinian teenagers in possession of a bomb in the Egyptian border town of Rafah near the Gaza Strip, a security source said on May 20. The hand-made explosive was inscribed with the name of the Ezzedine Al Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Islamist movement Hamas, which is now governing the Palestinian territories.

Israel carried out nuclear test in 1979

JERUSALEM - Israel and South Africa carried out a nuclear test on an offshore platform in the northern Antarctic in 1979, according to a newly disclosed US document, Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper said on May 19. The document, released at the request of the security studies center at Georgetown University in Washington, says that a mystery explosion detected on September 22, 1979 by a US satellite was a nuclear test.

Prepared for the White House in December 1979, it said that Israel and South Africa, then under apartheid rule, were cooperating on military issues, including nuclear research. US intelligence services reported in 1990 that South Africa was producing nuclear weapons, while Israel is estimated to possess 200 nuclear warheads. South Africa later dismantled its nuclear weapons program under UN supervision.

Israel raises concern in Polish coalition

JERUSALEM - Israel on May 19 expressed concern to Warsaw over the entry into Poland's governing coalition of a far-right political party, which the foreign ministry said harbored anti-Semitic ideology. League of Polish Families leader Roman Giertych, a third generation far-right activist, has been appointed deputy premier and education minister in Poland's new coalition. The Israeli foreign ministry said that the party had "an anti-Semitic ideology".