AP - CIA Director Michael Hayden said Wednesday that Iranian policy, at the highest government level, is to help kill Americans in Iraq, the boldest pronouncement of Iranian involvement by a U.S. official to date.
Reuters - The U.S. military on Wednesday dismissed speculation that it was drafting new plans to attack Iran but again charged Tehran with supporting Iraqi militias and the Taliban in Afghanistan.
AFP - The West faces its "greatest terrorist threat" from a revamped Al-Qaeda movement using a new safe haven in Pakistan to increase attacks there and elsewhere, the US government warned Wednesday.
AFP - The jump in April in US soldier deaths in Iraq -- at 49 the highest monthly toll since September 2007 -- does not reflect deteriorated security in the country, a senior US military official said Wednesday.
AP - Al-Qaida has rebuilt some of its pre-Sept. 11 capabilities from remote hiding places in Pakistan, leading to a major spike in attacks last year in that country and neighboring Afghanistan, the Bush administration said Wednesday.
Time.com - Hundreds flee the Baghdad neighborhood as U.S. and Iraqi forces confront the Mahdi Army in an urban stronghold
AP - Israel's president took a veiled swipe at Iran and its disputed nuclear program Wednesday, using his Holocaust Memorial Day speech to talk about the danger the world would have faced if Adolf Hitler had succeeded in his quest to build atomic bombs.
AP - To Nayfa Shatat, the widowed mother of 11, Hebron's biggest Islamic charity is a lifeline: It schools her daughters and helps feed her family.
AP - An Israeli human rights group called Wednesday for a criminal probe into the deaths of a Gaza mother and her four preschool children, saying Israel appears to have violated international law by firing a missile at militants close to the family's home, despite high risk of harming civilians.
AP - The killings of five U.S. soldiers in separate attacks in Baghdad pushed the American death toll for April up to 49, making it the deadliest month since September. One soldier died when his vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb. The second died of wounds sustained when he was attacked by small-arms fire, the military said Wednesday. Both incidents occurred Tuesday in northwestern Baghdad.