French Defense Minister Herve Morin said about 30 militants were killed and 30 wounded. Taliban fighters and militants allied to renegade warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar operate in Surobi. It was the deadliest attack on international troops in Afghanistan since June 2005, when 16 American soldiers were killed when their helicopter was shot down by a rocket-propelled grenade. Meanwhile, some 19 Taliban fighters were killed in two separate clashes Wednesday in the eastern provinces of Khost and Paktia and a soldier from the U.S.-led coalition was killed by militants while on patrol in the west of the country. Ten militants were killed in Alisher district of Khost province early Wednesday after they attacked a construction company. Another nine militants were killed in clashes in Zormat district of Paktia province on Wednesday. The militants had gathered in an open area when Afghan and foreign troops attacked them. There were no casualties among Afghan and foreign troops. A coalition soldier was killed by small arms fire while on patrol in western Afghanistan, the coalition said in a statement Wednesday without identifying the soldier's nationality.

(Source: AP)

The beleaguered Philippine peace process was thrown into disarray Wednesday, with the government saying a proposed deal with Muslim rebels must be renegotiated after the guerrillas shot or hacked 37 people to death. The announcement came as the peace process with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front already appeared to be unraveling after Monday's rampage, which also led 44,000 people to flee their homes for evacuation centers in the troubled south. Jesus Dureza, the president's press secretary, said the government was concerned that the rebel leadership may not be able to control all their forces and such attacks could be repeated. (Source: AP)

Twin car bombings rocked a hotel and military headquarters in the Algerian town of Bouira on Wednesday, killing 11 people a day after a suicide bombing in a neighboring region killed 43. Wednesday's first bomb targeted Bouira's regional military command and injured four soldiers, the state-run APS news agency said. A minute later, 11 people died and 27 were wounded when a second bomb went off next to a hotel in downtown Bouira. It was not immediately clear whether the bombings, which occurred at about 6 a.m. local time, were suicide attacks or if the two cars blew up by remote control. There was no immediate official comment on the attacks. (Source: AP)

Iraq

The U.S. military says Iraqi troops have detained the son of a prominent Sunni leader during a raid in Baghdad. The arrest of Adnan al-Dulaimi's son Muthanna comes eight months after the detention of another son prompted an outcry among Sunni politicians. The military's statement on Wednesday says the detention took place the night before but that American troops were not involved. Al-Dulaimi is the head of the largest Sunni Arab police bloc the National Accordance Front. (Source: AP)

Also Tuesday, a car bomb killed three policemen in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, once a stronghold of the Sunni insurgency. (Source: Washington Post)

United States

The federal government has been using its system of border checkpoints to greatly expand a database on travelers entering the country by collecting information on all U.S. citizens crossing by land, compiling data that will be stored for 15 years and may be used in criminal and intelligence investigations. Officials say the Border Crossing Information system, disclosed last month by the Department of Homeland Security in a Federal Register notice, is part of a broader effort to guard against terrorist threats. It also reflects the growing number of government systems containing personal information on Americans that can be shared for a broad range of law enforcement and intelligence purposes, some of which are exempt from some Privacy Act protections. While international air passenger data has long been captured this way, Customs and Border Protection agents only this year began to log the arrivals of all U.S. citizens across land borders, through which about three-quarters of border entries occur. (Source: Washington Post)

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her Polish counterpart signed a deal Wednesday to build a U.S. missile defense base in Poland, an agreement that prompted an infuriated Russia to warn of a possible attack against the former Soviet satellite. The deal to install 10 U.S. interceptor missiles just 115 miles from Russia's westernmost frontier also has strained relations between Moscow and the West, ties that already troubled by Russia's invasion of its former Soviet neighbor, U.S. ally Georgia, earlier this month. Rice and Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski signed the deal Wednesday morning. (Source: AP)

Africa

Sudan's indicted president denied Wednesday that his regime is orchestrating genocide in the troubled western region of Darfur, and offered hope for an end to the violence and the dawn of reconciliation by promising free and fair elections next year. President Omar al-Bashir was indicted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague last month on genocide and war crimes charges. Prosecutors say militias unleashed by his government have killed some 300,000 ethnic Africans since 2003. More than 2.5 million have been displaced. Al-Bashir, speaking in Turkey during his first trip abroad since the indictment, said the death toll was inflated. (Source: AP)

Americas

A Canadian man accused of involvement in a plot to bomb British targets wanted to fight alongside insurgents in Afghanistan but never intended to bomb civilians in Britain, his lawyer said Tuesday. Momin Khawaja, a Pakistani-born Canadian citizen, is accused of collaborating with a group of British Muslims, also of Pakistani descent, in a thwarted 2004 plan to bomb British buildings and natural gas grids. Attorney Lawrence Greenspon presented a motion Tuesday demanding that terrorism charges against his client be dropped, arguing the prosecution hasn't produced enough evidence to substantiate the British bomb-plot allegations. Greenspon told Ontario Superior Court there is evidence Khawaja trained to become a jihadi soldier so he could battle Western troops in Afghanistan. (Source: Washington Times)

The crew of a Canadian frigate got a glimpse of piracy as it sailed around the Horn of Africa en route to its mission escorting food shipments into Somalia. Within the past five days, HMCS Ville de Quebec came within about 25 kilometers of two small bulk carriers that had been seized by Somalian pirates. (Source: Chronicle Herald-CAN)

Canada will be keeping closer watch on Russian activities in the Arctic following the invasion of Georgia, Defence Minister Peter MacKay said yesterday, adding that the country appears to have entered a "new era" of relations with Moscow. "We're obviously very concerned about much of what Russia has been doing lately," Mr. MacKay said after launching Operation Nanook, an Arctic sovereignty exercise. "When we see a Russian bear approaching Canadian air space, we meet them with an F-18," said Mr. MacKay, referring to Arctic patrol flights by Russian bombers. "We remind them that this is Canadian air space that this is Canadian sovereign air space, and they turn back. And we are going to continue to do that, to demonstrate that we are watching closely their activities here." Mr. MacKay's comments came as NATO allies issued a joint statement saying relations with Russia could not remain "business as usual." Russian forces pushed into Georgia earlier this month after the Georgian army occupied the breakaway province of South Ossetia. Yesterday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Canada would review all aspects of its relations with Russia. Last week, the prime minister accused Russia of reverting to a "Soviet-era mentality" with the invasion.

(Source: Canada.com)

Asia

North Korea stepped up criticism of ongoing U.S.-South Korea military exercises, warning Wednesday that it would boost its "war deterrent," a euphemism for its nuclear programs. North Korea "will increase its war deterrent in every way as long as the U.S. and its followers continue posing military threats to it," a spokesman for the North's Foreign Ministry said in comments carried by the country's official Korean Central News Agency. The remarks came two days after South Korea and the U.S. launched Ulchi Freedom Guardian, an annual computer-simulated war game and follow daily criticisms of the exercises in North Korean media. The exercises come amid a dispute between the U.S. and North Korea over ways to verify the North's declared nuclear programs under an aid-for disarmament deal. (Source: AP)

Cracks appeared in Pakistan's ruling coalition yesterday as the death toll from a bomb attack outside a hospital rose to 30, highlighting the daunting problems facing the country after Pervez Musharraf's resignation as President on Monday. Coalition leaders met for several hours in Islamabad to discuss whether to prosecute Musharraf, who should replace him and how to tackle the nation's dire economic and security problems. Negotiations stalled over the thorny question of whether to reinstate the judges whom Musharraf dismissed last year when he imposed emergency rule to ensure his re-election. Sherry Rehman, the Information Minister, said that no progress had been made in talks between the leaders of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), the Pakistan Muslim League (N) and two smaller coalition partners. (Source: The Times-UK)

Police using tear gas and batons clashed with Hindu protesters defying a fresh curfew in Indian Kashmir on Wednesday, injuring at least 25 people. Authorities re-imposed a curfew in Jammu, the region's only predominantly Hindu city, and several nearby towns after several incidents of violence were reported overnight. The clashes, which come after several days of relative calm, were small compared to the massive protests that have rocked the state over the last two months. At least 34 people have been killed in the violence. The crisis began in June with a dispute over land near a Hindu shrine. Muslims held protests complaining that a state government plan to transfer 99 acres (40 hectares) to a Hindu trust to build facilities for pilgrims near the shrine was actually a settlement plan meant to alter the religious balance in the region. (Source: AP)

Europe

Semtex explosive formerly belonging to the Provisional IRA was used in a terrorist attack on police officers in Northern Ireland at the weekend, marking a dangerous escalation in the capabilities of so-called ‘dissident’ republican groups intent on reigniting the province’s long and bloody conflict. Two police officers narrowly escaped death or serious injury on Saturday night in the border town of Lisnaskea, Co Fermanagh, according to Paul Leighton, the Deputy Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI). The most alarming element of the rocket attack was the detection of Semtex, an explosive imported into Ireland in vast quantities in the mid to late 1980s by the Provisionals as a gift from Colonel Muammar Gadaffi of Libya. The Provisional IRA was meant to have decommissioned its stockpiles of weaponry in what had proved to be the most difficult part of the peace process to accomplish, with an independent group led by the retired Canadian General John de Chastelain overseeing the operation. The decommissioning process was formally concluded in 2005. (Source: The Times-UK)

Turkey's interior minister on Wednesday confirmed that 13 policemen were wounded in a suicide bombing this week. The minister, Besir Atalay, said that a man who was being pursued by police detonated the explosives at a checkpoint outside the southern city of Mersin on Tuesday, wounding the policemen, two of them seriously. Authorities were investigating who was behind the attack, but Mersin Gov. Huseyin Aksoy blamed Kurdish rebels. There has been no claim of responsibility. Kurdish guerrillas have been fighting for the country's Kurdish-dominated southeast since 1984. The guerrillas have carried out suicide bomb attacks in the past. (Source: AP)

A convoy of badly needed food aid for beleaguered Georgians rumbled through a Russian checkpoint Wednesday, waved through by soldiers who themselves showed no signs of fulfilling their president's promise of a pullback within two days. A top Russian general, meanwhile, said Russia plans to construct a series of checkpoints manned by hundreds of soldiers in the so-called "security zone" around Georgia's de-facto border with the breakaway territory of South Ossetia. Colonel General Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy head of the Russian general staff, told a briefing Wednesday that Russia will build a double line of 18 checkpoints in the zone, with the posts in the front line to be manned by about 270 soldiers. The Russian-backed separatist region was the flashpoint of fighting this month that brought Russian troops deep into Georgia. A cease-fire that calls for both sides to pull back to their positions before the brief war allows Russia to maintain troops in a zone extending more than four miles into Georgia from South Ossetian line. The Russian forces in Georgia appear to be aiming to weaken Georgia's military through the detention of personnel and destruction of equipment before they withdraw as promised. On Tuesday, Russian forces drove out of the Black Sea port city of Poti with about 20 blindfolded and bound Georgian prisoners, identified by local officials as soldiers and police, and seized four U.S. Humvees. They reportedly were taken to a Russian-controlled military base nearby, and Georgian Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili said Wednesday they still were being held. Nogovitsyn, the Russian general, indicated his forces may not return the U.S. vehicles, which had been waiting at Poti to be shipped home after being used in recent U.S.-Georgia military exercises. Asked about U.S. demands that Russia return seized weaponry to the Georgian military, he said "we don't intend to give up trophies." Nogovistsyn said that 64 Russian soldiers were killed in the fighting and 323 were wounded. Russia previously had said 74 soldiers were killed and 170 were wounded in the conflict. Georgian officials have said they lost 160 soldiers and that 300 are missing. Russia claims Georgian losses are much higher. Civilian casualties remain unclear. South Ossetian officials on Wednesday said 1,492 civilians in the breakaway province had been killed. The investigative committee of the Russian prosecutor general's office on Wednesday confirmed 133 civilian deaths in South Ossetia, but said it could not be sure of a complete figure because many victims had already been buried. However, the two nations exchanged 20 prisoners of war, 15 Georgians and five Russians, according to the head of Georgia's Security Council, in an effort to reduce tensions. On the diplomatic front, NATO foreign ministers suspended their formal contacts with Russia as punishment. Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said "there can be no business as usual with Russia under present circumstances." (Source: AP)

Middle East

Hamas has rejected a proposal to deploy Arab troops in Gaza to help the Palestinians "reconstruct" their police forces and pave the way for a Hamas-Fatah reconciliation. The proposal, presented to Hamas by Egypt and Jordan in recent days, has won the full backing of the PA leadership in Ramallah, as well as the Saudis. Ayman Taha, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza City, said that "Hamas is capable of imposing law and order in the Gaza Strip, and we don't need external forces here." Hamas legislator Ismail al-Ashkar expressed fear that the proposal was aimed at restoring the pre-1967 situation, in which Gaza was under Egyptian rule while the West Bank was ruled by Jordan. (Source: Jerusalem Post)

Palestinians in Gaza fired a Kassam rocket into Israel Tuesday, in violation of the two-month old truce. Defense Minister Barak ordered the border crossings with Gaza closed between Wednesday morning and Thursday afternoon in response to the rocket attack. (Source: Ha'aretz)

The Israel Air Force will receive a new refueling aircraft in 2009, a Boeing 707 containing a refueling system, from Israel Aerospace Industries. "We are talking about a very big project that will give the IAF another refueling system," said Major Shlomi Shefer, the Head of the IAF Aerial Refueling Department. "We took the airplane used by former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and turned it into an aerial refueling plane. The fact that the IAF will have another of these aircraft means that more planes will be able to achieve their mission. We expect this aircraft to have the ability to refuel other planes in a short amount of time." (Source: Israel Defense Forces)

Four Jordanian prisoners handed over by Israel last year to complete their life sentences in the kingdom were released from jail on Wednesday. The four, who were convicted of killing two Israeli soldiers in November 1990, received a hero's welcome from relatives as they walked out of Qafqafa prison carrying Jordanian flags. Under Jordanian law, a life sentence is equivalent to 25 years in prison and a "year" of jail comprises just nine months. (Source: AFP)

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Tuesday that Israel had "massive capabilities and tools during the Second Lebanon War that it refrained from using, because it was fighting a terror organization, not a state." Should a Hizbullah-led Lebanon lead to a war in which Israel will be under a comprehensive attack, "There will no longer be a situation of distant fighting, where major cities continue with life as usual. The war will reach the cities and homes of Israeli citizens and our enemy's objective will be to target the homefront," he said. At that point, "we will be forced to bring an end to hostilities quickly, at the smallest possible cost, using our comparative advantage," Olmert said. Olmert emphasized that "there is no need to frighten ourselves more than is necessary regarding the threats." He stated that during the 33 days of fighting in Lebanon, no one who had been staying inside a bunker had been hurt. (Source: Ynet News)

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said on Wednesday he would use this week's visit to Russia to expand military ties with Moscow. Assad told Kommersant newspaper, "Of course military and technical cooperation is the main issue. Weapons purchases are very important. I think we should speed it up." A diplomatic source in Moscow said that Russia and Syria were preparing a number of deals involving anti-aircraft and anti-tank missile systems. Syria is interested in Russia's Pantsyr-S1 air defense missile systems, the BUK-M1 surface-to-air medium-range missile system, military aircraft and other hardware, the source said. (Source: Reuters)

Last year, Russian media reported that Moscow had delivered MiG-31 fighter planes and modern air defense systems to Syria, angering Israel. Damascus is a Soviet-era ally of Moscow, which maintained a naval base at the Syrian port of Tartus starting in the 1970s. The Russian media has speculated in recent years that Moscow is hoping to revive the base. (Source: AFP)

Ahmad Fayyazbakhsh, the head of a state-owned nuclear energy production company, said Tuesday that his company signed agreements with other Iranian firms to find locations to build new nuclear power plants. Iran has previously announced plans to build six more nuclear power plants by 2021. The U.S. suspects Iran's nuclear program is a cover for developing weapons. (Source: AP)

In an August 11 editorial titled "When Will the Hormuz Strait Be Closed?" in the Iranian weekly Sobh-e Sadeq, the mouthpiece of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei circulated among the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, IRGC political bureau chief Yadollah Javani wrote: "The Strait of Hormuz is one of 14 locations in the world with unique strategic importance. Over 60 percent of the world's energy reserves are located in the Persian Gulf, and 17 million barrels of oil are transported daily from the strait by oil tankers....Closing the Strait of Hormuz is part of Iran's defense policy in the face of the U.S. military threat." (Source: MEMRI)