61.   Village guards assist the police in providing security in the northeast.

62.   In a separate incident, three village guards were killed by militants in northern Doda district overnight.

63.   But witnesses said Tawfiq and Sayyed were killed in a revenge attack by a brother of the slain village guard.

64.   Eight Turkish soldiers were accidentally killed in a clash with pro-government militiamen known as village guards, who mistook them for Kurdish rebels, the Turkish media reported Friday.

65.   Eleven other village guards were injured in the attack.

66.   The other two who died were identified earlier as a village guard who was beaten to death and a protesting labourer who was gunned down.

67.   The rebels then proceeded to attack a post office near the village and killed three more village guards and a security officer before fleeing.

68.   Three pro-government Kurdish village guards were also killed in the ongoing clash in which the troops were supported by military helicopters and aircraft, it said.

69.   Unidentified gunmen shot dead a village guard in the trouble-plagued Minya province in southern Egypt, the official news agency MENA reported on Sunday.

70.   Two Moslem militants shot dead a village guard as he bicycled home in the trouble-plagued Minya province in southern Egypt, police said on Sunday.