ONE OF 3 JAILED U.S. HIKERS WILL BE RELEASED, IRAN SAYS Iran plans to release Sarah E. Shourd, one of the three American hikers detained last year and accused of spying, Iranian officials said Thursday. The Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance in Iran has invited reporters to witness the release Saturday morning at a Tehran hotel. The detention of Shourd, 32, and Shane M. Bauer and Joshua F. Fattal, both 28, further strained relations between Iran and the United States, which have long been at odds over Tehran's nuclear program. Washington this year imposed a new round of sanctions on Iran, as did the U.N. Security Council and European Union. U.S. officials have repeatedly called for the release of the hikers, saying the accusations against them are baseless. SUICIDE ATTACK ON SOMALI AIRPORT KILLS AT LEAST 9 Gunmen and suicide bombers attacked Mogadishu's main airport Thursday afternoon, shortly after a high-level U.N. delegation met with Somali officials there in an attempt to resolve an escalating internal political dispute. Witnesses said a Toyota sedan exploded at the airport gates after it was stopped by a guard. Another carload of attackers -- dressed in government military fatigues, a tactic used in a hotel attack last month -- arrived later. The attackers jumped out of their car and started shooting wildly, witnesses said. At least one of the attackers detonated an explosive vest. Witnesses said at least nine people were killed. CHINESE ADVOCATE RELEASED FROM PRISON, BUT STILL CONFINED A blind, self-taught lawyer imprisoned by the Chinese authorities in 2006 after years of exposing government abuses was freed Thursday and confined to his home in Shandong province, surrounded by guards and watched through closed-circuit surveillance cameras. The lawyer, Chen Guangcheng, earned global attention by challenging the legality of government policies that exploited farmers, discriminated against the disabled and brutally enforced China's one-child policy. That last crusade documented sterilizations and abortions forced on thousands of peasants in Chen's native Linyi County despite national policies barring such practices. DANGEROUS QUARTET OF IRAQI PRISONERS ESCAPES U.S. CUSTODY Four of the most dangerous prisoners in Iraq escaped overnight Wednesday from American custody in a heavily fortified prison on the edge of Baghdad, an embarrassing security breach that led to an intensive manhunt, American and Iraqi officials said Thursday. The four prisoners, who were not identified, were among more than 200 that Iraq asked the U.S. military to continue to hold because of their prominence and the potential threats they posed after the Iraqi government assumed control of the last American-built prison In Iraq. The 200 include former members of Saddam Hussein's government and senior insurgents. It was not clear how the four managed to get out of a prison inside a bigger military base, one of the most secure places in Iraq. U.S. MARINES FREE SHIP FROM SOMALI PIRATES In a predawn raid with helicopters hovering nearby, 24 U.S. Marines boarded a hijacked ship in the Gulf of Aden on Thursday, arrested the nine pirates on board and freed the ship -- all without firing a shot, the U.S. military said. U.S. officials said two teams of 12 Marines each motored up in inflatable boats to the hijacked ship, a German-owned cargo vessel called the Magellan Star. The Marines clambered up portable ladders -- much as pirates have been doing -- and swiftly took over the ship, American officials said. A Turkish frigate, part of an American-led anti-piracy task force, was nearby. All nine pirates surrendered without a shot, American officials said. The Magellan Star's crew was safe, too. CAR BOMB IN RUSSIAN MARKET KILLS AT LEAST 16 A car loaded with explosives detonated in a central market in Russia's restive North Caucasus region Thursday, killing at least 16 people and wounding as many as 100 in what the authorities said was most likely a suicide attack. The blast occurred in North Ossetia, a mostly Orthodox Christian area where major acts of violence have been rare in recent years compared with majority Muslim republics in the region, like Chechnya or Dagestan, where last weekend a suicide bomber killed three people. The police disarmed a second explosive device found near the market entrance, and Russia's National Antiterrorist Committee warned that other bombs could be set to detonate in the vicinity. 