The assaults on the sprawling Forward Operating Base Salerno in Khost province
and nearby Camp Chapman, took place at 3am local time.

Camp Chapman was the scene of a major attack in December, when a suicide
bomber entered the base and killed seven CIA employees.

Major Wazir Pacha of the provincial police headquarters said insurgents used
rifles, heavy machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades, and other heavy
weapons, but had been repelled.

“The area is under control, but we still need to find those hiding,” he said.

Small arms fire could still be heard in the area mid-morning, witnesses said,
while Nato helicopters patrolled overhead.

Police discovered a vehicle laden with ammunition and another packed with
explosives that had become stuck in deep mud. Major Pacha said the second
vehicle was probably intended to be used as a suicide truck bomb.

On Friday, homemade bombs killed three US soldiers in southern and eastern
Afghanistan, bringing the total number of foreign troops killed in
Afghanistan this month to 55.

KATMANDU, Nepal — A small passenger plane carrying 14 people, including some foreigners, to the Mount Everest region crashed into the hills outside Nepal’s capital in heavy rain Tuesday, officials said.

A witness said there were no survivors, but there was no immediate word from officials on casualties.

The area’s police chief, Ram Bahadur Shrestha, said the plane went down near Shikharpur village, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Katmandu.

The German-built Dornier airplane was carrying 11 passengers and three crew members when bad weather forced it to try to return to Katmandu. Rescue coordinators at the police headquarters in Katmandu said six foreigners were on board but could not give details.

Initial reports said there were 15 passengers and three crew members on board.

Shrestha said rescuers have not been able to reach the crash site and villagers were trying to help out. The area has no roads and is only accessible by foot, but the route from the nearest town is blocked by a river flooded by monsoon rainfall.

Ram Bahadur Gole, a villager who witnessed the accident, told Avenues Television network that there were no survivors.

He said the crash impact broke the plane into several pieces that were scattered on a hillside, and that continuing rain and flooding had made many of the area’s foot trails unpassable.

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico
- Some 200 federal police officers assigned to fighting organized crime in this violent border city detained one of their superiors at gunpoint Saturday to protest alleged corruption.

The protesters complained that the commander, identified as Inspector Salomon Alarcon Olvera, had ordered the detention of another officer who had criticized him. They accused Alarcon of having links to drug cartels and participating in kidnappings, killings and extortion.

The demonstration in front of a hotel that houses some federal police offices led to a confrontation with other policemen supporting the commander. Some blows were thrown, and one injured officer was taken away on a stretcher.

The federal police headquarters in Mexico City said officials from the agency were going to Ciudad Juarez, which sits across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas, to hear the protesters’ complaints.

Ciudad Juarez has been the most violent city in Mexico as a result of drug-related violence that has killed more than 28,000 people across the country since President Felipe Calderon ordered a crackdown on cartels in December 2006.

In April, federal police took over public security duties in the city after nearly two years in which the military was primarily responsible for fighting crime.

About 5,000 federal officers are deployed in Ciudad Juarez, which the government says is a battleground between the rival Juarez and Sinaloa drug cartels.

While the officers were protesting, a federal policeman on patrol in another part of the city was slain, Coahuila State Attorney General Arturo Sandoval’s office reported.

Earlier Saturday, authorities aid Mexican marines rescued 12 people who allegedly were kidnapped by an organized crime gang in the northern border state of Nuevo Leon, another of the Mexican regions grappling with drug violence.