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Emily strengthens, nears Mexican coast

LA PESCA, Mexico - Hurricane Emily grew in strength to Category 3 as its outer winds and rain lashed Mexico's coastline Tuesday, forcing thousands in northeastern Mexico and southern Texas to seek higher ground.

The hurricane swirled across the Gulf of Mexico, with the eye likely to come ashore early today near this small fishing village popular with Mexican and U.S. tourists.

Residents rushed to nail plywood over windows and doors, while Mexican army trucks roamed the streets collecting evacuees laden with suitcases and rolled-up blankets. In southern Texas, campers emptied beachfront parks on South Padre Island, residents piled sandbags, and schools were turned into shelters.

At 8 p.m., Emily was near latitude 24.4 N, longitude 96.1 W, or about 130 miles southeast of Brownsville, Texas. The storm was stalled but was expected to resume moving west or west-northwest at 10 mph. Maximum sustained winds were near 125 mph.

BAGHDAD - Two Sunni Arabs involved in drafting Iraq's constitution were assassinated Tuesday afternoon on a busy street in central Baghdad, delivering a setback to the country's fledgling democratic process.

The two men, Mejbil al-Sheik Isa and Damin al-Obeidi, were in a car that was taking them from a meeting of committee members when they were attacked, the officials said. A bodyguard, Aziz Ebrahim, was also killed.

Isa was among the 15 Sunni Arabs recently appointed as committee members, and al-Obeidi was one of 10 newly appointed Sunni consultants. The appointments were part of an effort by the Shiite and Kurd-dominated National Assembly, under pressure from the Bush administration, to draw more Sunni Arabs into the charter-writing process.

CIVILIAN DEATHS: A British research group said Tuesday that about 25,000 civilians died in violence in Iraq in the two years after the start of the U.S.-led invasion.

Iraq Body Count compiled its figures of killings that occurred between March 20, 2003, and March 19, 2005, from reports by the major news agencies, including the Associated Press and British and American newspapers.

The results could not be independently confirmed. U.S. and coalition authorities say they have not kept a count of such deaths and Iraqi accounting has proved to be haphazard. The new estimate was much lower than the figure of 98,000 civilian deaths that appeared in a study in medical journal the Lancet in October.

MOSCOW - At least 15 people were killed Tuesday when gunmen ambushed and blew up a police vehicle in Chechnya, the southern Russian republic wracked by a separatist insurgency.

The assailants first opened fire on police outside a school in the town of Znamenskoye, Russian news agencies reported. When more police arrived at the scene, the attackers destroyed the vehicle, the agencies said.

Most of the dead were police officers, but officials said three were civilians, including two children. Twenty people were wounded, some seriously.

TERROR THREAT TO EUROPE: A statement in the name of Abu Hafs al Masri Brigades, a group that claimed responsibility for the London bombings, threatened Tuesday to launch "a bloody war" on the capitals of European countries that do not remove their troops from Iraq within a month.