World

Three attackers were killed and two others were captured after police in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, responded to the forced take-over of the US consulate. Four police also died and two Saudi guards were wounded in the incident, which President Bush said demonstrated that "terrorists are still on the move." All Americans in the facility are accounted for, a spokeswoman said. The attack was the 11th by Islamic terrorists against Westerners in Saudi Arabia this year and the 24th over the past decade.

The Defense Ministry in Ukraine pledged that the military will remain neutral in the nation's political crisis, and President Leonid Kuchma said he'd honor the Supreme Court's call for a repeat runoff election between opposition candidate Viktor Yuschenko and Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich. The court on Friday invalidated the results of their disputed Nov. 21 runoff, and Kuchma said he'd sign legislation reforming the law under which the vote was taken.

Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld are scheduled to be among the foreign dignitaries at Tuesday's inauguration of Afghanistan's President-elect, Hamid Karzai, despite threats by Taliban remnants to "disrupt the ceremony" via terrorist attacks. Security has been tight for days, with "every possible contingency" planned for, a US military spokesman said. Cheney is the most senior US leader to visit Afghanistan since the Taliban was overthrown in late 2001.

In their first reported antigovernment outburst in months, students in Iran jeered and heckled President Mohamad Khatami as he delivered a speech at Tehran University. The incident was a low point for him in relations with students, who hoped he'd deliver on pledges for democratic reforms and were the main force behind his electoral victories in 1997 and 2001. Khatami angrily defended his record, saying that although free speech has been muzzled by the conservative clerics who run Iran, he still thinks reforms can succeed.

Seven more bombs exploded across Spain as the Basque separatist group ETA sought to demonstrate that it's still a threat to security. No one was seriously hurt in the blasts, for which advance warnings were issued. The campaign began with five explosions Friday. ETA's ranks have been thinned by arrests this year in Spain and France, and it has been relatively inactive since the March 11 terrorist bombings on commuter trains in Madrid, for which it wrongly was blamed.