Escape from Taliban' author shot dead in Afghanistan.

Escape from Taliban' author shot 

dead in Afghanistan.

In this photograph taken on March 6, 2003, Indian
 author Sushmita Banerjee holds one of her
 Bengali language novels. (AFP files)

KHOST | Afghanistan | 06 Sep 2013 ::  An Indian author whose story was told in the movie "Escape from Taliban" was shot dead after returning to Afghanistan to make a documentary about women, police said on Friday.

The killing of Sushmita Banerjee, 49, on Wednesday was the latest in a series of attacks on women in the conservative Islamic country, adding to concern that hard-won women's rights are eroding ahead of next year's withdrawal of most international forces.

The Afghan Taliban denied involvement.

Banerjee, who told her story of life under the Islamist Taliban in "A Kabuliwala's Bengali Wife", was dragged from her house in lawless southeastern province of Paktika and shot as many as two dozen times, police said.

Her body was found on Thursday morning near an Islamic school about three km (two miles) from her home, Paktika police chief General Dawlat Khan Zadran said.

"Gunmen entered her house at 11 p.m. on Wednesday, took her out and shot her dead," Zadran said, adding that he suspected Taliban involvement.

Speaking to Reuters from Paktika police headquarters, Banerjee's husband, Jaanbaz Khan, said he had heard knocking on the back gate of their compound on Wednesday night.(Courtesy:Toronto SUN)Read More>>>

Iraqi Shia family targeted in deadly attack.

Iraqi Shia family targeted in deadly attack.

BBC News | 04 Sep 2013 :: An attack on a Shia Muslim family living near Baghdad has left at least 16 people dead, Iraqi officials say.

Six children and five women were among those killed when the neighbouring homes of two brothers in the town of Latifiya, 40km (25 miles) south of the capital, were targeted overnight.

A survivor said the gunmen shot anyone they saw before blowing up the houses.

Sectarian violence has surged across Iraq in recent months, reaching its highest level since 2008.

More than 800 people were killed in August alone, with Baghdad province worst affected.

Latifiya is in a religiously-mixed region that came to be known as the "Triangle of Death" at the peak of Iraq's insurgency in 2006 and 2007.

No group said it was behind the latest attack, but Sunni militants linked to al-Qaeda frequently target the country's Shia majority.

"Gunmen broke into our house overnight and shot my father four times in the head, they killed my two brothers, they killed my cousin, they were shooting everyone they saw, I escaped from the back door," one of the survivors, Haneen Mudhhir, told Reuters news agency from hospital.(Courtesy:BBC News)

Official: 7 U.N. peacekeepers killed in Sudan attack.

Seven U.N. soldiers and police officers were killed in a
 gunfire attack in Darfur in the western region of Sudan on
 Saturday. U.N. peacekeepers have been in the region since 2008.

CAIRO | AP | 13 Jul 2013 ::   Gunmen ambushed a United Nations peacekeeping team Saturday in Sudan's western region of Darfur, killing seven and wounding another 17 in the deadliest ever attack single attack on the international force in the country.

The assault included sustained heavy fire from machine guns and possibly rocket-propelled grenades, targeting the force some 25 kilometers (15 miles) west of the town of Khor Abeche, U.N. forces spokesman Chris Cycmanick said. Reinforcements later arrived to rescue the wounded, which included two female police advisers, the force said in a statement.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the assault. Cycmanick declined to give the nationalities of those killed and wounded in the attack.

Peacekeepers have been targeted by assailants in the past in the region since the international force began its work there in 2008. In the last attack, gunmen shot dead a Nigerian peacekeeper in April in East Darfur State.

The joint African Union-U.N. peacekeeping force, dubbed UNAMID, was established to protect civilians in Darfur, but also contributes to security for those providing humanitarian aid, verifying agreements, political reconciliation efforts and promoting human rights.

It has about 16,500 troops and military observers and over 5,000 international police. More than 300,000 people have been killed in the Darfur conflict since rebels took up arms against the Sudanese government nearly 10 years ago, accusing it of discrimination and neglect.

"The mission condemns in the strongest possible terms those responsible for this heinous attack on our peacekeepers," said Mohamed Ibn Chambas, a joint special representative of the force. "The perpetrators should be on notice that they will be pursued for this crime and gross violation of international humanitarian law."(Courtesy:USA Today)

Gunmen kill 30 in Nigeria school attack.

A file screengrab taken from a video released
 on You Tube on April 12, 2012 apparently shows Boko
 Haram leader Abubakar Shekau (C) sitting flanked
 by militants.— Photo by AFP

POTISKUM |AP | 06 Jul 2013 ::  Militants attacked a boarding school before dawn Saturday, dousing a dormitory in fuel and lighting it ablaze as students slept, survivors said.

At least 30 people were killed in the deadliest attack yet on schools in Nigeria's embattled northeast.

Authorities blamed the violence on Boko Haram, a radical group whose name means ''Western education is sacrilege.''

The militants have been behind a series of recent attacks on schools in the region, including one in which gunmen opened fire on children taking exams in a classroom.

''We were sleeping when we heard gunshots. When I woke up, someone was pointing a gun at me,'' Musa Hassan, 15, told The Associated Press of the assault on Government Secondary School in Mamudo village in Yobe state.

He put his arm up in defense, and suffered a gunshot that blew off all four fingers on his right hand, the one he uses to write. His life was spared when the militants moved on after shooting him.

Hassan recalled how the gunmen came armed with jerry cans of fuel that they used to torch the school's administrative block and one of the dormitories.

''They burned the children alive,'' he said, the horror showing in his wide eyes.

He and teachers at the morgue said dozens of children from the 1,200-student school escaped into the bush but have not been seen since.

On Saturday, at the morgue of Potiskum General Hospital, a few miles kilometers from the scene of the attack, parents screamed in anguish as they attempted to identify the victims, many charred beyond recognition.

Some parents do not know if their children survived or died.

Farmer Malam Abdullahi found the bodies of two of his sons, a 10-year-old shot in the back as he apparently tried to run away, and a 12-year-old shot in the chest.

''The gunmen are attacking schools and there is no protection for students despite all the soldiers,'' he said as he wept over the two corpses. He said he is withdrawing his three remaining sons from another school.(Courtesy:Dawn)Read More>>>