MADRID:- World No 1 Serena Williams was given a reasonable test in her first match at the Madrid Masters on Sunday against Kazakh qualifier Yulia Putintseva before the American eventually prevailed 7-6 (7/5), 6-1. Putintseva had come through two rounds of qualifying and she seemed to ...

CHAGMALAI  - At a Pakistan Army base high in the mountains on the Afghan frontier, a general explains a strategy for fighting the Taliban he calls simply ‘WHAM’.The name has a distinctly bellicose ring. But the soldiers are learning to fight a new kind of war in a region US ...

Rescuers are battling to try to reach 11 coalminers trapped underground following a coal mine explosion in central China that killed 26 workers, local media reported on Sunday. A sudden coal and gas outburst hit the mine in the central province of Henan on Saturday while 276 miners were at work ...

Fierce gunbattles turned the Jamaican capital into a war zone yesterday as soldiers stormed the stronghold of an alleged drug baron wanted in the United States, but failed to find him. At least sixty people, including three members of the security services, are believed to have been killed in ...

German troops are fighting the first pitched battles witnessed by the Bundeswehr since 1945 in the face of a growing Taliban insurgency in the north of Afghanistan. Security has deteriorated in areas such as Badghis province in the northwest, Kunduz, Baghlan and some parts of Takhar and Badakhshan ...

Schools have officially reopened. Soldiers stand guard at checkpoints and have established a semblance of order. Many thousands have returned here to a town that is mostly intact, if still under a military presence. But Mingora, a battle-scarred city in the Swat Valley, remains tense. Pakistans ...

Pakistani security forces fought Taliban militants on the outskirts of the main city in the northwest's Swat Valley and entered two other Taliban-held towns there, the army said, foreshadowing what could become bloody urban battles. A top government official said Sunday that the offensive near ...

Sri Lanka's military says that 39 Tamil Tiger rebels have been killed in land and sea battles in the island's northeast. A navy officer says 26 rebels were killed Monday in a sea battle off the coast. He says four boats belonging to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam were sunk in the fighting. ...

Israel bombed smuggling tunnels and battled fighters in Gaza streets on Wednesday as Osama bin Laden issued a call to arms among Muslims to combat an offensive that has killed nearly 1,000 Palestinians. The Al-Qaeda chief's appeal for jihad to stop Israel's "aggression against Gaza" came as UN ...

Israeli troops and Hamas fighters fought fierce battles in the streets of Gaza's main city on Tuesday as Israel's war on Hamas entered its 18th day and the death toll spiralled above 900. The most relentless battles of the offensive erupted when Israeli special forces backed by tanks and air ...