WAR DEVELOPMENTS

Iraq

> Al-Qaida in Iraq’s leader said in a new audiotape that his group is focused on attacks outside Iraq and seems to claim responsibility for the June 2007 attack on Scotland’s Glasgow International Airport. Abu Ayyub al-Masri, also known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, does not specifically mention Glasgow airport in the tape posted Thursday on the Internet. But he says his group carried out its “last operation in Britain, a good part of which was launched on the airport and the rest was not carried out due to a mistake made by one of the brothers.” Two men were arrested and charged with conspiring to murder after a burning Jeep was driven into the airport in June 2007. A day earlier, police discovered two cars packed with explosives in central London.

> A prominent Shiite cleric appealed for unity as lawmakers consider a U.S.-Iraq security deal. Jalaluddin al-Saghir, a senior figure in the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, told worshippers the government was still tinkering with the deal, which would give the United States a legal basis for keeping its forces in Iraq for three more years. It also would grant Iraq limited authority to try U.S. soldiers and contractors charged with serious crimes.

> The U.N. refugee agency said it was rushing aid to thousands of Christians who fled the northern city of Mosul. Some 13,000 Christians have been chased away by threats and extremist attacks, said Ron Redmond, spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. That number is over half the community in a city where Christians have lived since the early days of the religion.

Afghanistan

> More than 1,000 people shouted anti-Taliban slogans in eastern Afghanistan on Friday, protesting the slayings this week of 26 young men from their community by militants in the south. The unprecedented demonstration in the eastern Laghman province was one of the largest anti-Taliban gatherings since the fall of the hard-line Islamist regime following the U.S. invasion in late 2001. The crowd was protesting an incident Sunday in which Taliban fighters stopped a bus in southern Kandahar province and killed 26 passengers —- beheading at least six of them. The Taliban said they were Afghan army officers; Afghan officials said they were civilians.

> A U.S. coalition raid in Paktika killed three insurgents Thursday, the coalition said Friday. The troops were targeting an insurgent leader accused of facilitating the movement of foreign fighters and weapons.