Senior officer is assassinated

DAMASCUS - Syrian officials attended the funeral yesterday of a senior security officer whose killing has shaken the tightly controlled country. Brigadier General Mohammad Suleiman, 49, was killed Saturday at a beach resort near the port city of Tartous, residents said. It was the first known assassination in Syria since the killing of Hezbollah commander Imad Moughniyah in Damascus in February. A Syrian opposition website said Suleiman, a confidant of President Bashar al-Assad, had been shot in the head in his seaside villa. Local media did not report the killing. Israeli media said Suleiman was a key figure in an alleged nuclear program that the United States accused Syria of pursuing after Israel raided a site in eastern Syria last year. (Reuters)

LONDON - A newlywed shot on the last day of his Caribbean honeymoon has died, a British hospital said yesterday. Morriston Hospital in Swansea, Wales, said brain stem tests showed that Benjamin Mullany - comatose since he was shot in the head in Antigua last week - was dead. He had been on life support systems. His bride, Catherine Mullany, was shot and killed in the same attack. Her body was flown home Friday. The couple were attacked July 27 in their cottage at a resort in the island's southwest. No arrests have been made, although Britain's Press Association said 31 people have been questioned. (AP)

MOGADISHU - A bomb hidden under a pile of garbage killed at least 20 people, half of them women who were sweeping the street in Somalia's capital, witnesses and doctors said yesterday. The explosion and overnight attacks on military bases ended a brief period of relative calm that followed the signing of a peace deal between the government and the Islamic insurgency it is fighting. The agreement was already in jeopardy after the moderate cleric who signed it on behalf of the Islamic opposition movement was replaced by a hard-liner. (AP)

BEIJING - An attack on a border patrol station on the country's western frontier has killed 16 police officers, the Chinese news service Xinhua reported. The assailants used a dump truck to ram their way into the paramilitary police station in Kashi and then tossed two hand grenades. Xinhua did not identify the attackers. The area is home to a Muslim Turkic people, the Uighurs, who have waged a simmering rebellion against Chinese rule. The attack comes four days before the Olympics open in Beijing. (AP)

OSLO - A lightning bolt struck 91 auto racing fans at a racetrack in Norway yesterday, and 45 people were taken to hospital with minor burns, police said. The lightning hit a hill where spectators at the rallycross, a form of sprint-style racing, were sitting. The race, a national championship, was called off after the incident. (AP)