A car bomb exploded outside a Guardia Civil barracks in the town of Durango in the Basque region of northern Spain Aug. 24, wounding two officers and causing considerable damage to the building and vehicles. Authorities said the attack was likely carried out by the separatist group ETA, which ended a ceasefire in June. The blast came days after Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba warned that an ETA attack was imminent. Recent weeks have seen the arrests of a number of ETA suspects, mainly in France, with 400 kilos of explosives seized.

Way to go, guys. From The Guardian, Aug. 25:

Three British troops killed by US jet
An urgent investigation was under way last night into why a US fighter plane killed three British soldiers, and seriously injured two others, after it was called in to support UK troops engaged in a fierce battle with Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan.

Reports The Guardian, Aug. 24:

An American military commander in Iraq today said a senior Republican senator's call for a troop withdrawal would represent "a giant step backwards" in one of the country's most precarious regions.

In a victory for the Bush administration, the full 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals will reconsider a ruling that the government should charge Ali al-Marri, a legal US resident and the only suspected "enemy combatant" on American soil, or release him from military custody. The administration had asked the full 4th Circuit to review a three-judge panel's June 11 ruling. The Justice Department had argued that national security will be threatened if the administration is not allowed to indefinitely hold "enemy combatants" within the US.

The sad—and frightening—thing is that Americans generally have such a poor sense of history that many will get taken in by Bush's warped Vietnam analogies, delivered to applause at a National Veterans of Foreign Wars Convention in Kansas City Aug. 22. The Washington Post offers some quotes:

From Newsday, Aug. 23:

Drunk driver kills Good Samaritan
On the day he planned to go house-hunting with his family, an immigrant livery driver from Azerbaijan was killed in Brooklyn while trying to assist a colleague with a stalled car -- mowed down by a vehicle whose driver was drunk, police said.

Note the last sentence of this Aug. 19 AFP account. Do you think Hamid Karzai grasps the irony?

Afghanistan celebrates independence from Britain
President Hamid Karzai led Afghanistan's Independence Day celebrations on Sunday with a call to the country's young people to educate themselves to preserve their freedom.

Remember back in March when the Brits pulled out of southern Iraq, citing "progress"? Looks like the only thing which has "progressed" is a violent internecine Shi'ite struggle for political control. From the LAT, Aug. 21 (links and emphasis added):

BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb killed the governor of Muthanna province yesterday, and armed men in a fleet of sport utility vehicles kidnapped a senior government minister on a busy Baghdad street.