WORLD
MUSCAT, Oman — American Sarah Shourd planned a medical exam today for the first appraisal of her health after more than 13 months in an Iranian prison, said Omani officials after the country's rulers mediated a deal for $500,000 bail to win her release.
Shourd has stayed out of the public eye since arriving late Tuesday aboard a private Omani jet. Her mother — who was waiting at a special royal airfield — says her 32-year-old daughter has serious medical problems, including a breast lump and precancerous cervical cells.
Shourd and two other Americans — her fiance Shane Bauer and their friend Josh Fattal — were detained along Iran's border with Iraq in July 2009 and later accused of spying. The two men remain in a Tehran prison under indictment on espionage-related charges and could face trial — with proceedings for Shourd in absentia.
Their families say they were innocent hikers in the scenic mountains of Iraq's Kurdish region and if they did stray across the border into Iran, they did so unwittingly.
Shourd was released Tuesday after Oman — a key ally of both Iran and the West — played intermediary for a bail deal that satisfied Iranian authorities.
BAGHDAD — American troops helped Iraqi security forces battle suspected al-Qaida militants for two days north of Baghdad, deploying ground units and launching airstrikes in what appears to be the most extensive fighting since the U.S. ended combat operations in Iraq last month.President Barack Obama officially declared the end of combat operations on Sept. 1 when the number of American soldiers in the country also dropped bellow 50,000.The remaining American soldiers mostly assist Iraqis in stabilizing the country. However, U.S. forces can still help Iraqi forces hunt down and fight al-Qaida and other militants and can defend themselves or their bases against attacks.On Saturday, Iraqi soldiers and police called for U.S. help after they came under fire while searching for suspected militants and locating weapons sites across the two northern provinces of Diyala and Salaheddin, the U.S. military said in a statement on Tuesday.Iraqi officials said five Iraqi troops were killed in the operation, which began Saturday and ended Monday. Two American soldiers were lightly wounded, according to the U.S. military.
JERUSALEM — Hamas security officials in the Gaza Strip say an Israeli airstrike has killed one Palestinian and wounded four more. The violence comes as leaders hold peace talks in Jerusalem.The strike appeared to be retaliation for a spike in Palestinian mortar fire into Israel today, just as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas were meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.The Hamas officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the information was not officially released.Israel's military did not immediately confirm the airstrike, but said militants had fired one rocket and eight mortars by mid-afternoon — the highest daily total since March 2009.Gaza militants have threatened to derail the talks with violence.
LONDON — Outgoing BP CEO Tony Hayward will come under scrutiny from British lawmakers today over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, months after he offered few explanations for the accident at a testy hearing in Washington.Hayward is scheduled to give evidence to a British parliamentary committee studying the fallout of the spill and the future of deep water drilling.The British executive, who will be replaced by chief executive Bob Dudley, an American, on Oct. 1, will appear alongside BP's head of safety Mark Bly, author of the company's internal report into the spill.Hayward endured an onslaught of criticism in June at a U.S. Congress appearance in Washington after he insisted he had little knowledge of decisions that contributed to the explosion on April 20, which killed 11 workers and triggered the oil spill.In July, Hayward confirmed he would stand down as BP's CEO to be replaced by Dudley.British legislators will question Hayward on the spill, but committee chairman Tim Yeo said his panel would not adopt the confrontational tone seen in Washington.Both Transocean and BP PLC, which operated the Deepwater Horizon platform mining the Macondo well, have operations in the North Sea off the coast of the U.K.
