Iraq

U.S. soldier killed in explosion in Baghdad

An American soldier was killed Monday by an explosive device in Baghdad as firefighters battled to control a suspicious blaze on an important oil pipeline.

U.S. officials said the soldier, from the Army’s 1st Armored Division, was fatally wounded when the device detonated. He was rushed to a combat hospital where he was pronounced dead.

The military didn’t release any other details, and it wasn’t clear if the blast was the result of a hostile act. The soldier’s name is being withheld pending notification of his next of kin.

Two soldiers were wounded in a separate incident after guerrillas attacked their convoy with rocket propelled grenades and small arms fire about 8 miles east of Tikrit, 4th Infantry spokesman Lt. Col. William MacDonald said. The soldiers were in stable condition.

An audiotape, purportedly from an al-Qaida militant, calls on Muslims around the world to travel to Iraq and fight the U.S.-led occupation.

The speaker on the audiotape, obtained by The Associated Press and aired Monday on Al-Arabiyah television was thought to be the first public call by bin Laden’s al-Qaida terror network for Muslims to join the fight in Iraq.

Morocco

Death sentences issued for May suicide bombers

A Moroccan court early today sentenced four men to death for involvement in Casablanca suicide bombings in May that killed 32 bystanders.

The four were convicted of plotting to blow themselves up in the May 16 attacks, which also killed 12 suicide bombers.

They were among dozens of defendants in a trial of suspected members of a clandestine Moroccan group, the Salafia Jihadia. Moroccan authorities have linked the group to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network.

Officials said 83 other defendants were convicted of being members of the outlawed group and handed sentences ranging from 10 months in prison to life. Some of the defendants were also convicted of threatening state security and having links to terrorist groups.

Washington

West Nile vaccine shows promise in monkeys

A vaccine that combines key parts of two viruses has been shown to protect monkeys from West Nile virus, a mosquito-borne illness that has killed 10 Americans this year.

Scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, or NIAID, one of the National Institutes of Health, made the vaccine by placing West Nile virus proteins into a modified virus that causes dengue fever. This created a live but weakened virus.

When injected into monkeys, the hybrid virus protected the animals from injected doses of West Nile virus. The researchers said the combined viruses crippled the West Nile virus but still caused a strong immune response against it.

Human clinical trials with the vaccine are to begin this year, said Dr. Brian Murphy, a researcher in NIAID’s Laboratory of Infectious Diseases.