A suicide car bombing near the eastern Algerian town of Dellys killed three people Sept. 28, as Ramadan draws to a close amid a heavy deployment of security forces throughout the country. Three armed Islamists were killed by security forces in eastern Algeria a day earlier, and an alleged leader of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) on Sept. 5. Four police officers were also wounded in a bombing near the eastern city of Tizi Ouzou Sept. 14, and a gendarme killed and two others wounded in Ain Defla, west of Algiers, Sept. 24. For all that, it was Algeria's least bloody Ramadan since 1992; 60 were killed in the Muslim holy month last year.

Helicopter-borne Egyptian and Sudanese troops, backed by Italian commandos, rescued the 19-member tour group kidnapped in Egypt and taken by their abductors on a 10-day trek through the Sahara to the border with Chad. Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said his country's special forces were involved, ANSA reported. The freed tourists returned to Cairo Sept. 29 unharmed. Details of the operation were sketchy. Some Egyptian officials spoke of a gun-battle with the kidnappers, in which several of them were killed, but there was no official confirmation of these reports. One of the freed Egyptian hostages, Sherif Abdel Moneim, said the kidnappers abandoned the group at dawn "and moments later security forces came and rescued us." The raid presumably took place on Sudanese territory. The kidnappers, who officials said were Sudanese and Chadian tribesmen, reportedly demanded a $15 million ransom. (Gulf Daily News, LAT, Sept. 30)

Ancient walls of Awarta, West BankOutgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced the dream of a "Greater Israel" was over this month—a day after settlers raided the Palestinian village of Assira Qabaliya, in the northern West Bank, causing extensive damage and wounding several people, in what was a reprisal attack. Police said an investigation was launched, but no arrests made. The Knesset internal affairs committee convened an urgent meeting to discuss the raid, reportedly sparked when a Palestinian stabbed a boy and burned a house at a settlement outpost. Video footage showed settlers attacking the village with Israeli soldiers present. "If the army is here or not, the settlers will attack," a Palestinian resident told the UN news agency IRIN.

Recovered arrows: evidenceArrows just discovered by government officials in one of the remotest corners of the Brazilian Amazon prove that uncontacted Indians are fleeing from Peru into Brazil. The arrows were recovered by members of the Brazilian government's Indian affairs department (FUNAI), near a protection post established to monitor the movements of uncontacted Indians in the region. According to José Carlos Meirelles Jr, head of the post, the arrows are different from those used by uncontacted groups on the Brazilian side of the border. Footprints, the remains of a fire and the site where the Indians camped overnight on the riverbank were also found. It is estimated that they numbered six or seven.

Our September issue featured the story "Big Oil & the Big Easy: Catastrophe and Counterinsurgency in New Orleans" by Frank Morales of The Shadow, outlining military "anti-terrorism" measures to protect Gulf Coast oil infrastructure and arguing that "the federal response to Katrina represents an escalation of the tactics of domestic counter-insurgency." We also featured the story "New Orleans Public Housing Defenders Face Terror Charges" by Bill Weinberg from AlterNet, on the use of "anti-terrorism" laws against activists engaged in nonviolent civil disobedience to protest the demolition of public housing projects. Our September Exit Poll was: "Why is there no international movement to demand right of return for New Orleans refugees?" We received no responses.

Brazil's Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF) postponed a ruling Sept. 24 in a landmark case to decide if the Pataxó Hã-Hã-Hãe indigenous people have legal rights to lands opened to farmers and ranchers 26 years ago by state authorities in Bahía. The 54,000 hectares were delineated as indigenous territory by the federal Indian Protection Service in 1937, but some 300 farms now cover approximately half the territory. Some 4,000 Pataxó live on the other half. The case was initiated in 1982 by the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI), successor to the Protection Service, which sought to annul land titles illegally granted by local governments.

New data reported by the Mexican media suggest that emigration to the United States rose sharply in 2007, the first full year of the administration of Mexican President Felipe Calderón. Based on US Census Bureau numbers, Mexico's National Population Council (Conapo) estimated that 679,611 Mexicans made the move to El Norte last year. According to Conapo, the number of Mexican nationals relocating to the US was up 5.9% from 2006. It was the highest jump in Mexican emigration registered since 2002. The total number of Mexican-born residents living in the US now stands at 11,800,000 persons, or just over 10 percent of Mexico's population, Conapo estimated.

Following an anonymous tip, Mexico's Prosecutor General of the Republic (PGR) arrested three suspected members of the narco-paramilitary group Los Zetas Sept. 25 as the "material authors" of the Independence Day grenade attack that left eight dead and over 100 injured in Morelia, Michoacán. Four more are under investigation in the attack and may face imminent arrest, said Marisela Morales Ibáñez, chief of the Special Investigative Subprosecutor for Organized Delinquency (SIEDO). Morales Ibáñez emphasized that the men, detained at a house in the Michoacán city of Apatzingán, were themselves on drugs when they carried out the attack. The arrested suspects were named as Julio César ("Tierra Caliente") Mondragón Mendoza, Juan Carlos ("El Grande") Castro Galeana, and Alfredo ("El Socio" or "El Valiente") Rosas Elicea. (La Jornada, Sep. 27)