The UN High Commissioner for Refugees called upon Colombia to investigate the killings of a group of indigenous people last week that raised fears of a mass exodus. UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond told reporters in Geneva Feb. 10 that "an irregular armed group" carried out an attack on the Awá people in a remote jungle region of Nariño department, killing 17 people. Nariño's socialist governor Antonio Navarro, citing witness accounts, said the attack had been carried out by the FARC guerillas.

Soldiers in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua chased and killed 14 armed men who had kidnapped nine people and killed six of them Feb. 10. One soldier was killed by the kidnappers, bringing the death toll to 21. The gunmen took the hostages from the ranching town of Villa Ahumada and drove them to an isolated farm where six were killed, said Enrique Torres, a spokesman for Conjunto Chihuahua, federal government's multi-agency anti-drug operation in the state. A military convoy caught up with the kidnappers about 80 miles south of El Paso, killed seven of them and freed the remaining three hostages. Soldiers then pursued the other seven gunmen through heavy snow and killed them in a shootout. Three more apparent members of the gang were killed by soldiers in a mopping-up operation in Villa Ahumada Feb. 13. Assault rifles, fragmentation grenades and military uniforms and helmets were seized in the operation. (La Jornada, Mexico City, KVIA, El Paso, Feb. 13; NYT, Feb. 11)

Octavio Almanza Moreles AKA "El Gori 4" and six other presumed members of the Gulf Cartel's notorious paramilitary arms, the Zetas, were arrested in the Mexican resort city of Cancún on charges related to the killing of retired Gen. Mauro Enrique Tello Quiñones and 10 other military men, the federal Prosecutor General's Office announced Feb. 13.

Brazilian police arrested 51 members of two supposed narcotics gangs Feb. 11 in simultaneous raids in eight states involving 300 federal officers and another 200 from the Rio de Janeiro police force. Most of those arrested were members of the middle class who communicated among themselves by Internet to elude wiretaps. Police seized ecstasy, LSD, cocaine, hashish and an inhalant drug made from chloroform and ether. Police said weapons were seized, including assault rifles. (LAHT, Feb. 11)

Four Russian police and three suspected rebels were killed in fighting in Ingushetia, in Russia's troubled North Caucasus, officials said Feb. 12. Gunmen opened fire and then detonated a landmine when police tried to raid a house in the city of Nazran. The blast destroyed the two-storey house, and a large cache of explosives was reportedly found in the rubble. "While cleaning the rubble, we found four 200-kilogram barrels filled with potassium nitrate and with detonators attached. The bomb could have exploded at any time," a spokesman for the Federal Security Service's Ingushetia department said. (RIA Novosti, BBC News, Feb. 12)

Seven members of the Baha'i faith will stand trial in Iran on charges of "spying for Israel" and "desecrating Islam and campaigning against the Islamic Republic," the official ISNA agency reported Feb. 11. Last May, Israel's Haaretz reported that Iran had detained six Baha'is on similar charges, but it was not clear whether the seven were the same leaders arrested in 2008. The European Union reiterated its deep concern over "the ongoing systematic discrimination and the persecution of the Iranian Baha'is." (Haartez, Feb. 11)

From WPIX, Feb. 11:

Pedestrian Struck, Dragged 17 Miles
BRIGHTON BEACH, NY — A driver is being questioned by police Wednesday after it was discovered he struck a pedestrian in the Corona section of the Queens and dragged him 17 miles away to Brooklyn.

A trial started last week in federal court in Tucson against vigilante rancher Roger Barnett, his wife, Barbara, and his brother, Donald—all charged with conspiring to violate the civil rights of undocumented immigrants who crossed through his sprawling property along the Mexican border near Douglas, AZ. Attorneys for the immigrants—five women and 11 men—accuse Barnett of holding the group captive at gunpoint, brutalizing one, threatening to turn his dog loose on them and saying he would shoot anyone who tried to escape. The 16 migrants are seeking $32 million in actual and punitive damages.