FERGUSON, Mo. (AP) — A Ferguson police officer was shot in the arm Saturday night after encountering two men at a community center who ran from him and then opened fire during a foot chase, authorities said.

St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar said at a media briefing early Sunday that the officer approached the men around 9:10 p.m. because the community center was closed. As the officer approached, the men ran away. When the officer gave chase, "one of the men turned and shot," Belmar said.

The officer was shot in the arm and is expected to survive, he said. Belmar did not identify the officer or give further details about his condition. He said the officer returned fire but said police have "no indication" that either suspect was shot.

A search was underway for the suspects early Sunday in Ferguson, the St. Louis suburb that's been the scene of racial unrest in the wake of the August shooting death of an unarmed black 18-year-old by a white police officer.

Belmar said he did not think the officer's shooting was related to two separate protests about Michael Brown's shooting that were going on Saturday night around the same time.

Around midnight at the police station, approximately two dozen officers stood near a group of about 100 protesters who mingled on a street corner, occasionally shouting, "No justice; no peace."

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In this framegrab image courtesy of KSDK-TV a crowd gathers near the scene where a police officer wa …

Nearby, part of a road was closed in town as police conducted a search for the suspects. Numerous law enforcement agencies were responding, and police helicopters were canvassing the area.

The officer's shooting comes after Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson issued a videotaped apology to Brown's family earlier in the week and attempted to march with protesters, an effort that led to a clash with activists and several arrests on Thursday.

Brown's parents told The Associated Press on Saturday they were unmoved by the apology.

Brown's mother, Lesley McSpadden, said, "yes," when asked if Jackson should be fired, and his father, Michael Brown Sr., said rather than an apology, they would like to see the officer who shot their son arrested.

A county grand jury is weighing whether to indict Ferguson officer Darren Wilson in Brown's shooting.

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A police officer takes pictures outside the Ferguson Community Center at 1050 Smith Avenue on Saturd …

The Justice Department, which is investigating whether Brown's civil rights were violated, is conducting a broader probe into Ferguson police. On Friday, it urged Jackson to ban his officers from wearing bracelets supporting Wilson while on duty and from covering up their name plates with black tape.

Ferguson residents complained about the bracelets, which are black with "I am Darren Wilson" in white lettering, at a meeting with federal officials this week.

Brown's shooting has also focused attention on the lack of diversity in many police departments across the country. In Ferguson, of 53 officers in a community that is two-thirds black, only three are African-American.

Also early Sunday, not far from Ferguson, an off-duty St. Louis city police officer was injured on Interstate 70 when three suspects fired shots into his personal vehicle, a police spokeswoman said.

Schron Jackson said the officer, who has nearly 20 years of experience, was being treated at a hospital for a minor injury to his arm from broken glass. She said there is no reason to believe the two shootings were related.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The parents of Michael Brown told The Associated Press on Saturday they were unmoved by the apology given by the Ferguson, Missouri, police chief weeks after their unarmed 18-year-old son was killed by a police officer.

Brown's mother, Lesley McSpadden, said, "yes," when asked if Chief Tom Jackson should be fired, and his father, Michael Brown Sr., said rather than an apology, they would rather see the officer who shot their son arrested for his Aug. 9 death.

"An apology would be when Darren Wilson has handcuffs, processed and charged with murder," Brown Sr. said.

Wilson is white; the young man, black. The shooting sparked days of violent protests and racial unrest in the predominantly black community. Some residents and civil rights activists have said responding police officers were overly aggressive, noting their use of tear gas and surplus military vehicles and gear. Brown Sr. called the looting that has been interspersed with the protests "disrespectful," but the "First Amendment protesting? They have that right."

"There's going to continue to be unrest until they do what should be done," McSpadden added, referring to Ferguson officials.

There was even more violence Saturday night in Ferguson when, the authorities say, a police officer was shot in the arm. Circumstances surrounding the incident were not immediately clear.

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The parents of Michael Brown, Lesley McSpadden, left, and Michael Brown, Sr., right, speak to The As …

Jackson released a video apology to Brown's family and the community, in which he acknowledged that Brown's body should have been removed from the street much sooner than it was. The young man's remains lay uncovered for more than four hours while police collected evidence.

"I don't want words, I want action," McSpadden said in the AP interview.

The parents, both wearing T-shirts with messages about their son, talked hesitantly about their emotions following their son's death. McSpadden said she feels lost and helpless, and her life will never be normal again. "I have to find a new normal," she said haltingly.

"I'm empty," Brown said quietly. "There's nothing there anymore. It's hard to fill that spot with other happiness."

Brown's parents came to Washington to meet lawmakers and lobby Congress to pass a law requiring police officers to wear cameras during their interactions with the public. They also called on the Justice Department to take over the criminal investigation into the shooting. The Justice Department is already investigating whether Brown's civil rights were violated, and a county grand jury is weighing whether to indict Wilson.

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The mother of Michael Brown, Lesley McSpadden, wears a bracelet bearing her son's name and a shi …

"All of our eyes see the same thing, that it was wrong, an injustice," McSpadden said. "Why wouldn't they come back with an indictment?"

The parents also were invited to the annual awards dinner of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, where President Barack Obama spoke of the "corrosive" mistrust between local residents and law enforcement in many communities, brought on, in part, by episodes such as Brown's death. "Too many young men of color feel targeted by law enforcement — guilty of walking while black, driving while black, judged by stereotypes that fuel fear and resentment and hopelessness," he said.

Attorney General Eric Holder has met Brown's parents, and they hope his coming departure won't affect the case. Holder announced his resignation Thursday. "I've got confidence in him in that he will make sure that what needs to be done is done before he exits," McSpadden said.

The parents also expressed anger at Ferguson police who wore bracelets in support of Wilson. In a letter released Friday, the Justice Department asks Jackson, the police chief, to "confirm our understanding" that officers in the suburban St. Louis County department won't wear "I am Darren Wilson" bracelets while on duty.

Ferguson residents complained about the black bracelets with white lettering at a meeting with federal officials. The Brown's family lawyer, Benjamin Crump, said the bracelets give an impression that the police lack impartiality in this case.

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The mother of Michael Brown, Lesley McSpadden, wears a shirt showing a message she wrote to her chil …

"It lets me know how they really feel about the situation, and the wrongness that they do," McSpadden said.

Brown Sr. called their efforts a fight for human rights. "They say that this is America, but we're not being treated like we're Americans. Our fight here is to just open other eyes and understand how we're feeling and try to get something done about it."

McSpadden said her son was taught to respect his elders.

"I taught my son respect for a policeman, for you, for this woman, for anybody, so if he felt like he was doing nothing wrong, which I don't believe he was, why would he be in fear of him? You're not supposed to fear the police."

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Follow Jesse J. Holland on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/jessejholland

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama on Saturday said the widespread mistrust of law enforcement that was exposed by the fatal police shooting of an unarmed black man in Ferguson, Missouri, is corroding America, not just its black communities, and that the wariness flows from significant racial disparities in the administration of justice.

Speaking at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's annual awards dinner, Obama said these suspicions only harm communities that need law enforcement the most.

"It makes folks who are victimized by crime and need strong policing reluctant to go to the police because they may not trust them," he said. "And the worst part of it is it scars the hearts of our children," leading some youngsters to unnecessarily fear people who do not look like them while leading others to constantly feel under suspicion no matter what they do.

"That is not the society we want," Obama said. "It's not the society that our children deserve."

The fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown in August sparked days of violent protests and racial unrest in predominantly black Ferguson. The police officer who shot Brown was white.

There was even more violence Saturday night in Ferguson when, the authorities say, a police officer was shot in the arm. Circumstances surrounding the latest incident were not immediately clear.

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President Barack Obama speaks at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s 44th Annual Legislative …

Obama addressed the Michael Brown shooting carefully but firmly, saying the young man's death and the raw emotion that sprang from it had reawakened the country to the fact that "a gulf of mistrust" exists between local residents and law enforcement in too many communities.

"Too many young men of color feel targeted by law enforcement — guilty of walking while black or driving while black, judged by stereotypes that fuel fear and resentment and hopelessness," he said.

He said significant racial disparities remain in the enforcement of law, from drug sentencing to applying the death penalty, and that a majority of Americans think the justice system treats people of different races unequally.

Obama opened his remarks by singling out Attorney General Eric Holder for praise. Obama announced Holder's resignation days earlier after nearly six years as the nation's chief law enforcement officer. Holder, who attended the dinner and received a standing ovation, will stay on the job until the Senate confirms a successor.

Holder visited Ferguson after the shooting to help ease tensions, and the Justice Department is investigating whether Brown's civil rights were violated.

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President Barack Obama speaks at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s 44th Annual Legislative …

Obama also announced that he is expanding My Brother's Keeper, a public-private partnership he launched earlier this year to help make young minority men's lives better. He said a new "community challenge" will task every community to put in place strategies to ensure that young people can succeed from the cradle through college and career.

Businesses, foundations and community groups help coordinate investments to develop or support programs geared toward young men of color. Educators and professional athletes also participate.

Obama said government cannot play the primary role in the lives of children but it "can bring folks together" to make a difference for the young.

Helping girls of color deal with inequality is also important, he said, and part of the continuing mission of the White House Council on Women and Girls, an effort that has involved his wife, Michelle, mother of their two teenage daughters.

"African American girls are more likely than their white peers also to be suspended, incarcerated, physically harassed," Obama said. "Black women struggle every day with biases that perpetuate oppressive standards for how they're supposed to look and how they're supposed to act. Too often, they're either left under the hard light of scrutiny, or cloaked in a kind of invisibility. "

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Follow Darlene Superville on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/dsupervilleap

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Damascus (AFP) - US-led warplanes kept up strikes on oil sites funding the Islamic State group on Sunday, as Al-Qaeda's Syria affiliate threatened reprisals after a key operative was reported killed.

The United States, along with coalition partners Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, hit four modular refineries as well as an IS command and control post, all north of Raqa in Syria, US Central Command said.

"Initial indications are that they (the strikes) were successful," it said in a statement.

The latest raids were part of intensifying efforts to deny IS funding after a wave of strikes on its oil infrastructure on Thursday night.

IS controls a swathe of territory straddling northwestern Iraq and eastern Syria, that includes most of Syria's main oil fields and which the jihadists have sought to exploit through improvised refining and smuggling.

The coalition strikes hit close by the Turkish frontier, near Tal Abyad just across the border from the Turkish town of Akcakale, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

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A Syrian man looks at the wreck of a car, buried under rubble, following a reported US-led coalition …

"At least three makeshift refineries under IS control in the Tal Abyad region were destroyed," the Observatory said.

"IS had been refining crude and selling it to Turkish buyers," said the Britain-based watchdog, which has a broad network of sources inside Syria.

Before the launch of US-led air strikes on IS in Syria last Tuesday analysts say the jihadists were earning as much as $3 million (2.4 million euros) a day from oil revenues.

The coalition carried out raids on the jihadist heartland province of Raqa early Sunday as it pressed what Washington says are "near continuous" strikes.

The raids also destroyed a plastics factory outside Raqa city, killing one civilian, the Observatory said.

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F-16 fighter jets prepare to take off from the Belgian military air base in Florennes on September 2 …

IS oil infrastructure has been one of the main targets of the bombing campaign in Syria that Washington and its Arab allies launched last Tuesday, building on the air war under way against IS in Iraq since August 8.

The air strikes on Sunday also destroyed a tank and damaged another near Deir Ezzor in eastern Syria, US Central Command said.

Human Rights Watch, meanwhile, said apparent US missile strikes had killed at least seven civilians in Idlib province in northwestern Syria last Tuesday, calling for a probe into possible violations of the laws of war.

In Iraq, the Pentagon said US-led air strikes near insurgent-held Fallujah on Sunday destroyed two IS checkpoints and a transport vehicle used by the jihadists.

- Al-Nusra threat -

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Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey (R) and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hage …

On the ground in western Iraq, pro-government forces backed by warplanes on Sunday repelled an IS attack on the strategic town of Amriyat al-Fallujah, security sources said.

"Warplanes eventually engaged the insurgents and killed 15 of them," local police chief Aref al-Janabi said, without identifying the aircraft.

The town "has strategic importance. It is a main logistics road for the army and it is the link between Anbar and Karbala," a Shiite holy city south of Baghdad, Janabi said.

Multiple European governments have approved plans to join the air campaign in Iraq, including most recently Britain.

British fighter jets flew their first combat mission over Iraq on Saturday but returned to base in Cyprus without firing a shot after no targets were identified.

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Turkish and Syrian Kurds try to tear down the border fence to cross into neighboring Syria during a …

European governments have resisted joining the US-led air campaign in Syria for fear of getting embroiled in the country's more than three-year-old civil war, forcing Washington to rely on Arab allies.

The opening salvo of the US-led bombing campaign in Syria actually targeted not IS but its jihadist rival Al-Nusra Front and drew a threat of retaliation on Saturday after one of its leaders was reported killed.

Al-Nusra has been targeted by the US-led air campaign killing at least 57 of its fighters, according to the Observatory.

Washington has made a distinction between the wider Al-Nusra Front and a cell of foreign fighters dubbed the Khorasan Group that it says was plotting attacks against the United States.

Muhsin al-Fadhli, a long-standing Qaeda operative and alleged leader of Khorasan, was reportedly among those killed in the strikes.

Al-Nusra threatened reprisals for the deaths of its militants.

The allies had "committed a horrible act that is going to put them on the list of jihadist targets throughout the world," Al-Nusra spokesman Abu Firas al-Suri said in an online video message.

Al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda, is prominent on the battlefield across much of western Syria but has been at sometimes deadly loggerheads with IS since the Al-Qaeda leadership disavowed the rival group's commanders in February.