ANKARA (AFP) - Officials yesterday raised to 18 the death toll from a gas explosion at a coalmine in western Turkey. They had said earlier that 17 people, 16 miners and an engineer, died in the accident Thursday at a state-run mine near Gediz, in the province of Kutahya. The victims were trapped in a gallery about 300 meters (985 feet) underground after the explosion caused a cave-in and started a fire.

SOFIA (AP) - The crash of a Bulgarian commercial helicopter near Baghdad was a “terrorist attack” but will not affect Bulgaria’s military involvement in Iraq, Defense Minister Nikolai Svinarov said yesterday. The helicopter was downed by missile fire Thursday. The Islamic Army in Iraq, one of the many insurgent groups in the country, claimed responsibility for the attack, saying in an Internet posting that it captured and killed the lone crew member who survived.

Former Yugoslav armed forces chief Nebojsa Pavkovic has decided to surrender to face war crimes charges at the UN tribunal at The Hague, the Serbian government said yesterday. Pavkovic, 59, stands accused, along with former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, of ordering atrocities against ethnic Albanians during the 1998-1999 conflict in the southern province of Kosovo. (AFP)

The UN mission in Kosovo announced yesterday that its investigators so far had found 21 bodies in a cave suspected of containing a mass grave of non-Albanian victims of the 1998-99 war. “Investigators from the Office of Missing Persons and Forensics (OMPF) and the Department of Justice have identified nine as being the remains of non-Albanian adult males,” UNMIK spokeswoman Marcia Poole said. (AFP)

A powerful explosion damaged 37 shops in southern Kosovo early yesterday, police said. No one was hurt in the blast. Police suspect the blast was caused by an explosive device placed in front of a private shop in Prizren, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of Pristina. (AP)

Former president Slobodan Milosevic has been regaining popularity in Serbia, with almost a third of people saying they trust him despite his trial on war crimes charges at a UN court, a survey published yesterday showed. The survey also said that Milosevic enjoys more popular backing than the current Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica. (AP)