MOSUL, Iraq — Iraqi forces launched a daring nighttime raid in the early hours of Tuesday morning on the sprawling complex of municipal buildings in western Mosul along the Tigris River.

Beginning just after midnight, Iraq’s emergency response division, an elite arm of the Federal Police, led the attack. Initially advancing some half-dozen blocks past the front line in armored vehicles, but breaching the complex itself on foot.

After facing little resistance, regular Federal Police units followed and by 6:30 a.m. Tuesday morning an Iraqi flag had been hoisted above the tallest government building.

But hours after the municipal complex was declared liberated by the country’s top military commanders and U.S.-led coalition officials, the wounded began pouring into a small frontline clinic just a few hundred yards away.

By 11 a.m. clashes inside the compound had intensified and commanders behind the front were getting frantic radio calls for help. Three bulldozers had broken down trying to remove roadblocks, hundreds of troops were trapped and they needed reinforcements.

Snipers fired down on Iraqi forces from the buildings above and previously concealed suicide car bombs rammed their convoys. As the Islamic State group’s counterattacks on the municipality ballooned, Iraqi forces responded with artillery and airstrikes.

By afternoon, Federal Police units were being sent from the Tayran base to try and free the hundreds of troops in and around the municipality buildings and a front line clinic was receiving casualties in waves.

Train collides with charter bus in Mississippi; at least 4 dead

BILOXI, Miss. — A freight train smashed into a charter bus Tuesday afternoon in Biloxi, pushing the bus 300 feet down the tracks and leaving at least four people dead, authorities said, with 40 others taken to hospitals. Seven were in critical condition, officials said.

Images from the scene show the bus, upright and still intact, straddling the tracks, with the CSX train pushed up against its left side.

The bus was carrying 48 passengers and the driver when it was hit by the train at a downtown crossing, said Biloxi police Chief John Miller. He said authorities believe the bus was stopped on the tracks at the time of the crash, but they don’t know why.

The bus was carrying people on a trip organized by a Texas senior center. A tour flier said some passengers boarded in Austin and others boarded 30 miles east in Bastrop.

Daughters: Panama ex-dictator Noriega critical after surgery

PANAMA CITY — Former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega suffered a hemorrhage after surgery Tuesday to remove a benign brain tumor and was in critical condition, his daughters reported.

Thays and Sandra Noriega said their 83-year-old father was returned to the operating room after being in intensive care.

Noriega, who had been in prison for corruption and the killings of opponents during his 1983-89 regime, was transferred to house arrest Jan. 29 to prepare for the procedure.

Noriega, a former general and strongman, was ousted by a U.S. invasion in 1989 and jailed for years in the United States on drug charges. He was then imprisoned in France for money laundering, before being returned in 2011 to Panama, where he had been convicted in absentia.

Israel steps up battle on boycott by barring outside supporters

JERUSALEM — Israel has stepped up its battle against outside supporters of an international boycott movement against the Jewish state with a new law that would bar entry to them.

The measure drew fierce criticism Tuesday from dovish activist groups who condemned it as the latest in a series of steps to silence critics.

The law, which was approved by the Knesset on Monday night, does not apply to Israeli citizens or permanent residents. It states that no visa or residence permit will be given to anyone who “knowingly issued a public call to impose a boycott against the state of Israel or committed to participate in a boycott.” It also includes people who boycott Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank — a position that is supported by many Israelis as well.

Twisters damage hundreds of homes in Midwest

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — More than 30 tornadoes struck overnight in Missouri, Kansas, Iowa and Illinois, the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., said, causing damage to hundreds of homes and buildings. The National Weather Service was assessing the exact number and strength of twisters Tuesday.

The same storm system brought huge hailstones and powerful winds as far south as the Ozark Mountains in Arkansas and as far north as Wisconsin.

The system weakened as it moved east across Missouri but dropped an EF-1 tornado in the St. Louis suburb of Wentzville, injuring two people and damaging homes and businesses, the weather service said.

In Iowa, where hurricane-force winds were reported, the Muscatine Fire Department said several homes and businesses were damage.

Judge won’t stop building of pipeline in North Dakota

BISMARCK, N.D. — A federal judge declined Tuesday to temporarily stop construction of the final section of the disputed Dakota Access oil pipeline, clearing the way for oil to flow as soon as next week.

The Standing Rock and Cheyenne River Sioux tribes pledged to continue their legal fight against the project, even after the pipeline begins operating.

The tribes had asked U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington to direct the Army Corps of Engineers to withdraw permission for Texas-based developer Energy Transfer Partners to lay pipe under Lake Oahe in North Dakota.

The stretch under the Missouri River reservoir in southern North Dakota is the last piece of construction for the $3.8 billion pipeline to move North Dakota oil to Illinois.

Poachers in France: A zoo director says a 5-year-old rhinoceros at the wildlife park he runs near Paris was shot overnight by assailants who used a chain saw to remove and steal the animal’s horn.

Thierry Duguet said workers discovered the carcass Tuesday in the rhinoceros’ enclosure at the Thoiry Zoo.

Anglers file lawsuit: A coalition of commercial fishing groups filed a lawsuit to challenge the creation of a national monument off New England.

President Barack Obama created the monument in September, closing nearly 5,000 square miles of underwater canyons and mountains to most commercial fishing.