Security Forces

BAGHDAD - Less than a year and a half after the last U.S. troops left, Iraq's political leaders are openly debating the prospect of two dangerous paths for their country: de facto division or civil war. Perhaps both. Tension between the Shiite majority, now in control of the levers of power, and the Sunni Arab minority, which dominated under Saddam Hussein, has been building for months. But politicians on all sides agree that the country has entered a perilous new phase, highlighted in late April by an attack on a Sunni protest camp by security forces that killed at least 45 people.

BAGHDAD - Car bombs around Iraq killed at least 65 people Monday amid the worst wave of violence in the country since U.S. troops withdrew a year and a half ago. The attacks, which occurred along busy commercial streets in Shiite and Sunni areas, followed a string of bombings and other attacks last week that killed more than 200 people. The ongoing violence has stoked the impression among Iraqis that the country is sliding back into chaos reminiscent of the civil war that claimed tens of thousands of lives between 2005 and 2008.

KABUL, Afghanistan - Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr. took over Sunday as the newest and probably last U.S. commander in Afghanistan, charged with ending America's longest war even as insurgents continue to challenge the U.S.-backed Afghan government. Dunford, a four-star Marine officer, arrives as the U.S.-led NATO coalition has closed three-quarters of its 800 bases and as it watches to see whether the Afghan security forces it trained can keep the Taliban insurgency at bay. A ceremony inside the coalition's heavily guarded compound in Kabul marked the end of the 19-month tenure of Gen. John R. Allen, whose command was marred by a rash of deadly "insider" attacks by Afghan forces against their U.S. and NATO trainers and by strained relations with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

MEXICO CITY - Responding to mounting concern about disorder in the Mexican state of Michoacan, officials announced Thursday that an army general would take over as its public security chief, overseeing both state and federal security forces. The appointment of the general, Alberto Reyes Vaca, was announced by state officials but had been arranged in coordination with the federal government. For President Enrique Peña Nieto's administration, the move is part of a promised new focus on the southwestern state, long a hotbed of drug cartel violence.

AMMAN, Jordan -- Anti-government protesters and security forces clashed Wednesday night as demonstrations broke out for a second day in Jordan's capital in response to the cut of fuel subsidies and rising prices. Riot police and soldiers in Amman fired tear gas and attacked protesters with batons and activists said at least 10 people were arrested. Teachers and lawyers went on strike Wednesday and more protests and strikes are expected in the coming days. Demonstrations were held in several other Jordanian cities as well.

Syrian state television claimed Monday that 120 members of the nation's security forces were killed by armed groups in recent days in a report that said the government was prepared to "deal firmly and sternly" with any such attacks against its rule. The broadcast cited no sources and offered no footage to verify the report of a "massacre" by gunmen at a police station in the restive northwest city of Jisr Shughur, the site of weeks of ongoing clashes between security forces loyal to President Bashar Assad and pro-democracy protesters inspired by revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia.

Syrian authorities have intensified a campaign to detain the same opposition activists with whom they recently vowed to begin a dialogue, as the nation braced for another potentially bloody weekend of violence against those opposed to the autocratic rule of President Bashar Assad. Security forces loyal to Assad continued their siege of the restive city of Hama on Thursday. A witness said that water and electricity had been cut in large parts of the city and that armored vehicles had surrounded the entry points, allowing only women and children to flee what appears to be an impending military assault.

Reporting from Beirut — Protests surged in Iran as students around the country clashed this afternoon with security forces armed with clubs in the latest round of street confrontations over the nation's disputed presidential elections. Police shot tear gas canisters at protesters chanting "Death to the dictator" and setting garbage bins afire. Hundreds of security forces in riot gear stood alongside streets, witnesses said. Pro-government Basiji militiamen had been allowed to flood university campuses since early in the morning to prevent protests from breaking out, students said.

Several thousand protesters took to the streets of Tehran on Thursday and clashed with security forces in the latest round of unrest over Iran's disputed June presidential election, according to witnesses and amateur video posted on the Internet. The latest unrest in the nation's capital comes as Iran steels itself for a potential outbreak of violence around the country this weekend during Ashura, the annual commemoration of the 7th century martyrdom of Imam Hussein, a grandson of the prophet Muhammad and a revered figure in Iran's Shiite Muslim faith.

In the din of frantic phoning and texting that has characterized these tense days in Cairo, unusual messages arrived this week that left many Egyptians squinting at their cellphones: "Police have returned to streets to protect citizens and their security. Please cooperate with them. " Another said: "The police will be nothing but at the service of the people and their protection. " For the most part, these communiques from the police state have been greeted with puzzlement, if not derision.

BAGHDAD - Less than a year and a half after the last U.S. troops left, Iraq's political leaders are openly debating the prospect of two dangerous paths for their country: de facto division or civil war. Perhaps both. Tension between the Shiite majority, now in control of the levers of power, and the Sunni Arab minority, which dominated under Saddam Hussein, has been building for months. But politicians on all sides agree that the country has entered a perilous new phase, highlighted in late April by an attack on a Sunni protest camp by security forces that killed at least 45 people.

BAGHDAD - Iraqi security used disproportionate force, including shooting unarmed civilians, during a raid on an encampment of Sunni Arab protesters last week that left 45 people dead, according to two government investigations and foreign diplomats. The predawn raid in the city of Hawija in Kirkuk province April 23 involved security forces demanding that protesters hand over demonstrators suspected of killing an Iraqi soldier four days earlier, officials said. Shooting erupted during the raid, enraging Sunnis and leading to violence in other parts of the country.

BEIRUT - Security forces for the Shiite-led Iraqi government raided a Sunni protest camp in northern Iraq on Tuesday, igniting violence around the country that left at least 36 people dead. The unrest led two Sunni officials to resign from the government and risked pushing the country's Sunni provinces into an open revolt against Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, a Shiite. The situation looked to be the gravest moment for Iraq since the last U.S. combat troops left in December 2011. The violence Tuesday started in the Sunni town of Hawija, where shooting erupted during the raid.

KANO, Nigeria - Local government officials and a military spokesman in Nigeria agreed that security forces and Islamist militants had battled in recent days in the country's far northeast. But they offered widely varying accounts Monday of how many people, including civilians, had been killed. Some officials said about 185 people were slain in the clashes, with some residents blaming government troops in part for the deaths. Security officials put the number lower. The fighting began Friday in Baga, a fishing community near Lake Chad, but news of the violence reached Abuja, the capital, only late Sunday.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- Dozens of people, including many civilians, died in gun battles between Nigerian security forces and Islamist militants in recent days, according to Nigerian officials. However, reports of the number of casualties varied, with some government officials saying about 185 people were slain while security officials put the death toll lower. The fighting began Friday in Baga, a fishing community near Lake Chad in northeastern Nigeria, but news of the violence only reached Abuja, the capital, late Sunday.

Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov released a statement Friday denying any link between his nation and the actions of the suspected Boston Marathon bombers. The "roots of evil," he said, were in America.  In a message written in Russian and posted to the photo-sharing website Instagram, Kadyrov expressed condolences to all Americans, but said his country had nothing to do with the suspects' actions.  "The whole world needs to do battle with terrorism," the statement read. "We know this better than anybody else.

In Somalia, a court has cleared a woman who had been jailed after she alleged she was raped by state security forces but it has kept the journalist who interviewed her in prison. The Mogadishu appeals court found the woman not guilty, reversing an earlier conviction for defaming the government, according to news reports. However, it ruled that journalist Abdiaziz Abdinur Ibrahim must spend six months behind bars. The January arrests of the woman and the reporter appalled human rights groups, which said the charges would discourage people from coming forward to report sexual assault, especially at the hands of government forces.

HERAT, Afghanistan -- Taliban insurgents attacked an Afghan outpost near the border with Pakistan on Friday, killing 13 soldiers, according to local officials. The fighting began around dawn and lasted four to five hours, said Wasifullah Wasifi, spokesman for the governor of Kunar province. “One more soldier is missing, so the total may turn out to be 14,” he said. The restive province is often used as an entryway for militants arriving from Pakistan's lawless northwestern area.

The full human cost of Mexico's bloody drug war during the last six years is only now becoming apparent. Nearly 70,000 people died and more than 26,000 went missing between 2006 and 2012. A scathing new report by Human Rights Watch casts substantial blame for the problem on the country's security forces, which it says have not only been implicated in many of the underlying crimes but have failed to adequately investigate claims by friends and family members of the victims. The result, the report says, is the "most severe crisis of enforced disappearances in Latin America in decades.