Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein embraced sobbing relatives and thanked colleagues after being released Wednesday after more than two years in U.S. military custody. Hussein, 36, was freed at a checkpoint in Baghdad, where he was taken by the military aboard a prisoner bus. He left U.S. custody wearing a traditional Iraqi robe and appeared in good health. The U.S. military had accused Hussein of links to insurgents, but did not file specific charges. In December, military authorities brought Hussein’s case into the Iraqi court system for possible trial.
The Israeli army attacked a series of targets throughout the Gaza Strip Wednesday, killing at least 19 Palestinians including a Reuters cameraman, medical officials said. Three Israeli soldiers died in separate fighting. The bloodshed marked a sudden spike in violence in Gaza, which had experienced a relative lull since Israel ended a broad offensive in the area in early March. The Israeli army often operates in Gaza to prevent Palestinian militants from firing rockets into southern Israel. In the deadliest incident, an Israeli helicopter fired four missiles at targets near the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza. At least 11 Palestinians, including two youths, were killed, said Dr. Moaiya Hassanain of the Palestinian Health Ministry.
An Afghan opposition group says its leaders, including a former president, have been meeting with the Taliban and other anti-government groups in hopes of negotiating an end to rising violence in the country. The contacts have taken place between leaders of the opposition National Front and “high level” militant leaders during the last few months, party spokesman Sayyid Agha Hussain Fazel Sancharaki said in an interview Sunday. He said among those at the meetings were former President Burhanuddin Rabbani, now a member of parliament, and Mohammad Qasim Fahim, who is President Hamid Karzai’s security adviser and a powerful northern strongman.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Wednesday he’s more confident than ever his government will defeat al-Qaida in Iraq and that confrontation with militia fighters will help achieve political stability. The prime minister told lawmakers at the European Parliament that Iraq’s leaders were “determined to achieve victory against terrorism” during a visit to European Union headquarters in which he is pushing for closer ties with the 27-nation bloc.
Revising his stance on global warming, President Bush on Wednesday proposed a new target for stopping the growth of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2025. The president also called for putting the brakes on greenhouse gas emissions from electric power plants within 10 to 15 years. “To reach our 2025 goal, we will need to more rapidly slow the growth of power sector greenhouse gas emissions so that they peak within 10 to 15 years, and decline thereafter,” Bush said in excerpts of the speech released early by the White House.
Thousands of police patrolled central New Delhi, guarding against anti-China protests for the Olympic torch relay Thursday in India, the heart of the world’s Tibetan exile community. About 100 Tibetan exiles tried to breach the security cordon Wednesday around the Chinese Embassy. Police dragged away about 50 of them, loading them into police vans – but not before they manage to spray paint “No Olympics in China” on a street near the embassy.
