World in brief

Compiled from Times wires
© St. Petersburg Times
published September 25, 2002

U.S. force to protect Americans in Africa

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast -- U.S. troops headed to West Africa on Tuesday to safeguard 100 American schoolchildren holed up in a rebel-held city after a bloody uprising in Ivory Coast. Residents reported heavy artillery and gunfire.

Free Will Baptist Foreign Missions, a Nashville, Tenn., group, sent calls for help overnight for the mission school in the Ivorian city of Bouake after rebels breached the school's walls, firing from its grounds. All students and staff were reported safe.

U.S. military aircraft including three C-130 cargo planes carrying about 200 troops and equipment were expected late Tuesday or early today at Ghana's capital, Accra, Ghana's Foreign Ministry said. The base was expected to be the staging area for any U.S. evacuation. Pentagon officials did not give details of the troops' mission.

"There's fighting going on now in the area near where this school is located. That's what our concern is," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said in Washington. No general evacuation of Americans is planned, he said.

Israel refuses to end siege of Arafat's compound

JERUSALEM -- Israeli troops kept up their siege of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Ramallah office building Tuesday, defying calls from the U.N. Security Council, the United States and Europe for a withdrawal. Other Israeli soldiers pulled out of the Gaza Strip after staging a quick early-morning raid that killed nine Palestinians.

Israeli officials said they would not end the Ramallah siege until the Palestinians complied with the part of the U.N. resolution that calls on the Palestinian Authority to "bring to justice" people responsible for terrorist attacks against Israelis.

The resolution passed the Security Council, 14-0, with the United States abstaining. The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John Negroponte, explained the abstention by saying the resolution did not specifically condemn Palestinian terrorist groups.

Arafat, in a statement issued from his besieged office building, said, "The Palestinian Authority is committed to the (Security Council) decision with all its items, and it calls on the international community to compel Israel to implement the withdrawal and end the siege."

Attackers kill 30 at Hindu shrine in India

GANDHINAGAR, India -- Attackers sprayed gunfire through a temple crowded with Hindu worshipers Tuesday, killing at least 30 people and fueling fears of new rioting in western India, where religious clashes between Muslims and Hindus killed 1,000 people earlier this year.

Early today, commandos killed two attackers inside the Swaminarayan temple complex, ending the 14-hour crisis.

Police said the attack appeared tied to state elections being held Tuesday in northern Jammu and Kashmir state, the only majority Muslim state in largely Hindu India. Turnout in the second of four days of voting was 42 percent.

Islamic rebels fighting for independence for Jammu and Kashmir say the elections are rigged in favor of the ruling, pro-India government and have tried to disrupt them with attacks on candidates, voters and police.

While no group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack on the temple, fears spread across western Gujarat state that Islamic rebels would be blamed -- which could set off anti-Muslim mob violence and spiral into widespread sectarian unrest.

About 45 people were wounded in the attack.

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