Venezuela

President to face recall

President Hugo Chavez will face a recall referendum, the elections council said Tuesday, setting the date of Aug. 15 for the vote.

Council President Francisco Carrasquero said Venezuela’s opposition had compiled 2.54 million votes to demand the recall, surpassing the 2.43 million signatures — 20 percent of the electorate — required by the constitution.

Chavez has launched a campaign in which he predicts he will trounce his opponents in “a decisive battle.”

Saudi Arabia

American killed in terror hit

An American employee of a U.S. firm that’s training the Saudi National Guard was shot to death Tuesday in an apparent terrorist hit outside his Riyadh villa.

The slaying came just three days after suspected al-Qaida militants fired on a BBC Television crew in a south-central Riyadh neighborhood, killing the camera operator and gravely wounding a senior correspondent. The strikes suggest that Saudi Arabia’s terrorist network has shifted tactics, as operatives begin to target individuals.

The victim was identified as Robert C. Jacobs, 62, of Murphysboro, Ill., a graphics designer for the Virginia-based Vinnell Corp., a Northrop Grumman subsidiary contracted by the U.S. Army to train the Saudi National Guard. Jacobs was the 13th American killed in a yearlong succession of terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia.

Belgium

Madrid bombing suspects captured in Italy, Belgium

In a coordinated strike across Europe, police arrested 17 suspected Islamic militants, including an alleged mastermind of the Madrid train bombings who authorities say was planning further attacks, officials said Tuesday.

Fifteen people, mostly Palestinian, Jordanian, Moroccan and Egyptian nationals, were arrested in raids on about 10 locations in the Belgian cities of Brussels and Antwerp, said Daniel Bernard, Belgian federal prosecutor.

Italian police picked up two suspects, including a 33-year-old Egyptian described as the ringleader who allegedly helped plan the March 11 attacks in Madrid that killed 191 people.

The suspect, identified as Rabei Osman Ahmed — also known as “Mohammed the Egyptian” — was arrested Monday night near his apartment in the northern outskirts of Milan in an operation that involved dozens of police.

Afghanistan

21 suspected Taliban killed

U.S.-led troops backed by jet fighters and helicopters killed 21 Taliban militants Tuesday, after rebels attacked a convoy in the mountains of southern Afghanistan, an Afghan commander said.

The U.S. military said five Marines and two Afghans were wounded in the clash in southern Afghanistan. An Afghan governor said the fighting took place in Daychopan district of Zabul province, some 190 miles southwest of Kabul.

About 450 people have died across Afghanistan this year in a wave of violence that has cast doubts on plans to hold national elections in September.