Kurds oust IS fighters from Kobani

Kurds oust IS fighters from Kobani

BEIRUT

Jubilant Kurdish fighters ousted Islamic State militants from the key Syrian border town of Kobani on Monday after a four-month battle — a significant victory for both the Kurds and the U.S.-led coalition.

The Kurds raised their flag on a hill that once flew the Islamic State group’s black banner. On Kobani’s war-ravaged streets, gunmen fired in the air in celebration.

Leader calls for intelligence overhaul

BUENOS AIRES

President Cristina Fernandez said Monday her government had nothing to gain from shielding Iranian officials suspected in Argentina’s largest terrorist attack, using her first public comments since the mysterious death of a prosecutor to reject his accusations against her and call for an overhaul of the intelligence services.

Without saying who might have killed Alberto Nisman, Fernandez called on Congress to dissolve Argentina’s spy agencies. In recent letters, she had suggested that rogue intelligence agents may have orchestrated the death of the prosecutor hours before he was to give potentially explosive testimony on the purported cover-up to lawmakers.

Dems blast GOP head of House panel

WASHINGTON

Democrats on a special House committee investigating the deadly 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, have complained that the panel’s Republican chairman has excluded them from crucial steps in the investigation while Republicans meet with witnesses.

In a strongly worded letter, Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the panel’s top Democrat, said the panel’s chairman, Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., has used different standards for Republicans and Democrats and has had secret meetings with witnesses from the State Department and other agencies.

Police kill woman

DENVER

Denver police shot and killed a young woman who struck and injured an officer in a stolen car, authorities said Monday.

Few other details were immediately released after the shooting early Monday in an alley in the older, middle-class residential neighborhood. The four other people in the car were not injured by the gunfire, and all were being questioned as part of the investigation, police said. It was not clear whether any had been arrested.

3 Russians charged in spy-ring case

NEW YORK

Three Russian citizens were charged Monday in connection with a Cold War-style Russian spy ring that spoke in code, passed messages concealed in bags and magazines and tried to recruit people with ties to an unidentified New York City university, authorities said.

The defendants were directed by Russian authorities to gather sensitive economic intelligence on potential U.S. sanctions against Russian banks and efforts here to develop alternative-energy resources, according to a complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan.

Fidel Castro writes on Cuba-US shift

HAVANA, Cuba

Former President Fidel Castro has ended his silence over the Dec. 17 declaration that Cuba and the United States would move to restore full diplomatic relations, writing that though he does not trust Washington’s politics, differences between the nations should be resolved through cooperation.

Castro made the comments in a statement sent to a student federation and read Monday at the University of Havana.

Castro wrote: “I don’t trust the politics of the United States, nor have I exchanged a word with them, but this does not mean I reject a pacific solution to the conflicts.”

Associated Press