Marchers show Hezbollah support

With yellow Hezbollah banners above their heads and U.S. and Israeli flags beneath their feet, tens of thousands of Iraqis marched in Baghdad after Friday prayers in support of the Shiite militia in Lebanon.

While gunmen and bombings killed at least 30 people around the country in Iraq’s own violence, protesters burned effigies of President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The maverick Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who controls the powerful Mahdi Army militia, had called for the demonstration. It was the largest of its kind in Iraq since the conflict began in Lebanon three weeks ago.

While organizers said half a million people participated in the march, American military officials, eager to play down support for Hezbollah, put the figure at only 14,000. An Iraqi contributor working for the Los Angeles Times estimated there were at least 100,000 demonstrators.

HAVANA

Leaders assure Raul is in control

The Communist leadership assured Cubans on Friday that Raul Castro was in firm control as acting president, and the health minister said Fidel Castro was “recovering satisfactorily” from intestinal surgery.

The government also issued its first decree since Fidel temporarily stepped down Monday for the first time in 47 years: The Foreign Ministry condemned Israel’s bombing of the Lebanese village of Qana on Sunday, calling it “cowardly, vile and criminal” and urging the world to force an immediate cease-fire.

The government insisted it was operating normally, even though the island’s longtime leader has temporarily ceded power to his younger brother Raul, the defense minister.

Health Minister Jose Ramon Balaguer, a longtime party leader and physician, said Fidel “underwent surgery from which he is recovering satisfactorily.”

WASHINGTON

ATF director quits during inquiry

Carl J. Truscott resigned Friday as director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives amid an inquiry into spending on the agency’s new headquarters.

A former senior official with the Secret Service, Truscott was picked by then-Attorney General John Ashcroft in April 2004 to head ATF, which has about 5,000 employees, half of them agents.

His tenure was marked by complaints from within the agency that he was spending too much time and money on the agency’s new headquarters building about a mile north of the Capitol, particularly at a time of tight budgets. The building is supposed to open later this year.

Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine earlier this year began investigating complaints that Truscott approved or proposed additional spending on the building and other projects, including a pricey trip to London.