The pullout of rebel forces from Goma, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo's mineral-rich east, is "a step in the right direction," DR Congo government spokesman Lambert Mende said Sunday.

"We have indeed seen this withdrawal. We say that it's a step in the right direction," Mende told Agence France Presse after the M23 rebels withdrew Saturday from Goma, which they had occupied for 12 days.

Fierce fighting between heavily armed rival clans in war-torn Somalia has killed at least 26 people in a dispute over grazing land and water, officials said Sunday.

"There are many casualties, the initial reports are of 26 people killed," said Mohamed Abdi Shire, a senior commander of the Ahlu Sunna militia in central Somalia, which controls the region.

North Korea has notified neighbors including Japan of the trajectory of the rocket it plans to launch this month, a report said Sunday, after international condemnation of the move by the nuclear-armed state.

The communist North announced on Saturday it would launch a rocket sometime between December 10 and 22 -- its second long-range rocket launch this year after a much-hyped but botched attempt in April.

Taliban insurgents launched a major suicide attack Sunday against a NATO base at an Afghan city airport, killing five people and wounding several foreign troops, officials said.

Nine attackers were also killed, some blowing themselves up in two vehicles at the perimeter gate of the Jalalabad airport and others shot as they attempted to storm the base, police said.

The Pentagon, in a major expansion of its intelligence gathering activities, plans to assemble an espionage network rivaling the Central Intelligence Agency in size, The Washington Post reported late Saturday.

Citing unnamed U.S. officials, the newspaper said that as part of the project, U.S. military officials will send hundreds of additional spies overseas.

Japanese rescuers found five charred bodies in a highway tunnel that collapsed on Sunday, crushing cars and triggering a blaze, and sparking fears of another cave-in.

At least seven people were missing inside the nearly five-kilometer (three mile)-long tunnel. Witnesses spoke of terrifying scenes as at least one vehicle burst into flames, sending out clouds of blinding, acrid smoke.

A cargo plane that crashed at Brazzaville airport killing at least 27 people belonged to the Armenian freight specialist airline Rij Airways, the foreign ministry in Yerevan said Saturday.

The plane, carrying seven crew members, crashed as it tried to land in a storm on Friday.

Georgian police on Saturday questioned a former prime minister over the alleged use of a fake passport, further raising tensions between the government and President Mikheil Saakashvili, who says his allies are being persecuted.

"An investigation was opened into the use of a forged document and an attempt of illicit crossing of the state border," an interior ministry statement said.

Tehran's cyber police chief has been sacked for negligence in events leading to the death in custody of an Iranian blogger, Iran's police said on its website on Saturday.

Colonel Saeed Shokrian "was removed from his post due to negligence and lax supervision over personnel under his command," police.ir reported, quoting a decree by Iran's police chief, Esmaeel Ahmadi Moghadam.

Japan will postpone talks with North Korea after it announced plans to launch a rocket later this month, Kyodo news agency said Saturday, days before diplomats from the two countries were due to meet.

North Korea will launch a rocket between December 10 and 22, said official Korean Central News Agency earlier on Saturday, in what will be the country's second long-range rocket launch this year following a much-hyped but failed attempt in April.