“]

There have been angry protests in Turkey against Israel's raid on the flotilla [AFP

Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkey’s foreign minister, also called for an international commission into the raid on the convoy of six ships, which reportedly killed at least four Turkish nationals.

“We have clearly stated that we would review our ties with Israel if all Turks not released by the end of the day,” Davutoglu told a news conference.

Turkey has sent three planes to retrieve hundreds of activists detained following Monday’s raid in international waters, which left nine people dead.

Legal action considered

Davutoglu said 210 Turks were scheduled to be flown to Istanbul from Israel on Turkish planes later on Wednesday, while it is believed around 20 injured people will return via Ankara, Turkey’s capital, on ambulance planes.

The foreign minister added that two Turkish citizens who were in serious condition will remain in Israeli hospitals with a Turkish doctor.

“We will not leave them to the mercy of anyone,” he said.

Davutoglu added Turkey was ready to normalise ties with Israel if it lifted its blockade on Gaza, saying “it was time calm replaces anger”.

His comments came a day a day after Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s prime minister, called for Israel to be “punished” for its “bloody massacre”.

“It is no longer possible to cover up or ignore Israel’s lawlessness. It is time for the international community to say ‘enough is enough’,” he said.

Relations between Turkey and Israel deteriorated rapidly following the deadly raid, with most of the bloodshed occurring on the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish-flagged ship carrying hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists.

State media reported on Wednesday that Turkey’s justice ministry is considering legal action against Israel.

Officials are looking into both domestic and international law to see what action might be undertaken after Monday’s operation in international waters, a report by the Anatolia news agency said.

Thousands of Turks staged two days of protests across the country denouncing the action.

Jewish backlash fears

Some members of Turkey’s Jewish community say they fear that anger over the flotilla deaths will lead to a rise in anti-Semitism in the nation.

“We are definitely worried, because that [the anger in Turkey] can turn very easily to anti-Semitism,” Ivo Molinas, the editor in chief of the weekly Istanbul-based publication Shalom, said.

“The rhetoric used by the prime minister has been very radical,” Molinas, a member of the 20,000-member Jewish community residing in Turkey, added.

Turkey says it has beefed up security to protect its Jewish minority, while Israel has ordered families of Israeli diplomats out of Turkey.

Besir Atalay, the Turkish interior minister, said security has been stepped up at 20 points alone in Istanbul, which has several synagogues and centres.

Turkey became Israel’s chief regional ally when the two signed a military co-operation deal in 1996.

But relations have soured since Israel’s devastating war on Gaza last year amid criticism from Erdogan’s government.

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates (L) talks with India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during a recent trip to New Delhi.

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has warned that militants might provoke a war between nuclear armed Pakistan and India.

Gates said in New Delhi on Wednesday that India cannot be expected to show restraint, should it be attacked by a militant group with roots in Pakistan.

“I think it’s not unreasonable to assume India’s patience would be limited were there to be further attacks,” Gates said following the talks with senior Indian officials.

Tension between India and Pakistan escalated particularly after the November 2008 Mumbai attacks that left nearly 170 people dead.

India blames Pakistani-based anti-India groups for the attacks.

India and Pakistan have fought three wars since the two neighbors secured independence from Britain in 1947.

Gates, who is visiting the Indian capital of New Delhi, also discussed the prospect of stronger military ties between the US and India. He has pledged to help India gain access to high-tech military technology.

Gates also told Indian officials that Washington intends to be involved in the region for a very long time.

Yemen has boosted troop numbers in three provinces to tackle a growing al-Qaeda challenge

Yemeni fighter jets have attacked the home of a suspected leader of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, as the military steps up pressure on the group.

A Yemeni tribal source said a number of people had been killed in Wednesday’s air raids in Erq al-Shabwan village in Maarib province, about 130km east of the capital Sanaa.

The source said the wave of raids, which began in the morning, targeted the house of Ayed al-Shabwani, one of six al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula leaders who, according to the Yemen government, were killed in an air attack last week.

A military official, who would not be named, said there had been three attacks on the house and one on an orange grove near the village where the authorities think al-Shabwani had built a safe haven for dozens of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula members.

The official said that there had been a large deployment of government forces at the city of Maarib, about five kilometres from Erq al-Shabwan.

Orange grove targeted

During the afternoon, witnesses said, jets twice fired missiles at the orange grove and afterwards continued to fly in the area.

Mohamed Vall, reporting from the southern city of Aden, said quoting the Yemeni army website that one al-Qaeda member was killed in a separate clash with security forces in Lahij, about 50km north of Aden.

“The fighting took place after a government vehicle was hijacked by al-Qaeda and there was an exchange of fire between the two sides in which the member of the group was killed,” he said.

The clashes come just days after Yemen said it had killed six suspected leaders, including al-Shabwani, of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in Saada, a province north of Saana.

Describing Wednesday’s air assault in Maarib, our correspondent said: “[The air raids] started around noon. The government said they targeted the home and farm of al-Shabwani.”

“There were four raids in that area. The government said there was an exchange of fire and that al-Qaeda members were armed with anti-aircraft weapons, which they tried to use against the government aircraft. But the government did not talk about any al-Qaeda casualties.”

In this context, our correspondent noted that al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula had rejected the Yemeni government’s claim about al-Shabwani’s death, and that the government had not commented on al-Qaeda’s denial.

Airline plot connection

Yemen is under US pressure to clamp down on Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which claimed responsibility for the December 25 bid to blow up a US flight from Amsterdam as it landed in Detroit.

Wednesday’s air raid comes a day after the United Nations Security Council added Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to its list of outlawed organisations.

Two of the group’s purported leaders, Nasser al-Wahayshi and Qasim al-Raymi, face new restrictions after the move by the Security Council’s sanctions committee.

The sanctions against the two men, who were among 23 fighters who escaped from a jail in Sanaa in 2006, include worldwide freezes on their assets and travel bans.

“Today’s actions strengthen international efforts to degrade the capabilities of AQAP,” Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the UN, said on Tuesday, referring to Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was formed in January 2009 after the merger of groups in Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

It has since set up bases inside Yemen and has been blamed for the suicide attack on South Korean tourists in March 2009 and an attempt to assassinate the Saudi deputy interior minister across the border.

The UN committee made its decision shortly after the US state department added the Yemen-based group to it list of proscribed organisations.

“We are determined to eliminate AQAP’s ability to execute violent attacks and to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat their networks,” Philip Crowley, a state department spokesman, said.

Clashes erupted after a dispute over the rebuilding of houses damaged by similar fighting in 2008

Clashes between Muslim and Christian gangs have broken out again in the capital of central Nigeria’s Plateau state, Jos, causing dozens of deaths and forcing police to impose a 24-hour curfew.

A police official said on Tuesday that as many as 60 people might have been killed since Sunday when clashes started.

Mohammed Shittu, an employee at Jos central mosque, where he said bodies were being taken, told the AFP news agency around 150 people had been killed in fighting, with around 800 wounded.

“On Sunday evening, we buried 19 corpses and 52 yesterday. As of right now, there are 78 at the mosque yet to be buried,” Shittu said.

The figures could not be independently confirmed.

Residents said sporadic gunfire could be heard in many neighbourhoods and several houses were on fire, but the violence had not spread beyond the city itself.

Security forces are trying to prevent a repetition of clashes in November 2008, in which hundreds of residents were killed in the country’s worst fighting between Muslim and Christian gangs in years.

Curfew imposed

Earlier on Tuesday, Gregory Anyating, the state’s police commissioner, said: “In view of this situation in town, I hereby declare a 24-hour curfew starting from now.”

Goodluck Jonathan, the Nigerian vice-president, who has taken over ceremonial duties from Umaru Yar’Adua, the ailing president, has directed the national security adviser and senior police officials to take the necessary action to restore calm to the city.

Ima Niboro, the vice-president’s spokesman, said: “I assure you that the federal government is on top of the situation in Jos and the situation is under control.”

This week’s violence started after an argument between Muslim and Christian neighbours over the rebuilding of homes destroyed in the 2008 clashes.

Nigeria has roughly equal numbers of Christians and Muslims, although traditional animist beliefs underpin many people’s faiths.

More than 200 ethnic groups generally live peacefully side by side in the West African country, although one million people were killed in a civil war between 1967 and 1970 and there have been outbreaks of religious unrest since then.

At least 40 people were killed last month in clashes between Nigerian security forces and members of an Islamic sect in the northern city of Bauchi.

There is little Israeli popularity among the public in Jordan

A bomb has exploded near a convoy of cars carrying Israeli diplomats in Jordan, without causing injuries.

The incident occurred close to the Allenby Bridge that links Jordan and the Israeli occupied Palestinian West Bank at about 5pm (1500GMT) on Thursday, Israeli army radio said.

Danny Nevo, Israel’s ambassador to Jordan, was not in any of the vehicles that were travelling from Amman, the Jordanian capital, at the time, Israeli officials said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

“While cars, including two Israeli Embassy cars, were travelling near the town of Naur on the road between Amman and the Jordan Valley a bomb exploded without causing casualties or damage. The cars were not damaged by the blast,” Nabil Sharif, the information minister, said.

Jordanian officials said that they were investigating the incident.

Neighbourly relations

Al Jazeera’s Nisreen al-Shamyleh, at the site of the attacks, said: “This took place near the King Hussein Bridge, also called Allenby in Israel, on the Jordanian side.

“Right now security is heavy in this area.

“Security personnel and police are on the road trying to identify the explosive material. There is some damage to the road.”

Al-Shamyleh said it could have implications for relations between the two nations if it was found that the Israeli convoy was the target of the attack.

“What it means is diplomats are being watched. People know their movements and to a certain extent know how to target them. So it has implications for Israeli diplomats’ safety,” she said.

Al-Shamyleh added that it was unknown what kind of explosives or bomb was used as yet.

Palestinian sympathy

Jordan signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994 – the second Arab state to do so after Egypt.

However, the treaty is widely rejected by the Jordanian population. Up to 60 per cent of Jordan’s population is of Palestinian origin.

Jacky Rowland, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Jerusalem, said: “Relations have been cool at best, hostile at worst since the peace treaty was signed just over 15 years ago.

“Obviously there is a lot of sympathy and empathy in Jordan with the Palestinian people in the occupied territories.

“I think the point at which relations really started to cool was as people in Jordan really saw that no progress was being made in efforts to have a peace treaty between Israel and Palestinians.

“Then, relations hit an all-time low with the Israeli crackdown on the Palestinian uprising which began in 2000, and since then the Israeli seige on Gaza and the war on Gaza just over year ago.

“In a recent opinion poll in Jordan not a single person interviewed gave Israel a favourable rating or said they were willing to accept Israel or engage with it in any way.”

The Allenby/King Hussein Bridge is 50km west of Amman.

"The natural wealth that lies beneath Congo’s soil is the fuel that keeps the conflict burning and a reason why the killings, rape and forced displacement continue at such an appalling rate,"

Government troops in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), helped by UN peacekeepers, have launched an operation to pacify the mountain region in the east of the country.

The aim of the security operation Amani Leo, or Peace Today, is to eradicate armed groups in the volatile region, which is at the centre of one of the world’s deadliest conflicts.

Less than a week after it begun, the offensive in South and North Kivu has already resulted in attacks on civilians and people have been forced from their homes.

Tuisenye Saisengaa, a woman taking shelter in a displaced people’s camp, fled with her children after their village became a battlefield.

“The government forces came to attack the bandits who terrorised us every night. The fighting was very heavy. We then decided to flee for our lives,” she said.

The three-month-long campaign is facing a daunting task in battling fighters roaming the forests.

Rwandan rebels, ethnic militias and deserters from the government army are taking advantage of the hilly terrain, using the area as a hideout.

Reprisal attacks against civilians by the armed groups are common.

Bandu Kaberuka, a displaced farmer, says: “There is no peace. We are getting tired of being attacked daily. We used to flee to the forest before but now there is nowhere to escape. The conflict is everywhere.”

Natural wealth

Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Adow, reporting from Masisi district, says the conflict is not about power or politics.

“The natural wealth that lies beneath Congo’s soil is the fuel that keeps the conflict burning and a reason why the killings, rape and forced displacement continue at such an appalling rate,” he says.

“The rebels use income from the mineral to fund the conflict.”

The Amani Leo operation comes after a controversial UN mission, trying to defeat the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), ended at the end of last year.

The mission had been criticised for lending too much support to the Congolese army which is accused of widespread rape and killings. Such crimes are allegedly also committed by the FDLR.

UN troops were first deployed following the 1998-2003 civil war in which millions of people are said to have died.

The FDLR are thought to have up to 7,000 fighters. They say they are fighting to defend fellow Rwandan Hutus, a minority tribe in the area.

They are sometimes backed by an unknown number of rebels from Uganda, including the Lord’s Resistance Army. Plenty of deserters from the national army have also joined the cause.

More than one million civilians have been displaced by the fighting over the last year.

Rival tribes have clashed for years in disputes caused by cattle rustling and feuds

At least 139 people have been killed in tribal clashes following a cattle raid in southern Sudan, local government officials said.

Armed attackers from the Nuer tribe raided Dinka cattle herders in the remote Tonj area in Warrap state on Saturday, seizing 5,000 animals, officials said on Thursday.

“They killed 139 people and wounded 54,” Sabino Makana, the deputy governor of Warrap state, told the Reuters news agency.

“Nobody knows how many attackers were killed. But it may be many as a lot of people came to fight.”

A UN official confirmed the deaths, saying the clashes occurred some time since the beginning of the year.

Rise in violence

But reports of the clash surfaced only after a UN security team visited the area this week, the AFP news agency reported.

“Local sources on the ground said that at least 140 people had been killed, 90 wounded and 30,000 head of cattle had been stolen,” Lise Grande, the UN deputy resident and humanitarian coordinator in south Sudan, told AFP.

“This is a matter of deep concern.”

A sharp rise in tribal violence in recent months has killed more than 2,000 people, including many women and children, and displaced another 250,000 people, the United Nations has said.

Rival tribes from Sudan’s south have clashed for years in disputes often caused by cattle rustling and long-running feuds, but violence has soared this year.

The Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) has blamed at least some of the inter-tribal fighting on interference by Khartoum, which they say is arming civilians and militias to cause unrest ahead of elections and a 2011 referendum on southern independence.

Others have said the blame should be partly put on rivalry between southern leaders, complicated by the 20-year war that often pitched southern ethnic groups against each other.

The blasts came as Vejjajiva, left, arrived in Thailand's Muslim majority Yala province

Suspected separatists have detonated two bombs in Thailand’s troubled south, killing at least one person as the country’s prime minister visited the region, officials said.

The first blast wounded three police officers on Thursday in the province of Yala, about 200 metres away from where Abhisit Vejjajiva was later due to appear.

Army officials said the officers were part of the security team for the prime minister’s trip to the region.

At least one person was killed in the second, more powerful explosion in Yala, about 2km away, the army said.

“His body was totally torn apart,” the AFP news agency quoted Major General Wichet Visaijorn, a southern army commander, as saying.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, but the army blamed separatist fighters.

“The militants staged this violent attack to draw attention,” the southern commander said.

“We are in control of the situation. Small attacks are common during visits to get attention and publicity.”

Troop freeze

Violence in Thailand’s Muslim-majority Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani provinces has claimed more than 3,600 lives since January 2004.

The Thai government has made little progress towards quelling the unrest despite deploying thousands of paramilitary troops – usually residents hired as armed auxiliaries to the regular military – in the area alongside at least 30,000 army troops.

Abhisit met members of the government-backed civilian militias on Thursday in Yala, where he pledged to freeze the number of troops in the region.

“If we want to restore peace that cannot be achieved by deploying enormous forces from outside the region,” he said.

“At least this year the government will freeze forces and by 2012 troops will start to reduce.”

The prime minister also announced a $60m stimulus package for the region to help double the average annual income in the area to nearly $4,000, AFP reported.

He also called on militia members to work with local residents to prevent rights abuses, which he said, separatists could use as a pretext for more attacks.

The group or groups believed to be behind the attacks have made no public pronouncements but are thought to be fighting for an independent Muslim state.

Tensions have simmered since the region, formerly an autonomous Malay Muslim sultanate, was annexed by predominantly Buddhist Thailand in the early 1900s.

The region’s Muslim population have also long complained of discrimination by the central government.

The shield has completed final tests during which it shot down multiple rockets

Israel has completed final testing of a short-range missile defence system that could nullify a key threat from opposition groups in the Gaza Strip after its scheduled full deployment in June.

The Iron Dome system will be used outside the Strip and has already successfully shot down salvos, similar to Katyusha rockets, in testing a defence official said on Wednesday.

“Our plan is to be operational by the mid-point of 2010,” the official said.

The state of the art system, which was designed by a government-owned defence firm, could eventually be placed along Israel’s borders with the occupied West Bank and Lebanon.

Southern Israel has suffered thousands of missile strikes by groups in the besieged Gaza Strip during the past decade. Such rocket fire was a key reason for its three-week offensive on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip that ended last January.

Ease fears

Hezbollah, the Shia group which controls large areas of southern Lebanon and opposes Israel, is said to have more than 40,000 rockets.

Placing the defence shield along its borders with the occupied West Bank would ease security fears, removing one reason for Israeli control there.

“Making Iron Dome operational will transform Israel’s diplomatic and security situation on the northern and southern fronts,” Pinhas Buchris, the defence ministry’s director general, said.

Shlomo Dror, is defence ministry spokesman, told Al Jazeera: “In the future it will provide more security for people living around Gaza and all over Israel.

“Its very import for is to find some kind of solution with the Palestinians in the West Bank … that will enable Israel to take some steps towards the Palestinians after having [greater] measures to protect Israelis.”

Multi-layered defence

However, Dror earlier told reporters that the system will not provide 100 per cent protection against rocket attacks.

The Iron Dome uses small radar-guided missiles to target small rockets and mortar bombs within a 5km and 70km range.

Israel already has a long-range missile defence system and is planning to develop a medium-range system in coming years.

Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005, but currently maintaining a blockade on the region.

Its offensive there at the end of 2008 and beginning of 2009 saw about 1,3000 Gazans killed, while 13 Israelis died due to the conflict.

The impetus behind the Iron Dome project was Israel’s 2006 war with Hezbollah, during which the Shia group fired about 4,000 rockets into the north of the country.

" the rightist government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is likely gearing up for a massive attack on Gaza"

Tel Aviv is conducting war games in the Negev desert, in what appears to be preparation for a new offensive on the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.

An Israeli TV channel reported the military drills on Thursday, saying the rightist government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is likely gearing up for a massive attack on Gaza shortly after the anniversary of the deadly Gaza onslaught last year.

It further revealed that Tel Aviv plans to occupy the entire coastal enclave this time to compensate for the failure to overthrow Hamas, the democratically elected ruler of the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli army is said to be practicing to forestall the mistakes which led to the deaths of several of its soldiers during the last offensive, the poor handling of which cost Tel Aviv severe criticism at home and forced senior army officials to resign.

The report added that Israeli tanks have been equipped with a new system able to identify friendly units operating in the battlefield — even when they are among civilians.

The 22-day Israeli offensive last year saw weeks of relentless air, land and sea incursions against the Palestinians in Gaza. It left more than 1,400 people, including hundreds of women and children, dead.

It also devastated a large part of the infrastructure in the impoverished coastal sliver which has been under an Israeli blockade since 2007.

Israel has recently stepped up saber-rattling against the Palestinians in Gaza, with Israeli planes dropping thousands of leaflets across Gaza in December, urging Gazans against cooperating with the resistance fighters based in the region, and threatening a new attack.