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18 killed at Spanish hostel
by apparent gas leak
TODOLELLA, Spain — Eighteen
people gathered in a mountain hostel
in eastern Spain for a birthday party
died in their sleep from an apparent
gas leak, officials said Sunday.
The victims — ages 20 to 40 —
were part of a larger group of about
50 people who had converged on the
hostel for the party Saturday night.
Low: 32
Low: 30
Low: 32
IN BRIEF
Most went home. But some decided
to stay and slept in one of several
large rooms at the hostel.
To keep themselves warm at night,
they turned on a butane gas heater in
the room, according to Valencia re
gional emergency workers. An appar
ent gas leak, or bad combustion from
the heater, killed the revelers.
Two other people who slept in a
separate room survived, Todolella
Mayor Alfredo Querol told the private
Radio SER.
The bodies were found by hostel
workers Sunday afternoon. No de
tails were released about how many
of the dead were men or women.
“The judicial police are there in
vestigating but from what I could see
on first glance there doesn’t seem to
be any other cause than the bottle of
gas,” Querol said.
Distraught and weeping relatives
and friends arrived late Sunday at a
sports hall in the town where police
and forensic experts told them what
had happened. Civil Guards prevent
ed journalists from entering the cen
ter and cordoned off the single moun
tain track to the hostel, about two
miles outside the village.
The bodies were to be taken to a
hospital in the nearby provincial cap
ital of Castellon for autopsies later
Sunday, police at the scene said.
Valencia’s regional president, Fran
cisco Camps, who rushed to the town
after hearing the news, said psychol
ogists would be dispatched to the
area to help the bereaved families.
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Ro
driguez Zapatero also sent a message
of condolence. A funeral Mass was to
be held Monday at the nearby town
of Morelia.
The hostel, housed in a restored
15th-century hermitage outside this
tiny hamlet of 140 inhabitants, is fre
quented by bikers, hikers and horse
back riders.
The Associated Press
22 Iraqi police officers dead
after night attack on station
BY JASON KEYSER
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Insurgents at
tacked a police station south of Bagh
dad under cover of darkness Sunday,
killing 22 Iraqi police and soldiers, po
lice said. Gunmen seized four Egypt
ian technicians in Baghdad in the sec
ond kidnapping of foreigners in the
Iraqi capital within a week.
Elsewhere, one U.S. soldier from
Task Force Baghdad was killed and
two others were wounded Sunday af
ternoon in a roadside bombing north
of the capital, the U.S. command said.
No further details were released.
Fourteen attackers also died in
the clash that broke out about 10:30
p.m. in Mahawil, 50 miles south of
Baghdad, police Capt. Muthana
Khalid Ali said. The dead included
five Iraqi national guardsmen and
17 policemen, he said.
Earlier Sunday, the multinational
command said two Iraqi national
guard soldiers were killed and three
more injured in a rebel ambush in
the same area.
Two rockets also exploded near
Baghdad International Airport and a
third slammed into an Iraqi national
guard building in a western suburb.
No casualties were reported.
The attacks were the latest sign that
insurgents are stepping up attacks
against Iraq’s fledgling security forces,
which the United States hopes can as
sume a greater role in fighting the
rebels once a newly elected
government takes office.
The latest attacks and kidnap
pings raise new concerns about se
curity following a brief downturn in
violence after the Jan. 30 elections,
when Iraqis chose a new National
Assembly in the first nationwide
balloting since the fall of Saddam
Hussein in April 2003.
A final tally is expected by Thurs
day, but initial returns point to a land
slide by Shiite Muslim candidates en
dorsed by their clerics. Shiites are
believed to comprise about 60 percent
of Iraq’s 26 million people.
On the other hand, many Sunni
Arabs, estimated at 20 percent of the
population and the core of the insur
gency, are believed to have stayed
home, either out of fear of rebel
reprisal or because of a boycott call
by Sunni clerics.
The four Egyptians were seized
early Sunday near the Mansour dis
trict of western Baghdad, Egyptian
and Iraqi officials said. They
worked for Iraqna, a subsidiary of
the Egyptian firm Orascom
Telecommunications, which oper
ates the mobile phone network in
Baghdad and central Iraq.
Six other Egyptians working for
Iraqna were kidnapped in two separate
incidents in September. All were ulti
mately freed although Orascom said at
the time that it was committed to
continuing its work in Iraq.
No group claimed responsibility for
the latest abduction. On Friday, Italian
journalist Giuliana Sgrena was kid
napped by gunmen who blocked her
car outside Baghdad University.
Sgrena, 56, is a veteran reporter for the
communist daily II Manifesto.
Her colleagues appealed Sunday to
her captors to free her, citing the jour
nalist’s anti-American stance and say
ing that holding her would damage the
image of Iraq.
“Her articles in II Manifesto have al
ways expressed opposition to the occu
pation war led by the United States,”
her colleagues said in a statement to
Al-Jazeera television. “Keeping her
captive and hurting her would amount
to seriously damaging the cause of Iraq
before the eyes of the world. ”
Israel eases prisoner restraint
to help avert pre-summit crisis
A/so, Condoleezza Rice arrives in the region to hold
talks with the Israeli and Palestinian leaders
BY JOSEF FEDERMAN
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
JERUSALEM — Israel on Sunday
backed off its long-standing refusal to
release Palestinian prisoners accused
of violence against Israelis, defusing a
crisis that threatened to derail an up
coming Mideast summit.
The easing in the Israeli position
came as Secretary of State Condoleez
za Rice arrived in the region for sepa
rate talks with Israeli and Palestinian
leaders, in part to review the agenda
for the summit.
In a related development, the main
stream Fatah movement declared Sun
day that it would be prepared for a
cease-fire with Israel.
Fatah, headed by new Palestinian
leader Mahmoud Abbas, declared
that it was prepared “to be commit
ted to comprehensive mutual cease
firehi.tti? pCQupie^RaJe^dhW Jwl,
of 1967,” referring to the West Bank
and Gaza Strip.
Also, the statement said it served to
confirm an earlier vow “not to target
civilians in Israel by any means.”
Palestinians hope for such a mutual
declaration when Abbas meets Israeli
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon at the
summit in the Egyptian resort of
Sharm el-Sheik on Tliesday.
The summit would be the first at
that level in four years — a clear sign
that tension and violence are dropping
since Abbas succeeded the late Yasser
Arafat last month.
Abbas has made the fate of Palestin
ian prisoners a top priority, and a large
scale release would boost his efforts to
end the Palestinian uprising.
On her arrival for a two-day visit,
Rice said she would push for progress
from both sides. “This is a hopeful
Jijne, bm it,is,a, time,also. Of, great,
responsibility for all of us to make cer
tain that we act on the words that we
speak,” she said before meeting Israeli
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Last week, Israeli leaders ap
proved the release of 900 prisoners,
none involved in violence, in a ges
ture ahead of the summit. Palestin
ian officials complained that the
planned gesture did not go far
enough, and the dispute
overshadowed summit preparations.
Late Saturday, top aides of Sharon
and Abbas agreed to form a committee
to study additional releases, including
of prisoners involved in attacks. Nego
tiators also made final an arrangement
of conditional amnesty for Palestinian
fugitives, they said.
The fate of Palestinian prisoners is
one of the most emotionally charged
issues for the Palestinians. Israel
holds more than 7,000 Palestinians
prisoners, many of them arrested
during the last four years of violence.
In decades of conflict, many thou
sands of Palestinians have spent time
in Israeli custody..
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