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In the latest outburst of violence linked to the Syrian conflict, Sidon was jolted Tuesday by clashes between supporters of Salafist Sheikh Ahmad Assir and a pro-Hezbollah group that left at least one man dead.

The Lebanese Army deployed east of Sidon to restore calm, forcing rival gunmen to pull out of the streets.

Some 400 soldiers, backed by 20 armored personnel carriers, fanned out in Abra, an eastern suburb of the southern city of Sidon, which was the scene of heavy fighting between Assir’s supporters and the Resistance Brigades, a pro-Hezbollah group, security sources said.

For more than three hours, the two sides traded mortar and rocket-propelled-grenade fire that killed one man and wounded three, the sources said. The clashes created panic among the residents and brought life in Sidon to a standstill as many shops closed.

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The US is to open direct talks with Taliban leaders within days, it was revealed on Tuesday, after Washington agreed to drop a series of preconditions that have previously held back negotiations over the future of Afghanistan.In a major milestone in the 12-year-old war, political representatives of the Taliban will shortly meet Afghan and US officials in Doha, the capital of Qatar, to discuss an agenda for what US officials called "peace and reconciliation" before further talks take place with Afghan government representatives soon after.
Senior US administration officials speaking on background said they believed the Taliban had agreed to issue a statement committing itself to "oppose the use of Afghan soil to threaten other countries" – an important first step to severing ties with al-Qaida, according to Washington. The Taliban confirmed they were opening an office in Doha, and wanted "good relations" with other countries.
The US has agreed that a formal rejection of al-Qaida by the Taliban leadership would now be a "negotiating aim" rather than a precondition for talks. It will also seek a commitment from the Taliban to end its insurgency in Afghanistan and recognise women's rights in the country.
"This is an important first step but it will be a long road," said one senior US official. "We have long said this conflict won't be won on the battlefield, which is why we support the opening of this [Doha] office."
White House officials say they believe the Taliban delegation at the talks represents the movement's leadership, and includes more radical groups such as the Haqqani network. Officials said the US would have a direct role in the talks starting starting this week in Doha, but the substantive negotiations over the future of Afghanistan would then be led by the Afghan government.
"The core of this process is not going to be US-Taliban talks – we can help the process – but the core is going to be among Afghans," added the US official. "The level of trust is extremely low so this is not going to be easy."
A Taliban spokesman said the group was opening the Doha office to "reach understanding and initiate talks with countries of the world for the purpose of improving relations with them", and to support a peaceful, political solution to end the "occupation of Afghanistan".

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The UK-based SOHR said a car bomb detonated at a checkpoint near the military airport in the western neighbourhood of Mezzeh. There were reports of casualties, but no confirmation on the number of those affected.Ambulances were seen rushing to the area.
State controlled al-Ikhbariya Television said the explosion "resulted from an attempt to target the Mezze military airport".
Activists said Assad's forces cut off roads leading to the airport following the blast.
The compound, which is manned by Republican Guards, Special Forces and Airforce Intelligence, serves as a private airport for the family of President Bashar al-Assad. Since the uprising, it has been used as an artillery and rocket base to target rebellious neighbourhoods on the edge of the capital.
The media office of the Free Syrian Army, an umbrella group of armed rebels, confirmed that an explosion had targeted the military airport.

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A prominent cleric was assassinated near Ramadi on Monday (June 17th), Anbar provincial police said."A sticky bomb attached beneath the car of Sheikh Abdul Basset al-Turki, a member of the Anbar Scholar's Council, exploded as he toured Husaybah al-Sharqiya, east of Ramadi, in his car, killing him right away," Anbar police spokesman Col. Rahim Zaban told Al-Shorfa.

Al-Turki was a moderate cleric known for his rejection of terrorist groups and extremism, al-Zaban, adding noting that police have opened an investigation into the incident.

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Turkey warned on Monday it may bring in the army to help quell nationwide anti-government protests as two major union federations went on strike over police violence against demonstrators.The presence of soldiers on the streets would mark a major escalation of a crisis that has raged for nearly three weeks and poses the biggest challenge yet to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Islamic-rooted government.
Police "will use all their powers" to end the unrest, Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said in a televised interview. "If this is not enough, we can even utilise the Turkish armed forces in cities."
Turkey's trouble flared with fresh intensity after officers on Saturday evicted campers from Istanbul's Gezi Park, the epicentre of the protest movement.
Police spent the weekend firing tear gas and water cannon at thousands of angry protesters, with running battles lasting into Monday morning in Istanbul and the capital Ankara.
Turkey's two main trade unions, KESK and DISK, who represent hundreds of thousands of public sector workers, organised a one-day stoppage in protest, their second strike action since the unrest first erupted.
Groups of several hundred union members took to the streets in Istanbul, Ankara and the western city Izmir calling for the police violence to "end immediately". Their progress was at times blocked by police but there were no reports of fresh clashes.
The crisis began when a sit-in to save Gezi's 600 trees from being razed in a redevelopment project prompted a brutal police response on May 31, spiralling into countrywide demonstrations against Erdogan, seen as increasingly authoritarian.

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Mohammad Alam Sayee, the governor of Jowzjan province, was returning to his compound in the provincial capital Sherberghan, when armed men affiliated with Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum moved in on the facility, Sayee’s spokesman, Mohammad Yama Jamili said.
Dostum, a prominent military leader during the 1980s and an infamous anti-Taliban warlord in the ’90s, currently serves in the largely ceremonial role of army chief of staff.
After Sayee took refuge in his compound, tensions escalated and the two sides fired on each other, though no one was injured, according Jamili.

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Washington’s decision to arm Syria’s Sunni Muslim rebels has plunged America into the great Sunni-Shia conflict of the Islamic Middle East, entering a struggle that now dwarfs the Arab revolutions which overthrew dictatorships across the region.
For the first time, all of America’s ‘friends’ in the region are Sunni Muslims and all of its enemies are Shiites. Breaking all President Barack Obama’s rules of disengagement, the US is now fully engaged on the side of armed groups which include the most extreme Sunni Islamist movements in the Middle East.
The Independent on Sunday has learned that a military decision has been taken in Iran – even before last week’s presidential election – to send a first contingent of 4,000 Iranian Revolutionary Guards to Syria to support President Bashar al-Assad’s forces against the largely Sunni rebellion that has cost almost 100,000 lives in just over two years. Iran is now fully committed to preserving Assad’s regime, according to pro-Iranian sources which have been deeply involved in the Islamic Republic’s security, even to the extent of proposing to open up a new ‘Syrian’ front on the Golan Heights against Israel.
In years to come, historians will ask how America – after its defeat in Iraq and its humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan scheduled for 2014 – could have so blithely aligned itself with one side in a titanic Islamic struggle stretching back to the seventh century death of the Prophet Mohamed. The profound effects of this great schism, between Sunnis who believe that the father of Mohamed’s wife was the new caliph of the Muslim world and Shias who regard his son in law Ali as his rightful successor – a seventh century battle swamped in blood around the present-day Iraqi cities of Najaf and Kerbala – continue across the region to this day. A 17th century Archbishop of Canterbury, George Abbott, compared this Muslim conflict to that between “Papists and Protestants”.
America’s alliance now includes the wealthiest states of the Arab Gulf, the vast Sunni territories between Egypt and Morocco, as well as Turkey and the fragile British-created monarchy in Jordan. King Abdullah of Jordan – flooded, like so many neighbouring nations, by hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees – may also now find himself at the fulcrum of the Syrian battle. Up to 3,000 American ‘advisers’ are now believed to be in Jordan, and the creation of a southern Syria ‘no-fly zone’ – opposed by Syrian-controlled anti-aircraft batteries – will turn a crisis into a ‘hot’ war. So much for America’s ‘friends’.
Its enemies include the Lebanese Hizballah, the Alawite Shiite regime in Damascus and, of course, Iran. And Iraq, a largely Shiite nation which America ‘liberated’ from Saddam Hussein’s Sunni minority in the hope of balancing the Shiite power of Iran, has – against all US predictions – itself now largely fallen under Tehran’s influence and power. Iraqi Shiites as well as Hizballah members, have both fought alongside Assad’s forces.
Washington’s excuse for its new Middle East adventure – that it must arm Assad’s enemies because the Damascus regime has used sarin gas against them – convinces no-one in the Middle East. Final proof of the use of gas by either side in Syria remains almost as nebulous as President George W. Bush’s claim that Saddam’s Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.

For the real reason why America has thrown its military power behind Syria’s Sunni rebels is because those same rebels are now losing their war against Assad. The Damascus regime’s victory this month in the central Syrian town of Qusayr, at the cost of Hizballah lives as well as those of government forces, has thrown the Syrian revolution into turmoil, threatening to humiliate American and EU demands for Assad to abandon power. Arab dictators are supposed to be deposed – unless they are the friendly kings or emirs of the Gulf – not to be sustained. Yet Russia has given its total support to Assad, three times vetoing UN Security Council resolutions that might have allowed the West to intervene directly in the civil war.In the Middle East, there is cynical disbelief at the American contention that it can distribute arms – almost certainly including anti-aircraft missiles – only to secular Sunni rebel forces in Syria represented by the so-called Free Syria Army. The more powerful al-Nusrah Front, allied to al-Qaeda, dominates the battlefield on the rebel side and has been blamed for atrocities including the execution of Syrian government prisoners of war and the murder of a 14-year old boy for blasphemy. They will be able to take new American weapons from their Free Syria Army comrades with little effort.

From now on, therefore, every suicide bombing in Damascus - every war crime committed by the rebels - will be regarded in the region as Washington’s responsibility. The very Sunni-Wahabi Islamists who killed thousands of Americans on 11th September, 2011 – who are America’s greatest enemies as well as Russia’s – are going to be proxy allies of the Obama administration. This terrible irony can only be exacerbated by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s adament refusal to tolerate any form of Sunni extremism. His experience in Chechenya, his anti-Muslim rhetoric – he has made obscene remarks about Muslim extremists in a press conference in Russian – and his belief that Russia’s old ally in Syria is facing the same threat as Moscow fought in Chechenya, plays a far greater part in his policy towards Bashar al-Assad than the continued existence of Russia’s naval port at the Syrian Mediterranean city of Tartous.

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Attacks across Iraq targeting mainly Shi'ite Muslims killed at least 30 people on Sunday, police and medics said, intensifying fears of a descent into all-out sectarian war.
Ten years after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Sunni leader Saddam Hussein, a stable power-sharing compromise between Iraq's Sunni, Shi'ite and ethnic Kurdish factions is still elusive and violence is on the rise.
More than 1,000 people were killed in militant attacks in May, according to the United Nations, making it Iraq's deadliest month since the intercommunal strife of 2006-07.
Regional sectarian tensions have been inflamed by the conflict in Syria, Iraq's neighbor, where Sunni rebels are fighting to overthrow a leader backed by Shi'ite Iran.
Two car bombs exploded minutes apart in the predominantly Shi'ite southern oil hub of Basra, 420 km (260 miles) southeast of Baghdad, killing at least five people and tearing off shop fronts.
"We heard a bang and rushed outside," said Ali Fadhil, who was working at a nearby bakery. "I saw cars on fire, dead bodies covered with blood, and wounded people lying on the ground screaming for help."
"When police arrived, a second blast struck which was more powerful, leaving the street in a state of total destruction."
Another car bomb exploded in a busy market in the Shi'ite holy city of Najaf, killing at least seven people, and blasts also targeted Shi'ites in Nassiriya, Kut, Hilla, Tuz Khurmato and Mahmudiya in southern Baghdad.
Near the northern city of Mosul, gunmen shot dead six policemen at a checkpoint in Hadhar, police said.
No group claimed responsibility for the attacks but Sunni Islamist insurgents and al Qaeda's Iraqi wing have increased their activities this year, seeking to provoke wider confrontation between Sunnis and Shi'ites.
Sunnis in Iraq resent Shi'ite domination since 2003 and have been crossing into Syria to fight against President Bashar al-Assad. Iraqi Shi'ite militia and Lebanese Hezbollah guerillas have also joined the war on Assad's side.

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A much feared offensive by the government's newly reinforced troops on the country's second city got under way with a push from the city's airport on the Sakhour district.Rebel sources have reported that the government and its allies from the Lebanese group Hizbollah had been concentrating in the city for 15 days, seeking to capitalise on recent gains by the regime's forces.

Commanders have sought to draft thousands of their own fighters into the city to meet the anticipated government challenge.

Rami Abdul-Rahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said government troops were attempting to capture a major intersection in Sakhour, a district that links several major roads in Aleppo including one leading to the city's airport and another to the north. He said troops had attacked the neighbourhood from two directions but so far had failed to advance and had suffered substantial casualties.

The fight for Aleppo, a city of three million that was once a bastion of support for Bashar al-Assad, is critical for both the regime and the opposition. Its fall would give the opposition a major strategic victory with a stronghold in the north near the Turkish border. A rebel defeat would buy Mr Assad more time, at the very least. It could also turn the tide of the civil war against the rebels.

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Iranian centrist candidate Hassan Rouhani has won the Islamic republic's presidential election, Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar announced Saturday.
Iranian officials reported a high turnout, with nearly 73% of some 50 million registered voters -- men and women, young and old -- turning out, Najjar said.
The lines extended into the streets at times Friday, as voters waited to pick their choice to succeed two-term President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the country's 11th presidential election.
Rouhani takes Ahmadinejad's mantle as one of the country's most visible figures, at a time when it's dealing with painful economic sanctions tied to international concern about its nuclear program.But he won't be Iran's most powerful man. That distinction belongs to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has been Iran's supreme leader since 1989. He's got plenty of backing, from conservative citizens to loyalist militia groups to, most notably, the Revolutionary Guard.
The other candidates were two-term Tehran Mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Saeed Jalili, Mohsen Rezaei, Ali-Akbar Velayati and Mohammad Gharazi.
Velayati, Ghalibaf and Jalili, who is Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, are considered close to Khamenei and would have been unlikely to challenge his authority. Of the three, Jalili had enjoyed the most popular support going into the vote.
Results showed that Rouhani secured 18,613,329 votes -- or 50.7% of the 36,704,156 votes tallied.
Second was Ghalibaf, with 6,077,292 votes, and third was Jalili, with 4,168,946 votes.

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Iranian voters turned out in larger number numbers on Friday to choose a new president despite a limited choice of one relative moderate and three main hardline conservatives, with long queues forming outside polling stations.Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei urged Iranians to participate in force in the vote, damning U.S. officials who criticised the fairness of the election.
Reuters journalists were not granted visas to cover the vote but witnesses who visited several polling stations in the capital Tehran early in the day said there were more people waiting to vote than at the previous election in 2009.
Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar told state Press TV there had been a large turnout across the country in response to the leader's call.
"They want to stand against the enemy," he said. Israel, the United States and their allies, who accuse Tehran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons, top Iran's list of foes.
The interior ministry extended voting time by several hours, Press TV said, due to the large number of voters waiting outside polling stations.
Iranian analysts said a big turnout could benefit the sole moderate conservative candidate Hassan Rohani, since some of his natural supporters in the urban middle class had been toying with abstention.

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Members of Lebanon’s Hezbollah who are residing in Gulf Cooperation Council states will pay the price for the Shiite movement’s military role in Syria against freedom fighters.

GCC countries include Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates, with Jordan and Morocco having been invited to join.

A GCC statement, citing a ministerial council decision, said the measures will affect Hezbollah members’ “residency permits, and financial and commercial transactions.”

The statement urged the Lebanese government to “assume its responsibilities toward the behavior of Hezbollah and its illegal and inhumane practices in Syria and the region.”

The six-member bloc strongly condemned the flagrant intervention of Hezbollah in Syria and its participation in shedding the blood of Syrian people. The statement came after the Saudi Cabinet condemned Hezbollah’s “blatant intervention” in the Syrian crisis.

Fighters from Hezbollah openly spearheaded a 17-day assault on the Syrian town of Qusair near the Lebanese border which culminated with its recapture from the fighters last Wednesday.

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The United Nations secretary general said Wednesday that he was urgently seeking hundreds of new troops for the peacekeeping force in the disputed Golan Heights, where clashes from Syria’s civil war, cease-fire violations by both Israel and Syria, and an abrupt withdrawal of the force’s Austrian contingent are threatening four decades of relative calm. In a report submitted to the Security Council, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon requested authorization to increase the Golan force to 1,250 soldiers, up from its present size of about 900. He also said United Nations peacekeeping officials were looking into other ways of enhancing the force’s “self-defense capabilities.”Mr. Ban’s report came against a backdrop of escalating tensions between Israel and Syria that reflected the reverberations of the conflict in Syria, where insurgents are fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad. The fighting from that conflict has spilled into the Golan region multiple times, jeopardizing a cease-fire between Israel and Syria, formalized in 1974, that created the United Nations peacekeeping mission responsible for policing their disputed frontier.
Over the past few months, Syrian insurgents have detained Filipino members of the Golan peacekeeping force at least twice, and Israeli and Syrian forces have traded occasional artillery rounds. On June 6, clashes between insurgents and the Syrian army forced Austrian members of the Golan peacekeeping force to vacate the Quneitra crossing, the only gateway between Israel and Syria. Austria’s government responded by ordering its contingent of 377 soldiers home.
Their withdrawal, which began this week, has jeopardized the peacekeeping mission, known as the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force, or Undof.
“The situation has affected the Undof area of operation significantly,” Mr. Ban wrote in the report. “The ongoing military activities in the area of separation continue to have the potential to escalate tensions between Israel and the Syrian Arab Republic and to jeopardize the cease-fire between the two countries.”

Both Israel and Syria have expressed support for maintaining the force, but Israel has made clear that it reserves the right to use its own forces to prevent a spillover of fighting from Syria’s civil war to the Israeli side.

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Riot police officers moved into Taksim Square in central Istanbul on Tuesday, firing tear gas grenades and water cannons and enveloping the center of this city with smoke and the sounds of ambulance sirens. The square, which has become a sprawling and eclectic hub of grievance against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was transformed into a tableau of urban chaos.The operation took all day and was still in progress as the workday ended, when more protesters began reoccupying the square and police officers cleared it again with tear gas. The scene took on the air of a movie set: fireworks lit by protesters and nonlethal sound bombs set off by the police punctuated the chants of “Istanbul is ours! Taksim is ours!”

At intervals during the day, the police would advance into part of the square, then retreat again to rest, as officers mingled with onlookers, smoked cigarettes or bought snacks from street vendors. Short outbursts of clashes with protesters alternated with intervals of calm, allowing onlookers and tourists to gather in relatively safe spots and watch the action unfold, and then flee down side streets when the tear gas became too thick.

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