Military Confrontations

Sudanese soldiers shot at a U.N. peacekeepers convoy in the Darfur region, critically wounding a local driver barely a week into the force's mission, U.N. officials said. The United Nations condemned the attack, which occurred late Monday, and said it had protested to the Sudanese government. It said the supply convoy was clearly marked. The driver was hit by seven bullets, a tanker truck was destroyed and an armored personnel carrier was damaged, the U.N. said. The South African peacekeepers did not return fire and suffered no casualties, officials said.

The U.N. peacekeeping chief told the Security Council on Wednesday that a Sudanese attack this week on U.N.-led troops reinforces concerns that the force may be unable to protect itself or civilians in Darfur. The violence, along with foot-dragging by the Sudanese government and the lack of necessary helicopters and equipment, may doom the peacekeeping effort, Jean-Marie Guehenno told the council.

The young man had been through a miserable few years. He had been rejected by the army and failed to finish his studies. Security officials kept summoning him for talks. At 25, he left his parents' home in the city, telling them he wanted to be a shepherd. They heard nothing more from him until newspapers reported that he was wanted in Germany for involvement in a plot to bomb a pair of trains.

As rebels in Chad fought for a second day to take control of the nation's capital, analysts said Sunday that the outcome of the attempted coup could have far-reaching implications for the Darfur conflict in neighboring Sudan.

Chad's president declared himself in control of the country Wednesday, though he acknowledged that three-fourths of his government had disappeared since rebels attacked this capital last week. For the first time since the assault began, more people were crossing bridges toward N'Djamena than away, apparently heeding a government call to return. Government forces pushed rebels out of the capital after weekend battles that left hundreds dead and sent thousands fleeing.

Lawmakers in northern Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdish region authorized their military Tuesday to intervene if Turkish forces pursuing anti-government rebels bring their battle into civilian areas. The move heightened fears that the conflict could draw in Iraqi Kurdish forces and destabilize the one region of Iraq that has been relatively peaceful since the U.S. invasion in March 2003.

Even as relations remained tense between Colombia and Venezuela, there were signs Wednesday that the Andean region's most serious crisis in recent years might be easing. In Washington, the Organization of American States passed a consensus resolution that used mutually acceptable language to rebuke Colombia for having violated Ecuadorean sovereignty Saturday in a raid that killed a high-ranking rebel leader and 16 others.

The Iraqi colonel's phone rang shortly before the bloodshed began. Shiite militiamen were planning to overrun forces under his command, the callers warned, and his children would be killed if his soldiers fought back. Within hours on the afternoon of March 25, militiamen with rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns crossed footpaths spanning a sewage-choked canal that separates a militia stronghold in northwest Baghdad from a neighboring district where Col. Falih Hussein was in charge.

When Gen. David H. Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker brief Congress this week, they will be hard-pressed to depict Iraq as moving toward stability in the wake of recent violence that sent deaths soaring to their highest level in seven months. Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's move against Shiite Muslim militias has revealed the gravity of the country's Shiite rivalries, just as U.S. forces are decreasing their presence.

Fighting between Israeli forces and militants in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday killed 17 Palestinians and three Israeli soldiers, medical officials and the army said. In the deadliest incident, Israeli strikes killed 12 people and wounded 20 in the Bureij refugee camp, said Muawiya Hassanein, chief of emergency services in the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza. Residents said a helicopter fired at least four missiles, damaging two houses and a mosque.