In short

A roundup of today's other stories in brief

A roundup of today's other stories in brief

Six killed in fierce fighting in Lebanon

NAHR AL-BARED, Lebanon -Four Lebanese soldiers and two relief workers were killed in fierce fighting yesterday between the Lebanese army and al-Qaeda-inspired militants at a Palestinian refugee camp.

A Palestinian cleric trying to mediate an end to the fighting between the army and the Fatah al-Islam group was also wounded at the Nahr al-Bared camp in northern Lebanon.

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Security sources said two members of the Lebanese Red Cross were killed and a third was wounded when they were hit by a shell.

A military source said four soldiers were also killed in the fighting. - (Reuters)

'Honour killing' man convicted

LONDON -A Kurdish man was convicted in a London court yesterday of murdering his 20-year-old daughter in a so-called "honour killing" after she left her husband and fell in love with another man.

Banaz Mahmod was strangled with a shoelace in her home in London, her body stuffed in a suitcase and taken some 190km (120 miles) to the city of Birmingham, where it was buried in the back garden of a house.

Mahmod Mahmod (52), ordered his daughter's murder with the help of his brother Ari Mahmod (51). The killing was carried out by their associate Mohamad Hama (30) and two other suspects who are still at large, police said.

The court had been told Banaz had been forced to marry an Iraqi Kurd when she was 17 but the relationship collapsed. - (Reuters)

10 killed in factional fighting

GAZA -Palestinian gunmen battled inside a hospital and fired on the prime minister's office during factional fighting yesterday that killed 10 people and cast fresh doubt over the future of the unity coalition.

"Everybody is shooting at everybody," a doctor at the Beit Hanoun hospital in the northern Gaza Strip said as a gunbattle raged between the Islamist Hamas and secular Fatah groups, hours after the latest in a series of ceasefires collapsed.

A member of Hamas's Executive Force, two Fatah fighters and another person, who was not immediately identified, were killed and 19 people wounded, hospital officials said.

In separate violence in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya, Jamal Abu al-Jedian, a co-founder of Fatah's al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, was killed in a Hamas assault on his house. His home was attacked after a Hamas fighter was killed. - (Reuters)

Kremlin allows anti-Putin rally

MOSCOW -Several thousand opposition demonstrators were allowed to hold a rally in the centre of Moscow yesterday, in an apparent change of tactics by the Kremlin which has previously broken up anti-Putin rallies. - (Guardian service)

Gran's fake note troubles grandson

BERLIN -A German grandmother landed her 19-year-old grandson in trouble at the weekend by sending him a fake €100 note, which he tried to spend, police said yesterday.

However, the teenager had missed an accompanying note in the envelope saying: "I will transfer the real €100 to your account - here is a copy." - (Reuters)