CARACAS, VENEZUELA

Venezuela Indians release soldiers

A representative of Venezuela’s Pemon Indians said Sunday that men in a remote village have released several dozen soldiers they had been holding captive.

Levi Gonzalez said he had spoken with Pemon men in the village of Uriman, who decided to release the soldiers after the government agreed to allow them to keep mining.

Gonzalez said dozens of people in the village and nearby communities, angered over abuses by soldiers and military operations aimed at dismantling gold mining equipment and camps, had taken 43 soldiers as hostages on Thursday.

Gunmen kill 4 in northern Iraqi city

Gunmen killed four people in three attacks on Sunday in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, officials said. Violence has dropped in Iraq since the coun- try’s worst sectarian fighting in 2006 and 2007, but insurgents carry out near-daily attacks on security forces and civilians to try to undermine the Shiite-led government. Assailants fired at a police checkpoint in the center of Mosul, killing two policemen, police said.

Rebels, troops battle for key Damascus highway

Activists say Syrian troops and opposition forces were battling Sunday for control of a key highway outside Damascus. Checkpoints on the main artery into the capital have changed hands several times since Wednesday when the opposition fighters started their campaign for the capital, the seat of President Bashar Assad’s power.

The Britain-based Observatory for Human Rights says that while the fight ay continues, government troops regained control Saturday after using fighter jets to bomb rebel positions.