BAGHDAD - A wave of attacks killed at least 86 people in Shiite and Sunni areas of Iraq on Monday, officials said, pushing the death toll over the past week to more than 230 and extending one of the most sustained bouts of sectarian violence the country has seen in years.

BEIRUT - Syrian troops pushed into a rebel-held town near the Lebanese border on Sunday, fighting house-to-house and bombing from the air as President Bashar Assad tried to strengthen his grip on a strategic strip of land running from the capital to the Mediterranean coast.

SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea fired three short-range guided missiles into its eastern waters on Saturday, a South Korean official said. It routinely tests such missiles, but the latest launches came during a period of tentative diplomacy aimed at easing tensions.

KABUL - Two bombs hidden in a motorcycle and a car exploded inside an elite gated community linked to the family of Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Friday evening, killing at least nine people and wounding more than 70 near the southern city of Kandahar, an official said.

The blasts happened inside Aino Mina, a housing complex on the northern outskirts of the city that was developed in part by Mahmood Karzai, the president's younger brother.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - Former dictator Jorge Rafael Videla, who took power over Argentina in a 1976 coup and led a military junta that killed thousands of his fellow citizens in a dirty war to eliminate so-called "subversives," died quietly in his sleep Friday while serving life in prison for crimes against humanity. He was 87.

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria - Soldiers in Nigeria launched their first raid against suspected Islamic extremists in a campaign to take back control of the nation's northeast, killing at least 21 people, a security official said Friday.

BOISE, Idaho - An Uzbekistan national pleaded not guilty and said little during his first court appearance Friday on U.S. charges that he gave support, cash and other resources to help a recognized terrorist group in his home country plan a terrorist attack there.

Fazliddin Kurbanov, 30, was arrested Thursday. Prosecutors have said little about the details of their investigation. He was charged after an extensive investigation into his activities late last year and this year.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan - Bombs that exploded outside two mosques in a village in northwestern Pakistan killed at least 15 people Friday, underlining the challenge of militant violence facing a new government set to take power under the leadership of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

KABUL - A suicide car bombing tore through a U.S. convoy in Kabul on Thursday, killing at least 15 people including six Americans in a blast so powerful it rattled the other side of the Afghan capital. U.S. soldiers rushed to help, some wearing only T-shirts or shorts under their body armour.

BAGHDAD - Car bombs hit Shiite neighbourhoods of the Iraqi capital for the second day in a row on Thursday, part of a series of attacks across the country that left 21 people dead and raised concerns over a return to sectarian bloodshed.

Baghdad police said the first blast hit a bus and taxi stop during the morning rush hour in the city's eastern Sadr City neighbourhood. Nine people were killed, including a 7-year old child, and 16 were wounded in that attack, two officers said.