PERSIAN GULF

AMERICAN TROOPS KILL 14 INSURGENTS IN TWO DAYS

BAGHDAD, Iraq – American soldiers killed 14 insurgents in two days of fighting in a strategic northern city, the American military said yesterday, and gunmen killed 10 Iraqi soldiers in the central Sunni heartland.

A hard-line Sunni clerical group accused Iraqi government commandos of torturing and killing 10 Sunni Arab civilians in Baghdad, fueling sectarian tensions between the country’s two major religious groups.

Soldiers of the U.S. 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment killed four insurgents in a gun battle Sunday, and 10 more were killed yesterday as fighting raged in Tal Afar, 260 miles north of Baghdad, the American command reported. American troops suffered no casualties, the statement said. However, insurgents bloodied an Iraqi force in Khalis, 45 miles north of Baghdad. Guerrillas firing mortars, machine guns, and semiautomatic weapons stormed an Iraqi checkpoint about 5 a.m., killing eight Iraqi soldiers, the Khalis police chief, Colonel Mahdi Saleh, said.

– Associated Press

WESTERN EUROPE

TRIAL BEGINS FOR SUSPECT IN VAN GOGH MURDER

The gulf between the West and radical Islam was on painful display yesterday when a young Islamic militant went on trial for the murder of the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh but refused to recognize the court’s authority.

Mohammed Bouyeri, a baby-faced 27-year-old with joint Moroccan and Dutch citizenship, limped into court with what appeared to be a large Koran under one arm. Wearing a black, collarless gown and a black-and-white Palestinian-style headscarf, he smirked at the panel of three black-robed judges.

He offered no defense, instructing his lawyer to tell the court that he acknowledged only Islamic law.

Mr. Bouyeri had refused to attend his trial, a right normally granted to defendants by Holland’s scrupulously liberal court system, but, in view of the impact of Mr. van Gogh’s murder in November, he was forced to attend the hearing in a maximum-security building in the Amsterdam suburb of Osdorp. Mr. Bouyeri displayed contempt for the judges, prosecutors, psychologists, and police. He yawned, stroked his beard, prodded his face with a pen, and played an imaginary piano on his thighs. Despite his bushy beard, Mr. Bouyeri appeared more like a sulky adolescent than a terrorist killer with links to Islamist cells in Germany, Madrid, and beyond, portrayed by the prosecution. The court was told that Mr. Bouyeri shot his victim six times then slit his throat with a kitchen knife, severing Mr. van Gogh’s neck down to the backbone before impaling to his chest with the knife a five-page note threatening other public figures.

– The Daily Telegraph

NORTH AMERICA

PUERTO RICAN VOTERS ENDORSE ONE-HOUSE LEGISLATURE

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – Puerto Ricans voted to do away with half their lawmakers, endorsing a one-house legislature that supporters say would be cheaper and more efficient. Final results from Sunday’s referendum showed nearly 84% of voters endorsed the concept of replacing the state Senate and House of Representatives with a one-house, or unicameral, legislature. Turnout was about 22%, extremely low by Puerto Rican standards. Governor Anbal Acevedo Vila said the results show that voters seek a “profound reform.” The results won’t bring about immediate change: The referendum directs the legislature to hold another referendum in 2007 that would ask voters to amend the island’s constitution and establish a one house system by 2009.

– Associated Press

MIDDLE EAST

BARRIER DESIGNED TO ENSURE JEWISH MAJORITY IN JERUSALEM

JERUSALEM – Israel’s separation barrier in and around Jerusalem is meant to ensure a Jewish majority in the disputed city, a Cabinet minister acknowledged yesterday, contradicting government claims that the divider is solely a temporary security measure. Israel’s Cabinet on Sunday approved final details of the 40-mile Jerusalem barrier, which is halfway built and will eventually cut off some 55,000 Arab residents in four neighborhoods from their city, while including some 30,000 Jewish West Bank settlers on the Jerusalem side. Also yesterday, Israeli officials said they would seek $2.2 billion in additional American aid for the summer’s withdrawal from Gaza and four West Bank settlements. The request was to be made later yesterday in a meeting between Israel and American officials in Washington.

– Associated Press