IRAN said yesterday it would try three Americans jailed since crossing the border from Iraq in July, a step certain to aggravate the US at a time when Tehran is locked in a standoff with the West over its nuclear programme.

Israeli warplanes blasted targets all over Gaza early today, including a mosque and a TV station, after a day of intensive airstrikes that killed more than 200 Palestinians.

A Sudanese jet veered off a runway tonight and exploded into flames, killing about 100 people, Sudan’s state television reported.

Crusading actress Angelina Jolie has visited in war-torn Iraq in her capacity as a United Nations goodwill ambassador.

The release of kidnapped BBC reporter Alan Johnston is a message to the world that Hamas is capable of maintaining security and stability in the Gaza Strip, a senior official of the militant Palestinian group said today.

Talks on forming a Palestinian national unity government were suspended because Fatah was not serious about resolving the violent crisis threatening to tear Palestinians apart, a senior official of the militant Hamas group alleged today.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced today that he would call new presidential and parliament elections at the earliest possible date, in a bold challenge to ruling Hamas militants that risked sparking a full-scale civil war.

Israel will keep targeting Palestinian rocket squads in Gaza despite the risk of inadvertently hitting civilians, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said.

Hamas' supreme leader today called off a ceasefire with Israel and militants threatened to attack Americans after 18 members of a family, including eight children, were killed in an Israeli artillery barrage on a densely populated neighbourhood.

Armed Islamic militants attempted to storm the US Embassy in Damascus, Syria, today in a bold attack using automatic rifles, hand grenades and at least one van rigged with explosives.

Black smoke has been seen rising from the US Embassy in Damascus, Syria, according to the Reuters news agency.

Up to 50 more Irish citizens stranded in troubled-hit Lebanon are to be evacuated tomorrow.

Diplomatic efforts to end Israeli-Hezbollah fighting gained traction today, with Israeli officials saying the country would agree to halt fighting if its two captured soldiers were returned and Islamic guerrillas withdrew from the border.

Israeli leaders approved new incursions into the Gaza Strip, security officials said today, after the Hamas leader said he would not free an Israeli soldier whose capture by Palestinian militants led to a bloody 13-day confrontation.

Israel’s military offensive in Gaza could jeopardise the life of an Israeli soldier held by Palestinian militants, a senior Hamas official said today.

A senior Hamas official today tried to sneak £434,000 into the Gaza Strip, hiding 500-euro bills in a white pouch tucked under his shirt in the first major cash smuggling attempt by an increasingly desperate Hamas government choked by Western economic sanctions.

Muslims across the Middle East – Sunnis and Shiites alike – largely ignored sectarian divides today to unite in condemnation of the the bombing that destroyed of the golden dome that graced one of Iraq’s holiest Shiite shrines.

A senior Hamas official today brushed aside warnings that Western aid to the Palestinians could dry up because of the militants’ hardline stand on Israel, saying the Islamic group would not bow to international pressure.

A former Palestinian guerrilla said he “regrets nothing” and will not apologise for being one of the masterminds of the 1972 attack at the Munich Olympics in which 11 Israeli athletes were killed, according to a TV interview released today.

Thousands of Fatah supporters burned cars and fired guns in the air across the Gaza Strip, demanding the resignation of corrupt party officials and insisting on no coalition between their defeated party and victorious Hamas.

A defiant Iran announced it has begun pulling its foreign currency accounts out of European banks to protect its assets from possible UN sanctions over its nuclear program.

Arab media today closely watched the hospital condition of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, with satellite TV channels running updates at the bottom of their screens.

The man who confessed to killing film-maker Theo van Gogh in a murder that stunned the Netherlands will be sentenced today.

Lebanese officials said Syrian troops will begin pulling back toward the Syrian border today, as the leader of the Hezbollah militant group called for a demonstration in Beirut to counter weeks of anti-Syrian protests.

Defiant Palestinian militants pounded Jewish settlements in the southern Gaza Strip with mortar fire today, following the killing of a top Hamas militant in an air strike.

Hamas vowed revenge today after an Israeli air strike killed its second most senior commander, in the latest Israeli assassination targeting the militant group.

THE new leader of Hamas said yesterday the group had no plans to attack American targets but would try to kill Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in retaliation for the death of their spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.

ABDEL AZIZ RANTISI, a hardliner who opposes even a temporary truce with Israel, was chosen as the new Hamas leader in Gaza last night.

Abdel Aziz Rantisi, a hardliner who opposes even a temporary truce with Israel, is emerging as a Hamas strongman in the Palestinian areas after the assassination of the group’s founder, Sheik Ahmed Yassin.

PALESTINIAN leader Yasser Arafat yesterday said a formal cease-fire announcement was imminent after Palestinian negotiators secured a commitment from Islamic militants to halt attacks on Israelis for three months.

Arabs demonstrated in their thousands across the Mideast today, sometimes clashing with police, against Israel’s offensive in the Palestinian territories.

Israel-Palestinian peace talks were put off again after a Jewish woman was killed in a shooting attack and Israel closed off a swathe of West Bank land.