MIDDLE EAST UPDATE \ A roundup of events

The latest developments in Iraq:
Coalition forces detained four suspects in the Nicholas Berg killing, and two were later released, a U.S. military spokesman said today. The suspects were detained during a raid Wednesday in Baghdad, Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said at a news conference. "We may find out that they have no association with the murder but we will continue to question them for some period of time until we are convinced they are innocent," Kimmitt said. The suspects were former members of Saddam Hussein's Fedayeen paramilitary organization, the Iraqi security official said on condition of anonymity. Iraqi police arrested them May 14 in a house in Salaheddin province, north of Baghdad. The province includes Tikrit, Saddam's hometown.
American AC-130 gunships and tanks battered militia positions early today near two shrines in the holy city of Karbala, killing 18 fighters loyal to anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, the U.S. military said. Fighting between American forces and al-Sadr's militia also was heavy in Najaf and neighboring Kufa, south of Baghdad. Explosions rocked the center of Najaf, near local government buildings, and Friday prayers were canceled because of the violence. A huge fire raged in a vegetable market.
The U.S. military released hundreds of Iraqi prisoners today from the Abu Ghraib prison, center of a scandal involving abuse of detainees by American soldiers. A convoy of at least six buses, accompanied by U.S. troops in armored vehicles and jeeps, took the detainees from the prison on the western outskirts of Baghdad to Tikrit and Baqouba, north of Baghdad.
Iraqi insurgents in Najaf freed a Spanish radio reporter after holding him captive for four hours, the correspondent's station said. After his release, reporter Fran Sevilla called his wife in Madrid and the newsroom to say he was unharmed, Spanish National Radio said. Sevilla said he was returning to Baghdad, said Aurora Minguez, a reporter on the station's international desk. Sevilla had reported this morning on the withdrawal of Spanish troops from a base in another city, Diwaniyah, and was intercepted after he traveled to Najaf to report on a sermon from al-Sadr, Spanish National Radio said.
Two explosions were heard in central Baghdad today and clouds of smoke rose from the site of the blasts. The cause of the blasts was unclear.
Source: Associated Press