Officials in Somalia say U.S. naval warships have bombarded a remote coastal village where suspected Islamist insurgents had set up a base.

Iraqi and U.S. troops were holed up in residents houses under a curfew claimed to restore calm after days of internal fighting between insurgent groups in Sunni neighborhood in Baghdad.

This news release is issued in respect of the financial measures taken against Al-Qaida and the Taliban.

Anti-American Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has made his first public appearance since the start of a major U.S.-backed security crackdown in February.

Iraqi police say a suicide bomber has blown himself up inside a police station in Diyala province, killing at least four people and wounding 16 others. Officials say the attack took place in a market police station in the town of Balad Ruz, about 70 kilometers northeast of Baghdad.

A government-backed pro-Taleban tribal leader in Pakistan says he would provide shelter to Osama bin Laden. Tribal leader Mullah Nazir told journalists in Pakistan's remote South Waziristan district in the town of Wana that he has never met the al-Qaida leader.

Senior military commanders from 21 countries, including the United States, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, have completed Thursday a two-day anti-terrorism conference in Islamabad. The symposium focused on improving international cooperation in the fight against terror, and comes as American lawmakers question host country - and key U.S. ally - Pakistan's commitment to the fight.

A large force of well-armed militants has overwhelmed a Pakistani village near the country's volatile border with Afghanistan. The militants killed at least one security official and kidnapped a local school principal. From Islamabad, VOA Correspondent Benjamin Sand reports officials are concerned that local and foreign militants are gaining control over parts of Pakistan's remote tribal areas.

In a new video posted on the Internet, an al-Qaida militant who escaped from a U.S. prison in Afghanistan urged Sunni militants in Iraq to join the terror group and claimed the U.S. military's security plan for Baghdad has failed.

The U.S. military says American and Iraqi forces have killed 13 insurgents in raids Wednesday in Iraq. The military says eight insurgents were killed in an hours-long battle between troops and al-Qaida in Iraq fighters near the town of Amiriyah, in restive al-Anbar province.