Pakistanis offer prayers as they prepare for the burial of unidentified militants killed in the siege of the Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, Thursday, July 12, 2007 in Islamabad, Pakistan. About 2,000 people gathered Thursday for the funeral of the defiant cleric killed in the army assault on Islamabad’s Red Mosque, while dozens of suspected militants were placed in temporary graves in the capital.
Female fighters of Tamil Tigers walk back to their base after guarding entry points close to Kilinochchi, about 270 kilometers (169 miles) northeast of Colombo, Sri Lanka, Thursday, July 12, 2007. Sri Lankan troops seized the last Tamil Tiger rebel base in the volatile east, a triumph that gave the government control of the region for the first time in 13 years, the army chief said. The Tigers, however, warned Sri Lanka’s military the fight was far from finished despite their announcement Wednesday that they had captured the Thoppigala base. “If they are coming into our territory, they will find stiff resistance from our people,” said Rasiah Ilanthirayan, the Tigers’ military spokesman.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, left, bids farewell to European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana after their meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris, Thursday, July 12, 2007.
Iraqi boys pick through rubble after an overnight raid in the Azamiyah neighborhood by U.S. troops Thursday, July 12, 2007, in Baghdad, Iraq. Neighbors in the Sunni enclave say U.S. soldiers used explosives to gain entry to a building containing several shops, destroying the building and a nearby home.
Israeli soldiers guard blindfolded and handcuffed Palestinians, arrested during an Israeli army operation inside the Gaza Strip, at the Israel Gaza border Thursday , July 12, 2007. Israeli troops and Palestinian militants clashed in the Gaza Strip before dawn Thursday and one soldier was killed in an operation against “terror threats.”
Filipino marines look at the flag-draped coffins of their slain comrades during a wake at a Catholic chapel inside a naval base in Zamboanga City in southern Philippines Thursday July 12, 2007. Fourteen marines were killed, ten of them beheaded, and 9 others wounded when they were ambushed by heavily armed Muslim insurgents in nearby Tipo Tipo on the island province of Basilan as the marines were combing the jungles for kidnapped Italian Catholic priest Giancarlo Bossi Tuesday. The military said at least 300 al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf militants, joined by “lawless groups,” ambushed the heavily outnumbered marines.
Abdulla Khodor, a barber, is treated for gunshot wounds at a hospital in Kirkuk, 290 kilometers (180 miles) north of Baghdad, Iraq Thursday, July 12, 2007. The attack on several barbershops in nearby Hawija was the latest in a spate of attacks by extremists on providers of “un-Islamic” hairstyles.
Palestinian citizens, kissing each other upon their arrival at the Bedawi refugee camp, after they fled from the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr el-Bared, in the northern city of Tripoli, Lebanon, Wednesday July 11, 2007. At least 150 Palestinians fled their north Lebanon refugee camp on Wednesday in anticipation of an assault by the Lebanese army battling Islamic militants holed up inside.
A worker sews election campaign flags for the Democrat Party or DP in a workshop in Istanbul, Turkey, Thursday, July 12, 2007. The general elections in Turkey are scheduled to be held on July 22.
A South Korean workers unties rope from a South Korean ship, Han Chang, carrying heavy oil leaves for North Korea at a port in Ulsan, southeast of Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, July 12, 2007. South Korea sent a shipload of oil to North Korea on Thursday that was expected to trigger the communist nation to shut down its only working nuclear reactor in a landmark first step toward dismantling its atomic bomb program.
