An unknown number of refugees at a U.N. refugee camp in Saada, a province in northern Yemen, were killed in fighting between government troops and Shi'ite rebels.
Details are sketchy, according to Al-Arabiya, but it's believed that a rocket or mortar round landed in the camp. Some of the victims were women and children.
Around 500 people live in the camp, on the outskirts of Saada. More than 150,000 people have been displaced by the fighting since it began earlier this year.
The Pakistani military flew a group of journalists to South Waziristan for a stage-managed photo op to show off their progress in fighting Hakimullah Mehsud's Taliban fighters.
The Guardian's Declan Walsh described the trip, which included a display of "militant paraphernalia."
Soldiers had neatly laid out stacks of artillery shells, piles of antiquated rifles, jihadist banners, broken computers, Islamist propaganda books and, most intriguing of all, a stack of passports and photos said to belong to foreign militants. There were explosives manuals in Russian and medicine made in India, Pakistan's old rival.
One of those passports belonged to Said Bahaji, a German national accused of coordinating the 9/11 attacks.
Al-Jazeera's Imran Khan has more on the visit.
Both al-Qaeda and the Tehrik-e-Taliban have denied responsibility for yesterday's market bombing in Peshawar, which killed 105 people and left hundreds more wounded, many of them women and children.
The first funerals were held for some of the victims earlier today. Rescue workers told Al-Jazeera they continue to search the area; many victims were buried under houses and shops which collapsed during the blast.
The TTP and al-Qaeda routinely deny responsibility for attacks that kill civilians.
Meanwhile, the Pakistani army says it has killed 231 militants in the ongoing South Waziristan offensive. In a media briefing, an army officer said soldiers have secured the Sherongai region.
The Levant edition, at least. There's a lot of big news in Afghanistan and Pakistan; we'll round it up in separate posts.
A rocket fired from Lebanon landed in northern Israel today. It landed near Kiryat Shmona; it caused no damage or casualties. Israel responded with artillery fire, and a military spokeswoman said Israel will hold the Lebanese government responsible for the attack.
Hours later, UNIFIL and the Lebanese army discovered a cache of four Katyusha rockets near the village of Houla. Three of them were ready to be fired.
The Lebanese army is working to disarm the rockets.
The Islamic State of Iraq -- the al-Qaeda umbrella group in Iraq -- has claimed responsibility for Sunday's bombings.
The group posted a statement on the Internet describing the targets -- the justice ministry and the Baghdad governorate offices -- as "the dens of infidelity." The group previously claimed responsibility for the ministry bombings in August, which killed dozens of people.
Hoshyar Zebari, Iraq's foreign minister, has called for a U.N. investigation into the bombings. The U.N. is already looking into the August bombings. The Maliki government has accused Syria of harboring the plotters of both attacks.
Iran's foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, says his country may ship at least part of its uranium stockpile to Russia for further enrichment.
That would mean the Iranian government is willing to at least partially accept the draft IAEA deal announced last week. But Mottaki said Iran will also continue to enrich its own uranium. The IAEA deal is designed to buy time for further negotiations by temporarily taking away Iran's capacity to enrich uranium.
French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner said as much today during an interview with the Daily Telegraph. Kouchner said Israel "will not accept" an Iranian bomb, and said the IAEA deal is designed to head off a potential Israeli attack.
Israeli police have closed access to the al-Aqsa mosque after a violent clash this morning with Palestinian demonstrators inside.
Police entered the compound early this morning after Palestinians threw stones at visitors, according to AFP. The police themselves were attacked after entering the mosque; Palestinians also reportedly spilled oil on the floor to make police slip and fall.
The police used stun grenades on the protesters and then closed access to the site. A dozen demonstrators were arrested; as many as 100 remain inside the compound.
The Pakistani army has recaptured the town of Kotkai, Hakimullah Mehsud's hometown and a strategically important area in South Waziristan.
Army officials didn't provide any details on the fighting in Kotkai, and the area is closed to journalists. At least 160 militants and 23 soldiers have reportedly died since the South Waziristan offensive began one week ago.
Kotkai is on the way to Sararogha, reportedly a major Taliban stronghold.
Pakistani forces briefly captured Kotkai earlier this week, but were repelled by Taliban fighters a few hours later.
Two terror attacks in Pakistan today, in what sadly is becoming a routine Friday-morning occurrence.
The first was a suicide bombing in Kamra, about 70km from Islamabad. The bomber targeted a Pakistan Air Force complex that handles maintenance for military aircraft. Seven people were killed in the bombing, and at least 15 were wounded. This is the second attack on the complex in a year.
The second, a car bomb in the northwestern city of Peshawar, wounded at least 10 people. The bomb was inside a parking garage used by a restaurant, a wedding hall, a video club and other establishments in the upmarket Hayatabad neighborhood.
Nobody has claimed responsibility for either attack.
Gunmen in Islamabad shot and killed a senior Pakistani army officer; the assassination attempt was likely connected to Pakistan's ongoing South Waziristan offensive.
The gunmen were riding on a motorcycle; they pulled up alongside an army jeep in a residential area and opened fire, killing the brigadier and another soldier in the car. His driver was wounded.
The death toll continues to rise in South Waziristan: The army reports that 16 soldiers and 105 militants have been killed. Those numbers are impossible to verify because journalists are banned from the combat zone.
Abdullah Abdullah, Hamid Karzai's chief challenger, has agreed to a runoff election, but says the government needs to provide better security than it did during the general election.
Speaking at his house in the capital, Kabul, he said: "Some people lost their finger in the last round elections [so] this is a serious issue, and in order to prepare the ground for transparency and fairness of the elections we have certain recommendations, suggestions as well as conditions that ... we will come up with soon."
Abdullah also called for tougher steps to prevent voter fraud, though he said no voters should be disenfranchised. Hundreds of polling stations are in remote areas in southern Afghanistan -- difficult for the government to monitor.
Karzai agreed yesterday to accept a runoff.
Hamid Karzai is due to deliver a nationwide address later today on the results of the Afghan recount.
The Times of London reports that Karzai has ordered his security chiefs to make preparations for a runoff vote -- a clear sign that he will accept the results of the Electoral Complaints Commission's recount.
The constitution mandates a runoff within two weeks, though the Times report says it won't happen for another month.
The Electoral Complaints Commission in Kabul says it will make its big announcement today, presumably within the next couple of hours.
Iran has blamed the U.S., U.K. and Pakistan for yesterday's deadly bombing in Sistan-Baluchistan province, and vowed a "crushing response."
The biggest story this morning, which we blogged separately, was a double suicide bombing in southeastern Iran that killed nearly 30 people, including the deputy commander of the Revolutionary Guards.
Meanwhile, in Afghanistan: Diplomats from several countries, including the U.S. and France, are pressuring Afghan president Hamid Karzai to accept the results of the Electoral Complaints Commission's recount.
French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner said Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah are willing to "work together" after the results are announced. That announcement could come as soon as today or tomorrow.
The big news this morning is that the Pakistani army has started its South Waziristan offensive. We'll have more detail on this in a separate post.
Meanwhile, in Gaza: Hamas' deputy political leader, Abu Marzouk, says the group will send the Egyptian government a list of "necessary amendments" to the Hamas-Fatah reconciliation deal.
Hamas doesn't want the deal to follow the conditions of the so-called Quartet, which include recognition of the state of Israel and renouncing terrorism.
The group also wants guarantees that, should it win next year's election, Western countries will recognize its legitimacy.
A car bomb went off in Peshawar, outside of an "interrogation cell" used to house detainees, killing at least 11 people.
The News says the bombing was carried out by a female suicide bomber -- perhaps the first in Pakistani history. The woman was riding on a motorcycle which pulled up to a security checkpoint; when a police officer tried to stop the woman, she detonated a bomb.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but the attack -- the seventh in two weeks -- was probably carried out by the Taliban.
Dawn reports that Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, the army chief of staff, is meeting with senior Pakistani leaders to discuss the ongoing violence and the South Waziristan offensive.
At least 37 people were killed in a series of attacks carried out in Lahore and Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province.
The attacks started around 9:00 a.m. local time, when gunmen entered the Federal Investigation Agency in Lahore. A second group of terrorists raided a police training school on the outskirts of the city; a third team climbed over the wall of a police commando training center.
Meanwhile, a car bomb went off next to a police station in the NWFP, killing three officers and eight civilians.
This is the sixth major terrorist attack in Pakistan in less than two weeks. Last week, terrorists bombed the U.N. World Food Programme office in Islamabad; over the weekend, gunmen shot their way into army headquarters in Rawalpindi and took hostages during a 22-hour standoff.
We're going with a slightly new format for the morning roundup today -- trying to make it more useful.
First up today: Iraq's human rights ministry says 85,000 people have been killed in Iraq since 2004.
The report is based on death certificates issued by the health ministry. It did not distinguish between civilian deaths and police/Iraqi military deaths.
The report also says 147,195 people were injured during the same four years. That figure is likely low, though, since it doesn't count people who failed to report their injuries.
The human rights ministry's figures are lower than the Iraq Body Count project's tally, which pegs the death toll at 102,071.
American soldiers in the Gulf of Suez uncovered a cache of ammunition traveling from Iran to Syria on board a German-owned cargo ship, according to Der Spiegel.
The ammunition was 7.62mm bullets, the kind used in Kalashnikov rifles. It was probably intended for the Syrian army or for Hizballah, according to the magazine. U.S. officials called it a violation of U.N. resolution 1747, which bans weapons shipments in and out of Iran.
The cargo ship was intercepted by two American warships in the Gulf.
Spiegel quoted a German diplomat who called it an "embarrassing affair" for Berlin.
At least 41 people were killed, and dozens more wounded, when a suicide car bomb went off near an army vehicle in Shangla, a district east of the Swat valley.
Swat was the focus of a major military offensive earlier this year. The army claims to have cleared the valley of Taliban fighters; experts say many of them simply went into hiding.
Meanwhile, the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for this weekend's siege at army headquarters in Rawalpindi. Reports out of Pakistan say the gunmen had maps of the facility, and that they were wearing army uniforms.
