CENTRAL ASIA

OFFICIALS: AFGHAN CIVILIANS KILLED IN AIR STRIKE

KABUL, Afghanistan – An American air strike in Afghanistan’s rugged eastern mountains killed 17 civilians, including women and children, an Afghan official said yesterday. The American military confirmed civilian deaths but said the numbers were unclear.

An initial air strike destroyed a house, and as villagers gathered to look at the damage, an American warplane dropped a second bomb on the same target, Kunar provincial Governor Asadullah Wafa said. The air strike came Friday in the same province where an American transport helicopter was downed last week in the deadliest single blow to American forces since they ousted the Taliban in 2001.

– Associated Press

TWO NAVY SEALS FOUND DEAD IN AFGHANISTAN, U.S. OFFICIAL SAYS

Two Navy SEALS missing in Afghanistan have been found dead, a senior American defense official said last night. Another SEAL was rescued on Saturday, and the fate of a fourth was unknown. The official who confirmed the recovery of the two bodies spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing effort to account for the missing American servicemen in Afghanistan.

– Associated Press

PERSIAN GULF

ABOUT 100 ARRESTED IN BAGHDAD CRACKDOWN

BAGHDAD, Iraq – American and Iraqi forces raided suspected insurgent safe houses near Baghdad International Airport yesterday, arresting at least 100 suspected insurgents, including foreign fighters, the American military said. In Cairo, the family of Egypt’s top envoy to Iraq, who was abducted over the weekend in Baghdad, pleaded for the diplomat’s speedy release and said it had heard nothing about his whereabouts. Ihab al-Sherif’s abduction was an apparent bid to dissuade Arab governments from strengthening ties to the American-backed government. A car bomb detonated by remote control in western Baghdad yesterday killed two civilians, including one woman, and wounded four people, police said. Elsewhere, four gunmen killed a senior member of the Kurdish Democratic Party’s Mosul branch, a party spokesman said. Jirjis Mohammed Amin was shot inside his sister’s home in the northern city. A second attack by gunmen in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, killed a bodyguard of the provincial Nineveh governor, police said.

– Associated Press

WESTERN EUROPE

ITALY DENIES REPORTS IT WAS INFORMED OF ALLEGED CIA KIDNAPPING

ROME – The Italian government denied new press reports yesterday that it was informed before the alleged CIA kidnapping of a radical Egyptian cleric in 2003. Rome newspaper La Repubblica quoted the former head of the CIA’s Osama bin Laden unit, Michael Scheuer, as saying the CIA received authorization from Italy’s secret service, SISMI, before the operation.

Mr. Scheuer was quoted as saying the authorization came from SISMI’s director, Nicolo Pollari, and from one of his deputies. Prime Minister Berlusconi’s office denied the report.

– Associated Press

MIDDLE EAST

ISRAELI PRESIDENT WARNS EXTREMISTS COULD ASSASSINATE SHARON

Israel’s president warned yesterday that Jewish extremists opposed to this summer’s pullout from Gaza and part of the West Bank could assassinate Prime Minister Sharon.

President Katsav issued the warning as settler leaders tried to rein in extremists by issuing a code of conduct for opposing the pullout, and a court extended the detention of a Jewish youth filmed in Gaza stoning a Palestinian Arab who was already unconscious. As the mid-August start date for the evacuation nears, opponents – many driven by religious beliefs – are readying more extreme measures to try to stop it. Protesters, most of them Orthodox Jewish teenagers, have blocked main highways several times. Police say they have foiled plots to sabotage water and electricity supplies.

– Associated Press

CARIBBEAN

ARUBA JUDGE ORDERS TWO BROTHERS FREED IN MISSING TEEN CASE

ORANJESTAD, Aruba – Two Surinamese brothers held in the disappearance of an Alabama teenager were freed yesterday on the orders of a judge, but the 17-year-old son of a top justice official was ordered jailed for 60 more days. The justice official’s son, Joran van der Sloot, and Surinamese brothers Deepak Kalpoe, 21, and Satish Kalpoe, 18, had been held since June 9 on suspicion of murder in the disappearance of 18-year-old Natalee Holloway, of Mountain Brook, Ala. The three young men have acknowledged that they were with Ms. Holloway the night she disappeared. Ms. Holloway vanished in the early hours of May 30, the last day of a five-day vacation on the Dutch Caribbean island to celebrate her high school graduation.

– Associated Press