Sen. John McCain defended his conservative credentials Monday as rival Mitt Romney claimed he was true to core Republican values in the final push before Super Tuesday. Democratic Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, locked in a tight race, searched for support in the delegate-rich Northeast. Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, told voters in a series of coast-to-coast stops that Republicans were telling him, “We don’t want Senator McCain; we want a conservative.”
The U.S. military said Monday it accidentally killed nine Iraqi civilians during an operation targeting al-Qaida in Iraq – the deadliest known case of mistaken identity in recent months. The Iraqi civilians were killed Saturday near Iskandariyah, 30 miles south of Baghdad, Navy Lt. Patrick Evans told The Associated Press. Evans did not say exactly how the civilians died, but said the killings occurred as U.S. forces pursued suspected al-Qaida in Iraq militants. The incident is under investigation, \nhe said.
A suicide bomber blew himself up Monday at a shopping center in the southern town that houses Israel’s secretive nuclear reactor complex, killing an Israeli woman and wounding nine. Police said they killed a second attacker before he could detonate his explosives belt. It was the first suicide attack in Israel in a year, and officials were investigating whether the attackers came in through Egypt after Palestinian militants breached the Gaza-Egypt border \nlast month.
Tanks rolled through Chad’s capital on Sunday, turning the streets into a battle zone between the government and rebels. Fighting also raged in an area where some 420,000 refugees live near the border with Darfur. Chad and its former colonizer, France, accused Sudan of masterminding the coup attempt in the oil-rich Central African nation. Sudan has repeatedly denied any involvement in \nthe fighting.
The U.N. Security Council on Monday strongly condemned the rebel attack on Chad and gave a green light for France and other countries to help the government repel the rebel force. The statement was approved after Chad’s Ambassador Mahamat Adoum sent a letter to the council appealing to all states “to provide all aid and assistance needed to help it” end the aggression by rebels who he said are attempting “to overthrow its legal government by force.”
