Afghan and NATO-led forces killed 65 Taliban rebels when they called in air strikes as the insurgents smuggling weapons across the border from Pakistan, the Afghan Interior Ministry said on Sunday.

Three Islamic preachers, Sigauri, Dimiev and Masaev, were kidnapped by Russian troops on the night between September 28-29, 2006 and are now held in one of the secret prisons in Chechnya according to a report from a Chechen group.

Iran said on Sunday a Middle East conference organized by the United States would result in an erosion of Palestinian rights because Washington had shown in the past that it was not an objective mediator.

According to a report for the Kavkaz Center news agency from the Chechen Military Command, a mobile unit of Chechen Mujahideen attacked and destroyed a military convoy of Russians and puppets on a road between the district center of Achkhoi Martan and the Kotai Yurt village on Wednesday, October 17, …

14 Russians and puppets were killed and 27 were wounded in various districts of Chechnya in 72 hours on October 17-19, 2006, according to a report for the Kavkaz Center news agency from the Chechen Military Command.

Chechen mujahideen under Commander Zaurbek Avdorkhanov ambushed a Russian convoy with three army-trucks in the District of Nozhay-Yurt in Southern Chechnya´s mountains.The trucks were full with Russian soldiers. As a result of the fierce attack 9 Russian soldiers were killed and 11 more wounded. On the Chechen side 2 fighters …

At least one man was dead and 50 people were missing after a boat with 200 aboard sank in the Bay of Bengal, police said on Sunday.

Pakistani troops, backed by helicopter gunships and artillery, have begun a ground offensive against pro-Taliban militants in a troubled northwestern valley, killing at least 30 of them, the military said on Sunday.

Outraged Pakistani journalists have been confronting police on the streets since President Pervez Musharraf imposed emergency rule three weeks ago and muzzled the vibrant media that blossomed under his rule.

Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora assured his country on Saturday there was no cause for alarm and said his Cabinet was assuming executive powers in the absence of a president for the first time in nine years.