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Dutch honor fallen U.S. WWII soldiers

By wire services
Published May 31, 2004

MARGRATEN, Netherlands - Hundreds of Dutch and Americans gathered at the American Military Cemetery on Sunday to honor U.S. soldiers who died fighting to liberate the Netherlands from Germany in World War II.

The only American cemetery in the Netherlands contains remains of soldiers who were killed in the fighting around Eindhoven, Nijmegen and Arnhem, as well as others killed during the Allied push toward Berlin and while flying bombing missions before D-day.

The cemetery is outside Margraten, about 6 miles east of Maastricht. It holds the remains of 8,302 Allied soldiers.

Sunnis riot in Pakistan after cleric killed

KARACHI, Pakistan - Thousands of Sunni Muslims rampaged through this volatile southern Pakistani city Sunday, ransacking property and stoning vehicles after unidentified gunmen assassinated an influential pro-Taliban cleric.

Enraged by the drive-by shooting of Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai, rioters set fire to banks, shops, a police station and a KFC fast food restaurant, and traded gunfire with security forces, leaving more than a dozen people injured.

Tens of thousand of mourners later gathered for the evening funeral, where police fired warning shots above the crowd.

No one claimed responsibility for the shooting, which Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali condemned as a "dastardly act of terrorism."

Elsewhere . . .

WHISTLEBLOWER SPEAKS: Israel's nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu said in an interview broadcast by British Broadcasting Corp. TV on Sunday that the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 influenced his decision to tell the world about his country's secret nuclear military program. "It wasn't a war, it was just an assault on the Palestinians and Lebanon, just radicalism to invade Lebanon and to fight the Palestinians," Vanunu said.

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