Coalition Forces

Taliban fighters ambushed U.S.-led coalition forces in southern Afghanistan, sparking a 10-hour battle and airstrikes that killed an estimated two dozen militants, the coalition said. Villagers said seven civilians were among the dead.

The remains of the 30 Americans killed aboard a Chinook helicopter that was shot down by insurgents early Saturday were flown home Monday night, as military commanders pledged that the devastating crash would not compromise the overall war effort. In a statement released early Tuesday, U.S. Marine Gen. John R. Allen, who assumed command in Afghanistan only weeks ago, paid tribute to the slain troops, most of whom were elite Navy SEALs. He said U.S. and coalition forces would "continue to relentlessly pressure the enemy . . . and bring lasting and enduring peace to this historic land.

U.S. and coalition forces were fighting a pitched battle against a group of about 80 rebels aligned with renegade leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar in the largest-scale fighting since Operation Anaconda nine months ago, the U.S. military said today. At least 18 rebel fighters were killed, and there were no coalition casualties, U.S. military spokesman Roger King said from Bagram air base. American war planes attacked enemy positions with B-1 bombers, F-16s and AC-130 gunships, King said.

In one of the deadliest days for foreign forces in Afghanistan this year, eight NATO troops were killed in three separate incidents Saturday, authorities said. Three died in two separate bomb attacks in the south, according to North Atlantic Treaty Organization statements. The nationalities of those killed were not immediately released. Earlier in the day, five NATO service members and four Afghan soldiers were killed in a suicide attack by a Taliban bomber who dressed like an Afghan soldier to infiltrate a joint Afghan-U.S.

The U.S.-led coalition said Saturday that its troops and Afghan forces had killed more than 80 militants in fighting across southern Afghanistan. In one case, insurgents reportedly used civilians as shields to escape. Coalition troops engaged more than 40 extremists in a five-hour gun battle Friday in the southern province of Oruzgan, the military said in a statement. Most of the militants, who were firing from an orchard and compound, were believed killed, the coalition said.

Fighters loyal to a radical Shiite Muslim cleric staged bloody attacks in central and southern Iraq on Saturday in the wake of the U.S. military's deepest foray into the holy city of Najaf a day earlier. More than three dozen insurgents were reported killed in the skirmishes. U.S. military officials said that five soldiers had died Friday evening or Saturday. Three of them were killed while fighting rebels, one died in a vehicle accident, and the other died of "natural causes."

The six soldiers stood at attention in the old Soviet airplane hangar Friday to receive Purple Hearts, the medal reserved for Americans wounded in combat. One was a helicopter pilot grazed in the head by shrapnel when a rocket-propelled grenade shattered the cockpit of his aircraft. Others were infantrymen caught in a terrifying 18-hour mortar assault on the first day of Operation Anaconda in eastern Afghanistan.

Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi suffered a significant defeat as his forces fled the strategic crossroads city of Ajdabiya, leaving behind a charred trail of smoking tanks and rocket systems destroyed by seven days of punishing allied airstrikes. Rebel fighters in gun trucks raced into the nearly deserted city Saturday, firing their weapons into the air and clamoring over tanks in a daylong celebration of horn-honking and flag-waving. With Kadafi's forces retreating to the south and west, exposing more armor to allied warplanes, the question now is how many working tanks and Grad rocket systems the Libyan leader has left, and how willing his soldiers are to continue facing airstrikes.

The remains of the 30 Americans killed aboard a Chinook helicopter that was shot down by insurgents early Saturday were flown home Monday night, as military commanders pledged that the devastating crash would not compromise the overall war effort. In a statement released early Tuesday, U.S. Marine Gen. John R. Allen, who assumed command in Afghanistan only weeks ago, paid tribute to the slain troops, most of whom were elite Navy SEALs. He said U.S. and coalition forces would "continue to relentlessly pressure the enemy . . . and bring lasting and enduring peace to this historic land.

Saudi Arabia said Sunday that any Muslim and Arab deployment to Iraq must have Iraqi consensus, operate under a United Nations umbrella and replace U.S.-led coalition forces in the country. Prince Saud al Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, told reporters that his country's proposal, revealed last week, also stipulates that the U.N. oversee the political process in Iraq, including elections for a new government.

A suicide bomber dressed as an Afghan soldier attacked a joint Afghan and NATO forces base in eastern Afghanistan Saturday morning, killing five NATO troops and four Afghan soldiers in one of the deadliest attacks on coalition forces in recent days. The bomber detonated a vest packed with explosives at the entrance to Forward Operating Base Gamberi in Laghman province at about 7:30 a.m., according to Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi. NATO officials declined to release the nationalities of those killed.

Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi suffered a significant defeat as his forces fled the strategic crossroads city of Ajdabiya, leaving behind a charred trail of smoking tanks and rocket systems destroyed by seven days of punishing allied airstrikes. Rebel fighters in gun trucks raced into the nearly deserted city Saturday, firing their weapons into the air and clamoring over tanks in a daylong celebration of horn-honking and flag-waving. With Kadafi's forces retreating to the south and west, exposing more armor to allied warplanes, the question now is how many working tanks and Grad rocket systems the Libyan leader has left, and how willing his soldiers are to continue facing airstrikes.

A NATO airstrike in southern Afghanistan targeting Taliban militants accidentally killed civilians, NATO said Saturday, the latest in a string of deaths this month that have inflamed tensions between Washington and the Afghan government. The incident occurred Friday in Helmand province, a longtime Taliban stronghold and one of the focal points of a U.S. troop buildup to retake southern Afghanistan from the insurgents' control. A NATO spokesman said a coalition forces aircraft launched a strike on two vehicles, one of which was thought to be carrying a senior Taliban commander.

Rebels fighting the regime of Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi have retaken the strategic city of Ajdabiya in the country's east, officials in the capital acknowledged. A foreign ministry official told reporters that armed forces loyal to Kadafi, under air assault by an international Western-led coalition including the United States, have been forced to retreat from the coastal city, which controls the road to the rebel-held stronghold of Benghazi as well as the desert road to the country's eastern border.

Forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi carried out attacks on several rebel-held areas and deployed an elite military brigade to help bolster defenses, U.S. officials said, despite sharply stepped-up coalition airstrikes against his regime. Kadafi's military assaults Tuesday suggested that the Libyan strongman is seeking to crush the remnants of the 5-week-old popular rebellion against his regime, underscoring deepening questions about to whether the U.S.-led air campaign is succeeding.

Two significant Taliban attacks in the Afghan capital have been thwarted in the last three weeks, Afghan intelligence officials said Wednesday, an indication both of success in foiling such plots and of insurgents' continuing determination to carry them out. One of the planned attacks involved a complex strike aimed at the presidential palace in the center of Kabul and the other revolved around a suicide bombing meant to kill Afghanistan's first...

Good evening. Yesterday, after conferring with my senior national security advisers and following extensive consultations with our coalition partners, Saddam Hussein was given one last chance, set forth in very explicit terms, to do what he should have done more than six months ago: withdraw from Kuwait without condition or further delay, and comply fully with the resolutions passed by the United Nations Security Council.

Some Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib said they were abused by troops from Poland and other unspecified coalition countries, according to copies of statements to Army investigators obtained Thursday. The records of interviews by Army Criminal Investigation Division agents include new allegations that coalition forces had beaten prisoners before turning them over to Americans. Sgt. Antonio Monserrate, an Army interrogator, told investigators that two detainees had been "injured by the Polish army."

Violence hopscotched across Afghanistan on Saturday, as a bombing killed 10 people in a northern province and coalition troops repelled an assault by a squad of gunmen and suicide bombers on a base in the country's eastern region. In Afghanistan's south, North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces reported the deaths of three service members in an insurgent attack. It did not provide details or release the nationalities of those killed, but most of the troops serving in the south are Americans.

A militant network that is a major Western adversary in Afghanistan is expanding its reach into tribal badlands outside its longtime sanctuary in Pakistan, a move that could complicate U.S. efforts to eradicate the group. Pakistani tribal elders in the Kurram region along the Afghan border say large numbers of fighters from the Haqqani network, an ally of Al Qaeda, have been stationing themselves in the highlands of their rugged district and are demanding the freedom to move in and out of Afghanistan at will to carry out attacks in the neighboring country.