WORLD BRIEFS

ISRAEL: Bombs floating offshore

Palestinian militants said Tuesday they had launched floating explosives into the Mediterranean Sea to avenge the death of a top Hamas commander, a day after two bomb-laden barrels washed up on Israel's coastline. Israeli authorities closed miles of beaches, deploying robotic bomb squads and ordering surfers out of the water. Early Wednesday, Israeli warplanes struck two smuggling tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border in response to the barrel bombs and the firing of a rocket from Gaza. Abu Saed of the Popular Resistance Committees, a Gaza faction with close ties to Hamas, said the attack was meant to avenge the killing last month in his Dubai hotel room of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, who Israel says was involved in smuggling rockets into Gaza.

PAKISTAN: Drones strike in northwest

The Taliban refused Tuesday to provide proof their Pakistan leader survived a U.S. missile attack, one day after promising to do just that. The reversal added to speculation that Hakimullah Mehsud was mortally wounded in the strike near the Afghan border. Tuesday U.S. drones launched an unusually intense attack in the northwest, firing 17 missiles at houses, cars and bunkers in a region dominated by militants battling U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, killing 14 insurgents, Pakistani officials said. The death of Mehsud would be a major blow to an al-Qaida-allied movement blamed for suicide bombings in Pakistan and suspected in a deadly attack on the CIA last year across the border in Afghanistan.

FRANCE: Trial begins on SST crash

A long-awaited trial in the crash of an Air France supersonic Concorde opened Tuesday in Pontoise, north of Paris, but lawyers for Continental Airlines, accused of responsibility in the accident that killed 113 people, urged the court to drop the proceedings. Continental, two employees and three French aviation officials are accused of manslaughter. The SST plunged into a hotel July 25, 2000, minutes after takeoff from de Gaulle airport.