The New Nation - Internet Edition

AP, Gaza City

Israeli aircraft launched an assault on the radical Islamic Jihad organization from the skies over Gaza, killing the group's overall commander and eight other militants in three fiery strikes ending early Tuesday.

A fourth attack on a security post in southern Gaza killed a Hamas militant, that group said.

In an e-mail sent to reporters, Islamic Jihad said it would retaliate for its losses with suicide attacks inside Israel, threatening "a wave of martyrdom operations."

Thousands of Gazans took to the streets in funeral processions for the dead militants, whose bodies and coffins were draped with black Islamic Jihad flags.

Three of the Islamic Jihad militants were targeted as they emerged from morning prayers Tuesday at a northern Gaza mosque. Six others died when Israeli aircraft blasted two cars in Gaza City after nightfall Monday.

"There is no doubt that this is a big loss," Khader Habib, an Islamic Jihad leader in Gaza, told The Associated Press.

The deadly strikes against Islamic Jihad are part of a stepped-up Israeli offensive against Gaza militants who fire near-daily rocket barrages at southern Israeli border communities. Islamic Jihad, a small radical group with ties to Iran, has taken responsibility for most of the barrages.

The airstrikes in Gaza came after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas gained strong support for his moderate government at an international donors conference in Paris. Donors pledged $7.4 billion over the next three years, far more than he expected.

Abbas is locked in a deadly power struggle with Hamas, which overran Gaza in June after routing his fighters.

The Israeli military said the three air attacks targeted militants involved in rocket fire at Israel.

"I'm very pleased with our achievements last night," Matan Vilnai, Israel's deputy defense minister, told Army Radio on Tuesday morning.

Palestinian militants fired rockets and mortar shells at Israel on Tuesday morning.

Reuters, Paris

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Sunday the lifting of emergency rule in Pakistan by President Pervez Musharraf was a good thing but a free election was needed to move the country towards democracy.

Musharraf, a key ally to the United States in its fight against al Qaeda, restored the constitution on Saturday after more than a month of emergency rule in which he sacked judges, locked up lawyers and rounded up thousands of activists.

He said Pakistan would hold a fair election on Jan. 8, but Rice called for a "very robust and concerted effort" to make sure proper political campaigns could take place.

"That means that opposition has to be able to gather and mobilise t has to have access to the press," she said on her way to a Palestinian donors' conference in Paris.

"And I think that's the next test for Pakistan but it's a good thing that the state of emergency has been lifted."

Musharraf declared emergency rule on Nov. 3, citing a meddling judiciary and violence from militants. The international community condemned his actions, and Rice said now the election would be subject to close scrutiny.

"I think the Pakistanis understand that the international community is going to be watching and that it's important that it be free and fair," she said."

"I think if there are real efforts to make sure that the opposition can act on its own behalf as it prepares for elections that this could be an election that can move Pakistan forward on the democratic road."

AP, Baghdad

The Turkish army sent soldiers about 1.5 miles into northern Iraq on Tuesday, a spokesman for Kurdish security forces said.

The troops crossed into an area near the border with Iran, about 75 miles north of the city of Irbil, said Jabar Yawar, a spokesman for Kurdistan's Peshmerga security forces.

It was not immediately clear what time the incursion took place or whether the Turkish troops were still in Iraq.

Turkish Foreign Ministry officials declined to comment on reports of Turkish incursion.

On Sunday, Turkey conducted airstrikes against rebels from the Kurdish Workers' Party, or PKK, in northern Iraq. As many as 50 fighter jets were involved in the attack, the biggest against the PKK in years.

The Iraqi parliament on Monday condemned the bombing, calling it an "outrageous" violation of Iraq's sovereignty that killed innocent civilians.

The United States and Iraq have urged Turkey to avoid a large-scale attack on rebel bases inside Iraq, fearing such an operation would destabilize what has been the calmest region in the country.

AFP, Heart

Fifteen Afghan security guards working for a private US firm were killed in an ambush by Taliban militants in western Afghanistan on Tuesday, police said.

Nine other guards with the company, identified as USPI, were wounded in the attack in Farah province, police official Colonel Saydo Khan told AFP.

The guards were escorting a civilian supply convoy to a Western military base when they were attacked in the district of Bala Buluk, he said.

"Taliban ambushed them. Fifteen guards were killed and nine others were injured," Khan said.

Police reinforcements had been sent to the area and were fighting the attackers in a nearby village, he said from the scene.

"I can see the bodies of the guards. We have evacuated the wounded to the hospital," Khan said. Provincial governor Mohaiuddin Baluch confirmed the incident but had no details of the casualties.

The insurgents regularly attack convoys that supply military bases in the region and have also targeted food aid convoys from the World Food Programme.

Farah neighbours southern Helmand province -- the Taliban's biggest stronghold -- and has seen growing unrest in the past year, with the militants able to briefly capture several districts in recent months.

The rebels made a new offensive overnight when dozens of them stormed the Khak-i-Safed district but were pushed back by police, Baluch said.

AP, Hanoi

The World Health Organization warned Monday that countries should be on alert for bird flu because it is again on the move, with Pakistan reporting South Asia's first human infections and Myanmar logging its first human case.

"The key to the public health response is surveillance," said Peter Cordingley, spokesman for the WHO Western Pacific region in Manila, noting that the H5N1 virus often flares when temperatures drop during the winter months.

"If we do actually get to the cases with antivirals early on, the health outcome is a lot better," he said.

WHO experts traveled to Pakistan and were to visit a hospital and affected areas Tuesday, said WHO country representative Khalif Bile in Islamabad.

"They are here to get more information and to provide more support in the case of any potential risk," he said, adding that the country's health and agriculture ministries were now working closely with WHO following a "communication gap" when the government did not immediately report suspected cases to the U.N. health agency.

Four brothers and two cousins fell ill last month in Abbotabad, north of Islamabad, while three others who slaughtered poultry in the same area and a nearby town tested positive for the H5N1 bird flu virus this month.

Two of the brothers died, but specimens were collected from only one.

AP, Bangkok

Suspected Muslim insurgents shot and killed four people before beheading one victim in Thailand's insurgency-wracked south Tuesday, days before the country's first election since last year's coup, police said.

A village chief in Yala province's Bannang Sata district, was guarded by a group of village defense volunteers on his way home when at least 10 assailants opened fire on them, killing him and three volunteers, said police Lt. Sompien Eksomya.

"The village chief was beheaded and his severed head was found near the crime scene and the rest of the bodies," Sompien said.

More than 2,600 people have been killed in the Muslim-majority southernmost provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat, and some parts of neighboring Songkhla, since a long-simmering Islamic separatist insurgency flared up in January 2004.

Reuters, Mogadishu

Fighting between government troops and Islamist insurgents in northern Mogadishu has killed at least six people including three family members, residents said on Tuesday.

Residents were forced to flee under a hail of fire as the soldiers, backed by Ethiopian allies, attacked an insurgent hideout in the SOS area for most of Monday afternoon.

"My wife, first-born daughter and 18-year-old son died when a mortar hit my house," Mohamed Osman, a nurse at the SOS Hospital, told Reuters by telephone.

"My other five children are in hospital wounded. Among them is a 3-year-old daughter in critical condition," he said.

Reuters, Algiers

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will visit Algeria on Tuesday to express support for the country after a December 11 twin bombing that killed at least 37 people including 17 U.N. staff, state media reported.

The attacks, the second big bombing this year in the capital of the north African OPEC member country, destroyed two U.N. buildings in the city's Hydra district and damaged the Constitutional Court building in Ben Aknoun district.

Ban was expected to meet President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and visit the Hydra bomb site.

Al Qaeda's North African wing claimed responsibility for the bombs, saying it had targeted what it called "the slaves of America and France."

AFP, Paris

The Middle East Quartet expressed concern Monday about the extension of Israeli settlements in east Jerusalem, in a statement issued on the sidelines of a Palestinian donors' conference. "The quartet expressed concern over the announcement of new housing tenders for Har Homa/Jabal Abu Ghneim," the statement said. "Principals called for all sides to refrain from steps that undermine confidence and underscored the importance of avoiding any actions that could prejudice the outcome of permanent status negotiations," it said. The quartet is comprised of the EU, Russia, the United States and the UN. Two weeks ago Israel said it had invited bids to build more than 300 new housing units in Har Homa, a settlement in annexed east Jerusalem. The quartet also called for the removal of restrictions on Palestinian movement, in order to encourage the development of the economy.

AFP, Kirkuk

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in the oil-rich city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq on Tuesday on a previously unannounced visit, an AFP correspondent travelling with her said. The trip was aimed at supporting the reconciliation efforts of the new UN envoy in Iraq, Steffan de Mistura, in the religiously and ethnically diverse city in the Kurdish autonomous region. During her visit, which was not announced in advance for security reasons, Rice will meet representatives of the Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite Arab, Christian and Turkmen communities. On Monday Nechirvan Barzani, prime minister of the autonomous Kurdish regional government, said his administration favoured delaying by six months a referendum on the future of Kirkuk, easing immediate tensions among the mixed population. "The regional government is in favour of this extension," said Barzani after meeting in the central city of Najaf with the Shiites' most influential cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

AFP, Tokyo

Japan said Tuesday it had shot down a ballistic missile in space high above the Pacific Ocean as part of joint efforts with the United States to erect a shield against a possible North Korean attack. Japan tested the US-developed Standard Missile 3 (SM-3) interceptor from a warship in waters off Hawaii, becoming the first US ally to intercept a target using the system. Defence Minister Shigeru Ishiba described the successful test as "extremely significant." "We will continue to strive to increase the system's credibility," he told reporters, insisting the missile shield was worth the high cost. "We can't talk about how much money should be spent when human lives are at stake." Japan plans to spend a total of 127 billion yen (11.2 billion dollars) over the four years to March 2008 on missile defence using the US-developed Aegis combat system, according to the defence ministry.

Reuters, Havana

Ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who has not been seen in public for 16 months, suggested on Monday he might give up his formal leadership posts -- the first time he has spoken of his possible retirement since he fell ill. "My elemental duty is not to hold on to positions and less to obstruct the path of younger people," the 81-year-old Castro said in a letter read on Cuban state television. Castro, who took power in a 1959 revolution, handed over temporarily to his brother Raul Castro in July 2006 after undergoing stomach surgery for an undisclosed illness. Cuba's National Assembly could formalize Castro's retirement as head of state when it approves the members of the executive Council of State at its new session in March.

AFP, Colombo

Heavy monsoon showers have driven more than 30,000 people from their homes in eastern Sri Lanka, authorities said, and delayed the start of a key cricket match with the visiting England team. Incessant weekend rains made some roads impassable, while rice fields were flooded, the national disaster management centre said. Worst hit was the eastern district of Ampara. Rains also delayed the start of the Third Test match between the visiting England team and the national cricket team at the southern port city of Galle, officials said. "As of Tuesday morning, 22,612 people from Ampara district belonging to 5,897 families have been displaced," deputy emergency relief director Ramya Sriwansha said. Sri Lanka is in the grip of northeast monsoon showers and the wet weather has also displaced families in eastern areas including Batticaloa and Polonnaruwa.