BAGHDAD: Two suicide bombers have blown themselves up inside a Shiite mosque in southern Baghdad. The number of casualties are unclear.

The attack targeted a funeral ceremony iunderway at the mosque.

Earlier Monday, a car bomb was dicovered in Al-Na’iriya in northern Baghdad. Police dismantled the boimb before it exploded.

GAZA CITY: The militant Hamas group is distancing itself from a leader who called for the slaughter of Jews worldwide.
In a statement Monday, the Islamist movement said recent remarks by Fathi Hammad, a member of its politburo, “don’t represent the movement’s official positions.”
Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, said Hammad’s remarks conflicted with its amended charter that restricted Hamas’s conflict to the Israeli occupation, “not the Jews or their religion,” according to the rare statement.
Speaking to demonstrators in Gaza on Friday, Hammad called for attacks on “every Jew on the globe.”
The United States and European Union list Hamas as a terrorist organization.
The group’s original 1988 charter called for “struggle against the Jews.” But in 2017, Hamas issued a new version without mentioning the Jewish people, saying their struggle was against Israel.

BEIRUT: A leaked police report says a Lebanese lawmaker from the Hezbollah group and a dozen gunmen attempted to storm a police station following a family dispute involving a high-speed car chase.
Nawaf Musawi’s daughter and her ex-husband were inside the police station Sunday south of Beirut, following the previous night’s car chase and verbal abuse from the ex-husband, all of which she filmed with her phone.
After Musawi’s group was denied entry to the station, the report said a gunshot was fired, hitting the ex-son-in-law in his wrist. Musawi denied firing.
The dramatic dispute, apparently over child visitation rights, dominated local media. Divorces and custody battles in Lebanon are often fought in public because of a maze of personal status laws dictated by the country’s religious authorities. 

SEMAISIMA, Qatar: Qatar inaugurated its largest coast guard base Sunday as a standoff between Iran and the United States continues to boost tensions in strategic Gulf waters.
Prime Minister Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al-Thani and commander of US Naval Forces in the Middle East Vice Admiral Jim Malloy attended the ceremony at the Al-Daayen naval base in Semaisima, 30 kilometers from Doha on Qatar’s eastern coast.
Qatar, a key US ally in the region, is home to Washington’s largest Middle East military base. But Doha has come under pressure for its close ties to Iran.
Malloy, commander of the US Fifth Fleet based in Bahrain, said the new base was “a wonderful opportunity for us to interface more strongly with the Qatari coast guard.”
Tensions in the Gulf — through which nearly a fifth of the world’s oil is transported — have spiked in recent weeks, with the US blaming Iran for multiple attacks on tanker ships in the region and Tehran shooting down an American drone.
The 600,000-plus square-meter site aims to “facilitate the securing of all territorial waters of the State and border posts,” the interior ministry wrote on Twitter.
It includes a “sophisticated seaport,” training and medical facilities, civil defense offices and operating rooms, the ministry added.
Asked whether the base could enhance US-Qatari coordination on Iran, Malloy said the move was “all about maritime security, that’s what our focus is.”
The US said Thursday it was discussing military escorts for vessels in the Gulf a day after armed Iranian boats allegedly threatened a British oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz.
And on Friday Britain said it was sending a second warship to the Gulf and raising the alert level in the oil-rich region after Iranian gunboats threatened a UK supertanker.

ALGIERS: The Algerian army has arrested five suspects for planning “attacks” against anti-government demonstrations that have swept the North African country since February 22, the defence ministry said on Sunday.
The suspects “planned attacks against peaceful protests across different parts of the country”, it said in a statement, adding they were arrested in “anti-terrorist” raids last week in the Batna region southeast of the capital Algiers.
It identified the suspects as “terrorists”, a term Algerian authorities use to describe armed Islamists who have been active in the country since the early 1990s.
Algeria has been rocked by months of protests since longtime leader Abdelaziz Bouteflika announced in February he would run for a fifth term.
He quit office but protesters have kept up the mass demonstrations, calling for an overhaul of the “system” and departure of key Bouteflika-era figures.
Interim president Abdelkader Bensalah has proposed a “neutral” national dialogue, without the involvement of the state or the military, to prepare for new presidential polls.
His proposals, backed by powerful army chief Ahmed Gaid Salah who has emerged as the country’s key powerbroker since Bouteflika’s departure, have failed to calm protesters.
Massive rallies continue to be held weekly on Fridays in Algiers and other key towns.
In recent weeks, police have detained dozens of demonstrators — releasing them at the end of the Friday rallies.
Observers say the detentions and other measures including heavy police deployments are meant to discourage protesters from taking to the streets.