BRITAIN: British police yesterday shot and killed a man who fired at them after refusing to stop his car near the edge of London's Heathrow airport, police said.
Police said they were treating it as a criminal incident, with no indication it was terror-related.
Perimeter patrols and other security measures have been beefed up at Heathrow, as at other airports around Britain, since the September 11th, 2001 attacks on the US and some intelligence reports indicating threats to UK airlines. - (Reuters)
Basque parliament disobeys court
SPAIN: The parliament of the Basque region in northern Spain yesterday refused to follow an order from Madrid's supreme court to dissolve Batasuna, the banned political wing of the armed Basque separatist group ETA.
Moderate nationalists dominating the regional assembly blocked a motion by the Speaker to dissolve Batasuna, which has been placed on "terrorist" lists of the United States and European Union.
The supreme court had given the Basque assembly five days to dissolve the parliamentary group of Batasuna. - (Reuters)
Colombian police arrest rebels
COLOMBIA: Hundreds of police pounced on a guerrilla-controlled village in Colombia yesterday and arrested 34 suspected rebels who they accused of blowing up bridges, attacking police barracks and kidnapping motorists.
Three other rebel suspects were apprehended in a separate operation in the northern provincial capital Riohacha.
The largest crackdown, following two weeks of intelligence gathering, took place in Villanueva, 640 km north of Bogota.
- (Reuters)
Men charged over suicide bombing
MOROCCO: Moroccan authorities said yesterday they had charged another 19 members and sympathisers of an extremist Islamic movement in connection with suicide bombings in Casablanca last month in which 43 people died.
Some of the men, all Moroccans, had planned similar attacks on the tourist destinations of Marrakesh, Agadir and Essaouira, in southern Morocco, the official MAP news agency said.
The State prosecutor said most of the men, aged between 17 and 40, belonged to an ultra-conservative Islamist movement known as the Salafist Jihad. - (Reuters)
Eight shot dead by Indian troops
INDIA: The Indian army yesterday gunned down eight suspected Islamic militants in an encounter in southern Kashmir, an army spokesman said.
The late evening encounter, which was continuing, took place in Weehbagh village of southern Pulwama district, 50 kms from Srinagar, the state's summer capital.
Six army soldiers were also injured in the gunfight. - (AFP)