World Scene

JORDAN

Cars found laden with explosives

AMMAN — Jordanian authorities have found cars carrying explosives that an underground group believed linked to al Qaeda planned to use to attack American interests, a senior security source said yesterday.

The unidentified source said an unspecified number of cars laden with explosives were found and the suspects who sought to use them had been arrested.

Senior security officials said earlier this month that cars carrying explosives had been driven into the kingdom from Syria, with which Jordan shares a long desert border.

TAIWAN

Government picks new foreign minister

TAIPEI — Taiwan appointed former county magistrate Chen Tang-shan as foreign minister yesterday after his predecessor quit.

Mr. Chen takes over from Eugene Chien, who stepped down as a result of the fallout surrounding the resignation of Washington’s top diplomat for Taiwan affairs.

Therese Shaheen, the director of the American Institute in Taiwan, quit Wednesday as others speculated she was too pro-Taiwan when Washington has tried to maintain a delicate balance in its ties with Taipei and Beijing.

PERU

Mudslides hit tourist town

LIMA — Heavy rains triggered mudslides near the famed Incan citadel of Machu Picchu in southern Peru yesterday, killing at least six persons. Eleven others were missing and believed to be dead.

About 400 tourists were stranded when the mudslides buried a rail line and destroyed seven houses in the town of Aguas Calientes, below the citadel. President Alejandro Toledo was at Machu Picchu, about 300 miles southeast of the capital, Lima, when the mudslides hit and was coordinating rescue efforts.

SRI LANKA

Tamil rebels brace for attack

KAJUWATTE — Renegade Tamil rebels braced for a showdown with the mainstream Tamil Tiger movement as the Sri Lankan military went on high alert yesterday, intent on maintaining a truce that has given this island nation its best chance at peace in two decades.

The unconfirmed death toll from heavy fighting Friday between rebel factions was put at 33 by rebel and military officials.

Residents in the area of fighting along the Verugal River, off Sri Lanka’s northeastern coast and about 150 miles from the capital, Colombo, fled gunfire again early yesterday in a mopping-up operation by the mainstream Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

ISRAEL

Palestinian girl, 12, shot dead in Gaza

GAZA, CITY — A 12-year-old Palestinian girl was shot dead in the southern Gaza Strip yesterday, Palestinian medics said. They said Iman Tulba was killed when Israeli soldiers at the Ganei Tal Jewish settlement opened fire at a nearby three-story building in Khan Younis.

Iman’s cousin, Alaa, said he saw a bullet fly through the family’s kitchen window, ricochet off a wall and hit her. He added there were no clashes in the area at the time.

YEMEN

Last two Britons freed in terror case

ADEN — Yemen yesterday released the last two of a group of eight Muslim Britons jailed on terrorism charges in the Arab state, a British official said.

The official at the British Consulate in the south Yemeni city of Aden said the two men, of Yemeni and Moroccan origin, had flown to London immediately upon release.

The two were convicted by a Yemeni court in 1999, along with six other Britons of Pakistani or Arab origin, of forming an armed group to carry out “terrorist” acts in Yemen.

They were released two years before the end of their seven-year sentence as part of what Yemen has called goodwill gestures to improve ties with former colonial power Britain.