World briefs 4/3/06

Two U.S. helicopter pilots killed near Baghdad

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The U.S. military said Sunday that the bodies of two American pilots killed when their Apache helicopter crashed near Baghdad were recovered and the aircraft was probably shot down. Three other U.S. soldiers were reported killed in Baghdad and northern Iraq. The AH-64D Apache Longbow went down about 5:30 p.m. Saturday during combat operations west of Youssifiyah, about 10 miles southwest of Baghdad, the U.S. command said in a statement. No further details were released on the helicopter crash, but Youssifiyah is located in the "triangle of death," a religiously mixed area notorious for attacks by Sunni extremists against Shiites traveling between Baghdad and religious shrines south of the capital.

U.S. criticized for cutting Palestinian ties

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh criticized the United States on Sunday for restricting diplomatic ties with the Hamas government, saying his people were being punished for electing the militant Islamic group. Seeking to end chaos in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian Interior Minister Said Siyam pledged the new government would pacify the area but appealed for patience. "Let them bear with us for a year," he said. Four people were killed and 36 wounded in unrest over the weekend. The United States said Friday that American diplomats have been forbidden to make contact with officials in any Palestinian government agency controlled by Hamas, whose charter calls for Israel's destruction. The Islamic group's new Cabinet controls every ministry.

Man killed during riots in southeast Turkey

KIZILTEPE, Turkey -- Turkish police clashed with pro-Kurdish protesters in the heavily Kurdish southeast on Sunday, leaving one demonstrator dead in the sixth consecutive day of anti-government rioting. The tense confrontations between protesters and police also spread to Istanbul, which has a large Kurdish population. Police fired tear gas to break up a group of some 200 demonstrators trying to enter a park. Demonstrators elsewhere in the city set fire to a truck before being dispersed by police. In the southeastern town of Kiziltepe, home to much of the violence, hospital officials said a 20-year-old man was killed, but would not say how. Five people were also injured. Local Kurdish officials said the man killed was hit by gunfire.

Escaped al-Qaida prisoner surrenders

SAN'A, Yemen -- One of 23 al-Qaida convicts who escaped from a Yemeni prison in February has surrendered, a news agency reported Sunday. Hazam Saleh Majali turned himself in to authorities within the past two days, according to Yemen's official Saba news agency. The Yemeni was convicted of having a role in the 2002 attack on the French tanker Limburg and sentenced to death. Majli was the sixth from the group of 23 to have surrendered, the agency said. The prisoners broke out on Feb. 3 through a roughly 200-yard tunnel that ended inside a mosque. Among those at large is a militant convicted in the 2000 attack on the destroyer USS Cole in Aden's harbor. Security officials said authorities were in indirect contact with the remaining fugitives and trying to persuade them to surrender.

-- From wire reports