UK Attorney General Baroness Scotland said March 26 that police will conduct an investigation into claims that an agent of the country's MI5 intelligence service took part in the allegedly abusive interrogation of former Guantánamo Bay detainee Binyam Mohamed. Scotland said she determined the investigation was necessary after reviewing allegations that an MI5 agent gave US CIA agents questions that were asked of Mohammed during his alleged torture in Morocco. Mohamed, a native of Ethiopia who claims to have been transferred to Morocco for torture under a US program of extraordinary rendition, said he obtained the documents through the US legal process while seeking his release from Guantánamo Bay.

At least 11 people were killed in a suicide bomb attack at a restaurant in northwest Pakistan March 26. About two dozen people opposed to Baitullah Mehsud, the Pakistani Taliban leader, were in the restaurant in the Jandola district of South Waziristan. Authorities said those killed were loyal to Turkistan Bittani, a pro-government tribal leader.

US-led coalition forces and Afghan troops killed five suspected members of a "terrorist network" in a raid in northern Afghanistan's Kunduz province March 22, the coalition said. But the mayor of Imam Sahib district, Abdul Manan, said it was his house that was raided and those killed were not militants.

A suicide bomber blew himself up at a funeral for the father of a Kurdish regional government official in northern Iraq's Diyala province March 23, killing 25 people and wounding 45. The bombing in the town of Jalawla underscores the dangers Iraq still faces from militants, even as overall violence falls to levels not seen since mid-2003 and the US prepares to withdraw combat troops by Aug 31, 2010. Jalawla is a mostly Kurdish town, and the Kurdish regional government in a dispute with Iraq's central government over who should control the area.

Yemeni security forces March 25 arrested six suspects in the attack nine days earlier that killed four South Korean tourists. Authorities say the cell is also suspected in a bombing a few days later against a convoy carrying South Korean government inspectors that caused no serious injuries. Security forces are hunting other members of the group, which they say was planning further attacks on tourists and oil installations. (Bloomberg, March 25)

Having already dropped the "enemy combatant" nomenclature, the Barack Obama administration has now formally abandoned the Bush-era phrase "Global War on Terrorism." The new term is the dryly clinical and antiseptic "Overseas Contingency Operation." Is this an improvement—or a switch from a hubristic and bellicose rallying cry to an Orwellian euphemism? From the Washington Post, March 25:

Israel unlawfully and extensively used white phosphorous munitions in their recent Gaza offensive, according to a report released March 25 by Human Rights Watch. The report says that while white phosphorous is allowed to be used to obscure ground operations in open areas and against military targets, international law prohibits air-bursting the shells over populated areas due to the risk it poses to civilians.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said March 19 that it will conduct an internal investigation into reports that Israeli soldiers committed war crimes against Palestinian civilians. The announcement follows soldiers' reports of civilian killings and vandalism under liberal rules of engagement during the recent Gaza Strip operation.