Briefly: World news
Australia threatened over troops in Iraq
Cairo, Egypt An online statement by a group representing itself as al Qaeda’s European branch threatened on Saturday to turn Australia into “pools of blood” if it doesn’t withdraw its troops from Iraq.
It was the second statement in a week by the Tawhid Islamic Group, a previously unknown group that on Wednesday threatened attacks in Bulgaria and Poland if their troops remained in Iraq.
“We call upon you to leave Iraq before your country turns to pools of blood,” the statement warned the Australian government.
“We will shake the earth under your feet as we did in Indonesia, and lines of car bombs will not cease, God willing,” the statement said, referring to the 2002 Bali bombing that killed 202 people, many of them Australian tourists.
The al Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah was blamed for that attack.
The Tawhid statement also warned Italy to comply with an earlier warning.
No arrest warrant for ex-president
Mexico City A Mexican judge refused Saturday to issue an arrest warrant for former President Luis Echeverria, accused of ordering the killing of protesters at a 1971 demonstration, a spokesman for the special prosecutor’s office said.
Prosecutors will likely appeal the decision, said Eduardo Maldonado, a spokesman for the office established to investigate crimes related to government repression of student and leftist groups in the 1960s and ‘70s.
The judge did not immediately make public the basis for his decision.
The case against Echeverria had threatened to create a crisis in President Vicente Fox’s already troubled relationship with Congress. Echeverria’s Institutional Revolutionary Party holds the largest bloc of seats and had threatened to stop cooperating with Fox if the arrest warrant was issued.
International observers said the decision could weaken the little faith Mexicans have in their justice system, generally perceived as corrupt and inept.
Police station blast kills one in Dagestan
Makhachkala, Russia An explosion Saturday night at a police station in the capital of the Russian republic of Dagestan killed one officer, a police official said.
There was no immediate information on the cause of the blast in Makhachkala, which came two days after two bombs went off at a paramilitary police base near the capital, killing one person and injuring seven.
In the Thursday bomb blasts at a base of the Interior Ministry’s paramilitary OMON police outside Makhachkala, initial suspicion fell on a shadowy criminal group called Dzhennet, which reportedly targets police and prosecutors.
Nine members of the group are on trial in Makhachkala.
Dagestan is a volatile region frequently rocked by explosions, contract murders and other violence – some spilling over from neighboring Chechnya, some committed by local criminal groups.