Battle rages in Afghan provincial capital

Police fought a three-hour battle in the center of an Afghan provincial capital Monday, finally killing two Taliban militants who stormed a market with dozens of civilians inside. Three civilians and one police officer were wounded in the fighting in Gardez in Paktia Province. The Taliban controls most of Paktia, which borders Pakistan.

Also Monday, the Defense Ministry said 24 militants were killed in operations the day before. The ministry said eight insurgents were killed in southern Helmand Province, six in Ghazni in the east, seven in northern Kunduz Province, two in Kandahar Province in the south and one in Wardak, west of Kabul.

A suicide bomber attacked the convoy of the city council chief of Tal Afar in northern Iraq, killing the official and three guards. The slain official, Hussein Akrash, was affiliated with the country's largest Sunni political party, the Iraqi Islamic Party, and was a member of the Turkoman minority. The insurgency, dominated by Sunni Arabs, has often targeted minority groups in addition to officials seen as collaborators with the Shiite-led government.

Pakistan's embattled government reached out to the opposition as it sought to limit the damage from a Supreme Court decision striking down an amnesty protecting several of its senior officials from corruption charges. Some opposition members have called for officials who benefited from the amnesty, including President Asif Ali Zardari, to resign. But the Pakistan Muslim League-N's senior leadership has refrained from taking such a tough stance, a move that analysts say is driven by their desire to avoid destabilizing the fragile democratic system.

"I think the only real lifeline that can be thrown to the (ruling) Pakistan People's Party right now is if the opposition holds its fire and sees how this showdown between the political government and the judiciary plays out," said Cyril Almeida, an opinion writer for Dawn, a leading English-language paper.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani likely had that calculation in mind when he met with Shahbaz Sharif, the brother of main opposition leader Nawaz Sharif and chief minister of Pakistan's largest province, Punjab.

The two leaders "agreed that the present democratic system ... would be protected and strengthened at all costs to work for the welfare of the people," according to a statement issued by Gilani's office.

NEWS SERVICES