Iraqi Kurds living near the border are wary of thousands of Kurdish fighters leaving Turkey for northern Iraq, and hope the move does not lead to more Turkish air and artillery strikes. For years, Turkey's military has targeted fighters from the Kurdistan Workers' Party in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region, keeping farmers from their land and sometimes killing and wounding civilians. The PKK, which has fought a 29-year nationalist campaign against Ankara, is now withdrawing its fighters into Iraq, where it already has bases, as part of a peace drive with Turkey.

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Hezbollah said Israeli air strikes in Syria aimed to boost Sunni Islamist rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad but was mum on Israeli assertions that the attacks targeted missiles headed for the Shi'ite group in neighboring Lebanon. Israeli officials said the air strikes on Friday and Sunday were not meant to influence its neighbor's civil war but only stop Iranian missiles reaching Hezbollah militants for possible use against the Jewish state.

Influential Muslim cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi warned on Thursday nobody was allowed to cede "any part of Palestine," during a visit to the Hamas-ruled Palestinian enclave of Gaza. "No one is allowed to give up any part of Palestine," he said during a meeting with Gaza prime minister Ismail Haniya and members of the government. Egyptian-born Qaradawi, who is a citizen of Qatar and close to the Muslim Brotherhood, was heading of a delegation of 50 clerics from 14 countries.

Duty editor: Susan Stumme Tel: +1 202 414 0541 -- TOP STORIES -- + Police grill brothers over kidnapped US women + Syria opposition insists on Assad exit for deal + S.Korea leader proposes peace park with North + Ferguson to retire as Man Utd manager US-crime-kidnap,WRAP CLEVELAND, Ohio US police interrogate three brothers as grim details began to emerge about how three young Ohio women were kidnapped and held captive for 10 years in an unremarkable city home, before making an emotional homecoming.