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Blair: Iraq Is Real Threat Prime Minister Tony Blair has strengthened his support for a possible US-led attack on Iraq, saying the country "poses a real and unique threat".Mr Blair made the pledge whilst facing the Press at an open forum in his Sedgefield constituency. "I believe it is in the United Kingdom's national interest that the issue is addressed," he said. Constant dialogue The Prime Minister said "America should not face the issue alone" and promised "the fullest possible debate will take part in Parliament and elsewhere". "The rest of the world has a responsibility, not just America," he...

Israel's Supreme Court has approved the expulsion of relatives of a Palestinian militant from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip. In a landmark ruling, a nine-judge panel upheld an order issued last month against the brother and sister of a Palestinian suspected of organising suicide bombings. It said a third Palestinian related to another militant suspected of two shooting attacks near a Jewish settlement in the West Bank should be set free. Palestinian officials called the decision a "black day for human rights" and said they might file a complaint with the UN Security Council and the International Criminal...

Israel accused Syria yesterday of allowing up to 200 militants linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qa'eda network to settle in southern Lebanon. The newspaper Ha'aretz, quoting "various intelligence services", said Syria had also provided sanctuary for bin Laden's son, Omar, before and after the September 11 attacks in America. The leader of the September 11 hijackers, Mohamed Atta, visited Syria two or three times, the newspaper said. The information was published amid rising tension between Israel and Syria, following the death of an Israeli soldier in a raid by Syrian-backed Hizbollah guerrillas across the Lebanese border. Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, the Israeli...

Kuwait became the first Arab state yesterday to signal support for a US-led military coalition against Iraq, in marked contrast to the caution shown by other countries in the region. The Kuwaiti foreign minister, Sheikh Mohammed Sabah Salem al-Sabah, told The Telegraph: "While Saddam Hussein continues to keep Kuwaiti prisoners of war, and continues to televise threats against Kuwait, we consider the war against Iraq to have never ended."The sheikh's comments serve as encouragement for a Washington administration struggling to convince the international community of the need for military action.Saudi Arabia, which America used as a base during the 1991...

JENIN, West Bank, Aug 31 (Reuters) - Israeli helicopter gunships ambushed a car in the West Bank on Saturday, killing three Palestinian militants and two children with a double missile strike, Palestinian witnesses and medical officials said. They said two Apache helicopters struck at Tubas village near Jenin in the afternoon, obliterating the vehicle and its occupants, including a nine-year-old boy and a girl, also 9. But some residents of Tubas said the children were outside the car, felled by flying debris which also wounded seven other people. The three other people killed were men belonging either to the Islamic...

About 600 Russian experts started work Sunday on a key phase of the US$800 million project to set up a nuclear reactor in Iran. "We have reached the stage of assembling our reactor and the turbine," Viktor Kozlov, managing director of Atomstroiexport company was quoted as telling ITAR-Tass news agency. Kozlov told ITAR-Tass that as construction of the nuclear plant in Iran enters its final stage "the number of Russian specialists will rise and will reach 2,000 people by year-end," he said. The U.S. administration has expressed concern that the planned 1,000 megawatt reactor in Bushehr will help advance Iran's...

Iraq is due to dispatch envoys to European capitals, including Paris and Berlin, to explain its stance against US plots to overthrow the regime, Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan said. "Iraq is going to send emissaries to several European countries, including France and Germany, to explain the scale of American threats against the Iraqi people and the dangers they pose to world peace and security," Ramadan told the official Iraq News Agency (INA) Sunday. He added French and German opposition to US schemes to strike Iraq without seeking a new UN mandate "mean that European countries are aware of the...

IDF forces killed 5 Arab terrorists over the weekend. Early this morning troops killed four members of a terror cell during in an exchange of gunfire in a field south of Hevron. The Arabs were making their way towards a Jewish community in order to attempt an infiltration. Soldiers found wire-cutting tools in their possession. On Saturday afternoon air-force helicopter gunships fired air-to-surface missiles at the car of an Al-Aksa Brigade terrorist in the PLO-controlled town of Tubas, near Shechem, killing him along with four other Arabs. Security officials say that the terrorist, identified as Rafat Daraghmeh, was planning an...

The Muslim convert accused of trying to hijack a Ryanair plane from Sweden to Stansted attended an American flying school leaving with a qualification to pilot light aircraft. The revelation that Kerim Chatty, 29, had taken flying lessons in the US - just like the September 11 terrorists - came as detectives investigated reports that he was planning to crash the plane into an American embassy in Europe, possibly London. An intelligence officer in Sweden told Reuters: "We know for sure that the plan was to crash the plane into a US embassy in Europe." If London were the target,...

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