Rebels in Nepal step up attacks
Communist rebels killed at least seven security forces and wounded 15 in two overnight attacks, officials said today, a day before local elections the government has billed as a small step toward democracy.
The Maoist rebels have intensified attacks in their attempt to foil the elections and have called a nationwide general strike for the entire week to disrupt the polls.
In the first assault on government bases in a town near the Nepalese capital, they killed a soldier and a policeman, said Sambhu Koirala, the chief administrative official in the area. Ten people were injured in the raid, which began late Monday in Panauti, 20 miles east of Katmandu.
The elections for mayors and ward council members – posts with little power and few responsibilities – have been billed as a symbolic step back toward democracy a year after King Gyanendra seized absolute power.
The rebels, who have been fighting since 1996 for a socialist state, have been blamed for killing at least two candidates and attacking several others.
Rome
Bus crash kills at least 12 tourists
A bus loaded with Turkish tourists veered off a road in the Italian capital and slid about 50 feet down a ravine late Monday, killing 12 people, police said.
The bus was carrying about 30 tourists to their hotel after dinner when it crashed shortly after 11 p.m., coming to rest in the yard of a private home in northwestern Rome, police said.
Twelve people were killed and six others critically injured, including the driver. Authorities said it was still unclear what caused the accident.
Italy’s last fatal bus accident involving tourists occurred three years ago when a bus en route from Germany went out of control and crashed outside the northern city of Vicenza. Six people died – including two children – and 38 were injured.
Bogota, Colombia
Colombian rebels kill police officers
Leftist rebels ambushed crews eradicating coca plants in a Colombian national park Monday, killing seven police guards and wounding seven other police and a worker, officials said.
The eradication teams are part of a high-profile mission to rid the Sierra Macarena National Park of coca, the base ingredient of cocaine.
The mission was announced by President Alvaro Uribe following the December killing of 29 soldiers near the pristine park, 100 miles south of Bogota and a longtime stronghold for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.
The leftist rebels have been trying to overthrow the government for more than four decades and in recent years have taken up drug trafficking to finance their struggle.
President Uribe lamented the police officers’ death and vowed to send another battalion of soldiers so that eradication teams could safely “eliminate every last coca plant in the national park.”
U.S.-owned fumigation planes spray weed killer over tens of thousands of acres of Colombian coca fields each year, but bypass the country’s 36 nature parks due to environmental concerns.
San Salvador, El Salvador
El Salvador to keep troops in Iraq
The government said Monday it will send another contingent of 380 soldiers to Iraq, making it the country’s sixth group to serve six-month rotations in the war-torn nation.
“There are still projects that must be carried out in Iraq,” said Defense Ministry spokesman Col. Jose Alas.”We have to finish the work. The mission is to continue with the humanitarian work.”
The Salvadorans are helping build water systems, rebuild schools and provide medical care in the Iraqi provincial city of Kut, about 100 miles southeast of Baghdad.
El Salvador is the only Latin American nation with a military presence in Iraq. Two of its soldiers have been killed there, one by Iraqi insurgents and one in an accident.