OTTAWA - A 70-year-old Palestinian man who built a family in Canada while fighting deportation for more than a quarter century was removed from the country over the weekend. Mahmoud Mohammad Issa Mohammad was transported by charter flight to Lebanon, said Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, who described the protracted case as "almost a comedy of errors." "After a 26-year stay in Canada, we finally succeeded in deporting this convicted, terrorist killer," Kenney told an Ottawa news conference.

By Dan Williams JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel has asked Russia not to sell Syria an advanced air defense system which would help President Bashar al-Assad fend off foreign military intervention as he battles a more than two-year-old rebellion, Israeli officials said on Thursday. Citing U.S. officials, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that Israel had told Washington that Syria had already began payments for a $900 million purchase of the S-300 and an initial delivery was due within three months.

Syria will "respond immediately" to any new Israeli attack against its territory, its deputy foreign minister told AFP on Thursday, after two reported Israeli strikes last week. "The instruction has been made to respond immediately to any new Israeli attack without (additional) instruction from any higher leadership, and our retaliation will be strong and will be painful," Faisal Muqdad said. sk/sah-ser/

ISMAILIA, Egypt (Reuters) - Gunmen shot a man dead who was selling alcohol in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula on Sunday in an attack security officials said was likely carried out by Islamist militants. The four gunmen killed Rami Ahmed, 28, at a bar on a main road near El-Arish, a town in the northern Sinai Peninsula. It is an area where Islamist militant influence has expanded since the uprising that toppled President Hosni Mubarak more than two years ago.