Kurdish fighters gather in disputed area in Iraq

BAGHDAD (AP) — A Kurdish commander says he has dispatched fighters to a disputed northern areaas tensions mount between Iraq's central government and the self-ruled autonomous region.

Commander Mahmoud Sankawi said Wednesday that the forces were shifted to the Khanaqin area overnight from the nearby town of Kifri. The move came a day after the government sent tanks and armored personnel carriers to the Kirkuk area, some 60 miles away. That area is also claimed by both sides.

Tensions increased last month after Baghdad sent forces to the area bordering the Kurdish region, including to sites claimed by Arabs, Turkomen and Kurds.

U.S. forces once supervised the area, helping Kurdish and Arab security forces form joint patrols.

Amid Gaza diplomacy, bus bomb hits Tel Aviv

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U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, left, shakes hands with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas during a meeting in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Wednesday, Nov. 21, 2012. Clinton will try on Wednesday to wring an elusive truce deal from Israel and Gaza's militant Hamas rulers after earlier efforts to end more than a week of fighting broke down amid a furious spasm of violence.(AP Photo/Alaa Badarneh, Pool)

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A bomb struck an Israeli bus near the nation's military headquarters in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, wounding 10 people and complicating major diplomatic efforts to forge a truce between Israel and Gaza's militant Hamas rulers.

The attack came as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton shuttled between Jerusalem and the West Bank to help piece together a deal to end Israel's weeklong offensive against Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip that has killed more than 130 Palestinians. Militant rocket fire into Israel has killed five Israelis. Clinton was due to travel later to Egypt, which is mediating in the crisis.

"What does it say about the future of the (truce) talks? I leave it to (the senior officials), but this doesn't add anything," Yitzhak Aharonovich, Israel's minister of internal security, told Army Radio.

The bus exploded around noon on one of the coastal city's busiest arteries, near the Tel Aviv museum, the district courthouse and across from an entrance to Israel's national defense headquarters.

The bus was completely charred, its side windows blown out and glass scattered on the asphalt. The wounded were evacuated and blood was splattered on the sidewalk.

"We suddenly heard a huge explosion and immediately knew it was a terror attack," said Nir Zano, 35. "I saw someone running in to carry out a woman who was injured."

Aharonovitch said the device was placed inside the bus by a man who then disembarked. The explosion took place while the bus was in movement, he said.

Police set up roadblocks across the city trying to apprehend the attacker.

"We strongly believe that this was a terror attack," said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld. He said three of the 10 wounded were moderately to seriously hurt.

In Gaza, the Tel Aviv bombing was praised from mosque loudspeakers, while Hamas' television interviewed people praising the attack as a return of militants' trademark tactics.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack, but Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum welcomed it.

"We consider it a natural response to the occupation crimes and the ongoing massacres against civilians in the Gaza Strip," he told The Associated Press.

Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Silvan Shalom, who heard the explosion from his Tel Aviv office, called it "an escalation."

The cease-fire efforts come with thousands of Israeli ground troops massed on the Gaza border, awaiting a possible order to invade.

After meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem Tuesday night, Clinton conferred with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank on Wednesday morning and was due to travel later to Cairo, which is mediating in the crisis.

The two sides had seemed on the brink of a deal Tuesday following a swirl of diplomatic activity also involving U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon and Egypt's President Mohammed Morsi. But sticking points could not be resolved as talks — and violence — stretched into the night.

Israeli aircraft pounded Gaza with at least 30 strikes overnight, hitting government ministries, smuggling tunnels, a banker's empty villa and a Hamas-linked media office.

Dozens of civilians are among the more than 130 Palestinians killed in a week of fighting. Four Israeli civilians and a soldier have been killed by rocket fire — a toll possibly kept down by a U.S.-funded rocket defense system that has shot down hundreds of Gaza projectiles.

The Tel Aviv bus bombed Wednesday was relatively empty during the explosion, which explains the relatively low number of casualties. The bombing was the first in the coastal city since April 2006, when a Palestinian suicide bomber killed 11 people at a sandwich stand near the city's old central bus station. A bomb left at a bus stand in Jerusalem last year killed one person.

More than 1,000 Israelis were killed during the violent Palestinian uprising in the last decade in bombings and shooting attacks. More than 5,000 Palestinians were killed as well.

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Associated Press writer Ibrahim Barzak contributed to this report from Gaza City.

Pakistan condemns Israeli 'aggression' in Gaza

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan's foreign minister has condemned what he calls Israel's "aggression" against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Hina Rabanni Khar spoke Wednesday ahead of a summit for eight developing countries in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad.

Pakistan's state-run news agency carried a government statement saying the conflict in Gaza will likely be a hot topic in discussions between Pakistani leaders and those visiting for the D-8 summit, which will be held on Thursday.

Pakistan has said participants will include Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Senior leaders fromBangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia and Nigeria will also attend.

Egyptian officials have said Egypt, Iran and Turkey will also meet on the sidelines of the summit to discuss the conflict in Syria.

Egypt protesters firebomb Al-Jazeera Cairo office

People stand inside the gutted live studios of Al-Jazeera in Cairo, Egypt, Wednesday, Nov. 21, 2012. Egyptian protesters firebombed one of the offices of satellite broadcaster Al-Jazeera on Wednesday and attacked a top Cairo security chief who tried to negotiate an end of protests after three days of violence in central Cairo. The protesters attacked Qatari-based Al-Jazeera Live studio overlooking Tahrir square with Molotov cocktails and petrol bombs leaving it gutted by fire hours later. (AP Photo/Mohammed Asad)

People stand inside the gutted live studios of Al-Jazeera in Cairo, Egypt, Wednesday, Nov. 21, 2012. Egyptian protesters firebombed one of the offices of satellite broadcaster Al-Jazeera on Wednesday and attacked a top Cairo security chief who tried to negotiate an end of protests after three days of violence in central Cairo. The protesters attacked Qatari-based Al-Jazeera Live studio overlooking Tahrir square with Molotov cocktails and petrol bombs leaving it gutted by fire hours later. (AP Photo/Mohammed Asad)

CAIRO (AP) — Egyptian protesters firebombed one of the offices of satellite broadcaster Al-Jazeera on Wednesday and attacked apolice chief who tried to negotiate an end to three days of violent protests in central Cairo.

The protesters hit the studio overlooking Tahrir Square with Molotov cocktails, engulfing it in flames. In a televised interview from inside the gutted office, reporter Ahmed el-Dassouki said around 300 protesters approached the building before noon, shouting obscenities.

He said they set the place on fire, stormed the building, and looted the studio. "They accuse our network of being biased and not objective," he said. Many protesters had accused the channel of supporting the country's most powerful political force, the Muslim Brotherhood.

After the attack, a crowd beat up Cairo Police Chief Osama el-Saghir, who had traveled to Tahrir Square to diffuse the situation, a security official said. Protesters drove El-Saghir from the square with punches and kicks, the official added, speaking anonymously because he was not authorized to brief reporters.

Fire crews rushed to put out the office blaze as dozens of onlookers watched smoke and flames shoot from the balcony.

Wednesday's development comes a day after a youth activist, Gaber Salah, was shot in the neck when clashes started on Monday. Scores of protesters have been wounded with birdshot and tear gas fired by police, and Egypt's Interior Ministry says 118 "rioters" have been arrested.

The conflict began as peaceful demonstrations demanding retribution for protesters slain by police a year ago, and an expression of anger at the Muslim Brotherhood and President Mohammed Morsi. Protesters have hung a huge banner reading "Muslim Brotherhood not allowed."

Monday was the first anniversary of the deadly confrontation between police and demonstrators known as "Mohammed Mahmoud," named after the street on which the clashes broke out when security forces moved to break up a sit-in by protesters injured during last year's uprising. It set off days of sustained violence that left 42 dead and hundreds wounded as security forces fired tear gas, shotgun rounds and rubber bullets.

That was before Morsi was president, while the country was run by a transitional military government following the ouster of longtime president Hosni Mubarak. But this week's protesters, mostly disgruntled youth, feel he has done little to address their demand that security officers be held accountable for the killings of protesters.

Clinton arrives in Cairo; Bus bomb rocks Tel Aviv

Israeli rescue workers and paramedics carry a wounded person from the site of a bombing in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, Nov. 21, 2012. A bomb ripped through an Israeli bus near the nation's military headquarters in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, wounding several people, Israeli officials said. The blast came amid a weeklong Israeli offensive against Palestinian militants in Gaza that has killed more than 130 Palestinians. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, left, shakes hands with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas during a meeting in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Wednesday, Nov. 21, 2012. Clinton will try on Wednesday to wring an elusive truce deal from Israel and Gaza's militant Hamas rulers after earlier efforts to end more than a week of fighting broke down amid a furious spasm of violence.(AP Photo/Alaa Badarneh, Pool)

CAIRO (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has arrived in Cairo in her diplomatic push to forge a truce betweenIsrael and Gaza rulers of Hamas, hours after a bomb exploded on an Israeli bus in Tel Aviv, wounding 10.

Clinton will meet with Egypt's President Mohammed Morsi on Wednesday to piece together a deal to end Israel's weeklong offensive in the Gaza Strip, which has killed more than 130 Palestinians. Militant rocket fire into Israel has killed five Israelis.

Clinton said the U.S. "strongly condemns" the bus bombing, calling it a "terrorist attack."

The cease-fire efforts come with thousands of Israeli troops massed on the Gaza border, awaiting a possible order to invade. Clinton met with the Israeli prime minister and the Palestinian president before heading to Cairo.