More US troops set to go to Afghanistan

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon is preparing to send at least 3,000 Marines to Afghanistan in April to bolster efforts to hold off another expected Taliban offensive in the spring, military officials said yesterday. The move represents a shift in Pentagon thinking that has been slowly developing after months of repeated insistence that the United States was not inclined to fill the need for as many as 7,500 more troops that commanders have asked for there. Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said yesterday that a proposal will go before Gates tomorrow that would send a ground and air Marine contingent as well as a Marine battalion - together totaling more than 3,000 forces - to southern Afghanistan for a "one-time, seven-month deployment." (AP)

LONDON - British police and animal welfare authorities rescued 84 neglected horses yesterday from a farm where 31 horses, ponies, and donkeys had been found dead, officials said. Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals officials were called to the farm in Amersham, 35 miles west of London, last week. A 44-year-old man was arrested for allegedly assaulting a police officer and causing criminal damage, police said. (AP)

COLOMBO - Sri Lankan soldiers pushed across the front lines and captured rebel-held territory as heavy artillery and mortar battles across the north left 47 people dead, the military said yesteday. Fighting has escalated around the Tamil Tigers rebels' de facto state in the north since the government last week officially pulled out of a long-ignored cease-fire. Police commandos, meanwhile, shot and killed the top rebel leader in eastern Sri Lanka, military spokesman Udaya Nanayakkara said. He said the rebel leader, identified as Shankar, had been hiding among civilians in the east. (AP)