Briefly

IRAQ

Zurfi named as prime minister-designate

Iraq's president designated Adnan al-Zurfi, a former regional governor with a low national political profile, as prime minister. He is tasked with forming a government within 30 days in a bid to overcome months of unrest and political deadlock. The nomination came hours after two rockets hit an Iraqi military base hosting US-led coalition and NATO troops, the third such attack within a week, without causing casualties according to military officials. Zurfi, 54, who served as governor of the predominantly Shiite Najaf Province during the US occupation after the fall of Saddam Hussein, is head of the small Nasr parliamentary group of former prime minister Haider al-Abadi, a US ally. Zurfi, who lived in the United States as a refugee in the 1990s after fleeing Saddam, is seen as a comparatively secular figure in a country long dominated by sectarian parties.

FRANCE

20 charged over 2015 Paris terror attacks

French judges investigating the 2015 Islamic State attacks that left 130 people dead in Paris have ordered charges against 20 people, including a Belgian accused of masterminding the attacks who had been held for years in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq before being freed and returned home. Three of the group, including the alleged mastermind, Oussama Atar, are believed to have died in the group's final months of fighting in Iraq and Syria. Also accused is the only survivor of the Paris cell, Salah Abdeslam, who was arrested near his home in Brussels after months on the run. Abdeslam's brother, Brahim, blew himself up in Paris. Of the 20, 11 are jailed, three are under house arrest and six face international arrest warrants.

THAILAND

Car bombs injure 25 in restive south

Twenty-five people were injured on Tuesday in two car bomb blasts at an office of Thailand's Southern Border Provincial Administrative Center, or SBPAC, a senior police officer said. The bombs, attached to a parked vehicle in the premises of the SBPAC office in a downtown area of Yala Province, injured five policemen who were rushed to hospitals, according to deputy National Police spokesman Krissana Pattanacharoen. Armed members of a separatist movement in Thailand's southern region are suspected as being the bombers.

Agencies - Xinhua