Foreign Desk
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

CENTRAL ASIA
AFGHAN FORCES KILL 28 SUSPECTED TALIBAN REBELS
KABUL, Afghanistan – Afghan security forces killed at least 28 suspected insurgents in a nationwide offensive against Taliban rebels and other militants intent on subverting crucial legislative elections next month, officials said yesterday.
Meanwhile, American Marines and Afghan Special Forces in eastern Kunar province yesterday pushed deeper into Korengal Valley, which is controlled by militants suspected of ambushing a team of American commandos and shooting down a Special Forces helicopter on June 28.
An American military spokesman, Colonel James Yonts, said the operation into the area near the eastern border with Pakistan was going well but may take a long time. Taliban rebels and other militants have stepped up attacks ahead of the September 18 elections – the next major step toward democracy for Afghanistan after more than two decades of war and civil strife.
In the latest violence, Taliban rebels kidnapped Lebanese engineer Mohammad Reza, who was working on an American-funded road project, as he drove on the main highway linking the capital, Kabul, with the southern city of Kandahar on Sunday night, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Naweed Moez, said.
In the bloodiest battle with insurgents, Afghan forces attacked a group of suspected militants Sunday in southern Zabul province, killing 16 of them and arresting one, a Defense Ministry statement said. It said the dead included a local Taliban commander, Mullah Nasir.
In neighboring Uruzgan province’s Dehrawud district, a gunbattle between Afghan soldiers and insurgents on Sunday left five militants dead, the ministry said. In the adjacent Tirin Kot district, police hunted down and killed six suspected guerrillas who attacked a highway checkpoint on Sunday, said provincial Governor Jan Mohammed Khan. Nine other alleged militants were arrested there. A militant also was killed Sunday in Zabul as a mine he was laying – targeting a convoy of American-led coalition and Afghan forces – blew up prematurely, local official Rovi Khan said.
– Associated Press
NORTH AFRICA
ROADSIDE BOMB INJURES TWO CANADIANS IN EGYPT
EL-ARISH, Egypt – A crude roadside bomb blasted a vehicle belonging to international peacekeepers in the Sinai Peninsula yesterday, lightly wounding two Canadians in an already tense area near the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, Egyptian officials said.
It was a rare incident involving the Multinational Force and Observers, whose 1,800 members monitor the 1979 Egypt-Israeli peace deal, and comes as Egypt prepares to deploy troops along its border with Gaza to maintain order after the Israeli pullout from the Palestinian territory.
At the same time, Egyptian forces have been trying to track down suspected Islamic terrorists in the Sinai believed to have staged a July 23 bombing in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheik that killed at least 64 and an October attack in other Sinai resorts that left 34 dead.
One of the three groups that claimed responsibility for the Sharm blasts issued a Web statement saying it was behind yesterday’s bomb.
“Here are the lions of Jihad striking Sinai Peninsula once again despite the precautions which the infidel security forces have taken,” the Mujahedeen of Egypt said. It claimed three Israelis and two Canadians were killed in the bombing.
The claim’s authenticity could not be independently verified.
The blast yesterday was caused by a natural gas canister planted along the side of the road and detonated by wire, North Sinai Governor Ahmed Abdel Hamid said on state television. A second wired canister failed to explode, he said.
– Associated Press
WESTERN EUROPE
SIX PASSENGERS MAY HAVE BEEN ALIVE WHEN PLANE CRASHED ATHENS, Greece – Initial autopsies showed that at least six of the 121 people aboard a Cypriot plane were alive but not necessarily conscious when the aircraft crashed while on autopilot, a coroner said yesterday, as authorities struggled to explain the actions of the pilot and crew.
The results of the first six autopsies shed some light on the final minutes of Helios Airlines Flight ZU522, which crashed yesterday into a hillside in suburban Athens, killing all 115 passengers and six crew members. But they failed to answer all the questions.
In Larnaca, the Cypriot city where the flight took off, police raided the offices of Helios Airlines, seeking “evidence which could be useful for the investigation into possible criminal acts,” a Cypriot deputy presidential spokesman, Marios Karoyian, said.
Greek aviation officials have said the plane apparently lost pressure suddenly, causing a rapid loss of oxygen on board. In that case, passengers and flight crew would have had only seconds to put on oxygen masks before losing consciousness amid subzero temperatures. Death would be minutes behind.
But two fighter jet pilots who scrambled to intercept the plane saw the co-pilot slumped over, oxygen masks in the plane dangling, and two unidentified people trying to take control of the plane. The pilot was not in his seat when the plane crashed, about two and a half hours after the crew first radioed in air-conditioning problems, officials said.
Officials in the coroner’s office said ongoing autopsies on another six bodies were likely to show similar results. They asked that the dead not be named because the results had not yet been publicly released.
Greek and Cypriot officials have ruled out terrorism as a cause of the crash. Investigators, to be joined by American experts, were sending the plane’s data and cockpit voice recorders to France for expert examinations.
– Associated Press
CENTRAL AMERICA
30 DEAD IN GUATEMALA PRISON RIOTS
GUATEMALA CITY – Gang members armed with grenades, guns, and knives attacked rivals in at least four Guatemalan prisons yesterday, leaving at least 30 dead, officials said.
The interior Minister, Carlos Vielmann, told the Associated Press that the riots began with attacks by members of the Mara Salvatrucha gang against rivals of the MS-18 gang. He said the attacks may have been coordinated.
At least 18 inmates died at the El Hoyon Prison in Escuintla, 30 miles south of the capital, and two others were killed at the Canada Prison Farm 12 miles further south, Escuintla province Governor Luis Munoz told the Associated Press. He said 68 prisoners and one guard were injured at El Hoyon, where he said the riot began with the explosion of two grenades.
Officials reported riots in at least two other prisons.
An agent for the prosecutor’s office, speaking on condition of anonymity, gave the names and ages of eight people he said had died in rioting at the Pavon prison, about 15 miles east of the capital.
A police officer in Mazatenango, 85 miles southwest of the capital, named two other inmates who had been stabbed to death there. He refused to give his own name. Mr. Vielmann said visitors had brought guns into the prisons. “Until we have finished the high-security prisons [now under construction], that problem will persist,” he said.
He said the riots could be orchestrated “because the gangs have relationships among themselves” and could exchange information through visitors or by cellular telephones.
– Associated Press
WESTERN EUROPE
POSTMAN PIPS PRESIDENT IN POPULARITY POLL
PARIS – A Communist postman has overtaken President Chirac in a poll of France’s 50 most popular personalities.
The leader of the Communist Revolutionary League, Olivier Besancenot, shot in at number 38 in the twice-yearly survey, his first appearance in the top 50.
The president and his interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, usually regarded as France’s most popular politician, are hovering in the relegation zone at 47th and 48th respectively.
Mr. Besancenot, a 31-year old Trotskyite, wants to abolish capitalism, install obligatory nationwide pay rises and ban companies that make a profit from firing employees. Such revolutionary views appear to have struck a chord with a significant minority of French people. Mr. Besancenot’s first taste of fame came in 2002 when he ran for president while still in his 20s and won a respectable 4.3% of the vote.
The straight-talking postal worker managed to seduce a French working class disillusioned with the socialists and nostalgic for the return of a French superstate. He put his surprising entry into the hit parade of best-loved Frenchman down to his vociferous campaign for a No in the referendum on the European constitution in May. A poll taken after the referendum suggested that one third of French people thought he was destined for a prominent future in French politics.
“I am surprised and unsurprised at the same time,” he told the newspaper that commissioned the latest poll. “There is in France a resurgence of the class struggle, of the anti-capitalist struggle.” He predicted an autumn of social discontent and explained his popularity as a result of “growing exasperation” with Mr. Chirac and the Right-wing government.
– The Daily Telegraph