Security Forces

KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghan President Hamid Karzai will seek increased military aid from India during a three-day visit starting Monday and will discuss recent cross-border clashes with Pakistan, India's archrival, an aide said. The comments follow a weekend report by the Times of India that said Afghanistan's ambassador to India had said the country needs India's help with "equipment and weapons to fight. " The Press Trust of India later quoted a spokesman for New Delhi's Foreign...

CAIRO — Egyptian troops and police mistakenly fired on a Bedouin funeral in the Sinai Peninsula on Tuesday, security officials said, in the opening salvo of a sweep searching for security personnel kidnapped by suspected militants. The incident illustrated the hazards of the military operations prompted by the kidnapping last week. A heavy handed attempt to free the captives risks bringing a backlash in Sinai, where resentments among the local population against past security...

Groups within the Obama administration are pushing to keep no more than a few thousand troops in Afghanistan after 2014, U.S. officials said, raising the prospect that the United States will be unable to keep its promise to fully train and equip Afghan security forces. As the debate over the size and scope of the post-2014 coalition mission nears its end, some in the administration are pressing for a force that could be as small as 2,500, arguing that a light touch would be the most...

KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghan President Hamid Karzai will seek increased military aid from India during a three-day visit starting Monday and will discuss recent cross-border clashes with Pakistan, India's archrival, an aide said. The comments follow a weekend report by the Times of India that said Afghanistan's ambassador to India had said the country needs India's help with "equipment and weapons to fight. " The Press Trust of India later quoted a spokesman for New Delhi's Foreign...

SANAA, Yemen — Yemeni security forces and pro-government loyalists opened fire on protesters marching in two cities on Monday, killing at least 12 and wounding scores, according to witnesses. The violence was the deadliest attack on demonstrators, inspired by the populist rebellions of Egypt and Tunisia, since March 18, when snipers loyal to Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh shot dead at least 52 protesters in the capital Sanaa. That event triggered wide scale defections of Saleh's top allies from the military, tribes, and...

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian security forces arrested at least 15 student activists Friday after a meeting of key members of a pro-reform student movement in Tehran, a reformist website reported. The report on Mowjcamp.com said the police had not told the detained students' families where they were being held. It was not immediately possible to confirm the report, which came days after two large student gatherings in Tehran to protest against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's...

TEHRAN -- Thousands of Iranians took to the streets Wednesday to mark the 30th anniversary of the 1979 seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, but the annual state-sponsored anti-American rally turned into another sign of the deep divisions persisting in this country. As pro-government demonstrators ritually chanted "Death to America!" outside the former U.S. Embassy, opposition protesters used the occasion to vent their anger over a disputed presidential election in June and the harsh crackdown that followed it....

BAGHDAD -- Lt. Col. Kadhem Jabar Kadhem, a veteran of Saddam Hussein's army, has the swagger of the top cop in the sprawling Dora market, one of Baghdad's most dangerous areas until U.S. soldiers ousted insurgents last year. "Ever since we came here, we've controlled the security by ourselves," boasted the corpulent, mustachioed national police commander, surrounded by a dozen Iraqi officers in new gray-blue uniforms. And yet, even as he spoke, a U.S. Army unit with a crane was...

BAGHDAD -- Iraq's government payroll has become so heavy with soldiers and police that it's now hindering reconstruction, Iraq's prime minister warned Wednesday, raising the possibility of security force cutbacks just as U.S. combat troops are pulling out. It's doubtful whether Nouri al-Maliki would ever slash too deeply into Iraq's police and military with U.S. forces due to end combat missions next August. But it may reflect shifting priorities as violence eases and the government...

CAIRO — Egyptian security forces have fired tear gas at protesters hurling firebombs at them in central Cairo, hours after hundreds of opponents of Egypt's President Mohammed Morsi rallied peacefully in the streets denouncing his rule and demanding early presidential elections. The Friday protests witnessed low turnout but come on the heels of a campaign dubbed "Rebel," which aims at collecting 15 million signatures on a petition to oust Morsi and hold early elections. Coordinators said they have collected 2...

The U.N. Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances is pressing governments to provide information about open cases. Over the past two decades, it received nearly 54,000 cases, of which nearly 43,000 in 84 states remain unsolved. The number of cases is believed to be only a fraction of those who disappeared after being taken by security forces. OPEN CASES (as of 2012) Iraq — 16,401 Sri Lanka — 5,676 Argentina — 3,271 Algeria —...

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — Mobile phone service was cut off Thursday in areas of northeast Nigeria as jet fighters streaked through the sky and more soldiers were deployed to fight Islamic extremists waging a brutal insurgency. Witnesses saw low-flying Nigerian jet fighters over Yola, the capital of Adamawa state, which President Goodluck Jonathan placed under emergency rule on Tuesday along with Borno and Yobe states. However, soldiers have met "no resistance" yet from...

CAIRO — Suspected militants in Egypt's Sinai abducted seven security personnel as they headed to Cairo for holidays early Thursday, security officials said. It was the first such kidnapping of security forces in the lawless peninsula. The officials said masked gunmen ambushed two taxis at gunpoint outside the city of el-Arish, the capital of North Sinai governorate, fleeing with five policemen and one border guard captive. None of those abducted were in uniform, officials said.

KINGSTON, Jamaica — An independent agency that investigates abuse allegations against Jamaica's security forces says the island's police need training in how to deal with mentally ill citizens. A report from the Independent Commission of Investigations says 75 percent of police confrontations with mentally ill suspects end in fatalities. It says six people believed to suffer from mental illnesses were killed by police in 2011. Commissioner Terrence Williams told...

LAGOS, Nigeria — Admitting Islamic extremists now control some of his nation's villages and towns, Nigeria's president declared a state of emergency Tuesday across the country's troubled northeast, promising to send more troops to fight what he said is now an open rebellion. President Goodluck Jonathan, speaking live on state radio and television networks, also warned that any building suspected to house Islamic extremists would be taken over in what he described...

LAGOS, Nigeria — The leader of an Islamic extremist group in Nigeria says his group has started kidnapping women and children as part of its bloody guerrilla campaign against the country's government, according to a video released Monday. Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau says the kidnappings are retaliation for Nigerian security forces routinely imprisoning the wives and children of his group's members. The video shows 12 children, a mix of boys and girls, though it does not identify...

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast — Security forces in Ivory Coast used teargas to disperse hundreds of students demonstrating Monday against overcrowded classrooms and empty libraries at the country's largest university, sending at least two students to the hospital with injuries, according to witnesses. The demonstration had been timed to coincide with an appearance on campus by Higher Education Minister Cisse Ibrahima Bacongo, said literature student Josue Kwame, who took part in the demonstration.