Evening Edition

Two loud explosions were also heard in Tripoli, where the regime of embattled Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi has its headquarters, as jets flew overhead, witnesses said.

Italian coast guards and local fisherman, meanwhile, saved all 500 refugees on a boat from Libya.

The military said six troops, including three officers, were killed in clashes as the army pursued “armed terrorist groups” in Homs, Banias and around the southern town of Daraa — three protest hubs.

Tanks rumbled into several districts of the central industrial city of Homs and deployed along the corniche in the northwestern coastal city of Banias, activists said.

Authorities would “strike with an iron hand all those who seek to tamper with the nation’s security,” Justice Minister Abdel Aziz al-Gindi told reporters after the cabinet held crisis talks.

Gindi said the government would “immediately and firmly implement the laws that criminalise attacks against places of worship and freedom of belief” using anti-terror laws to combat those “threatening national security.”

The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, in power since a popular uprising toppled president Hosni Mubarak in February, ordered “the transfer of all those arrested in connection with (Saturday’s) events, and they number 190, to the Supreme Military Court.”

The army said the move was a “deterrent” to all those who sought to sow strife in the country.

The Common Forum, an alliance of parliamentary opposition groups, repeated its support for the plan to end three months of political unrest but insisted President Ali Abdullah Saleh also commit himself.

“We renew our commitment to the Gulf plan but the other party (the president) must also demonstrate its seriousness within the next two days,” the Common Forum said.

Two attackers who were holed up in a building near Kandahar’s intelligence headquarters have been killed, leaving just one more inside, provincial spokesman Zalmay Ayoubi said.

The breakthrough came after heavily-armed militants breached security in a sweeping assault which wounded nearly 50 people across the city, the birthplace and strategic heart of the Taliban.

Nearly 50 people have been wounded in 24 hours since militiamen armed with suicide vests, guns and rocket-propelled grenades besieged targets including the governor’s office, police stations and the local intelligence headquarters.

The attacks are the most significant since the Taliban last week announced the start of its annual spring offensive and vowed to step up their fight after US commandos killed Osama bin Laden in neighbouring Pakistan.

A high-level team of experts from the EU, the IMF and the European Central Bank will pore over plans by the Greek government to economise some 26 billion euros over three years to help bring down the country’s enormous debt.

“The mission will begin on Tuesday,” a finance ministry source said.

One of the monuments on a wooded hillside marks the limit of the tiny village of Aneyoshi, whose residents now credit it with saving them on March 11 when a giant ocean wave smashed into the fishing cove below them.

“A house on high ground will lead to peace and happiness for posterity,” reads the inscription on the stone, which was erected after a massive tsunami in 1933 killed thousands along the rugged Pacific coast.

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou urged “the EU in particular, to leave Greece in peace to do its job”, but Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou later warned that Athens may need more hard cash support.

“We need to plan our next steps for 2012 and 2013 so that Greece can either access markets or use the European council’s recent decision that enables the European (rescue) fund to buy Greek bonds,” Papaconstantinou said, after G20-eurozone talks overnight in Luxembourg.

In two of the most unlikely stories in Derby history, the 20-1 longshot colt won the American horse racing classic in only his fifth career start and Velazquez finally captured the Run for the Roses after having been set to ride favored horses for three Derby starts in a row only to lose all of them.

“Now I pick up this one and I win the Derby. It was meant to be,” Velazquez said. “It’s words you can’t describe.”

The US military has refused to confirm if a dog was involved in Monday’s helicopter-borne mission deep inside Pakistan, but those familiar with military dogs said only an animal with special breeding and training could have taken part.

“Those dogs are trained to move with the teams. They can identify the friendlies from the non-friendlies at a high rate of speed,” said Mike McConnery, owner of Baden K9, a Canadian-based breeding and training firm that provides dogs for elite military units in the United States and elsewhere.

The 23-year-old German led from his 19th career pole position to the chequered flag unchallenged, conceding the lead only once during his pit-stops and now has a 34-point lead in the championship.

It was the 13th win of his career and another day of celebration for the Red Bull team as Vettel’s team-mate Mark Webber brilliantly overtook two-time champion Fernando Alonso of Ferrari to finish second.

At the town hall in Rouen, northwest of Paris, Maori elders will perform chants, prayers and other rituals to honour the dead man, a relic of the ancient practice of mummification of Maoris killed in battle.

The head, which tribal custom forbids from being photographed or filmed, will be handed over to the Maoris in a box by officials from the town and the Museum of Rouen, which has housed it since 1875, organisers said.

The daring incident by suspected Al-Qaeda insurgents came as security was tightened in Iraq, where authorities fear reprisals after the death of Osama bin Laden in a US special forces raid in Pakistan on May 2, with 24 policemen already having been killed in a car bomb south of Baghdad on Thursday.

Among the policemen killed in Sunday’s incident was Brigadier General Moayed al-Saleh, the head of counter-terrorism for Baghdad’s central Karrada district; a lieutenant colonel and two first lieutenants, the capital’s security spokesman Major General Qassim Atta said at a news conference.