Ramallah / AFP The Palestinian high court on Monday ordered municipal elections to be held only in the West Bank and not in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, though a new date for the suspended polls was not set. The ruling could bring to an end hopes that the municipal elections would be the first polls since 2006 in which …

  BAGHDAD / AP Militants on Monday unleashed a series of attacks in Shiite-majority neighborhoods in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, killing at least 15 civilians, officials said. The deadliest attack took place in the southwestern neighborhood of Al Amil when a bomber set off his explosives-laden vest in a busy outdoor market, killing seven shoppers and wounding up to 25 …

  Idlib / AFP The frail cries of four-month-old Wahida made the rescue worker who carried her out of the rubble in Syria’s Idlib break down in sobs. The full story is one of tragedy. “I was in the shop when the airplane began carrying out air strikes,” recalls 32-year-old father Yehya Maatouq almost matter-of-factly. He was speaking to AFP on …