Mogadishu—Mortars slammed into a home for disabled veterans in Soma-lia’s capital, killing at least 12 disabled men and wounding nearly a dozen, of-ficials said Saturday. Islamic insurgents fired mortars Friday night toward Mogadishu’s port, but they landed in residential areas, including a home for former national army officers who lost limbs during the 1977 war with Ethiopia, said government spokesman Shiek Abdirisaq Qeylow. Three civilians in other areas also were killed. Somalia has been ravaged by violence and anarchy since warlords overthrew

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London—Some of Britain’s most elite soldiers have been training Libyan forces in counterterrorism and surveillance for the past six months, a U.K. newspaper said Saturday. The Daily Telegraph said that a contingent of between four and 14 men from the Special Air Service, or SAS, were working with Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s soldiers in Libya, a country once notorious for its support of terrorism. The paper cited an unidentified SAS source as saying that the training was seen as part of the deal to release Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al

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Caracas—Amid rising tensions with neighboring Colombia, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced late Friday that his country would soon take de-livery of Russian-made missiles with a range of 300 kilometers (185 miles). “We have signed some agreements with Russia. Soon we will begin receiving some missiles,” Chavez said during a meeting with supporters in front of the presi-dential palace. He underscored the reliability of the Russian weaponry, but stressed that his country had “no plans to attack anybody.” But the announcement

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Harare—Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe welcomed a high-level EU dele-gation “with open arms” on Saturday as Brussels and Harare began their first talks in seven years in a bid to ease diplomatic tensions. “We welcome you with open arms. We hope our talks will be fruitful with a posi-tive outcome,” said a jovial Mugabe before entering his meeting with the Euro-pean Union delegation. His tone displayed a marked difference in his attitude to the West who he lashed out at on Thursday for sanctions imposed against him and his allies which he

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Ahmed Rashid Comment

FOR much of the 20th century before the 1979 Soviet invasion, Afghanistan was a peaceful country living in harmony with its neighbors. There was a king and a real government, which I witnessed in the 1970s when I frequently traveled there. Afghanistan had what I’ll call a minimalist state, compared with the vast governmental apparatuses that colonialists left behind in British India and Soviet Central Asia. This bare-bones structure worked well for a poor country with a small popula-tion, few natural resources and a mix of ethnic groups and

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Quetta

Muzaffarabad

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