World briefs: Four Islamic militants die in Israeli strikes

JERUSALEM -- Israeli forces killed at least four Islamic militants in several airstrikes Thursday, including a high-ranking commander of Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian and Israeli officials said.

One airstrike killed Omar Khatib, a top Islamic Jihad commander, his deputy and another fighter from the group as they were driving in central Gaza, Israeli military and Islamic Jihad officials said. Khatib had been involved in an attack on a border crossing last month, Israeli officials said.

In a separate strike, the Israeli army killed Sharif Brais, a member of an armed faction affiliated with Hamas. An Israeli military spokesman said Brais was about to fire a rocket-propelled grenade at Israeli forces when he was killed.

Palestinian officials said the Israeli forces had entered the Gaza Strip at Khan Younis.

Drug cartel allegedly recruited ex-officers

BOGOTA, Colombia -- Colombian investigators have arrested three people allegedly involved in recruiting recently retired army officers to work for the country's largest drug cartel, authorities said Thursday.

The allegations are an embarrassment to an army receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. aid to fight the world's largest heroin and cocaine industry.

Judge frees activists held for five months

HARARE, Zimbabwe -- A judge ruled police faked evidence against opposition activists accused of mounting a gasoline bombing campaign and freed them after five months in jail, the activists' lawyer said Thursday.

A day earlier, police assaulted scores of reform campaigners in Harare, victims said. Many were hospitalized, according to an independent care group.

The developments are the latest in a series of run-ins between Zimbabwe's authoritarian government led by President Robert Mugabe and the country's increasingly vocal opposition.

Fires raging, but temperatures dip

ATHENS, Greece -- Fires raged in several southern European nations on Thursday, as a weeklong heat wave blamed for dozens of deaths began to abate.

The fires were blamed for at least three deaths overnight in Greece, where hundreds of firefighters and soldiers tackled 100 blazes. But temperatures began to dip Thursday, falling from 113 degrees to a predicted high of 102 degrees in Athens.

U.N. finds Somali militants well armed

NAIROBI, Kenya -- Islamic insurgents have enough surface-to-air missiles, suicide vests and explosives to sustain their war against the internationally backed Somali government, largely due to secret shipments from Eritrea, a U.N. monitoring panel said in a report.

Eritrea denied providing any assistance to the Shabab, the militant wing of an Islamic group that ruled much of southern Somalia for six months last year. U.S. officials believe the militants have close ties to al-Qaida.