World in brief

Israeli removal of outpost called half-hearted

JERUSALEM - Israeli troops tore down part of a synagogue at a West Bank settlement outpost Tuesday but made no attempt to move adjacent trailer homes, prompting accusations the government isn't serious about meeting U.S. demands to dismantle dozens of the outlawed sites.

Demolition on a far greater scale took place in the Gaza Strip, where army bulldozers smashed 25 houses and flattened a mosque in a Palestinian refugee camp, leaving 400 people homeless, local officials said.

The military said it targeted buildings from which shots were fired at Israeli forces, but did not know how many structures were demolished.

ATTACK ON HEZBOLLAH: Israeli planes attacked two Hezbollah guerrilla bases in south Lebanon on Tuesday, the Israeli military said. There were no reports of casualties, Lebanese security officials said.

KABUL, Afghanistan - U.S. military officials said Tuesday that a raid over the weekend in southern Afghanistan had killed only five Taliban fighters, not 11 civilians, as Afghan officials have reported.

But Abdul Rahman, the chief of the Char Chino district in Oruzgan province, where the incident took place, said again Tuesday that 11 civilians had been killed, including three women and four children.

WASHINGTON - Six lawmakers are traveling to Libya this weekend to meet that country's leader, Moammar Gadhafi, and probably visit facilities where Gadhafi's government had begun programs to make weapons of mass destruction.

The trip, announced Tuesday, will be the first by elected U.S. officials to the North African Arab country in almost four decades.

Led by Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., the bipartisan congressional delegation will go to Libya as U.S. and British experts are setting up their equipment to begin dismantling weapons programs to implement Gadhafi's recent pledge to disarm.

The delegation will fly Sunday morning into Tripoli and leave Monday for stops in Iraq and Afghanistan, Weldon said. The other lawmakers going on the trip are Reps. Solomon Ortiz, D-Texas; Steve Israel, D-N.Y.; Rodney Alexander, D-La.; Candice Miller, R-Mich.; and Mark Souder, R-Ind.

LIMA, Peru - Former spymaster Vladimiro Montesinos went on trial Tuesday on charges he directed a scheme to parachute-drop 10,000 assault rifles into the hands of Colombian guerrillas.

Montesinos, security adviser to former President Alberto Fujimori through the 1990s, faces more than 60 charges ranging from corruption to drug trafficking and authorizing murder.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan on Tuesday barred all scientists working on its nuclear weapons program from leaving the country, as the government intensified its inquiry into allegations that nuclear technology had been shared with Iran.

Also, the New York Times, quoting an unnamed senior intelligence official, reported that a former army commander had approved the transfer of technology to Iran.

The official said the scientist who had led the effort to build an atomic bomb, Abdul Qadeer Khan, had told investigators that any sharing of nuclear technology with Iran had the approval of Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg, the commander of Pakistan's army from 1988 to 1991.

IRANIAN ELECTION: Hard-line authorities said Tuesday that they were reinstating 200 candidates barred from running in next month's legislative elections and will reconsider thousands more. Proreform lawmakers, who have threatened to boycott the vote, vowed to continue their daily sit-ins in the lobby of Parliament.

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