UPI NewsTrack TopNews

Brown says Britain defeating Taliban

LONDON, July 12 (UPI) -- British Prime Minister Gordon Brown says the Taliban must be defeated in Afghanistan to avoid more terrorist acts on the streets of his country.

"There is a line of terror -- what you might call a chain of terror -- that links what's happening in Afghanistan and Pakistan to the streets of Britain," Brown said Saturday.

Brown sought to shore up support for the war after the death of 15 British soldiers so far this month in Afghanistan, the BBC reported Sunday. Under Operation Panther's Claw, British troops are trying to drive the Taliban from central Helmand province.

"I think the operation we are engaged with is showing signs of success," Brown said. "Our troops are making progress as they attempt to make the area safe."

Critics of Britain's war strategy contend the country's 9,000 troops in Afghanistan urgently need more helicopters and heavily armored vehicles, The Sunday Telegraph reported.

Brown has defended the government's overall strategy and its record on providing equipment.

Iranians released from Iraq return home

TEHRAN, July 12 (UPI) -- Five Iranian men held by U.S. forces in Iraq since 2007 returned to Tehran's Mehrabad Airport Sunday, authorities said.

The men, who said they were diplomats, were released Thursday after the U.S. military handed responsibility for them to the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Iran's state-run Press TV reported Sunday.

The men had been detained in January 2007 in Irbil in the northern Kurdish region of Iraq.

The U.S. military had accused, but never charged, the men with providing money, weapons, bomb technology and guerrilla training to insurgents in Iraq, CNN reported Sunday. The men were suspected members of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force, U.S. military officials told CNN.

Last month, the Iraqi government freed Laith al-Khazali, an Iranian-linked militiaman detained in the March 2007 killing of five U.S. soldiers in Karbala.

Five killed in Mexican drug violence

MORELIA, Mexico, July 12 (UPI) -- Three police officers and two soldiers were killed in Mexico in retribution for the arrest of a prominent drug cartel leader, authorities said.

An additional 18 federal officers were wounded in shootings that occurred Saturday in at least eight Mexican cities, CNN reported.

The attacks were retribution for the capture of Arnoldo Rueda Medina, a leader of the La Familia Michoacana cartel, federal police official Rodolfo Cruz Lopez told state-run Notimex news.

Gunmen Saturday attacked the police station in Morelia, Mochoacan, where Medina was being held, but failed to win his freedom, Lopez said.

Later in the day, suspected members of the cartel attacked soldiers and police in Morelia, Zitacuaro, Zamora, Lazaro Cardenas, Apatzingan, La Piedad and Huetamo in Michoacan, police said, noting three officers died Saturday in Zitacuaro and two soldiers died in Zamora.

In Tijuana, gang members Saturday threatened to kill five officers a week until Police Chief Julian Leyzaola resigns, CNN reported. Three officers have been killed there since last Monday.

Leyzaola, a former army colonel, replaced a police chief who resigned in December after numerous death threats.

Shuttle Endeavour cleared for fueling

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., July 12 (UPI) -- U.S. space shuttle Endeavour's external fuel tanks were to be filled for a Sunday night launch in Florida after lightning strikes delayed liftoff, NASA said.

The Mission Management Team OK'd the fueling after evaluating the shuttle's systems Saturday, NASA said in a statement.

While none of the strikes from a passing storm Friday hit the shuttle, two were strong enough to warrant the evaluation and delay the launch, NASA spokesman Mike Moses said.

"We need to be 100 percent confident that we have a good system across the board," Moses said.

Endeavour's 16-day mission is to include five space walks and construction of a Japanese space laboratory.

Five dead in Delhi bridge accident

NEW DELHI, July 12 (UPI) -- Five people died and 15 were injured Sunday in the collapse of a bridge under construction in New Delhi, authorities said.

Concrete slabs buried the workers at a construction site for the city's metro rail network, authorities told CNN.

The slabs collapsed when a metal support beam gave way, Metro Rail Corp. spokesman Anuj Dayal told the U.S. broadcast news service.

Construction on new metro lines has been stepped up in advance of the city being host to the Commonwealth Games next year.

In October, part of another under-construction metro bridge collapsed in the city, pinning a bus and killing its driver.