World Briefs

MADRID, Spain – A powerful car bomb exploded Thursday at a university in the northern Spanish city of Pamplona, wounding 17 people and setting a building on fire in an attack blamed on Basque separatists.

There was no claim of responsibility, but officials pointed the finger at the militant Basque group ETA. They said the blast could have caused massive bloodshed because it went off without warning at a busy area of the campus.

"ETA has once again displayed its vileness," said Jose Antonio Alonso, spokesman in Parliament for Prime Minister Zapatero's Socialist party.

The bomb went off in a parking lot at the University of Navarra, shattering windows and setting vehicles on fire, said Amaya Zaratiegui, spokeswoman for the university's clinic.

GOMA, Congo – The rebel general besieging Congo's eastern provincial capital said Thursday that he wants direct talks with the government about security and his objections to a $5 billion deal that gives China access to the region's mineral resources.

Gen. Laurent Nkunda said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press that the reason he called a cease-fire Wednesday as he reached the gates of Goma was to try to stop chaos in the city. He said he wants U.N. peacekeepers to help refugees return home.

Nkunda, leading a Tutsi rebellion in eastern Congo, said the government is not protecting the country's Tutsi minority. He said he turned down a government offer of $2.5 million to stop fighting because he could not abandon his mission to protect Congo's people. He also said he saw his role in a peaceful Congo as reformer of the ragtag army.

KABUL, Afghanistan – Taliban fighters stormed the Ministry of Culture in the heart of Kabul Thursday, killing five people in an attack the president said aimed at derailing the government's new effort to draw militants into a peace process and end a seven-year insurgency.

The fighters shot their way inside the building, where one of the militants blew himself up, a police guard wounded in the blast said. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack and gave a similar account.

"Our enemies are trying to undermine the recent efforts by the government for a peaceful solution to end the violence," U.S.-backed President Hamid Karzai said in a terse statement.

The attack came three days after senior Afghan and Pakistani officials decided at a meeting held in Pakistan's capital to reach out to the Taliban militants to propose talks on ending the insurgency. The meeting was part of a process initiated by Bush in 2006.