Forces from the separatist Somali state of Somaliland and neighboring autonomous Puntland clashed April 9 over a disputed strip of land along their shared border in the Sanag region. "Puntland forces attacked the town of Dahar around 8:00 this morning," Somaliland Information Minister Ahmed Hagi Dahir said in a statement. "The attacking forces were supported by 17 technicals and 3 big trucks." Technicals are pick-up trucks mounted with weapons, the Somali version of a tank. At least one fighter was reported killed.

Nine Algerian soldiers and at least four Islamist insurgents were killed in clashes after militants ambushed an army patrol in the southwestern province of Ain Defla, 150 kilometers from Algiers April 7. Government troops, backed by helicopters, are searching for the attackers, estimated at 50 militants. They are presumed to belong to the al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb. Fighting was also reported between security forces and Islamist rebels in the Biskra region, southeast of Algiers, which has been tense following an April 2 rebel attack which killed three soldiers. The new fighting has brought the largest single casualty toll among government forces since Islamist guerrillas killed at least seven troops in November 2006 in the Bouira region east of Algiers. (Reuters, April 9)

Fighting between the government and Sh'i'te insurgents in Yemen's northern mountains has killed 25 soldiers and 20 guerillas over the last five days. The government has set up camps to shelter about 10,000 people displaced by the violence. Sporadic clashes are still taking place in the town of Dhahian. Ali Abdullah Saleh, Yemen's president, ordered the army to crack down on (Abdul-Malik) al-Houthi and his fighters, based in northern Saada province, in January. About 315 Shi'ite fighters and 157 Yemeni soldiers have been killed in clashes since then, although al-Houthi's followers say the government's estimates of the number of insurgents killed are too high. (AlJazeera, April 9)

Three months after the White House successfully pressed the United Nations to impose strict sanctions on North Korea over that country's nuclear test, the Bush administration "allowed" Ethiopia to complete a secret arms purchase from Pyongyang in what appears to be a violation of the restrictions, the New York Times reported April 8, citing unnamed US officials. The US allowed the arms delivery to go through in January, as Ethiopian troops were in the midst of an offensive against Islamist militias in Somalia. The account said the US was trying to "wean" Ethiopia off its longstanding reliance on North Korea for cheap Soviet-era military equipment.

Thousands of Turkish troops backed by helicopters battled Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) insurgents near the Iraqi border April 8, in clashes that left 10 soldiers and seven guerillas dead. The fighting was centered in the provinces of Tunceli, Bingöl, Bitlis and Şırnak. (Zaman, April 9)

More than a dozen detainees have launched a new hunger strike at Guantánamo, and the military has responded by starting to force-feed the detainees, according to an April 8 New York Times report. Lawyers for the hunger strikers said the strike was prompted by harsh conditions at a new maximum security complex, where some 160 prisoners had been moved since December. "The reports about the conditions at Camp 6 are deeply disturbing, and holding people indefinitely without legal process or access to family is an invitation to disaster," Hina Shamsi, a lawyer with Human Rights First, told AP.

Amado Ramírez Dillane, 50, Acapulco-based correspondent for Mexico's Televisa network and host of the daily news program "Al Tanto" on local Radiorama, was shot to death near the city's main square April 6. He had apparently just left Radiorama's studio when he was gunned down. According to Misael Habana de los Santos, Ramírez's co-host at Radiorama, the journalist had received several death threats on his cellular phone prior. Habana wrote in the national daily La Jornada that Ramírez had not paid attention to the threats, and refused to inform local police.

Lawmen are warning that growing violence along the Mexican border poses a threat to national security. Chief Lynne Underdown, retiring Border Patrol chief for the Rio Grande Valley sector, told reporters at a press conference in Edinburg, TX, April 6, that attacks on border agents are fast escalating. She especially cited a December 2005 incident in which assailants on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande shot at agents on boat patrol, where they were at "maximum exposure." Ironically, she admitted the increased violence is a result of more agents with more equipment and firepower—making more drug seizures and raising the stakes for smugglers.