AFGHANISTAN
Taliban attack U.S. base
Taliban insurgents, including several suicide bombers, attacked a joint U.S.-Afghan military airfield in the eastern city of Jalalabad early Sunday morning, triggering an hours-long battle that left most of the attackers dead in a failed attempt to breach the base’s fortifications. U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Les Carroll, a spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force, said no coalition personnel were killed.
SYRIA
Warplanes blast rebels
Syrian warplanes and artillery blasted parts of the capital Damascus and its rebellious suburbs on Sunday, part of what activists described as intense fighting as rebels try to push their way into the center of President Bashar Assad’s power base. In central Syria, a car bomb killed at least 15 people, the official news agency reported. The fighting over the past few weeks in Damascus is the most serious in the capital since July, when rebels captured several neighborhoods before a swift government counteroffensive swept them out.
SLOVENIA
Ex-premier wins election
Former Slovenia Prime Minister Borut Pahor won the presidential election Sunday, calling for unity in the tiny EU nation where discontent has been mounting with government budget cuts and other austerity measures designed to avoid a bailout.
JAPAN
Deadly tunnel collapse
At least seven people were feared dead after part of a highway tunnel collapsed Sunday in eastern Japan, trapping travelers in their vehicles and starting a fire that filled the tunnel with thick, black smoke. Three vehicles appear to have been crushed under concrete that fell from the ceiling of the three-mile Sasago Tunnel near the city of Otsuki in Yamanashi prefecture, about 50 miles west of Tokyo, the national government’s disaster management agency said. Officials said it was unclear why the 150- to 200-foot section of eight-inch-thick concrete, weighing about 180 tons, suddenly fell.
Compiled from wire reports.
