World in brief: Israeli troops kill 3 militants in raid
Israeli troops shot and killed three Palestinian militants Wednesday during a raid in the West Bank town of Jenin, and also entered Nablus for the second time this week.
In Jenin, undercover Israeli forces moved to arrest two Islamic Jihad members allegedly involved in planning a foiled suicide bombing attack in Tel Aviv last week, Israeli officials said. But the troops were shot at and returned fire, said officials, killing the pair and a man who was with them.
The dead were identified as Ashraf Saadi, 29, sought for suspected involvement in numerous shooting attacks and bombings, and Mohammed Abu Naasah, 34, an Islamic Jihad commander in the Jenin refugee camp. Officials said the third man with them who was killed, Alaa Jabali, served as an assistant, but they did not specify his role or age.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan
Pakistan disputes claims on al-Qaida
Pakistan on Wednesday rejected a claim by the U.S. intelligence chief that Osama bin Laden and his deputy were hiding in northwestern Pakistan, and that al-Qaida was setting up camps near the Afghan border.
President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, however, acknowledged that foreign militants were in Pakistan’s tribal regions along the Afghan border and warned them to leave, the state-run news agency reported. It was not clear from the report whether Musharraf named any particular militants.
Musharraf spoke a day after new U.S. intelligence chief Mike McConnell told a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing that al-Qaida is trying to set up training camps and other operations in Pakistan tribal areas near Afghanistan.
Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao said there were no al-Qaida training camps in his country and U.S. officials had not provided any intelligence suggesting there were.
ROME
Italian leader holds on to power
Italian Premier Romano Prodi kept his fractious center-left coalition together to win a confidence vote in the Senate on Wednesday, ensuring the immediate survival of his nine-month-old government.
“I am very satisfied,” Prodi said minutes after the 162-157 vote in the upper house of parliament. One of his Cabinet ministers, Clemente Mastella, said that “the government is like the Tower of Pisa: It leans but it doesn’t fall.”
Prodi resigned last week after the Senate failed to endorse the government’s foreign policy guidelines, including its commitment to keep 1,800 Italian troops in Afghanistan.
But the president asked Prodi to stay on and put his Cabinet to new confidence votes in parliament. On Friday, Prodi will submit his nine-month government to the judgment of the lower house, where he has a much more comfortable majority.