China launches crackdown after bombing kills 43.

China launches crackdown after bombing kills 43.

Armed paramilitary policemen stand guard next to their armoured
 personnel carrier parked near the People's Square in Urumqi,
 China's northwestern region of Xinjiang, May 23, 2014. — AP

URUMQI | AP | China | 24 May 2014 : :  Chinese authorities launched a yearlong anti-terrorism crackdown Saturday in China's Muslim northwest after a bombing in the region killed at least 43 people, while also announcing the first arrest in the attack.

Police announced names of five people blamed for Thursday's attack in a vegetable market in the city of Urumqi, and accused them of forming a ''terrorist gang'' at the end of 2013, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

Four of the suspects were killed and the fifth was captured Thursday night in an area about 250 kilometres south of Urumqi, Xinhua said.

The group ''took part in illegal religious activities, watched and listened to terrorist violence video and audio materials'', according to the news agency.

It said an anti-terrorism campaign with Xinjiang ''as the major battlefield'' started Friday. Authorities would target religious extremist groups, gun and ''explosive manufacturing dens and terrorist training camps''.

''Terrorists and extremists will be hunted down and punished,'' Xinhua said.

In Beijing, the national capital, police announced they were cancelling vacations for officers and would step up patrols at railway stations, schools, hospitals and markets.

A measure under which passengers at stations in central Beijing are required to undergo security checks will be extended to three additional stations, the city government said.

Passengers at all stations already are required to submit handbags and parcels for X-ray examination under measures imposed ahead of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

Chinese authorities have blamed most recent attacks on radical separatists from the country's Muslim Uighur minority.

Xinjiang is home to the native Turkic-speaking Uighurs (pronounced WEE'-gurs) but has seen large inflows from China's ethnic Han majority in recent decades.

Uighur activists contend that restrictive and discriminatory policies favoring the Chinese migrants are fueling the bloodshed. The knowledge that Muslims elsewhere are rising up against their governments also seems to be contributing to the increased militancy.

Urumqi was relatively calm Friday, with heightened security around the scene of the attack. The market itself was closed and dozens of police armed with automatic rifles and wearing body armour guarded access points.

Police banned parking within 100 metres of schools in Urumqi and said drivers can stop only briefly outside hospitals and bus and train stations.

The violence was the deadliest in Xinjiang since riots in Urumqi in 2009 between Uighurs and Hans left almost 200 people dead, according to an official death toll.

Thursday's attack also was the bloodiest single act of violence in Xinjiang in recent history.

Recent attacks show an audaciousness and deliberateness that wasn't present before. Attackers increasingly target civilians rather than police and government targets.

A bomb attack at an Urumqi train station as President Xi Jinping was visiting the region last month killed three people, including two attackers, and injured 79. Security has been tightened since then.

In response to Thursday's attack, Xi pledged to ''severely punish terrorists and spare no efforts in maintaining stability'', Xinhua reported.

China's top police official, Public Security Minister Guo Shengkun, was dispatched to Urumqi as the head of a team to investigate the attack.

Prior to last month's train station attack, Urumqi had been relatively quiet since the 2009 ethnic riots amid a smothering police presence. The sprawling metropolis' population of more than three million people is about three-fourths Han Chinese.

In March, 29 people were slashed and stabbed to death at a train station in the southern city of Yunnan. The attack was blamed on Uighur extremists. ( Courtesy : Dawn )

Suicide attack in Baghdad cafe kills 12 people.

Suicide attack in Baghdad cafe kills 12 people.

BAGHDAD | 21 March 2014 : : A suicide bomber struck inside a Baghdad cafe overnight where customers were watching a football game on TV, killing at least 12 people and wounding 38, Iraqi officials said Thursday.

The attack in the western Washash neighborhood took place late on Wednesday night, two police officers said. The bomber had mingled with the cafe crowd and set off his explosives-laden belt as they watched the game.

A medical official confirmed the casualty figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to talk to the media.

Iraq has been struck by a surge in violence unseen since 2007, relentless attacks that have become the Shiite-led government's most serious challenge.

Violence has spiked since last April, when security forces cracked down on a Sunni protest camp north of Baghdad in clashes that left 45 dead.

Scores of people have been killed in the Iraqi capital, in recent attacks that have targeted busy areas, restaurants and other public places.

On Tuesday, a series of bombings struck both commercial streets and security forces in Baghdad and its surroundings, killing 15 people.

No one has claimed responsibility for the latest attacks, but they bear the hallmarks of an Al Qaeda breakaway group that frequently uses car bombs and suicide attacks to target public areas such as cafes, restaurants, mosques and markets to undermine the government's efforts to maintain security in the country.

According to the UN 8,868 people were killed in Iraq last year the country's highest death toll since a peak of sectarian bloodletting in 2007. ( Courtesy : Dawn )

                 

Attacks kill at least 58 people in Iraq: Officials.

Attacks kill at least 58 people in Iraq: Officials.

BAGHDAD | 29 Aug 2013 ::  A coordinated wave of bombings tore through Shia Muslim areas in and around the Iraqi capital early Wednesday, killing at least 58 and wounding many more, officials said.

The blasts, which came in quick succession, targeted residents out shopping and on their way to work.

The attacks are the latest in a relentless wave of killing that has left thousands dead since April, marking the country's worst spate of bloodshed since 2008. They raise fears that Iraq is hurtling back toward the brink of a civil war fueled by ethnic and sectarian differences.

Insurgents deployed explosives-laden cars, suicide bombers and other bombs and targeted parking lots, outdoor markets and restaurants in predominantly Shia neighborhoods of Baghdad, according to officials. A military convoy was also hit south of the capital.

The northern neighborhood of Kazimiyah, home to a prominent, gold-domed Shia shrine, was the worst hit.

Two bombs went off in a parking lot in the neighborhood, followed by a suicide car bomber who struck onlookers who had gathered at the scene. Police said a total of 10 people were killed and 27 wounded in that attack(Courtesy:Dawn) Read More>>>

Officials: Bomb kills pro-Qaeda commander in Pakistan.

Officials: Bomb kills pro-Qaeda commander in Pakistan.

Policemen and Ranger soldiers stand outside a prison following
 an attack in Dera Ismail Khan prison on July 30, 2013. (Reuters)

Peshawar | AFP | 23 Aug 2013 ::  A militant commander who sheltered Al-Qaeda fighters was killed on Thursday by a roadside bomb along with four associates in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal belt, security officials said.

Ghulam Jan Wazir died on the spot when his vehicle hit the bomb in the Sholam area, five kilometers (three miles) west of Wana, the main town in South Waziristan district on the Afghan border.

A senior security official told AFP that Wazir had for several years sheltered Arab and Central Asian fighters in South Waziristan.

“He was anti-government and well known for his support to foreigners,” the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Local residents also said Wazir had a reputation for harboring Uzbek, Tajik and Central Asian militants in the past.

He was among a group of fighters forced to leave South Waziristan when Maulvi Nazir, a prominent warlord allied to the government, launched an armed campaign in 2007 against foreign fighters.

Wazir returned to South Waziristan last year after reaching a deal with the Nazir group, before Nazir was killed in a U.S. drone strike in January.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Wazir’s death. He is the third pro Qaeda militant commander killed in similar circumstances in South Waziristan in the last two years.(Courtesy:Al Arabia)

Twin blasts kill 29 in Lebanese city of Tripoli.

Twin blasts kill 29 in Lebanese city of Tripoli.

Hezbollah condemns attacks outside two mosques in the northern city; health minister says over 350 wounded

TRIPOLI | Lebanon  | 23 Aug 2013 ::  Twin car bombs exploded outside mosques in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli Friday, killing at least 29 people, wounding over 350 and wreaking major destruction in the country’s second largest city, Lebanese Health Ministry officials said.

Footage aired on local TV showed thick, black smoke billowing over the city and bodies scattered beside burning cars in scenes reminiscent of Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil war

The blasts hit amid soaring tensions in Lebanon as a result of Syria’s civil war, which has sharply polarized the country along sectarian lines and between supporters and opponents of the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad. It was the second such bombing in just over a week, showing the degree to which the tiny country is being consumed by the raging war next door.

Tripoli, a predominantly Sunni Muslim city, has seen frequent clashes between Sunnis and Alawites, a Shiite offshoot sect to which Assad belongs. But the city itself has rarely seen such explosions in recent years.

Friday’s blasts mark the first time in years that such explosions have targeted Sunni strongholds and were bound to raise sectarian tensions in the country to new levels. It was also the most powerful and deadliest in Tripoli since the end of the civil war.(Courtesy:Times of Israel)

Ramadan bombings kill at least 38 in Iraq.

Security forces inspect the scene of a car bomb attack in Basra, Iraq.

BAGHDAD  | 15 Jul 2013 ::  A wave of explosions tore through overwhelmingly Shiite cities south of Baghdad shortly before the Muslim faithful broke their Ramadan fasts on Sunday, killing at least 38 people, authorities said.

The bombings were part of a surge of violence that is raising fears that Iraq is sliding back toward full-scale sectarian fighting. 

The coordinated attacks followed shootings and bombings in the north earlier in the day that killed six others. 

Insurgents have been pounding Iraq with bombings and other attacks for months in the country's worst eruption of violence in half a decade. The pace of the killing has picked up since the Muslim holy month of Ramadan began Wednesday, with daily attacks marring what is meant to be a month of charity and peaceful reflection.

There has been no claim of responsibility for the recent wave of attacks, but Sunni extremists, including Al Qaida's Iraq branch, are believed to be responsible for much of the killing. They frequently target Shiites, security forces and civil servants in an effort to undermine the Shiite-led government in Baghdad.

Violence in Iraq has risen to its deadliest level since 2008, with more than 2,700 people killed since the start of April. The spike in bloodshed is fueling fears that Iraq is again heading toward the widespread sectarian killing that peaked in 2006 and 2007, when the country teetered on the brink ofcivil war. 

Insurgents often increased attacks during Ramadan in the years following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. Pious Muslims go without food, drink, smoking and sex in the daytime during the holy month, when feelings of spiritual devotion are high. 

Sunday's explosions struck shortly before the evening iftar meal that ends the daylong fast during Ramadan. 

At least eight people were killed and 15 were wounded in the southern port city of Basra when a car bomb and then a follow-up blast went off near an office of a Shiite political party, according to two police officers. Basra is a major oil industry hub 340 miles southeast of Baghdad. 

Another car bomb exploded among shops and take-out restaurants in central Kut, 100 miles southeast of Baghdad. The provincial deputy governor, Haidar Mohammed Jassim, said five people were killed and 35 wounded. 

Police reported additional car bomb explosions that left four dead in a commercial street in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, five near an outdoor market in Nasiriyah and six near a Shiite mosque in Musayyib, and more than 60 wounded in total.(Courtesy: Los Angeles Time)

Bombings kill 53, injures around 140 people in Pakistan.

Bombings kill 53, injures around 140  people in Pakistan.

Peshawar,  PTI |  Jul  1 2013  :: At least 53 people have been killed and nearly 140 injured in Pakistan in separate attacks, including a deadly suicide bombing in restive Quetta city.

In the first of yesterday's attacks, at least 17 people, including four children, were killed and nearly 50 injured when a powerful remote-controlled bomb targeted a passing convoy of security forces near a busy market here in northwest Pakistan.(Courtesy:Press Trust of India)