KABUL, Afghanistan -- U.S. troops in Afghanistan launched a barrage of artillery at insurgents attacking their position from inside Pakistan's volatile tribal region, in a cross-border strike coordinated with Pakistan's military, U.S. and NATO officials said yesterday.

The strike less than a mile inside Pakistan came after the militants fired rockets at a U.S. position in Afghanistan. Al-Qaida and Taliban militants have long found refuge in the border region, where they launch attacks on U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Sunday's operation highlights growing cooperation between Afghan, Pakistani and U.S. officers, military officials said.

Sunday's operation also came at an especially sensitive time, with a surge in U.S. missile strikes deepening already widespread antipathy among Pakistanis toward the presence of Western forces in the region.

CARACAS, Venezuela -- President Hugo Chavez is threatening to imprison a popular opposition leader, roll tanks into the streets and use force to defend the results of Sunday's state and local elections.

The vote is an important test of Mr. Chavez's support a year after Venezuelans rejected his attempt to abolish term limits, and critics say he is resorting to browbeating and smears for fear his candidates will lose.

"He has unleashed a wave of intimidation," Manuel Rosales, the opposition governor of Zulia state, told The Associated Press.

Mr. Rosales, who has a good chance of defeating the Chavez candidate for mayor of Maracaibo, Venezuela's second-largest city, said the socialist leader "wants to wipe out and criminalize Venezuela's opposition, or those who don't think like he does, to attempt a constitutional reform allowing him to remain in power."

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- Israeli tanks yesterday pushed into the southern Gaza Strip, drawing mortar fire from Palestinian militants and intensifying violence that has chipped away at a tenuous cease-fire.

Israel and Gaza's ruling Islamic militant Hamas movement have been trading fire for two weeks after nearly five months of relative quiet. The violence comes as the Egyptian-negotiated truce that began June 19 is due to expire next month, and both sides might be trying to dictate more favorable terms in anticipation of the agreement's renewal.

MADRID, Spain -- Spain's most famous judge yesterday abandoned a drive for a symbolic indictment of the late Gen. Francisco Franco and his regime, dropping a probe into atrocities committed during and after the country's civil war.

Judge Baltasar Garzon reluctantly yielded in a dispute over jurisdiction, and transferred the case to lower courts. Judge Garzon, a human rights and terrorism crusader known for going after Osama bin Laden and Chile's late Augusto Pinochet, launched a probe last month into the killings of tens of thousands of civilians by Franco supporters during the 1936-39 war and in the early years of his rule.

Northern Ireland's long-feuding Protestant and Catholic leaders ended a five-month deadlock yesterday by agreeing to form a Justice Department that will oversee the police and courts ... A former French prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, was ordered yesterday to stand trial over a political smear campaign against Nicolas Sarkozy before he became France's president.