KABUL, Afghanistan

U.S. soldier killed by man in Afghan army uniform

A man wearing an Afghan army uniform shot dead a U.S. soldier in the east of the country, one of two NATO troops killed on Friday, military officials said.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.

Also Friday, the U.S.-led military coalition offered condolences to the families of Afghan civilians who were killed in airstrikes earlier this month.

The shooting was the 15th incident this year in which Afghan soldiers or insurgents disguised in military uniforms have turned their weapons on foreign troops.

NATO did not disclose the nationality of the trooper killed, but a Pentagon spokesman, Navy Capt. John Kirby, said the service member was an American.

ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan

Widening humanitarian crisis ‘a nightmare scenario’

The head of the U.N. refugee agency says deepening humanitarian crises across the Middle East and North Africa combined with persistent global economic woes have created a “nightmare scenario.”

U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said the formation of a broad crisis area across Africa encompassing Libya, Nigeria, Mauritania and Somalia poses a major threat to global peace and security.

“We feel there are more and more needs, and we see that there are limitations to mobilize the resources required to address those needs,” Guterres told The Associated Press in an interview on the sidelines of a conference in the Central Asian nation of Turkmenistan devoted to the issue of refugees in the Islamic world.

More than two-thirds of the 17.6 million displaced people worldwide are from and sheltered in Islamic countries, according to UNHCR figures.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico

More Internet connections planned to expand free Wi-Fi

Puerto Rico plans to open dozens of new Internet centers and offer more free Wi-Fi connections in public plazas this year.

The Board of Telecommunications of the U.S. territory said Friday that it will open 41 centers with free Web access by the beginning of 2013. The push comes as the Caribbean island seeks to connect more people to the Internet.

— From news service reports

 

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