Friday, January 6, 2012

Six children die in Afghan bomb blast

4:49 AM McGhori

KABUL: At least six children and one man were killed when a bomb planted in a garbage bin exploded Friday in Tirin Kot, capital of Afghanistan’s southern province of Uruzgan, police said. Four other children who were playing nearby were wounded, said spokesman Fardi Ayel. “At around 3:00 pm today there was an explosion in Tirin Kot city, initial information we have is that six children and one man have been killed,” he said. There was no obvious target for the bombing, although the home of a local police commander was nearby, he said. Earlier in a day of violence in the war-weary country five Nato soldiers were killed in two roadside bomb blasts, also in southern Afghanista...
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Taliban want US prisoners sent to Qatar: official

4:47 AM McGhori

KABUL: Afghanistan’s Taliban insurgents have demanded in negotiations with the US that prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay be transferred to Qatar, an Afghan government spokesman said on Friday. But President Hamid Karzai’s government objects strongly to the move and wants the prisoners sent directly to Afghanistan, presidential spokesman Aimal Faizi told AFP. The Taliban announced this week that they planned to set up a political office in Qatar, a move seen as a precursor to peace talks with Washington. At the same time, the hardline Islamists demanded the release of prisoners from the US military detention centre at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba – but the statement did not specify where they should be sent. Karzai was told by the US about...
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Syria says up to 25 killed in Damascus blast

4:46 AM McGhori

DAMASCUS: An explosion ripped through a busy intersection in the Syrian capital Friday, hitting a police bus and killing up to 25 people in what Syrian authorities said was the second suicide attack in as many weeks. The bus was left riddled with shrapnel, blood splattered on its seats and pooled on the asphalt of the street after the blast, which came exactly two weeks after twin bombings targeting intelligence agencies in the capital killed 44 people. The bombings mark a dramatic escalation of bloodshed as Arab League observers tour the country to investigate President Bashar Assad’s bloody crackdown on a 10-month-old popular revolt. Interior Minister Mohammed Shaar said a suicide bomber ”detonated himself with the aim of killing...
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Turkish ex-army chief arrested for anti-govt plot

4:44 AM McGhori

ISTANBUL: Turkey’s former army chief Ilker Basbug was arrested Friday over an alleged bid to topple the Turkish government, the Anatolia news agency reported on Friday. “The 26th chief of staff of the Turkish republic has unfortunately been placed in preventive detention for setting up and leading a terrorist group and of attempting to overthrow the government,” Ilkay Sezer, a lawyer for Basbug, was quoted as saying by Anatolia. Dozens of army officers have been jailed in recent years as part of several investigations into alleged plots targeting the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. But it is the first time in the history of the republic that a former chief of the Turkish military has been arrested. Basbug, who retired...
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Pakistan to back Russia’s move for Libya probe

2:03 AM McGhori

UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan is backing a Russian push for an investigation into civilian casualties in Libya during Nato’s bombing campaign to help the Libyan dissidents overthrow Col Muammar Gaddafi’s regime from power, diplomatic sources told APP. During closed-door Security Council consultations on Libya on Wednesday, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the UN Abdullah Hussain Haroon said his delegation would support such a Council-mandated probe, the sources said. The US and France are resisting any investigation into Nato’s human rights abuses in Libya. US Ambassador Susan Rice dismissed Russia’s demand for an investigation as a ‘cheap stunt’ to distract attention away from the Syrian government’s crackdown on protesters. Earlier,...
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Eight Nato troops killed in Afghanistan blasts

2:01 AM McGhori

KABUL: Eight Nato soldiers were killed in a series of bomb attacks in southern Afghanistan, the military said Friday. Three died on Thursday, another lost his life in a blast on Friday and four more were killed in second attack later the same day. Nato’s US-led International Security Assistance Force did not release the nationalities of the soldiers, in keeping with policy. Details would be released by the soldiers’ home countries, a spokesman said. More than 560 foreign troops were killed last year in Afghanistan, where some 130,000 US-led troops are fighting an insurgency by Taliban militants against the government of President Hamid Karza...
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