(12/06)

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Fireworks purchased to celebrate the New Year exploded in a Sao Paulo home, killing two children and injuring a dozen people, Sao Paulo police said on Sunday.

BANGKOK (Reuters) - A series of bombs hit Bangkok on Sunday, killing two people and wounding at least 30, eight of them foreigners, forcing Thai officials to cancel New Year celebrations in the capital and send thousands of people home.

YALA, Thailand (Reuters) - Suspected separatists shot dead two Buddhist teachers on Friday and burned their bodies in Thailand's rebellious Muslim south, police said, the latest attack in a three-year insurgency that has killed more than 1,800.

LONDON (Reuters) - Two U.S. sailors were killed after falling overboard from a nuclear-powered submarine as it left the southern English port of Plymouth on Friday, the U.S. Navy said.

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Two people were killed and 42 injured when three buildings collapsed in earthquakes that shook southern Taiwan, authorities said on Wednesday.

KABUL (Reuters) - A suicide bomber targeting an Afghan member of parliament killed one person and wounded at least seven more in Kabul on Friday, police said.

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - The African Union said on Monday it killed two civilians a day earlier in Sudan's Darfur region in self-defence after a crowd of protesters tried to storm a military base.

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - Gunmen killed two Saudi security personnel on Thursday when they opened fire on a guard post outside a prison in the Red Sea port of Jeddah, the Interior Ministry said.

(11/06)

KABUL (Reuters) - A roadside bomb has killed two NATO soldiers in Afghanistan as the alliance decided to increase its forces in the country to overcome a resurgent Taliban.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers clashed with Palestinian gunmen in the northern Gaza Strip on Saturday, killing one militant, hospital officials said. In a separate incident overnight, an unidentified Palestinian was shot dead by Israeli troops while approaching the strategic Karni border crossing.

JENIN, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli troops killed two Palestinians, including a local militant commander, in the West Bank on Monday, during clashes that raised doubts over how long a shaky truce in the Gaza Strip might last.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli forces shot dead two Palestinians including a boy in clashes in Gaza on Friday and the government said its assault would end only if gunmen stopped attacking the Jewish state from the strip.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli troops with tanks launched a deep raid into the Gaza Strip to strike a Palestinian militant stronghold on Tuesday, killing a gunman during clashes in which a woman also died, witnesses and hospital officials said.

SUNGAI KOLOK, Thailand (Reuters) - A bomb hidden in a motorcycle killed a soldier and a civilian and wounded 16 others on Monday in a restive southern Thai town popular with Malaysian tourists, police said.

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (Reuters) - At least two teen-agers died on Monday when a school bus carrying dozens of students veered off an overpass in Huntsville, Alabama, and plunged to a street below, U.S. police said.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli forces clashed with militants in the northern Gaza Strip on Saturday, killing two Palestinians, residents and hospital officials said.

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - Suspected Islamist militants hurled a grenade near a mosque in Indian Kashmir during Friday prayers, killing two people and wounding about 20, police and witnesses said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two U.S. soldiers were killed when a helicopter crashed in Salahaddin province north of Baghdad on Monday, the military said.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli forces shot dead two Palestinians including a policeman and kept up the shelling of militant targets in the northern Gaza Strip on Sunday, residents and medical officials said.

BEIT HANOUN, Gaza (Reuters) - Two Palestinian women acting as human shields between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian gunmen were killed on Friday during a stand-off at a Gaza mosque, before the 60 gunmen managed to escape.

(10/06)

DILI (Reuters) - Dili's airport has been closed following violent clashes between groups of East Timorese youths in which at least two people were killed, officials and residents said on Wednesday.

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - Indian security forces killed two Islamist militants in a nine-hour gunbattle near a university in Kashmir's main city on Friday, police and witnesses said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. airman was killed in action in Baghdad on Saturday and a Marine died from injuries sustained in fighting in western Iraq, the U.S. military said.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle was killed when the small aircraft he was piloting crashed into a 52-story building on Manhattan's posh Upper East Side on Wednesday, the famed baseball team said. Lidle, 34, who owned the four-seat plane, died along with a flying instructor.

KHOST, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Two suicide bombers, one targeting a U.S.-led coalition convoy and another Afghan soldiers, blew themselves up in the southeastern province of Khost on Thursday, wounding 16 people.

BANGALORE, India (Reuters) - Hindu-Muslim clashes over the slaughter of cows, which are revered by Hindus, have killed two people and wounded dozens in a southern Indian city, police said on Sunday.

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli troops killed a Palestinian militant and a Palestinian civilian on Sunday near the West Bank city of Nablus, witnesses said.

MORELIA, Mexico (Reuters) - Two severed heads were found in a busy town center in Mexico on Saturday several kilometers from their bodies, police said, the latest in a string of gory killings in crime-infested Michoacan state.

KABUL (Reuters) - Gunmen ambushed and killed two German journalists traveling in northern Afghanistan on Saturday, Afghan officials said.

GAZA (Reuters) - An Israeli air strike on a car in the southern Gaza Strip on Wednesday killed two Palestinians, witnesses and security sources said.

KABUL (Reuters) - Insurgents attacked a NATO patrol in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday, killing one NATO soldier and wounding eight, a spokesman for the NATO force said. One soldier was missing, presumed dead.

SANAA (Reuters) - Yemeni forces killed on Sunday two al Qaeda fugitives who had been sentenced to death for an attack on the French oil tanker Limburg in 2002, officials said.

GAZA (Reuters) - An Israeli military strike in the northern Gaza Strip killed two teenage brothers on Friday, Palestinian security services and witnesses said.

DENVER (Reuters) - An armed man took two girls hostage at a Colorado high school on Wednesday, fatally shooting one of the students and then himself when police stormed the classroom where he was barricaded, authorities said.

(9/06)

LAKELAND, Florida (Reuters) - A man suspected of killing a Florida sheriff's deputy was shot and killed by police on Friday after a 21-hour manhunt by hundreds of officers.

GAZA (Reuters) - An Israeli military strike in the northern Gaza Strip killed two teenage brothers on Friday, Palestinian security services and witnesses said.

DENVER (Reuters) - An armed man took two girls hostage at a Colorado high school on Wednesday, fatally shooting one of the students and then himself when police stormed the classroom where he was barricaded, authorities said.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A suicide bomber attacked a Canadian military convoy in southern Afghanistan on Sunday, killing himself and a passer-by, a day after U.S.-led forces launched a new offensive against a resurgent Taliban.

MONTREAL (Reuters) - A cold-faced gunman dressed in a black trenchcoat opened fire in a downtown Montreal college on Wednesday, killing a 20-year-old woman and leaving a trail of blood and injury as he sent students fleeing for their lives before being shot himself.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A policeman and a bystander were killed in Baghdad on Friday when a car bomb blasted the convoy of a local police chief, police and Interior Ministry sources said.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A fire on board a Russian nuclear submarine in the Barents Sea killed two crew members but there was no threat of a radiation leak, the navy said on Thursday.

CAIRO (Reuters) - An Egyptian passenger train and a freight train collided north of Cairo on Monday, killing two people and injuring 16 others in the second fatal rail accident in Egypt in two weeks, security sources said.

LONDON (Reuters) - Two British soldiers were killed on Monday and two more injured when their patrol came under attack near the southern Iraqi city of Basra, the Ministry of Defense said.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - A bomb explosion ripped through a cafe in southeast Turkey on Sunday evening, killing two people including a police officer, and injuring nine others, police said.

GAZA (Reuters) - Two Palestinians were killed on Saturday during an exchange of gunfire between Israeli forces raiding a north Gaza town and Palestinian gunmen, and several others were wounded by an Israeli airstrike, witnesses said.

(8/06)

BOSTON (Reuters) - A shooter opened fire at a Vermont elementary school on Thursday in an incident that left at least two people dead and three wounded, police said.

KABUL (Reuters) - Two soldiers from the U.S.-led coalition force were killed in an ambush on Saturday in Afghanistan, the force said, the latest casualties among foreign forces in the bloodiest period since the Taliban's overthrow.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Three Mexicans who survived for nine months as their small fishing boat drifted across the Pacific Ocean tossed two other men overboard after they died of starvation during the journey, officials said on Thursday.

COLOMBO (Reuters) - A car bomb exploded in Sri Lanka's capital Colombo on Tuesday, killing two people, as Tamil Tiger rebels lifted a water blockade which had sparked 14 days of fighting in the east.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israel killed two Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank on Sunday and detained parliamentary speaker Aziz Dweik, a Hamas leader, and another Hamas lawmaker, Palestinian officials said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two U.S. marines were killed in action in separate incidents in Iraq's restive Anbar province west of Baghdad, the U.S. military said.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers shot dead two Palestinians in the southern Gaza Strip on Friday, hours after launching a series of air strikes on militant targets that wounded four other people, witnesses and medics said.

GAZA (Reuters) - An Israeli aircraft fired a missile near a car in northern Gaza on Tuesday, killing a Palestinian teenager and a woman, medics and witnesses said.

(7/06)

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - An Israeli undercover unit shot dead two Palestinian militants in the West Bank on Saturday, including a top Islamic Jihad commander, Palestinian armed groups said.

KINSHASA (Reuters) - Two Congolese policemen were killed on Thursday when supporters of a presidential candidate went on the rampage after part of his compound was destroyed by a fire days before historic elections, U.N. officials said.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Two suicide bombers targeted Afghan and U.S.-led coalition troops in Afghanistan on Monday, amid a wave of such attacks before NATO takes over security in the country's violent south.

HAIFA, Israel (Reuters) - A Hizbollah rocket barrage killed two people and wounded 14 others in the northern Israeli city of Haifa on Sunday, medics and the army said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Bombs killed two worshippers at mosques in Iraq during Friday prayers and authorities extended a daytime curfew on the capital, Baghdad, after one of the bloodiest weeks this year.

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Two Israeli soldiers were killed in fierce battles with Hizbollah guerrillas inside Lebanon on Thursday and five people were injured when two Israeli helicopters collided on the ninth day of the conflict.

COLOMBO (Reuters) - Suspected Tamil Tiger rebels ambushed an army bus in Sri Lanka's northern Jaffna peninsula on Wednesday, killing 2 servicemen and injuring 12, the military said.

COLOMBO (Reuters) - Suspected Tamil Tiger rebels killed a soldier and a sailor and injured 11 other people, including four civilians, in a series of deadly mine ambushes in northern and eastern Sri Lanka on Monday, officials said.

MONTREAL (Reuters) - Two Royal Canadian Mounted Police members shot during an investigation earlier this month in Saskatchewan have died, the police said on Sunday.

JALALABAD, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A roadside bomb killed two soldiers from the U.S.-led coalition forces in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, according to a U.S. military spokeswoman.

GAZA (Reuters) - An Israeli air strike in southern Gaza killed two Palestinian civilians on Thursday, witnesses said. They said nine people were wounded, including a few gunmen.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Two members of the royal family of Tonga died in a car accident near San Francisco, according to media reports on Thursday.

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Somali Islamist militia shot dead two people demanding to watch the World Cup semi-final, witnesses said on Wednesday, in the latest sign of a hardline religious edge to the newly powerful movement.

PARIS (Reuters) - A mother and her 5-year-old daughter starved to death in the suburbs of Paris and their bodies lay undiscovered in an apartment for up to four months, police said on Tuesday.

DHAKA (Reuters) - Two people were killed and nearly 200 injured in clashes in Bangladesh on Sunday as opposition parties enforced a countrywide transport shutdown, police and witnesses said.

(6/06)

LIEGE, Belgium (Reuters) - Two Belgian girls found dead on Wednesday had been strangled and one of them was raped, prosecutors said on Thursday of a crime that has shocked Belgium and revived painful memories of paedophile killer Marc Dutroux.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A car bomb blew up prematurely as it approached a U.S. military convoy in Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing two people.

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian security forces on Tuesday shot dead two men named as members of a group behind deadly bombings in Sinai tourist resorts, security sources said.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Two British soldiers were killed in fighting on Tuesday in southern Afghanistan, where U.S.-led forces are mounting their biggest offensive against Taliban militia since 2002.

TALLAHASSEE, Florida (Reuters) - An attempt to arrest federal prison guards on sex-for-contraband charges erupted in a gunfight that killed a U.S. Justice Department agent and one of the guards on Wednesday, the FBI said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two U.S. soldiers missing in Iraq for three days have been found dead, their bodies showing signs of "barbaric" torture, an Iraqi general said on Tuesday, after an intensive hunt involving thousands of troops.

BASRA, Iraq (Reuters) - A suicide bomber killed a woman and wounded five people when he attacked a crowd of elderly and disabled pensioners in the southern Iraqi city of Basra on Tuesday, police said.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (Reuters) - At least two inmates died and one of the bodies was beheaded in a three-day prison riot in Brazil that ended on Monday with the release of more than 250 hostages, security officials said.

MOUNT MERAPI, Indonesia (Reuters) - Two men trapped in a bunker by debris from Indonesia's Mount Merapi volcano have died, disaster management officials said on Friday.

GUWAHATI, India (Reuters) - Two people were killed and nearly 30 wounded in India's Assam state when suspected rebels threw grenades in a market and blew up gas pipelines, the latest in a series of attacks ahead of peace talks, officials said on Sunday.

GAZA (Reuters) - An Israeli helicopter air strike killed two Palestinian militants from Hamas in Gaza on Sunday after a homemade rocket fired by members of the Islamist group seriously wounded an Israeli civilian, medics said.

JALALABAD, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A roadside bomb killed two U.S. coalition soldiers and wounded two others in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, according to Afghan officials in the Nangahar province.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - An earthquake on an island off Iran's southern coast killed two people and injured several others on Saturday, an official and state media said.

JERUSALEM/CAIRO (Reuters) - An Israeli military patrol killed two Egyptian border policemen on Friday in what the army described as self-defense by its troops after the Egyptians stormed across the frontier firing at them.

(5/06)

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two roadside bombs exploded in quick succession in central Baghdad on Sunday, killing at least two people, police sources said.

SIDON, Lebanon (Reuters) - A senior Islamic Jihad official and his brother were killed in southern Lebanon on Friday in a car bombing the Palestinian group blamed on Israel.

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (Reuters) - Two people were killed in a drive-by shooting aimed at the home of an opposition senator, as unrest boiled in the Dominican Republic over the failure to conclude a vote count from Tuesday's legislative election.

KABUL (Reuters) - A suicide car bomber attacked a convoy in the western Afghan city of Herat on Thursday, killing himself and a U.S. citizen, police said.

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers killed two Palestinian militants during a raid in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, Palestinian security sources and medics said.

KABUL (Reuters) - Taliban insurgents raided two police posts and a district government office in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday killing two policemen and wounding five, police said.

DUBAI (Reuters) - An Iraqi militant group affiliated to al Qaeda posted an Internet video of two men they said were fighters wanted by Saudi Arabia who were killed while attacking U.S.-led forces in Iraq.

KABUL (Reuters) - Two people were killed and one seriously wounded in a rocket attack on a U.N. vehicle in northwestern Afghanistan on Friday, a U.N. spokesman said.

KABUL (Reuters) - A roadside bomb killed two Italian peacekeepers and wounded four in Afghanistan on Friday and the Taliban claimed responsibility.

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - Two civilians were killed and six people wounded in Indian Kashmir on Thursday when suspected Islamist militants hurled a grenade at a security patrol in a busy marketplace, police said.

(4/06)

DILI (Reuters) - Two people were killed in clashes between East Timor police and sacked soldiers on Friday, the latest violence since the cash-strapped government dismissed more than 500 soldiers earlier this month.

TUNCELI, Turkey (Reuters) - Two Turkish soldiers were killed and one was injured in an attack by separatist rebels on a military post, the governor of the eastern province of Tunceli said on Thursday.

ISMAILIA, Egypt (Reuters) - Two men blew themselves up in Egypt's north Sinai on Wednesday in what appeared to be abortive attacks by a mysterious militant group on a multinational peace force and on the Egyptian police.

PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria (Reuters) - Nigerian militants killed two people in a car bomb attack on an army barracks in the southern city of Port Harcourt, extending a four-month onslaught against the world's eighth largest oil exporter.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Hundreds of Mexican police stormed a major steel plant on Thursday to force out striking workers in a violent clash that spilled onto the streets and left at least two workers dead.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Separate groups of gunmen entered two primary schools in Baghdad on Wednesday and beheaded two teachers in front of their students, the Ministry of State for National Security said.

GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) - A furious Guatemalan mob seized a man and a woman accused of stealing a child and burned them to death on the streets of a highland Mayan village on Wednesday, police said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two U.S. Marines were killed and 22 wounded in combat against insurgents in Anbar province in western Iraq on Thursday, the U.S. military said on Saturday.

COLOMBO (Reuters) - Suspected Tamil Tiger rebels ambushed a police truck with a claymore fragmentation mine on Wednesday, police said, killing two officers and wounding two amid a surge of violence ahead of planned peace talks.

GAZA (Reuters) - Two people were killed and seven wounded in an explosion in the southern Gaza Strip on Friday near a militant base, Palestinian witnesses said.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (Reuters) - At least two people died and six were wounded in Rio de Janeiro's famous Copacabana beach neighborhood on Thursday during a daytime shootout between police and a burglar, authorities said.

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - The death of a boy of 12 in Cambodia and the case of a sick baby girl in Egypt underlined on Wednesday the threat posed to children by the bird flu virus.

LONDON (Reuters) - The U.S. military confirmed on Monday that two of its pilots died after their helicopter crashed in Iraq.

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Somali fighters backed by powerful warlords attacked an Islamic court on Saturday, killing two civilians and fuelling fears of worse to come, witnesses said.

(3/06)

DERA BUGTI, Pakistan (Reuters) - Two tribal militants and a paramilitary trooper were killed in a gunbattle in the troubled Pakistani province of Baluchistan, bordering Afghanistan, on Sunday, officials said.

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Bird flu has killed a young girl in Cambodia, the first human victim of the virus in the poor southeast Asian nation in almost a year, while China said on Friday a woman in the city of Shanghai had died from it.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) - Mystery surrounded the fate of two people on Thursday who went missing and are now feared dead after an ocean-going ferry sank when it strayed onto the rocks on Canada's Pacific coast.

LA PAZ, Bolivia (Reuters) - Twin bomb blasts tore through two budget hotels and killed two people in La Paz overnight and Bolivian police said a 27-year-old American admitted carrying out the attacks on Wednesday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two more women have died after taking the abortion pill RU-486 but officials do not know if the drug played a role in their deaths, U.S. regulators said on Friday.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Taliban rebels raided a police post in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar on Sunday, killing two policemen, a government official said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two U.S. soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division were killed and another wounded in an attack northwest of Tikrit on March 16, the U.S. military said in a statement on Saturday.

DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Syrian security forces killed a wanted Islamist militant and his bodyguard in a raid near Damascus on Tuesday, the official news agency SANA said.

KABUL (Reuters) - A former Afghan president who heads a government commission seeking to encourage Taliban defections survived a suicide bomb attack on Sunday in Kabul, a senior police official said. At least two people, including a suicide car bomber, were killed in the blast aimed at Sibghatullah Mojadidi, who also chairs the upper house of parliament, or Senate.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Taliban insurgents have beheaded two former Afghan government officials in the southern province of Helmand, officials said on Saturday.

AMMAN (Reuters) - Jordan executed two Islamist militants on Saturday who were convicted of killing a U.S. diplomat in Amman, in a rare move to implement a death sentence against security detainees.

GAZA (Reuters) - An explosion tore through Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on Monday, killing two teenage Palestinian brothers in what Palestinian witnesses said appeared to be an accident.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) - Two Haitian men who worked as security guards for the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince were shot to death as they went home from work, the embassy said on Thursday.

KARACHI (Reuters) - Two blasts in quick succession killed at least two people outside a Marriott hotel in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi on Thursday, police and security officials said.

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Hundreds of Maoist rebels raided a town in eastern Nepal, bombing government buildings and freeing dozens of prisoners from a local jail, officials said on Monday. A policeman and at least one guerrilla were killed in the overnight attack in Ilam, a tea-growing area bordering India, about 600 km (375 miles) east of Kathmandu, they said.

COLOMBO (Reuters) - Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels accused the army of killing two of their fighters in an attack on Saturday, the first significant violence since key talks in February, but the military denied involvement.

(2/06)

MAPUTO (Reuters) - The strongest earthquake to hit southern Africa in 100 years killed two people in northern Mozambique on Thursday and strong aftershocks sent frightened residents across the region into the streets.

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers shot dead two Palestinians on Thursday during confrontations in the West Bank city of Nablus, where the army began an operation against militants five days ago, Palestinian medics said.

GAZA (Reuters) - The Israeli army shot dead two Palestinian militants and wounded a third on the border with Israel in the southern Gaza Strip on Friday, local ambulance staff said.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A Canadian couple visiting Mexico's Riviera Maya resort for their daughter's wedding have been murdered, possibly by two women, police said on Tuesday.

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli troops killed an Islamic Jihad commander and another gunman on Monday, in a flareup in violence before election winner Hamas opened formal talks on forming a new Palestinian government.

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli troops shot dead two Palestinians in a West Bank refugee camp on Sunday. Witnesses described them as stone-throwers, the army said they had been planting explosives.

KAMPALA (Reuters) - Two people were shot dead when a soldier opened fire into the crowd at an opposition gathering in the Ugandan capital Kampala on Wednesday, a week ahead of a presidential election, witnesses and police said.

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Security guards shot dead two men, police used teargas on students in Islamabad's diplomatic enclave and protesters attacked Western businesses on Tuesday in Pakistan's most violent reaction yet to cartoons of the Prophet.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Two Indian soldiers were killed on Tuesday when their vehicle was crushed by falling boulders after a moderate earthquake struck an eastern mountain state and triggered landslides, authorities said.

MONTERREY, Mexico (Reuters) - Unknown gunmen shot dead two police chiefs in separate attacks in a normally peaceful state bordering Texas on Monday, in an apparent escalation of drug gang violence, prosecutors said.

TIKRIT, Iraq (Reuters) - Gunmen abducted 11 Iranian pilgrims, killing one and their Iraqi driver before releasing three women in the group, one of the freed women said on Sunday.

DUESSELDORF, Germany (Reuters) - Two Britons were killed in a multiple pile up involving a German truck and two British coaches on a German motorway early on Saturday, local officials and Britain's Foreign Office said.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers killed two Palestinian gunmen who attacked a border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel in a pre-dawn raid on Thursday, the Israeli army said.

GAZA (Reuters) - An Israeli air strike on a car killed two Palestinian militants in Gaza City on Tuesday, witnesses said.

KURCHALOI, Russia (Reuters) - Two soldiers in Russia's turbulent Chechnya region were killed on Tuesday when their barracks collapsed on top of them after a domestic gas explosion, a local official at the scene said.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israel killed two Palestinian militants in an air strike on Monday hours after its interim prime minister, Ehud Olmert, voiced hope of continued talks with the Palestinian Authority despite Hamas' recent election win.

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Suspected Maoist rebels in Nepal have killed a politician and his aide ahead of next week's municipal elections which the guerrillas have vowed to disrupt, a district official said on Friday.

(1/06)

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Two policemen were killed and two wounded in Afghanistan when their vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb on Friday in a restive southern province where British troops will soon be based, police said.

PATNA, India (Reuters) - Maoist rebels ushered in India's Republic Day on Thursday with a series of attacks across the east of the country which killed two people, but the rest of the nation marked the occasion peacefully.

JAKARTA (Reuters) - A Hong Kong laboratory has confirmed the H5N1 strain of bird flu killed two children from the same Indonesian family this month, a senior official at the Health Ministry said on Saturday.

CHARLESTON, West Virginia (Reuters) - Two miners trapped in a West Virginia coal mine that had caught fire were found dead on Saturday, and officials, angered also by 12 other mine deaths this month, vowed to make the industry safer.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A roadside bomb killed two U.S. private security contractors and seriously wounded a third in the southern Iraqi city of Basra on Wednesday, the U.S. embassy said.

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - Rebels in northern Iraq apparently shot down an armed U.S. reconnaissance helicopter on Friday, killing its two pilots, in a rare instance of American air power being challenged by guerrillas on the ground.

QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) - Two Pakistani soldiers were killed and four wounded on Wednesday in a land mine blast in a troubled southwestern region where militants are fighting for autonomy, an official said.

CAIRO (Reuters) - Two Egyptian guards were shot dead at the border with Gaza on Wednesday after armed Palestinians made a hole in the border wall, Egypt's official Middle East News Agency (MENA) quoted witnesses as saying.

(12/05)

KABUL (Reuters) - Two soldiers, one an American and the other an Afghan, were killed on Wednesday in a roadside bomb attack in eastern Afghanistan that also wounded two U.S. troops, a U.S. military spokesman said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two U.S. military pilots were killed when their AH-64 Apache helicopter crashed in west Baghdad on Monday night after a midair collision with another Apache, U.S. defense officials said on Tuesday.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli artillery fire killed two Palestinian militants in Gaza on Saturday after rocket attacks were launched from the area, Palestinian security sources said, as a truce declared by militant groups drew to a close.

KABUL (Reuters) - Taliban guerillas attacked a high school in southern Afghanistan on Saturday, killing a guard and a male teenage student, a witness said.

MANILA (Reuters) - At least two people were killed and six feared trapped after an explosion and cave-in at a coal mine in the central Philippines, officials said on Sunday.

KABUL (Reuters) - An Afghan civilian was killed on Sunday when a suicide bomber blew himself up near a convoy of U.S.-led troops in the southern province of Kandahar, a police official said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A car bomb killed two people in central Baghdad on Sunday and wounded 26, a police source said.

BEIRUT (Reuters) - A car bomb killed Lebanese newspaper magnate and anti-Syrian legislator Gebran Tueni in Beirut on Monday, triggering an official call for a U.N. inquiry that split the government along sectarian lines.

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Islamic militants beheaded two suspected bandits and strung up their bodies on electricity poles in the latest violence to hit Pakistan's lawless tribal region near the Afghan border, witnesses said on Friday.

(11/05)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A Greyhound bus carrying 44 passengers overturned on Sunday morning in southern California, killing two and seriously injuring a dozen others, authorities said.

KABUL (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier and an Afghan interpreter were killed when a roadside bomb hit their armored vehicle in Afghanistan in the latest spate of violence involving Taliban guerrillas.

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - Suspected Muslim militants threw a grenade and opened fire at a political rally in Indian Kashmir on Tuesday, killing two people and wounding at least 60, including a former state minister, police said.

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A Pennsylvania teenager accused of killing his girlfriend's parents after a dispute about the underage girl's curfew and then fleeing with her was captured in Indiana on Monday, police said.

RAMADI, Iraq (Reuters) - A U.S. helicopter crashed in the area of Ramadi west of Baghdad on Wednesday killing two Marines, the U.S. military said.

MOMBASA, Kenya (Reuters) - Kenyan police shot dead two opponents of a proposed new constitution on Friday as they sought to disperse a rioting crowd in the latest flare-up of a turbulent campaign ahead of a November 21 referendum.

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Two people were reported killed in northern Ethiopia on Saturday after a fifth day of political unrest that has shaken confidence in the vast African nation's stability.

DUBAI (Reuters) - Al Qaeda in Iraq said on Thursday it had decided to kill two Moroccan embassy employees it kidnapped last month, according to an Internet statement.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel killed a Palestinian gunman in the West Bank after a soldier was shot dead and militants fired rockets into Israel on Wednesday in the worst week of violence to threaten a truce deal since a Gaza pullout.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israel killed two Palestinian militant commanders in a missile strike in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, triggering vows to "open the gates of hell" for revenge attacks against the Jewish state.

(10/05)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two al Qaeda members, one a cell leader accused of taking part in at least three videotaped beheadings, have been killed in Iraq, the U.S. military said on Wednesday.

JENIN, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli troops killed at least two Islamic Jihad militants in a shootout in the West Bank on Sunday, hours after the group agreed to halt rocket fire from the Gaza Strip, Palestinian security sources said.

KABUL (Reuters) - A U.S. paratrooper and a British peacekeeper were killed in separate attacks in eastern and northern Afghanistan on Saturday and five British peacekeepers were wounded, officials in London and Kabul said.

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - A suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden car into a bus carrying troops in Indian Kashmir on Wednesday, killing one soldier and wounding 15, a security spokesman said.

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian television on Wednesday broadcast footage of what it said was U.S. soldiers burning the corpses of two dead Taliban fighters with their bodies laid out facing Mecca and using the images in a propaganda campaign in southern Afghanistan.

TULKARM, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers shot and killed two Palestinians in the northern West Bank on Friday, Palestinian security officials said.

KABUL (Reuters) - Taliban gunmen assassinated an Afghan district chief and a school headmaster in southern Kandahar province, a government spokesman said on Wednesday, the latest victims of militant violence.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A suicide attacker tried to ram a car bomb into a convoy of Afghan and foreign troops in Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing himself and a 10-year-old boy and wounding one Canadian soldier, officials said.

PALO CAMPANA, El Salvador (Reuters) - El Salvador's largest volcano erupted for the first time in a century on Saturday, killing two people and forcing thousands to flee their homes.

(9/05)

GAZA (Reuters) - An Israeli air strike on a car in the Gaza Strip killed at least two Palestinians on Sunday, witnesses said, against the backdrop of Israeli threats to target militants after a series of rocket attacks on Israel.

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian police in the Sinai peninsula have shot dead two men suspected of organizing bombings which killed 67 people in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh in July, the Interior Ministry said on Thursday.

KABUL (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier and a U.S. Marine have been killed in militant attacks in Afghanistan, bringing American combat deaths in the country this year to 51, the bloodiest period for U.S. forces since the fall of the Taliban.

TULKARM, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli troops shot dead two Palestinian militants on Friday in a West Bank raid on Friday, Palestinian security sources and witnesses said.

GAZA (Reuters) - In response to Palestinian missile salvoes, Israel killed two Hamas militants and wounded more than 20 civilians on Saturday in its first air strikes on the Gaza Strip since pulling troops out this month.

KABUL (Reuters) - Gunmen ambushed a police patrol in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday, killing two officers and wounding two, hours before polls opened for landmark national assembly and provincial elections, police said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen drove up to a crowd of labourers waiting for work and shot dead two and wounded 13 in the New Baghdad district of the Iraqi capital on Friday morning, police said.

NICOSIA (Reuters) - A Cypriot army aircraft crashed into a residential area near a British base on the island on Saturday, narrowly missing a packed church and a 13th century Crusaders' castle, police and witnesses said. There were no immediate reports of casualties but it was thought that there were two people in the single-engine plane, police said.

MIRANSHAH, Pakistan (Reuters) - Gunmen killed two government officials on Monday in an ambush in Pakistan's tribal belt, near the Afghan border where al Qaeda-linked militants are believed to be hiding, a witness said.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Two soldiers were killed and three were wounded in an explosion on Friday in the Russian region of Dagestan that borders Chechnya, Interfax news agency said quoting police.

(8/05)

KIRKUK, Iraq (Reuters) - Gunmen have killed a security official in Iraq's North Oil Company and a companion traveling with him in a car, a police source said on Tuesday.

PRISTINA, Serbia and Montenegro (Reuters) - Two Serbs were killed and two were wounded when their car was shot at in Kosovo, police said on Sunday, shattering a year-long lull in attacks there on Serbs.

KABUL (Reuters) - A U.S. Marine and an Afghan government soldier have been killed in a clash while trying to clear militants from an area in the run-up to an election next month, the U.S. military said on Friday.

KABUL (Reuters) - Two U.S. soldiers were killed and two wounded in Afghanistan's restive southern province of Kandahar on Thursday when a roadside bomb hit their armored vehicle, the U.S. military said.

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - Two Roman Catholic priests were killed in a mountain ambush by suspected leftist rebels on Monday in an attack likely to cause widespread revulsion in this overwhelmingly Catholic country.

KABUL (Reuters) - A Taliban commander was shot dead and an American soldier died in a training accident as violence continued ahead of Afghanistan's parliamentary elections scheduled for next month, officials said on Friday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen killed two employees of Iraq's Ministry of Oil and wounded two others on Sunday, police said.

KABUL (Reuters) - Two U.S. servicemen were drowned and two escaped when their Humvee slid into a flood-swollen river while on patrol in eastern Afghanistan, the military said on Saturday.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - A blast tore through an apartment block in Istanbul on Monday, killing two men who police said were preparing explosives when they were blown apart from the waist down.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - An explosion killed two people and wounded at least five others on the Asian side of Istanbul late on Wednesday, CNN Turk television reported.

(7/05)

BASRA (Reuters) - A roadside bomb blew up beside a British consulate convoy in the southern Iraqi city of Basra on Saturday, killing two Britons working for a private security firm, a consular spokeswoman and the company said.

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - Indian troops stormed a building in Kashmir's main city of Srinagar on Saturday, killing two militants who had held them off for more than 24 hours with automatic rifles and grenades.

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - Two soldiers were killed and 13 people, including six journalists, wounded on Friday during a gunbattle between troops and Muslim rebels in Srinagar, the biggest city in Indian Kashmir, witnesses said.

HANOI (Reuters) - Bird flu has killed two more Vietnamese, taking the country's toll to 42, nearly half of them killed since the H5N1 virus returned in December, state-run media said on Friday.

ALGIERS/DUBAI (Reuters) - Al Qaeda in Iraq said on Wednesday it killed two kidnapped Algerian envoys because of their government's support for the United States.

GAZA (Reuters) - Palestinian militants killed two Israelis near the Gaza border on Sunday as Secretary Condoleezza Rice departed the region after trying to save a fragile ceasefire ahead of Israel's Gaza pullout.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen shot dead two Sunni Arab members of a committee drafting Iraq's new constitution and an aide on Tuesday, striking a blow against the body seen as the best hope for providing a political end to an insurgency.

MONTREAL (Reuters) - Two pilots from a U.S. civilian airplane acrobatics group died on Sunday when their biplanes collided at an air show in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, officials said.

GAZA (Reuters) - Two Palestinian bystanders were killed and more than a dozen people wounded on Friday in gunbattles between Palestinian security forces and militant factions, hospital sources said.

ANTELIAS, Lebanon (Reuters) - A car bomb wounded Lebanon's defense minister and killed two people north of Beirut on Tuesday in the latest of several deadly blasts to shake the country this year but the first to target a pro-Syria figure.

KABUL (Reuters) - Two U.S. special forces soldiers who went missing in eastern Afghanistan a week ago have been found dead and one rescued, but the whereabouts of a fourth remains unknown, the U.S. military said on Tuesday.

NAZRAN, Russia (Reuters) - Rebels killed a policeman and a soldier in Chechnya's lawless south when they ambushed a Russian convoy sent to investigate the killing of a village mayor, police said on Tuesday.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (Reuters) - A boy and an old man died in shootouts between police and drug gangs in two Rio de Janeiro shanty-towns on Monday, triggering protests by residents tired of rampant crime and police violence.

BRAMBERG, Austria (Reuters) - Two trains collided on a picturesque Alpine railway line in Austria on Saturday, killing two people, including a train driver, and injuring 34.

(6/05)

JAKARTA (Reuters) - At least two people were killed and 84 injured on Thursday when two passenger trains collided during rush hour in the Indonesian capital, police said.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (Reuters) - A Brazilian naval helicopter crashed and burst into flames in a university courtyard in downtown Rio de Janeiro on Monday, killing the two pilots, firefighters said.

HARARE (Reuters) - Two Zimbabwean children were crushed to death by rubble during the demolition of illegal houses this month in a government crackdown that has made tens of thousands homeless, state media reported Thursday.

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia, June 21 (Reuters) - Saudi security forces on Tuesday shot dead two suspected militants who killed a policeman in the Muslim holy city of Mecca, state television reported.

Jewish settler, Palestinian killed on eve of summit // JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas held a summit on Tuesday likely to drive home differences on issues key to a smooth Israeli pullout from Gaza and prospects for peace.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - An explosion and fire tore through an oil storage facility near Moscow on Wednesday killing two people and seriously injuring a third, an Emergencies Ministry spokesman said.

KABUL (Reuters) - Two U.S. service personnel were killed in a roadside bomb blast in southeast Afghanistan, the U.S. military said on Saturday.

NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico (Reuters) - Two men were murdered and their bodies dumped in a notorious city on the U.S. border, police said on Tuesday, despite the deployment of hundreds of Mexican troops and police to fight drug gangs.

KABUL (Reuters) - Insurgents launched a mortar attack on a U.S. military base in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing two members of the U.S. armed forces and wounding eight, the U.S. military said.

BARDONECCHIA, Italy (Reuters) - At least two people died on Saturday when a truck carrying tyres caught fire in the Frejus tunnel, shutting off a major route under the Alps between France and Italy for an indefinite period, officials said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen killed two bodyguards of an official who is a member of the committee drafting Iraq's constitution in an attack on their car on Wednesday, an Interior Ministry official said.

QABATIYA, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli troops killed an Islamic Jihad commander and an unarmed Palestinian policeman on Tuesday during a raid against militants in the West Bank, residents and medics said.

GANEI TAL, Gaza Strip (Reuters) - Israel's killing of a Palestinian militant commander drew a deadly rocket barrage on a Jewish settlement in Gaza on Tuesday, the latest in a string of flareups since a ceasefire was declared in February.

(5/05)

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two U.S. soldiers were killed in Iraq when their helicopter crashed after being shot at north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said in a statement on Friday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A car bomb blast in central Baghdad killed at least two Iraqis on Tuesday, and authorities raised the toll from a wave of bomb attacks the previous day to at least 54 killed and scores wounded.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Two sons of a peasant activist fighting logging in Mexico have been killed in an ambush, the Greenpeace environmental group said on Friday.

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (Reuters) - The first hurricane of the season rumbled toward Central America's Pacific coast on Thursday, killing two people and forcing thousands from their homes as it lashed the region with rain.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two U.S. Marines were killed on Wednesday when their armored vehicle drove over a mine in northwest Iraq during an offensive against insurgents, the U.S. military said on Thursday.

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - Suspected Muslim rebels detonated a grenade on Thursday as children left a Christian missionary school in Indian Kashmir, killing two women and wounding about 50 people including 20 pupils, police said.

SRINAGAR (Reuters) - A crude bomb planted by Muslim separatist rebels ripped through a vehicle in the heart of Indian Kashmir's main city of Srinagar on Wednesday, killing two people and wounding 35 others.

MAKHACHKALA, Russia (Reuters) - An explosion killed a woman and a police officer and wounded at least two others in the southern Russian region of Dagestan on Tuesday, Russia's Interior Ministry said.

KABUL (Reuters) - Two U.S. Marines were killed in a battle with insurgents in Afghanistan, the U.S. military said on Monday, the latest casualties in a surge of rebel violence.

KABUL (Reuters) - A bomb exploded at an Internet cafe in the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Saturday killing two Afghans and wounding five, police said.

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli troops killed two teenage Palestinians when a West Bank demonstration turned violent on Wednesday, witnesses said of the latest deadly episode to threaten an already tenuous Middle East truce.

SIDA, West Bank (Reuters) - An Israeli soldier and a Palestinian militant linked to a suicide bombing were killed in an army raid in the West Bank on Monday, further straining an already tenuous ceasefire.

(4/05)

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A bomb targeting Western contract workers exploded on Thursday on the road to Baghdad's airport, killing two people, Iraqi police said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A bomb blast near a U.S. military patrol in Baghdad killed two U.S. soldiers and wounded four, a U.S. army spokesman said on Wednesday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A car bomb attack on a U.S. military convoy in Baghdad killed two civilians and wounded five on Wednesday, police said.

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Maoist rebels stormed a jail in central Nepal, killed two policemen and set free 28 inmates, including 20 guerrillas, late on Saturday, police said.

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Two Russian tourists were injured, two Nepali citizens were killed and 13 others wounded in separate bombings by Maoist rebels in the Himalayan kingdom of Nepal on Saturday, the army said in a statement.

CAIRO (Reuters) - A probable suicide bomb attack on Thursday in a Cairo bazaar popular with tourists killed a French woman and the bomber, Egyptian officials said.

RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi security force have killed two of the country's most wanted militant fugitives in fierce clashes in the northern town of Al-Ras, Al Arabiya television said on Tuesday.

(3/05)

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - Indian troops on Wednesday killed two rebels when they tried to storm a security camp in Kashmir where violence has risen ahead of a bus service to link the Indian and Pakistani sides of the disputed region.

MONTERREY, Mexico (Reuters) - Gunmen shot and killed two prisoners at a violent Mexican jail on the U.S. border, authorities said on Monday, the second deadly attack at the prison in a week.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) - Two U.N. peacekeepers were shot and killed in Haiti on Sunday in gunfights with rebel former soldiers who control parts of the Caribbean nation and led a revolt that ousted its president last year.

KABUL (Reuters) - One U.S. soldier was killed and four wounded in a land mine explosion in western Afghanistan, the U.S. military said on Wednesday. In a separate incident, also on Tuesday, an Afghan soldier was killed when he stepped on a land mine southeast fo Kabul, a Defense Ministry official said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A roadside bomb has killed two American contractors in Iraq, the U.S. embassy said on Sunday.

RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia executed two men on Sunday who beat to death a Pakistani to stop him exposing their "shameful" homosexual relationship, the Interior Ministry said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A suicide bomber driving a garbage truck blew himself up on Wednesday near a Baghdad hotel used by Iraqi police and their foreign instructors, killing at least one and wounding more than 20 others, officials said.

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Gunmen Sunday attacked a railway station, killing two policemen, and in a separate incident wounded a school teacher in Thailand's largely Muslim south, police said.

MIRANSHAH, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistani soldiers killed two foreign al Qaeda suspects and arrested 11 people on Saturday in a remote northern village bordering Afghanistan, senior officials said.

BAQUBA, Iraq (Reuters) - A suicide car bomber blew himself up near the local headquarters of the National Guard in the northern Iraqi city of Baquba on Thursday, killing at least one civilian and wounding 14 people, a police official said.

(2/05)

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - A car bomb exploded in the northern Iraq city of Mosul Wednesday, killing two passersby and wounding 14 other people, the U.S. military said.

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - A bomb blast killed two people and wounded six in Mogadishu on Thursday during a visit by African Union (AU) experts preparing a peace mission to Somalia, witnesses and officials said.

CAIRO (Reuters) - Two men suspected of involvement in bombing three Egyptian Red Sea resorts last year were killed on Saturday after five days of gunbattles with police in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, the Interior Ministry said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two Iraqi policemen were killed, 14 wounded and at least 36 were missing after an ambush while they were on their way to Baghdad from southern Iraq on Thursday, police said.

(1/05)

KUWAIT (Reuters) - A security officer and a Muslim militant were killed in a gun battle in U.S.-ally Kuwait on Sunday, the latest clash in the oil-rich Gulf state facing a surge in al Qaeda-linked violence.

LIMA, Peru (Reuters) - Two people died when a helicopter carrying workers from Peru's huge Camisea gas field crashed in the remote southern jungle, its operator Transportadora de Gas del Peru (TGP) said on Thursday.

DUBAI (Reuters) - A group led by al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi beheaded two Iraqis who said they worked at a U.S. base in Iraq and the group posted an Internet video of the killings on Friday.

DUBAI (Reuters) - Iraqi militant group Army of Ansar al-Sunna said on Thursday it had abducted and killed a Briton and a Swede in the central Iraqi city of Beiji, according to an Internet statement.

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Two Indian security guards were killed in an accidental shooting inside the Indian Embassy in the Nepali capital Tuesday, an embassy official said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A suicide car bomb exploded on Wednesday close to the Australian embassy in central Baghdad, killing at least one Iraqi and wounding seven, police and witnesses said.

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - Two Indian policemen have been killed in a gunbattle with separatist rebels as a stand-off in Kashmir's main city, Srinagar, entered a second day on Sunday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two aides to Iraq's top Shi'ite leader Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani have been killed in separate attacks apparently aimed at inflaming sectarian conflict among Iraqis already divided on whether Jan. 30 polls should go ahead.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two U.S. Marines were killed in action in western Iraq, the U.S. military said in a statement on Friday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two aides to Iraq's top Shi'ite leader Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani have been killed in separate attacks apparently aimed at inflaming sectarian conflict among Iraqis already divided on whether Jan. 30 polls should go ahead.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two U.S. Marines were killed in action in western Iraq, the U.S. military said in a statement on Friday.

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers shot dead two wanted Palestinian militants in a West Bank raid Wednesday, in the first Israeli raid since the election of Mahmoud Abbas as Palestinian president to succeed Yasser Arafat.

KUWAIT (Reuters) - Gunmen killed two Kuwaiti state security personnel pursuing them in Kuwait City Monday, the Interior Ministry and security sources said.

KFAR SHOUBA, Lebanon (Reuters) - Lebanon's Hizbollah guerrillas killed an Israeli officer in a border attack on Sunday, drawing Israeli strikes the U.N. said appeared to have killed a French member of its observer force in south Lebanon.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A car bomb aimed at a U.S. military convoy killed two Iraqi civilians and wounded four in Baghdad on Wednesday, a police official said.

(12/04)

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Ten people died and 52 were injured Friday when a passenger bus overturned near the Russian-Latvian border, the Russian government said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An explosion near the Jordanian and Libyan diplomatic missions in western Baghdad killed at least two Iraqis and wounded 13 on Friday, police said.

SUNGAI KOLOK, Thailand (Reuters) - A bomb hidden in a parked motorcycle killed two people and wounded five on Friday outside a bank in Thailand's largely Muslim south, where authorities fear militants will step up attacks in the new year.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers shot dead two Palestinian militants on Saturday on the second day of a raid in the southern Gaza Strip, medics and witnesses said.

PAU, France (Reuters) - A nurse was decapitated and another stabbed to death overnight in the psychiatric hospital where they worked in this southwestern French town, a medical source said Saturday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two U.S. Marines were killed in or near Baghdad Monday, the U.S. military said Tuesday.

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Two employees of a British charity were killed in Sudan's troubled Darfur region on Sunday after their convoy came under fire, the aid agency said on Monday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier was killed when a roadside bomb struck a patrol in northern Baghdad on Sunday and a Marine was killed in the restive province west of the capital, the U.S. military said.

COLOMBO (Reuters) - Two people were killed and 11 wounded when a hand grenade exploded in the VIP section of the audience at a concert led by Indian film superstar Shah Rukh Khan and two other actors, police said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Guerrillas attacked a U.S. patrol in Mosul on Saturday, killing two American soldiers and wounding four, the U.S. military said on Sunday.

(11/04)

NEAR ISKANDARIYA, Iraq (Reuters) - Two U.S. Marines were killed in action south of Baghdad Sunday, a Marine spokesman said.

NEAR FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - Two U.S. Marines were killed in the Iraqi city of Falluja Thursday when insurgents threw grenades at them after they entered a house to search it, their commanding general said Friday.

KABUL (Reuters) - Two U.S. soldiers were killed and one wounded on Wednesday in a blast caused by an improvised bomb while they were on patrol in central Afghanistan, the U.S. military said.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers killed two Palestinians and wounded two others in the southern Gaza Strip on Sunday, Palestinian medical sources said.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican rescue workers gave up their two-week search for two small Indian boys who became trapped in a cave, possibly after their father sent them searching for gold, officials said on Sunday.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A car exploded near the West Bank city of Ramallah on Friday, killing two people, an Israeli emergency service said.

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Two more Thai Buddhists were killed in Muslim-majority southern Thailand, police said on Thursday after outrage mounted over the death last week of 85 Muslims, many in military custody.

(10/04)

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. planes bombed the Iraqi city of Falluja overnight, killing two people, in a new strike on rebels digging in for an expected U.S.-led offensive.

NAGAOKA, Japan (Reuters) - In a drama that gripped Japanese watching on live television, a two-year-old toddler was pulled alive from a car that had been buried under tons of rock and mud for nearly four days after a deadly earthquake. The boy's mother was airlifted to hospital later but was pronounced dead, and rescue workers had to call off efforts to reach his three-year-old sister after darkness fell on Wednesday.

FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - Two young Iraqi girls were killed on Friday when their car came under U.S. fire near the rebel-held city of Falluja, according to an Iraqi who helped rescue four people wounded in the incident.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli troops killed a Palestinian on his way to a mosque in a Gaza refugee camp on Wednesday as well as a gunman closing in on an army outpost in a nearby buffer zone, witnesses and militants said.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers shot dead two Palestinian gunmen in Gaza on Tuesday as they approached a border fence with a bomb, an army spokesman and Palestinian security sources said.

LIMA, Peru (Reuters) - Hundreds of farmers seized a hydroelectric plant in southern Peru on Tuesday to protest government coca eradication efforts after a clash with police in which two people died and 10 were hurt, officials said.

DUBAI (Reuters) - A militant group in Iraq said it had killed two Macedonian hostages it accused of spying for the United States, Arabic television Al Jazeera reported Monday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two U.S. military transport helicopters crashed near Baghdad on Saturday, killing two U.S. soldiers and wounding two others, the U.S. military said.

KABUL (Reuters) - Two U.S. soldiers were killed and three wounded by a roadside bomb while on patrol in the southern Afghan province of Uruzgan, a U.S. military spokesman said on Saturday.

DUBAI (Reuters) - An Iraqi group led by suspected al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has beheaded two Iraqi intelligence officers and posted a video of the killings on the Internet on Wednesday.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israel dealt a double blow to the Palestinian Islamic group Hamas on Wednesday, arresting a West Bank leader held responsible for a twin suicide bus bombing that killed 16 and killing two militants in Gaza air strikes.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli air strikes killed two Hamas militants in Gaza on Thursday just after the Islamic group renewed its threats to continue rocket attacks against Israelis despite a massive army offensive aimed at stopping them.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. air strike targeting foreign militants destroyed a restaurant in rebel-held Falluja overnight, while peace moves continued aimed at restoring state authority there and elsewhere in Iraq before January elections. Witnesses said bombs flattened the popular Haji Hussein kebab house on Falluja's main street, killing two guards and reducing it to a pile of crushed concrete and twisted metal.

KARACHI (Reuters) - A leading pro-Taliban Sunni Muslim cleric and an associate were shot dead in southern Pakistan on Saturday, the latest attack in religious violence that has already killed more than 70 people this month.

RAMADI, Iraq (Reuters) - A car bomb exploded near a U.S. convoy in the western city of Ramadi on Tuesday, killing two civilians and wounding at least four, witnesses said.

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli troops shot and killed two Palestinians and an undercover Israeli policeman was seriously wounded in a raid in the West Bank town of Ramallah on Monday, witnesses and media reports said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi police have found the bodies of a man and a woman, both believed to be Westerners, south of Baghdad, the director of the hospital that received the corpses said on Sunday.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli rockets killed two gunmen in the Gaza Strip's biggest refugee camp Sunday, taking the death toll to 49 on the fourth day of a massive offensive to stop rocket firing into Israel, witnesses said.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli troops shot dead two Gaza Strip militants Sunday hours after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon vowed to expand a huge offensive that has killed at least 49 Palestinians in an attempt to stop rocket fire.

GAZA (Reuters) - An Israeli tank fired a shell at a group of Palestinians in the Jabalya refugee camp in the Gaza Strip on Friday, killing at least two people and wounding several others, witnesses said.

(9/04)

GAZA (Reuters) - Palestinian gunmen killed an Israeli soldier and a woman jogger in Gaza Thursday as the army intensified an offensive to root out militants behind a rocket attack that killed two Israeli children in a border town.

BASRA, Iraq (Reuters) - Insurgents in Iraq ambushed a British military convoy in the southern city of Basra on Tuesday, killing two soldiers, a spokesman for the British army in Iraq said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two Italian women aid workers were reported killed in Iraq and a British hostage pleaded for his life after the killing of two Americans, as the latest hostage crisis put pressure on governments with troops in Iraq.

KABUL (Reuters) - An Afghan vice-president survived an assassination attempt Monday in the north and two soldiers from U.S.-led forces were killed in a gunbattle in the southeast, as violence escalated ahead of an Oct. 9 election.

GAZA (Reuters) - An Israeli air strike killed at least two Hamas gunmen in Gaza City Monday, a day after a top commander of the Palestinian militant group was killed in a similar attack, military officials and witnesses said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A car bomb killed two American soldiers and wounded eight when it exploded in Baghdad on Saturday, the U.S. military said in a statement.

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Hurricane Ivan killed at least two people on Wednesday as it began to batter U.S. shores with high winds and ferocious surf, touching off tornadoes that ripped through coastal cities.

BASRA, Iraq (Reuters) - A car bomb exploded near the U.S. embassy office in the southern Iraqi city of Basra on Saturday, killing two people and wounding three, but no Americans were injured, officials and witnesses said.

DHAKA (Reuters) - Two people were killed and 10 wounded in a bomb blast in northeastern Bangladesh on Sunday, in the latest of a series of attacks that have killed more than 100 people in the past four years, police said.

DHAKA (Reuters) - Two former policemen convicted of the rape and killing of a teenager were executed by hanging in a north Bangladesh jail early on Thursday.

(8/04)

GAZA (Reuters) - Gunmen ambushed the commander of the Palestinian intelligence service in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, wounding him, killing two bodyguards and fueling fears of spreading chaos.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Insurgents attacked a truck and an ambulance taking aid to the besieged Iraqi city of Najaf on Tuesday, killing two people and setting the vehicles on fire, a Reuters witness said.

WARSAW (Reuters) - Two Polish soldiers were killed and five injured in a road accident in Hilla after their patrol was fired on near their Babylon base in southern Iraq, Polish news agency PAP said on Thursday, citing a military spokesman.

TBILISI (Reuters) - At least two Georgian soldiers were killed and five wounded in artillery fire with separatists in the breakaway region of South Ossetia, Georgian officials said on Wednesday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two prisoners were killed and five wounded on Wednesday when a fight broke out among hundreds of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, the U.S. military said.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers shot and killed two Palestinian militants near a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, Palestinian and Israeli sources said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two U.S. servicemen were killed while carrying out duties in western Iraq, the U.S. military said Saturday.

TBILISI, Georgia (Reuters) - A gun battle between rival forces meant to be keeping the peace in Georgia's separatist province of South Ossetia killed two Georgian soldiers Monday and dashed a short-lived cease-fire.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two U.S. marines were killed and three people wounded when a helicopter crashed in a volatile region west of Baghdad, the U.S. military said on Thursday.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A Palestinian gunman killed a Jewish settler in an ambush outside a settlement in the West Bank Friday before being shot and killed by security guards from the enclave, Israeli officials said.

QALANDIYA, West Bank (Reuters) - A bomb exploded between two Israeli checkpoints on a busy road outside Jerusalem Wednesday, killing two Palestinians and wounding 19 people, including Israelis, in the first such attack in six months.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Simultaneous bomb attacks rocked two hotels and a gas depot in Istanbul on Tuesday, killing a Turk and an Iranian and injuring 11 including foreign tourists at the height of the holiday season.

NAJAF, Iraq (Reuters) - Fighters loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr shot down a U.S. helicopter Thursday in the holy city of Najaf and two were killed by British troops in Basra in clashes that threatened to reignite a Shi'ite uprising.

WANA, Pakistan (Reuters) - Two Pakistani villagers were killed as security forces exchanged fire with al Qaeda linked militants in the tribal belt bordering Afghanistan, doctors and residents said on Thursday.

KABUL, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Shots from a passing vehicle killed an Afghan aid worker and his driver in the latest attack on humanitarian groups being targeted increasingly by Islamic militants in Afghanistan.

GAZA (Reuters) - Palestinian militants shot dead two people accused of collaborating with Israel in their hospital beds Monday hours after they were wounded by grenades tossed into their jail cell, adding to internal Palestinian turmoil.

(7/04)

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A local Afghan official and one of his guards were killed Saturday when suspected Taliban gunmen opened fire in the southern province of Helmand, the provincial governor said.

DUBAI (Reuters) - Militants in Iraq have killed two Pakistani hostages and have released an Iraqi, Al Jazeera television said Wednesday.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli helicopter gunships killed the leader of a Gaza-based Palestinian militant group and his assistant in a missile strike on their car in the southern Gaza Strip Thursday.

KABUL (Reuters) - A blast ripped through a mosque where Afghans were registering to vote on Wednesday, killing two people, and the Medecins Sans Frontieres aid agency said it was leaving the country after 24 years because of security fears.

KABUL (Reuters) - Rescue workers searched for 30 people feared missing under the rubble of a collapsed hospital in central Kabul a day after a wall caved in killing at least two, government officials said Tuesday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two U.S. soldiers were killed in a roadside bomb attack on their convoy near the volatile Iraqi town of Samarra, the U.S. military said Friday.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - Militants linked to Al Qaeda killed two Pakistani paramilitary soldiers in a remote tribal region close to the Afghan border, officials said on Monday.

GRAND BAIE, Mauritius (Reuters) - An explosion at a tourist resort on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius that killed two people and injured 13 on Sunday may have been caused by gas cylinders, a government minister said.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israel killed two Islamic militants in a missile strike on a car in Gaza City Thursday amid a Palestinian leadership crisis over corruption that is creating growing chaos in Palestinian areas.

RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi security forces killed two militants in a fierce clash in Riyadh and detained the wife and children of the suspected al Qaeda leader in Saudi Arabia, officials said Wednesday.

RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia said on Wednesday security forces killed two suspected militants and wounded three others in a heavy exchange of fire in the capital Riyadh late on Tuesday.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A bomb blast killed two people and injured several others at a bus stop in a provincial Russian town Monday, Russian news agencies said.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Heavy rains battered part of western Japan on Sunday, sending rivers surging over their banks, causing two deaths and forcing the evacuation of thousands.

RAMADI, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. Marines killed two Iraqis and wounded six in the restive town of Ramadi, west of Baghdad, Saturday, but accounts of the shooting conflicted.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers shot dead two Palestinian boys aged 9 and 15 in a confrontation with stone-throwing protesters in the northern Gaza Strip on Saturday, Palestinian medics said.

RIYADH (Reuters) - The Saudi Interior Ministry said on Friday police killed one militant and arrested another in a shootout on Thursday in which a policeman was also killed.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A roadside bomb was detonated as a U.S. convoy drove past in Baghdad on Thursday, killing two Iraqi bystanders and seriously wounding a third, U.S. soldiers at the scene said.

RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi police killed two militants Thursday in the second shootout with suspected members of the Saudi wing of al Qaeda in two days, security sources said.

(6/04)

SDEROT, Israel (Reuters) - Palestinian rockets fired from Gaza killed a 3-year-old boy and a man in Israel Monday, in a surge of violence ahead of an Israeli pullout from the strip.

QUITO, Ecuador (Reuters) - Two inmates of an Ecuador prison were killed and four people were wounded by gunfire in a riot and escape attempt on Monday, officials said.

Death chamber: Police examine the remains of a homemade hyperbaric chamber that exploded - killing a retired surgeon and his brother in Polokwane on Friday.

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - Suspected Kashmiri militants killed an engineer working for India's state-run railway and his brother by slitting their throats after holding them hostage for two days, police said on Friday.

KABUL, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Two U.S. Marines were killed and one wounded when their patrol was ambushed during an operation in eastern Afghanistan against Islamic militants who have vowed to disrupt landmark elections due in September.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli troops shot and killed two Palestinian gunmen who tried to infiltrate a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip, military sources said Thursday.

BASRA, Iraq (Reuters) - Two Iraqi sisters working for a big U.S. firm were killed in a drive-by shooting on Tuesday near their home in the southern city of Basra, relatives said.

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Two Venezuelan prisoners were killed by police and troops hunting a group of inmates who broke out of a jail west of Caracas, human rights activists said on Wednesday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A car bomb exploded in a Baghdad street Tuesday as a convoy of U.S. troops and Iraqi police drove past, killing two Iraqi bystanders, police said.

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Gunmen killed a policeman and a villager and a bomb wounded three police officers in Thailand's Muslim south on Saturday where the government has vowed to crack down on suspected militants blamed for months of unrest.

RIYADH (Reuters) - Al Qaeda militants in Saudi Arabia beheaded American hostage Paul Johnson Friday and their leader was then killed in a shootout with security forces as he tried to dispose of the body, Saudi officials said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A rocket attack on a U.S. base north of Baghdad on Wednesday killed two U.S. soldiers and wounded at least 21 people, the American military said.

BUKAVU (Reuters) - Two South African U.N. peacekeepers were killed in Congo Sunday, raising fresh fears the country's fragile peace process could be shattered even though renegade troops pulled out of the border town of Bukavu.

TUNCELI, Turkey (Reuters) - Two Turkish soldiers were killed and one was wounded in a bomb attack in southeast Turkey on Saturday as troops scoured the mountainous region for Kurdish separatists who recently ended their cease-fire.

MANILA (Reuters) - A tornado ripped through a town in the central Philippines, destroying hundreds of flimsy houses and killing at least two people, the national disaster agency and the coast guard said on Thursday.

SURABAYA, Indonesia (Reuters) - Two volcanoes in Indonesia spewed rocks and ash high into the air Tuesday, killing two tourists and forcing the evacuation of 20,000 people, officials said.

RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi forces killed two gunmen during a Tuesday shootout in the Western city of Ta'if just days after a suspected al Qaeda attack on an oil city in the kingdom, Al Arabiya TV said on Wednesday.

RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi forces killed on Wednesday two suspected militants the Interior Ministry said were linked to the weekend al Qaeda attack on the eastern oil city of Khobar in which 22 people died.

(5/04)

QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) - Nearly 20 rockets were fired into the home town of Pakistan's education minister in the southwest of the country on Monday, killing two people and wounding three.

KHOBAR, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - Saudi commandos killed two militants on Sunday in a rescue operation to free some 50 foreigners held by suspected al Qaeda gunmen in the oil city of Khobar, security sources said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen attacked three civilian vehicles carrying foreigners in northwest Baghdad Sunday, killing two Westerners and seizing three others, witnesses and police at the scene said.

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinian militants shot and killed an Israeli army officer in the West Bank on Saturday. In a separate incident, a Palestinian man's body was found near the Gaza border fence with Israel. He was shot on suspicion of trying to plant a bomb, an Israeli military source said.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Two employees of a Russian company working on a power plant in Iraq were killed on Wednesday when their bus came under attack, officials said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Guerrillas attacked a civilian car carrying foreign security guards in central Baghdad on Monday, killing at least two Britons and wounding two other people, British and U.S. officials said.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers killed two Palestinian gunmen in fighting in the West Bank overnight, Palestinian medics said on Wednesday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A suicide car bomber killed the head of Iraq's Governing Council on Monday, a major new blow to U.S.-led occupiers battling a Shi'ite insurgency and a growing prisoner abuse scandal as they prepare to hand over sovereignty.

GAZA (Reuters) - Palestinian militants shot dead two Israeli soldiers in southern Gaza on Friday in the latest of several deadly attacks this week against the Middle East's mightiest army.

KABUL (Reuters) - Two foreign men, one Swiss, were stabbed and stoned to death in the Afghan capital, government officials said Sunday.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers on Sunday killed two Palestinian gunmen disguised as women who opened fire at Jewish settlers attending a memorial for a family gunned down on a Gaza Strip road last week, security sources said. Television cameras captured dramatic footage of settlers running for cover as bullets whizzed by during a memorial on a Gaza road where a pregnant settler and her four children were shot dead at point-blank range by Palestinian gunmen last week.

BASRA (Reuters) - Shi'ite militiamen loyal to embattled rebel Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr launched a series of hit-and-run attacks on British forces in the southern city of Basra on Saturday, witnesses said. At least two Iraqis were killed and one British soldier was wounded in the fighting, a British military spokeswoman said.

BEIJING (Reuters) - A rare tornado carved a swathe of destruction through a southern Chinese district, killing two people, injuring 85 and destroying or damaging nearly 500 homes, state media said on Sunday.

WARSAW (Reuters) - Two journalists, including one from Polish state television, have been shot dead in central Iraq on Friday, the Polish embassy in Baghdad told private television network TVN24.

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier who shot dead two Iraqis during a riot at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison and fired rubber bullets at inmates said on Friday some force was needed to run a wartime prison.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two U.S. soldiers were killed by a bomb on Wednesday night, the U.S. military said in a statement on Thursday.

DHAKA (Reuters) - A senior member of Bangladesh's main opposition Awami League was killed along with a young man and at least five people were wounded when gunmen shot him at a political rally in Dhaka on Friday, party officials said.

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Two people were killed by falling rocks and tourists were stranded after a bridge collapsed when an earthquake measuring 5.8 on the Richter scale shook mountainous eastern Taiwan Saturday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two U.S. Marines have been killed in Al Anbar province, which includes Falluja, a Marine statement said Saturday, without giving any details.

(4/04)

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A suicide car bomber killed two U.S. Marines near their base outside the besieged Iraqi city of Falluja on Friday, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt told a news conference in Baghdad.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Two explosions at a chemical plant in central Illinois killed two workers and caused a fire that engulfed the facility and was still burning on Saturday.

BASRA, Iraq (Reuters) - Suicide bombers launched three boat attacks on Iraq's vital Basra oil export terminal on Saturday, killing two members of U.S.-led forces and forcing the facility to close.

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Two people were killed and 50 public buildings, including 13 schools, were set ablaze overnight in a serious outbreak of violence in Thailand's restive, largely Muslim south, police said on Friday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Three Japanese hostages were freed in Iraq Thursday, but the murders of an Iranian diplomat and an Italian captive were chilling proof of the risks foreigners face as rebels battle the U.S.-led occupation.

QUITO, Ecuador (Reuters) - Ecuadorean inmates on Tuesday freed hostages seized during a weeklong nationwide uprising to demand improved living conditions, but two more prisoners were killed in rioting inside the decrepit prisons.

RIYADH (Reuters) - A suspected Muslim militant and a Saudi policeman were killed Monday in a shoot out in the Saudi capital Riyadh in which four policemen were also wounded.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. AH-64 Apache helicopter was shot down west of Baghdad on Sunday, killing the two crew, the U.S. army said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier and a Marine were killed in separate attacks by guerrillas in Iraq, the U.S. army said Monday.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Two Taliban guerrillas died when a mine they were laying on a road used by U.S. forces exploded prematurely in southern Afghanistan, a local security official said on Tuesday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two U.S. Marines were killed in separate insurgent attacks west of Baghdad, the U.S. military said in a statement on Sunday.

MADRID (Reuters) - One American and one Salvadoran soldier died in clashes near Iraq's holy Shi'ite city of Najaf Sunday, Spain's Defense Ministry said, and not four Salvadoran soldiers as it had reported earlier.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A Palestinian gunman infiltrated a Jewish settlement in the West Bank Saturday, killing a settler and wounding a young woman before Israeli troops shot him dead, a military source said.

EDWARDSVILLE, Kan. - An emergency medical technician and a paramedic were shot to death early Saturday in an apparent ambush, authorities said. Police issued a murder warrant for the paramedic's ex-husband.

(3/04)

GAZA March 31 (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers killed at least two Palestinians it suspected of attempting to attack an army base in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, military sources said.

WANA, Pakistan (Reuters) - Islamic militants on the Afghan border shot dead two Pakistani hostages, a government official said Tuesday, a day after the military said it had killed an al Qaeda spy chief.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Taliban fighters raided an Afghan army post in a volatile central province on Sunday, killing at least two soldiers, an official in the area said. Ten soldiers were missing, he said.

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - Guerrillas shot dead a British and a Canadian civilian and ambushed a convoy carrying Iraq's public works minister in a surge of attacks around the increasingly lawless Iraqi city of Mosul on Sunday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Guerrillas fired rockets at the city hall building in Mosul on Saturday, killing two people and wounding 13, in another deadly attack on Iraqis working with U.S.-led occupation forces.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two U.S. soldiers were killed and four wounded in two separate attacks on convoys in Iraq on Thursday, the U.S. military said.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers killed two Palestinian militants in wetsuits who came ashore near the Jewish settlement of Tel Katifa in Gaza and fired at an army post, military sources said Friday.

FALLUJA (Reuters) - Fighting between U.S. forces and guerrillas killed two people and wounded another two in the turbulent Iraqi town of Falluja, witnesses said on Wednesday.

PRISTINA, Serbia and Montenegro (Reuters) - Gunmen raked a United Nations patrol car with bullets late on Tuesday, killing a U.N. policeman and his Kosovo Albanian partner.

BEIRUT, Lebanon (Reuters) - Two Palestinian gunmen were killed in an Israeli air strike on southern Lebanon Tuesday after firing rockets toward the Jewish state, Lebanese security sources said.

PRISTINA, Serbia and Montenegro (Reuters) - A United Nations policeman and a Kosovo police officer were killed in an attack on a U.N. car near Pristina late on Tuesday, the chief of Kosovo police said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Anti-American insurgents killed a U.S. soldier and an Iraqi interpreter with a roadside bomb as they were carrying out a patrol west of Baghdad, the U.S. military said Monday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Anti-U.S. guerrillas fired rockets into the middle of Baghdad in a rare daylight salvo Sunday, killing two civilians and wounding six people, including an American soldier, a U.S. military spokesman said.

WANA, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistani forces traded fire with suspected al Qaeda fighters in the mountains near the Afghan border on Sunday, killing two Chechen militants who tried to break through an army cordon.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers killed two armed Palestinian militants they said were planning to carry out an attack on Sunday night on a road used by troops and Jewish settlers in the Gaza Strip, military sources said.

GAZA (Reuters) - An Israeli helicopter fired missiles on Tuesday into a house in a Gaza City neighborhood known as a Palestinian militant stronghold, killing at least two people, witnesses said.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) - Washington's top soldier vowed on Saturday that foreign peacekeepers would take tough action against trouble-makers in Haiti, hours after the Marines killed two more gunmen in a furious firefight in the tense Caribbean nation.

RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabian security forces shot dead a Yemeni man believed to be a leading al Qaeda figure in the kingdom as well as another militant in a shootout in Riyadh on Monday, officials said.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - At least two people were killed and 75 others were believed to be trapped under the rubble of a nine-storey apartment block destroyed by a suspected gas explosion on Tuesday, the Itar-Tass news agency reported.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A roadside bomb killed two U.S. soldiers newly arrived in Iraq and seriously wounded several others as they were patrolling Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit on Saturday.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) - Gunfire broke out in Port-au-Prince on Thursday killing two people and injuring six after police broke up a rowdy demonstration calling for the return of ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) - Haiti's new interim prime minister flew into his revolt-torn country on Wednesday and promised to improve security as U.S. Marines said they killed two more Haitian gunmen.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters) - Two U.S. soldiers were killed when their vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb in Iraq on Thursday, the U.S. military said.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) - U.S. Marines shot and killed two more Haitian gunmen, a spokesman said on Wednesday, the third and fourth Haitians slain by U.S. forces trying to restore order in the impoverished Caribbean nation.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli troops shot and killed a Palestinian grocer and a teenage student -- both carrying the same name -- in separate incidents in the West Bank and Gaza Strip Monday.

SOHAG, Egypt (Reuters) - Egyptian authorities deployed some 1,000 police around a southern town on Saturday to forestall any Muslim-Christian clashes after two Christian men were killed in a street brawl, security sources said.

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Two opposition protesters were killed in clashes with Venezuelan troops on Tuesday as electoral officials ruled foes of President Hugo Chavez had initially failed to collect enough signatures for a recall vote against him.

(2/04)

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. forces said on Saturday they had shot dead two men suspected of anti-coalition activities, but Iraqi officials in the northern city of Mosul said the victims were innocent bystanders.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Coast Guard launched a massive sea search Saturday for 19 missing crew after a chemical tanker carrying 11,000 tons of industrial ethanol exploded and sank 50 miles from the Virginia shore. Coast Guard Lt. Bobby Dye said two bodies had been recovered and six crewmen saved and that helicopters, a C130 plane and lifeboats would continue the search for any remaining survivors.

HEBRON, West Bank (Reuters) - Suspected Palestinian gunmen killed two Israelis in an ambush on their car outside the West Bank city of Hebron Friday, Israeli security sources said.

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Two people were shot and killed and more than 20 injured on Friday when Venezuelan troops battled in the streets with opposition protesters who demanded that President Hugo Chavez submit to a recall vote, officials said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. Kiowa reconnaissance helicopter crashed in western Iraq Wednesday, killing the two crew on board, and the U.S. Army said mechanical problems rather than hostile fire had probably brought the aircraft down. Witnesses in the town of Haditha, 125 miles northwest of Baghdad on the highway to the Syrian border, said the helicopter hit overhead power cables and crashed into a river.

BIDDO, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli forces killed two Palestinians protesting against Israel's West Bank barrier Thursday, the first fatalities in demonstrations over the controversial project now under World Court review.

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Asia's human bird flu toll rose to 22 Wednesday as Thailand and Vietnam reported deaths from the disease ravaging poultry flocks across the region and the WHO pleaded with governments not to rush to declare it under control.

GONAIVES, Haiti (Reuters) - Rebels attacked the police headquarters in the central Haitian city of Hinche on Monday, firing at the building and killing the police chief and his bodyguard, several radio stations reported.

KHOST, Afghanistan (Reuters) - At least two Afghans and a U.S. soldier were killed and 15 people wounded on Friday in separate incidents in Afghanistan, police and the U.S. military said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A roadside bomb killed two U.S. soldiers in Baghdad, the U.S. military said Thursday, as Iraqis began burying dozens of victims of two attacks against locals working with the U.S.-led occupation.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two U.S. soldiers were killed and six were wounded Monday while trying to clear explosives in northern Iraq, the U.S. military said.

KHOST, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A man blew himself up Wednesday after shooting dead an intelligence official in Afghanistan's southeastern town of Khost, witnesses said.

HANOI (Reuters) - A Vietnamese man has died of bird flu, taking Asia's death toll to 19, and a Cambodian woman who died last week in a Vietnamese hospital could be the first victim from that neighboring country, officials said on Monday.

GAZA (Reuters) - An Israeli helicopter gunship slammed a missile into a car in Gaza City on Saturday, killing a top Islamic Jihad commander and a 12-year-old bystander and drawing vows of revenge by Palestinian militants.

HANOI (Reuters) - Two more people died in Vietnam of bird flu, taking Asia's death toll Friday to 18, as a U.N. agency said tests revealed the virus in pigs, a potentially disturbing development that highlights the risks to humans.

VLADIKAVKAZ, Russia (Reuters) - A grenade exploded in the southern Russian city of Vladikavkaz Thursday, killing a man and his wife during a domestic row on a street, security sources said.

(1/04)

KABUL (Reuters) - A Canadian soldier with the NATO-led peacekeeping force in Afghanistan was killed and three countrymen wounded Tuesday in a suicide bomb attack that the Taliban said it organized.

BERLIN (Reuters) - A Turkish man shot dead two fellow worshippers at a mosque in the western town of Gelsenkirchen Monday in what police said were honor killings.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two U.S. pilots died on Friday when their helicopter came down near the town of Qayara in northern Iraq, the U.S. military said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two U.S. soldiers were killed and one was critically wounded in a mortar and rocket attack on a U.S. military base near the restive central Iraq town of Baquba, the U.S. Army said Thursday.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers shot and killed two Palestinians Saturday near Israel's security fence with the Gaza Strip, the army and Palestinian medics said.

SAMARRA, Iraq (Reuters) - A car bomb exploded in the volatile Iraqi town of Samarra Saturday, killing at least two Iraqis and wounding 33 people, U.S. soldiers at the scene said.

BEIJING (Reuters) - A possible suicide bombing at the railway station in Zhengzhou, one of China's biggest transport hubs, killed two people on Friday two days after Premier Wen Jiabao visited railway employees in the city.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) - At least two people were killed on Wednesday when supporters of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide clashed with demonstrators calling for his ouster in the second mass street protests of the year, witnesses said.

JENIN, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli forces shot dead two Palestinians Thursday, a militant in a West Bank city center and a man standing at the window of a house in a Gaza refugee camp overlooking a Jewish settlement, witnesses said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Guerrillas shot and killed two French civilians west of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, the U.S. military said on Tuesday, and Egypt warned of anarchy in the country if Washington handed over power to Iraqis prematurely.

FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - Guerrillas shot down a U.S. military helicopter in central Iraq Friday, killing one pilot and injuring another, while ethnic tensions flared again in the northern city of Kirkuk, leading to at least one death.

(12/03)

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf narrowly survived a second attempt on his life in two weeks on Thursday when suicide car bombers attacked his motorcade, killing themselves and at least 12 others.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Two Israelis killed in a clash with a Palestinian militant in the Gaza Strip on Monday were Israeli army officers, a military spokesman said.

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli forces killed two Palestinians in a Gaza Strip raid Tuesday, hours after radical Palestinians shouting "traitor" attacked Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher's entourage in a Jerusalem mosque.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers shot dead two Palestinians trying to sneak into Israel from the Gaza Strip on Monday and troops fought gun battles with militants during a raid into a refugee camp overnight, security sources said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier and an Iraqi were killed and the fortified headquarters of the U.S.-led coalition in Baghdad was attacked on Friday, as Britain's top envoy to Iraq warned more major suicide bombings were inevitable.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier and an Iraqi policeman were killed in separate attacks on Monday as a number of South Korean contractors pulled out of Iraq and Bangladesh closed its embassy because of guerrilla warfare.

(11/03)

SEOUL (Reuters) - Gunmen shot dead two South Korean electricity workers and wounded two others in Iraq on Sunday, but South Korea said it was too early to say whether the incident would affect Seoul's decision to send more troops there.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Guerrillas attacked an American convoy west of Baghdad with small arms and rocket-propelled grenades on Saturday, killing two U.S. soldiers and wounding one, the U.S. Army said on Sunday.

JAMMU, India (Reuters) - The Indian army on Friday killed two guerrillas trying to cross a cease-fire line and enter Pakistan, police said, in the first known bid by militants to violate the line since the two countries began a truce this week.

RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia said it foiled a car bombing in Riyadh Tuesday when security forces shot dead two "terrorists" it said was on the verge of launching an attack.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two U.S. soldiers were killed and two wounded in attacks north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad on Monday, the U.S. military said.

KUWAIT (Reuters) - An Italian soldier badly wounded in a recent suicide bombing in southern Iraq died Saturday in a Kuwait hospital after his parents gave approval for his life-support system to be turned off, the Italian embassy said. An embassy official told Reuters in Kuwait City the death of Corporal Pietro Petrucci at al-Sabah hospital brings to 19 the number of Italians killed in last Wednesday's attack -- 17 soldiers and two civilians.

AL-KHADER, West Bank (Reuters) - A Palestinian with an assault rifle hidden in a prayer mat killed two Israeli soldiers at a West Bank roadblock Tuesday and fighting flared in the Gaza Strip, jarring fresh efforts to broker a cease-fire.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. forces killed two Iraqis and destroyed a building in Baghdad late Wednesday in an operation against guerrillas suspected of carrying out attacks on American military, a U.S. military spokesman said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two soldiers from the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division were killed and one was wounded Saturday when a roadside bomb was detonated next to their convoy in the volatile town of Falluja west of Baghdad, the U.S. Army said.

CINCINNATI (Reuters) - A gunman opened fire on former co-workers at an Ohio trucking company on Thursday, killing two and wounding three, and was later captured at a highway truck stop, police said.

MANILA (Reuters) - A Philippine SWAT team stormed the control tower at Manila airport Saturday, killing a former aviation chief and his police bodyguard to end a short siege over complaints about government corruption.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - At least one Muslim militant blew himself up during a police raid in the holy city of Mecca Thursday, hours after another militant was shot dead in Riyadh as authorities cracked down on suspected al Qaeda activists.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers shot and killed two Palestinians in separate incidents in the Gaza Strip on Friday, Palestinian medics and witnesses said.

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - Two women were killed in artillery fire Wednesday across a cease-fire line dividing Indian and Pakistani Kashmir as the rival nations exchanged fishermen arrested for straying into each other's waters.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia said it foiled an imminent terrorist attack and killed two Muslim militants in a shootout in the holy city of Mecca Monday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Guerrillas killed two U.S. soldiers in Iraq on Saturday amid warnings of further bloodshed, while Iraq's foreign minister said he was unlikely to attend security talks with neighbor states in Damascus.

(10/03)

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two U.S. soldiers were killed in an attack north of Baghdad late on Tuesday, the U.S. military said on Wednesday, taking the combat death toll among U.S. troops in Iraq since the war higher than the wartime total.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - One U.S. soldier and an Iraqi policeman were killed in attacks in Iraq on Friday as foreign governments warned of terror strikes in Baghdad at the weekend after suicide bombings this week killed at least 35 people.

NABLUS/GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers killed two Palestinians, one a 12-year-old boy, in separate incidents on Wednesday, Palestinian witnesses and medics said, as fresh violence further battered a stalled U.S.-backed peace plan.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two civilian contractors tracking "terrorists" for the CIA were killed in an ambush in Afghanistan near the Pakistani border over the weekend, the CIA said on Tuesday.

AFGHANISTAN: A U.S. Special Forces soldier died Oct. 31 in Afghanistan from wounds he suffered a day earlier when U.S. and Afghan forces exchanged gunfire with 10 to 15 militants in the Helmand province, U.S. military officials said. During the fight, one militant was killed and an Afghan soldier was injured.

JAMMU, India (Reuters) - Indian soldiers killed two suspected militants holed up in a house in disputed Kashmir on Friday after a five-hour gun battle, police said.

TULKARM REFUGEE CAMP, West Bank (Reuters) - Gunmen executed two Palestinians on a street in a West Bank refugee camp on Thursday after the men confessed to collaborating with Israeli intelligence, witnesses said.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli troops killed two Palestinian militants in separate West Bank raids on Wednesday, the army said.

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - Indian security forces killed two militants after a lengthy battle near the home of Indian Kashmir's chief minister, police said on Saturday.

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - Muslim separatists lobbed grenades and fired outside the home of Indian Kashmir's chief minister on Friday, killing two soldiers in an attack New Delhi blamed on Pakistan-based militants.

LA PAZ, Bolivia (Reuters) - Bolivia's army fought to stop protesters from streaming into the food-starved capital on Wednesday, leaving two miners dead, as a popular uprising against the president spread.

AMMAN, Jordan (Reuters) - Jordan said its troops killed two suspected armed guerrillas Monday as they tried to sneak into Israel from a village in Jordan's northern border area.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two U.S. soldiers were killed and four wounded in an ambush in a Shi'ite Baghdad slum district where a suicide car bomb attack on a police station earlier claimed at least 10 lives, the U.S. Army said Friday.

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - A man and a woman were killed after a grenade apparently exploded accidentally in a hotel room in eastern Ethiopia, police said on Wednesday.

BEIRUT (Reuters) - A missile landed on a house in a south Lebanon border town early on Tuesday, killing a small boy just hours after an Israeli soldier was killed in cross-border fire, security sources said.

SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Suspected Taliban guerillas attacked an Afghan military post in southern Helmand province, killing two soldiers and wounding three others, an Afghan official said on Sunday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two Iraqis were killed on Saturday in violent confrontations between hundreds of former soldiers in Saddam Hussein's disbanded army and occupying troops in Baghdad and the southern city of Basra.

KABUL (Reuters) - Two Canadian peacekeepers were killed and three wounded when their jeep hit a land mine in the Afghan capital Kabul on Thursday, a spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said.

HANOI (Reuters) - An explosion in a cargo ship under construction in northern Vietnam has killed at least two people and injured more than 10, including a Japanese citizen involved in the project, police and a factory executive said on Friday.

TULKARM, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli troops killed an Islamic Jihad militant and another Palestinian and captured a key leader of the radical group in the West Bank on Wednesday, witnesses and Israeli military sources said.

MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan (Reuters) - Two Pakistanis, one an 11-year-old boy, have been killed and five wounded by Indian mortar and machinegun fire across a cease-fire line in disputed Kashmir in the past 24 hours, Pakistani police said on Wednesday.

BAGHDAD/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two U.S. soldiers were killed and police opened fire to disperse angry unemployed demonstrators in Iraq on Wednesday, as Washington sought a U.N. resolution acceptable to its war critics.

(9/03)

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia (Reuters) - Two people were dead and 80,000 without power in Nova Scotia on Monday morning after Hurricane Juan barreled into the eastern Canadian province from the Atlantic Ocean overnight.

CHECHNYA: Two Russian soldiers were killed and another was injured Sept. 29 after a land mine explosion in Chechnya, local police said. The attack took place in the village of Belgatoi in the Vedeno district.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A Palestinian militant shot dead a settler and a two-month-old baby girl in an attack on a Jewish settlement in the West Bank on Friday as Israelis celebrated the Jewish New Year.

BOUAKE, Ivory Coast (Reuters) - Two people were killed in a firefight on Thursday as Ivory Coast rebels fought off robbers who stormed a branch of West Africa's central bank in their stronghold of Bouake, rebel officials said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A hand grenade blast ripped through a cinema in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Wednesday, killing two people and wounding 20, police said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A suicide car bomber blew himself up near United Nations headquarters in Baghdad on Monday, also killing a security guard and wounding 19 people, a month after a huge truck bomb devastated the building.

TULKARM, West Bank (Reuters) - A leader of a militant group allied with Palestinian Yasser Arafat was shot dead and another was killed in revenge Saturday, Palestinian security sources reported.

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - Suspected Muslim separatist guerrillas in Indian Kashmir beheaded two people, one of them a teacher, Tuesday in the latest violence in the disputed Himalayan region, police said.

JORDAN - Latest efforts to impose a harsher penalty on men who kill their daughters and sisters suffered a fresh setback in parliament this week, after deputies refused to sanction an amendment to the penal code. The day after parliament sat, three brothers hacked to death their two sisters with axes "to cleanse the family honour".

RAMADI, Iraq (Reuters) - Two U.S. soldiers were killed and seven wounded when a pre-dawn raid on Friday turned into a heavy gunbattle in a restive zone of Iraq where support for deposed dictator Saddam Hussein is strongest.

ARBIL, Iraq (Reuters) - A suicide bomber in northern Iraq killed himself and an Iraqi child and wounded more than 50 people, including six U.S. personnel, according to local people and the U.S. military Wednesday.

GAZA (Reuters) - An Israeli warplane narrowly failed to assassinate a Hamas leader but killed his son and a bodyguard in Gaza on Wednesday, a day after two Palestinian suicide bombers killed 15 people in Israel.

NABLUS (Reuters) - An Israeli commando and a Palestinian gunman were killed on Friday during an Israeli raid that could deal a blow to reformist Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas's political battle for survival.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An Iraqi civilian was killed and two U.S. soldiers wounded in a suicide bombing in central Iraq, a military spokesman said on Thursday.

In the latest guerrilla attack, two U.S. soldiers were killed on Monday when their vehicle hit an explosive device on one of Baghdad's main supply routes, a U.S. military spokeswoman said.

(8/03)

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Police in the Indian capital said on Sunday they had killed two Muslim militants from an outlawed Pakistan-based Kashmiri rebel group in a gun battle and foiled a plan to launch a terror attack.

GAZA (Reuters) - An Israeli army helicopter fired several missiles at a car in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, killing two Hamas militants in the latest violence battering a U.S.-backed peace initiative.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Palestinian gunmen shot and killed a Jewish settler and wounded his pregnant wife Friday in a West Bank roadside ambush that followed Israel's killing of an Islamic militant in a helicopter strike in the Gaza Strip.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two U.S. soldiers were killed in separate attacks in Iraq Wednesday, as President Bush vowed America would not retreat from the country in the face of a guerrilla insurgency and terror attacks.

BOSTON (Reuters) - A small airplane with two pilots on board crashed off the coast of Massachusetts on Tuesday afternoon after the pilot tried to make an emergency landing, the Federal Aviation Administration said. The fate of the pilots is unknown.

ABIDJAN (Reuters) - Ivory Coast rebels killed two French soldiers and wounded a third in a firefight, the first French combat fatalities since Paris sent troops to restore peace in its former colony last year, officials said Tuesday.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - An Ohio automotive supply plant worker opened fire on fellow employees on Tuesday, wounding three women, one fatally, before apparently killing himself, police said.

KABUL (Reuters) - Two local aid workers belonging to the Afghan Red Crescent Society (ARCS) have been killed and three of their colleagues wounded in an ambush southwest of the Afghan capital, the society's secretary general said on Thursday.

KABUL (Reuters) - Two student supporters of the Taliban were killed and another wounded after a bomb they were making blew up in the Afghan capital, police said on Wednesday.

(7/03)

SEOUL (Reuters) - A U.S. Army cargo plane crashed in a populated area of South Korea on Tuesday, killing two American soldiers, local police and the U.S. military said.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistan said U.S. forces killed two of its soldiers near the Afghan border on Monday, and the U.S. military said it was investigating what it called an unfortunate and unintended clash.

TIKRIT, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. forces said they killed two Iraqis on Friday who were selling weapons on the streets in Saddam Hussein's home town, Tikrit.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Two people were killed and three others are missing after a typhoon hit western Japan with torrential rain and strong winds on Friday.

BASRA, Iraq - Basra residents overwhelmed by the heat and angry about fuel shortages and electricity cuts bombarded British soldiers with rocks in a second day of protests Sunday. A demonstrator and a security guard were killed.

BOSTON (Reuters) - A small business jet crashed on Monday near Groton, Connecticut, killing the pilot and a passenger as it struck some houses and then landed in a river, U.S. aviation authorities said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Army has dispatched a team of medical experts to Iraq to investigate a spate of serious pneumonia cases among U.S. troops, with two dead and more than 100 sickened, officials said on Friday.

MOMBASA, Kenya (Reuters) - A man arrested by Kenyan detectives hunting suspected militants set off a hand grenade in a police car in the tourist city of Mombasa Friday, killing himself and a policeman.

BOMBAY (Reuters) - A bomb exploded on a bus in Bombay late on Monday, killing two people and wounding 31, government officials said.

(AP) - One U.S. soldier was killed in an ambush in Baghdad Monday and a second died in a traffic accident south of the capital, the military reported.

(AP) - The U.S. military showed reporters the bodies of Odai and Qusai Hussein on Friday and said each body contained more than 20 bullet wounds.

(3/03)

JAMMU, India (Reuters) - Two people were killed and 25 wounded on Thursday when a bomb exploded on a bus in Indian Kashmir triggering protests to demand more protection against separatist violence, police said.

HEBRON, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers and a helicopter gunship shot dead two Israeli armed guards in the West Bank on Thursday after mistaking them for Palestinian gunmen, the army said.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - An Israeli soldier and a Palestinian militant were killed in a gunbattle near the West Bank city of Tulkarm on Wednesday, the Israeli army said.

KIRYAT ARBA, West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinian gunmen disguised as religious Jews killed two Israelis in a raid on a West Bank settlement Friday, hours after Israeli troops and tanks seized a chunk of the northern Gaza Strip.

(2/03)

KARACHI (Reuters) - Gunmen shot dead two Shi'ite Muslims in the restive port city of Karachi on Thursday, just days after a hit-and-run attack outside a Shi'ite mosque that killed nine people, police and doctors said.

KARACHI (Reuters) - An Islamic extremist shot dead two policemen guarding the U.S. consulate in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi on Friday and wounded five other officers and a passerby, police said.

BLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli troops killed two Palestinians in the West Bank city of Nablus on Saturday, while Palestinian officials called for a one-year truce in the conflict with Israel.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli troops killed two Palestinians, one of them a policeman, in clashes with gunmen during a pre-dawn raid into a Gaza neighborhood on Monday, Palestinian witnesses and security sources said.

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - Suspected leftist rebels killed an American and a Colombian soldier and apparently kidnapped three U.S. crew members after a U.S. government plane made an emergency landing in a jungle region of southern Colombian, officials said on Friday.

(1/03)

JENIN, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers searching for West Bank militants killed a Palestinian gunman on Friday in an exchange of fire that also killed a bystander.

TULKARM, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers killed two Palestinians in a major West Bank raid Thursday after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon rebuffed a post-election olive branch extended by Yasser Arafat.

KABUL (Reuters) - Two Afghan security men were killed and one was wounded Sunday when attackers fired at a vehicle escorting a U.N. refugee agency convoy in the east of the country, the local head of the U.N. agency said.

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Suspected Maoist rebels shot dead the chief of Nepal's anti-rebel police force and his wife on the outskirts of Kathmandu early on Sunday, police and officials said.

HEBRON, West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinian gunmen opened fire on a Jewish settler home in the divided West Bank city of Hebron on Friday, killing a settler before one of the attackers was shot dead, an Israeli army spokesman said.

A jury sentenced a 64-year-old man to death for killing two people during a shooting spree at a crowded homeowners association. The same Maricopa County jury last month found Richard Glassel guilty on two counts of first-degree murder and 30 counts of attempted murder.

LONDON (Reuters) - Two teenage girls were shot dead and two others wounded during a party at a hairdressing salon in central England, police said on Thursday.

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Two people were shot dead and two dozen were wounded on Friday when foes and supporters of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez clashed in Caracas as the opposition stepped up street protests in its drive to force the leftist leader to resign.

(12/02)

On the last day of 2002, 85-year-old Morris Spivack had a maintenance worker open the windows and remove the screens in his 17th-floor condominium. Spivack, who had lung disease, explained that he needed more fresh air. Then, three hours before the new year, Spivack leaped to his death, followed seconds later by his 80-year-old wife, Estelle. The couple of 42 years had been in failing health and Spivack was becoming increasingly feeble. The two left a note with clear burial instructions and the names of relatives and the couple's lawyer.

CHAMAN, Pakistan (Reuters) - Two Afghan soldiers were killed and four wounded in a powerful blast overnight near the Pakistani border, an Afghan military commander said Sunday.

SAO PAULO, Brazil (Reuters) - Two people were killed and 14 injured on Thursday when a Brazilian Air Force propeller plane carrying military personnel and relatives crashed two miles short of the runway during an emergency landing.

MANILA (Reuters) - The Philippine army clashed with Muslim rebels Wednesday leaving one soldier and a suspected Abu Sayyaf guerrilla dead, army officials said.

SKOPJE (Reuters) - Separate bomb attacks in Macedonia and neighboring Kosovo killed two men and injured several other people on Wednesday, authorities said.

ADEN (Reuters) - Yemen said on Saturday two soldiers had been killed and four wounded in a shootout with suspected al Qaeda militants.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli troops killed a gunman in a raid on a Gaza Strip town, and Palestinian militants shot dead a rabbi settler on Friday as mediators met in Washington to discuss a plan for ending two years of Middle East bloodshed.

KARACHI, Pakistan (Reuters) - Two people were killed in the Pakistani city of Hyderabad Saturday when a bomb ripped through their bus as police in the port city of Karachi said they had arrested four suspected militants and thwarted other attacks.

LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (Reuters) - Tornadoes tore across Arkansas on Wednesday evening, killing a motorist and an elderly woman who was blown out of her house and into a field.

SAN SALVADOR (Reuters) - Two police officers were killed and more than 20 people injured when hundreds of prisoners rioted on Monday during a reorganization of El Salvador's main Mariona prison in the capital.

BOMBAY (Reuters) - An explosion ripped through a ship in Bombay port on Saturday, killing at least two people and injuring eight, but police said they did not think the blast was caused by a bomb.

JAKARTA (Reuters) - An explosion ripped through a McDonald's restaurant in the eastern Indonesian city of Makassar Thursday, killing two people, police said.

HEBRON, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers shot dead two Palestinian militants in a gunbattle at their cave hideout Wednesday, Israeli and Palestinian sources said.

(11/02)

BEIT LAHIYA, Gaza Strip (Reuters) - Israeli forces killed two people in a raid on a Gaza Strip town and wounded four others in a helicopter gunship attack nearby, Palestinian sources said Sunday.

MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan (Reuters) - Two Pakistanis were killed and 11 wounded overnight in cross-border firing by Indian forces into Pakistan-ruled Kashmir, officials said on Tuesday.

GAZA (Reuters) - Two Palestinian suicide bombers blew up an explosives-laden fishing boat close to an Israeli patrol craft on Saturday, wounding four sailors, in the first such attack since the start of the Palestinian uprising.

FORT POLK, La (Reuters) - Two soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division died on Thursday when they were apparently run over by a tank during an exercise at one of the U.S. Army's main training establishments.

MADRID (Reuters) - Explosives stashed in black rubbish bags killed a married couple and injured two others in twin incidents in the northwestern Spanish region of Galicia on Tuesday which have left police baffled, officials said.

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - An explosion killed two people, one a Hamas militant wanted by Israel, in a van in the West Bank city of Nablus on Monday, and Palestinian security officials called it an Israeli strike.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Indian police said they shot on Sunday two suspected Islamic militants they believed were planning a deadly attack on a trendy shopping plaza in New Delhi on the eve of a major Hindu festival.

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Two people died and about 20 others are being held hostage in northwest Cambodia on Sunday, officials said, as the country mounts its biggest peacetime security operation for a summit of regional leaders.

(10/02)

SALLISAW, Oklahoma (Reuters) - An Oklahoma teenager shot and killed at least two people on Saturday and wounded eight in a rampage sparked by an argument with neighbors over his driving, police said.

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - Suspected leftist Colombian rebels detonated a car bomb outside Bogota's police headquarters on Tuesday, killing two people and wounding 36, in the first attack on the nation's capital in months.

MELBOURNE (Reuters) - A man armed with several handguns walked into an Australian university lecture room on Monday, shot dead two students and wounded five before he was overpowered by classmates of the victims, police said.

KABUL (Reuters) - Two people were killed and dozens wounded when two hand grenades were thrown into a wedding party at a popular picnic spot northwest of Kabul, police and state television reported on Saturday.

No one was reported injured in the three incidents, but officials said two police died in a showdown with drug traffickers in another area of the seaside city of 6 million, which is as well-known for its crime as for its Carnival.

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (Reuters) - Israeli troops shot dead two youths and wounded 18 people during clashes at a Palestinian refugee camp on Wednesday just days after a raid in the Gaza Strip drew international condemnation.

(9/02)

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli helicopters fired missiles into Gaza City Thursday, wounding a top Palestinian militant and killing two others in violence likely to dismay the United States as it seeks Arab support for possible war against Iraq.

GANDHINAGAR, India (Reuters) - Indian troops stormed a Hindu temple Wednesday, killing two young Muslim gunmen who had burst into the building and massacred 28 men, women and children.

ABIDJAN (Reuters) - Ivory Coast Interior Minister Emile Boga Doudou and the west African country's former military ruler General Robert Guei were killed in fighting that erupted in Abidjan on Thursday, a senior official said.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A Palestinian blew himself up at a bus stop in an Arab-Israeli village in northern Israel Wednesday, killing a policeman in the first suicide bombing in more than a month, medics said.

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - Two ruling party workers were gunned down in the heart of Indian Kashmir's main city on Wednesday and a ruling lawmaker was attacked ahead of the second round of voting in a state election dogged by anti-poll violence.

JENIN, West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinian gunmen shot dead an Israeli at an army roadblock in the northern West Bank on Wednesday, hours after Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian, Israeli military sources said.

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - Two policemen died when suspected Islamic militants attacked an Indian Kashmir minister's motorcade on Sunday on the eve of the first stage of voting in violence-racked state elections.

SRINAGAR, India/MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan (Reuters) - Two civilians were killed and two wounded when Pakistani and Indian troops traded artillery fire across the military control line that divides disputed Kashmir at the weekend, the two sides said on Sunday.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Jailed Palestinian uprising leader Marwan Barghouthi thumbed his nose at the Israeli justice system Thursday as militants attacked in the Gaza Strip, destroying a tank and killing two soldiers.

(8/02)

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers killed two Palestinian gunmen trying to infiltrate a Jewish settlement Friday, hours after a Palestinian minister failed to convince militants to end attacks on Israelis.

SKOPJE (Reuters) - Gunmen in ethnically divided Macedonia killed two police reservists on Monday in an apparent attempt to wreck a peace pact that ended six months of fighting in 2001 and set the stage for fresh elections next month.

(AP) - Muslim extremists linked to the al-Qaida terror network beheaded two of six Jehovah's Witnesses they kidnapped in the southern Philippines and dumped their heads in a public market, authorities said Thursday. Brig. Gen. Romeo Tolentino, army commander on the southern island of Jolo, said the heads of the two male hostages were found in bags with notes denouncing them as "infidels."

KABUL (Reuters) - Two British soldiers died of gunshot wounds in Afghanistan on Saturday in an incident that did not involve enemy fire, their commanding officer said.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Two more West Nile virus deaths were reported on Friday, including one in Illinois that was the first outside the U.S. South this year, as the national death toll from the mosquito-borne illness rose to 11.

SOHAM, England (Reuters) - British police arrested a man and a woman on Saturday on suspicion of murdering two schoolgirls whose disappearance in rural England led to a massive manhunt and gripped the nation.

LAGOS (Reuters) - Gunmen in Nigeria opened fire on a car carrying a senior official of President Olusegun Obasanjo's ruling party, killing him and a police escort instantly, party officials said on Saturday.

MARTINSVILLE, Va. (Reuters) - A 9-year-old girl was missing after her parents were found shot to death in their Virginia home near the border with North Carolina on Thursday, and a statewide alert was issued for the child, police said.

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - Two Indian soldiers were killed and 19 people were wounded when a bus carrying troops ran over a land mine in Kashmir, police said on Wednesday, the eve of India's independence day celebrations.

AIN EL-HILWEH, Lebanon (Reuters) - Lebanese Islamist gunmen attacked strongholds of Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Fatah faction in Lebanon's largest refugee camp on Tuesday, killing two people and wounding seven more.

BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan (Reuters) - U.S. special forces killed two attackers in a brief battle in eastern Afghanistan on Monday, U.S. military officials said.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli forces killed two Palestinian militants on Tuesday, including one wanted for plotting a suicide bombing, as they were returning to their hiding place in a West Bank cave.

(7/02)

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - An Indian government official and a policeman were killed and six people were wounded in fresh militant attacks in India's strife-torn Kashmir region, police said on Wednesday.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Chicago police questioned several people on Wednesday as they searched for members of a unruly mob that beat to death two men whose rental van went out of control, jumped a curb and injured three women.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Two Israeli settler-brothers paid with their lives on Tuesday while doing business with Palestinians in a West Bank village.

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - Two people, including a Hindu pilgrim, were killed and four devotees wounded Tuesday when militants hurled a grenade at them during a pilgrimage in disputed Kashmir, police said.

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Jewish settlers killed a Palestinian girl while Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian man and reported capturing a top member of the Hamas Islamic militant group in Middle East violence on Sunday.

DALLAS (Reuters) - Two Texas men accused of smuggling 40 illegal immigrants in an unventilated truck in stifling heat were charged with murder after two Mexican passengers were found dead, a federal official said on Monday.

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - Suspected Marxist rebels detonated a car bomb near a bull ring in a village in central Colombia on Wednesday, killing two policemen and injuring five other officers in the third deadly blast to rock this war-torn nation in a week, authorities said.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A Palestinian involved in a deadly ambush on a bus carrying Jewish settlers in the West Bank was killed early on Wednesday in a gun battle with pursuing Israeli troops, military sources said. An Israeli was also killed in the area of the exchange in the Kana valley near the ultra-Orthodox Jewish settlement of Emmanuel, the sources added.

PATNA, India (Reuters) - At least two people died as incessant monsoon rains caused rivers in eastern India to overflow, flooding the homes of some 300,000 people, authorities said Sunday. They said some 250,000 people had been hit in the eastern state of Bihar alone when flood waters entered their houses, forcing thousands to flee to safety.

GAZA (Reuters) - A bomb exploded in a car in Gaza City on Thursday night, killing a Palestinian militant and one other person, Palestinian witnesses and security sources said.

SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - At least two people were killed and hundreds more evacuated on Tuesday as heavy rains touched off severe flooding in much of central Texas.

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli special forces killed a top bomb-maker from the militant Islamic group Hamas on Sunday in a strike which also left at least one of his deputies dead, Israeli security sources said.

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - The Indian army said on Monday it had shot dead two Muslim guerrillas who tried to sneak across a military cease-fire line into disputed Kashmir from Pakistan and said more militants were poised to infiltrate.

(6/02)

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (Reuters) - Two Argentines were shot to death on the outskirts of Buenos Aires on Wednesday as hundreds of unemployed demonstrators fought pitched battles with police in the worst riots since an elected government was toppled in December.

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - The chief minister of India's Jammu and Kashmir state escaped an attempt on his life on Saturday when two grenades were fired at a government building he was inaugurating in the region's main city, police said. In a separate attack later in the day, two children were killed and two people injured when unidentified militants hurled a grenade and fired on a group of Hindu devotees east of Jammu, the state's winter capital.

GAZA (Reuters) - Palestinian militants killed two Israeli soldiers and wounded four in a clash in Gaza shortly after troops foiled a car bomb attack in fresh violence as President Bush worked on Middle East peace proposals.

HERZLIYA, Israel (Reuters) - A Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up outside a busy sandwich shop in the Israeli coastal town of Herzliya on Tuesday, killing a 15-year-old girl and wounding eight people.

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Security guards killed two men as they attempted to hijack an Ethiopian domestic flight in mid-air on Sunday, the Ethiopian News Agency reported.

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Rescue workers found two dead climbers on Mount Rainier in Washington state late on Thursday, just a week after six mountaineers died in separate accidents on Rainier and Oregon's Mount Hood, rangers said on Friday.

(5/02)

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - Two Palestinians were killed in an explosion at a house in the West Bank city of Nablus Thursday in what appeared to be an accident while preparing explosives, Palestinian sources said.

BAGHDAD/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Iraq said two people were killed and two others wounded when U.S. warplanes attacked civilian targets on Thursday, while Washington said it had launched a raid after Western jets were threatened.

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Columbus police said that a well-known entertainer and female impersonator was stabbed to death early Friday morning in his home with a samurai sword.

RISHON LETZION, Israel (Reuters) - A Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowded pedestrian mall near Tel Aviv on Wednesday and at least one person was killed and 20 were wounded, Israeli medics said.

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - Two people were killed and 15 wounded on Friday when a bomb planted by suspected Islamic rebels exploded in the heart of revolt-wracked Kashmir's main city, Srinagar, police said.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel killed two Palestinian intelligence officers in West Bank raids Tuesday as a new poll boosted Prime Minister Ariel Sharon over his key rival in a dispute about policy vital to Middle East peace hopes.

CENTRALIA, Ill. (Reuters) - Two people were killed and a number of others injured on Thursday when a severe thunderstorm, possibly a tornado, destroyed parts of a trailer park near this southern Illinois city, officials said.

ATLANTA (Reuters) - Two people died on Tuesday after being buried under quick-drying cement when scaffolding collapsed at an Atlanta construction site, authorities said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two people were killed and four others were wounded when a cluster bomb dropped during the 1991 Gulf War exploded in the southern Iraqi province of Basra, the official Iraqi News Agency INA reported on Saturday.

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Reuters) - Two college students apparently wrestling in a third-floor dormitory lobby were killed on Thursday when they crashed through a window and fell to the ground, the University of Kentucky said.

(4/02)

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - A U.S. mountaineer died after being trapped by bad weather while trying to scale the world's fifth highest mountain in Nepal's Himalayas, the government said on Wednesday. A British climber plunged to his death on Mount Everest on Tuesday after he lost his footing while seeking to fix ropes and fell into a crevasse, the tourism ministry said earlier.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Two people died at Walt Disney World in Florida last week, one a visitor who apparently drowned and the other an employee who committed suicide, police and company officials said on Monday.

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A Belgian F-16 jet fighter and a light civilian aircraft with one pilot on board collided in mid-air and crashed in woods in the northern Netherlands on Wednesday, Dutch officials said. One of the jet's two-member crew and the pilot of the ultra-light plane were killed, a spokeswoman for the local fire department said.

BETHLEHEM, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli and Palestinian negotiators met on Tuesday to try to end a three-week-old standoff at Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity, and an overnight Israeli missile strike killed two militants.

AMBON, Indonesia (Reuters) - A powerful bomb killed two people and wounded 57 in a Christian district of Indonesia's eastern Ambon city on Wednesday, triggering a violent protest by thousands of residents, police and witnesses said. Hands, arms and legs were strewn about the site of the blast in central Ambon. The bomb threw into question a landmark peace pact signed in February between Muslims and Christians aimed at ending three years of murderous clashes.

BRAZZAVILLE (Reuters) - Former "Ninja" rebels in the Republic of Congo launched a spate of attacks in the oil-rich nation, ambushing a train, killing two passengers and wounding 14 others, officials said on Wednesday.

(3/02)

KAMPALA (Reuters) - Two Ugandan soldiers were shot dead by firing squad for murdering an Irish Catholic priest and two other men in the country's first public execution in a decade, an army spokesman said on Tuesday.

SKOPJE, Macedonia (Reuters) - Two ethnic Albanian gunmen were killed in Macedonia late Monday in a fierce gun battle between rival factions from a disbanded guerrilla force, officials and fighters said Tuesday.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Two Palestinians suspected of being on their way to carry out a bombing in Jerusalem died when their car exploded near a police roadblock on the southern outskirts of the city Monday, a police spokesman said.

HEBRON, West Bank (Reuters) - Two members of an international observer group were shot dead as they drove on a West Bank road on Tuesday night, fellow observers and the Israeli army said.

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Unidentified gunmen shot dead two people and wounded four in an attack on the security chief of the eastern Afghan city of Khost, the Peshawar-based Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) reported on Sunday.

FORT DRUM, New York (Reuters) - A second soldier died from injuries suffered after shrapnel from an artillery training exercise ripped through a mess tent at a military base in rural New York, the U.S. military said on Thursday.

(Reuters) - An officer in Yasser Arafat's guard and an Italian war photographer were killed on Wednesday as Israel pressed on with its biggest offensive in decades against the Palestinians on the eve of a U.S. peace mission.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A man shot and killed a Roman Catholic priest and a parishioner in a suburban New York church on Tuesday, and was apprehended later after a standoff with police outside a nearby house, police said.

(2/02)

AMMAN (Reuters) - A bomb exploded near the house of Jordan's anti-terror squad chief in Amman on Thursday, killing two passers-by and wrecking his wife's car, witnesses and security sources said.

BALTIMORE (Reuters) - Police said on Thursday they were investigating the murders of a man and a woman found shot to death in north Baltimore in a car registered to former world heavyweight boxing champion Hasim Rahman.

MAALE ADUMIM, Israel (Reuters) - A Palestinian on his way to a carry out a car bombing killed an Israeli policeman when he detonated his explosives prematurely on Monday, in what Israel said was the fifth attempted suicide attack in 24 hours.

JERUSALEM (AP) - A large explosion went off in a pizzeria in the mall of a Jewish settlement on Saturday evening, killing two people and wounding at least 11, five seriously.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) -- The last al-Qaida fighters holding out in their former stronghold Kandahar died as they swore they would -- fighting to the death, two of them pulling pins on their grenades rather than surrender to U.S. Special Forces.

(1/02)

ZANESVILLE, Ohio (AP) -- A maintenance worker shot a female school bus driver Wednesday as she was preparing to start her route, then fatally shot himself, the Muskingum County coroner said. No students were in the area at the time.

PATNA, India (AP) -- Police shot two Pakistani men during a raid on a suspected terrorist hideout in eastern India Monday, and one of the men confessed before dying to participating in last week's attack at the U.S. cultural center, Indian officials said.

WINNEMUCCA, Nev. (AP) -- Independent American Party of Nevada leader Dan Hansen was killed Tuesday when his trucked rolled on an icy highway, and a man hit by a tractor-trailer rig after stopping to help died Wednesday in a Reno hospital. Two others were injured.

(12/01)

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian man trying to infiltrate a Jewish settlement in the southern Gaza Strip and killed a Palestinian policeman in northern Gaza early Saturday.

SANAA (Reuters) - Two people were killed and three were injured Saturday in a car explosion in the Yemeni capital Sanaa, a security official said. ``The driver and the passenger sitting next to him were killed, while the passengers in the back seat were injured,'' the official told Reuters.

(AP) - A man opened fire Thursday at the simulated-wood factory where he worked, killing a co-worker and wounding several others before committing suicide, authorities said. State Police officials said one person was slain inside Nu-Wood Decorative Millwork factory. A SWAT team later found the gunman with an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound.

(11/01)

GAZA (Reuters) - The Israeli army killed two armed Palestinians and an American school in Gaza was damaged in violence that flared ahead of a Middle East policy speech on Monday by Secretary of State Colin Powell.

BOGOTA, Colombia, (Reuters) - A Colombian journalist and his nephew were killed by unidentified gunmen who burst into their home in the Pacific port of Buenaventura while they watched television, police said Thursday.

SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP) -- A runway was reopened Wednesday at Santa Monica airport after a twin-engine plane crashed and burned as it was taking off, killing both people on board.

(10/01)

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) -- The father of one of the first two soldiers killed in combat operations in the Afghanistan conflict said his son was doing what he loved as an Army Ranger.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Two Washington-area postal workers have been diagnosed with inhalation anthrax and two more employees at the same facility have died of symptoms consistent with the disease, officials said Monday as the nation grappled with an unprecedented bioterrorism threat.

YAKIMA, Wash. -- In 1980, late autumn snowstorms with hurricane-force winds claimed the lives of two Oregon men hiking on Mount Adams. Twenty-one years later, drought gave the bodies back.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - An explosion rocked a rural area in northern Israel early on Sunday killing two people who appeared to be Palestinian bombers, Israeli police said. Assistant Police Commander Dov Lutzky, who was on his way to the scene of the blast not far from the Shluhot Kibbutz -- a collective farm near the West Bank's Jordan Valley -- said only the bombers were hurt.

KHOBAR, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - Two foreigners including an American were killed and four were wounded in Saturday's bomb blast in the eastern Saudi city of Khobar, officials said on Sunday.

(9/01)

ISTANBUL, Turkey -- A suicide bomber set off an explosion Monday near the German consulate and a popular tourist area in Istanbul, killing two policemen and injuring 15 other people, police said.

WASHINGTON -- Two Navy sailors were lost Sunday in the North Arabian Gulf when a rusty, overloaded tanker smuggling about 12,000 barrels of Iraqi oil sank after being boarded by a U.S. team enforcing U.N. sanctions.

JERUSALEM -- Israeli helicopters on Thursday fired missiles at a jeep carrying four Palestinian gunmen and killed two, but Israel's declared target, a local militia chief blamed for the deaths of six Israelis, escaped with light injuries.

ORO GRANDE, Calif. (AP) -- A freight train struck a vehicle in the Mojave Desert on Tuesday, killing the driver and passenger, authorities said. Two trains were heading in opposite directions on the tracks when the driver tried to cross and was rammed by one of them, said Tracy Martinez, a spokeswoman for the San Bernardino County Fire Department.

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PORT ISABEL, Texas (AP) -- Barges rammed a bridge connecting this fishing community to South Padre Island early Saturday, killing at least two people and leaving several people missing as cars plunged into the water, officials said.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Investigators believe they have found the body of a man killed in a house fire during a stand-off with police in which he allegedly shot to death a sheriff's deputy, officials said on Saturday.

HOPLAND, Calif. (AP) -- A man who allegedly started a campfire that burned out of control was charged with murder Tuesday in the deaths of two pilots whose firefighting planes collided over the blaze.

SKOPJE (Reuters) - A Macedonian motel was blown up Sunday in an area largely dominated by ethnic Albanian rebels, killing two people, as NATO prepared to start collecting guerrilla weapons under a peace plan menaced by mistrust.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli soldiers shot dead a 14-year-old Palestinian stonethrower in southern Gaza and killed an unarmed man in a separate incident in the West Bank on Sunday, Palestinian hospital officials said.

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) -- Two professional soccer players were killed when lighting struck a stadium in Guatemala, hitting a metal guard rail surrounding the field and electrifying everyone on it, authorities said Sunday. Ten other players suffered severe burns.

MIAMI (Reuters) - An elderly couple who chartered a small plane on the pretext of having sex in the sky died when the plane plunged into the sea off the Florida Keys after they tried to hijack it to Cuba, U.S. authorities said on Friday.

BELGRADE (Reuters) - Serbia accused Albanian ``terrorists'' on Saturday of killing two of its policemen, and the U.N. refugee agency warned that the incident threatened to undermine fragile peace in the south of the country.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The second high-profile U.S. football player to die during training in a week suffered a fatal asthma attack, according to an autopsy on Saturday, the Cook County Medical Examiner's office said.

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WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. (AP) -- An off-duty Los Angeles policeman shot to death a man who tried to rob him, and a La Habra officer killed a man who aimed a shotgun at him, authorities said.

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. (AP) -- A U.S. Air Force F-16 chase plane crashed early Tuesday in a remote mountainous area of eastern California, killing both crew members on board.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- An apparent murder-suicide attempt in Sylmar has left an 8-year-old boy and 19-year-old woman dead and a 60-year-old man hospitalized and under arrest for investigation of murder, authorities said.

MORRO BAY, Calif. (AP) -- A man shot to death two people during an argument over a campsite before he was wounded by a park ranger, authorities said. The gunman, identified by authorities as Stephen Deflaur, 42, of Blythe, was shot in the abdomen by a ranger Sunday night at Morro Strand State Park. He was expected to survive.

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ISABELA, Philippines -- The beheaded bodies of two Filipinos who were kidnapped by Muslim rebels were discovered Saturday near the provincial capital in the southern Philippines, police said. The two men were captured earlier this month by Abu Sayyaf rebels from a coconut plantation where they were working, said police Sgt. Abdul Jumahalid.

MERINO, Colo. (AP) -- Two 12-year-old girls who took a relative's car on a 100 mph joyride were killed Friday when the vehicle rolled over three times, state troopers said.

EDMOND, Okla. -- A man with an assault rifle fired randomly at people and houses as he walked through a a middle-class neighborhood Friday, killing one man and critically wounding another before being killed by police.

LONDON, June 2 (Reuters) - Two crew members died on Saturday when their restored 1950s Vampire fighter trainer crashed after bursting into flames at an air show near Kent, police said.

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JENIN, West Bank (AP) -- Chanting for revenge, some 10,000 people attended the funeral of two Palestinians -- including a well-known militant -- killed earlier Saturday in an Israeli helicopter attack the Palestinians claim was an assassination.

JERUSALEM, May 9 (Reuters) - The United States condemned the killing on Wednesday of two Israeli teenagers, one of whom was an American citizen, and called for an end to more than seven months of Israeli-Palestinian bloodshed.

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PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A U.S. anti-drug surveillance plane crew tried to stop Peru from shooting down a plane carrying American missionaries, a U.S. intelligence official said on Sunday as the missionaries returned home with the bodies of a mother and her baby killed in the incident.

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WASHINGTON (AP) -- An Army reconnaissance plane crashed Monday in Germany, killing two people on board, U.S. officials said. Details were sketchy, but officials said the plane crashed on approach to Nuremberg airport.

TOKYO (Reuters) - At least two people were killed and more than 148 injured when a strong earthquake measuring 6.4 on the Richter scale hit the city of Hiroshima in western Japan on Saturday.

BUFFALO, N.Y. (Reuters) - A U.S. Coast Guard patrol boat capsized early on Saturday in the icy waters of Lake Ontario, leaving two crew members dead and two others injured, the Coast Guard said.

MORRO BAY, Calif. (AP) -- Two people were killed Thursday when a pick-up truck being chased by police drove the wrong way on Highway 1 and crashed into another car. The alleged suspect and the driver of the other car were killed.

SANTEE, Calif. (AP) -- A 15-year-old boy who had been picked on and had talked about shooting classmates allegedly opened fire in a high school bathroom Monday, killing two people and wounding 13 in the nation's deadliest school attack since Columbine.

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SEATTLE (AP) -- Tears streamed down the face of Li HengDa, artistic director of the Asian Performing Arts Theater here, as he talked about the deaths of two teen-age members of a Chinese dance group on an icy stretch of highway.

FERNIE, British Columbia (Reuters) - Nine European tourists were rescued from a mountain in southeastern British Columbia Wednesday after they were trapped overnight by an avalanche that killed two people and injured two others.

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction threatened to disrupt Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon's rule with new attacks on Israelis, as gunbattles erupted Monday in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and Israeli soldiers killed two Palestinians.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) -- Teams of rescuers recovered the bodies of two people buried up to 10 feet deep by an avalanche that caught them as they rode snowmobiles. The two victims were among seven people riding up a 35- to 45-degree slope Saturday when the snow slide began in the mountains northeast of Anchorage, said Alaska State Troopers spokesman Greg Wilkinson.

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HANOVER, N.H. (AP) -- The humanity that Susanne and Half Zantop brought to Dartmouth College has made it difficult for colleagues to accept how the couple's lives could have ended in a double homicide.

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SAN JOSE, Calif. -- A man who was barricaded inside his condominium with his young son for almost 12 hours after shooting his wife and daughter surrendered early Tuesday to authorities, police said.

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) -- Two people were killed and 15 others injured when a homemade bomb exploded during a fight between rival gangs in southern Vietnam, police said Monday. Bombings in public places are extremely rare in Vietnam, where possession of weapons and explosives are strictly banned.

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Israeli helicopters fired rockets at Palestinian targets in Gaza City on Monday, witnesses said, hours after a bomb attack on a school bus that killed two Israelis and injured nine others.

VOLCANO, Hawaii (AP) -- Authorities aren't sure what killed two hikers whose bodies were recovered Monday near an active lava flow in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, but say they may have bypassed posted warning signs.

LONDON (AP) -- Fresh storms over Britain brought flooding and high winds Monday, killing two motorists in western England. The driver was critically injured and two passengers killed near Tenbury Wells when a tree struck their car, police said.

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NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - An Israeli and a Palestinian were killed Thursday in a firefight that raged for hours between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian gunmen on a hillside near the West Bank town of Nablus.

The victims of two fatal train accidents which took place within two hours of each other last night in San Mateo County have been identified. Caltrain officials report that the first accident occurred at 4:50 p.m. in San Bruno when a 16-year-old boy walked around a lowered crossing gate at the Caltrain tracks on San Mateo Avenue.

SAN JOSE - The San Jose Police Department reports today that a 74-year-old San Jose man was killed while trying to cross a street. Polelei Sialesci died from his injuries at San Jose Columbia Medical Center following a car accident at S. White Road and Alum Rock Avenue at 8:53 p.m. yesterday.

PENIPE, Ecuador (Reuters) - Two people were killed and 16 reported missing on Friday after central Ecuador's extinct El Altar volcano unleashed a massive landslide that destroyed several homes, the Red Cross said.

DILI, East Timor (AP) -- A U.N. peacekeeping helicopter crashed in East Timor on Tuesday, killing two Portuguese soldiers. Barbara Reis, spokeswoman for the U.N. administration in East Timor, said the French-made Alouette-3 helicopter crashed at Same, 35 miles southeast of the capital, Dili.

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REDWOOD CITY - Law enforcement authorities at the scene of a murder-suicide on northbound U.S. Highway 101 in Redwood City this morning say a tow truck driver witnessed the shooting.

WHITTIER, Calif. (AP) -- A gunman armed with an automatic weapon opened fire early Thursday morning and struck one police officer with multiple rounds before being killed by police, officials said.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The bodies of two Marine Corps aviators were recovered in the wreckage of an F/A-18D Hornet jet fighter that collided Monday with another Hornet in the skies near Yuma, Ariz., the Marine Corps announced.

LAS VEGAS (AP) -- The bodies of two boys buried in a pile of dirt in a rugged desert wash have been recovered near Kingman, Ariz. Crews used shovels and a backhoe to extricate the victims Monday after a citizen reported discovering an arm sticking out of a pile of fresh dirt in the wash, said Mohave County Sheriff's spokesman Steve Johnson.

FORT PIERCE, Fla. (AP) -- Two small planes collided Monday and crashed in a grove, killing at least two people. No injuries were reported on the ground. The collision took place two miles from the St. Lucie International Airport. The planes went down about about 100 feet from each other.

BUNKER, Mo. (AP) -- A man who was apparently upset with city workers shot two people to death and wounded two others, including a city marshal, on Thursday morning, the Missouri State Highway Patrol said.

BIDWELL, Ohio (AP) -- A woman employee was shot to death at an elementary school Tuesday before students arrived, authorities said. Classes were canceled after the shooting at Bidwell Porter Elementary School. The shooting appeared to be the result of a domestic dispute, Gallia County Sheriff J.D. Taylor said. No students were in the building at the time. The woman's husband was found dead later.

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BELFAST (Reuters) - British troops will return to the streets of Belfast following the murder of two men with links to pro-British loyalist guerrilla groups, police in Northern Ireland said Monday.

WISCONSIN DELLS, Wis. (Reuters) - Two police officers were killed in a helicopter crash as they returned from a successful manhunt for a man suspected of killing his girlfriend, a Chicago policewoman, police said Friday.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- A man killed himself by jumping off the Bay Bridge a day after his girlfriend 's body was found along a remote coastal highway. Darion Sable, 23, jumped off an approach to the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge on Tuesday, falling about 100 feet before landing on pavement in a fenced-in area, police spokesman Dewayne Tully said.

WOODLAWN, Md. (AP) -- A cinder block wall collapsed at a construction site Wednesday afternoon, killing two workers and injuring three others. Rescuers used a thermal-imaging camera to look through the rubble to see if any people were trapped, but ``we think we've accounted for everybody,'' said Alonza Williams, a spokesman for the Baltimore County fire department.

LEWISTON, Calif. (AP) -- A missing Trinity County couple was found shot to death near their car, just 500 yards from their quiet mountain home. Trinity County sheriff's deputies say they are unsure why the couple was killed and who would want them dead.

HONG KONG (AP) -- A mainland Chinese migrant and a Hong Kong immigration officer died Friday from injuries suffered in a blaze set last week in a sensational confrontation at Hong Kong's immigration headquarters.

SUVA, Fiji (AP) -- Supporters of Fiji's coup rebels shot and killed two officers and injured three others in an apparent ambush Tuesday outside the capital, the military said. Authorities were investigating whether a joint army and police patrol was deliberately lured into a trap on the outskirts of Suva, where gunmen opened fire without warning, military spokesman Lt. Col. Filipo Tarakinikini said.

TOKYO, Aug 8 (Reuters) - Japanese police on Tuesday arrested six men they identified as ``yakuza'' gangsters who took part in an attack on a rival gang on Monday in which two people were killed and six wounded.

SUVA, Aug 8 (Reuters) - A policeman and a soldier were shot dead and three other soldiers were wounded in an apparent ambush by Fiji nationalist rebels on Tuesday, Fiji's military said.

WOODACRE, Calif. (AP) -- The former wife of blues guitarist Elvin Bishop and her boyfriend were found shot to death in a studio apartment in this tiny Marin County town, authorities said.

AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) -- A former state senator and his wife died Friday when their single-engine plane crashed during takeoff on a flight to Maine, where the couple had a vacation home.

BARSTOW, Calif. (AP) -- Two men in an offroad vehicle were killed in a head-on crash with another vehicle on a remote Mojave Desert trail, the California Highway Patrol said.

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GLENDALE, Calif. (AP) -- The bodies of two teen-age boys were found Sunday evening in a Glendale elementary school yard, authorities said. The bodies were discovered at 8:07 p.m. when a resident noticed the youths lying on the grounds of Valley View Elementary School, said Agent Rodney Brooks of the Glendale Police Department.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- Part of a rowhouse under renovation collapsed Monday, killing the co-owner of a mom-and-pop store on the ground floor. A worker was injured and a second one was missing.

ORLANDO, Fla. (Reuters) - A three-day hostage stand-off at a home in an Orlando subdivision ended in bloodshed Monday when an armed ex-convict shot himself and one of three people he had been holding died, police said.

TIJUANA, Mexico (AP) -- A son of a local political party leader was kidnapped in this violence-plagued border city and two other victims -- one the son of a well-known singer -- were found slain.

HONIARA, Solomon Islands (AP) -- Hooded gunmen walked into a hospital in the Solomon Islands' capital Monday and shot two patients to death, witnesses said, in the latest attack in the Pacific nation's deadly ethnic dispute.

KATI, Malaysia, July 6 (Reuters) - Shadowy gunmen who raided two army weapons depots before killing two hostages surrendered on Thursday after Malaysian security forces issued an ultimatum to end the five-day standoff.

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WASHINGTON (AP) -- A car jumped a curb and careened onto a sidewalk near the National Zoo on Friday, killing a woman and a toddler in a stroller and injuring two other people, authorities said.

FRAIJANES, Guatemala (Reuters) - Guatemala performed its first state executions in two years Thursday, giving lethal injections to two gang members for kidnapping and killing an elderly member of the nation's sugar elite.

BAGHDAD, June 28 (Reuters) - A man believed to be protesting against sanctions on Iraq opened fire at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation's mission in Baghdad on Wednesday, killing two people and wounding as many as seven others.

NEW YORK (AP) -- An apartment fire possibly started by candles used during a Jewish holiday killed a Hasidic leader's granddaughter and baby great-granddaughter early Friday. Sarah Blima Halverstam and her 5-month-old daughter, Chaya Esther, died in the 3:45 a.m. blaze in Brooklyn.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (Reuters) - Law enforcement officials were searching for more bodies Tuesday after identifying a Kansas man known on the Internet as the ``slavemaster'' as a suspect in the deaths of two women whose remains were found buried in 55-gallon drums over the weekend.

AURORA, Colo. -- High school teacher Charles Crihfield had argued with his neighbor over parking spaces for at least two months. On Sunday, police said, Crihfield and his 14-year-old daughter, Cristina, were killed over the dispute as they backed out of their garage.

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Residents of a southwest Colombian town chased and killed two bank robbers, who had struck twice in a week, and returned $14,000 in stolen cash to the bank, a newspaper said Monday.

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WALKERTON, Ontario (AP) -- An E. coli outbreak in a Canadian farming town has claimed the lives of two more patients, bringing the death toll to at least seven. Officials said two earlier deaths may also be linked, and hundreds more have been infected.

FREETOWN (Reuters) - Two Nigerian peacekeepers were shot dead and third critically wounded early Monday in gunfights with former Sierra Leone Army (SLA) soldiers trying to free an arrested a comrade, U.N. sources said.

VALLEJO, Calif. (AP) -- A 6-year-old boy woke up, walked out to a front room and found the body of his mother and another woman in the mother's home, Vallejo police said.

TODOS SANTOS, Guatemala (AP) -- Satan worshippers -- a cult from abroad that planned to sacrifice children in the local soccer field -- were coming. Almost everyone in this little mountain town was sure of it. // So when a sleek bus with tinted windows arrived filled with Japanese tourists -- pale-skilled people in dark clothing, their faces covered to protect against the sun -- villagers thought their nightmare had come true. // One Japanese tourist and a bus driver died in the mayhem that followed, victims of a hysteria fueled by rumors and fears of outsiders.

MILTON, Fla.,(Reuters) - Two navy flyers were killed on Tuesday when their plane crashed in a rural area in southern Alabama during a training flight, the U.S. Navy said. The two-seater T-34C Turbo Mentor crashed 30 miles north of its base at Naval Air Station Whiting Field in Milton, Florida.

MELBOURNE, April 30 (Reuters) - Two elderly women have died from legionnaire's disease and 29 other cases have been confirmed in the second worst outbreak of the disease in Australia's history, health officials said on Sunday.

SANDY, Utah (AP) -- A gunman killed two people and wounded at least three others during a rampage at a hotel and nearby restaurant in this community south of Salt Lake City.

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VILLA RICA, Ga. (Reuters) - A gun-loving newlywed who set his wife on fire before killing himself in a standoff with Georgia police had donated weapons to the SWAT teams sent to arrest him, police said Thursday.

LINCOLN PARK, Mich. (AP) -- A tenant in a senior citizens' apartment shot two women to death this morning after fellow residents criticized his inappropriate language, authorities said. The gunman remained at large early this afternoon as tenants were told to stay in their apartments. Police cordoned off an area around the building.

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Friends and relatives of a family smitten by tragedy gathered in a small Hollister apartment Tuesday, mournfully studying old snapshots and trying to make sense of a car crash in which a mother and young son were killed by an alleged drunken driver.

TENNGA, Ga. (AP) -- A train slammed into a school bus this morning at an unmarked crossing near the Georgia-Tennessee line, splitting it in two and killing two children. The five other elementary school pupils on board were critically injured.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Two young American women were found slain in Cahuita, Costa Rica, under circumstances under investigation in the Caribbean country, a State Department spokesman said today. The women were found with gunshot wounds in the head. They were 19 years old. The families have been notified, but identification is being withheld pending the investigation, the spokesman said.

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LITTLETON, Colo. (AP) -- Two Columbine High School students were found dead early today after a shooting at a sandwich shop about two blocks south of the school, authorities said.

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Sisters Die After Liposuction. BOGOTA (Reuters) Two young Colombian sisters who underwent liposuction together to get rid of some extra pounds wound up paying for the surgery with their lives.

Detained Falun Gongers die. HONG KONG (AP) - A member of the Falun Gong sect has died in Chinese custody in the southern city of Guangzhou while on hunger strike after being severely beaten & tied up by police. Another Falun Gong believer died while in custody in a police station in suburban Beijing.

SEATTLE (AP) -- A fierce windstorm battered the Pacific Northwest, knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of people, closing highways and killing two men. Electrical service had been restored to most customers by today.

A Newark woman who killed her female companion and herself last week was prompted by a custody squabble over a baby and jealousy over a new relationship, police said on Wednesday.

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) -- The wreckage of a police helicopter has been found in a field in rural Stanislaus County this morning, about 12 hours after it disappeared in bad weather. // The pilot and a passenger, both San Francisco police officers, were presumed dead. Their names have not been released.

ALAMO, Calif. (AP) -- A family fought back against two home invaders with everything from frying pans to a handgun in a battle that ended with the homeowner and a suspect dead, and three others hospitalized, authorities said.

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Heroic try fails to save two in fire // Neighbor crawls through smoke after flames engulf S.J. house // Scott and Sheila Eagle were at home when they heard popping sounds and saw flames shooting out the window of the house next door. While his wife called 911, Scott Eagle ran over and kicked in the front door.

Billionaire banker killed. (BBC) One of the world's richest men, Edmond Safra, suffocated in his Monaco apartment in a fire set by 2 attackers. His nurse was also killed in the fire.

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DENVER (AP) -- The decapitated bodies of two apparently homeless men have been found less than a week after arrests were made in five recent beating deaths of transients. The bodies were found Wednesday after a homeless person spotted one of the corpses in a weed-covered field behind Union Station, Denver's main railroad station.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) -- The Navy has identified two aviators killed Sunday when their jet crashed into the Persian Gulf moments after launching off the carrier USS John F. Kennedy.

SEATTLE -- A gunman opened fire today in a commercial building, killing two people and wounding two others. A search was under way for the attacker. Police used dogs in the hunt through the largely residential Wallingford neighborhood. At least a dozen schools in the area north of downtown Seattle were locked down with the children inside while the search continued, police said.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) -- Gunmen killed a Tamil member of Sri Lanka's parliament and his driver today, surrounding his van from three sides on a Colombo street and pumping bullets through the windows.

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NEW YORK (AP) -- Federal authorities are investigating whether contaminated hog dogs are to blame for two deaths and at least six illnesses. More than 2 million pounds of frankfurters have been recalled.

MOODY AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. (AP) -- Investigators are examining the wreckage of a Navy Blue Angels jet to determine why its landing approach during a clear noon hour ended in a stand of pines, killing its two crewmen.

COLTS NECK, N.J. (AP) -- Two stockbrokers were found shot to death at the estate where one lived with his girlfriend, and authorities had few leads in what they consider an ``execution.''

Frantically trying to avoid motorists and pedestrians, the pilot of San Jose's only police helicopter managed to crash-land the crippled chopper Monday on the busy Alameda without injuring anyone on the ground. But he and the mechanic on board were killed.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq said two people were killed and seven wounded Monday when Western warplanes attacked sites in the northern no-fly zone. ``Nine hostile formations ..flew over the provinces of Duhok, Arbil, Nineveh and the crows (planes) attacked our civilian and service installations leading to martyrdom of two citizens and the injury of seven others,'' the official Iraqi News Agency quoted an Iraqi military spokesman as saying.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) -- A commuter train plowed into the rear of a freight train near Johannesburg today, killing at least two people and injuring more than a dozen, police said.

DILI, East Timor (AP) -- In their first clash with an anti-independence militia group since arriving in East Timor, peacekeepers shot and killed two militiamen today during a failed ambush, the leader of the international force said.

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PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (AP) -- Attackers fired two rifle-propelled grenades into a suburban market packed with shoppers today, killing two Serbs and injuring 39 other people, NATO said. The attack occurred in the outdoor market in Kosovo Polje, just west of the provincial capital of Pristina, said Emma Salle, spokeswoman of Britain's Irish Guards. Several people were detained for questioning, she said.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- A plane that left California over a week ago for Utah has been found with the pilot and passenger killed. Joseph Burton, of Petaluma, Calif., and his female passenger left Petaluma on Sept. 18 and headed for Bryce Canyon National Park in southern Utah. The name of the dead woman was unavailable.

MARJAYOUN, Lebanon (AP) -- Israeli warplanes pounded suspected guerrilla bases in southern Lebanon on Tuesday shortly after two pro-Israeli militiamen were killed in a guerrilla attack, Lebanese security officials said.

DONJE BUDRIGA, Yugoslavia (AP) -- Explosions rocked the American sector of eastern Kosovo, killing two people and injuring four, NATO said today. A private Serb news agency described the incident as a mortar attack on two Serb villages.

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JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Two elderly South African women have been stabbed to death with spears after they were accused of practicing witchcraft, police said Wednesday.

RIYADH, Aug 20 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia on Friday beheaded an Afghan man and a Nigerian man for smuggling drugs to the kingdom, the official news agency SPA reported. It quoted Interior Ministry statements as saying the Afghan national had been sentenced to death for trafficking heroin, while the Nigerian man had smuggled cocaine.

JUNEAU, Alaska -- A single-engine plane barely cleared a row of trees near a popular boat launch Sunday night before banking and slamming into a wooded hillside, witnesses and authorities said. Both people on board were killed.

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- A man wanted in Fremont, Calif., on charges of molesting a 14-year-old girl fatally shot himself in a cemetery after confessing to police that he had killed his girlfriend two days earlier.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) -- A flotilla of skiffs carrying Russian Eskimos home from a visit to Alaska ran into a storm that sank one boat and capsized three others. Two people drowned and six were missing.

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MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) -- Two toddlers sent to separate day-care facilities died within an hour of each other after both were left in vans for hours in 90-degree heat. Darnecia Slater, 22 months, was dead when paramedics arrived at the Children's Palace Learning Center on Wednesday afternoon. Brandon Mann, 2, was alive when authorities got to the Pee Wee Wisdom Learning Center, but he died about an hour later.

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - Two teen-age boys suspected of killing the parents of one of the youths were found dead in an apparent murder-suicide, police said Tuesday. The bodies of Shawn Miller, 16 and Gerald Davis, 13, were found Monday night in nearby Bastrop County close to a car belonging to Miller's dead parents, said Travis County Sheriff Margo Frasier.

REDDING -- Two Shasta County brothers were charged Monday with murdering a Happy Valley gay couple in what prosecutors described as a hate crime. Benjamin Matthew Williams, 31, and James Tyler Williams, 29, could face the death penalty if convicted in the deaths of Gary Matson and Winfield Mowder, who were shot to death in their home July 1. The brothers, who are being held without bail at the Shasta County jail, were scheduled to be arraigned this afternoon in superior court.

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (AP) -- Two U.S. soldiers in Kosovo were killed and three suffered minor injuries when their armored personnel carrier overturned, a spokesman for the NATO-led peacekeeping force said today.

SAN BERNARDINO NATIONAL FOREST, Calif. -- A flash flood sent a wall of mud and water tearing through a mountain hamlet, killing two people and washing cabins into a swollen creek.

OSLO, Norway (AP) -- A fire and explosion in a highway tunnel under construction in Norway killed two firefighters and injured 15 other people, officials said Tuesday. Two people were reported missing.

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U.S. Marines manning a checkpoint in Kosovo came under fire today from unidentified assailants and then returned fire, killing two people, the commander of U.S. forces in Kosovo said. No Marines were injured, Army Brig. Gen. John Craddock said in an interview from his Kosovo headquarters with reporters at the Pentagon. He said the confrontation began about noon EDT and was continuing.

HAMBURG, Germany (AP) -- Two journalists killed in southern Kosovo by gunmen were identified today by the weekly newsmagazine Stern as a staff photographer and reporter. The German magazine said the reporting team's translator was missing.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Police are investigating the shooting deaths of a popular writer of romance novels and her estranged husband as a murder-suicide. Novelist Nancy Richards-Akers was fatally shot -- apparently by her estranged husband, Jeremy Akers, who police said took his own life a few hours later in front of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the National Mall.

RENO, Nev. (AP) -- A 7-year-old California boy has become the latest victim to die of injuries suffered in a head-on collision over the weekend. James Wedemeyer died Tuesday at Washoe Medical Center from injuries he received in the Saturday crash that also killed his mother, the Washoe County Sheriff's Office said.

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KABUL, May 20 (Reuters) - At least two people were killed in an opposition rocket attack on the Afghan capital Kabul on Thursday, residents said. An eight year-old boy was one of the two killed by shrapnel from one of more than 15 short-range rockets apparently fired by opposition commander Ahmad Shah Masood's forces dug in some 25 km (15 miles) north of Kabul.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Three tornadoes have touched down in western Iowa, killing two people, injuring 14 others and completely wiping out some area farms, authorities said Monday. ``We had some pretty major storms go through our area and some major property damage'' late Sunday, said Terry Baxter, sheriff of Harrison County located about 30 miles north of Omaha, Neb.

SAN JOSE (AP) -- A Georgia man burned over most of his body when a hot-air balloon crashed into a power line died today, four days after his wife died of her injuries.

COSTA MESA, Calif. -- A driver in an old Cadillac plowed through the fence of a preschool playground Monday -- apparently on purpose -- killing two children and injuring four others and a teacher's aide, police said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq said two people were killed and 12 injured in Western air attacks against northern Iraq Monday. ``One of our civil sites was attacked today by long-distance guided weapons and the bombing led to martyrdom of two civilian citizens and the injury of 12 others,'' the Iraqi News Agency INA quoted a military spokesman as saying.

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LONDON (AP) -- An explosion ripped through a crowded gay pub in central London this evening, killing two people and injuring more than two dozen, police said. ``I am afraid there are two dead,'' Alan Fry, head of Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist squad, said near the scene of the blast in London's Old Compton Street.

DAYTON, Ohio -- Rhythm and blues singer Roger Troutman, the mastermind behind funk hits such as ``More Bounce to the Ounce'' with his family group, has been shot to death, apparently by his brother in a murder-suicide, police said Monday.

PHILADELPHIA, (Reuters) - A 39-year-old man has been arrested for murdering his two sons, 13 years after the boys died in a fire that swept through their northeast Philadelphia rowhouse, police said Friday.

SIDNEY, Neb. (AP) -- Two young members of a California family were killed in an early Sunday traffic accident near Sidney. Sunny Hussain-Salim, 14, and Nida Hussain-Salim, 11, of San Jose, Calif., were killed when the driver of the van they were in apparently fell asleep and the van crashed, the Nebraska State Patrol said.

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JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) -- Muslims and Christians clashed in eastern Indonesia today, rioting through the streets and damaging homes, witnesses and news reports said. At least two people were killed.

KANKAKEE, Ill. (AP) -- A kidney dialysis patient shot a nurse three times before killing himself after the two argued about whether he could have something to drink during his treatment, authorities said.

(2/99)

EVOLENE, Switzerland (AP) -- Two people were killed and several others were missing after two avalanches in a valley of the southern Swiss Alps, police said today. The avalanches hit Sunday evening between the villages of Evolene and Les Hauderes, sweeping away several chalets, state police said.

ENCINITAS, Calif. (AP) -- Two Marines were killed and a third was critically injured Sunday when their car slammed into the center divider on Interstate 5, crossed the highway and landed upside down.

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombia offered a large cash reward today for information leading to the capture of suspected right-wing paramilitaries who killed two human rights workers over the weekend. The murders, the latest in a string of recent attacks, prompted rights groups throughout the country to accuse the government of turning a blind eye to paramilitary atrocities.

(1/99)

CEDAR HILL, Texas (AP) -- One stuntman was killed and another was injured today during filming of a stunt for the television show ``Walker, Texas Ranger.'' The incident involved a sport utility vehicle that jumped a ramp while being chased at Cedar Hill State Park southeast of Dallas.

(12/98)

SEATTLE (AP) -- Melanie Edwards had filed for divorce, obtained a protective order against her estranged husband and moved to a secret location. But police say those safeguards failed to save her or her 2-year-old daughter. The two were shot to death Wednesday night, and police continued an intensive manhunt today for the suspect -- her estranged husband, Carlton Lee Edwards.

GILLETTE, Wyo. (AP) -- Cheryl and John Trover returned home from a Friday night out with friends. John got ready for bed. Cheryl had other plans. Mrs. Trover, a high school math teacher, wife and 37-year-old mother of two, had murder on her mind. She had plotted her moves for months, and this was the night. It was to be John's last.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- Two people were killed today when a large tool bin fell from a crane and plunged through several floors of a 30-story office building under construction. The victims at the Piper Jaffray project were construction workers, according to broadcast reports. Police said no other injuries were reported.

(10/98)

CHINA LAKE, Calif. (AP) -- A German Air Force fighter jet crashed during a test flight at the sprawling China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station, killing both people aboard and injuring six people on the ground.

SSAU, Bahamas (AP) -- The Bahamas hanged a convicted murderer today, one of two men it sent to the gallows despite a last-minute appeal and international opposition. The dozen or so people outside the prison on the outskirts of Nassau showed no emotion when an official posted a notice announcing that Trevor Fisher, 28, was executed at 8 a.m.

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) -- A man allegedly shot a policeman to death today while leading officers on a chase, and was killed nearly three hours later during a standoff.

BANNING, Calif. (AP) -- After calming through the night, the season's first Santa Ana winds were expected to pick up early today, fanning a 21,000-acre wildfire that forced more than 1,000 people from their homes and resulted in the deaths of a tanker pilot and a fire captain.

KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) -- Two Pakistani political leaders were shot and killed today in this troubled port city where 600 people have died this year in ethnic violence. Gunmen opened fire on a car carrying senior members of the Muttiheda Qami Movement, or United People's Movement. The group represents Indian Muslims who settled in Pakistan in 1947 after the subcontinent gained independence from Britain.

(9/98)

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- A small turbo prop was two miles off course and flying below recommended minimum altitude when it smacked into a cliff on St. George Island and killed two prominent Anchorage pilots, according to preliminary findings of an National Transportation Safety Board investigation.

EL BIREH, West Bank (AP) -- Hundreds of Hamas supporters today stoned Israeli soldiers guarding a Jewish settlement and exhorted the group's bombmakers to ``blow up Tel Aviv'' in as how of anger over Israel's killing of two Hamas fugitives. // The stone throwers had broken away from a Hamas rally in El Bireh to protest Israel's Sept. 11 killing of Imad and Adel Awadallah, two fugitive members of the militant Islamic group.

HAVANA, (Reuters) - Hurricane Georges swept westward across Cuba on Thursday, claiming at least two victims, and inflicting widespread flooding and damage on the Caribbean island's eastern provinces. Authorities said a 61-year-old woman died in the early hours when she left her house in Las Tunas province and stepped on a live electric cable brought down by high winds. A 56-year-old man was also electrocuted in the province of Granma after driving over a wire on a motorbike.

BLACK MOUNTAIN, N.C. (AP) -- A factory worker was ordered held without bond today on two counts of first-degree murder and three counts of attempted murder following a shooting rampage at a furniture parts plant.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) -- Searchers have recovered the body of a television reporter who fell off a boat during an assignment on the St. Johns River. The body of Hope Bartlett, 23, a reporter at WJXX-TV, was found Thursday evening more than a day after the accident that also killed the boat's owner, Willie L. Simmonds.