The largest mosque on the Indonesian island of Java was blockaded this week by local residents who fear that radical militants including cleric Abu Bakar Bashir have been using it to promote their teachings. Indonesian media report that Muslims in Surabaya blocked the entrance to the al-Ihsan Sabililla mosque for three days before agreeing to reopen it. Bashir, one of the key leaders of the Jemaah Islamiyah group, visited the mosque recently and gave several sermons.

An ambush on a convoy of Indonesia's elite Mobile Brigade (Brimob) left one officer dead in the restive province of West Papua June 24. The attack in the rugged Puncak Jaya district is the latest in the Tingginambut area, where pro-independence rebels are believed to be active. The attack comes just two weeks before Indonesian presidential elections. The district also saw violence in the lead-up to legislative elections on April 9. (Jakarta Globe, June 24)

Former Kosova prime minister Agim Ceku was reportedly released June 25, two days after he was arrested in Bulgaria on an international war crimes warrant—although he is being asked not to leave Bulgaria. Ceku, wanted by Serbia for war crimes charges, was intercepted on the Bulgarian-Macedonian border following an Interpol "red notice." As a former commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), Ceku is accused of command responsibility for the deaths of 669 Serbs and 18 other non-Albanians. A court in Serbia has sentenced him to 20 years in prison in absentia. (AFP, June 25; Balkan Insight, June 24)

Having already weighed in for Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the disputed elections, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez said June 24 he is "completely sure" Ahmadinejad fairly won re-election, and that the protests in Tehran follow a pattern seen in other countries, where "behind it is the CIA and the imperial hand of European countries and the United States." (AP) In response, Venezuela's Revolutionary Marxist Current has issued a statement expressing solidarity with the Iranian protesters.

Bloody clashes were reported from Tehran June 24 as Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said he would not yield to pressure over the disputed election. The renewed confrontation took place in Baharestan Square, near parliament, where hundreds of protesters faced off against several thousand riot police and other security personnel.

Kyrgyzstan has struck a deal with the US to keep open the Pentagon's Manas for a sum of $180 million. Washington had been haggling to keep the base open since February, when the Kyrgyz government announced its closure after securing pledges of $2 billion in aid and credit from Russia. Now, an unnamed diplomatic source has told Reuters that Moscow brokered the new Manas deal with Washington. A Kremlin official accompanying Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Egypt told the news agency: "Kyrgyzstan agreed its decision with Russia. We support all steps aimed at stabilizing the situation in Afghanistan."

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: