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At least 42 people have died in a suicide attack during a Shiite Muslim rally in Pakistan’s south-western city of Quetta in the second major strike by militants within 48 hours.

The attack has raised fears that the Pakistan Taliban is trying to capitalise on devastating floods that have plunged the country into crisis.

Police said the bomber was among a 450-strong crowd when he detonated the bomb in the main square of the city, triggering chaotic scenes as members of the crowd fired rifles and set vehicles ablaze in protest at the attack.

Shiite leader Allama Abbas Kumaili appealed to participants to remain peaceful. “We understand these are attempts to bring Sunni and Shiite sects against each other,” he said.

The rally was being held to mark Al-Quds day, an international event opposing Israel’s control of Jerusalem and showing solidarity with Palestinian Muslims.

The attack in Quetta is the second this week on Pakistan’s minority Shiite population. A triple suicide attack on Wednesday night killed 35 people at a Shiite ceremony in the eastern city of Lahore.

The bombings were later claimed by the Pakistan Taliban in revenge for the killing of a Sunni leader last year.

Militants have used sectarian strikes as part of their campaign to destabilise the government and sow fear among minorities.

Hasan Askari Rizvi, a military and political analyst, said a lull in attacks during the worst of the flooding crisis had given way to a new campaign.

“They are capitalising on the fact that the government and the military are busy dealing with the floods,” he said. “They see this as an opportunity to take the war into the cities far from their territories in the northwest.”

Earlier, at least one man was killed and four were wounded when a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a mosque of the Ahmadi sect in Mardan, in the north-west of the country.

By Telegraph.co.uk

Injured people lie down on road after an explosion during a Shiite procession in Quetta Photo: AP

Three Americans were killed in Afghanistan Saturday, NATO’s International Security Assistance Force said.

Two of the U.S. service members died in a bombing in southern Afghanistan. The third death followed an insurgent attack in eastern Afghanistan. No other details were immediately available.

The casualties came as the top American diplomat and top U.S. general in Afghanistan reassured the troubled nation of U.S. support.

“Now looking ahead, we’re all focused together on the upcoming parliamentary elections and the key test will be the satisfaction of the Afghan people with the progress that’s going to come from their hard work as they approach the elections — their incredible reputation for perseverance and their indomitable spirit,” said Amb. Karl Eikenberry, speaking to Afghan journalists with Gen. David Petraeus.

Meanwhile, Afghan and coalition soldiers fought off assaults on two military bases that left more than 20 insurgents dead, ISAF said.

The fighting occurred in Khost province, a volatile region on Afghanistan’s rugged border with Pakistan.

Insurgents clad in U.S. military uniforms and wielding rocket-propelled grenades and small arms “simultaneously launched attacks” against Forward Operating Base Salerno and Forward Operation Base Chapman, ISAF said.

Chapman is the same base where a suicide bomber killed seven CIA officers on December 30.

Troops killed about 15 insurgents at Salerno and six at Chapman. Five insurgent fighters were captured and were in ISAF custody.

A Haqqani network operative who helps carry out bombings and two other insurgents died in an airstrike while fleeing Salerno in a vehicle. Two insurgents who got into Salerno were killed by soldiers. The Haqqani network is a militant group with ties to al Qaeda.

“We are tightening our grip on the insurgents and as a result they are attempting anything and everything as a last ditch effort,” said U.S. Army Col. Rafael Torres, ISAF spokesman. “The insurgents gave their best effort and came up short.”

Afghan police and ISAF members seized a car bomb and a vehicle carrying ammunition. Forces also seized suicide vests, rifles and unexploded munitions.

Four ISAF soldiers were injured, and three have returned to duty. The fourth was set to return to duty soon. No base facilities were damaged.

Also Saturday, an Afghan civilian was killed by a suicide attacker in southeastern Paktika province, ISAF said. Seven people also were wounded when the insurgent detonated a suicide vest.

By the CNN

EDS NOTE GRAPHIC CONTENT- An Afghan National Army soldier stands near the body of a suicide attacker near a NATO base in Khost province of Afghanistan, Saturday, Aug. 28, 2010. Insurgents launched pre-dawn attacks Saturday on a major NATO base in eastern Afghanistan and a nearby camp where seven CIA employees were killed last year in a suicide bombing. NATO said there were no coalition casualties and the attacks were repelled. It said 13 insurgents were killed, four of whom were wearing suicide vests, and five captured. (AP Photo/Nishanuddin Khan)

A suicide bomber wearing an explosives-laden jacket killed at least three people, including a key security official, in the northern Pakistani city of Peshawar Wednesday.

Among the dead was Sifwat Ghayour, commander of the paramilitary Frontier Constabulary, said Bashir Ahmed Bilour, a provincial government official. Ghayour had just left his office and his car was stopped at a traffic light when the attack occurred.

The Frontier Constabulary is spearheading the fight against Islamic militants in the northwestern frontier province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and is supported by the United States.

In southern Pakistan, the death toll rose Wednesday to 57 in widespread violence that broke out after the killing of a provincial lawmaker. The number of wounded has also gone up — to 110, said Rafiq Gul, deputy superintendent of Karachi police.

Syed Raza Haider, a leader of the MQM party, was shot Monday evening at a mosque in the southern Pakistani port city of Karachi. Haider was attending the funeral of a relative, Gul said. The gunman also killed the politician’s bodyguard.

Haider’s death triggered political and ethnic violence in the city, as mobs set fire to vehicles and gunfire erupted. Gul said 48 vehicles, eight shops and several gas stations were set ablaze in the mayhem. The MQM is part of the ruling coalition backing President Asif Ali Zardari’s Pakistan People’s Party.

By the CNN

A suicide bomber wearing an explosives-laden jacket killed at least three people, including a key security official, in the northern Pakistani city of Peshawar Wednesday.

A car that exploded outside a police station in Londonderry contained 200lbs of homemade explosives, police have said.

Dissident republicans are being blamed for the attack.

No-one was injured in the attack which happened at 0320 BST but several businesses were badly damaged in the blast.

Police said the bomb was loaded into a hijacked taxi and the driver ordered at gunpoint to drive to the station.

Divisional Commander Steve Martin said it was fortunate no-one was killed because the device went off more than 20 minutes before a warning said it would.

He said two men hijacked a taxi in the Bogside. The driver was taken to Glenfada Park where the bomb was loaded into the car.

The driver was then ordered at gunpoint to drive to Strand Road police station and warned he would be shot if he did not.

Supt Martin said they had been warned the device would go off in 45 minutes, however only 23 minutes had passed when the car exploded.

He also revealed that a policeman risked his own life when he walked past the bomb twice to bring to safety staff at a nearby fast food shop.

The first and deputy first ministers have condemned the attack.

Peter Robinson said he was thankful there was no loss of life.

“Using a taxi driver to deliver the device shows the cowardice of those behind the attack and my sympathies are with him and all those targeted,” he said.

Martin McGuinness said those who planned the attack were an “embarrassment” to the people of Derry.

“It’s about trying to undermine the peace process, about trying to undermine Sinn Fein’s peace strategy,” he said.

“If they think they will destroy the political institutions the people of Ireland voted for, if they think they’re going to destroy the working relationship I have with Peter Robinson, if they think they will undermine the peace process they are living in cloud cuckoo land.”

SDLP Mayor of Derry Colum Eastwood blamed dissident republicans for the attack.

“Police didn’t even have time to evacuate a nursing home or apartments right beside the police station.

“We are very lucky today not to be talking about fatalities. It’s an attack not just on the police but the entire community.”

‘Panic’
Lotfi Jalloul, whose kebab shop was destroyed in the blast, had been cleaning up for the night when he saw the car arrive at the police station.

“I thought he was a taxi driver picking up a passenger but about 15 minutes later, we were evacuated by the police,” he said.

“There was a lot of panic. I left the money in the till and didn’t even get the chance to pull down the shutters - thank God we got out of there, I can’t believe we’re still alive.”

He said he had been told his business had been destroyed by the explosion but had not yet been able to see what damage was caused because the area remains cordoned off.

Conor Kelly, who lives in an apartment block near the police station, said it had been a terrifying experience.

“I was still awake and reading when I heard an enormous noise like thunder and saw debris flying past my window,” he said.

“There were no alarms or attempts to evacuate the building.”

He said the front of a fast food outlet had been “ripped to shreds” and other buildings had windows blown out.

In May, a mortar bomb was fired at the same police station. It struck a wall but failed to explode.

The attack comes just weeks after Derry was picked to be UK City of Culture in 2013.

SDLP MP Mark Durkan said the bombing was “a cowardly, dangerous and vulgar act”.

“Those responsible for this incident have achieved nothing and this campaign of violence will achieve nothing,” he said.

By BBC

Forensic scientists examined the taxi destroyed by the bomb.

BAGHDAD — On Sunday, a journalist for Al Arabiya, an Arabic-language news channel, sat in the newsroom and explained that his staff had recently returned to the bureau after being forced to leave for weeks by threats from Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.

“Thank God we are able to work,” said the journalist, Mohammed Zuhair, the chief of the channel’s newsroom.

Less than 24 hours later, a suicide bomber drove a white minibus packed with explosives past several checkpoints and detonated the vehicle in front of the news channel’s office, killing 6 and wounding 16. The dead included security guards and a cafeteria worker, but no journalists. Among the wounded was a former Iraqi deputy prime minister who lives nearby. Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia took responsibility for the bombing.

On Monday evening, two other explosions struck Shiite pilgrims as they marched from Najaf to Karbala to commemorate the birthday of Imam Mahdi, a revered Shiite saint. The attacks, which also bore the hallmark of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, killed close to 20 and wounded more than 50, according to officials in Baghdad and Karbala.

While the bombing at Al Arabiya’s office spared the newsroom, the attack was a brutal reminder of the dangers Iraqis face in practicing journalism, which they have had the freedom to do for only seven years. The war here has been the deadliest in history for journalists. More than 140 have been killed in Iraq since the war began, the vast majority of them Iraqis, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

Many newsrooms in Baghdad display photographs of slain colleagues. At Al Sumariya, another popular TV news channel, large photos in a hallway serve as reminders of two correspondents who were kidnapped and killed.

The attack on Monday came as officials have again been debating proposals for a new law to protect journalists — in the event that the country’s political class can end the nearly five-month stalemate that has followed March’s parliamentary elections and form a new government.

Among the ideas are to provide government protection for targeted journalists; offer compensation to the families of those killed; and set up regulations aimed at protecting the newsgathering process. A new law might also elevate a crime against a journalist to a higher level, a parallel to hate crime laws in the United States.

A draft law was sent to Parliament last year but never enacted; many here expect it will be taken up again. Officials recently held a workshop to discuss the proposals.

Mr. Zuhair, who was not hurt in Monday’s bombing, said a law would “give a capability to journalists and a stature.”

The need for a media law — which could also impose fines for publishing false information — is itself a matter of debate. Mindful of prior abuses — when the press was a propaganda arm of Saddam Hussein’s tyranny, and the death penalty could be imposed for criticizing his government — some want no government interference in the news media, even with the aim of protection. Last year, journalists in Baghdad protested against a media law, fearing it would restrict them.

Feryad Rawandozi straddles the worlds of politics and the press. A former member of Parliament, he is the spokesman for the Kurdistan Alliance, a coalition of politicians from Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdish region, and a newspaper columnist. His position is nuanced.

“Without a law, we cannot compensate families for losing their sons,” Mr. Rawandozi said. “Some areas are still very dangerous for journalists, but not all the Iraqi areas.”

As a politician, however, he believes the Iraqi press is not advanced enough to police itself on ethics, and favors a law to regulate the profession. “Some people think we need some sort of regulation because we are not exercising freedom of speech in the right way,” he said, mentioning an article that he said misquoted him. “It’s very hard to say that journalists stick with the ethics.”

Iraq’s Constitution protects freedom of opinion and speech, but some Western groups are urging the government to give the media a deeper constitutional imprimatur. A group of press advocacy groups working with Unesco recently published an open letter advocating the passage of a freedom of information law, writing, “We still lack the legal mechanism that guarantees the citizen’s right to have access to information.”

The Iraqi government is wading into the affairs of the news media in other ways, recently establishing a special press court to adjudicate libel offenses and press freedom issues. Western advocates have criticized the court, saying the government has not disclosed enough information about the court’s procedures.

“A specialized press court is hardly the solution to the problems Iraqi journalists face on a daily basis,” Mohamed Abdel Dayem, Middle East director for the Committee to Protect Journalists, said in a recent statement. “Historically, press courts have been used for restriction rather than protection.”

On Monday afternoon, Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia took credit for the bombing at Al Arabiya on a Web site it often uses to communicate, suggesting the attack was in response to a broadcast about the influence of the extremist group. The program was called “Creation of Death.”

“Wait for more,” the group’s statement said.

The capabilities of the group, which is homegrown but is believed to have some foreign leadership, have diminished in recent months with the killing of many top leaders, but it is still able to regularly carry out suicide attacks against institutions of Iraq’s nascent democracy.

Ayad Allawi, the former interim prime minister whose coalition won the most seats in the parliamentary elections, went to the scene of the bombing.

About a month ago the Interior Ministry notified Al Arabiya, whose headquarters are in Dubai, that it had intelligence that the network’s Baghdad office might become a target of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, according to Tariq Maher, a local correspondent for the channel who is a former employee of The New York Times in Baghdad.

The network’s Iraqi staff decamped to the Al-Rasheed Hotel for several weeks, and only in the last couple of days had returned to its office, with a scaled-down staff and added protection from the Interior Ministry, according to Mr. Maher, who was in the building when the explosion occurred. He had been up late working, and he and a colleague had gone to bed for a nap just after 9 a.m. He said a blanket that he pulled over his head saved him from falling debris.

“That is how the miracle happened, why we survived,” he said. “Two guards turned completely to ash.”

By TIM ARANGO

Soldiers inspected the Baghdad office of Al Arabiya, an Arabic news channel, after a bombing Monday in which six people died.

The Taliban has captured two US soldiers in eastern Afghanistan, a spokesman for the Islamic insurgents said.

American officials separately confirmed that two US soldiers serving with Nato forces were missing, but did not comment on the Taliban claims.

In the eastern Afghanistan province of Logar, local radio broadcast offers of a $20,000 reward for information that led to the safe release of the pair.

“Early this morning two coalition personnel went missing,” the announcement said. “They are believed to have been captured by insurgents somewhere in Logar province.

“They may have been separated from one another or maybe in the process of being moved to another location.”

A Taliban spokesman said that three servicemen with the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) had been captured but one had died. He did not give further details.

The soldiers were tracked and ambushed in a shoot-out by Taliban fighters as they drove through Logar in a four-wheel drive armoured vehicle, according to the account of a local Afghan chief.

He also thought that one of men may have been killed and the other captured.

Samer Gul, district chief of Charkh district in Logar province, said Saturday that the vehicle was seen on Friday night by a guard working for the district chief’s office. The guard tried to flag down the vehicle, carrying a driver and a passenger, but it kept going, Mr Gul said.

”They stopped in the main bazaar of Charkh district. The Taliban saw them in the bazaar,” he said. ”They didn’t touch them in the bazaar, but notified other Taliban that a four-wheel vehicle was coming their way.”

The second group of Taliban tried to stop the vehicle. The insurgents opened fire and the two occupants in the vehicle shot back, he said, adding that one may have been killed and the other taken hostage by the Taliban.

”Maybe they wanted to go to Paktia province or to the American base, but they came down the wrong road toward Charkh,” Mr Gul said. ”They didn’t pay any attention to the police. Otherwise we could have kept them from going into an insecure area and now this unfortunate incident has happened.”

Military officials could not confirm the district chief’s account.

In the radio broadcast one of the missing men was described as about six foot tall and weighing 15st 10lbs with blond hair and brown eyes. The other was described as 13st 8lbs, bald with a thin moustache. Both men have tattoos, the broadcast said.

“Coalition forces are offering $20,000 reward for any information that leads to the successful return of these two,” the statement said, without identifying the men.

A Nato statement said later that two ISAF service members left their compound the previous day in Kabul but did not return. A search is under way for them.

The statement did not identify the pair by nationality but US officials said they were Americans.
There is believed to be only one other ISAF soldier being held by the Taliban, who released a video of him last Christmas.

Meanwhile, five US troops died on Saturday in two separate roadside bombings.The two unnamed US personnel were wearing standard military camouflage, according to the radio report.

By Philip Sherwell

A car bomb has exploded in a marketplace near the Iraqi city of Baquba killing at least 15 people and wounding more than 40, police say.

The blast went off near a mosque in the predominantly Shia village of Abu Sayda, about 45 miles (70km) north of the capital, Baghdad.

Police said the latest explosion caused buildings to collapse, and women and children were among those injured.

The Baquba area has suffered several attacks in recent days.

At least six people died in a car bombing on Monday near a restaurant in Baquba, and on Tuesday several Iranian pilgrims were injured in an attack west of the city.

Officials have imposed a curfew in Abu Sayda in case there are more explosive devices planted nearby.

Baquba is the ethnically mixed capital of Diyala province, which has become a bastion of al-Qaeda in Iraq and remains one of the country’s most unstable provinces.

A US soldier was killed on Wednesday as his convoy was hit by a roadside bomb as it drove through Diyala.

Meanwhile, Iraqi politicians have not yet agreed on the formation of a new government more than four months after parliamentary elections.

The BBC’s Gabriel Gatehouse, in Baghdad, says there are fears that the longer this political stalemate continues, the easier it will be for insurgents to exploit the power vacuum.

By BBC

There have been a string of attacks in the area lately.

MINGORA, Pakistan—An apparent suicide bombing near a bus terminal in Pakistan’s Swat Valley killed five people and wounded at least 58 on Thursday, officials said, a sign that Islamist militants remain active in the northwest region despite a massive army operation.

The explosion went off around noon in Mingora, the main town in the one-time tourist haven that was largely overrun by Taliban militants in 2007.

Pakistani TV footage showed vehicles bent and twisted due to the force of the blast. Some men were desperately trying to open the doors of a car to reach a woman and man sitting in the front who were bloodied and appeared unconscious.

The area struck was crowded, so the death toll could rise significantly. Senior police official Qazi Ghulam Farooq said five people died, including two women, and that officials believed a suicide bomber was involved. At least 58 people were wounded, he said.

The Pakistan military launched its biggest operation against the Taliban in Swat in 2009 after a failed attempt at a peace deal that included pledges to impose Islamic law in the area. The operation forced some 2 million people to flee, but after a few months, the army said it had taken control and many of the refugees returned home.

Still, violence has occasionally flared in Swat, shaking people’s confidence. A handful of targeted killings of anti-Taliban elders in particular has worried those who fear the insurgents are staging a comeback in the valley.

In recent weeks, several major suicide attacks have shaken Pakistan. Last week, a pair of suicide bombers blew themselves up in the Mohmand tribal region, killing at least 102 people in the deadliest attack in the U.S.-allied nation this year.

The attacks come as Washington is pushing Pakistan to do even more to root out militant groups that use its soil to plan attacks on Western troops across the border in Afghanistan.

The U.S. has also launched more than 100 missile strikes against Taliban and al-Qaida fighters in Pakistan’s semiautonomous tribal area along the Afghan border. The attacks have been especially frequent in North Waziristan, the home base of the al-Qaida-linked group led by Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son Siraj.

One Thursday evening, three suspected U.S. missiles landed in North Waziristan’s Mada Khel area, killing at least two people, said two intelligence officials. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media on the record.

Pakistan officially condemns the missile strikes but is believed to secretly assist the covert, CIA-run program.

Militants have responded to the strikes by assassinating tribesmen whom they accuse of spying, including two men whose bullet riddled bodies were found Thursday in the Datta Khel area of North Waziristan, said an intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

The bodies were accompanied by notes saying they were killed for spying on the Taliban, he said.

By Sherin Zada and Riaz Khan

Pakistani soldiers and police officers guard the site of an apparent suicide bombing in Mingora, capital of Pakistan's troubled Swat valley on Thursday, July 15, 2010. The apparent suicide bombing near a bus terminal in Pakistan's Swat Valley killed three people and wounded at least 35 people Thursday, officials said, a sign that Islamist militants remain active in the northwest region despite a massive army operation against them. (AP Photo/Naveed Ali)

Coalition troop deaths in Afghanistan continued to add up in what has been a hot and bloody struggle, with eight American and four British troops slain over the last 48 hours.

NATO’s International Security Assistance Force confirmed the eight American deaths. Five died Wednesday in southern Afghanistan, one in a bombing and the others in a small-arms attack. Three were killed Tuesday as they repelled an insurgent attack on a police base in Kandahar city.

The British Defence Ministry reported four deaths in Helmand province — that of a Marine shot during a foot patrol in the Sangin district of Helmand province and those of three soldiers who were killed in a premeditated attack by a member of the Afghan National Army.

The death toll is on pace to match the killings recorded in June, the bloodiest month so far for U.S. and international troops during the Afghan war.

Sixty Americans were among the 102 international troops slain in June. So far this month, 45 coalition troops have been killed, including 34 Americans.

By the CNN Wire Staff

U.S. troops drive through a valley in Afghanistan last week on a mission to clear improvised explosive devices.

North Korea asks to delay meeting on sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan ‘for administrative reasons’

North Korea today abruptly called off talks with the US-led United Nations Command, failing to show up for the first meeting to discuss the sinking of a South Korean warship in March.

North Korea’s military representatives asked for a delay “for administrative reasons”, the UN Command said in a statement. No new date has been set.

A joint team of investigators involving military officers and civilian experts from South Korea, the US and Sweden in May blamed the North for launching a torpedo attack on the South Korean warship Cheonan in March, killing 46 sailors.

The UN Security Council condemned the attack in a statement on Friday but did not directly blame the North. North Korea denies involvement in the sinking and has accused the South of fabricating the story for political gain.

North Korea first rejected a call by the UN Command to meet and discuss any violation of the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean war. It later changed its position and said it would agree to a meeting, after Seoul rejected its proposal to send a military team to inspect the sunken ship.

North Korea last weekend said it was willing to return to nuclear talks with regional powers that it had boycotted for more than a year. Experts said the North was trying to put the Cheonan incident behind it by offering to talk.

South Korea and the US reacted with scepticism, saying the North must show it was genuinely interested in easing tensions, first by apologising for the incident.

The foreign and defence ministers of the two allies will meet in Seoul next week to discuss strengthening security ties.

By Guardian.

North Korea has abruptly called off UN-led talks on the sinking of South Korean warship Cheonan. Photograph: Hong Jin-Hwan/AFP/Getty.