Iraqi officials say government troops - backed by U.S. airpower -- have killed at least 300 militants in battles around Al-Najaf. The fighting began after Iraqi Army units clashed with the armed group on the northern edge of the city on January 28.

Some 1,500 police officers in Iraq's Diyala Governorate and the mayor of the provincial capital, Ba'qubah, have been fired.

A mortar attack and shootings are the latest violence to hit the Somali capital, which is struggling to regain stability after Ethiopian-backed government forces ousted Islamists who controlled the capital for much of last year. Cathy Majtenyi reports for VOA from Nairobi.

Insurgents have killed at least 10 people in Iraq, including a senior Iraqi army official and a U.S. soldier.

The interim U.N. envoy to Sudan is appealing for a cessation of hostilities in the Darfur region, saying only a political solution can resolve the crisis, which has claimed hundreds-of-thousands of lives. Noel King has this report for VOA from Khartoum.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon has called for the Guinea-Bissau government to take control of a recent burst of violence in a country historically rocked by coups. The murder of a former navy chief last week resulted in a series of riots. Kari Barber reports from our West Africa bureau.

In India's northeastern state of Assam, the death toll in three days of attacks by suspected militants on migrant workers has risen to more than 65. As Anjana Pasricha reports from New Delhi, it is the worst violence in years in the region, where separatist rebels have been waging an insurgency for more than two decades.

The United States has condemned the Sudanese government for bombing rebel positions in the troubled Darfur region in violation of a ceasefire agreement.

Police in Spain have discovered a container with 100 kilograms of explosives in the northern Basque region.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has ordered the military to Rio de Janeiro state to help curb a wave of gang violence that has killed about 20 people in the past week.

Rwanda says it is hosting talks between the Democratic Republic of Congo's government and renegade Congolese General Laurent Nkunda.

Riots, murders and other violence are common in Venezuela's overcrowded prisons.