BAGHDAD -- U.S. and Iraqi troops moved against al-Qaida on two separate fronts Thursday, with house-to-house searches in Mosul and an operation in the desert to stanch the flow of insurgents and weapons to that northern city.

U.S.-backed Iraqi troops searched homes and the U.S. military announced that the forces in Mosul captured a suspected al-Qaida figure involved in organizing car bombings and smuggling foreign fighters into the country.

There were no reported clashes during the searches in known al-Qaida strongholds in the western and eastern parts of Mosul, Iraq's third largest city, where insurgents are believed to use the cover of sheep and produce markets to smuggle cash, weapons and foreign fighters from nearby Syria.

Sheik Fawaz Jarba, a leader of Sunni tribes in Mosul opposed to al-Qaida, complained that the sweep was "unorganized" and that public warnings of the coming raids enabled al-Qaida fighters to flee, as they have done ahead of previous campaigns elsewhere.

BOGOTA, Colombia -- Interpol said Thursday that computer files suggesting Venezuela was arming and financing Colombian guerrillas came from a rebel camp and were not tampered with, discrediting Venezuela's assertions that Colombia faked them.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez denounced the report as "ridiculous," saying a "show of clowns" surrounded the announcement. But the findings are sure to increase pressure on Chavez to explain his relationship with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

More revelations are likely to emerge, since Interpol also turned over to Colombia 983 files it decrypted.

"We are absolutely certain that the computer exhibits that our experts examined came from a FARC terrorist camp," said Interpol's secretary general, Ronald Noble, adding: "No one can ever question whether or not the Colombian government tampered with the seized FARC computers."

Chavez did just that, calling Noble "a tremendous actor" and an "immoral police officer who applauds killers."

IJEGUN, Nigeria -- A road-grader accidentally tore open a fuel pipeline Thursday and sent an inferno raging over houses and a school, setting off a stampede of terrified children and killing about 100 people and injuring 20, a Red Cross official said.

The road construction equipment was working in Ijegun village on the distant outskirts of Nigeria's main city, Lagos, when it pierced the pipe and fuel began spewing into the surrounding neighborhood, Red Cross disaster coordinator Suleman Maikubi said.

Moments later, an explosion billowed oily plumes of flame and soot high into the air, witnesses said.

Pupils in crowded secondary school rushed from their classrooms in panic as blazing fuel flowed toward the compound. Children were squeezed against the schoolyard walls during the stampede out the exit gate and some of the youngsters were killed, villagers said.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Foreign intelligence agents are leading secret, deadly raids on suspected insurgents in Afghanistan and shirking responsibility when innocent civilians are killed, a U.N. official alleged Thursday.

Philip Alston, a special investigator for the U.N. Human Rights Council, referred to three such recent raids in the country's south and east.

While he didn't specifically mention any intelligence agencies, he appeared to imply American involvement. U.S. military officials declined to comment on the allegations.

Alston said the raids were part of a wider problem of unlawful killings of civilians and lack of accountability in Afghanistan. He said about 500 civilians had been killed this year, most of them at the hands of the Taliban but some by Afghan police.

TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Taiwan's president-elect said Thursday that unification with China is unlikely "in our lifetimes," but pledged to reach out to the longtime rival while maintaining good relations with the United States.

In an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, Ma Ying-jeou offered detailed insight into his thinking on Taiwan's relations with its two most important foreign partners just five days before he takes office.

The strategic triangle between Taipei, Beijing and Washington is the fundamental mechanism for keeping the peace in the volatile western Pacific -- a peace that China has threatened to break if democratic Taiwan moves to makes its de facto independence permanent.

That would likely draw in the United States, which remains Taiwan's principal strategic partner even though it switched its diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979.