Egyptian security forces backed by armoured fighting vehicles and helicopters have stormed a town known to be an Islamist stronghold outside Cairo near the Great Pyramids, coming under barrages of fire from gunmen on rooftops.

Taliban suicide bombers blew up a car and stormed the traffic police headquarters in Kabul early today, setting off a gun battle which raged for six hours and left at least 10 people wounded, police said.

Libya’s president ordered all of the country’s militias to come under government authority or disband, a move that appeared aimed at harnessing popular anger against the powerful armed groups following the attack that killed the US ambassador.

A lone gunman murdered a rabbi, his two small sons and another child outside a Jewish school in France today.

The commander of Nato and US forces says that all Nato personnel are being recalled from Afghan ministries following an attack at the Interior Ministry in Kabul.

Saudi security forces have killed one person in clashes in an eastern province that has witnessed tense demonstrations by Shiites demanding reforms, reports say.

International criticism of Egypt’s military rulers mounted today as police clashed for a fifth day with protesters demanding the generals relinquish power immediately.

Three people were killed and at least two others seriously injured when a man went on a stabbing rampage at his apartment building, Spanish officials said today.

More than 1,000 people were reported injured as Egyptian security forces clashed for a second day in Cairo with hundreds of youths.

President Hamid Karzai acknowledged today that the US and Afghan governments have held talks with Taliban emissaries in a bid to end the nation’s nearly 10-year war, even as suicide attackers launched a bold assault in the heart of the county’s capital, killing nine people.

Twenty people were killed and 50 others injured in a suicide attack on a construction in eastern Afghanistan, the Interior Ministry said today.

Tunisia’s new government began releasing prisoners today and moved to track down assets stashed overseas by its deposed president and his widely disliked family.

Decisions intended to save time and money created an unreasonable risk that triggered the largest offshore oil spill in US history, which could happen again without significant reforms, the top-level panel probing the BP blowout said tonight.

Afghan gunmen attacked a construction company in Kabul province, wounding one security guard and kidnapping nine others, the Interior Ministry said today.

Three co-ordinated bomb blasts struck near hotels in central Baghdad killing at least 11 people today.

Taliban militants struck the heart of the Afghan government in Kabul today, prompting fierce gun battles after a suicide bomber blew himself up near the presidential palace.

AN independent commission harshly criticised Russian authorities yesterday over the treatment of a lawyer who fought official corruption and died in prison.

An Afghan human rights group said today that at least 88 people, including 20 women, were killed in a joint Afghan-US coalition military operation in western Afghanistan.

SIX teenage boys who said they were being trained as suicide bombers were detained yesterday in the northern city of Mosul, Iraqi officials said.

Spain’s Interior Ministry said forest fires are raging on the Canary Island of La Gomera, destroying homes and forcing an evacuation of 500 people.

A series of Israeli airstrikes in Gaza killed four Hamas militants early today, raising the Palestinian death toll in the past day to 15, including a baby.

Saudi Arabian police have arrested 28 men for allegedly planning to attack holy sites around Mecca and Medina during the recently finished Muslim hajj pilgrimage, the kingdom’s Interior Ministry said today.

The first confirmed woman suicide bomber in Pakistan blew herself up without harming anyone else, officials said today.

Pakistan’s President Musharraf could quit as head of the army as soon as this weekend, an official said today.

More than 3,000 people jailed in Pakistan under emergency rule have been released in recent days, the Interior Ministry said today.

The most prominent figure in a revolt of Sunni sheikhs against al Qaida in Iraq was killed today in an explosion near his home in Anbar province, Iraqi police and tribal leaders said.

Suspected Basque separatists set a car bomb in the northern Spanish city of Logrono, but the detonator failed and explosives experts managed to defuse it, officials said today.

A van that exploded in north-eastern Spain was detonated by members of the Basque separatist group Eta when they realised police were on their trail, Spain’s Interior Ministry said today.

Georgia today accused Russia of “undisguised aggression”, saying two Russian fighter jets intruded on its airspace and fired a missile that landed just feet from a house.

UKRAINIAN President Viktor Yushchenko yesterday said he was taking command of Interior Ministry troops, but a ministry spokesman rejected the order in a move of defiance that escalated the country’s political turmoil.

Russian opposition leader Garry Kasparov lambasted Russian authorities today over violent crackdowns at anti-Kremlin demonstrations last weekend, accusing police who beat and detained protesters of “brutality and cruelty”.

US-led coalition forces mistakenly killed five Afghan police in a clash in a southern province, the government said today.

The bodies of 14 Iraqi security officers were found dead today after a militant group claimed to have kidnapped them, Iraq’s Interior Ministry said.

About 70 victims of a mass kidnapping at an office of the Higher Education Ministry have been released, a ministry spokesman said today, but officials were unable to say how many remained captive.

The Shiite militia run by anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr seized control of the southern Iraqi city of Amarah today in one of the boldest acts of defiance yet by the country’s powerful, unofficial armies, witnesses and police said.

Suicide bombers tried to strike two oil facilities in Yemen with explosives-packed cars, but authorities foiled the attacks.

Rescue crews pulled bodies from the rubble of bombed buildings today, the day after a barrage of co-ordinated attacks across eastern Baghdad neighbourhoods killed at least 64 people and wounded more than 280 within half an hour, police said.

Masked Palestinian gunmen ambushed a car carrying a news crew for a US broadcaster in Gaza City today and kidnapped two of the journalists inside, according to witnesses.

A suicide bomber in a car blew himself up in a crowded town market in southern Afghanistan today, killing 21 civilians, near where Nato troops were on patrol, officials said.

Police in Iraq today discovered the bodies of two men, shot in the head and chest, a day after gunmen beheaded four policemen and a lawyer.

A mortar barrage followed minutes later by a car bomb struck Baghdad’s upscale Karradah district today, killing a total of 27 people and wounding 63, police said.

A bomb killed 19 people and wounded 58 in a Shiite district of Baghdad today as parliament prepared to inaugurate the country’s first fully constitutional government since the collapse of Saddam Hussein three years ago.

A Shiite political party today said it would not participate in the formation of a new Cabinet, saying the selection of the ministers was being dictated by personal interests that ran counter to the spirit of national unity.

Thousands of Romanians who fled areas flooded by the Danube River are now facing crowded conditions in tent communities and dwindling food supplies, residents and volunteers told reporters.