Sonora state police killed 15 in a fierce gunbattle just south of the Arizona border May 16 after tracking into the hills a group of heavily-armed gunmen who earlier that day killed five municipal police in Cananea. Three Cananea residents who had been aducted were freed. Police seized 15 assault rifles following the hours-long shoot-out near the village of Arizpe. Meanwhile in Coahuila, four men in the black unforms and insignia of the Federal Agency of Investigation (AFI) kidnapped the state‘s chief anti-kidnapping investigator, Ruiz Arevalo, in Torreon. (El Universal, El Tiempo, AP, May 16)

From the Zochrot (Remembering), a group of Israeli citizens working to raise awareness of the Nakba, the Palestinian catastrophe of 1948:

International Nakba Day, May 15, 2007
The Nakba is the story of the Palestinian tragedy: the destruction of communities, civilization, culture and identity, the expulsion and the killing that took place in 1948. It is a story that constitutes the past and present of the Palestinian people and shapes a large part of Palestinian identity. Yet in many respects the Nakba is also the story of Jews who live in Israel. A story that is not easy to cope with, a story that raises difficult questions about the possibilities of life together in the space that is today the state of Israel.

A Pakistani man held at Guantanamo Bay denied belonging to al-Qaeda and accused US authorities of torturing him, according to a document released by the Pentagon May 15. Majid Khan, who lived in the US for several years, was arrested in Pakistan in 2003 and held in a secret network of CIA-run prisons before he was transferred to Gitmo last year. "I am not an enemy combatant. I am not an extremist," Khan told a panel of military officials on April 15, according to the edited transcript released by the Pentagon. The hearing was held to determine whether Khan, 27, meets the US definition of an enemy combatant but no decision has been reached. The hearing was closed to the public.

A statement by supposed al-Qaeda affiliate in Europe, the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades, pledged to launch attacks in Paris in response to the election of Nicolas Sarkozy as president. "As you have chosen the crusader and Zionist Sarkozy as a leader...we in the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades warn you that the coming days will see a bloody jihadist campaign...in the heart of Sarkozy's capital," the group's "Europe division" said in an Internet statement addressed to the French people. The statement said Sarkozy was "thirsty for the blood of Muslim children, women and old people and eager to carry out the mission set by his masters in the Black [US White] House."

Algerian troops killed 13 Islamist fighters east of Algiers May 14, local media reported. Special forces backed by helicopters killed 11 militants said to belong to the "al-Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb" in an offensive on rebel hideouts in Tebessa province. In a separate operation, the army killed two Islamist rebels in Boumerdes. The attack in Tebessa near the border with Tunisia was launched after security forces received word that 20 rebels were preparing to transport large quantities of arms to Boumerdes and the neighboring province of Tizi Ouzou, also the scene of recent clashes. (Reuters, May 15)

An African Union convoy was struck by a road-side bomb in the Somali capital of Mogadishu [May 16], killing an unknown number of Ugandan peacekeepers. [AlJazeera, May 16] A pair of aid workers—a Kenyan and a Briton—remain in the custody of their kidnappers in northern Somalia. The kidnappers are demanding "minor" political concessions from the authorities of Puntland, the semi-autonomous and relatively stable northern region of the country. [Reuters, May 15] Two South Korean fishing boats have been seized by pirates off Somalia's increasingly unprotected coast. [BBC, May 16]

A chlorine bomb has exploded in a village [Abu Sayda] in the religiously-mixed province of Diyala, killing 32 people [May 16]. Iraqi insurgents have been increasingly accused of using chlorine—which causes severe burns—in their attacks. [BBC, May 16] Lieutenant-General Douglas Lute has been appointed as the US' new "war tsar" for Iraq, a position that has proven quite difficult for the Bush administration to fill. [AlJazeera, May 16]

From the International Crisis Group, May 10:

Colombia’s New Armed Groups
The disbanding of the paramilitary United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC) between 2003 and 2006 is seen by the administration of President Alvaro Uribe as a vital step toward peace. While taking some 32,000 AUC members out of the conflict has certainly altered the landscape of violence, there is growing evidence that new armed groups are emerging that are more than the simple “criminal gangs” that the government describes. Some of them are increasingly acting as the next generation of paramilitaries, and they require a more urgent and more comprehensive response from the government.