Gunmen

MONTERREY, Mexico - Two dozen gunmen burst into a casino in northern Mexico yesterday, doused it with gasoline and started a fire that trapped gamblers inside, killing at least 45 people and injuring a dozen more, authorities said. The fire at the Casino Royale in Monterrey, a city that has seen a surge in drug cartel-related violence, represented one of the deadliest attacks on an entertainment center in Mexico since President Felipe Calderon launched an offensive against drug cartels in late 2006.

Three men were shot and wounded - one critically - and another man was pistol-whipped by two gunmen inside two West Philadelphia homes early today. Police believe the incidents might be drug-related. According to investigators, the shootings occurred within minutes of each other in a pair of rowhouses on Delancey Street near 54th shortly before 5 a.m. In the first incident, said police, a man identified as Fred Gordon, 30, was shot once in each leg during an argument after the two gunmen barged into the house.

Police talk with the owner of a Northeast jewelry store that was robbed yesterday by two armed men. Another officer with gun drawn (top) searches a railyard near the Roosevelt Expressway in East Falls for the robbers. After the gunmen entered La Caridad Jewelers on Cottman Avenue near Rutland Street about 11:30 a.m. and demanded valuables, the owner, who was not identified, pulled out a gun and fired four shots, which struck the store window. The bandits fled, but were apprehended 20 minutes later after a car and foot chase that ended in East Falls.

Three armed men went gunning for a guy who had threatened one of them with a gun. When they didn't find their target, they fired at the man's brother and another man on Opal Street near 24th, on Nov. 24, 1998, Assistant District Attorney Dawn Burke said yesterday. One of their stray bullets almost killed a 4-year-old boy sitting in a car with his mother, his younger brother and his grandmother. Little Germaine Lipscomb, now 5, suffered brain damage, but he can still remember the loud bang before losing consciousness, Burke said.

A 38-year-old man was gunned down last night by two assailants inside the doorway of the East Germantown store that he owned, police said.. The victim, Owen Edwards, of Logan, was shot just inside the door of R's Variety Store at Nedro and Wister Streets around 10 p.m. Police said the killing did not occur during a robbery attempt but rather the attackers had come looking for Edwards. Witnesses told police that they heard several gunshots, which police believed were fired from a revolver.

Two gunmen forced their way into Houlihan's restaurant shortly after closing Monday morning, ordered five employees into a walk-in freezer and made off with an undisclosed amount of cash, police said. Lt. Michael Arlen of Middletown Township police said the gunmen hid behind a dumpster in the parking lot of the East Lincoln Highway restaurant and surprised two workers taking out trash about 1 a.m. Forcing the pair back inside, Arlen said, the suspects rounded up three other employees and then bound the wrists of all five with duct tape, placed the five in the freezer and ordered them not to move or call police.

Gunmen firing from a car killed two Roman Catholics yesterday in what was thought to be Protestant revenge for a new series of attacks by the Irish Republican Army. The gunmen escaped after the killings in the Ardoyne area of northern Belfast and abandoned their car in the Protestant Shankill district, about two miles away, police said. Early today, hours after the killings, Catholic youths rioted in at least a dozen towns across the province, lighting bonfires, hurling firebombs and torching cars to mark the 17th anniversary of Britain's former policy of interning IRA suspects without trial.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Gunmen on motorcycles attacked a van carrying employees from a community center Tuesday, killing five female teachers and two aid workers but sparing a child they took out of the vehicle before opening fire. The director of the group that the seven worked for says he suspects it may have been the latest in a series of attacks targeting anti-polio efforts in Pakistan. Some extremists oppose the vaccination campaigns, accusing health workers of acting as spies for the United States and alleging the vaccine is intended to make Muslim children sterile.

If you loved "Once Upon a Time in the West" and "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," and you want to see them both again - at the same time - then "Gunmen" is your picture. This new action vehicle for Mario Van Peebles (he didn't direct) is woven from the two Sergio Leone Western classics, updated with a contemporary south- of-the-border location and spun as a modern biracial buddy movie/adventure comedy. Van Peebles is a DEA agent teamed with a bandit (Christopher Lambert)

A supermarket security guard, confronted by three holdup men with their guns drawn, wounded two of them in an exchange of gunfire, and then held them at gunpoint last night until authorities arrived, police said. One shot was fired at the guard, Eugene Hollins, 39, of West Philadelphia, was not injured, police said. The two wounded gunmen, ages 17 and 18, were charged with robbery. The younger male, whom police did not identify, was shot through the shoulder and admitted to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in critical condition with a bullet lodged in his chest.

KABUL, Afghanistan - A group of assailants shut down Kabul's airport for several hours Monday in a brazen predawn attack that shook the capital hours after Afghan President Hamid Karzai delivered a speech in which he implied that U.S. counterterrorism policies had radicalized Muslims around the world. Afghan police snapped into action moments after residents of the city awoke to thundering blasts about 4:30 a.m. At least seven gunmen, including two wearing suicide vests, had taken refuge in buildings under construction adjacent to the northern tip of the airport compound, which includes an international military base.

HEROR, Iraq - A convoy of gunmen opened fire on a row of liquor stores in eastern Baghdad immediately after sunset on Tuesday, killing 11 people and wounding five others, officials said. Police said the gunmen were in four cars that had stopped in the area and attacked shortly after sunset. Hospital officials confirmed the casualties. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to media. The attack in the Zayouna neighborhood came as the stores were at their peak business time, when commuters buy alcohol on the way home from work.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Gunmen kidnapped the son of a former Pakistani prime minister Thursday at a campaign rally in southern Punjab province as violence continued to rise ahead of Saturday's national election, which some call the bloodiest in the country's history. Hours after his youngest son, Ali Haider Gilani, was kidnapped and two others killed in the attack, former Premier Yousuf Raza Gilani urged supporters of their Pakistan People's Party to keep campaigning. The young Gilani is a candidate for the provincial assembly in the Multan district, where the attack occurred and where two of his brothers are running for seats in the parliament.

TRIPOLI, Libya - Libya's prime minister warned of a perilous security situation Sunday after armed men stormed the Interior Ministry and a state-owned television station after blocking access to the Foreign Ministry. Two years after the country's civil war, Libya is struggling to maintain security, build a unified army and rein in militias, which include rebels who fought to oust longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011. About 200 armed men surrounded the Foreign Ministry building in Tripoli, demanding the ministry hire former fighters who helped overthrow Gadhafi.

BAGHDAD - Iraqi soldiers backed by tanks retook control of a Sunni town north of Baghdad on Friday after gunmen withdrew without a fight, although violence erupted at three Sunni mosques and clerics called for the formation of a tribal army to protect Sunni cities. The Sunni gunmen had seized Suleiman Beg on Thursday after a firefight with security forces, one in a string of incidents that have killed more than 170 people in a spate of violence and clashes in Sunni Muslim towns in western and northern Iraq during the last four days.

More are saved in Bangladesh SAVAR, Bangladesh - With time running out to save workers still trapped in a collapsed garment factory building, rescuers dug through mangled metal and concrete Friday and found more survivors - but also more corpses that pushed the death toll past 300. Wailing, angry relatives fought with police who held them back from the wrecked, eight-story Rana Plaza building, as search-and-rescue operations went on more than two...

QUITO, ECUADOR - President Rafael Correa, a dynamic but polemical leftist who has spent heavily on the poor, confidently celebrated his second re-election Sunday even before the first official results were announced. An exit poll gave the incumbent, who first took office in 2007, 58.8 percent against 23.1 percent for his closest challenger, former banker Guillermo Lasso. "This victory is yours. It belongs to our families, to our wife, to our friends, our neighbors, the entire nation," Correa told voters Sunday.

A BUCKS COUNTY MAN was shot dead and a woman presumed to be his wife and young child suffered minor injuries after two armed thugs broke into their sprawling home Friday morning. Police said that Joseph Canazaro, 48, of Hilltown Township, about 35 miles north of Philadelphia, was killed shortly before 10:30 a.m., when the gunmen forced their way into his home. The woman and child, who police said lived at the home, were tied up in the basement of the home. They said that the woman and child were able to free themselves after the two men fled, and ran to the house of a neighbor, who called 9-1-1.

BEIRUT - Gunmen loyal to President Bashar al-Assad swept through a mainly Sunni farming village in central Syria this week, torching houses and killing more than 100 people, including women and children, opposition activists said Thursday. The reported slayings fueled accusations that pro-government militiamen are trying to drive majority Sunnis out of areas near main routes to the coast to ensure control of an Alawite enclave as the country's civil war increasingly takes on sectarian overtones.

ATIMONAN, Philippines - At least three police personnel were among 13 suspected criminals who were gunned down in a shootout with Philippine security forces at a highway checkpoint, officials said Monday. Gunmen riding in three black SUVs opened fire on more than 50 army and police troopers who flagged down the vehicles late Sunday in the coastal town of Atimonan in Quezon province, about 90 miles southeast of Manila. Eleven suspects died on the spot, including a police colonel who was a regional commander and two other officers, said police spokesman Erwin Obal.