A Syrian Air Force fighter plane fires a rocket during an air strike in the village of Tel Rafat, some 37 km (23 miles) north of Aleppo, August 9, 2012. Syrian troops and rebels fought over the country's biggest city Aleppo as President Bashar al-Assad's key foreign backer Iran gathered ministers from like-minded states for talks on Thursday about how to end the conflict.
Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi (7th R), head of Egypt's military, Armed Forces Chief of Staff Sami Anan (8th R), Kamal Ganzouri (6th R), adviser to the Egyptian president, and Amr Moussa (5th R), former Arab League chief and former presidential candidate, walk with other ministers during the funeral of soldiers killed during an attack at a checkpoint along the Sinai border with Israel by unknown gunmen, at the tomb of the late President Anwar al-Sadat and the Unknown Soldier monument in Cairo August 7, 2012. Egypt began work to seal off smuggling tunnels into the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, a security source said, two days after gunmen shot dead 16 Egyptian border guards in an attack blamed partly on Palestinian ****** milita
Members of the Egyptian security forces take position on a sand dune during an operation in the northern Sinai peninsula on August 08, 2012. Egypt, which launched air raids against Islamist militants in Sinai for the first time in decades, faces a tough enemy that has used the peninsula's rugged terrain to evade capture in the past. The military said it deployed Apache helicopter gunships in the strikes that killed 20 'terrorists' in the Sinai village of Tumah, in retaliation for a weekend ambush that cost the lives of 16 soldiers
Soldiers participate in Army Day on the 193rd anniversary of the Battle of Puente de Boyaca, near Tunja August 7, 2012.
Kurdish Peshmerga troops prepare 122-mm howitzers during a deployment in the area near the northern Iraqi border