Iraq

The FBI has said it will investigate a threat to kill U.S. talk show host David Letterman which was made by a Muslim extremist militant who appeared to call for the comedian's tongue to be cut out.

Since it decided to intervene in March, NATO has been fighting in Libya on the rebels side but after months of stagnation, in the last few weeks, the conflict appears to have turned in their favour.

Iraqi officials say gunmen wearing military uniforms pulled seven people from a Sunni mosque south of Baghdad and then shot and killed them, execution-style, the AP reported

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Following four days of rioting in the UK, with groups of people causing havoc on the streets in cities such as London, Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester, the Libyan leader, has criticised David Cameron's call for more police power and accused him of launching a 'crackdown on protesters'.

Following the President's 50th birthday celebration on Thursday, analysts were surprised to see how the celebrations quickly turned to a campaign rally, with the president even given his supporters a pep talk in Washington D.C.

The UK is at the greatest risk of terrorism of any Western economy, according to research.

The news that Britain is now open to the idea of Colonel Gaddafi spending his retirement in Libya, as opposed to being dragged off to an absurd court in Northern Europe, does not come as any great surprise.

According to a new speech by U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker on Monday, the United States has no interest in creating permanent military bases in Afghanistan and does not want to use the country as a platform to influence neighbouring countries.

Tony Blair's protection when he gave evidence at the Iraq War inquiry cost taxpayers almost £500,000.

U.S. General David Petraeus, the new director of the Central Intelligence Agency, handed over command of U.S. and NATO-led troops in Afghanistan on Monday, a day after a gradual process of transferring security to Afghan forces began.

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A round up of all the news from the British newspapers for 7th July 2011.

Al Qaeda's Iraqi affiliate claimed responsibility for two separate attacks in Iraq which killed at least 30 people in June, a group that monitors insurgent communications said.

A car bomb and a roadside bomb blew up in a crowded parking lot outside a government building north of Baghdad on Tuesday, killing at least 28 people and wounding dozens more, officials said.

Aiming to convince senators of the viability of the Barack Obama administration's Afghanistan policy, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton yesterday cited South Korea as a successful "investment" case. "You look at the decades of our investment in South Korea," she said, facing a barrage of questions in a meeting of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee aimed at clarifying Washington's policy and progress in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

President Obama has ordered 33,000 U.S. troops out of Afghanistan in the next 14 months with 10,000 to be withdrawn by the end of this year. The timetable settled on by the president after a vigorous internal review was faster than sought by some top military commanders but much slower than demanded by many domestic political critics.

Dozens of militants, many of them suspected al Qaeda members, have today escaped a Yemeni prison located in the south-eastern province of Hadramout, by using a tunnel they dug over the past months in what appeared to be a brazen, coordinated jailbreak, according to reports.

The number of forcibly displaced people around the world has reached a 15-year high, according to the UN high commission for refugees (UNHCR), with the vast majority languishing in poor countries ill-equipped to cater to their needs.

"We strongly condemn terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, committed by whomever, wherever and for whatever purposes, as it constitutes one of one of the most serious threat to international peace and security", this UN resolution was adopted in 2005 and set international background in which the Sri Lankan civil war was fought.

Syrian troops trying to quash three months of protests are committing "alleged breaches of the most fundamental rights", while 1,100 unarmed civilians have been killed in the crackdown says a UN report.

On Tuesday, armed men stormed the provincial council in Baqubah, the capital of Diyala province, killing at least eight people in the latest assault on government buildings in Sunni parts of Iraq.

Al Quaeda's second in command yesterday issued a eulogy for Osama Bin Laden, who was killed in a US raid in Pakistan on May 2. Ayman al-Zawahiri, who is tipped to become the terrorist organisation's next leader, had already been perceived by western powers to be Al Qaeda's real operational head for a long time.

Nato defence ministers are today meeting in Brussels to review the results of two months of air strikes in Libya, just as the alliance steps up its campaign.

As the people and the state are locked in a stand-off it seems that nothing can stop Syria from further spiralling into violence thanks to President al-Assad decideding to cling on to power no matter what the cost. While the protests first surfaced in the provinces, they have now spread to the big cities, making it harder for pro-Assad supporters to pretend that the protestors are just a bunch of pro-Islamists and violent thugs.

The National Transitional Council in Libya is slowly trying to establish itself as the legitimate successor to Gaddafi. The West has helped the rebel movement by widely promoting it and calling for countries throughout the world to officially back the new regime. However while the U.S , the U.K, France, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Canada have officially recognised the political organisation as the new legitimate representative body of the Libyan people, countries in Africa and in the Middle East ...

Bernard Henri Levy announced that he delivered a message on Thursday from Libyan rebel leaders to Israel's Prime Minister, saying they would seek diplomatic ties with the country if they came to power.

Following the failure of the African Union Road Map proposal presented by South African leader Jacob Zuma to broker a ceasefire between Gaddafi and the rebels, NATO powers are upping their intervention in Libya in a bid to break the deadlock, which has seen the Libyan leader hold on to power defiantly despite weeks of air strikes and a rebel uprising.

After UN Resolution 1973 was passed, coalition leaders promised "better days ahead for Libya" and pledged to "continue to act to help protect the Libyan people from the brutality of Gaddafi's regime" as well as to " support and stand by them as they seek to take control of their own destiny."

Obama's speech was of broad scope, with the US leader tackling different issues in different countries while using this as an opportunity to give the US response to the Middle East uprisings and regime changes. He pledged international economic support for countries undergoing democratic change, notably Egypt and Tunisia and warned Syria's President Bashar al-Assad to lead transition in his country, or to "get out of the way".