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BAGHDAD: A woman accused of recruiting dozens of female suicide bombers in Iraq has told how she helped plan the rapes of victims before convincing them martyrdom was the only way to escape the shame.The Iraqi military announced the arrest of Samira Ahmed Jassim, 51 - codenamed "Umm al-Mumineen", the mother of believers - on Tuesday. Officials played video footage of her confessing to recruiting and training women in suicide attacks before leading them to targets. In a separate prison interview with Associated Press - conducted a week after her January 21 arrest, with interrogators standing nearby - Jassim confessed to helping plan the rapes of young women. She said she would then step in to persuade the victims to become suicide bombers as their only escape from the shame, the agency said. In many parts of Iraq, rape victims are shunned by their families and society. AP was allowed access on condition that the information would be released after the announcement of the arres...

KABUL: Afghan President Hamid Karzai renewed criticism of U.S. and NATO-led forces on Wednesday and said he was determined his government would take a stronger role in the deployment and work of foreign troops.Last month, Karzai's government presented a draft proposal to NATO with a list of measures aimed at preventing civilian casualties, including a demand that arrests of all Afghan nationals be made by Afghan security forces only and that there be "high-level" co-ordination of air strikes."Our demands are clear and they are that house searches of Afghans, arrests of Afghans and civilian casualties must cease. And they (U.S. and NATO countries) are naturally putting on pressure to make us silent and retract from this claim. This is not possible," Karzai said.Taliban attacks rose by 33 percent last year, according to NATO-led forces in Afghanistan, with casualties among foreign soldiers, Afghan forces and civilians alike, all up from 2007.The U.N. said on Tuesd...

MUMBAI: Denying the rumors regarding his entry into politics, prominent Bollywood superstar Aamir Khan said, “I have no intention to join politics and termed all rumors declaring his resolve to barge into politics ‘Fake and Baseless’.” Aamir though has voiced concerns many time on political issues, he has always ruled out his formal stepping into politics.He, several times, proposed politicians to quit politics letting youth jump into it but always kept formal politics at his arm’s-length.Commenting on the recent Mumbai attacks, Aamir said, “Let’s see how many politicians will take negative advantage of the incident so as to bag them benefits in politics."

BRUSSELS: Britain scolded its NATO allies Wednesday for not stepping forward to share combat duties in Afghanistan, warning that there could be no freeloaders in the fight against Taliban-led insurgents."An alliance worth its name must be one that shares the burden of membership equally amongst its members, because there can be no freeloading when it comes to collective security," British Defence Secretary John Hutton said."Volunteering, not waiting to be asked, must be the hallmark of a proper relationship between the transatlantic members of this alliance," he told ambassadors at North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) headquarters in Brussels.NATO is embarked on its biggest and most-ambitious operation ever trying to spread the influence of the weak Afghan government across the strife-torn country and help foster reconstruction. But the Taliban and its cohorts, including al-Qaeda, drug lords and criminal gangs, have been waging an increasingly tenacious insurge...

JALALABAD: Islamic outfit in Afghanistan, Hisbe Islami claimed Wednesday killing as many as eleven U.S. troops besides torching three army vans in Jalalabad city, sources said.According to sources, Hisbe Islami militants lodged rocket offensive on a U.S. base camp killing eleven troops and destroying three army vans.NATO forces have shut down the road nearby crime scene for local traffic.

OSLO: The Norwegian government announced that it will allow Muslim women police officers if they choose to wear the Islamic head scarf. "After advice from police management, it has been decided that rules on police uniforms will be modified to allow for the wearing of a religious scarf with the uniform," the justice ministry said in a statement on Wednesday. The Islamic scarf, the hijab, is worn to cover the hair and surround the face. The police management said it was in favour of permitting the scarf to be worn with the uniform in order to improve the possibility of recruiting in Norway's Muslim community. "We think it's necessary to recruit widely and to develop a police force which reflects all classes in society, regardless of beliefs and ethnicity, which is more important than demanding a neutral uniform," wrote police chief Ingelin Killengreen. Several other European countries, including Sweden and Britain, have already allowed the wearing of religiou...

GAZA: Egypt informed the Palestinians in Gaza that it has closed down Rafah crossing point on its borders with the Gaza Strip on Thursday, a Palestinian crossings spokesman said. Adel Zo'rob, spokesman of crossings and terminals in the deposed government of Hamas that Egypt closed down Rafah border crossing "for delegations and patients without telling the reason." Since the beginning of the Israeli military assault in Gaza which started on Dec. 27 and ended on Jan. 18, Egypt has opened its borders for humanitarian aids, Arab and foreign delegations and wounded Palestinians. "Egypt told us the crossing has been closed on Thursday and no one is able to cross," said Zo'rob, adding, "all foreign and Arab delegations who entered Gaza should immediately leave." Egypt and other foreign countries had asked its citizens and the medical teams to leave the Gaza Strip before February 5 without showing the reason, but in fear of a resumption of an Israeli mili...

JERUSALEM: The Israeli army admitted on Wednesday that troops killed the three daughters of a Palestinian doctor during the Gaza war, mistaking them for spotters directing Hamas fire.A probe of the January 16 incident "found that two shells were fired from an IDF (army) tank resulting in the deaths of Dr (Ezzedine Abu) al-Eish's three daughters," the military said in a statement. It said a unit of the Golani Infantry Brigade came under sniper and mortar fire in an area filled with improvised explosive devices. "The force identified and located the source of fire from a house adjacent to that of the doctor's, and in response opened fire," the military said. The troops also fired at "suspicious figures" on the upper level of Abu al-Eish's house they thought were "spotters who directed the Hamas sniper and mortar fire." "It is from this fire, that the three daughters of Dr Abu al-Eish were killed," the statement said. "Fol...

CAIRO: Hamas and Egyptian officials continued talks in Cairo on Tuesday night aimed at achieving a long-term truce in Gaza, as violence flared around the Palestinian enclave.Representatives of the Islamist movement that has controlled Gaza since seizing it 18 months ago met Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, Cairo's pointman on Palestinian and Israeli affairs, hours after Gaza militants fired a rocket at an Israeli town.Israeli warplanes bombed smuggling tunnels on Gaza's border with Egypt in response and the Jewish state warned of the "severest riposte" to rocket fire. Hamas has said the group is ready to agree to a one-year truce with Israel, but has not ruled out an 18-month truce proposed by Egyptian mediators. The delegation met Suleiman in the morning and went into another round of talks in the evening. Salah al-Bardawil, a member of the delegation from Gaza, told a Palestinian news agency between sessions that the talks were "positive." Hamas ...