Iraq

Insurgents kill four Iraqis in separate attacks on police

In the latest assault on Iraq’s U.S.-trained security forces, gunmen killed four people in two separate attacks on police south of Baghdad on Saturday.

A senior U.S. official, meanwhile, said investigators were studying videotape of Iraqis mutilating the bodies of four American contract workers killed Wednesday in Fallujah, trying to identify participants.

The charred remains of the Americans were dragged through the streets for hours after insurgents ambushed their vehicles. Two corpses were hung from a bridge.

There was no sign of any U.S. military activity in the Fallujah area to suggest retaliatory action was imminent.

West Bank

Gunman attacks settlement; Arafat brushes aside threats

A Palestinian gunman broke into an Israeli settlement early Saturday, killing an Israeli man and wounding his 12-year-old daughter in their home, the army said.

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, meanwhile, brushed aside Israeli threats to kill him. “For me, I don’t care,” he said in halting English. “I care only for my people.”

The Lebanese TV station Al Manar reported that Hamas claimed responsibility for Saturday’s attack on the Avnei Hefetz settlement near the Palestinian town of Tulkarem.

Palestinian gunmen repeatedly have targeted isolated settlements, particularly during the Jewish Sabbath when more residents are at home.

Washington, D.C.

White House science adviser denies conservative agenda

President Bush’s top science adviser rebutted an advocacy group’s accusations that the administration’s policy on global warming, air quality, forest management and other matters of science are driven by a conservative agenda.

John H. Marburger III, saying his own record as a Democrat in a Republican administration prove the critics wrong, declared in a statement Friday: “In this administration, science strongly informs policy.”

Marburger, director of the White House office of science and technology policy, criticized a Feb. 18 document by the Union of Concerned Scientists that claims the administration misrepresented facts to benefit a conservative political agenda.

“The accusations in the document are inaccurate,” he said, adding that there were methodological flaws that undermine the group’s conclusions.