The area covered by wildfires grew by 3,000 hectares to over 21,500 hectares over the past day as Russia battles to prevent a repeat of last year's deadly blazes, the emergencies ministry said Thursday.

Over the past day emergencies officials have managed to put out 148 fires covering the area of more than 4,000 hectares.

The top commander of U.S. special operations forces said Wednesday that Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida is bloodied and "nearing its end," but he warned the next generation of militants could keep special operations fighting for a decade to come.

Navy SEAL Adm. Eric T. Olson described the killing of bin Laden by a special operations raid on May 2 as a near-killing blow for what he called "al-Qaida 1.0," as created by bin Laden and led from his hideout in Pakistan.

Unidentified gunmen on Thursday killed the spokesman of the leader of Russia's unrest-plagued Caucasus region of Dagestan, investigators said.

The attackers fired on Garun Kurbanov, the head of the press service of Dagestan leader Magomedsalam Magomedov just after 8:00 am (04:00 GMT), the Russian investigative committee said in a statement.

Dozens of Abu Sayyaf militants killed seven marines and wounded 21 others in one of the fiercest clashes this year that erupted in stormy weather Thursday as the marine platoon was about to attack a terrorist jungle camp, the military said.

About 30 marines maneuvered close to the encampment of more than 50 al-Qaida-linked militants in mountainous Patikul township in southern Sulu province, setting off the pre-dawn gunbattle, regional military spokesman Lt. Col. Randolph Cabangbang said.

Heavy fighting broke out Thursday in the Somali capital Mogadishu, after government forces backed by African Union troops launched an assault against a stronghold of the hard-line Shebab insurgents, officials and witnesses said.

"There is heavy fighting this morning in several locations, it is too early to say about casualty numbers, but there are some civilians who were injured in the crossfire," said Ali Muse, the head of Mogadishu's ambulance service.

The pilot and co-pilot of an Asiana Airlines cargo plane were killed when the aircraft caught fire and crashed Thursday off South Korea's southern island of Jeju, officials said.

Investigations were focusing on whether inflammable material in the hold of the Boeing 747-400 sparked the blaze.

North Korea said Wednesday, ahead of landmark talks with the United States, that a U.S. missile defense shield will set off a new nuclear arms race.

The target of the shield is "the gaining of absolute nuclear superiority and global hegemony over the other nuclear power rivals," North Korea's U.N. ambassador Sin Son Ho told a U.N. debate on nuclear disarmament.

At least 25 people were killed and nine others went missing as a slow-moving tropical storm dumped enormous amounts of rain across the Philippines' main island, authorities said Wednesday.

Nock-ten, named after a Laotian bird, was expected to cause more damage in the mountainous northern areas of Luzon island on Wednesday night, while also bringing heavy rain to Manila, the state weather service said.

India's Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna said on Wednesday that relations with Pakistan were "on the right track" after talks with his Pakistani counterpart Hina Rabbani Khar in New Delhi.

Conceding that there were challenges that lay ahead, Krishna told reporters: "I can confidently say that our relations are on the right track."

A blast of heavy rain sent landslides barreling through South Korea's capital and a northern town Wednesday, killing at least 32 people, including 10 college students doing volunteer work.

The students died as mud and debris engulfed them as they slept in a resort cabin in Chuncheon, about 68 miles (110 kilometers) northeast of the capital Seoul, said Byun In-soo of the town's fire station. A married couple and a convenience store owner also died.