World Scene

SPAIN

Police arrest ETA chief, others

MADRID | Security forces in France and Spain have arrested the military chief of the armed Basque separatist organization ETA and eight other suspected members, the Spanish government said Sunday.

Jurdan Martitegi was arrested Saturday in the village of Montauriol in southwestern France, along with two other suspected ETA members.

IRAQ

Militants shell Green Zone

BAGHDAD | Suspected militants shelled Baghdad’s protected Green Zone on Saturday in the first such attack in months, officials said.

At least two blasts were heard, but there were no immediate reports of injuries or damage. Police said the rounds were fired from predominantly Shi’ite eastern Baghdad.

The Green Zone, which contains the U.S. and British embassies and key Iraqi government offices, was last targeted by rockets or mortars on Jan. 15, leaving one person injured.

Earlier, Iraqi forces launched raids into an industrial zone in Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad, where authorities fear Sunni insurgents could be seeking to regain footholds in areas they once controlled.

PHILIPPINES

Militants release Red Cross worker

MANILA | A Swiss Red Cross worker was freed Saturday after three months of captivity in a Philippine jungle, but al Qaeda-linked militants were still holding an Italian hostage who is ill and needs surgery, officials said.

Philippine military and police forces closed in on the stronghold of Abu Sayyaf militants on southern Jolo island, prompting the gunmen to abandon Andreas Notter, 38, Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno said.

The International Committee of the Red Cross worker and two colleagues were kidnapped by Abu Sayyaf rebels on Jan. 15. One of them, a Filipino, was released two weeks ago.

WEST BANK

Israeli troops kill Palestinian teen

RAMALLAH | A 16-year-old Palestinian was fatally shot by Israeli troops after throwing firebombs at the gate of a Jewish settlement in the West Bank, Israeli officials said Saturday.

The Israeli military said soldiers had fired warning shots before opening fire on a group of Palestinians hurling firebombs at the Beit El settlement.

In other West Bank violence, a Palestinian man drove his Mercedes into two Israeli policemen checking motorists at a checkpoint outside Jerusalem on Saturday, Israeli police said. The driver was arrested after he told police he targeted the officers.

TURKEY

Thousands protest coup plot arrests

ANKARA | Thousands of people marched to the mausoleum of secular Turkey’s founder Saturday to protest the arrests of university professors and others accused of involvement in a purported plot to topple the Islamic-rooted government.

More than 5,000 people waved Turkish flags, carried posters of Turkey’s late leader Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and chanted: “Turkey is secular and will remain secular!”

Authorities have charged more than 200 people including politicians, journalists, military and police officers as part of the investigation into the purported secularist conspiracy to topple the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

CHINA

Bush attends China forum

BOAO | Former President George W. Bush cracked jokes about how he scoops up after his dog on neighborhood walks and then turned to more serious subjects such as terrorism and the financial crisis Saturday during his first overseas trip since leaving office.

Mr. Bush is in China for the Boao Forum, an annual conference where executives hobnob with global leaders at a resort on China’s southern tropical island province of Hainan. Security was tight, but there were no protests.

From wire dispatches and staff reports