More than 60 Palestinian women have given birth at Israeli checkpoints since 2000 and 36 of their babies have died as a result … The report says delays force women to give birth unaided and some women and their children die as a result. Israel says it has imposed restrictions on movement in the West Bank and Gaza to cut down on militant attacks.
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Diplomats in the [UK's] Foreign Office are working frantically in private on what they refer to as the “exit ticket” from Iraq. In contrast to the official line that British forces will remain until the job is done, the Foreign Office wants to engineer a set of circumstances in which both Britain and the US can begin to reduce troops next year. But the speed with which unrest and violence is growing is making this harder … Reflecting lowered expectations, the source said the priority for withdrawal was merely that “George Bush is not seen to have failed. He will have to have at least set Iraq on the road to democracy”.
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Many have assumed that foreign fighters form the bulk of these terrorists, and some that that they include a large Saudi presence. For example, an Israeli report claims that 61% of the foreign fighters killed and 70% of the Suicide bombers in Iraq were Saudi … intelligence experts and the patterns in detentions indicate the largest component of the insurgency is composed of Iraqis. While no one knows the number of active and part time insurgents, paid agents, and sympathizers, the pattern of detainments and intelligence analysis indicates that the total number of foreign volunteers is well below 10%, and may well be closer to 4-6% … the number of Saudis is around 12% of the foreign contingent (approximately 350), or 1.2% of the total insurgency of approximately 30,000. Algerians constitute the largest contingent at 20%, followed closely by Syrians (18%), Yemenis (17%), Sudanese (15%), Egyptians (13%) and those from other states (5%).
