DUBAI: An attack by gunmen on Saudi police patrolling a Shia village in oil-rich Eastern Province yesterday wounded one policeman and caused a pipeline to catch fire, an official said. The patrol came under “heavy gunfire” in Awamiya, police spokesman Colonel Ziad Al Ruqaiti said. The dawn attack triggered a “limited fire at a nearby pipeline”, while a policeman was shot in his leg, he said. The region sits on the bulk of Saudi oil wealth, which amounts to about one-fifth of the world’s proven oil reserves.
RAMALLAH: Militant group Hamas would sweep Palestinian elections if they were held today after its support soared during seven weeks of war with Israel in Gaza, an opinion poll published yesterday found. The Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research said the poll showed Islamists clearly leading presidential and parliamentary polls. Most Palestinians surveyed said they preferred Hamas’s strategy of armed struggle against Israel rather than peace negotiations, which are favoured by Fatah. The views, collected among over 1,000 Palestinians in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, show an unprecedented popular shift towards Hamas. Hamas’s former premier Ismail Haniyah would win 61 percent of votes in a two-way race against Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, with the Fatah chief taking just 32 percent of the vote, the survey found. More than half (53 percent) of respondents said an armed approach would help gain a Palestinian state, as opposed to 20 percent who said they supported non-violent means.
TEHRAN: Iran’s President Hassan Rowhani suffered a fresh political blow yesterday when it was announced that a conservative politician had reclaimed the top post on Tehran city council. Mehdi Chamran ousted Ahmad Masjed Jamei, from the same camp as Rowhani, in an 18-13 vote. Masjed Jamei, a moderate, had won the council presidency on the back of Rowhani’s election as president last summer. The result means that both the capital’s mayor and president are again conservatives. Although the council holds elections every four years, its top officials have to be re-elected annually.
CAIRO: An attack on a convoy killed 11 members of the Egyptian security forces in the Sinai Peninsula yesterday, security and medical sources said. Two were killed by a roadside bomb and the others were shot as they tried to flee, the security sources said. Security sources said earlier that the attack killed 10 soldiers. Militants in Sinai have stepped up attacks on policemen and soldiers. AGENCIES
