Cuba briefs U.S. on detained exiles
HAVANA – U.S. diplomats confirmed Saturday that Cuban officials have given them some information about four Florida residents who were arrested on suspicion of preparing attacks against military installations on the island.
The U.S. Interests Section issued a statement confirming the Thursday meeting with representatives of the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It said, “The Cubans provided some information about the allegations which we are now reviewing.”
Cuba’s Interior Ministry said the men were detained April 26 for plotting to attack military installations, but released few specific details.
None of the four are well-known within the exile community in South Florida, but Cuba claimed they were acting on orders from others with a history of militancy.
Mexico to transform outlying vigilante forces
TEPALCATEPEC, Mexico – Mexico’s government Saturday began demobilizing a vigilante movement of assault rifle-wielding ranchers and farmers who had succeeded in largely expelling the Knights Templar cartel from the western state of Michoacan when authorities couldn’t.
At a ceremony in the town of Tepalcatepec, where the movement began in February 2013, officials handed out new pistols, rifles and uniforms to 120 self-defense group members who were sworn in to a new official rural police force.
The government hopes creation of the new rural force will end the Wild West chapter of the self-defense movement, in which civilians built roadblocks and battled cartel members for towns in the rich farming area called the “Tierra Caliente,” or Hot Land.
Bombings, shellings kill 30 people in Iraq
BAGHDAD – A series of bombings in Iraq killed 19 people Saturday, a day after army shelling killed 11 civilians and gunmen in the militant-held city of Fallujah, authorities said.
Police officials said the deadliest of Saturday’s attacks happened in the afternoon when a suicide bomber drove his explosives-laden car into the security checkpoint in the town of Dujail, killing six security force members and a civilian and wounding 15 people.
Dujail is 50 miles north of Baghdad.
Associated Press
