World Scene

AFGHANISTAN

Police open fire on protesters

KABUL — Dozens of protesters yesterday blocked a road in eastern Afghanistan, claiming U.S.-led coalition forces killed three civilians, and a local official said police fatally shot one of the protesters and injured three of them.

Villagers from the area carried three bodies to a major highway during the protest. Police apparently opened fire, killing one and wounding three.

The coalition said its troops were attacked Friday while searching compounds in the Shinwar district of Nangarhar province. “Several militants were killed” and nine insurgents were arrested, the coalition said yesterday.

SUDAN

Government: Attack on Khartoum halted

KHARTOUM — Darfur rebels fought Sudanese troops in a suburb of Khartoum yesterday in a bid to seize power, but the government said the attack on the capital was defeated.

It was the first time fighting reached the city in decades of conflict between the traditionally Arab-dominated central government of Africa’s biggest country and rebels from peripheral regions that complain of neglect.

Heavy gunfire and artillery shook Omdurman, across the River Nile from the heart of Khartoum. Helicopters and armored vehicles headed for the fighting and an overnight curfew was declared.

SOMALIA

11 killed in troop ambush

MOGADISHU — At least 11 people, many of them civilians, were killed in Somalia when Islamist insurgents ambushed government forces in two incidents, police and witnesses said yesterday.

Insurgents attacked a government convoy and killed four bodyguards in Yaqbiriweyne, a dusty village about 50 miles south of the capital, Mogadishu.

“Four guards were killed and two vehicles with some men onboard are still missing,” said Osman Hassan, a government security official. “We do not know if the insurgents kidnapped them.”

GEORGIA

U.S. envoy attempts to ease tensions

SUKHUMI — A senior U.S. envoy yesterday traveled to the breakaway region of Abkhazia seeking to quell spiraling tensions between the federal government and the Russian-backed province.

Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Bryza urged both sides to jump-start negotiations in order to avoid a renewed armed conflict.

Western-leaning Georgia and Abkhazia are at the center of a struggle between Moscow and the West for influence in the strategically located South Caucasus. Tensions are high with Georgia pushing aggressively for NATO membership and trying to draw closer to the United States.

MEXICO

Police officer slain near home

CIUDAD JUAREZ — The No. 2 police officer in a Mexican border city was fatally shot yesterday, the latest high-ranking official killed in an onslaught of attacks blamed on gangs resisting a crackdown.

Gunmen sprayed Juan Antonio Roman Garcia’s car with bullets outside his home in Ciudad Juarez, officials said. The attack occurred months after his name appeared at the top of a hit list left at a monument for fallen police officers.

Mexico has been shaken by a wave of drug-related violence as gangs battle security forces and each other for control of trafficking routes north.

From wire dispatches and staff reports