Middle East

The soldiers came looking for weapons of mass destruction. What they found in the flooded basement of Saddam Hussein's secret police headquarters was a legacy of destruction -- the demise of one of the oldest Jewish communities in the world.

U.S. officials in Damascus lack clear guidance on how to implement U.S. economic sanctions against the Syrian regime, an internal State Department study has found.

BRITAIN

BAGHDAD -- The leader of the bloc that received the most votes in last month's elections called Wednesday for the creation of an internationally backed caretaker authority to prevent what he said were unlawful attempts by Iraq's government to overturn the results.

IRAQ Weighing in on legally dubious efforts to change the outcome of Iraq's March 7 parliamentary elections, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton urged Iraqi officials Tuesday to act more speedily and openly in forming a new government.

President Obama won the unstinting support Monday of one of the world's most prominent leaders. And he is not going to be happy about it.

BAGHDAD -- U.S. Ambassador Christopher R. Hill expressed deep concern Monday about how slowly Iraqi officials have moved to seat a new government, saying they need to "get this show on the road."

NAIROBI -- The British ambassador to Yemen narrowly escaped an assassination attempt by a suicide bomber on Monday, an assault that Yemeni officials said had the hallmarks of an attack by al-Qaeda.

BAGHDAD -- The Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq acknowledged in a statement released over the weekend that its two leaders were recently slain in a U.S. airstrike in northern Iraq, confirming reports by Iraqi and U.S. officials.