Hundreds of mourners gathered together tonight at a memorial service held for a family and a teenage friend who died after their light aircraft crashed in a remote mountain region.

IT WAS meant to be a fun bank holiday weekend away but it all went horribly wrong in bad weather on the Wicklow Mountains.

Two men have been charged with murder after a road-rage crash that killed a five-year-old boy and critically injured his mother and infant sister, authorities said.

Lebanon’s first parliamentary polls without heavy-handed Syrian influence began today.

Egyptian opposition leader and presidential hopeful Ayman Nour stepped out of Cairo’s central security headquarters today and was whisked to the shoulders of his supporters, free on bail in a case that angered Washington and undermined Egypt’s talk of democratic reform.

SAUDI Arabia vowed yesterday to strike with an iron fist at militants who attacked a Saudi Arabian petrochemical site and pledged every effort to protect foreigners, five of whom died in the shooting spree.

A WESTERN engineering firm yesterday said it was evacuating all 90 foreign staff from the Saudi city of Yanbu after gunmen shot dead five of their colleagues.

AS mentor to Osama bin Laden and the brains behind al-Qaida, Ayman al Zawahri is considered to be one of the world’s most dangerous terrorists.

PAKISTANI troops believe they have surrounded Osama bin Laden's right-hand man during a fierce battle on the wild Afghan border.

As mentor to Osama bin Laden and the brains behind al Qaida, Ayman al Zawahri is considered to be one of the world’s most dangerous terrorists.

ISRAELI troops stormed a Hamas stronghold yesterday and exchanged fire with dozens of masked gunmen in the most intense battle in Gaza in 31 months of fighting. Twelve Palestinians, including two children and a top bombmaker, were killed.

ISRAELI troops raiding a Gaza refugee camp arrested a Hamas founder yesterday, targeting the political leadership of the Islamic militant group for the first time in 29 months of fighting.