WORLD IN BRIEF

• SOFIA, Bulgaria -- Dissident Bulgarian priests complained of brutality after police forced them out of hundreds of churches to try to end a decade-long schism dividing the Balkan state's Orthodox Christians.

Prosecutors defended the operation, which began Wednesday, saying the priests had illegally occupied property owned by Bulgaria's Orthodox Church, but those ousted said they would pursue criminal charges against police.

"We have been shut out of 220 churches, monasteries, chapels and other places of worship," said Inokentii, a dissident leader who, like many Bulgarian Orthodox priests, goes by one name. Officials said one priest and four civilians had been arrested in Sofia and at least 49 churches had been seized.

• MOSCOW -- Malik Saidullayev, the main rival to the Kremlin's candidate for president of Chechnya, was barred from running on a technicality. He said it was a sign the election would be biased and fail to bring peace to the war-torn republic.

Ela Vakhitov, secretary of the Chechen election committee, said Saidullayev's passport was ruled to be invalid because it listed his place of birth as a village in Chechnya rather than in "the Chechen-Ingush republic, which was the name of the region in Soviet times, when he was born."

The Americas

• HAVANA -- Cuba freed the dissident economist Martha Beatriz Roque, the only woman among 75 people arrested 16 months ago.

"I didn't expect to be let out. I will continue my opposition work. They can't change my ideas," Roque said at the home of a relative in Havana.

Roque, 58, who said she had spent the last year in a military hospital suffering from diabetes, hypertension and heart problems, was released on health grounds.

The Middle East

• GAZA CITY -- Israel killed two Islamic militants in a missile strike on a car in Gaza City. Meanwhile, the European Union's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, raised pressure on the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, to implement reforms demanded by Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia, hinting that the E.U. would reconsider relations if the prime minister quit.

Palestinian security sources said an Israeli helicopter gunship fired a missile into a Gaza City district known to be a militant stronghold, killing two Islamic Jihad members. An Israeli army spokesman said the target was a high-ranking Islamic Jihad militant responsible for many attacks, including an ambush in May that killed six Israeli soldiers.

-- From News Services