A US drone attack has killed at least five people, and injured at least five others in the Hindikhel area of Bannu on Wednesday. Intelligence officials say the strike took place just after dawn on Wednesday morning. ‘The strike overnight destroyed the house of a tribesman Sakhi Mohammad in the Bannu district,’ a senior security official told AFP. ‘At least two foreigners were among five killed,’ the official added. The number of casualties is feared to rise.

DUBAI: A Taliban military leader threatened to carry out attacks in Paris unless French troops are pulled out of Afghanistan, in a video broadcast on Monday on Al-Arabiya television. The video, which the Dubai-based TV station did not say how it obtained or when it was filmed, also claimed responsibility for an operation in August in which 10 French soldiers were killed.

Israel will keep all access to the Gaza Strip closed Tuesday, said an Israeli spokesman.

“This decision has been taken by the Defence Minister Ehud Barak because of the continued Palestinian rocket fire at southern Israel,” Peter Lerner, of the office handling Israeli activities in the Palestinian territories, told AFP.

Six rockets fired from the Gaza Strip on Monday came down in the Negev desert, southern Israel, without causing any casualties, police said.

The attacks were the latest in and around the besieged Gaza Strip where Israeli forces and Palestinian militants have engaged in almost daily tit-for-tat attacks since November 4.

Food distribution to half the Gaza Strip’s 1.5 million population was to resume on Tuesday but the United Nations fears supplies will soon run out unless Israel eases its crippling blockade.

“Distribution will go on of the very small amount we brought in on Monday,” said UN Works and Relief Agency (UNRWA) spokesman Chris Gunness.

“The supplies will last days, not weeks,” he told AFP.

Amid mounting pressure from the international community, Israel last week allowed some industrial fuel to be delivered to Gaza’s sole power plant and on Monday it let in 33 truckloads of humanitarian and other basic supplies.

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert promised Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas during talks on Monday to release 250 Palestinians prisoners next month, a spokesman for Olmert said. ‘The 250 prisoners will be released in advance of the upcoming Muslim holiday,’ said the spokesman, describing the move as a goodwill gesture towards Abbas, who revived peace talks with Israel after breaking with Hamas rivals last year.

MOSUL: At least 10 people were killed and scores more injured in a series of bomb attacks across Iraq on Saturday, Iraqi police said. A car bomb in the northern Iraqi town of Tal Afar killed seven people and wounded more than three dozen when it exploded near an auto dealership, police said.

GAZA CITY: Four armed Palestinians were killed in an Israeli air strike in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, Israeli and Palestinian sources said. ‘There was an aerial attack against a (rocket) launching squad in the northen Gaza Strip a few minutes ago,’ an Israeli military spokesman said. ‘The force identified hitting them.’ Doctors at the Shifa hospital in Gaza City said they had received four bodies.

Palestinians said the operatives were from the Hamas-allied Popular Resistance Committees. A spokesman for the group calling himself Abu Attaya said the four were firing mortar shells into Israel when they were killed.

Im Norden Afghanistans hat nach Informationen von “Spiegel Online” ein Attentäter einen Konvoi der Bundeswehr angegriffen und zwei deutsche Soldaten verletzt.

Ein Zivilist sei ums Leben gekommen, berichtete “Spiegel Online” weiter. Zwei Zivilisten wurden demnach verletzt. Das Einsatzführungskommando der Bundeswehr bestätigte den Angriff dem Bericht zufolge. Der Anschlag auf die deutschen Soldaten ereignete sich laut “Spiegel Online” in der Provinz Baghlan in der Nähe der gleichnamigen Stadt. Der Bundeswehrkonvoi sei Richtung Kundus unterwegs gewesen.

Bei der Explosion wurde dem Bericht zufolge ein deutscher Soldat leicht, ein weiterer schwerer verletzt. Beide wurden unmittelbar nach dem Anschlag von einem Arzt versorgt, der die Patrouille begleitete. Der schwerer verletzte Soldat sei zur weiteren Behandlung in ein Bundeswehrcamp gebracht worden.

Nov 13 - At least 11 people have been killed in another suicide bomb attack in a troubled region of Afghanistan.

An American soldier and 10 civilians died when a suicide bomber targeted US-led troops in Jalalabad. On Wednesday two British soldiers were killed on patrol in Helmand province and 10 people died in suicide bomb attacks in another part of Helmand and Kandahar.

This year has been the bloodiest in Afghanistan since the Taliban’s overthrow in 2001, raising fears about the success of international efforts to bring peace to the country.

Sonia Legg reports.

Washington (AFP) - Der künftige US-Präsident Barack Obama befürwortet zur Beilegung des Konflikts in Afghanistan Gespräche mit den radikalislamischen Taliban. Die “Washington Post” berichtete unter Berufung auf Obamas Berater, Verhandlungen zwischen der afghanischen Regierung und “reuigen” Taliban würden von der künftigen US-Führung unterstützt. Außerdem wolle Obama den Iran in eine regionale Strategie für Afghanistan einbinden. Derweil nahm Obama erstmals sein neues Zuhause in Augenschein. Er stattete Amtsinhaber George W. Bush einen Besuch im Weißen Haus in Washington ab.

Sowohl die USA als auch der Iran wollten verhindern, dass extremistische Sunniten in Afghanistan an die Macht kommen, sagte ein US-Armeevertreter der “Washington Post”. Der britische Premierminister Gordon Brown stellte mehr Soldaten für Afghanistan in Aussicht, wenn Obama dies wünsche. Obama hatte im Wahlkampf angekündigt, die Truppen in Afghanistan zu verstärken. Großbritannien hat derzeit mehr als 8000 Soldaten am Hindukusch stationiert und ist damit nach den USA zweitgrößter Truppensteller.

Quelle afp.com

Militants in northwest Pakistan hijacked 13 trucks carrying supplies for Western forces in Afghanistan on Monday as they passed through the Khyber Pass, a government official said. Most supplies, including fuel, for US and other Western forces battling a Taliban insurgency in landlocked Afghanistan are trucked through neighbouring Pakistan, which is also facing growing militant violence.