UNREST spread across the Middle East and North Africa yesterday as Bahrain launched a swift military crackdown on anti-government protesters and clashes were reported in Libya and Yemen.

IRAQ was yesterday investigating if a 14-year-old girl who died of a fever had contracted the human strain of the bird flu virus, while Turkey and China also reported new deaths from the deadly disease.

Nine people are dead following a car bomb in the northern Kurdish city of Sulaimaniya in Iraq and heavy casualties are being reported.