Japan announced Sept. 12 that it plans to end its military airlift mission in Iraq by year's end. Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura said his government is discussing withdrawal Air Self-Defense Force troops deployed in Kuwait for the air support mission, following a request from the Iraqi government had asked for a reduction in the presence of foreign military forces. The move is also a response to the impending December expiration of the UN resolution serving as the legal basis for the deployment.

At least two were killed and 80 wounded in renewed repression in India-controlled Kashmir Sept. 12. Police fired bullets and tear gas to disperse crowds in two towns near Srinagar after separatist leaders issued a call for Muslims across the region to protest Indian rule following Friday prayers. A curfew is in force in Shopian, where one protester was killed. A second was killed in Baramulla. Mohammed Yasin Malik, leader of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), was injured when police used tear-gas and batons to break up protests in Srinagar. (AlJazeera, Sept. 12)

Pakistan's army chief harshly criticized the US military for making unilateral cross-border raids from Afghanistan Sept. 12. Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, Chief of Army Staff, said there was "no agreement or understanding with the coalition forces whereby they are allowed to conduct operations on our side of the border." Pakistan would defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity "at all costs," he said.

Mexico says it has arrested 12 people on terrorism charges in the years since 9-11—but an official said none were linked to Islamist groups like al-Qaeda or were planning to strike in the US. Mexico's Federal Institute of Information Access revealed the 12 arrests to the Associated Press in response to a request made in February seeking details of any terrorism arrests in the last seven years.

The Department of Homeland Security said at Congressional hearings Sept. 10 that cost overruns, legal obstacles and other problems imperil its goal of completing the 670 miles of fencing and technological improvements on the Southwest border. Rising construction costs and delays in acquiring land from owners could thwart efforts to build the fence by the end of the year, said officials, who are seeking more money for the project.

At least 25 civilians were killed and 50 injured in an armed attack on a Sunni mosque Sept. 10 in the Maskanai area of lower Dir (NWFP), Pakistan. Unidentified militants threw grenades in the mosque in Banai village, less than three kilometers from the Afghan border during Taravih (Ramadan night prayers) and fired at the worshipers. No group has claimed responsibility, even as security forces cordoned off the area and beefed up security after the attack.

From B'Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, Sept. 10:

Access Denied: Israeli measures to deny Palestinians access to land around settlements
For years, Israeli authorities have both barred Palestinian access to rings of land surrounding settlements, and have not acted to eliminate settlers' piratical closing of lands adjacent to settlements and blocking of Palestinian access to them. Blocking access is one of the many ways used to expand settlements. In recent years, Israel has institutionalized the closing of such lands in an attempt to retroactively sanction the unauthorized placement of barriers far from the houses at the edge of the settlements.

Two Russian Tu-16 bombers landed in Venezuela Sept. 10 as part of military maneuvers. President Hugo Chávez said he hopes to "fly one of those things" himself. The maneuvers mark the first time Russian strategic bombers have landed in the Western Hemisphere since the Cold War. Chávez called the deployment part of a move toward a "pluri-polar world." "The Yankee hegemony is finished," he said in a televised speech. Although the bombers were not armed, Chávez warned that their arrival puts the US "on notice." NATO fighters escorted the two bombers on their 13-hour trip to Venezuela over the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, the Russian Defense Ministry said. (WP, Sept. 12; AP, Sept. 10)