CAIRO

Teenager killed as protests against Morsi turn violent

Supporters and opponents of Egypt’s president Sunday grew more entrenched in their potentially destabilizing battle over the Islamist leader’s move to assume near absolute powers, with neither side appearing willing to back down as the stock market plunged amid the fresh turmoil.

Clashes between the liberal and secular camps on one side, and supporters of President Mohammed Morsi on the other, spilled onto the streets for a third day since Morsi issued edicts that make him immune to oversight of any kind, including that of the courts.

A teenager was killed and at least 40 people were wounded when a group of anti-Morsi protesters tried to storm the local offices of the political arm of the president’s Muslim Brotherhood in the Nile Delta city of Damanhoor, according to security officials.

BEIRUT

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Syrian rebels capture base outside capital of Damascus

Syrian rebels captured a helicopter base just outside Damascus on Sunday in what an activist called a “blow to the morale of the regime” near President Bashar Assad’s seat of power.

The takeover claim showed how rebels are advancing in the area of the capital, although they are badly outgunned, making inroads where Assad’s power was once unchallenged. Rebels have also been able to fire mortar rounds into Damascus recently.

The director of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdul-Rahman, said rebels seized control of the Marj al-Sultan base on the outskirts of Damascus on Sunday morning.

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico

Bodies of 19 people found close to border with U.S.

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The slain bodies of 19 people have been discovered in Mexico’s northern border state of Chihuahua, officials reported Sunday, including 11 apparently long-dead men found in mass graves and eight others who were apparently tortured and killed in recent days.

The state prosecutor’s office for missing people said 11 male bodies were found in Ejido Jesus Carranza, near the U.S. border about 25 miles southeast of Ciudad Juarez. The area of sand dunes is a popular spot for picnickers from Juarez, which is just across the border from El Paso, Texas.

Officials say they apparently were buried two years ago at the height of battles between drug gangs seeking to control routes across the border. Federal statistics showed more than 3,000 people were killed that year in Ciudad Juarez, making it one of the most dangerous places on earth.

Prosecutors also said Sunday that officials had found eight bodies tossed along a road near Rosales, about 120 miles southwest of Ojinaga, Texas. The agency said the men apparently were kidnapped Friday and were discovered Saturday. It said they had been shot in the head after being tortured. Some had been burned, beaten and had eyes carved out.

KADUNA, Nigeria

Twin suicide bombs explode at church on military base

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Twin suicide car bombs exploded Sunday at a church inside one of Nigeria’s top military bases, killing at least 11 people and wounding another 30 in an embarrassing attack showing the continued insecurity that haunts Africa’s most populous nation.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks, but suspicion immediately fell on the radical Islamist sect known as Boko Haram, whose suicide bombers target Sunday worship services in what has become a weekly macabre routine in Nigeria.

This attack in Jaji on Sunday, however, happened inside a barracks home to the Armed Forces Command and Staff College, one of the country’s most important military colleges. It also showed a new dangerous sophistication as the second explosion appeared timed to target responders rushing to aid the wounded 10 minutes after the first blast, officials said.

— From news service reports


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