Afghanistan’s capital became the focus of media attention yesterday as security forces battled Taliban insurgents in a 20-hour stand-off that left a reported 16 dead.

According to Time Magazine, nine Taliban assailants took refuge in a downtown building in Kabul, and proceeded to fire rocket-propelled grenades and heavy gunfire on nearby U.S. embassy and Nato compounds.

By Wednesday morning Afghan police had killed all assailants, including at least six in the building close to the U.S. embassy.

“Officials say at least seven people, including four policemen, were killed as well as nine of the insurgents, ” BBC News reported on Wednesday.

Reuters has described the attack as “the longest and most audacious militant attack on the Afghan capital in the decade since the Taliban were ousted from power,” while the BBC’s Quentin Sommerville reported that the attackers “had clearly come prepared for a long fight and are thought to have spent three days accumulating weapons in the building.”

Reports have confirmed that no members of the U.S. embassy or Nato were harmed.

Read more here:

• Afghan gunbattle: Troops kill Kabul insurgents - BBC News
• Kabul Police: Attack Over, Assailants Dead - Time Magazine
• Kabul attack ends after 20 hours as last gunman killed - Reuters

A week after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi, residents of Tripoli ventured out to begin the grim work of burying the dead in mass graves on Saturday, as evidence emerged of widespread summary killings during the battle for the Libyan capital.

The stench of decomposing bodies and burning garbage hung over the city as it faced a potential humanitarian catastrophe due to collapsing water and power supplies, shortages of medicine and no effective government.

Read the full story here (via msnbc)

Eyewitnesses say Gaddafi loyalists killed “numerous detainees” this week at two military camps in Tripoli, Amnesty International reported on Friday.

Escaped detainees from the Khilit al-Ferjan and Qasr Ben Ghashir camps provided testimony to the human rights group.

Read the full story here (via CNN)

Gaddafi, Hitler, Saddam … no self-respecting dictator can bear to be without a bunker. But however much gold you take with you, is life really worth living deep underground?

Read the full story here (via Time Magazine)

With rebel forces in Tripoli and Moammar Gadhafi on the run, the end could be near for the Libyan civil war.

Sporadic fighting continues in the capital city of the oil-rich North African nation, NATO warplanes are still patrolling overhead, and there’s always the danger of Gadhafi true-believers launching a fresh insurgency.

Read the full story here (via Wired.com)

There has been a bomb attack at the UN building in the Nigerian capital Abuja, the United Nations says.

The BBC’s Bashir Sa’ad Abdullahi, who is at the site of the explosion, says the ground floor of the building has been badly damaged.

Read the rest of this article here (via BBC News)

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has ordered the release of a group of would-be child suicide attackers ranging between ages 8 and 17.

Some of the 20 youngsters told Karzai that they were recruited by the Taliban, strapped with vests and ordered to detonate them near foreigners, the president’s office said in a statement.

Read the rest of this article here (via CNN)

Alexander Smirnov has never gotten over the euphoria of August 1991.

He was a  college student in Leningrad at the time, lanky and pale with Coke-bottle  glasses, and on the morning of Aug. 20, 1991, he walked out onto the central  square of the city to find a sea of people taking part in one of the largest  demonstrations Russia had ever seen. The day before, a military coup had begun.

Read the rest of this article here (via Time Magazine)

Libyan rebels weathered resistance from pro-Moammar Gaddafi forces in several volatile pockets across Tripoli Wednesday, but a few dozen journalists kept hostage by the strongman’s armed supporters have dramatically managed to go free.

Rebels worked to topple remnants of the Gaddafi military apparatus as special forces from Britain, France, Jordan and Qatar — which are on the ground in Libya — have stepped up operations in Tripoli and other cities in recent days to help them.

Read the rest of this article here (via CNN)

Syrian activists said tanks stormed an eastern city and made sweeping arrests there on Wednesday as the regime faced international threats of an arms embargo and new sanctions.

Citing witnesses, the activist group called the Local Co-ordination Committees said tanks rolled into Deir el-Zour early on Wednesday. Deir el-Zour is an oil-rich but impoverished region known for its well-armed clans and tribes whose ties extend across eastern Syria and into Iraq.

Read the rest of this article here (via News24)

Tripoli – International journalists were freed from the Rixos Hotel on Wednesday after being held for days by armed men loyal to Muammar Gaddafi.

The journalists had been held at gunpoint by two nervous Kalashnikov-wielding guards who refused to give up their posts despite rebel victories elsewhere in the city.

Read the rest of this article here (via News24)

A reward of £1m is being offered for whoever finds Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, dead or alive, the head of the Transitional National Council (NTC) has said.

Col Gaddafi is believed to be hiding somewhere in the city and Mustafa Abdel-Jalil said: “The NTC supports the initiative of businessmen who are offering two million dinars (£1m) for the capture of Muammar Gaddafi, dead or alive.”

Read the rest of this article here (via Sky News)

Journalists staying at Tripoli’s Rixos hotel have endured a fourth night trapped in the building under the watchful eye of Colonel Gaddafi’s soldiers.

With electricity and water cut off and no staff left, the 30 or so journalists from around the world have grouped together, donning flak jackets and helmets as they listen to the sounds of gunfire outside.

Read the rest of this article here (via Sky News)

Rebel fighters sought to consolidate their hold on Tripoli on Wednesday and continued to hunt down an elusive and defiant Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, a day after they crashed through the gates of his fortresslike compound, ransacking its barracks for weapons and carting off mementos of his 42-year dictatorship.

Colonel Qaddafi, in an address broadcast early Wednesday on a local Tripoli radio station, called his retreat from the compound “tactical,” several news reports said.

Read the rest of this article here (via The New York Times)

About 35 journalists who were allowed into the North African country to cover the conflict with the blessing of the Moammar Gadhafi regime are trapped at the Rixos  hotel in Tripoli for a fifth day.

Armed Gadhafi loyalists ring the hotel’s perimeter and patrol its corridors, barring them from leaving. It’s for their protection, the guards say. The reporters spend their days in helmets and bullet proof vests. At night, they sleep on bedsheets in the hallway to avoid shards of glass from windows shattered by gunfire.

Read the rest of this article here (via CNN)

Col Muammar Gaddafi has made a speech vowing death or victory in the fight against “aggression”, after Libyan rebels seized his Tripoli compound.

In the audio speech, the colonel, whose whereabouts remain unknown, said he had made a “tactical” retreat from his Bab al-Aziziya compound in the capital.

Read the rest of this article here (via BBC News)

Cross-border attacks on PKK guerrillas in Iraq may trigger civil unrest and ethnic violence in Turkey, warns opposition.

A series of cross-border air strikes by Turkey has killed up to 100 Kurdish guerrillas in northern Iraq, according to the Turkish military leadership, which warned that further raids are likely.

Read the rest of this article here (via The Guardian)

The U.N. Human Rights Council has overwhelmingly adopted a resolution condemning Syria for grave and systematic human-rights violations.

The resolution also calls for an international investigation into possible crimes against humanity. The resolution to condemn Syria has passed by a vote of 33 in favor, four against and nine abstentions.

Read the rest of this article here (via Voice of America)

Libyan rebels told a rescue ship not to dock at Tripoli port on Tuesday because it was too risky, leaving thousands of foreigners stranded at their embassies and waiting for the all clear to leave.

The overall picture of conditions in Tripoli was unclear on Tuesday after one of Muammar Gaddafi’s sons who had reportedly been captured resurfaced to rally supporters, undermining widespread predictions that the government was about to fall.

Read the rest of this article here (via Reuters)

KAMPALA, Uganda — The death toll from a cattle raid in an eastern region of weeks-old South Sudan rose significantly on Monday with the United Nations saying more than 600 people had been killed in what was a retaliatory attack that has raised fears of ethnic instability on the deeply impoverished country.

The United Nations says that many weapons are accumulating in Jonglei State.

Read the rest of this article here (via The New York Times)