Egypt prevents Hamas taking millions into Gaza: official

Egyptian soldiers stand next to surveillance cameras on the roof of an abandoned building on the Rafah border point between Egypt and the Gaza Strip on February 1, 2009. Egyptian authorities prevented a senior Hamas official carrying nine million dollars and two million euros in cash entering Gaza via Rafah.

Obama jamin 140,000 askar AS pulang

WASHINGTON: Presiden Barack Obama semalam berkata kebanyakan daripada 140,000 askar Amerika di Iraq akan pulang dalam tempoh setahun dan menegaskan rakyat Iraq kini bersedia memikul lebih banyak tanggungjawab terhadap keselamatan mereka sendiri. Obama yang 'mewarisi' dua peperangan di Iraq dan Afghanistan, ketika kempen presiden sebelum ini memberi jaminan akan mengundurkan semua tentera negara itu dari Iraq dalam tempoh 16 bulan pada kadar satu atau dua briged sebulan. Dalam satu temu ramah dengan stesen televisyen NBC, Obama turut memuji pilihan raya wilayah yang berlangsung di Iraq Sabtu lalu dengan menyifatkannya paling aman sejak pencerobohan tentera pakatan diketuai Amerika pada 2003, bagi menggulingkan Presiden Saddam Hussein.

Ketika ditanya sama ada sejumlah besar askar akan kembali, Obama menjawab: "Ya, kita akan melaksanakannya seperti yang kita janjikan di Iraq dan Afghanistan." Pentadbiran Obama sudah melakukan penilaian semula secara menyeluruh terhadap strategi Amerika di Afghanistan, ketika tentera pakatan diketuai pasukan Pertubuhan Perjanjian Atlantik Utara (Nato) bertungkus lumus menghadapi keganasan dan tentangan pejuang Taliban. Pentadbiran Obama sedang menimbang meningkatkan jumlah askarnya di Afghanistan sebanyak sekali ganda daripada 36,000 anggota kepada 60,000 anggota dalam tempoh 18 bulan.

Sumber: Berita Harian

Israeli jets bomb Gaza targets

Olmert and Livni used a cabinet meeting to threaten further action against Hamas [EPA] The Israeli military has bombed several targets in the Gaza Strip hours after the prime minister vowed a "disproportionate response" to fresh rocket fire from the Palestinian territory. Palestinian witnesses reported huge explosions on Sunday and the Israeli military confirmed strikes on half a dozen locations, including an abandoned police station in northern Gaza and suspected smuggling tunnels in the south near the Egypt-Gaza border. The military said Sunday's strikes were the beginning of a new wave of raids over Gaza, but did not elaborate, Al Jazeera's Hoda Abdel Hamid reported from Gaza City. The attacks followed a threat by Ehud Olmert, Israel's out-going prime minister, to respond in a "severe and disproportionate" fashion after at least 10 rockets and mortar shells hit southern Israel on Sunday. "We've said that if there is rocket fire against the south of the country, there will be a severe and disproportionate Israeli response to the fire on the citizens of Israel and its security forces," Olmert said on Sunday at a weekly cabinet meeting. Rocket fire One of the mortars that hit the village of Nahal Oz, next to the Gaza border fence, wounded two Israeli soldiers and a civilian, the Israeli military and rescue services said.

Sporadic rocket fire and Israeli air raids have continued despite the truce [GALLO/GETTY]

No casualties have been reported from the Israeli strikes on Gaza, which come days before Israeli voters head to the polls to elect a new prime minister. The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the military wing of the Fatah faction led by Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, told Al Jazeera that it carried out the attacks. The Hamas faction seized control of the Gaza Strip from Fatah forces in June 2007, but several rival Palestinian groups, including the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, continue to operate in Gaza. Israel, however, holds Hamas responsible for all rocket fire coming from Gaza. Israel and a Hamas-led group of Palestinian factions declared separate ceasefires last month after a 22-day Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip that killed at least 1,300 Palestinians, many of them women and children. Thirteen Israelis were also killed, three of them civilians, by Palestinian rockets and mortars. Halting the Palestinian fire was one of Israel's stated aims for the air, naval and ground assault that also caused thousands of injuries and destroyed much of the territory's infrastructure. But there has been sporadic rocket fire across the border and a number of Israeli air raids since the ceasefires were announced. Olmert said at the cabinet meeting: "The situation ... in recent days has increased in a manner that does not allow Israel not to retaliate in order to make sure that our position ... is understood by those involved in the fire. "The response will come at the time, the place and the manner that we choose." More from Al Jazeera

POLITIK THAILAND BERGOLAK, 30 RIBU SERTAI TUNJUK PERASAAN DESAK PERLETAKAN JAWATAN PERDANA MENTERI

Lebih 30-ribu orang berkumpul di hadapan Rumah Kerajaan di Bangkok malam tadi bagi mendesak pentadbiran baharu Thailand pimpinan Perdana Menteri, Abhisit Vejjajiva berundur. Perarakan itu anjuran "Red Shirts" atau "Kemeja Merah", penyokong Perdana Menteri yang digulingkan, Thaksin Shinawatra. Mereka mengambil masa kira-kira dua jam berarak ke pusat pentadbiran utama kerajaan, selepas berjaya melepasi empat pagar kawat berduri serta pasukan polis anti-perusuh. Ketua kumpulan tersebut, Veera Musikapong antara lain turut mendesak kerajaan Abhisit memecat atau menghukum mereka yang terbabit dalam pengepungan ke atas Lapangan Terbang Antarabangsa Suvarnabhumi di Bangkok, tahun lepas, selain membubarkan Parlimen. Kerajaan diberi masa 15-hari untuk memenuhi tuntutan berkenaan. Sementara itu,jurucakap polis, Mejar Jeneral Anan Srihiran berkata, kira-kira 5-ribu 250-anggota polis ditempatkan di sepanjang 4-kilometer dari Rumah Kerajaan. Beliau bagaimanapun mengesahkan, bantahan anti-kerajaan itu berlangsung dalam suasana aman. Tiada kejadian tidak diingini berlaku. Penunjuk perasaan bersurai kira-kira pukul 12:30 tengah malam waktu tempatan.

Sumber: AFP.

Taliban warns Obama of Afghan bloodshed

Mullah Mohamad Rasul, a Taliban leader who survived the US military operation in Afghanistan in 2001, tells Al Jazeera that his fighters are preparing for a new battle.Speaking in the tribal regions on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan, he said that boosting US forces in Afghanistan will only lead to more bloodshed. Al Jazeera's Teresa Bo reports from Afghanistan More from: AljazeeraEnglish