Three thousand gunmen loyal to the radical Hamas government deployed across the Gaza Strip today, violently breaking up a peaceful teachers’ protest in a southern town, in the Islamic group’s most brazen challenge yet to moderate President Mahmoud Abbas.

American forces killed more than 40 insurgents, and a known al-Qaida operative, in five raids south of Baghdad.

Israel today denied it was behind a car bomb attack that killed a long-time Hezbollah fighter outside his southern Beirut home.