World Scene

IRAQ

Iran shown proof of aid to militias

BAGHDAD — An Iraqi delegation traveled to Iran with evidence that proves the Islamic republic is arming and training Shi’ite militias in Iraq, an official said yesterday.

Five Shi’ite politicians left Wednesday carrying documents and other material that they say indicates that Iran is supplying weapons and training fighters who are locked in a violent standoff with U.S. and Iraqi troops, the government official said.

Northeast of Baghdad, a double suicide bombing struck a wedding convoy, killing at least 35 people and wounding 65, police said. In Baghdad, a car bomb aimed at a U.S. patrol killed an American soldier and at least nine Iraqi civilians, police and military said.

TURKEY

Air force bombs Kurdish rebel camps

ANKARA — Turkish air force planes launched a bombing raid against camps of a Kurdish separatist group in the Qandil area of northern Iraq late yesterday , the state news agency Anatolian said.

The raids, by several Turkish air force jets on the Kurdistan Workers Party camps, began just before midnight and continued into today , Anatolian said.

EGYPT

Cameraman freed from Gitmo

CAIRO — Al Jazeera television reported yesterday that cameraman Sami al-Haj has been released from Guantanamo after more than six years in U.S. custody and is en route to his home country Sudan.

Wadah Khanfar, managing director of Al-Jazeera Arabic, confirmed Mr. al-Haj was on a plane heading to the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, after being released from the U.S. detention center in Cuba earlier yesterday.

A Pentagon spokesman, Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, declined to comment on the report.

MIDDLE EAST

Abbas has heart procedure in Jordan

JERUSALEM — Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas underwent an unannounced heart test at a Jordanian hospital yesterday, adding new uncertainty to already troubled Middle East peace talks.

Aides to Mr. Abbas, 73, said he was doing well after a catheterization procedure they described as successful, and that he was expected to leave Jordan Hospital later in the day. Abbas is due to return to the West Bank today and is expected to return to work immediately after his arrival, they said.

KUWAIT

Suicide bomber was ex-Gitmo inmate

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — A Kuwaiti man released from the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay in 2005 has carried out a suicide bombing in Iraq, his cousin told Al Arabiya television yesterday.

A friend of Abdullah Saleh al-Ajmi in Iraq informed his family that Abdullah carried out the attack in Mosul, his cousin Salem said. He did not say when the suicide bombing happened.

Abdullah, 30, had been missing for two weeks and his family learned he left Kuwait illegally for Syria, he said. Abdullah had sent messages to his wife from Iraq.

BRITAIN

Bin Laden’s son denied residency

CAIRO — One of Osama bin Laden’s sons has been denied British residency because London authorities think his presence in the country would cause “considerable public concern,” the man’s wife said yesterday.

Omar Osama bin Laden, a 27-year-old metals trader, had hoped to live in Britain with his British-born wife. The couple lives in Cairo but she is eager to return to her country, where she has a home.

But his wife, Zaina Alsabah, said Omar’s residency application was rejected. Omar has not renounced his father, but says he wants to be an “ambassador for peace” between Muslims and the West.

PAKISTAN

Progress reported on returning judges

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Pakistani leaders reported progress yesterday in talks on how to restore judges ousted by President Pervez Musharraf, signaling they had fended off a crisis that threatened to break up their month-old coalition government.

Asif Ali Zardari, the widower and political successor of assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, and former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif wrapped up two days of marathon talks yesterday at a Dubai hotel.

The parties in the coalition came to power in February elections. Mr. Musharraf ousted some 60 senior judges — including then-Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry — when he imposed a state of emergency in November to stop legal challenges to his re-election as president.

CUBA

May Day rally urges economic gains

HAVANA — Hundreds of thousands of Cubans marched through Havana’s Revolution Square yesterday for a red-splashed May Day celebration that urged economic gains and increased productivity from workers.

A sea of people, wearing red shirts and waving red flags, paraded through the vast square as President Raul Castro, making his first May Day appearance as Cuba’s leader, looked on from a podium beneath a statue of national hero Jose Marti.

He did not speak, but the emphasis Mr. Castro has placed on improving Cuba’s socialist economy was a dominant theme during the annual festivities that celebrate the international labor movement.

From wire dispatches and staff reports