(2001 pop. 873,000). Approximately 130 kilometers south of Tehran, Qom is situated in a semiarid interior basin of central Iran along the Qom River, which flows down from the Zagros Mountains, through Qom, and into the large Darya-e Namak salt marsh to...

Coordinates: 34°39′N, 50°53′E Qom (Persian: قم, also known as Q'um or Kom) is a city in Iran. It lies 156 kilometres (97 mi) by road southwest of Tehran and is the capital of Qom Province. It has an estimated population of 1,042,309 in...

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, looked thinner than usual and sounded as if he had a cold, but seemed otherwise in good health when he appeared on television Monday.Video broadcast last month of Khamenei, 67, who has the final word on all matters in...

Some blogs in the Middle East:___EGYPT:_ http://misrdigital.blogspirit.com Arabic-language blog by democracy activist Wael Abbas. Has been instrumental in bringing attention to police torture and sexual attacks on women, publishing videotaped accounts of both in recent months._ http://karam903.blogspot.com Arabic blog by Abdel Kareem Nabil, on trial...

The young black-turbaned cleric detained for nearly 12 hours Friday by U.S. troops comes from one of Iraq's most influential Shiite families and is being groomed for a major leadership role by his powerful father.Amar al-Hakim, 35, was arrested along with his bodyguards about 9...

The hard-line government is backing away from a plan to promote the tradition of temporary marriage in Iran as a way to avoid extramarital sex, an official spokesman said Friday.A temporary marriage, or "sigheh," refers to a Shiite Muslim tradition under which a man and...