Top militants killed, NATO force says

Security forces in Afghanistan have killed or captured more than 30 high-level militants, including many accused of participating in roadside bomb attacks, military officials said.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Thursday that a new Middle East — one “without Zionists and without colonialists” — was quickly emerging as regional bonds grow stronger by the day.

The military is backing off its previous position and acknowledging that some troops exposed to the burning of refuse on military bases could be susceptible to long-term health effects.

Canada is immediately limiting carry-on items for flights to the United States in the aftermath of a failed terror attack on a Northwest Airlines flight.

In addition to diplomacy and sanctions, the United States has developed contingency plans in dealing with Iran’s nuclear facilities, a top U.S. military commander told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour.

Afghanistan’s Independent Electoral Commission declared incumbent President Hamid Karzai the winner of the 2009 presidential election Monday.

A winter storm named “Xynthia” battered the western coast of Europe Sunday, its high winds downing trees and power lines and leaving as many as 55 people dead, authorities said.

A police raid on the outskirts of Jakarta Tuesday may have killed one of Indonesia’s most-wanted terrorists, though officials said they would await tests to verify the man’s identity.

A 400-year-old minaret collapsed Friday in Meknes, Morocco, killing 11 people and injuring 50, the Interior Ministry reported, according to the official news agency Maghreb Arabe Presse.

Vandals burned a mosque in the West Bank on Friday in an attack a Palestinian official said reflected Israeli settler rage over a government moratorium on settlement construction.

The Israeli government has ruled out setting up an independent investigative body that would interview Israeli military personnel about allegations that the military committed war crimes during its offensive against Hamas earlier this year.

The Israeli military has disciplined two officers for permitting the firing of artillery shells into a “populated” area of Gaza during Israel’s three week operation against Hamas last year.

The man charged with attempting to destroy a U.S. airliner on Friday is the son of prominent Nigerian banker and had been a college student in Britain before moving to Dubai, according to family and official sources.

The United Nations on Thursday announced new security measures in Afghanistan in the aftermath of a militant attack on a guesthouse that killed five staff members and wounded nine.

At least 15 people are dead after a tourist boat sunk in a lake in southwest Macedonia on Saturday morning, a government spokesman told CNN.

Three American soldiers were among at least seven people killed Wednesday when a roadside bomb struck a convoy on its way to a girls school opening in northwest Pakistan.