World in brief: Troops capture Taliban leader
NATO-led troops and Afghan forces detained a prominent Taliban commander during a raid at a compound in southern Afghanistan, the alliance said in a statement today.
The commander, whom NATO did not name, was captured in Gereshk district in Helmand province late Tuesday and is the first Taliban leader captured by NATO-led and Afghan troops, NATO said.
The captured militant is wanted for questioning by Afghan security forces and managed to flee the latest offensive operation by Afghan and foreign security forces in southern Afghanistan, the statement said.
The operation came a day after Afghan agents arrested Mohammad Hanif, a purported militant spokesman as he crossed through an international border checkpoint from Pakistan.
MOSCOW
Security forces on terror alert
Russian authorities have ordered security forces on high alert after receiving information from foreign officials pointing to the threat of a terrorist attack on public transportation, officials said Tuesday.
A federal anti-terrorism headquarters received information “from foreign partners … about the possibility a subversive terrorist act could be committed on ground transport and in the metro,” according to a statement confirmed by a Federal Security Service official who said he was not authorized to give his name.
Federal Security Service chief Nikolai Patrushev, who also heads the anti-terror center, ordered anti-terror forces on high alert, the statement said. It was unclear from what country the information about the potential threat came; Russia cooperates against terrorism with countries around the world, including the United States.
United Nations
Ex-U.N. official faces bribe count
The former United Nations oil-for-food chief was charged Tuesday with taking a $160,000 bribe to influence who could buy Iraqi oil under the scandal-tainted humanitarian program.
The indictment of Benon Sevan, 69, of Nicosia, Cyprus, brings to 14 the number of people charged in the case and “strikes at the heart of the corruption that pervaded the oil-for-food program,” said FBI Assistant Director Mark J. Mershon.
Sevan was charged with bribery and conspiracy to commit fraud.
The $64 billion program ran from 1996 to 2003 and allowed Iraq to sell oil primarily to buy food and medicine for Iraqis suffering under U.N. sanctions. But the operation was riddled with corruption involving bureaucrats, oil tycoons and Saddam Hussein’s regime.
Sevan, who had worked for the U.N. for 40 years, said through his lawyer that he was being made a political scapegoat and that he had accounted for every penny as he ran the biggest humanitarian program in U.N. history.