MOGADISHU (AP) — Somali officials were imposing martial law on areas the transitional government controls, moving to strengthen a tenuous grip on power and smother rising violence. An AU official said Wednesday that help was on the way in the form of peacekeepers from Uganda and Nigeria.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Training the police is as important to stabilising Iraq as building up an army there, but the United States has botched the job by assigning the wrong agencies to the task, two members of the Iraq Study Group say.

DAMASCUS — For a while in postwar Iraq, life looked up for Ahlam Jibouri, who found a well-paid job working with the US authorities after the 2003 invasion.