World briefs 10/7/02

Four killed when Israeli helicopter fires at crowd

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- Four people were killed when a missile fired by an Israeli helicopter exploded in a crowd of people in the southern Palestinian city of Khan Younis, witnesses said, during an Israeli military operation in the city.

Israeli military sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a limited operation was underway, not a large-scale invasion. The move came a few hours after Palestinians fired a mortar shell at a Jewish settlement in another part of the Gaza Strip, the military said.

About 40 Israeli tanks, accompanied by attack helicopters, moved into Khan Younis early Monday, residents said. Witnesses said the Israelis fired machine guns, shells and missiles at buildings on the main street.

Two Palestinians killed in West Bank fighting

JERUSALEM -- Two Palestinian men were shot dead Sunday in the northern West Bank, one in a gunbattle with Israeli troops, the other allegedly shot by a Jewish settler in an olive grove.

Early Monday, Israeli tanks entered the Gaza city of Khan Younis and soldiers exchanged gunfire with armed Palestinians, witnesses said. There was no immediate report of casualties. The Israeli military had no comment.

Palestinians accused Jewish settlers of killing Hani Yousef, 22, as he was harvesting olives near his village, Aqraba. Another Palestinian farmer was shot and wounded by the settlers, who came from the nearby settlement of Itamar, according to the Palestinian mayor, Ghaled Mayadme.

Sinn Fein aide pleads innocent to charges

BELFAST, Northern Ireland -- A Sinn Fein party aide was arraigned Sunday on charges of possessing stolen British government documents -- a bombshell that politicians said gravely threatened Northern Ireland's Catholic-Protestant government.

Denis Donaldson, 52, the head of administration for the Irish Republican Army-linked party in the Northern Ireland legislature, pleaded innocent as prosecutors accused him of possessing documents "likely to be of use to terrorists."

Detective Inspector Paul McClatchey testified that when officers raided Donaldson's home Friday, they found a document-filled bag containing the home addresses and other details of potential targets for IRA assassination.

Truck, bus crash kills 27, injures 17 inBrazil

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil -- A truck slammed into a bus and a car Sunday killing 27 people and injuring 17 in northeastern Brazil, police said.

The bus caught fire upon impact, police spokesman Jose Carlos Cruz said by telephone from Aracaju, some 930 miles northeast of Rio de Janeiro.

Many of the people who died on the bus burned to death and some were crushed, Cruz said.

It was not clear how the crash happened.

Pakistan returns bodies of two al-Qaida suspects

KARACHI, Pakistan -- Pakistani authorities have sent the bodies of two men killed in a police raid on an al-Qaida hideout in Karachi last month to their home countries, officials said Sunday.

The men were killed when Pakistani intelligence and police raided an apartment on Sept. 11 in an operation that netted five other al-Qaida suspects, including Ramzi Binalshibh, one of the suspected planners of the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.

The two men were not identified and police officials refused to say where the bodies were being sent.

Reports at the time of the shootout suggested the two men were North African.

-- From wire reports

On Wednesday, some 20 Pakistani women gathered at a Karachi morgue where the bodies were being held to claim them, but officials sent them away when they couldn't prove any relationship to the men.

The women said they wanted to give the two men a proper burial according to Islamic customs.

-- From wire reports