Berlin

Search ends for remains of American contractor

Saudi and U.S. officials announced Wednesday that they had ended their search for the body of Paul M. Johnson Jr., the American military contractor who was kidnapped last month in Riyadh and later beheaded by Islamic radicals.

A group calling itself Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula claimed responsibility June 18 for killing Johnson, an employee of Bethesda, Md.-based Lockheed Martin Corp., and posted photos of his decapitated corpse on the Internet. U.S. and Saudi officials said they were certain that the pictures were authentic and that Johnson was dead, but they have been unable to find him.

James Oberwetter, the U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, said Wednesday that authorities decided to call off the search after running out of clues.

Egypt

Saudi company meeting kidnappers’ demands

A Saudi company employing an Egyptian driver held hostage by insurgents in Iraq said Wednesday it would stop work in the country to win the captive’s freedom.

Faisal al-Naheet, owner of the unidentified Saudi company, told Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television his company “will stop our work in Iraq in order to save the life of the hostage who works for us as a driver.”

It was unclear whether al-Naheet meant the company was about to leave Iraq or was awaiting developments in the hostage’s case before withdrawing.

Earlier Wednesday, Al-Jazeera reported that the Iraqi Legitimate Resistance group that kidnapped the Egyptian, 42-year-old Alsayeid Mohammed Alsayeid Algarabawi, demanded the Saudi company leave Iraq within 72 hours. The group issued no specific threat.

Iran

Nation says it handed over bin Laden ally

Iran said Wednesday it treated a confidant of Osama bin Laden simply as an illegal immigrant, handing him over to his native Saudi Arabia after he accepted an amnesty offer.

Khaled bin Ouda bin Mohammed al-Harby was flown Tuesday to Saudi Arabia, along with his wife and son.

“Saudi national al-Harby … had illegally entered Iranian territory through the border of a neighboring country and had requested that he be handed over to his own country,” the official Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi as saying.

Iranian officials have insisted they are fighting terror, but the United States accuses them of harboring al-Qaida fugitives. Iran also has said that al-Qaida suspects have slipped into the country from neighboring Afghanistan.

Rome

Officials prohibit class segregating Muslims

Education authorities in Milan have blocked a plan by a local public school to create a separate class for Islamic students, a decision that fueled an ongoing debate about the role of Muslims in this predominantly Catholic nation.

The decision Tuesday came after days of raging controversy in Milan. Two other cases have made headlines in Italy: that of a Muslim activist who went to court to have a crucifix removed from his son’s public school classroom; and a kindergarten that asked a Muslim trainee teacher to remove her headscarf.

The plan by the Gaetana Agnesi school called for 20 students of Egyptian origin — three boys and 17 girls — to study together. The girls would have been allowed to wear headscarves in class, and would have had Friday off for Muslim prayer services.