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Russian Army Convoy Seen Near Ukraine Border

By Natalia Zinets and Richard Balmforth

KIEV (Reuters) - Ukraine said its artillery destroyed part of a Russian armoured column that entered its territory overnight and said its forces came under shellfire from Russia on Friday in what appeared to be a major military escalation between the ex-Soviet states.

Russia's government denied its forces had crossed into Ukraine, calling the Ukrainian report "some kind of fantasy", and in turn raised its own serious concerns about activity by the U.S.-led NATO defence alliance near its borders.

Moscow accused Kiev of trying to sabotage aid deliveries to eastern areas torn by fighting between pro-Russian separatists and the Western-backed government of Moscow's former satellite.

In a call to U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, as reported by Russia's state news agency RIA, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said Moscow was "seriously concerned" by increased NATO activity and called for a ceasefire to get aid into Ukraine. The agency did not specify what Western military movements he meant.

The Pentagon said in a statement that Hagel had sought clarification about the Russian convoy during the phone call and was "guaranteed" it did not include Russian military personnel and would not be used as a pretext for intervening in Ukraine.

NATO said there had been a Russian incursion into Ukraine, which is not a member of its mutual defence pact, but it avoiding calling it an invasion. Other European capitals accused the Kremlin of escalating a conflict that has revived Cold War-era animosities and chilled the region's struggling economies.

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Russian military personnel sit atop armoured vehicles outside Kamensk-Shakhtinsky, Rostov Region, Au …

The White House, which said it could not confirm that a Russian military convoy had crossed the border, warned Moscow that any intervention into Ukraine without Kiev's permission was unacceptable.

The United Nations said it could not verify the reports from the Ukrainian border but called for an immediate de-escalation.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Russian President Vladimir Putin in a phone call on Friday to help defuse the crisis and halt the stream of weapons and armed personnel into Ukraine, her office said.

"In view of the need for an urgent ceasefire she urged the president to help de-escalate the situation and in particular to halt the stream of weapons, military advisers and armed personnel into Ukraine," spokesman Steffen Seibert said.

Kiev and its Western allies have repeatedly accused Russia of arming pro-Moscow separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine, and of sending undercover military units onto Ukrainian soil. They have also expressed concern Russia may use an aid convoy it has assembled on the border as a pretext for stoking the conflict.

It was not clear whether the armoured column was officially part of the Russian army on active service. But evidence of Russian military vehicles captured or destroyed on Ukrainian territory would give extra force to Kiev's allegations - and possibly spark a new round of sanctions against the Kremlin.

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Drivers of a Russian convoy of trucks carrying humanitarian aid for Ukraine show the contents of the …

Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for the Ukrainian military, told a news briefing that Kiev's forces had picked up a Russian military column crossing the border under cover of darkness.

"Appropriate actions were undertaken and a part of it no longer exists," Lysenko said.

The situation in the conflict zone was becoming increasingly tense, he said, with Ukrainian forces which are fighting pro-Russian separatists also coming under artillery attack from Russian territory.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko briefed British Prime Minister David Cameron on the incident and told him a "significant" part of the Russian column had been destroyed, according to statement from Poroshenko's office.

But Russia's Defence Ministry said no such military force had crossed the border into eastern Ukraine. State news agency RIA quoted a ministry statement saying: "There was no Russian military column that crossed the Russian-Ukrainian border either at night or during the day."

It called the Ukrainian report "some kind of fantasy".

Raw: Russian Aid Convoys at Ukraine BorderPlay Video

Britain summoned Russia's ambassador to ask him to clarify reports of a military incursion into Ukraine, and European Union foreign ministers said any unilateral military actions by Russia in Ukraine would be a blatant violation of international law.

"WE HAVE TO TALK"

In a sign of efforts to unwind the crisis, the Kremlin said the Ukrainian and Russian chiefs of presidential staff met in Russia on Friday and the Ukrainian foreign minister said he would meet his Russian counterpart in Berlin on Sunday.

Earlier on Friday, responding to reports that a Russian column had entered Ukraine overnight, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the alliance had seen what he called a Russian incursion into Ukraine.

"It just confirms the fact that we see a continuous flow of weapons and fighters from Russia into eastern Ukraine and it is a clear demonstration of continued Russian involvement in the destabilization of eastern Ukraine," the NATO chief said.

A spokesman for Russia's border guard service was also quoted by Russian news agencies as denying that any Russian military units had entered Ukraine.

In a statement issued by the Russian foreign ministry, Moscow accused Ukrainian forces of intensifying the fighting against pro-Moscow separatists in eastern Ukraine in an attempt to sabotage Russian efforts to get aid into rebel-held areas.

A caravan of 280 trucks taking Russian aid to eastern Ukraine was parked on the Russian side of the border on Friday.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said it would deliver the aid after Kiev expressed fear the convoy could be used to help the rebels and urged both sides on Friday to agree quickly on how it should be done.

After Ukraine reported the clash, Russia's rouble currency weakened against both the dollar and the euro. Russian shares were also dragged lower.

Global equity markets retreated and yields on benchmark German government bonds - a traditional safe haven for investors - plumbed record lows below 1 percent.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin said in a Twitter post he would meet Russia's Sergei Lavrov and the German and French foreign ministers on Sunday in Berlin: "It can be at a square table or a round table," he said. "But we have to talk."

(Additional reporting by Natalia Zinets in Kiev, Maria Tsvetkova and Alexander Winning in Moscow, and Alexei Anishchuk in Sochi, Russia; Writing by Philippa Fletcher; Editing by Alastair Macdonald, Jim Loney)

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Russian military vehicles destroyed in Ukraine

NATO and Ukraine officials say excursions happened overnight near the point where the aid convoy was parked.
Trucks inspected

Islamic fighters kill scores of Yazidi men in Iraq

IRBIL, Iraq (AP) — Islamic extremists shot scores of Yazidi men to death in Iraq, lining them up in small groups and opening fire with assault rifles before abducting their wives and children, according to an eyewitness, government officials and people who live in the area.

A Yazidi lawmaker on Saturday cited the mass killing in Kocho as evidence that his people are still at risk after a week of U.S. and Iraqi airstrikes on the militants.

Meanwhile, warplanes targeted insurgents around a large dam that was captured by the Islamic State extremist group earlier this month, nearby residents said.

In a statement, U.S. Central Command said the airstrikes Saturday were launched under the authority to support humanitarian efforts in Iraq, as well as to protect U.S. personnel and facilities.

Central Command says the nine airstrikes conducted so far had destroyed or damaged four armored personnel carriers, seven armed vehicles, two Humvees and an armored vehicle.

The U.S. began airstrikes against the Islamic State extremist group a week ago, in part to prevent the massacre of tens of thousands of Yazidis in northern Iraq. They fled the militants by scrambling up a barren mountain, where they got stranded. Most were eventually able to escape with help from Kurdish fighters.

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Displaced Iraqis from the Yazidi community walk on the Delal bridge in Zakho, 300 miles (475 kilomet …

Islamic State fighters had surrounded the nearby village 12 days ago and demanded that its Yazidi residents convert or die. On Friday afternoon, they moved in.

The militants told people to gather in a school, promising they would be allowed to leave Kocho after their details were recorded, said the eyewitness and the brother of the Kocho mayor, Nayef Jassem, who said he obtained his details from another witness.

The militants separated the men from the women and children under 12 years old. They took men and male teens away in groups of a few dozen each and shot them on the edge of the village, according to a wounded man who escaped by feigning death.

The fighters then walked among the bodies, using pistols to finish off anyone who appeared to still be alive, the 42-year-old man told The Associated Press by phone from an area where he was hiding. He spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing for his safety.

"They thought we were dead, and when they went away, we ran away. We hid in a valley until sundown, and then we fled to the mountains," he said.

Pentagon Says US Airstrikes, Airdrops Succeed in I …Play Video

A Yazidi lawmaker, a Kurdish security official and an Iraqi official from the nearby city of Sinjar gave similar accounts, saying Islamic State fighters had massacred many Yazidi men Friday after seizing Kocho.

All of them said they based their information on the accounts of survivors. Their accounts matched those of two other Yazidi men, Qassim Hussein and Nayef Jassem, who said they spoke to other survivors.

It was not clear precisely how many men were killed. Iraqi and Kurdish officials said at least 80 men were shot. Yazidi residents said they believed the number was higher, because there were at least 175 families in Kocho, and few were able to escape before the militants surrounded their hamlet.

Jassem said he was in touch with two wounded men, including a cousin, who fled the village. They called Jassem from the phone of a sympathetic shepherd and described what happened. On Saturday morning, Jassem's cousin called again, pleading for help.

"I can't walk, and we will die," Jassem said his cousin told him, his voice breaking. The 55-year-old said he called Yazidi rebels in the mountains, pleading with them to try to save the men. "They need first aid. Send them a donkey they can sit on, something to carry them." But Jassem said his cousin was a six-hour walk from the rebels and would die before help came. By evening, he lost contact with his relative.

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Displaced Iraqis from the Yazidi community settle under a bridge in Dahuk, 260 miles (430 kilometers …

The Yazidis are a centuries-old religious minority viewed as apostates by the Islamic State, which has claimed mass killings of its opponents in Syria and Iraq, often posting grisly photos online.

Yazidi lawmaker Mahma Khalil said the Yazidis in Kocho were given the choice to abandon their religion for that of the fighters. When they refused, "the massacre took place," he said.

Halgurd Hekmat, a spokesman for Kurdish security forces, said the militants took the women and children of Kocho to a nearby city.

Elsewhere in northern Iraq, residents living near the Mosul Dam told the AP that the area was being targeted by airstrikes.

The extremist group seized the dam on the Tigris River on Aug. 7. Residents living near the dam, which is Iraq's largest, say the airstrikes killed militants, but that could not immediately be confirmed. The residents spoke on condition of anonymity out of fears for their safety.

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A tank belonging to Kurdish peshmerga troops fire at Islamic State (IS) militant positions from the …

Tens of thousands of Yazidis fled earlier this month when the Islamic State group captured the town of Sinjar, near the Syrian border.

The plight of the Yazidis motivated U.S. and Iraqi forces to launch aid drops. It also contributed to the U.S. decision to launch airstrikes against the militants, who were advancing on the Kurdish regional capital Irbil.

But the Islamic State group remains in control of vast swaths of northeastern Syria and northern and western Iraq, and the scale of the humanitarian crisis prompted the U.N. to declare its highest level of emergency earlier this week.

Some 1.5 million people have been displaced by fighting since the Islamic State's rapid advance began in June.

The decision to launch airstrikes marked the first direct U.S. military intervention in Iraq since the last troops withdrew in 2011 and reflected growing international concern about the extremist group.

Khalil, the Yazidi lawmaker, said the U.S. must do more to protect those fleeing the Islamic State fighters.

"We have been calling on the U.S. administration and Iraqi government to intervene and help the innocent people," Khalil said. "But it seems that nobody is listening."

The United States was not alone in its efforts to ease the dangers in the region.

On Saturday, Britain's Ministry of Defense said it deployed a U.S.-made spy plane over northern Iraq to monitor the humanitarian crisis and movements of the militants. The converted Boeing KC-135 tanker, called a Rivet Joint, was to monitor mobile phone calls and other communication.

Germany's Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier was in Baghdad on Saturday, where he announced his government would provide more than 24 million euros ($32.2 million) in humanitarian aid to Iraq.

Also Saturday, two British planes landed in the Kurdish regional capital of Irbil carrying humanitarian supplies.

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Yacoub reported from Baghdad. Associated Press writers Vivian Salama in Baghdad, Frank Jordans in Berlin and Shawn Pogatchnik in Dublin contributed to this report.

The death toll from landslides and flooding triggered by torrential monsoon rains in Nepal and northern India climbed to at least 109 Saturday as tides of water, mud and rocks swept away houses, officials said.

The downpours also displaced thousands of people in the scenic Himalayan region and revived memories of a deadly deluge last year that killed more than 5,000 people in the Indian state of Uttarakhand.

The rains in Nepal over the past three days have killed 85 people and left more than 100 others unaccounted for, said national disaster management chief Yadav Prasad Koirala.

"We have recovered 85 bodies so far, 54 people have suffered injuries due to landslides and flooding over the last three days and 113 are still missing," Koirala told AFP.

The rains have damaged roads across the country's western plains bordering India, with poor visibility hindering helicopter rescue efforts to evacuate some 1,500 people stranded in waterlogged homes, said home ministry spokesman Laxmi Prasad Dhakal.

"Because of the damage to roads in the area, we can only deliver relief supplies like tents and medicines by helicopter," Dhakal told AFP.

Army officials rescued some 300 people Saturday, while hundreds more awaited help in the worst-hit districts of Surkhet and Bardiya, where electricity lines snapped, leaving thousands without power.

"We have had no power all day and we are struggling to reach affected people," said Bardiya district official Tej Prasad Paudel.

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Nepalese villagers grieve following the deaths of family members in a landslide at Lamo Sanghu on th …

In neighbouring Banke district, flooding caused by heavy rain washed away homes, district official Jeevan Oli said.

"We've recovered four bodies, including two children. We've looking for four more people whose hut was swept away last night," Oli told AFP.

The deaths come two weeks after the worst landslide in over a decade smashed into hamlets in northeastern Nepal, killing 156 people.

Monsoon rains have also forced officials to close a major bridge along the country's longest highway after it developed cracks and caved in.

- Evacuations in India -

Meanwhile, heavy downpours in neighbouring India triggered landslides and flooding that have claimed at least 24 lives since Friday, according to government officials.

In Uttarakhand state, seven people were killed in their sleep by a landslide as monsoon rains pounded the hilly region this week.

"Seven people were killed while one woman was pulled alive by rescue workers from the debris of a house which collapsed due to overnight rain," district magistrate Chandresh Yadav told AFP, adding the total death toll was now 24.

According to officials in Pauri district, at least 50 families were stranded and the army was being deployed to evacuate them.

With more rain predicted in the next 24 hours, state authorities have sought reinforcements from the army and the air force, said Indian government spokesman Surendra Kumar.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed grief on Twitter over the loss of lives in the state.

Hundreds of people die every year in floods and landslides during the monsoon season in South Asia.

While annual rains are a lifeline for the region's farmers, flooding, landslides and building collapses are frequent during the monsoon season, which lasts from June to September.

Earlier this month, at least 151 people were killed in western Indian city of Pune by a massive landslide caused by rains.

Floods, landslides devastate Nepal

Torrential rains over the past three days have killed dozens and stranded hundreds more in the Asian country.
Rescue effort hindered

FERGUSON, Mo. (AP) — Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon declared a state of emergency and imposed a curfew Saturday in the St. Louis suburb where a black teenager was shot to death by a white police officer a week ago.

Nixon said that though many protesters were making themselves heard peacefully, the state would not allow a handful of looters to endanger the community. The curfew will run from midnight to 5 a.m.

Tensions in Ferguson flared late Friday after police released the name of the officer who fatally shot 18-year-old Michael Brown and documents alleging Brown robbed a store before he died.

Nixon also said the U.S. Department of Justice is beefing up its investigation of the shooting.

Missouri State Highway Patrol Capt. Ron Johnson, who is in charge of security in Ferguson, said there were 40 FBI agents going door-to-door talking to people who might have seen or have information about the shooting.

Nixon and Johnson spoke at a church in Ferguson, where they were interrupted repeatedly by people demanding justice and objecting to the curfew.

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Masked individuals carry items out of a store, during on-going demonstrations to protest against the …

Johnson assured those in attendance that police would communicate with protesters and give them ample opportunity to observe the curfew.

"You saw people sitting in the street and they had the chance to get up," he said. "And that's how it's going to continue."

Brown's death had already ignited several days of clashes with furious protesters. Tensions eased Thursday after Nixon turned oversight of the protests over to the Missouri Highway Patrol. Gone were the police in riot gear and armored vehicles, replaced by the new patrol commander who personally walked through the streets with demonstrators. But Friday night marked a resurgence of unrest.

Local officers faced strong criticism earlier in the week for their use of tear gas and rubber bullets against protesters. Johnson said one tear gas canister was deployed Friday night after the group of rioters became unruly.

The officer who killed Brown was identified as 28-year-old Darren Wilson, a six-year police veteran who had no previous complaints filed against him.

The Ferguson Police Department has refused to say anything about Wilson's whereabouts, and Associated Press reporters were unable to contact him at any addresses or phone numbers listed under that name in the St. Louis area.

Wilson has been on paid administrative leave since the shooting. St. Louis County prosecutor Bob McCulloch said it could be weeks before the investigation wraps up.

St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley asked Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster on Friday to take over the case, saying he did not believe McCulloch could be objective. Koster said Missouri law does not allow it unless McCulloch opts out, and McCulloch spokesman Ed Magee said the prosecutor has no plans to surrender the case.

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Russia and Ukraine on the brink of war

Donetsk (Russia) (AFP) - European leaders on Saturday scrambled to ease tensions over claims that Ukrainian forces had destroyed Russian military vehicles as Kiev inched closer to allowing a mammoth aid convoy from Moscow over its border.

While a diplomatic push sought to defuse the rhetoric, deadly shelling pummelled besieged pro-Russian rebel strongholds and a top separatist leader claimed he had received a fresh injection of troops trained "on Russian territory".

Moscow and Kiev's foreign ministers geared up for an urgent meeting with their French and German counterparts Sunday as Ukraine's boasts that it had destroyed a small military convoy from Russia ramped up the stakes.

Russia dismissed the claims as "fantasies", but resisted the urge to strike back, as it again denied the persistent allegations from the West that it is arming the rebels.

Western leaders also tried to douse the flames with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko holding phone talks with US Vice President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

French President Francois Hollande called for Ukraine to show "restraint and good judgement" as it pushed on to oust insurgents after four months of fighting that has killed over 2,100 people and left the region facing a humanitarian disaster.

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A Russian driver checks a wheel of the truck of a Russian humanitarian convoy in a field outside Kam …

- Progress on aid? -

Three days after a controversial Russian aid convoy pulled up about 30 kilometres from the Donetsk post on the Ukrainian-Russian border, Moscow and Kiev edged closer to a deal to let it pass across the frontier by agreeing on how to inspect the contents of the roughly 300 lorries.

The West and Kiev fear the convoy could be a "Trojan horse" to bolster the flagging pro-Kremlin rebellion in eastern Ukraine, or provide Moscow with an excuse to send in the 20,000 troops that NATO says it has massed on the border.

The International Committee of the Red Cross, which is overseeing the aid delivery, said late Saturday that an agreement was reached on checking the cargo but that "security guarantees" were still needed on how the lorries could cross rebel-held territory.

Poroshenko told Biden Saturday that the separatists had yet to grant safe passage for the aid.

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A pro-Russian 122-mm self-propelled howitzer moves along a street in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine on Aug …

Russia's foreign ministry has repeatedly demanded that Kiev cease fire in order for the aid to reach residents of blighted cities in eastern Ukraine who have been stuck for days without water or power.

AFP correspondents at the border heard blasts from the Ukrainian side and saw Moscow's military hardware rumble along Russian territory close to the frontier.

- Rebel reinforcements -

While Russia has denied funnelling weapons to the rebels, a top separatist leader claimed that troop reinforcements trained across the border had arrived to prop up the ailing insurgency.

Alexander Zakharchenko, prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, said besides 1,200 personnel "who have received four months of training on Russian territory", there was a fresh injection of firepower consisting of 150 items of military hardware, including tanks.

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A Russian military truck transporting a self-propelled howitzer 2S19 - MSTA-S (M1990 "Farm" …

"They have been brought in at the most crucial moment," he said in a video posted on a rebel website.

In Donetsk, the largest rebel bastion in east Ukraine, local authorities said four civilians were killed in shelling as government troops tightened the vice around rebels holed up there.

AFP journalists found several houses on fire in Makiyivka, a city adjoining Donetsk, and saw large craters around a residential neighbourhood near a rebel special forces base.

Human Rights Watch quoted residents fleeing Lugansk -- the rebels second largest stronghold that has seen some of the worst fighting -- as saying that the city had no electricity, gas and cell phone coverage, and that it was difficult to find drinking water and food.

The United Nations says over 285,000 people have fled the fighting in the east.

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Ukrainian soldiers detain a man (C) suspected of spying for pro-Russian militants at a checkpoint ne …

Ukraine's security spokesman Andriy Lysenko said Saturday that three soldiers died and 13 were wounded in the past 24 hours.

Poroshenko meanwhile wrote on Twitter that the army has taken over Zhdanivka, a town about 45 kilometres northeast of Donetsk.

- New hopes for talks -

A flurry of diplomacy to calm tensions saw Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany agree to get their top diplomats together for a meeting in Berlin on Sunday.

Germany's Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told Bild newspaper that he hoped the talks would help "put an end to fighting" in eastern Ukraine and provide the territories with "urgent and necessary aid".

The French presidency suggested that Sunday's meeting could be a "first step" towards another face-to-face encounter between the heads of state.