Ambush

Taliban fighters gunned down a 10-member international medical team, including six Americans, in the wilds of northern Afghanistan, the aid group and local officials said Saturday, in an ambush that highlighted the growing dangers faced by foreign charity organizations in the country. The aid workers, who also included two Afghans, a German and a Briton, were attacked Thursday in a remote forested area of Badakhshan province as they were returning from a mission to provide eye care to rural villagers, according to provincial police and the International Assistance Mission, the Kabul-based group that organized the trip.

They were a disparate group of American altruists who had long cared for the poor and ailing, thrown together on a mission to provide medical help in the most daunting and needy of places. Last week, the six Americans were among 10 volunteers shot to death in a remote swath of Afghanistan while returning from an aid mission, a tragic end to their years of risk-laden service in the war-ravaged and impoverished nation. Tom Little, for one, remained in Afghanistan through its brutal civil war in the 1990s, talking his way through checkpoints manned by various ethnic militias, and saving the lives of co-workers who might otherwise have been dragged from the car and killed.

Taliban fighters ambushed and killed a 10-member medical team, including six Americans, as they were returning from a trip to a remote northern area to provide eye care to rural villagers, their aid organization and local officials said Saturday. The 10 charity workers, who also included two Afghans, a German and a Briton, were found slain in a remote forested area of Badakhshan province, according to provincial police and the International Assistance Mission , the Kabul-based group that organized the trip.

The second of two American servicemen who disappeared last week in a Taliban-infested area south of the Afghan capital has been confirmed dead as well, a U.S. military official and Afghan authorities said Thursday. The body of Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Jarod Newlove was recovered and his family notified, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Newlove, 25, of Renton, Wash., was a recalled reservist serving as a culinary specialist. Newlove and his companion, Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Justin McNeley, were ambushed by Taliban fighters July 23 in Lowgar province.

Gunmen believed to be Maoist rebels killed at least 26 paramilitary personnel on Tuesday in a roadside ambush in the eastern Indian state of Chhattisgarh, authorities said. The gunfight, which lasted for about three hours, occurred about 3 p.m. in the state's heavily forested Bastar region as the 63-member Central Reserve Police Force patrol was returning from a "road-opening mission" in preparation for a threatened two-day rebel strike expected to start Wednesday. Maoist rebels, who control a large swath of Indian territory, often erect roadblocks in jungle areas they control, which the government tries to raze to reassert its authority.

Mexican authorities Wednesday announced the arrest of a key suspect in the attempted assassination of a state security chief whose convoy was attacked with grenades and more than 2,000 rounds of ammunition. The suspect until recently was a police commander who also worked for the notorious drug cartel known as La Familia, authorities said. Minerva Bautista Gomez, security chief for the state of Michoacan, survived the April 24 ambush. Two of her bodyguards and two passing motorists were killed.

Gunmen on Monday killed a gubernatorial candidate in a highway ambush, just days before an election in violence-stained northern Mexico that he was expected to win. The killing of Rodolfo Torre, running in the state of Tamaulipas under the banner of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, further shook Mexico amid wide concern that drug-trafficking groups are increasingly flexing their muscle in politics through money and intimidation....

Israel faced a global diplomatic firestorm Monday over its deadly raid on a protest flotilla carrying humanitarian aid that was attempting to break through an Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip. Amid demonstrations erupting worldwide, foreign leaders and protest organizers accused Israel of using excessive force in the raid in international waters. At an emergency meeting, the United Nations Security Council condemned the violence and called for an investigation. Israel defended its actions, saying its soldiers were ambushed with knives and metal bars — as well as handguns wrested from the commandos — during the late-night raid, which occurred about 40 miles off Israel's coast.

Israeli naval ships seized control of a protest flotilla carrying humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip on Monday, killing at least 10 people and sparking widespread international condemnation. Israeli television, citing foreign media reports, said the death toll could be as high as 16. "The images are certainly not pleasant. I can only voice regret at all the fatalities," Trade and Industry Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer told Israel's Army Radio. The raid set off a storm of international protest and drew condemnations from leaders of Spain, Sweden, France, Germany, the U.N., the European Union and Arab League.