US drone penetrated 250 km: Iran protest

TEHRAN: The US drone which Iran said it shot down penetrated 250 kilometres inside the Islamic republic’s airspace, state television’s website reported on Friday. In a letter of protest to the United Nations, the government said “the American RQ-170 spy plane violated 250 kilometres inside Iranian airspace before confronting the reaction of Iran’s armed forces,” the website reported. “Provocative and secret actions by the American government against the Islamic republic in recent months” have been on the increase, it charged. It said Tehran had lodged “a strong protest against this violation of international rules by the US government” and warned against any “repetition of such actions.” Iran called for the United Nations...

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More than 2,000 Afghans rally, denounce Pakistan

KABUL: More than 2,000 Afghans are rallying on the last day of a Shia Muslim holiday to mourn and denounce Pakistan for the deadly bombing at a shrine in Kabul that killed 56 and wounded more than 160 people. The crowd gathered Friday on the west side of Kabul on the last day of Ashoura. The holiday commemorates the death in the seventh century of Imam Hussein, the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson. His death in a battle outside Karbala in Iraq sealed Islam’s historical Sunni-Shiite split. The protesters are denouncing Tuesday’s suicide bombing in Kabul. It was the first major sectarian attack in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban regime a decade ago. Some of the speakers at the rally blamed neighboring Pakistan for the...

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‘Zardari says he’s fine, vows to return soon’

ISLAMABAD: President Asif Ali Zardari is “fine” and will return home soon, a news anchor quoted him as saying on Friday, nearly a week after his rush to a Dubai hospital led to speculation the unpopular leader might resign and even of a possible coup. “I’m fine and will return soon,” Zardari reportedly told Hamid Mir, a popular news anchor, who repeated the comments on state television. “I did not want to leave. My children and friends and the prime minister insisted that I go for a checkup,” President Zardari said. The issue of the president’s health has gripped Islamabad, exacerbating a series of cascading crises. News media, bloggers and analysts have openly speculated that Zardari would resign or that a coup was afoot. Zardari...

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Mosque suicide attack kills six in Afghanistan

ASADABAD: A suicide bomber on Friday attacked a mosque in eastern Afghanistan, killing at least six people including a district police chief, a government official said. The attack happened as worshippers were leaving the mosque after the main Friday prayers in the Qazi Abad area of the eastern province of Kunar, which borders Pakistan, said provincial governor Fazullulah Wahidi. “The attacker detonated his explosives in the mosque, killing the district police chief, an intelligence officer, two police and two civilians,” the governor told AFP. There was no immediate claim of responsibility but Kunar has been a flashpoint in the Taliban’s 10-year insurgency against the Western-backed government and 140,000 US-led foreign...

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Iran releases footage of captured US drone

WASHINGTON: Tehran’s capture of a largely intact, top secret US drone, which it displayed on state television, not only lays bare America’s surveillance program over Iran, but it also puts sensitive, advanced technology in hostile hands. A former US official confirmed to The Associated Press that the beige-colored drone featured in the more than two-minute video aired Thursday was indeed an RQ-170 Sentinel that is used for surveillance of Tehran’s nuclear facilities. The US military said it lost control of a drone earlier this week. Iranian officials quickly claimed their military forces had downed the Sentinel with an electronic attack. But US officials on Thursday flatly rejected the claim that any cyber or other electronic...

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Posted in: INTERNATIONAL