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3 Pak soldiers, 22 militants die in clashes

AFP, Peshawar

At least 22 militants and three soldiers were killed in clashes in northwest Pakistan, where the military is waging a fierce battle with Taliban-linked militants, officials said Sunday.

Fifteen militants and three soldiers were killed late Saturday in the scenic Swat valley during an ongoing army operation against fighters loyal to pro-Taliban cleric Maulana Fazlullah, a senior military official told AFP.

Pakistani helicopter gunships and artillery pounded militant positions in Matta and Kabal districts, both Fazlullah strongholds, the official added, on condition of anonymity.

The mountainous Swat valley was until last year a popular tourist destination where many Pakistani city dwellers went for their annual holidays and featured Pakistan's only ski resort.

But it has since been turned into a battleground since Fazlullah, who has links to Pakistan's Taliban movement, launched a violent campaign for Islamic Sharia law.

Separately, soldiers killed seven militants and injured nine others in Mohmand tribal district, one of seven semi-autonomous tribal regions bordering Afghanistan, a paramilitary spokesman told AFP.

The gunfight in Mohmand erupted late Saturday when around 200 Taliban militants surrounded a checkpost near Karapa village and started firing rockets, he said.

"The security forces bravely repulsed the attack and killed seven militants and injured nine others while a paratrooper was also wounded in the clash.

"The security forces targeted the militants with artillery and mortar guns and forced them to flee from the scene," the spokesman said.

Separately, militants blew up a bridge on a key road in Mohmand, but the blast caused no casualties and the repair work had been started, he said.

Meanwhile, at least 14 militants were killed Sunday when Pakistani jets pounded suspected Taliban hide-outs in a restive tribal area bordering Afghanistan, officials said.

Jets fired at the towns of Damadola, Harkai and Siprai in Bajaur district where Pakistani forces have clashed with Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked militants for the past three months, local administration official Jamil Khan told AFP.

"According to reports received here airstrikes have killed 14 militants and destroyed several underground bunkers and ammunition dumps used by them," local government official Mohammad Jamil told AFP.

Pakistan's tribal belt became a safe haven for hundreds of extremists who fled Afghanistan after the US-led toppling of the hardline Taliban regime in late 2001 and have since set up training camps.

Al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri escaped a raid by an unmanned CIA plane in Damadola in January 2004, Pakistani officials have said.

Egyptian-born Zawahiri, who has a 25-million-dollar US bounty on his head, is said to have secretly visited the area in the past, according to Pakistani security officials.

The Pakistani military said last month that around 1,500 rebels and 73 soldiers had died while hundreds more militants were captured since the military launched an operation in Bajaur in August.

Death toll passes 90 in Haiti school collapse

Reuters, Port-Au-Prince

The death toll in the collapse of a ramshackle school in Haiti rose above 90 on Saturday after rescue workers uncovered a room full of dead, many of them children, officials said.

Civil protection service head Alta Jean-Baptiste said there were 84 people confirmed dead and 150 injured as of noon. Another civil protection official, Michel Joseph Jr., said he had seen eight more bodies, bringing the count to 92. "We haven't been able to get them out yet," Joseph said as rescue workers arrived from the United States and the French Caribbean island of Martinique to help the ill-equipped and impoverished country and U.N. peacekeepers posted there search for survivors.

Officials said 700 children were enrolled at the three-story La Promesse school, but it was not known how many were in the building when it caved in on Friday while class was in session.

The disaster struck as the poorest country in the Americas struggled to recover from four tropical storms and hurricanes that killed more than 800 people and destroyed 60 percent of its crops in August and September.

Rescuers worked frantically at the school site on the outskirts of Port-of Prince, the Haitian capital, bringing in a crane to lift blocks of concrete. Firefighters from Virginia and rescue workers from Martinique brought sniffer dogs. The search was set to continue for a second night.

Five Iraqis killed in suicide attack

AFP, Ramadi

Five civilians were killed on Saturday when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a police checkpoint near the western Iraqi town of Ramadi, police said.

Three police officers were wounded in the midday attack, Ramadi police chief Major General Tariq al-Duleimi told AFP.

Another four policemen and two civilians were wounded by a bomb that exploded near a patrol passing through eastern Ramadi, according to Khalaf al-Salim, a local police officer.

Ramadi is one of the main towns in the western Anbar province, a one-time bastion of the Sunni insurgency that has seen a sharp drop-off in violence over the past year as local tribes have allied with US-led forces.

In Baghdad, a civilian was killed and seven others, including a policemen, were wounded by a roadside bomb, according to police.

Another roadside bomb hit a health ministry vehicle in downtown Baghdad, wounding the driver and two civilians, while a similar device in the Al-Jamiaa neighbourhood wounded three people, including a policeman.

According to the Iraqi military, the number of car bombings in Baghdad has declined sharply, falling from a total of 415 in 2006 to 61 so far in 2008, despite a string of attacks in the last week.

The US military says the capital has become much safer since the launch last year of a joint Iraqi-US security plan, averaging four attacks a day, 89 percent fewer than in 2006 and 83 percent less than in 2007.

Quartet sees progress in ME peace talks

AFP, Sharm El-Sheikh

The Middle East Quartet on Sunday hailed "substantial" progress in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks but called for a halt to Jewish settlement activity, according to a draft statement.

The Quartet-which groups the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States, was meeting in Egypt on Sunday to take stock of the negotiations, with no sign that a long-elusive deal will be reached this year.

According to the draft statement seen by AFP, the Quartet says there has been "substantial" political progress in the negotiations, but also urges a freeze in Jewish settlement construction on occupied Palestinian land.

The gathering in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh comes a year after the peace process was relaunched at a US-sponsored conference following a near seven-year break.

Outgoing US President George W. Bush had hoped to see a deal before he leaves office in January, but all players have made clear that no major breakthrough is in sight.

Like Lincoln and FDR, Obama faces nation in crisis

AP, Washington

All presidents are tested. Few walk into the Oval Office when the nation is in the throes of multiple crises. Like Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President-elect Obama is facing a banking emergency.

Like Abraham Lincoln, Obama is trying to patch up national divisions. To ready himself for the job, Obama said Friday he is reading some writings by Lincoln, "who's always an extraordinary inspiration."

And like Richard Nixon, George W. Bush and others, Obama will be commander in chief over U.S. troops in combat.

"With two wars and an economic crisis, this is one step away from what Lincoln or FDR faced," said Terry Sullivan, associate professor of political science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "The question is 'Which direction is the nation going to go?'" While the challenges Obama faces are daunting, they also give him the opportunity to shape history in a big way.

"My 88-year-old mother asks me regularly, 'Why would anybody want to be president now?' said Sullivan, who manages the Presidential Transition Project at Rice University. "My answer is 'Every one of them wants to be FDR.' This is their chance. What makes fame in the American presidency is a great challenge and succeeding." Or, Sullivan added, facing a great challenge and failing.

In fewer than 11 weeks, Obama will inherit not just the economic crisis and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also the ongoing threat of a terrorist attack, a resurgent Russia and nuclear proliferation in hot spots across the globe.

Indonesia execution of Bali bombers sparks clashes

Reuters, Tenggulun

Thousands of Indonesians poured onto the streets for the funerals of three militants executed on Sunday for the 2002 Bali bombings, causing some clashes between police and emotional supporters.

The three men from the militant group Jemaah Islamiah-Imam Samudra, 38, Mukhlas, 48, and Amrozi, 46 -- were executed by firing squad on Nusakambangan island in central Java shortly after midnight, the attorney-general's office said. The two explosions on Bali's Kuta strip on October 12, 2002 killed 202 people including 88 Australians and 38 Indonesians. The bombers' bodies were flown from the prison by helicopter to their hometowns-brothers Mukhlas and Amrozi to Tenggulun in Lamongan, East Java, and Samudra to Serang in West Java.

"Looking at this, I feel sad, but then I am also proud that he is a Mujahid (Muslim fighter)," said Nuranda, a woman who came to offer her condolences to Samudra's family.

Tensions ran high as about 3,000 people from west Java cities gathered when Samudra's body, covered in a black shroud with Islamic inscriptions, was carried to a mosque for prayers, with some jostling to touch the body or help carry the bier.

Some shook their fists in the air chanting "Allahu Akbar" (God is great) but others seemed to be just curious spectators.