EGYPT appears to have foiled a terrorist attack by Hezbollah against Israeli tourists, leading to a renewed round of hostility between Egypt and Hezbollah.

Egyptian cabinet minister Mufed Shehab said yesterday Egyptian authorities had found explosives belts and bomb-making materials and had detected a plan to bring other terrorist weapons and ammunition into Egypt.

Although he did not name Israeli tourists, Mr Shehab said the Egyptian authorities believed a group of Hezbollah agents were "observing and locating the tourist groups who repeatedly come to south Sinai resorts and residences, paving the way to target them".

Separately, on a rare positive note, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas yesterday telephoned Israel's new Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to wish him a happy Passover, in the first phone call between the two men since Mr Netanyahu took office two weeks ago, and the first high-level contact between Israel and the Palestinian Authority since the Gaza war in January.

After the call, Mr Netanyahu's office said the Prime Minister had told Mr Abbas the two had worked together in the past to achieve peace and would do so again.

The hostility between Egypt and Hezbollah reflects growing tension in the Middle East between Egypt and Saudi Arabia on the one hand and Iran and Syria on the other. The Gaza war deepened that division, with Egypt blaming Hamas for the war, and Saudi Arabia remaining largely silent, while Iran and Syria blamed Israel.

In relation to Hezbollah's alleged activities in Egypt, the authorities have charged nine men with spying for Hezbollah and aiming to harm Egypt's security. ............

A Muslim resident of Russia’s St. Petersburg has hired killers to rid him of a daughter who disrespected Islamic laws by wearing short skirts.
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Rashida Kirimova, 21, studied medicine at a St. Petersburg school and waved away her father’s criticism when he said her clothes weren't modest enough and were unfit for a Muslim girl. 

During winter, Rashida wore high-necked sweaters and long trousers, causing no problems in the neighborhood, but when spring came, she put on a skirt that left her knees exposed.

The father’s Muslim friends again started reproaching him for being negligent and allowing his daughter to walk around dressed like a fallen woman. They said the insult could only be washed away by blood, and introduced Gafar to a killer, who agreed to help him for around $3000.

The killer, Kadyr Suleymanov, seized the girl on April 8th as she was hurrying to classes. He and two accomplices drove her out of the city to a suburban dump, shot her dead and covered her body with garbage.

The body was found by the police after the father confessed he had ordered the killing. Two of three criminals have been detained.

KABUL - Taliban gunmen executed a young couple in southern Afghanistan for trying to elope, shooting them with rifles in front of a crowd in a lawless, militant-controlled region, officials said Tuesday.

The woman, 19, and the man, 21, were accused by the militants of immoral acts, and a council of conservative clerics decided that the two should be killed, said Ghulam Dastagir Azad, the governor of the southwestern province of Nimroz.

Riflemen in the remote district of Khash Rod shot the man and woman with AK-47s Monday during a public execution, said Sadiq Chakhansori, the chief of Nimroz' provincial council.

afghans have modernised their murderous methods

RAMALLAH: Gunmen with suspected links to Hamas security forces killed at least 32 Palestinians and wounded dozens in attacks on political opponents and informers during and after Israel's three-week war in the Gaza Strip.

In a report released last night, Human Rights Watch said the attacks in December and January were the worst outbreak of internal violence since Hamas seized control of Gaza in June 2007 and expelled Fatah members.

The New York-based group urged Gaza's Hamas rulers to halt a pattern of arbitrary arrests, torture and summary executions by the Islamic militant group.

Such practices were aimed, in part, at quashing dissent in Gaza and made a mockery of Hamas's claim that it upholds the law, the group said.

"Hamas authorities ... took extraordinary steps to control, intimidate, punish and at times eliminate their internal political rivals as well as persons suspected of collaborating with Israel," the report says.

Eighteen Palestinians were killed by Hamas during the three-week war, which ended on January 18, and 14 others were killed afterwards, the report says after reviewing killings and shootings since December 27, when Israel launched its Gaza offensive, meant to weaken Hamas and halt rocket attacks from Gaza on Israel.

In addition, 49 Gazans were shot in the legs by masked gunmen between December 28 and January 31, and 73 had their arms or legs broken.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum dismissed the report as unbalanced. He said Hamas was willing to investigate any complaints, and denied the group was going after political opponents.

He said suspected collaborators with Israel who fled Gaza's central prison after it was destroyed in Israeli bombing raids in December were killed by relatives of people they had harmed, not by security forces.

Human Rights Watch said repressive measures are also on the rise in the Fatah-controlled West Bank, ruled by Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas.

Hamas had begun investigations into four deaths in Gaza, dismissing and detaining members of the security forces involved in two killings, said Bill Van Esveld, a Human Rights Watch researcher.

"What we have not seen is accountability for (the killing of) collaborators and Fatah guys getting shot in the legs," he said.

In one case under investigation, gunmen wearing headbands of Hamas's military wing, Izzedine al-Qassam, opened fire on Thursday on three cousins loyal to Fatah in Jebaliya.

The three men were each hit by several bullets in the legs and were still in hospital, the Gaza-based Palestinian Centre for Human Rights said.