KABUL, Afghanistan
Joint offensive kills, arrests alleged rebels
Afghan and U.S.-led forces killed 30 suspected militants and arrested at least 60 others during an offensive in a southern province, a Defense Ministry spokesman said Saturday.
The fighting occurred Friday in southern Helmand province, spokesman Gen. Mohammed Saher Azimi said. Afghan soldiers collected weapons in the area, including some lying in farm fields.
“We have seized lots of ammunition and weapons,” Azimi said.
The offensive is the latest large-scale operation against Taliban rebels in volatile southern and eastern Afghanistan, coming a week before landmark legislative elections that rebels have vowed to disrupt. The militants have stepped up attacks across much of the country, leaving more than 1,200 people dead in the past six months.
JERUSALEM
Israel says violence in Gaza will be punished
Israeli Vice Premier Shimon Peres said Saturday that Palestinians would be able to enter and leave the Gaza Strip after Israeli troops pull out next week but that Palestinian leaders must prevent militant attacks or suffer the consequences.
Israel’s military chief of operations said Israel would react with extreme harshness to attacks, or attempted attacks, from Gaza after the withdrawal, scheduled to begin today.
“An hour after we leave the field, there will be a strategic change … in the nature of our response to even any attempt at terror,” Maj. Gen. Yisrael Ziv told Israel Radio.
MOSCOW
Unmanned cargo craft reaches space station
A Russian cargo ship carrying food and supplies docked at the international space station Saturday, just weeks before a new crew arrives.
The unmanned Progress M-54 ship, which lifted off from Kazakh stan two days ago, hooked up with the orbiting station at 8:42 a.m. MDT, said Valery Lyndyn, a spokesman for the Russian space agency.
The ship docked automatically, Lyndyn said, unlike the previous Progress docking in June during which Russian cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev had to steer the craft. The spacecraft are guided by autopilot on their approach and during docking, but the crew is trained to operate them manually in case of computer or communications problems.
BELFAST, Northern Ireland
Homemade grenades hurt 9 in parade clash
Protestant extremists threw homemade grenades Saturday and seven police and two civilians were wounded in the latest fury over a restricted Belfast parade.
Protestants clashed with police, British troops and Catholic crowds in several parts of Belfast after authorities blocked the Orange Order – the territory’s major Protestant brotherhood – from parading past the hard-line Catholic end of disputed Springfield Road.
HANGZHOU, China
Clinton tells Chinese: Beware growth woes
Former President Clinton urged China on Saturday to recognize the urgency of the environmental threats to its growth and to use the Internet as a tool to surmount them. But he remained silent on the risks faced by those who use the Internet as a forum for dissent.
“You will have to come to grips with significant challenges to your growth,” Clinton said at an Internet conference in the eastern resort city of Hangzhou. He warned that the energy consumption required to keep China’s economy growing at its recent rate of more than 9 percent is “unsustainable.”
