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AFGHANISTAN

17 Taliban killed in U.S.-led raid

KABUL -- U.S.-led forces backed by warplanes killed 17 Taliban in a fierce battle in the southern Afghan heartland of the former ruling militia, the American military confirmed yesterday. Three Marines were slightly wounded.

Afghan officials earlier said 13 Taliban were killed and eight were wounded and captured in the fighting that began late Wednesday and ended Thursday in the mountains of Kandahar province.

A spokesman for the Kandahar provincial government said some 300 Afghan troops and a smaller number of Americans skirmished with gunmen in Kandahar's Miana Shien district, some 150 miles southwest of the capital, Kabul.

SAUDI ARABIA

Al Qaeda leader said to praise attack

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- The suspected leader of al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia praised last weekend's terrorist attack that killed 22 persons and the effect it had on oil prices, according to a statement he purportedly posted on the Internet.

Abdulaziz Issa Abdul-Mohsin al-Moqrin said the attack, in which Islamic militants stormed a Khobar resort and killed mostly foreign oil workers, was carried out by the "Jerusalem Squad" and amounted to a "new victory."