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4 U.S. troops die in Afghanistan

By TIMES WIRES
Published August 20, 2006

KABUL, Afghanistan - Coalition troops clashed with insurgents in two battles Saturday in fighting that left four U.S. and two Afghan soldiers dead and six other Americans wounded, officials said.

The fighting was reported to be some of the heaviest in recent months and came as war-battered Afghanistan celebrated its independence day.

During a clash against Taliban militants in eastern Kunar province, three U.S. soldiers were killed and three others wounded, said U.S. military spokesman Col. Tom Collins.

American troops in that area are hunting for Taliban fighters and extremists close to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network.

In southern Uruzgan province, an American and two Afghan soldiers were killed and three other Americans wounded in a four-hour clash with more than 100 insurgents, according to a NATO statement.

Collins said the troops in Uruzgan are part of a U.S. team training the fledgling Afghan National Army. The slain American was identified by family as Adam Servais, 23, of Wisconsin.

Israel arrests Palestinian deputy prime minister

RAMALLAH, West Bank - Israeli soldiers burst into the home of the Palestinian deputy prime minister before dawn Saturday and took him away for questioning, detaining the highest-ranking Hamas official in a 7-week-old crackdown against the ruling Islamic militant group.

Palestinian officials condemned the arrest of Nasser Shaer, 45, a former university professor known as a pragmatist in Hamas and accused Israel of undermining their efforts to form a broad government coalition.

Israel launched its latest crackdown against Hamas, which controls the Palestinian legislature and Cabinet, shortly after Hamas-allied militants from the Gaza Strip captured an Israeli soldier in a cross-border raid June 25. Despite an ongoing Israeli military offensive in the coastal area, the soldier has not been freed.

The Israelis have arrested eight other Hamas Cabinet ministers and more than two dozen lawmakers, including the speaker of Parliament, since late June.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev defended the arrest, saying Shaer is a member of a group that the United States, Canada and the European Union also have branded a terrorist organization.

In other developments Saturday, a Palestinian gunman attacked and killed an Israeli soldier in the West Bank on Saturday, before being shot and killed himself, the army said.

The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a small militant group, claimed responsibility for the attack, which occurred near an Israeli settlement in the northern Jordan Valley.

In Gaza, hundreds of members of the Palestinian security forces briefly stormed banks and burned tires, demanding the banks return money deducted from a small cash advance they received after months of going without wages.

Older brother says Castro's health is steadily improving

HAVANA - Ramon Castro, the older brother of leader Fidel Castro, said Saturday his more famous sibling is steadily improving after intestinal surgery that has left their younger brother Raul temporarily in charge of the country since July 31.

"He's much better," Ramon Castro said of Fidel Castro. "He works savagely and that has a cost."

Ramon Castro, who turns 82 in October, is a farmer who has stayed out of national politics.

The specifics of Castro's ailment and the nature of the surgery he underwent have been treated as a state secret. The 80-year-old leader blamed his heavy work and travel schedule for causing sustained intestinal bleeding. Recent government photographs and video of the leader showed him conscious, coherent and in good spirits.

[Last modified August 20, 2006, 01:13:33]