BAGHDAD: Iran has sent additional units of special forces to fortify its northern border with Iraq and clamp down on what it says is infiltration by Kurdish opposition groups, Iranian state media reported on Friday.
Gen. Mohammad Pakpour, chief of ground forces of the paramilitary Iranian Revolutionary Guard, said “armored and special forces” units had been deployed to west and north-west provinces to bolster existing border security, the official IRNA news agency reported.

RAMALLAH: Palestinians are deeply concerned that Israeli far-right politician Itamar Ben-Gvir is to become police minister in a coalition deal with Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party that is set to create the most right-wing government in the country’s history.

Given Ben-Gvir’s ultra-extremist views, more violence and instability are expected in the Palestinian Territories and East Jerusalem.

He was convicted in 2007 of racist incitement against Arabs and backing a group considered by Israel and the US to be a terrorist organization.

ALGIERS: An Algerian court has pronounced death sentences against 48 people convicted of murder for killing a man they accused of setting deadly wildfires in summer 2020.

The murder of Jamal Ben Ismail, a singer who said he had gone to the Kabylie region outside Algiers to help battle wildfires that blazed across Algeria in 2021, shocked the country.

WASHINGTON: Palestinian officials in Ramallah said that US President Joe Biden’s recent promotion of US State Department official Hady Amr as special US representative for Palestinian affairs falls short of their expectations of a more comprehensive engagement by the administration.

Amr, who previously served as deputy assistant secretary of state for Israeli-Palestinian affairs, will now focus on Palestinian issues as part of the State Department’s Bureau of Near East Affairs.

BEIRUT: Lebanese MPs failed for the seventh time on Thursday to elect a successor to former President Michel Aoun.

MP Michel Moawad won the support of 42 MPs, but his tally fell well short of the required majority and was exceeded by the number of spoiled ballots cast by pro-Hezbollah lawmakers.

Next Thursday has been set for a new session of parliament to elect the president.

Moawad obtained two new votes from Change MPs Najat Saliba and Mark Daou. He said that his support was growing and called on the opposition to build bridges among themselves.