The major battle began Friday in Paktika, one of the Afghan provinces along the porous Pakistani border where clashes between Taliban militants and security forces have intensified in recent months. The coalition said militants ambushed the patrol on a road in Ziruk district with rockets and gunfire, prompting U.S.-led troops to return fire and call in warplanes. About 55 insurgents were killed, including three key leaders, a coalition statement said. It did not identify them. Twenty-five militants were wounded and another three detained, it added. The clash was the second in three days to inflict heavy casualties on insurgents, who have little answer to Western airpower. The Afghan Defense Ministry said its soldiers counted the bodies of 94 militants after a joint operation with NATO forces Wednesday in Arghandab, a valley just outside the southern city of Kandahar. The coalition said Monday that NATO troops spotted four militants laying a bomb by a road in Nangarhar, another eastern province. After a gunbattle, a coalition helicopter fired on the militants, killing one of them. The troops pursued the other three and discovered a cache of bomb-making materials. Also Monday, Pakistan renewed an offer to fence the country's porous border with Afghanistan to stop crossings by militants. The idea was first proposed by Pakistan's previous government of allies of President Pervez Musharraf. Army spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said Monday more than 22 miles of "selected" sections had been built when the projected was shelved last year. Afghan and U.S. officials complain militants fighting in Afghanistan freely roam the 1,500-mile border. Afghan officials have argued a fence doesn't deter militants but affects families separated by the border. (Source: AP)

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Rockets fired from Pakistan hit a village in eastern Afghanistan, killing a woman and three children, Afghan officials said Sunday, one of three cross-border attacks around the same time overnight. Tension has mounted between the neighbors, with Pakistan saying 11 of its soldiers were killed in an air strike by U.S. forces operating from Afghanistan on June 10. Afghan President Hamid Karzai threatened five days later to send troops across the frontier to hunt down Taliban militants based in Pakistan. Rockets launched from about 300 metres inside Pakistani territory landed in a village near the eastern town of Khost on Saturday, close to a large NATO base, killing a woman and three children. Eight people were wounded in the attack, most of them women. At around the same time on Saturday evening, a rocket fired from Pakistan hit a hospital in northeastern Kunar province, killing one man and wounding two others. Also at the same time, three artillery shells fired from Pakistan landed in an Afghan army camp and three more close to a NATO base in the eastern Afghan province of Paktika. There were no casualties, but NATO forces returned fire. Afghan troops responded by firing 19 artillery rounds from Khost and nine rounds from Paktika that landed in Pakistan. . (Source: Globe and Mail-CAN)

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A report commissioned by the Association of Chief Police Officers after last year's failed bomb attacks in London's West End and at Glasgow Airport claims that increasing numbers of Britain's young Muslims have become so alienated from mainstream society that they could even lend their support to jihadi terrorism. The study, entitled Hearts and Minds and Eyes and Ears: Reducing Radicalisation Risks Through Reassurance Orientated Policing, warns that "the threat to the UK from jihadist terrorism may increase in the future." (Source: Telegraph-UK)

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Iraq

The latest in a wave of female suicide bombers killed 15 people and wounded more than 40 others on Sunday near a heavily fortified courthouse and government outpost in central Baquba. Seven of the dead and 10 of the wounded were Iraqi police officers. The bombing was the most devastating of four attacks by guerrillas in Diyala Province on Sunday that left at least 25 people dead and close to 60 wounded. While Diyala is no longer under the almost complete control of Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias, as it was much of last year, a spate of attacks has prompted concerns about the endurance of recent security gains and the extent to which guerrillas in some areas still operate freely.

Hours after the explosion in Baquba, a mortar volley struck north of Khalis, in the western end of Diyala, killing seven people and wounding 12, according to provincial police officials. On Sunday four people were killed west of Kirkuk, where Kurds, Sunni Arabs and Turkmen are vying for control, by a roadside bomb that struck their car, according to the Kirkuk police. Insurgents also struck another part of Diyala on Sunday. Three Iraqi soldiers were killed by a large roadside bomb near Muqdadiya in central Diyala. About 20 gunmen abducted five shepherds near Buhriz, which is south of Baquba. (Source: New York Times)

Five British hostages who were kidnapped from a Baghdad ministry 14 months ago are alive, a senior Iraqi official said yesterday, hinting that security forces may be closing in on their location. “We have a very good, strong intelligence telling us they are alive, and we roughly know the area where they are,” Mowaffak al-Rubaie, the Iraqi national security adviser, told the BBC. “But we don’t want to be aggressive in our approach, not to risk their lives.” Mr al-Rubaie did not elaborate on where he believed the hostages were being held, and British diplomats refused to comment on his claims. The captives were seized in May last year when dozens of armed and uniformed men burst into the Finance Ministry compound in Baghdad where Peter Moore, a computer specialist from Lincoln, was giving civil servants IT instruction, under the protection of four as yet unidentified British security contractors working for a Canadian firm. (Source: The Times-UK)

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United States

The Army's march to overhaul its tarnished contracting system has been slowed by an unlikely foe: the White House. The Office of Management and Budget, President Bush's administrative arm, has shot down a service plan to add five active-duty generals who would oversee purchasing and monitor contractor performance. The boost in brass was a key recommendation from a blue-ribbon panel that last fall criticized the Army for contracting failures that undermined the war effort in Iraq and Afghanistan, wasted U.S. tax dollars, and sparked dozens of procurement fraud investigations. (Source: AP)

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U.S. plans for a missile defense system in Europe could be delayed well beyond the 2013 target because Defense Department experts say the interceptors have not been adequately tested. Administration officials had initially disregarded the findings and reassured lawmakers the system to shoot incoming missiles out of the sky would work. But with Congress now poised to require additional tests, the department has reversed itself and is planning three trial interceptor launches, a process that could take years. A delay would be a setback for President Bush, who has made the system one of his top military priorities, even as it strains U.S. relations with Russia. It would mean vital decisions would have to be put off until long after a new president takes office in January, either John McCain, who strongly supports missile defense, or Barack Obama, who has been more skeptical. (Source: AP)

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Africa

UN agencies operating in Darfur warned Sunday that rising insecurity, a bad cereal harvest and the approaching rainy season will make for a particularly bad year for the population of the region. The vast arid western region of Sudan is the site of the largest humanitarian operation in the world but increased banditry and the coming rainy season, which runs from June through October, will make it even harder for agencies to get food to those that need it. Mike McDonagh, chief of the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said the poor harvest, the inability to transport food, continued displacement and overstretched water resources are combining to create the "perfect storm" in Darfur. He said he expected to see reduction in key indicators of well-being such as consumption of nutritious foods and access to water and medical facilities among Darfuris, who are largely surviving on assistance. (Source: AP)

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The leader of Zimbabwe’s opposition party withdrew Sunday from a presidential runoff, just five days before it was to be held, saying he could neither participate “in this violent, illegitimate sham of an election process,” nor ask his voters to risk their lives in the face of threats from forces backing President Robert Mugabe. The opposition candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai, the standard-bearer of the Movement for Democratic Change, said at a news conference in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare that his party was facing a war rather than an election, “and we will not be part of that war.” A governing party militia blocked his supporters from attending a major rally in Harare on Sunday, the head of an election observer team said. The opposition said rowdy youths, armed with iron bars and sticks, beat up people who had come to cheer for Mr. Tsvangirai. (Source: New York Times)

Americas

In Ottawa today, all eyes, including those of police armed with assault rifles, will be on 29-year-old Mohammed Momin Khawaja. The first man ever charged under Canada's Anti-terrorism Act will be escorted from the confines of a secure jail cell to begin his trial downtown. The case in the third-floor Courtroom No. 37 will be the most secure ever held in the nation's capital, and the tensions are running so high the judge has been given a code to evacuate his courtroom. Even civil servants in the next building will be on high alert. Tactical squads, explosives-sniffing dogs, security barriers and metal detectors have all been put in place in and around the courthouse on Elgin Street. There is no known specific threat. But given that it is terrorism on the docket, and that Canada has yet to successfully try a terrorism case, nothing is being left to chance. Court staff have also been working out contingency plans. "During court sessions, if the officer attending the accused rises and leaves with the prisoner this should be your cue you need to evacuate the courtroom," reads an internal memo circulated last week. "He will be signaling the court staff, so stay alert." (Source: Globe and Mail-CAN)

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Asia

Government forces captured six Tamil Tiger rebel bunkers on the front lines in war-ravaged northern Sri Lanka and infantry killed 33 rebels and six soldiers in clashes, the military said Monday. Fighting has escalated in recent months in the area separating government-controlled territory and the rebels' de facto state in the north. The military has stepped up land and air attacks on rebels as the government has pledged to capture rebel-held territory and to crush the insurgents by the end of the year. Diplomats and other observers say the army has faced more resistance than expected. The latest battles broke out Sunday in the Vavuniya, Mannar, Welioya and Jaffna areas. (Source: AP)

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Middle East

Leading oil exporters have acknowledged the need to boost supplies to curb soaring prices but stopped short of specific commitments on extra output. Following their crisis summit in Saudi Arabia, officials noted price levels were "hostile" and more investment was needed to ensure "adequate" supplies. Saudi Arabia blamed speculation, not lack of supply, for surging prices but said it was willing to raise output. But Saudi Arabia said it would be prepared to pump more oil "if demand for such quantities materializes and our customers tell us they are needed". The world's largest oil producer has already announced plans to lift daily quotas to 9.7 million barrels by the end of July, an increase of about 500,000 barrels since May. Saudi officials also indicated they could raise its oil "cushion," the spare production capacity it maintains, above the current 12.5 million barrels per day planned for the end of 2009. (Source: BBC)

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Joe Varner is Assistant Professor and Program Manager for Homeland Security at American Military University