Two suicide car bombs exploded near the home of a tribal leader in the Abu Ghraib district west of Baghdad March 27, killing the sheikh's son and several other people. Sheikh Thahir al-Dari, whose home was targeted, is the head of the al-Zobaie tribe and belongs to a group opposed to al-Qaeda. Salam al-Zobaie, Iraq's deputy prime minister who survived an assassination bid last week, belongs to al-Dari's tribe. (AlJazeera, March 27)

More than 18,000 Afghan refugees in Pakistan have returned home since the UN High Commissioner foor Refugees (UNHCR) started this year's voluntary repatriation to Afghanistan, officials announced March 23. "They have been given a grace period from March 1 to April 15 to repatriate voluntarily with assistance," UNHCR said, adding that Afghans who did not register during the 15-week period and thus do not have Proof of Registration (PoR) cards, will be considered illegal migrants and will be subject to prosecution. UNHCR says there are still some 2.15 million Afghan citizens in Pakistan. (UNHCR press release, March 23)

South African and foreign intelligence agencies have been monitoring an alleged Islamist militant training camp at Greenbushes, Port Elizabeth, according to local press reports. One magazine has even published a report on the alleged training camp. The report—including photographs of the supposed training grounds—is the cover story in Molotov Cocktail, a magazine edited by James Sanders, author of a recently published history of South Africa‘s intelligence services. However, Port Elizabeth Muslim leader Samuel Panday on Monday dismissed the report, saying the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) was trying to increase its budget allocation through making claims of a military camp. "There is no such camp—it is all nonsense; rubbish," said Panday. (Mail & Guardian, March 27)

Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee said March 26 that India intends to go ahead with a multi-billion-dollar gas pipeline from Iran via Pakistan despite objections from the US. "Talks on this pipeline are going on," Mukherjee said in an interview with the NDTV news network. "When I was in Iran, I had categorically mentioned that we are interested in having this pipeline." He added: "Now negotiations are going on about the prices." (AFP, March 26)

A Chinese politician from the predominantly Muslim and ethnic Uighur province of Xinkiang in China's far west has claimed that 18 people killed in a raid on alleged terrorist training camp had links with al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Shi Dagang said 17 other members of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) were arrested during the operation in January. "Their terrorists were trained by the Taliban in Afghanistan and sent to China by them," Shi Dagang said during a news conference at China's annual legislative session in Beijing. He also claimed that more than 1,500 semi-assembled grenades were seized in the raid east of China's border with Kyrgyzstan.

Chinese president Hu Jintao has arrived in Moscow to meet with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, and oil and gas deals are expected to dominate the discussions. Hu's three-day visit "aims to strengthen political trust and push forward the economic and trade partnership," Assistant Foreign Minister Li Hui told reporters. "Energy is an extremely important constituent of relations and cooperation between China and Russia," Li emphasized. China has imported increasing volumes of Russian oil by rail in recent years, and hopes this will be an interim measure pending completion of a pipeline linking China to Russia's far east. Russia also plans to pipe 30 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually through a pipeline that runs to China's far western region of Xinkiang, said Russia's ambassador to China Sergei Razov. By 2011, Russian natural gas is slated flow through two pipelines in Xinkiang and a second route to northeastern China, he said.

The March English edition of Le Monde Diplomatique has an in-depth story on the state of the world's oil industry, "Hydrocarbon nationalism: States claim back their energy reserves," which sheds much light on the underlying imperatives for the Iraq adventure. The critical point: Outside of the US and northern Europe, oil production is now generally 60% or more state-owned. Russia was manipulated down to 30-odd percent under Yeltsin, but Putin (by rather draconian means) has boosted it back over 50%. This is one reason Iraq is so crucial: if the US still gets its way somehow, it will be the first significant reversal of this trend. Relevant passages:

Indonesia has collected DNA samples from relatives of major terrorism suspects, police officials said March 26 at the opening of a new DNA laboratory developed jointly with the Australian Federal Police. Indonesian national police chief General Sutanto told reporters that Jakarta had asked for samples of DNA from the families of "Malaysian terrorists." Police spokesman Sisno Adiwinoto told reporters those included Noordin Top, a Malaysian national considered a mastermind of Islamic militant bombing attacks in Indonesia. Top was once considered a leader of Jemaah Islamiah (JI), blamed for the 2002 Bali blasts that killed 200 people, as well as other attacks including one aimed at Australia's embassy in Jakarta. Authorities say JI has now fractured into splinter factions. (Reuters, March 26)