NEW DELHI: Dozens of heavily armed Maoist rebels stormed a bauxite mine in eastern India and held roughly 100 mine employees hostage before police regained control of the mine early Monday morning, authorities said.At least eight police officers and four militants died in the nine-hour shootout in the Panchpatmali area of the state of Orissa, senior police official M.M. Praharaj told a news channel. Praharaj said the militants were hoping to steal large quantities of explosives used for mining, but they fled without them. C.R. Pradhan, director of the mine-company, National Aluminum Company Ltd., or NALCO, said the workers held inside the mine were not harmed. The rebels were likely trying to disrupt the upcoming national election, which begins Thursday, Praharaj said. ``We are trying our best to ensure that the polls are conducted peacefully,'' he said.
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
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