BERLIN -- Germany's labor minister resigned yesterday after conceding that he didn't see a military report on a deadly September airstrike in northern Afghanistan while he held the government's defense portfolio.

Labor Minister Franz Josef Jung made the announcement a day after the head of Germany's armed forces, Gen. Wolfgang Schneiderhan, and deputy Defense Minister Peter Wichert also stepped down.

An Afghan commission has said 30 civilians were killed along with 69 armed Taliban fighters in the NATO airstrike, which was called in by a German colonel who feared the Taliban might use two tanker trucks they had seized to attack troops.

MINA, Saudi Arabia -- Vast crowds of pilgrims cast stones at walls representing the devil on the third day of the annual hajj yesterday as Muslims around the world began celebrating Eid al-Adha, the most important holiday of the Islamic calendar.

The pilgrims -- more than 3 million this year -- file past three stone walls representing Satan and stop to pelt them with stones in a symbolic rejection of temptation.

The first day of stoning also marks the start of Eid al-Adha, or feast of sacrifice, when Muslims around the world traditionally slaughter sheep and cattle in remembrance of Abraham's near-sacrifice of his son.

DAVAO CITY, the Philippines -- Most or all of the 22 women among the 57 people massacred Monday in the southern Philippines were sexually mutilated, the authorities said yesterday.

"Even the private parts of the women were shot at," the justice secretary, Agnes Devanadera, said on national television. "It was horrible. It was not done to just one. It was done practically to all the women."

About a dozen of the victims were the relatives, lawyers or supporters of Esmael Mangudadatu, a local politician whose determination to challenge the entrenched Ampatuan clan in a gubernatorial election touched off the violence.

Andal Ampatuan Jr., a local mayor who is suspected of having ordered the killings, turned himself in Thursday, protesting his innocence. He is expected to be charged with murder next week.

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- Testimony in the nine-month trial of a former prison chief for the communist Khmer Rouge ended yesterday when the defendant, Kaing Guek Eav, 67, known as Duch, unexpectedly asked to be set free despite his repeated admissions of guilt.

The judges took no immediate action. They are expected to render their verdict early next year.

The Khmer Rouge caused the deaths of 1.7 million people when it ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, and Duch is the first of five members of the regime to face trial.

JERUSALEM -- The Israeli military said the air force attacked a group of Palestinian militants in northern Gaza early yesterday as they were about to fire rockets at Israel, a week after the Hamas rulers of Gaza announced that they had secured the agreement of other groups to halt rocket fire in order to prevent retaliatory attacks.

Palestinian medics said four militants were wounded in the air strike, but the Israeli military said one member of the squad, from a small Islamic extremist group influenced by al-Qaida, was killed.

-- Compiled from news services

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