The Washington Times

Fierce fighting has displaced tens of thousands of people in northern Sri Lanka, as government troops advance deeper into the Tamil rebels' last stronghold in an aggressive bid to crush them by the end of the year.

More than 112,000 ethnic Tamils have fled from their homes over the past two months amid daily gunbattles, shelling and air attacks, aid agencies say.

The United Nations estimates the total number of displaced in rebel-held areas is now around 145,000, an unprecedented level in the island nation's long-running conflict.

The three hotels in this suburb of Basra, the largest city in southern Iraq, are always full. "We don't have tourism here," says Jabbar Mubarak, the clerk at the Bourj al-Babil, Zubair's largest hotel. "Everyone who comes to our hotel comes to visit their sons."

The "sons" are in Camp Bucca. A half-hour's drive from Zubair toward the Kuwaiti border, Bucca is the U.S. military's largest detention center in Iraq. It currently holds about 18,000 Iraqis, the majority of those in U.S. custody. An additional 3,000 are at Camp Cropper at Baghdad Airport.

As the sun came up on a recent morning in the district of Sadr City, Iraqi army troops searched as many as a thousand houses, arresting a dozen suspects and collecting nearly 50 unregistered weapons.

Four months ago, these streets, some too narrow for Humvees, were controlled by the Jaish al-Mahdi, a Shi'ite militia whose name in Arabic means the Mahdi Army, which in 2006 poured out of Sadr City and took over large parts of Baghdad.

Colombian cocaine cartels are tapping into pipelines in Ecuador, stealing thousands of gallons a day of "white gas" that can be used to process raw coca into cocaine.

A flux of Colombian refugees escaping FARC threats into Ecuador heightens humanitarian concerns as well as security ones, intensifying tensions along the Colombia-Ecuadorean border.

Adding to the tensions along its border with Colombia, Ecuador filed a lawsuit in The Hague, claiming it’s been affected by U.S.-funded spraying of herbicides to kill coca plants in Colombia.

DHARAMSALA, India -- Palgay spent more than two weeks dodging Chinese authorities to fulfill his lifelong dream — a face-to-face meeting with the Dalai Lama.

His journey to the seat of the spiritual leader's government-in-exile high in the Indian Himalayas began earlier last month when he paid a driver nearly $800 to hide inside a pile of luggage headed for Nepal. From there, he sneaked across the border, feeling his way along treacherous rocky terrain under the cover of darkness.

SRINAGAR, India — Bullet pocks are still visible along Lal Chowk, the commercial heart of Kashmir's main city, reminders of the gunbattles, bombings and suicide attacks that used to be an almost daily occurrence.

Pakistan and India both claim Kashmir, which is divided and has been the cause of two of three wars between the countries since partition in 1947.

Today, though, there is only the din of traffic, disturbed by a crowd of bus drivers protesting the back wages they claim the state owes them.

Palestinian refugees are beginning to return to the Nahr el Bared refugee camp, 10 months after it was reduced to rubble in a battle between the Lebanese army and Muslim terrorists holed up inside.

"We want to go back now," said Nael Abu Siam, 40, a Palestinian displaced by the conflict. "We have everything there — memories of births, our friends, our houses, even our kids' toys."

Mr. Siam now lives in a school room in a nearby camp and awaits a call to move back to Nahr el Bared.

A car bomb struck an American Embassy vehicle in Beirut yesterday, killing at least three bystanders and wounding a Lebanese Embassy employee in the first direct attack on U.S. interests in Lebanon in 20 years.

An estimated 20 people, including an American passer-by, were injured in the attack on the armored embassy sport utility vehicle, which Lebanese officials immediately linked to a wave of attacks on governing party legislators.

NEW DELHI — Faced with setbacks in their former stronghold, India's Maoist insurgents have responded with a new war strategy that favors large-scale attacks on police forces and high-profile-target killings.

The latest in a series of recent strikes came late last month when 19 persons, including the youngest son of former state Chief Minister Babulal Marandi, were gunned down at a village cultural event in eastern Jharkhand state.

SOUTH BASTAR, India — Two years ago, Comrade Sunil used his given name and spent half the day at school, the remainder working the red fields of his ancestral village.

But his life changed one night when he found his home torched and older brother dead outside, purportedly shot by state-sponsored civilian militia on the pretext of being a Maoist sympathizer.

Warming by a campfire deep in the mountain jungles of southern Chhattisgarh state, the 18-year-old member of the People's Liberation Guerrilla Army vowed to never give up the homemade rifle lying in his lap.