More chaos as Kashmiris boycott India polls.

More chaos as Kashmiris boycott India polls.

SRINAGAR | The Nation | 07 May 2014 : :  A bomb blast near a polling booth in Kashmir injured a policeman today, amid further stone-throwing protests and a widespread boycott of India's general election in the mainly Muslim region.

Separatists have called on voters to shun the election in India's northernmost state of Jammu and Kashmir, holding staggered voting in its six parliamentary seats to allow 700,000 army troops and police to mount a mobile security operation.

That has failed to prevent a string of killings of village elders, blamed by police on militants seeking to intimidate voters. In the most serious incident, three insurgents and one army officer were killed in a clash on April 27.

The bomb exploded outside a polling station at a village in the Baramulla constituency, one of two voting today in northern Kashmir, injuring a police reservist, police said.

There were numerous reports of protesters throwing stones at police and election officials in the valley. A bomb was also thrown at a police station the Baramulla district, but no one was injured.

Only a quarter of voters have turned out in Jammu and Kashmir so far in the five-week election, in a show of passive resistance to rule from New Delhi and concern over a likely victory by Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Kashmir has been a source of strife since British India was divided into independent India and Pakistan in 1947, with many Kashmiris, and Pakistan, saying the region should have been part of Muslim Pakistan, not Hindu-majority India.

India and Pakistan have fought three wars since 1947, two of them over Kashmir. India says Pakistan supports the separatist militants. Pakistan denies this, saying it only offers moral support to the Kashmiri people.( Courtesy : The Nation )

Somalia blasts hits Mogadishu's Village restaurant.

Somalia blasts hits Mogadishu's Village restaurant.

BBC News | 07 Sep 2013 :: Explosions at a popular restaurant near the parliament building in Somalia's capital Mogadishu have killed 15 people, police say.

The blasts hit The Village around lunchtime. The restaurant is popular with government workers and journalists and has been targeted before.

It was not clear who carried out the attacks, which appeared to tear much of the roof off the restaurant.

Somalia is battling an Islamist-led insurgency and high levels of crime.

The restaurant - near the presidential palace - was busy at the time of the attacks.

Local reports suggest a car bomb was detonated outside the restaurant, and that a suicide bomber then blew himself up among the crowd that gathered at the scene.

Earlier reports wrongly suggested a nearby hotel was also targeted.

The Village, about 1km (0.6 miles) from the presidential palace, is not within the city's security zone but is popular with journalists and those in political circles.

Run by Somali businessman Ahmed Jama, who returned to the country from the UK in 2008, it was targeted by two suicide bombers last September in attacks that killed 14 people(Courtesy:BBC News )

Bomb wounds 11 at Pakistan girls school.

Bomb wounds 11 at Pakistan girls school.

School attack: A bomb wounded 11 people,
mostly children, when it exploded outside a
 Pakistani girls' school, a doctor said. Photo:
AFP

AFP | 06 Sep 2013 :: A bomb has gone off outside a Pakistani girls' school, wounding 11 people, mostly children, a doctor says.

The bomb exploded at the end of the school day on Thursday as pupils walked into a street lined with fabric shops in the north-western town of Bannu, which has been a flashpoint for Islamist militancy.

Doctor Omar Zeb said that 11 people had been brought to the local hospital – seven primary schoolgirls and four other people who had been in the street.

Police official Azad Khan said at least four girls, two boys and a man had been wounded. Three of them are seriously hurt.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility but Islamist militants often attack girls' schools, usually when the buildings are empty in the evening or during the holidays.

Last October the Taliban shot schoolgirl activist Malala Yousafzai in the head in the

north-western Swat valley.

She has largely recovered and now lives in England, where she is enrolled at a private school and has become a global icon for children campaigning for the right to an education.

In a separate incident, unidentified gunmen on a motorbike fired at a NATO supply truck on Thursday in the north-western city of Peshawar and wounded two people, police said.

The attack took place near Karkhano market on the edge of Peshawar and close to the Khyber tribal district where Islamist militants are active.

"Two people were wounded in firing on a NATO truck which was carrying military vehicles from Afghanistan to the Pakistani port city of Karachi," local police official Daud Khan said.

The Khyber district straddles the NATO supply line used by US-led troops to evacuate military equipment ahead of their 2014 withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Pakistani troops have been fighting for years against homegrown insurgents in the tribal belt, which Washington considers the main hub of Taliban and al-Qaeda militants plotting attacks on the West and in Afghanistan.(Courtesy:The Age)

Lebanon arrests three for planning car bombing.

Lebanon arrests three for planning car bombing.

BEIRUT | 20 Aug 2013 :: A Lebanese and two Palestinians suspected of planning a massive car bombing have been arrested, just days after a deadly attack on Hezbollah's southern Beirut bastion, the General Security agency said.

The men were accused of "setting up a terrorist group and conducting activities that affect security on Lebanese territory," according to a statement late Monday.

"They were preparing to stage an attack using an Audi car containing 250 kg (550 pounds) of explosives."

The car was seized in the Naameh area of southern Beirut two days after a car bomb killed 27 people in a bastion of Shiite militant party Hezbollah, a close ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

On Friday, the government said the army identified a network of people suspected of trying to carry out several car bomb attacks in southern Beirut.

The Thursday attack was the deadliest in Lebanon since a car bomb attack killed former prime minister Rafiq Hariri and 22 others in February 2005.

It was claimed by a previously unknown cell, whose name has strong Sunni connotations, with a spokesman saying in a video distributed online that it was a response to Hezbollah's support for Assad.

Lebanon is deeply divided between backers of the Assad regime and supporters of Syria's rebels.(Courtesy:Al Arabia)

Car Bomb in Lebanon Kills at Least 22.

Car Bomb in Lebanon Kills at Least 22.

BEIRUT | 16 Aug 2013 :: The death toll from a powerful car bomb that ripped through a southern suburb of Beirut has risen to 22, Lebanon’s interior minister said Friday.

The minister, Marwan Charbel, also said officials were conducting DNA tests on body parts discovered near the vehicle that blew up Thursday to try to determine whether the explosion was the work of a suicide bomber.

The car bomb struck a bustling street in the Rweiss district in Beirut’s southern suburbs, an overwhelmingly Shiite area and stronghold of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. The explosion sent a massive plume of black smoke billowing into the sky, set several cars ablaze and blew out the fronts of buildings on the street.

The bombing was the second in just over a month to hit one of the Shiite group’s bastions of support, and the deadliest in decades. Many people in Lebanon see the attacks as retaliation for Hezbollah’s armed support for President Bashar Assad in neighboring Syria’s civil war.

The group’s fighters played a key role in a recent regime victory in the town of Qusair near the Lebanese border, and Syrian activists say Hezbollah guerrillas are now aiding a regime offensive in the besieged city of Homs.

Syrian rebels have threatened to retaliate against Hezbollah for intervening on behalf of the Assad regime, and Thursday’s car bombing raises the worrying specter of Lebanon being pulled further into the Syrian civil war, which is being fought on increasingly sectarian lines pitting Sunnis against Shiites.

Tensions between Lebanon’s own Sunni and Shiite communities have risen sharply, particularly since Hezbollah began fighting openly in Syria. Lebanese Sunnis support the rebels fighting to topple Assad, a member of a Shiite offshoot sect.(Courtesy:Epoch Times)

Blast outside policeman’s residence in Dera Murad Jamali; no casualties.

DERA MURAD JAMALI  |13 Jul 2013  ::  A bomb blast occurred outside the house of a retired policeman in Dera Murad Jamali’s Bohar Mahala area on Saturday.

However, no loss of life was reported in the incident.

Police said unknown men planted an explosive device outside the house of Kazi Khan Bugti, a retired employee of the police department that went off. However, the attack did not result in any casualties.

Police launched a probe into the incident.

Dera Murad Jamali is a small town located in the Nasirabad district in Pakistan’s southwestern province of Balochistan.

Balochistan, which borders Iran and Afghanistan, suffers from a local separatist insurgency. Apart from a long-running nationalist movement, there has also been an alarming rise in sectarian terrorism in the province recently, with ethnic and religious minorities often targeted by militants.(Courtesy:Dawn)