The militant cleric Sufi Mohammed, who brokered the failed Swat Valley peace deal, has been arrested and transferred to a secret "safehouse" in Peshawar, together with his wife, an unnamed official told Italy's AKI news service. The government is keeping the arrests secret until it decides what the cleric's fate will be, the source, who added: "This could be the beginning of a new round of a dialogue as the military operation so far failed to get the government any place."

David Montero blogs for the Christian Science Monitor June 24 that "as in Pakistan, many are looking to armed tribes in Somalia who adhere to Sufism—a mystical, moderate interpretation of Islam—as the best chance for peace." The post, entitled "Is promoting Sufi Islam the best chance for peace in Somalia?", quotes a Somali writer—identifying himself only as Muthuma—who writes on the Bartamaha news portal that (as we've noted) a "new axis" of conflict is emerging in Somalia, in which fighters are battling one another along religious lines:

A sharia court run by Somalia's Shabab insurgents in Mogadishu sentenced four teenagers to each have a hand and a leg amputated as punishment for robbery June 22. A sharia judge in an insurgent-controlled area of the capital said the defendants had "robbed mobile phones and people's belongings." The Shabab have instated a strict interpretation of Islamic law in territory they control, and have carried out stonings, floggings and amputations before. Amnesty International condemned the sentence, saying the defendants had no lawyer and had not been allowed to appeal. (Reuters, June 22)

A suicide bomber severely wounded Yunus Bek Yevkurov, president of Russia's volatile southern republic of Ingushetia—an assassination attempt that undermines the Kremlin's claim that it has brought stability to the restive North Caucasus. A car rigged with TNT exploded as the presidential convoy traveled outside the regional capital, Nazran. The blast tore Yevkurov's armored sedan to pieces and killed two of his bodyguards. Yevkurov was the third high official to be wounded or killed in the last three weeks in the North Caucasus region. (AP, June 22)

Spanish police arrested three suspected ETA suspects in Guipúzcoa June 23. The Interior Ministry said the three formed an "armed commando" which was prepared to go into action immediately, but denied it was responsible for a June 19 car bomb attack near Bilbao that killed a National Police counter-terrorism inspector. The attack, if it was the work of ETA, ends a six-month lull in activity by the group, four of whose leaders have been arrested in the past year by French and Spanish police. Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who broke off meetings in Brussels and returned to Madrid following the attack, said, "My will and my determination to finish ETA is unbreakable." (Typically Spanish, June 23; NYT, June 19)

Coca cultivation in Colombia dropped by 18% in 2008, following a 27% rise in 2007, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime says in a new report issued June 19. Cocaine production in Colombia, the world's largest producer of the drug, also fell 28% from a year earlier. These declines were partly offset by increases in coca cultivation in Bolivia, up 6%, and in Peru, up 4.5%, the report said. UNODC executive director Antonio Maria Costa warned: "Peru must guard against a return to the days when terrorists and insurgents profited from drugs and crime." (NYT, BBC News, June 19)

Salvatore Miceli, dubbed the "Mafia's foreign minister," will be deported to Italy after his capture in Caracas June 21 in a joint operation by Venezuelan and Italian police. Italian authorities charge Miceli worked as a middleman between Italy's Cosa Nostra and 'Ndrangheta networks and the Colombian cocaine cartels.

While the fate of dozens of recently detained students remains in limbo, students at several universities across Iran continue daily sit-ins and protests against what they are calling the "electoral coup" of June 12. Student sources say no information is available on the fate of 50 students who have been "kidnapped" from Tehran University. Meanwhile, Nasser Aminnejad, an engineering PhD candidate who was killed during the attack of plain-clothed forces on the Tehran University dormitories was buried in the city of Yasooj. A group of 57 law professors and attorneys issued a statement calling for punishment of "aggressors to the holy vicinity of university campuses and dormitories in cities across the nation, especially the Tehran University dormitories, and forces responsible for the beating of students." (Rooz Online, June 23)