CAIRO, Egypt,
June 29--Arabs said on Thursday they doubted former British Prime Minister Tony Blair could succeed as Middle East peace envoy because of his unpopularity and because he is too close to the Zionist regime and the United States.
They said Blair had little credibility in the Middle East because he took part in the invasion of Iraq, opposed a ceasefire in Lebanon last year and failed to follow up on many promises to tackle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Reuters reported.
The skepticism about Blair’s mission as envoy for the international Quartet extended from opposition Islamists to former and current officials of conservative Arab governments nominally friendly towards the United States and Britain.
One exception was the Fatah movement of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, which is dependent on US and Israeli help in its conflict with the Islamists of Hamas.
The Quartet--the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations--appointed Blair on Wednesday, the day he stepped down after 10 years as British prime minister.
The choice of Blair was seen in the Middle East as a present from US President George W. Bush for his years of support for Bush’s policies in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East.
Former Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher said the choice was a mistake because of the perception that Blair is biased, arising from his closeness to the US administration.
“This was a way for the Americans to honor his friendship but I think they should have found a better way to honor him, a way where he would have a chance of success, and I honestly don’t believe he has any chance of success,“ he told Reuters.
A senior Arab diplomat, who asked not to be named because of his position, said that in his new role Blair could in theory change his attitude and act as an honest broker.
But even if he did change, Blair would probably meet the same fate as former envoy James Wolfenssohn, he added.
“Wolfenssohn was incredible but he was not allowed to play a role because of the policies adopted by Israel... Is Israel ready to take steps encouraging not only to Blair but also in the quest for peace? I have my doubts,“ he added.
Islamists in the Arab world said they had no expectation that Blair would make any contribution to Middle East peace.

NEWPORT, USA, June 29--US President George W. Bush made plain his feelings about Fidel Castro on Thursday, wishing the Cuban leader would disappear.
“One day the good Lord will take Fidel Castro away,“ Bush said in response to a question after a speech at the Naval War College, Reuters reported.
Asked whether Bush was wishing Castro dead, White House National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said: “The president was commenting on an inevitable event.“
Castro has long been a thorn in the side of US presidents, defying them and outlasting them in office. Since coming to power in a 1959 revolution, the Cuban leader has seen 10 US presidents occupy the White House.
Documents released by the CIA this week showed the spy agency worked with three American mobsters in a botched attempt to assassinate Castro in the early 1960s. Castro, who has long denounced US leaders for wanting him dead, accused Bush of “authorizing and ordering“ an attempt on his life in an editorial published on Monday -- though he provided no evidence to back up the claim.
He fired back at Bush’s latest remark with irony.
“Now I understand why I survived Bush’s plans and the plans of other presidents who ordered my assassination: the good Lord protected me,“ Castro, a self-declared atheist, said in a statement sent to the foreign media late on Thursday.
Castro, who turns 81 in August, has not been seen in public since undergoing emergency intestinal surgery in July last year, when he handed over power temporarily to his younger brother, Raul.
But the convalescing revolutionary has published several editorials recently in which he has urged Cubans to remain defiant in the face of criticism from foreign countries, especially the United States, which has imposed an economic embargo on the island for 45 years.

Africa Union soldiers secure the area in Mogadishu where they destroyed weapons and munitions by safely detonating, June 16.

UNITED NATIONS, June 29--Declaring that Somalia is at “a critical crossroads,“ Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi on Thursday urged UN peacekeepers to take over from a small African Union force in the country’s capital to help restore security and deal with terrorism.
But key UN Security Council countries said there must be a peace to keep before the world body sends troops to Somalia, AP reported.
Gedi blamed the international community for failing to supply funds and logistics so that the bulk of an 8,000-strong African Union force authorized in January could deploy to Somalia.
Only 1,500 AU troops from Uganda have made it to Somalia. That has meant Ethiopian troops, who backed government forces and drove an Islamic movement out of the capital, Mogadishu, in December, have been unable to leave.
In a closed-door speech to the council obtained by The Associated Press, Gedi said the government wants the council to review the deployment so the African Union force “could be transformed into a UN mission.“
Gedi said a UN peace building mission in Somalia “would prove its cost effectiveness in terms of outcomes,“ and he warned that “failure to act at this critical period will be very costly in the future.“
But diplomats said there is almost no support for deploying a UN force in Somalia now.
Britain’s UN Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry, whose country takes the lead on Somalia in the council, said the African Union force has to be reinforced first--and if there is “sufficient stability“ and a political agreement resulting from national reconciliation talks starting July 15, then a UN peacekeeping force is possible.
Gedi said afterwards he told council members that Somalia needs peace, and “if we could do it alone, I wouldn’t be here.“
Burundi, Ghana, Malawi, Benin and Nigeria have offered troops to the AU force, he said, and Ethiopian troops could also be part of an AU or UN force.
Somalia has been mired in chaos since 1991, when warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned against one another, defending clan fiefdoms. The government was formed in 2004 with the help of the United Nations, but has struggled to assert any real control.
Insurgents have been battling government and Ethiopian forces since they drove the Council of Islamic Courts from Mogadishu and much of southern Somalia six months ago. More than 1,000 civilians have been killed and hundreds of thousands have been displaced.

ABIDJAN,
Ivory Coast, June 29--Attackers fired a rocket Friday at a plane carrying Ivory Coast Prime Minister Guillaume Soro as it landed at an airport, killing at least three people, but Soro survived, a top advisor told AFP.
The plane was landing at Bouake in the centre of the strife-torn country, Soro’s stronghold, when it came under attack.
“The plane carrying our delegation was attacked with a rocket, at about 10:30 am (1030 GMT), while we were landing at Bouake. There are at least three dead but the prime minister escaped,“ said Alain Lobognon, an advisor to the prime minister.

NABLUS,
Occupied Palestine, June 29--Zionist Israeli troops killed a Palestinian from President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement on Friday on the second day of a large-scale military raid targeting armed loyalists of the Western-backed leader.
Palestinian Prime Minister of emergency government Salam Fayyad of Fatah has accused the Zionist regime of trying to undermine Abbas’s Western-backed emergency cabinet by conducting the raid despite the Palestinian leader’s vows to take his own steps to disarm gunmen, Reuters reported.
An Israeli military spokeswoman said soldiers had shot the Palestinian as he fled from the troops in a refugee camp near the West Bank city of Nablus.
Officials of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades of Fatah said the militant, who was 28, had belonged to their group, and that Israeli soldiers had shot him as he fled arrest. Medics also confirmed he had been killed.
Zionists launched the raid in the Nablus area on Thursday, sending in 50 armored vehicles, clamping a curfew on the city centre and conducting house-to-house searches for Palestinians suspected of involvement in violence against the Zionist regime.
In response to Friday’s killing, a spokesman for the militants, Allah Sanakeh, said the group would not honor Abbas’s decree of earlier this week to hand over their weapons, saying they needed to continue to respond to Israeli incursions.
Abbas had said he would no longer permit Palestinians to bear illegal weapons, though it was not clear how he intended to implement the decision.
The Israeli raid signaled the fake Jewish state would continue to pursue Fatah militants despite its pledges to bolster Abbas as he tries to stabilize his hold in the West Bank after Hamas Islamists seized control of the Gaza Strip two weeks ago.
In fighting on Thursday, Israel fired rubber coated steel bullets that injured seven Palestinians, and five Israeli soldiers were also wounded in the violence, Israeli and Palestinian security sources said.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon (r) talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, as he arrives at the presidential palace in Kabul, June 29.

KABUL, Afghanistan, June 29--United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon made a surprise visit Friday to Afghanistan, where he met with President Hamid Karzai and the commander of NATO troops.
US troops, meanwhile, raided three compounds in eastern Afghanistan, killing four suspected militants, officials said. A villager, however, said those killed were civilians, AP reported.
Ban’s first visit to the country was aimed at “ensuring solid coordination between the UN and Afghan government in their joint efforts here,“ said Adrian Edwards, the UN spokesman in Afghanistan.
Along with Karzai, Ban met the head of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force, Gen. Dan McNeill, and other officials, Edwards said.
The visit comes ahead of a July 2-3 conference in Rome, which will seek ways of improving the weak justice system in Afghanistan, Edwards said.
Karzai and Ban will preside over the conference along with Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D’Alema, the Italian Foreign Ministry said.
US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher, NATO’s Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and Tom Koenigs, the top UN official in Afghanistan, will also be among the participants as will some regional players like Pakistan.
Issues on the agenda include access to justice, prison reform and legal training. Organizers say the conference will try to provide tools to improve coordination among law-enforcement officials and tackle corruption.
Elsewhere, US-led and Afghan troops clashes and airstrikes in the south left 17 more militants dead, in addition to the action in the east, officials said
The raid in the eastern Nangarhar province targeted compounds suspected “of harboring Taliban and foreign fighters,“ the coalition said.
But Malek Zaman, an elder of the village where the raid took place, said the US troops used explosives to bust through the house gates in an operation that killed four people, a local man, two of his sons and his grandson.
Violence is soaring in Afghanistan, with over 2,400 people, mostly militants, killed in fighting this year.

LONDON, June 29--Police thwarted an apparent terror attack early Friday after an ambulance crew reported seeing a smoking car parked near Piccadilly Circus that turned out to be packed with gasoline, nails, gas cylinders, and a detonator.
The explosives--safely defused by a bomb squad--were powerful enough to have caused “significant injury or loss of life“--possibly killing hundreds, British anti-terror police chief Peter Clarke said, AP reported.
“Forensic staff are still examining the device, but once we know more about it, we’ll know more about what type of individuals are behind this,“ a British security official told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.
Officers were called to The Haymarket, near Piccadilly Circus, after an ambulance crew --responding to a call just before 1:30 a.m. about an injury at a nearby nightclub--noticed smoke coming from the car, Clarke said.
A bomb squad was called to the scene, and manually disabled the bomb.
Early photographs of the silver Mercedes showed a canister, bearing the words “patio gas,“ indicating it was propane gas, next to the car. The back door was open with blankets spilling out.
Clarke said police would examine footage from closed-circuit TV cameras in the area.
The area--packed with restaurants, bars, a cinema complex and theaters--was busy and buzzing at that hour. Haymarket links Piccadilly Circus to the north to the Pall Mall at its southern end.
The security official said Britain’s domestic spy agency MI5 also would examine possible connections between the bomb attempt and at least two similar foiled plots--including a planned attack on a West End nightclub in 2004 and a thwarted attempt to use limousines packed with gas canisters to attack targets in London and New York.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who took office on Wednesday, said the incident was a reminder that Britain faces a serious and continuous threat of terrorist attacks and that people should be alert.

BRUSSELS, Belgium, June 29--EU capitals gave initial backing on Friday to a deal to supply US authorities with data on transatlantic air passengers for use in terror probes pending final approval in some national parliaments, diplomats said.
“In practice it’s a done deal. It should be formalized in July,“ said one envoy of the agreement, which is set to replace an interim deal reached in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks and which is due to expire next month, Reuters reported.
Airlines had feared they would be left in a legal limbo and exposed to privacy complaints if no replacement deal was reached in time.
A second diplomat said several countries said they wanted to refer the accord to their national parliaments but that a formal accord was still expected by the end of next month.
The issue is sensitive in Europe where U.S. tactics in the fight against terrorism have raised concerns about abuses of privacy and wider human rights.