Gunfire broke out Thursday at a protest in western Afghanistan against a U.S. sniper in Iraq who used a Quran for target practice. Officials said a NATO soldier and two civilians were killed. Police opened fire on demonstrators who threw rocks and set tents on fire near a military airfield in western Ghor province. Two civilians were slain and seven others were wounded. Gunfire also killed one NATO soldier from Lithuania and wounded another, but it was not clear who shot at them. The Lithuanian Defense Ministry identified the dead soldier as Sgt. Arunas Jarmalavicius, 35, the first Lithuanian soldier killed in Afghanistan. (Source: AP)

Weapons from Iran have turned up in Afghanistan in "significant quantities" over the last two years, which NATO says is causing it great concern. Last week, NATO sounded the alarm over Afghanistan's southern neighbour, Pakistan, for providing "safe havens" for the Taliban through deals struck with the Pakistani government. Pakistan remains the biggest external security headache for NATO, which leads the 40-country International Security Assistance Force for Afghanis-tan, because Taliban and Al Qaeda militants are able to regroup, rearm, rest and train in its lawless tribal belt across what is a porous and unmanageable border. Threats from inside Iran are also undermining the rebuilding efforts in Afghanistan, said NATO spokesman James Appathurai in a wide-ranging interview on the regional security threats to Afghanistan. Mr. Appathurai said signs of Iranian weapons emerged "in the last two years" and that the military is watching this "relatively recent phenomenon" very closely. Over that time, there have been reports of shipments of arms, with apparent links to Iran, being seized by coalition forces inside Afghanistan. During a visit to Canadian troops in Kandahar this past Christmas, Defence Minister Peter MacKay said weapons from Iran are a threat in Afghanistan. (Source: Canada.com)

Pakistan's government said Thursday it is ready to ask the U.N. to investigate the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, a move opposed by President Pervez Musharraf. Law Minister Farooq Naek said officials had finalized a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon asking for the probe. Naek said he and Pakistan's foreign minister would carry the letter to U.N. headquarters in New York "very soon," once Ban gives them an appointment. Musharraf and the United States have opposed a U.N. investigation as unnecessary. Washington is urging Pakistan's new government to focus on tackling Islamic militancy and mounting economic woes. But the two ministers said the world body should probe the killing given the alleged involvement of international terrorists and the political sensitivity of the case in Pakistan. (Source: AP)

Pakistan's new government Wednesday agreed to pull its forces out of a restive region near the Afghan border and allow elements of Islamic Sharia law to be imposed there in return for a promise by local Islamic militants to end a wave of terror and arrest foreign terrorists operating in the area. The accord came a day after Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte expressed deep reservations about such accords, noting that a similar deal struck by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in 2006 had allowed Taliban and al-Qaeda forces to recruit and rearm. (Source: Washington Times)

Police arrested a 22-year-old man in connection with a bombing Thursday at a restaurant in southwestern England that left the suspect injured. Police evacuated a large part of Exeter city center after a small explosion at the Giraffe restaurant around lunchtime. An additional explosive was found near the scene and defused by a bomb disposal team, police said. Police said suspect Nicky Reilly was seen entering the restaurant's toilet shortly before the blast. He suffered serious facial injuries in the explosion and was hospitalized. He was the only person injured. Deputy Chief Constable Tony Melville told reporters: "Our investigation so far indicates that Reilly, who has a history of mental illness, has adopted the Islamic faith. We believe ... he was preyed upon, radicalized, and taken advantage of." Police did not provide a motive or further details, but said it did not appear to be part of a wider plot. London's Metropolitan Police said it had sent a small team of counterterrorism officers to provide support for the investigation. The restaurant, Giraffe, is a part of a chain of eateries popular among families. (Source: AP)

British police and intelligence officials searched a house in southwest England on Friday to try to determine what drove a young Muslim convert with a history of mental illness to walk into a busy restaurant with two bombs. Armed officers raided the home of 22-year-old Nicky Reilly in Plymouth late Thursday. Police said Friday that the search was continuing. (Source: AP)

Two men arrested after an explosives scare at a Swedish nuclear plant were released Thursday and police said they were no longer considered a threat to the power station.

The two maintenance workers were arrested Wednesday after security guards at the Oskarshamn nuclear plant found traces of a highly explosive substance on a plastic bag that one of them was carrying. The incident triggered a major security alert, prompting officials to shut down one of the plant's three reactors as bomb squads searched for explosives. None were found. After keeping the two middle-aged Swedes in custody overnight, investigators said there was not enough evidence to keep them in jail on suspicion of plotting sabotage. (Source: AP)

Iraq

Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric has been quietly issuing religious edicts declaring that armed resistance against U.S.-led foreign troops is permissible, a potentially significant shift by a key supporter of the Washington-backed government in Baghdad. The edicts, or fatwas, by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani suggest he seeks to sharpen his long-held opposition to American troops and counter the populist appeal of his main rivals, firebrand Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia. (Source: AP)

A U.S. helicopter strike north of Baghdad killed eight people in a vehicle, including at least two children, Iraqi officials said Thursday, insisting all the dead were civilians. The U.S. military said six were Al Qaeda militants but acknowledged children were killed.

Iraqi and U.S. officials each put the number of slain children at two. The reason for the discrepancies between the two accounts and the TV footage was not known. It was the latest incident threatening to alienate Sunni Arabs, who have played a key role in the steep decline in violence over the past year by joining forces with the Americans against Al Qaeda in Iraq. Beiji, an oil hub 155 miles north of Baghdad, lies in a largely Sunni Arab area. (Source: AP)

On Tuesday, some 10,000 Iraqi soldiers and police deployed in Sadr City, which for years was the unquestioned bastion of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia. The deployment was enabled by a truce between al-Sadr and the government. (Source: AP)

Two of the U.S. military's most prominent voices on Middle East issues are holding out the prospect of improved relations with Iran despite tensions over its nuclear and military ambitions. Army Lieutenant General Martin Dempsey, acting head of the U.S. Central Command, said in an Associated Press interview that Washington and Tehran could seek common ground on tough issues like combating the illicit drug trade in Afghanistan if Iran would stop its "malign activity" inside Iraq. Army General David Petraeus, who is expected to win Senate confirmation as the permanent head of Central Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday that although Iran is fueling proxy wars in the Middle East he sees a possibility of "more constructive relations." Their remarks reflect a U.S. effort, from President Bush and Defense Secretary Robert Gates on down, to highlight Iranian activity that Washington deems harmful in Iraq, Lebanon and elsewhere in the Middle East while also encouraging Tehran to change its behavior. (Source: AFP)

Army General David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said he expects to recommend additional cuts in U.S. troop levels there this fall. Petraeus said he would assess conditions before his departure in September, when he is scheduled to take over the U.S. Central Command. (Source: Washington Post)

The Pentagon's spies are looking to "eliminate" opponents' abilities to strike from space, or online. A new plan from the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, retired Gen. James Clapper, warns that the "current patchwork of passive defense" in cyberspace "is likely to fail in the face of greater vulnerabilities and more sophisticated threats. Defense intelligence must do its part to defeat this critical threat." In recent months, military officials have been issuing shrill warnings about attacks from space and cyberspace -- and darkly promising massive and devastating retribution, if the United States is struck. A recently-launched Air Force program is searching for "full control" of "any and all" computers. "Every potential adversary, from nation states to rogue individuals... should be compelled to consider... an attack on U.S. systems resulting in highly undesirable consequences to their own security," a recent Defense Department report notes. (Source: Blog.wired.com)

The current House version of the fiscal 2009 Defense Authorization bill contains a provision that would require the Pentagon to report annually on the threat posed by tactical nuclear weapons. The $601 billion bill contains language stating that numerous "nonstrategic" nuclear weapons are deployed by various countries and "their prevalence and portability make them attractive targets for theft and for use by terrorist organizations." "The United States should identify, track, and monitor these weapons as a matter of national security," the bill states, noting that a report should assess the risks of these arms being obtained by rogue states, terrorists and non-state entities. The measure appears aimed at countering tactical nuclear arms, including so-called "suitcase" nuclear weapons that actually are steamer trunk-sized bombs, developed during the Cold War by both the United States and Soviet Union. According to Russian officials in the 1990s, not all of Moscow's portable nuclear weapons have been accounted for since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. (Source: Washington Times)

The Senate yesterday approved $165 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan well into the next presidency, but in a break with President Bush and the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain, it also approved billions of dollars in domestic spending that includes a generous expansion of veterans' education benefits.

The war funding measure, which passed 70 to 26, will be twinned with the domestic spending package and sent to the House for final approval after Congress's Memorial Day recess. Senators stripped the package of all language that mandated troop withdrawals and sought to govern the conduct of the Iraq war, which had been in a previous version approved by the House. But the separate domestic spending package served notice to the White House that in an election year, lawmakers from both parties will demand coupling Iraq war funds with priorities at home. In total, the bill would cost more than $250 billion over 10 years, including $51 billion for the veterans' education benefits alone. (Source: Washington Post)

A U.S. Air Force Minuteman III strategic missile lit up the early morning sky over Southern California yesterday as part of test launch of the long-range missile. An Air Force spokesman from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., said the missile launch at 3:04 a.m. PDT flew a southwest course. Its simulated warhead hit a ocean target 5,250 miles away in an area 230 miles southwest of the Pacific island of Guam. The flight test was about 1,000 miles longer in range than most tests and successfully hit its target. Pentagon officials said the Minuteman III test was a routine reliability test of the nuclear delivery system. But it also will be used as part of a plan to convert up to 50 of the 500 Minuteman IIIs from nuclear to conventionally-armed long-range missiles, as part of what the military calls deep strike, or the capability of conducting very rapid long-range conventional attacks against weapons of mass destruction or terrorist targets. (Source: Washington Times)

U.S. officials said Thursday they will review whether more juveniles were detained at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay than the eight they have reported. The U.S. told a U.N. committee on child rights last week that "no more than eight juveniles, their ages ranging from 13 to 17 at the time of their capture," have ever been detained at the facility in remote eastern Cuba. (Source: AP)

Africa

Since May 14, fighting between the Sudanese armed forces and the SPLA has devastated the Sudanese town of Abyei, which has been virtually destroyed. Almost the entire local population has fled to the north and south of the town to seek refuge. Abyei, located in the centre of Sudan, and its surroundings had, prior to the fighting, a population of approximately 130,000, but almost 60,000 have now been displaced. (Source: Reuters)

Somali pirates on Friday released a UAE-owned ship they captured a week ago. The owners of the MV Victoria told the East Africa Seafarers Assistance Program that the ship was released Friday and is now traveling with a handful of Somali soldiers on board to ensure its safe passage, said Andrew Mwangura, who is the coordinator of the program. Marwan Shipping and Trading Company, based in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, owns the MV Victoria, but the vessel flies a Jordanian flag. The MV Victoria will travel to the Somali capital, Mogadishu, its destination before it was hijacked on May 17, to offload its cargo. (Source: AP)

Asia

North Korea's food shortages are unlikely to lead to a massive famine like the one that killed up to 2 million people in the 1990s, a South Korean intelligence agency official said Friday. The National Intelligence Service has told Parliament that the North faces a shortfall of about 1.2 million tons of food this year but international aid, including 500,000 tons of food promised by the United States, is expected to address some of the shortage. North Korea has relied on foreign assistance to feed its 23 million people since the 1990s, when natural disasters and mismanagement devastated the country's economy. As many as 2 million people are believed to have died from famine at the time. (Source: AP)

The presidents of China and Russia have condemned a U.S. plan for a global missile defense system. Chinese President Hu Jintao and new Russian President Dmitry Medvedev say in a joint statement that the plan "does not help to maintain strategic balance and stability or strengthen international efforts to control nonproliferation." Medvedev arrived Friday in Beijing on his first overseas trip since his inauguration this month. Moscow and Beijing have formed closer ties in recent years as part of their efforts to counterbalance Washington's global dominance. (Source: AFP)

Defense intelligence officials said this week that China's new J-10 jet fighter was built with the help of Israel, under the U.S.-sponsored Lavi jet fighter program canceled back in 1987. According to the officials, Russia also has helped with the J-10 program, helping Beijing to develop a new J-10 engine to replace the current one, a Chinese copy of the CFM-56 jet engine developed jointly by General Electric and the French company Snecma. The J-10 was under development in secret for years but its deployment was only acknowledged by Beijing in January 2007. It is considered a fourth-generation fighter-bomber comparable to the U.S. F-16. The defense officials' comments followed a report in Jane's Defence Weekly stating that the J-10 is a close copy of the Lavi jet, and that Chinese developers had access to a Lavi prototype in Chengdu, where the J-10 was designed and built. Documents in Hebrew on the Israel Aircraft Industries jet also were observed by Russian engineers. The Lavi was developed with $1.8 billion in U.S. aid to Israel. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld in 2005 sharply restricted U.S. military technology sharing with Israel over concerns about Israeli-Chinese military cooperation.

The Israeli-Chinese J-10 cooperation involved "decades"-long exchanges between Russian, Israeli and Chinese aircraft developers, the magazine stated, quoting Russians involved in the program. The cooperation included extensive design and performance modeling, wind-tunnel testing and advanced aerodynamic design input. (Source: Washington Times)

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, on a mission to open Myanmar to international disaster assistance, said the ruling junta agreed Friday to allow "all aid workers" into the country to help survivors. Ban's comments came after a crucial two-hour meeting Friday with the junta leader, Senior General Than Shwe, the country's most powerful figure. Myanmar's junta has until now refused to allow an influx of foreign aid and experts to reach survivors of Cyclone Nargis, which struck three weeks ago and killed at least 78,000 people and left 56,000 missing. (Source: AP)

Government troops and ethnic Tamil separatists fought gunbattles that killed 22 rebels and two soldiers in war-ravaged northern Sri Lanka, the military said Friday. Fighting has escalated in recent months along the front lines separating government-controlled territory and the Tamil Tiger rebels' de facto state in the north. The government has pledged to capture the rebel-held territory and crush the insurgents by the end of the year. Diplomats and other observers say, however, that the army has faced more resistance than expected. The latest battles erupted Thursday in the Jaffna, Vavuniya, Mannar and Welioya areas bordering the rebel-held territory. (Source: AP)

Europe

Northern Ireland paramilitary groups that refuse to disarm will lose their legal right to hand over weapons without fear of criminal prosecution, the British government announced Thursday. At a conference commemorating the Good Friday peace accord, Northern Ireland Secretary Shaun Woodward said Britain and Ireland would not continue to fund a disarmament commission led by retired Canadian Gen. John de Chastelain. Without the commission, a weapons amnesty in place since 1997 would end, exposing paramilitary members to prison if they try to hand over arms to police. Woodward did not specify a deadline for ending the amnesty. He said he planned to make a decision in the coming months or year. (Source: AP)

The German parliament's upper house approved the European Union's new treaty on Friday, the document's last legislative hurdle in the 27-nation bloc's most populous country. The document, known as the Lisbon Treaty, easily won the necessary two-thirds majority in the upper house, which represents the country's 16 state governments. All but one state voted in favor, giving the treaty 65 out of a possible 69 votes. Germany becomes the 14th country to approve the treaty in parliament. Only President Horst Koehler's signature, usually a formality, is required to complete ratification. (Source: AP)

Serbia has withdrawn its ambassador to the Czech Republic to protest the country's recognition of Kosovo's declaration of independence. A Foreign Ministry statement released Friday says Serbia's government has also lodged a formal protest with the government in Prague. Kosovo was Serbia's medieval heartland, but is now populated mostly by ethnic Albanians. It declared independence from Serbia in February.

Kosovo has won recognition from the United States and more than half of European Union member nations. Serbia and its traditional ally Russia oppose Kosovo's statehood. (Source: AP)

Georgia's election commission says President Mikhail Saakashvili's party is on track for a huge majority in Parliament. The commission says a nearly complete vote count from Wednesday's election indicates Saakashvili's party will hold about 120 of the Parliament's 150 seats. It says the United National Movement has nearly swept the district races that fill half the seats. Saakshvili's opponents dispute the results and are devising strategies to contest them. A leader said Friday that the main United Opposition bloc considers the election illegitimate and might refuse to take parliament seats it wins. (Source: AP)

Middle East

After rejecting Israel's conditions for a cease-fire, Hamas officials on Thursday expressed disappointment over Egypt's failure to endorse their stance. "Instead of putting pressure on Israel to accept the truce, the Egyptians are pushing us to accept the Israeli conditions," a top Hamas official in Gaza said. A Hamas delegation headed by Mahmoud Zahar and Musa Abu Marzouk that held talks in Cairo this week with Egyptian Intelligence chief Omar Suleiman left Egypt Thursday after failing to reach an agreement on the terms of the truce proposal. Suleiman is reported to have warned that the entire Hamas leadership would be wiped out if Israel launched a massive military offensive in Gaza to halt Palestinian rocket attacks. (Source: Jerusalem Post)

An Israeli Defense Force (IDF) soldier was wounded by an anti-tank missile fired by Palestinian gunmen during activity against terror infrastructure in south Gaza on Friday. On Thursday IDF forces uncovered an anti-tank missile and launcher in a school yard in the Gaza City neighborhood of Sajaiyeh. Earlier Thursday, a Palestinian was killed and 18 others were injured as IDF soldiers opened fire at a procession approaching the border fence organized by Hamas. At first, the soldiers attempted to disperse the procession using crowd dispersal means, but at a certain stage the forces spotted a number of gunmen and fired at the lower part of their bodies. (Source: Ynet News)

A truck loaded with four tons of explosives blew up on the Palestinian side of the Erez crossing Thursday in Gaza. IDF sources said the truck was supposed to explode on the Israeli side, but must have blown up too early either due to a technical problem or because it ran into poles near the crossing. The Israel Defense Forces believes that the failed attack was part of an attempt to abduct IDF soldiers. The truck blew up about 100 meters from the Israeli side of the crossing. Islamic Jihad released a video of the suicide bomber, Ibrahim Nasser, 23, showing a young bearded man in uniform, smiling as he brandished a Kalashnikov rifle. Palestinians also fired mortar rounds at Israeli positions during the attack, which occurred while the area was covered by dense fog. The explosion left a 12-meter-wide hole and shattered windows at nearby Moshav Netiv Ha'asara. (Source: Ha'aretz)

Israel never pledged to withdraw from the Golan Heights and return to the 1967 borders as part of peace negotiations with Syria, despite declarations of officials in Damascus, Israeli sources told Israel Channel 10 Thursday. The sources said Israel had initially intended to wait for direct negotiations to begin before publicizing news of renewed contact, but Syria had wanted the talks to be made public. (Source: Ha'aretz)

The U.N. Security Council is giving strong backing to the deal to end Lebanon's 18-month political crisis. But the council dropped a specific reference to a 2004 resolution demanding the disarmament of the Hezbollah militia, which is widely seen as the victor in the agreement reached Wednesday in Qatar's capital, Doha. A statement approved Thursday by the 15 council members calls for full implementation of the Doha agreement, in conformity with an agreement that ended Lebanon's Civil War (1975-90) "and all relevant Security Council resolutions..." While the U.S. insisted that the relevant measures include the 2004 resolution demanding the disarmament of all militias in Lebanon, other council members disagreed. (Source: AP)

The United Nations peace-keeping force in Lebanon has maintained a quieter-than-usual presence since the Hizbullah takeover. Lebanese sources said UNIFIL has increased its coordination with the Iranian-sponsored Hizbullah in the south of the country. The sources said UNIFIL commanders have stopped patrols near Shi'ite villages and have coordinated checkpoints with local agents of Hizbullah or army officers regarded as close to the militia. (Source: World Tribune)

U.S. Secretary of State Rice and British Foreign Secretary Miliband said Thursday they believed Hizbullah had been weakened by this month's fighting in Beirut despite the greater influence the militant group gained in Lebanon's cabinet. "Hizbullah lost something very important, which is any argument that it is somehow a resistance movement on behalf of the Lebanese people," Rice said. "The guns of Hizbullah were trained on their own people. The long term consequences of that are potentially going to strengthen the forces of democracy in Lebanon," said Miliband. (Source: Reuters)

Lebanese Army Commander General Michel Suleiman will be elected as Lebanon's next president, according to the deal reached in Qatar by the rival Lebanese leaders. Suleiman was appointed by the Syrians as commander of the Lebanese Army in 1998. His brother-in-law, Gebran Kuriyyeh, was the official spokesman of Hafez Assad, father of the current Syrian president Basher Assad. Suleiman praised Hizbullah for its alleged victory during the summer 2006 war with Israel. (Source: Ya Libnan-Lebanon)

Kuwait has reported a doubling of its crude oil export capacity. The state-owned Kuwait Oil Co. reported a capacity of 2.6 million barrels per day. Executives said the sheikdom has reached a total projected production capacity of 3.4 million barrels per day. On Wednesday, the price of crude oil reached $134 per barrel. KOC chairman Sami Al Rashid said his company has launched two phases of the Export Facilities Project, constructed by South Korea's Hyundai Heavy Industries. Al Rashid said the project was scheduled to be completed in March 2009 and would increase oil exports to 3.4 million barrels per day. (Source: World Tribune)

The United Nation's nuclear watchdog says it has received new proposals from Iran regarding its provocative nuclear program. Mohammad ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said he received Iran's "proposals" in response to the "additional bundle of incentives" the country received from the five permanent U.N. Security Council members and Germany, KUNA, the Kuwaiti news agency, reported Friday. The content of the proposals was unclear but it was related to Iran's controversial nuclear program, the news agency said. Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's IAEA representative has denied claims his country had tested nuclear warheads, reiterating Iran's nuclear program was to produce electricity. (Source: UPI)

Iranian Justice Seeking University Students Movement and University Students Mobilization Basij will jointly sponsor International Conference on Israel's End on May 26th, 2008. According to public relations of the above mentioned Students Movement, the timing of the conference is adjusted to coincide with the sad 60th anniversary of Palestine's occupation by the Zionists. The guests of the conference that would be attended by Iranian and foreign students of universities in Tehran will be intellectuals and university professors from Egypt, Venezuela, Morocco, Lebanon, Indonesia, the United States, Pakistan, Argentina, India, Iraq, Syria, Chile, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, France, Tunisia, and a number of other countries. Supporting the Palestinian nation's righteous liberation movement and signs of the illegitimate Zionist regime's upcoming downfall are among the axes of the international conference. (Source: IRNA-Iran)

The U.S. will aggressively impose more sanctions on Iran as long as it refuses to give up sensitive nuclear work and uses the world's financial system for "terrorism," U.S. Secretary of State Rice said on Thursday. "If Iran has peaceful intent as they say, then they should have no problem with the International Atomic Energy Agency having complete and absolute and total access. The word that is coming out is that that is not" the case, said Rice. (Source: Reuters)