Iraq’s top Shi’ite cleric issues call to fight jihadist rebels
Baghdad, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraq’s most senior Shi’ite Muslim cleric urged followers to take up arms against a full-blown Sunni militant insurgency to topple Shi’ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a conflict that threatens civil war and a possible break-…
France deports Tunisian accused of jihadist recruitment for Syria
PARIS (Reuters) – France has deported a Tunisian national suspected of recruiting young French people for jihadist forces in Syria’s civil war, the interior ministry said on Saturday.
Syria car bomb near Iraq kills at least 8: monitoring group
BEIRUT (Reuters) – At least eight people were killed on Saturday when a car bomb exploded in a market in eastern Syria near the border with Iraq, a monitoring group said.
Finnish conservatives set to pick country’s next PM
LAHTI Finland (Reuters) – Finland’s ruling conservative party prepared to elect a new leader on Saturday who will take over from Jyrki Katainen as the country’s prime minister and contest a general election due in April 2015.
Israel reinforcing West Bank troops to search for three teens
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel is significantly reinforcing its troop deployment in the occupied West Bank to search for three Israeli teenagers who it believes were abducted by Palestinians, a military source said on Saturday.
Voting begins in Afghanistan’s presidential election run-off
KABUL (Reuters) – The final round in Afghanistan’s presidential election began at 7 a.m. (10.30 p.m. ET) on Saturday as voters headed for the polls to pick a successor to President Hamid Karzai who has been in power since the U.S.-led invasion ousted t…
Iraqi military breakdown fueled by corruption, politics
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Iraqi army that disintegrated under an onslaught by Islamist fighters this week was a hollow force, riven by corruption, poor leadership and sectarian splits – a shadow of the military Washington had hoped to leave in the war…
Taliban changing from religious group to criminal enterprise: U.N.
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The Taliban’s reliance on extortion and kidnappings, along with narcotics and illegal mining operations, is transforming it from a group driven by religious ideology into a criminal enterprise hungry for profit, U.N. sanction…
Obama faces limited options in Iraq crisis, doubts over air strikes
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Two and a half years after President Barack Obama disentangled America from a long, unpopular war in Iraq, his options for helping the Iraqi government stave off a militant onslaught are slim as doubts simmer over whether even pu…
Obama sticks to measured approach on Iraq, defying critics
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – When Barack Obama ran for president in 2008, he built his reputation as an anti-war candidate by disparaging U.S. involvement in Iraq, adamantly insisting: “It’s time to end this war.”
