The United Nations observer mission in Georgia has opened an investigation into missile attacks in three remote villages near the Russian border March 11, claiming initial evidence suggested that Russian helicopter gunships were involved. The military action damaged several buildings in the Kodori Gorge. Both Russia and the forces of the nearby breakaway region of Abkhazia denied involvement in the attacks. (NYT, March 14)

Authorities announced the arrest of four men in Beirut who they described as members of Fatah al-Islam, a radical Palestinian faction, in connection with the bombing of two minibuses in the city last month that killed three people and wounded 23. Two other members of the group were being sought in the attack, which took place on the eve of the second anniversary of the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. News reports said the men were detained after explosives were found in an apartment in the Christian neighborhood of Achrafieh. (NYT, March 14)

Just hours after the Somali president Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed moved in to Mogadishu from the provincial city of Baidoa, insurgents launched a mortar attack on the presidential palace, killing a small boy. The president emerged unscathed from the attack. Ethiopian tanks sealed off the area. The attack evidences the government's lack of control over the capital city, which is thought to hold many militants and Islamist supporters.

Eight Thai civilians—all Buddhists—were killed in the troubled south of Thailand when their van was shot upon by suspected Islamist guerrillas March 15. Thai security officials suspect that the attack was meant coincide with the founding of the National Revolutionary Front, a decades-old separatist group in the southern region of Patani.

Dozens of police in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh were killed when their forest outpost was raided by Maoist [Naxalite] rebels March 14. Fighting has intensified between leftist insurgents and police and paramilitary forces in vast swathes of central India. Over 50,000 people have been displaced by ongoing violence.

At least 22 were arrested and several injured in protests March 13 against the visit of President George Bush in the southern Mexican city of Merida, Yucatan. Hundreds also marched to the US Embassy in Mexico City, battling riot police with concrete blocks, metal bars and fire-crackers and tearing down barricades. Police responded with tear gas, pepper spray, and baton charges, throwing back rocks and clubbing demonstrators down. (El Universal, La Jornada, March 14)

Brazil will build a two million dollar wall on its border with Paraguay. Reports say that the government of Brazil contracted the construction of the 3 kilometer wall to begin at the end of March and end within six months. The government stated that the barrier is intended to obstruct the Paraguay-Brazil smuggling industry, which traffics cigarettes and appliances. The wall will be built in the tri-border area where Ciudad del Este (Paraguay) meets Foz de Iguacu (Brazil) and the nearby Argentine city of Puerto Iguazu.

Australia's military adventure in East Timor is starting to smell more like a small counterinsurgency war than a "peacekeeping" mission—if the world were paying any attention. From Catholic News, March 14:

Timor priest accuses Aussie troops
As fugitive Timorese rebel leader Major Alfredo Reinado calls for mediation by the Church, an East Timor priest has accused Australian troops of terrifying local villagers after a raid by the soldiers left a number of houses in ruins.