ROME: Italy will temporarily increase its number of troops in Afghanistan by 500 next year in the face of a "delicate operational situation" in western Herat province, the government said on Wednesday."The commitments we have made within NATO demand that our contingent in Afghanistan reach the figure of 2,800 for six months in 2009," Defence Minister Ignazio La Russa told the Senate defence and foreign affairs committees.La Russa said the increase would respect the ceiling of 2,600 set by parliament for the deployment because it refers to an average over a 12-month period. The defence minister was speaking the day after meeting with visiting US General David Petraeus, commander of US forces in the Middle East and Central Asia, who said he favoured a US troop surge in Afghanistan.Petraeus said he had "already made recommendations" for an almost doubling of the US force based on requests from General David McKiernan, the top commander of US and NATO troops in Afghanistan.NATO currently has some 50,000 troops in Afghanistan spread across the country with many of the Italians based in Herat which border Iran.
BEIRUT: Thousands of people converged Saturday on central Beirut to mark the fourth anniversary of the assassination of Lebanese former premier Rafiq Hariri.Waving Lebanese flags and carrying pictures of the slain leader, men, women and children gathered under sunny skies in Martyr's Square where members of the parliamentary majority were to address the crowd. The rally comes as final preparations are underway in The Hague for the launch of the international tribunal set up to bring Hariri's killers to justice. It also comes as the country prepares for legislative elections in June that will pit Western-backed political parties against a Hezbollah-led alliance backed by Syria and Iran.Hariri died in a massive car bombing on February 14, 2005 that also killed 22 others. The assassination was widely blamed on then Lebanese power-broker Syria, which has denied any involvement. The attack on the Beirut seafront was one of the worst acts of political violence to rock Lebanon since t...
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