Raid kills five tied to Al Qaeda

SANAA - Five suspected members of Al Qaeda were killed and two arrested in a clash after police stormed a hide-out in a southern Yemeni town yesterday, provincial officials said. Two Yemeni policemen were killed and four wounded in the shoot-out in Tarim, the officials said. "The militants opened fire and used hand grenades," one provincial official told Reuters. The Yemen Soldiers Brigades, an Al Qaeda-linked group, claimed responsibility for a suicide car bomb attack that killed two people at a police complex last month. (Reuters)

NOUAKCHOTT - Mauritania's prime minister was released yesterday as junta leaders bowed to international pressure after a coup that prompted the United States to cut off more than $20 million in aid. But the junta was still holding the president and said it had no immediate plans to release him. The army-led "state council" had freed Prime Minister Yahya Ould Ahmed Waqef and three other key allies of President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi. The release followed lobbying by the ambassadors of the United States, France, Germany, and Spain who met with the coup leader late Sunday, according to a diplomat who asked not to be named. (AP)

JERUSALEM - Israel said it would shut its border crossings with the Gaza Strip today in response to a rocket attack that further strained a cease-fire between the Jewish state and Gaza militants. The rocket fired from the Gaza Strip yesterday struck near the center of Sderot, a town in southern Israel often targeted by militants, causing no injuries, Israeli police said. (Reuters)