KHARTOUM, Oct 20, 2007 (AFP) - The African Union on Saturday confirmed that an attack took place on a Darfur refugee camp on Friday and called on all parties to exercise restraint ahead of peace talks in Libya next week.

'We can confirm that there was an attack in Kalma camp, near Nyala in south Darfur,' said Noureddine Mezni, African Union mission in Sudan (AMIS) spokesman.

He said an inquiry had been launched to determine who was behind the killings. The number of casualties was not immediately clear.

PARIS, Oct 19, 2007 (AFP) - Benazir Bhutto on Friday accused supporters of Pakistan's late military ruler Mohammed Zia ul-Haq for the bomb explosion that killed more than 130 people after her arrival at Karachi, in an interview to Paris-Match magazine.

'I know exactly who wants to kill me. It is dignitaries of the former regime of General Zia who are today behind the extremism and the fanaticism,' she said in an interview published on Paris-Match's Internet site.

WASHINGTON, Oct 17, 2007 (AFP) - The United States said Wednesday it was concerned over a spate of bloody violence in Sudan's Darfur region in recent weeks, including the latest killing of three UN truck drivers.

Two of the drivers from the UN World Food Programme (WFP) were killed Tuesday in south Darfur as they were returning from delivering supplies near the scene of an attack on an African Union base which killed 10 peacekeepers last month.

MOSCOW, Oct 17, 2007 (AFP) - The secessionist region of Abkhazia Wednesday accused Georgia of staging an attack on a border post, Russia's Ria-Novosti news agency reported.

A police official said the attack took place in the evening near the village of Taglan.

'A group of armed Georgians tried to capture a border post. Following an exchange of fire, our patrols repulsed the attack,' he said.

Abkhazia, a sliver of land between the Black Sea and the Caucasus mountains, broke away from Georgia after fierce fighting in 1992-93 and now has de facto independence.

KHARTOUM, Oct 17, 2007 (AFP) - The UN World Food Programme (WFP) on Wednesday condemned the killing of three of its truck drivers in the violence-stricken western Sudanese region of Darfur.

Two of the men were killed Tuesday in south Darfur as they were returning from delivering supplies near the scene of an attack on an African Union base which killed 10 peacekeepers last month, according to a WFP statement.

SRINAGAR, India, Oct 11, 2007 (AFP) - A fierce gun battle was raging in Indian Kashmir Thursday after Islamic militants attempted to storm a police camp in what appeared to be the boldest rebel attack in months, police said.

The crack of gunfire could be heard from the banks of the scenic Dal Lake near Srinagar, the urban hub of the anti-India revolt in the disputed region, as security forces battled an unknown number of Muslim fighters.

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey, Oct 10, 2007 (AFP) - A policeman was killed and four other people injured Wednesday when a bomb was hurled at a police vehicle in Diyarbakir, the largest city of Turkey's restive mainly Kurdish southeast, officials said.

A shop was also damaged in the attack, leaving two people injured.

The two other injured were police officers.

Some witnesses said the device hurled at the vehicle was a hand grenade.

It was not immediately known who was behind the attack.

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey, Oct 10, 2007 (AFP) - A policeman was killed and four other people injured Wednesday when a bomb was hurled at a police vehicle in Diyarbakir, the largest city of Turkey's restive mainly Kurdish southeast, officials said.

A shop was also damaged in the attack, leaving two people injured.

The two other injured were police officers.

Some witnesses said the device hurled at the vehicle was a hand grenade.

It was not immediately known who was behind the attack.

COLOMBO, Oct 9, 2007 (AFP) - Authorities in the Maldives investigating a bomb attack on foreign tourists have arrested at least 50 local people following violent clashes with Islamic radicals, the government said Tuesday.

Security forces and police overpowered '70 masked men wearing red helmets, armed with wooden planks, spears, swords, bricks, iron rods and catapults' outside a prayer centre on Himandhoo island, a government statement said.

COLOMBO, Oct 9, 2007 (AFP) - Authorities in the Maldives investigating a bomb attack on foreign tourists have arrested at least 50 local people following violent clashes with Islamic radicals, the government said Tuesday.

Security forces and police overpowered '70 masked men wearing red helmets, armed with wooden planks, spears, swords, bricks, iron rods and catapults' outside a prayer centre on one island, a government statement said.

LONDON, Oct 5, 2007 (AFP) - Six men on Friday denied in court any role in an alleged Islamist plot to kidnap and kill a British soldier, before being sent to stand trial on the charges early next year.

Parviz Khan, 36, pleaded not guilty to a charge under the Terrorism Act that he plotted to kidnap and kill a British soldier between April 2006 and February this year.

Khan also denied two offences of having computer discs on jihad, or holy war, deemed 'likely to be useful in terrorism,' in the hearing at London's Central Criminal Court.

WASHINGTON, Oct 3, 2007 (AFP) - The United States will test this month its preparedness for a large scale terrorist attack with a dirty bomb, a Homeland Security Department official said Wednesday.

'TOPOFF 4' (Top Official 4), as the exercise is called, will be held between October 15-20, Deputy Administrator for National Preparedness Dennis Schrader told the House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security.

WARSAW, Oct 3, 2007 (AFP) - Poland's ambassador to Iraq was injured Wednesday when his convoy was hit by an explosion in Baghdad, foreign ministry spokesman Robert Szaniawski told AFP.

'It was probably a mine explosion. The ambassador was injured, but was able to leave the scene himself,' Szaniawski said.

'Three cars in the Polish convoy were destroyed in the attack,' which occured around 0700 GMT, he added.

COLOMBO, Sept 30, 2007 (AFP) - Two people have been arrested for a bombing that injured 12 foreigners in the Maldives, officials said, as the president of the Indian Ocean archipelago blamed dissidents for the attack.

The bombing in an area of the capital Male popular with holiday-makers has damaged the nation's reputation as one of the world's safest destinations.

BEIJING, Sept 17, 2007 (AFP) - A Chinese villager invited 30 guests to a restaurant dinner and blew them up, killing at least nine people, state press reported Monday.

Another 25 people were injured in the blast Sunday at the restaurant in a township in central China's Hunan province, Xinhua news agency reported.

The report, citing police sources, said the villager invited 30 people for dinner with whom he had been in dispute over a family matter.

They accepted, believed he wanted to apologise.

ISLAMABAD, Sept 15, 2007 (AFP) - President Pervez Musharraf told a visiting US Congressional delegation Saturday there were no safe havens for terrorists on Pakistani soil, an official statement said.

Musharraf also reiterated Pakistan's 'strong resolve to fight extremism and terrorism' during a meeting with a US delegation led by House Republican Leader John Boehner in Rawalpindi.

JERUSALEM, Sept 11, 2007 (AFP) - A US court has ordered the government of Iran to pay 12.9 million dollars to the family of a Hebrew University student who was killed in an 2002 bomb attack on the campus in Jerusalem.

The American student, Marla Bennett of San Diego, was one of nine students and workers killed in an attack at the cafeteria of the university's Mount Scopus campus on July 31, 2002, the university said in a statement on Tuesday.

DUBAI, Sept 8, 2007 (AFP) - Al-Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden emerged in an apparently recent video on Friday for the first time in three years, days ahead of the 9/11 anniversary, to call for escalating the insurgency in Iraq.

'Despite America being the greatest economic power and possessing the most powerful and up-to-date military arsenal as well... 19 young men were able -- by the grace of Allah, the Most High -- to change the direction of its compass,' he said of the September 11, 2001 hijackers.

DUBAI, Sept 7, 2007 (AFP) - Al-Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden appeared on a video on Friday, in his first public showing in three years, mocking the 'weakness' of the United States.

'America is weak despite its apparent strength,' he said in a short extract broadcast by the Arab satellite channel Al-Jazira.

The 26-minute video also obtained by the SITE intelligence group is entitled, 'The Solution'.

Bin Laden speaks at length about the American 'failure' in Iraq, pinning the blame on capitalism and corporations, it said.

BUENOS AIRES, Sept 6, 2007 (AFP) - A second bomb in as many days targetting an executive of Swiss Giant Nestle exploded Thursday in a Buenos Aires suburb, breaking windows in his ex-wife's home but not injuring anyone, police said.

The explosion occurred in front of the home occupied by the former wife and two children of Nestle technology executive Christian Antonello.

On Wednesday a letter bomb addressed to Antonello, 33, seriously wounded another executive who opened the package at the firm's base near the Argentine capital.

BUENOS AIRES, Sept 5, 2007 (AFP) - An executive of the multinational food giant Nestle was seriously wounded when a letter bomb exploded in his hands at the firm's base near the Argentine capital Wednesday, police said.

Cosme Veneziale, 48, a manager in the firm's technical department at the office north of Buenos Aires, was hospitalized by the explosion, triggered when he tried to open a package that had been mailed to him containing a book.

CAIRO, Sept 2, 2007 (AFP) - Egyptian officials are to meet with two engineering students charged in the United States with transporting explosives, the foreign ministry said Sunday, more than a month after they were arrested.

Officials from the Egyptian embassy in Washington will meet the two 'at their place of detention on Wednesday (September) 5,' the ministry said.

'The foreign ministry will spare no efforts in defending the interests of Egyptians abroad as long as they respect the laws of the countries they are in.'

BOGOTA, Aug 29, 2007 (AFP) - Colombian police foiled an attempted car bomb attack by leftist rebel guerrillas on US forces stationed in the country, authorities said here Wednesday.

Colombian police chief Oscar Naranjo said 14 guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) were arrested for preparing to bomb a US military base in Melgar, 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of the capital.

'We tracked a terrorist cell which had gone to Melgar to leave a rigged car and the plot was foiled,' Naranjo said.

SANAA, Aug 28, 2007 (AFP) - A Yemeni journalist accused of having links to Shiite Muslim rebels was briefly kidnapped and beaten on Monday, a Yemeni journalists union said.

Abdelkarim Al-Kiwani, editor of the Al-Shura weekly of the Union of Popular Forces Shiite party, was bundled into a vehicle by an unknown group of men in Sanaa on Monday evening, a union official told AFP.

Kiwani telephoned work colleagues three hours later to say the men had attacked him and abandoned him in one of the city's southern districts, said the union official, who declined to be named.

MIRANSHAH, Pakistan, Aug 18, 2007 (AFP) - Two Pakistani soldiers were killed Saturday when a suicide bomber rammed his explosives-filled car into a checkpost in a restive tribal area bordering Afghanistan, officials said.

The attack occurred at Dharkhubi checkpost near the town of Mir Ali, some 30 kilometres (18 miles) east of Miranshah, the main town in volatile North Waziristan tribal district, a security official told AFP.

'Two paramilitary soldiers were killed and two others were seriously hurt in the suicide bombing,' the official told AFP.

BAGHDAD, Aug 16, 2007 (AFP) - More than 400 people were slaughtered in four suicide truck bomb attacks in northern Iraq targeting the ancient Yazidi religious sect, a senior interior ministry official said on Thursday.

'More than 400 people were killed and the toll is expected to rise,' the ministry's director of operations, Major General Abdel Karim Khalaf, told AFP.

He said more than two tonnes of explosives were packed into the four bombs that ripped through two villages in Nineveh province late Tuesday.

WASHINGTON, Aug 16, 2007 (AFP) - A US plan to blacklist Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard as a 'terrorist' group met with strong but wildly varied reaction among the media and politicians here Thursday.

The New York Times, in an editorial titled 'Amateur hour on Iran,' described the George W. Bush administration's plan, announced Wednesday, as clumsy and ill-conceived.

'The dangers posed by Iran are serious, and America needs to respond with serious policies, not more theatrics,' the newspaper wrote.

COLOMBO, Aug 16, 2007 (AFP) - A Tamil reporter suffered burns on his face, arms and back after attackers threw acid at him in Sri Lanka Lanka's capital Thursday in the latest assault on journalists, a rights group said.

K.P. Mohan of the Tamil-language Thinakkural daily was attacked as he walked out of Colombo's main hospital, where he had finished treatment for injuries suffered when soldiers beat him up in June, the Free Media Movement (FMM) said.

CAIRO, Aug 15, 2007 (AFP) - The Arab League on Wednesday condemned devastating suicide truck bombings that killed more than 200 people in northern Iraq and appealed for national reconciliation.

'The Arab League firmly condemns the explosions which on Tuesday killed hundreds of Yazidis,' the 22-nation body said in a statement after the blasts late Tuesday in two villages inhabited by members of the Yazidi minority.

MOSUL, Iraq, Aug 15, 2007 (AFP) - The death toll from brutal truck bombings targeting the ancient Yazidi religious sect in northern Iraq rose to more than 200 on Wednesday, a local government official told AFP.

Mayor of Sinjar, a town in the northern province of Nineveh where four truck bombs exploded on Tuesday, voiced fears that the toll could rise further.

'More than 200 people were killed and an equal number of people are wounded,' Dakhil Qassim Hassun said.

'The casualties are expected to rise as many victims are still trapped under the debris.'

MOSUL, Iraq, Aug 15, 2007 (AFP) - At least 175 people were slaughtered and more than 200 wounded on Tuesday when four suicide truck bombs targeted people from an ancient religious sect in northern Iraq, officials said.

The attacks were carried out in two villages of the northern province of Nineveh and targeted the minority Yazidi community and between them amounted to one of the bloodiest single incidents of the four-year-old war.

MOSUL, Iraq, Aug 15, 2007 (AFP) - At least 175 people were slaughtered and more than 200 wounded on Tuesday when four suicide truck bombs targeted people from an ancient religious sect in northern Iraq, officials said.

The attacks were carried out in two villages of the northern province of Nineveh and targeted the minority Yazidi community and between them amounted to one of the bloodiest single incidents of the four-year-old war.

ZAMBOANGA, Philippines, Aug 11, 2007 (AFP) - Thousands of people have fled their homes in the southern Philippine island of Jolo as troops pursue Muslim militants blamed for killing more than 20 soldiers, officials said Saturday.

More than 10,000 people had fled their homes in the towns of Maimbung, Indanan and Parang, for fear of getting caught in the crossfire, said Amilhabar Amilasan, a special presidential assistant for Jolo.

Government evacuation centers had been set up to house those who fled, Amilasan added.

SANAA, Aug 10, 2007 (AFP) - A manhunt was under way in Yemen on Friday to track down an armed gang that struck government targets in the restive region of Marib the day after four Al-Al Qaeda suspects were killed by police.

'Those that carried out these operations are wanted security suspects and an investigation is underway to capture them,' an interior ministry source told AFP, without giving further details.

MANILA, Aug 10, 2007 (AFP) - Authorities in the Philippines are to deploy two more battalions to the troubled south after the army suffered some of its heaviest casualties in decades of fighting militants, officials said Friday.

The military has since Tuesday lost 26 dead and 17 wounded in fighting on the southern island of Jolo, military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Bartolome Bacarro said.

Bacarro said two more army battalions, some 1,000 soldiers, will deploy in Jolo to support 4,000 infantry and marines already stationed there.

MANILA, Aug 10, 2007 (AFP) - Philippine troops have suffered some of their heaviest casualties in decades of fighting insurgencies this week with the loss of 26 soldiers, officials acknowledged Friday.

Since Tuesday the military have suffered 26 dead and 17 wounded in fighting on the southern island of Jolo, said military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Bartolome Bacarro.

ZAMBOANGA, Philippines, Aug 9, 2007 (AFP) - Twenty soldiers and a civilian were killed Thursday as fighting between government forces and Muslim gunmen spread in the southern Philippines, the military said.

Gunmen ambushed a military convoy and killed 10 soldiers near Maimbung town on Jolo island, military sources said on condition of anonymity.

A child living in the area was also killed in the crossfire, they added.

ZAMBOANGA, Philippines, Aug 9, 2007 (AFP) - Muslim extremists killed nine soldiers and wounded two in an ambush on their convoy Thursday in the southern Philippines, the military said.

The attack took place outside Maimbung town on the island of Jolo as the soldiers headed to the market for provisions, said local military spokesman Major Eugene Batara.

'We have reports that the Abu Sayyaf were the ones who attacked them,' he added, saying the gunmen also took six M-16 rifles.