More than 450 Thai Muslims stranded at Bangkok’s besieged airport for four days have been bussed to a military base to board a plane for the hajj pilgrimage.

Australia is considering launching a case in the International Court of Justice against Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for inciting violence against Israel, prime minister Kevin Rudd said today.

Private American security guards should face trial over the shooting of 17 Iraqis, an official investigation has ruled.

More than 30 bodies recovered from a plane that crashed on a Thai island have not been unidentified because they were so badly burned, officials said today.

Officials from Israel and Iran put aside any political animosity today as they worked together to identify their dead nationals from Sunday’s plane crash on the Thai resort island of Phuket.

US troops in Iraq released seven Iranians hours after detaining them at a central Baghdad hotel, an Iranian Embassy official said today.

MARK SCANLON will make his return to international cycling in a familiar green jersey when he lines up with the Subway Eat Fresh Irish team for the start of the FBD Insurance RÁS in Naas on Sunday.

An Iranian envoy is to be allowed to meet the five Iranians detained by US forces in the northern Iraqi town of Irbil, state media reported today.

A suicide bomber struck outside a college campus in Iraq today, killing at least 31 people and injuring dozens.

Iran today condemned the abduction of its diplomat in Baghdad, adding that it holds the United States responsible for his life.

Gunmen wearing Iraqi army uniforms seized a senior Iranian diplomat as he drove through a central Baghdad neighbourhood, officials said today.

Russian and Iranian officials today ended two days of talks on a Russian offer to enrich uranium for Iran.

Russian and Iranian negotiators today ended a day of talks on Moscow’s proposal to enrich uranium for Iran with an agreement to continue negotiations, but did not announce a date.

Iranian foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki today called for an end to the violent protests over the Prophet Mohammed cartoons.

A political cartoonist from a leading German daily newspaper has received death threats after publishing a caricature showing the Iranian national soccer team wearing belts of explosives next to four German soldiers.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov today said that Iran could not hope to resume talks with the European Union unless it returned to the uranium enrichment moratorium it broke this month.

Iran’s ultraconservative new president – spurning international outrage over his remarks about Israel – joined more than a million demonstrators who flooded the streets of the capital and other major cities yesterday to back his call for the destruction of the Jewish state.

ISRAELI Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said yesterday Iran intends to destroy the Jewish state, and the international community must rally quickly to stop it.

Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern has said he is “shocked and saddened” at remarks by Iran's president that Israel should be wiped off the map.

The torture and execution of two teenagers by authorities in Iran was today condemned by Irish TDs.

Firms in the Middle East, India and Russia have expressed an interest in buying parts of the stricken car company MG Rover, it was learned today.

A Hezbollah militia leader was killed in a car bomb explosion in a southern Beirut suburb, a spokesman for the Islamic militant group said.

Four people were killed and two wounded when gunmen and police fought an armed battle in a diplomatic quarter of the Syrian capital Damascus, officials said.

US AIRCRAFT and tanks pounded the besieged Iraqi city of Fallujah last night as a series of blasts rocked the Syrian capital of Damascus.

Diplomatic efforts to end a standoff between US troops and an anti-American cleric in one of the holiest cities in Shiite Islam pressed forward today and an Iraqi leader said he saw “flexibility” on the side of the charismatic cleric, who heads a militia with several thousand members.

An Iranian diplomat was assassinated in Baghdad on today, an Iraqi Foreign Minister spokesman said.

The Irishman kidnapped in Iran last November has travelled to Ireland to visit his relatives following his release just over a week ago.

Opponents of the Iranian government clashed with mourners at a service for victims of the Bam earthquake.

Elite forces from Britain and the US are likely to play a crucial role in the attacks on Afghanistan - but co-ordinating them could prove difficult, military analysts said yesterday.