Three politicians who attended the wake of the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq pleaded not guilty to instigating sectarian strife when their trial began in Jordan today.

A member of Hamas detained for arms smuggling said he was ordered to monitor a Jordanian intelligence officer, according to a televised confession broadcast on state TV today.

Jordan today announced the arrest of more than 20 Hamas activists for allegedly smuggling weapons to attack targets in the kingdom and warned the Palestinian Hamas-led government of the consequences of any terrorist activity.

THE next pope will have a hard act to follow in Asia and the Middle East, where Muslims, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists alike mourned the loss of a man they saw as a messenger of peace and tolerance.

The US may soon begin transferring power back to the Iraqi people, but American peacekeeping troops will remain in Iraq for some time, President George Bush affirmed today.

US occupation authorities took the apparent gamble of cleaning up the appearance of the bodies of Saddam Hussein’s sons in a bid to convince sceptical Iraqis that Uday and Qusay are really dead.

A Muslim group based in Jordan has called for the death of the American author of a book intended to introduce Jews to the Islamic faith, a spokesman for the book’s publisher said yesterday.