Seven Pakistanis kidnapped in Afghanistan: police

PUL-I-ALAM, Afghanistan: Seven Pakistani workers have been kidnapped in an area troubled by the Taliban near the Afghan capital Kabul, police said Thursday.

The Pakistanis —engineers and workers assigned to a hospital construction project in Logar province —were returning to their accommodation after work when they were snatched at gunpoint on Wednesday.

“They were going home from work. Along the road, their minivan was stopped by unknown gunmen, their driver was forced out of the car and all were taken away to an unknown location,” Logar police chief Ghulam Sakhi Roghliwani said.

“We’ve launched a search operation. We hope to find them and free them very soon,” said Roghliwani.

There was no claim of responsibility for the abduction but police said the kidnapping might have been carried out by “criminal gangs” seeking a ransom.

Read more »

Posted in: INTERNATIONAL

Bomb blast kills 10 in Iraq

BAGHDAD: A car bomb exploded in a street market in the Iraqi town of Khalis on Thursday, killing 10 people and wounding 25, police and hospital officials said.

Authorities immediately imposed a curfew in Khalis, about 80 kilometres north of Baghdad.

“According to the witnesses, there was a parked civilian car bomb in the street market and it blew up and led to the deaths of 10 people,” said Major Ali al-Temimi of the Khalis police.

The blast underscored Iraq’s fragile security as the remaining 13,000 US troops pull out in the next few weeks, nearly nine years after the invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein.

US Vice President Joe Biden is on a visit to Iraq designed to herald a new era in US-Iraqi relations.

Read more »

Posted in: INTERNATIONAL

Obama not to offer formal condolences over Nato attack: NYT

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama is not considering offering formal condolences to Pakistan over the deaths of 24 soldiers in a Nato airstrike last week, a report in the New York Times stated.

The report, quoting administration officials, said that Cameron Munter, the United States Ambassador in Pakistan, had requested the White House to issue a formal video statement from Barack Obama so that rapid deterioration of relations between the two countries could be prevented.

The White House, however, refused the request and said that expressions of remorse offered by senior administration officials and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton were enough.

The US president was unlikely to say anything further on the matter in the coming days, the officials told New York Times. — FTNews

Read more »

Posted in: INTERNATIONAL