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Just moments before the explosion, an Assocaited Press reporter passed by the scene and saw more than 20 security forces gathered in the vicinity. After the blast, a traffic intersection in the area was splattered with blood. Body parts were scattered as far as 50 yards from the scene. Shattered glass also covered the area, which police cordoned off. Rana Akbar Hayat, a senior government official, said more than 10 people were killed.

"All are police officials," Hayat told reporters near the scene. ``It was targeted to the forces by the suicider." The blast came as thousands of Islamists were gathered not far away to mark the one-year anniversary of a deadly military crackdown on the radical Red Mosque. It was not clear whether the events were linked.

The explosion also came following recent threats of revenge from militants in Pakistan angered by a paramilitary operation against insurgents in the tribal North West Frontier Province. In June, a suicide car bomber killed at least six people near the Danish embassy in Islamabad. A statement attributed to Al Qaeda took responsibility for that blast, which was believed to have targeted Denmark over the publication of cartoons depicting Prophet Muhammad.

Violence levels have fallen in Pakistan since last year, but attacks still occur. The newly elected coalition government that came to power following the February elections has sought to end militancy in the country primarily through peace deals with extremists.

Public Health Ministry spokesman Abdullah Fahim says the casualties include civilians and security forces.

Afghan police secure the site of a suicide car bomb blast in Kabul. The car bomb struck the Indian Embassy in the Afghan capital of Kabul.

The bomb exploded during rush hour Monday near the Indian Embassy, which is across the street from Afghanistan's Interior Ministry on a tree-lined street in central Kabul. Dozens of Afghan men line up outside the embassy every morning to apply for visas to India.

While Afghanistan has seen increasing violence in recent months, Kabul has been largely spared from random bomb attacks that Taliban militants use in their fight against Afghan and international troops.

In September 2006, a suicide bomber near the gates of the Interior Ministry killed 12 people and wounded 42 others.

 Intelligence reports for more than a year had been streaming in about Osama bin Laden's terrorism network rebuilding in the Pakistani tribal areas, a problem that had been exacerbated by years of missteps in Washington and the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, sharp policy disagreements, and turf battles between American counterterrorism agencies.

The new plan, outlined in a highly classified Pentagon order, was intended to eliminate some of those battles. And it was meant to pave a smoother path into the tribal areas for American commandos, who for years have bristled at what they see as Washington's risk-averse attitude toward Special Operations missions inside Pakistan. They also argue that catching bin Laden will come only by capturing some of his senior lieutenants alive.

But more than six months later, the Special Operations forces are still waiting for the green light. The plan has been held up in Washington by the very disagreements it was meant to eliminate. A senior Defense Department official said there was "mounting frustration" in the Pentagon at the continued delay.

The story of how al-Qaeda, whose name is Arabic for "the base", has gained a new haven is in part a story of American accommodation to President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, whose advisers played down the terrorist threat. It is also a story of how the White House shifted its sights, beginning in 2002, from counterterrorism efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan to preparations for the war in Iraq.

The order came from the mountains of North Waziristan, the bleak, lawless tribal area of Pakistan which borders Afghanistan, where the leaders of Al Qaeda have spent the past five years hiding, rebuilding and planning their next atrocities.

It was given by the leader, known to his followers as The Sheik  -  a tall, slender figure with long beard and soft brown eyes  -  whose ruthless tactics had become known, and feared, the whole world over.

The plan was made possible by the 40kg of enriched, weapons-grade uranium 235 that The Sheik's most trusted associates had bought, at a cost of $150 million, with the profits of the opium trade that was flourishing once more.

This week the Government's terrorism adviser, Lord Carlile QC, warned there was 'real anxiety' that private jets might be used as 'vehicle bombs' in terrorist attacks on Britain

As for the origins of 'the cargo', there was dispute even among the best-informed rumour-mongers of Waziristan.

Some said the uranium had come from the Iranian nuclear plant at Natanz. Others believed it was from North Korea, or even dissident elements in the Russian Federation.

Whatever the source, though, the outcome was the same.

The 'real and imminent' threat to which Mohammed al Baradei, chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, had alerted the world in June 2004, had finally come true.

Al Qaeda had acquired the means, and the technical know-how, to build a crude, simple, but brutally effective nuclear bomb.

And now they intended to deliver it.

Before the bomb had even been completed, rumours of its existence had reached MI6, and been considered, analysed and then dismissed.

This was to prove a catastrophically foolhardy decision, but it was not an irrational one.

Rumours of rogue nukes had been doing the rounds for almost 20 years since the breakup of the old Soviet Union. Yet no bomb had ever been uncovered, let alone detonated.

For policy makers, forced to work with limited resources, the key consideration was the balance of probability.

And the most probable scenarios, in terms of attacks on the UK mainland, involved disaffected British citizens, using conventional weapons, delivered by groundbased vehicles.

U.S. spokesmen said it was unclear if the suspect, who was not identified, was directly involved in planning the attack that happened Thursday in the town of Karmah in Anbar province about 30 miles west of Baghdad.

A suicide bomber reportedly dressed in a police uniform detonated an explosive belt during a meeting of tribal sheiks opposed to al-Qaida in Iraq. In addition to the Marines, two Iraqi interpreters, the local mayor and several key tribal figures were killed.

One of the Americans killed was Lt. Col. Max A. Galeai of Pago Pago, American Samoa, the commander of Marines in the Karmah area.

The attack occurred two days before U.S. officials planned to formally hand over security responsibility for Anbar to the Iraqis, marking a major milestone in the transformation of a province that had been the most violent in Iraq.

U.S. authorities announced Friday they were postponing the handover ceremony because of weather forecasts calling for high winds and sandstorms, which would ground aircraft and make it impossible for dignitaries to attend.

Lt. Col. Chris Hughes, spokesman for U.S. forces in Anbar, said the U.S. had been planning to delay the ceremony based on weather forecasts before Thursday's attack.

Anbar, which extends from the western outskirts of Baghdad to the borders of Jordan, Syria and Saudi Arabia, will be the 10th of Iraq's 18 provinces to return to Iraqi security control. The other nine provinces are dominated by Shiites or Kurds.

Dozens of white Europeans have trained in terrorist camps in Pakistan's tribal regions in recent months, U.S. intelligence sources tell ABC News, in what officials fear may be the beginnings of a new breed of al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorism.

Government officials suspect the terrorists, recruited in Europe, have been dispatched to plan attacks against Europe and possibly the United States. The alleged terrorists hail from Britain, the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Romania and Estonia, sources said.

An April 2008 report from Europol also noted that an increasing number of European nationals attended training in Pakistan "and were later involved in, or suspected of, terrorist offences in the EU."

Intelligence officials say the remote tribal areas along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan have in the last several years become a haven for terrorist recruiting and training. Hundreds of radicals from across the region have flocked to al-Qaeda training camps in the area.

In interviews with ABC News and in a series of little-noticed public statements and reports, intelligence officials have said they believe al-Qaeda has successfully completed a major goal: recruiting and training Western would-be terrorists.

"Al-Qa'ida is improving the last key aspect of its ability to attack the U.S.: the identification, training and positioning of operatives for an attack in the Homeland," according to a February Threat Assessment report from the Director of National Intelligence.

"[W]e have seen an influx of new Western recruits into the tribal area since mid-2006," the report said.

Among those killed were three women police constables. Four civilians including a school-going girl were also injured in the blast.

Blast near Vavuniya SSP office complex (Source: Defense Ministry)

The blast occurred at about 7.30 in the morning in front of the police complex, which houses the offices of the deputy inspector general and senior superintendent of police of the Vavuniya district.

"The blast occurred near the entrance to the police compound. Several policemen were coming out of the complex at that time and were on their way to report for their daily duties. Many were getting in as well. While the complex is heavily guarded, it also opens on to the main road, which cuts through Vavuniya town making it a very busy street," military spokesperson Udaya Nanayakkara told HT. He added that the bomber was aiming at maximum casualties.

Once the suicide bomber reached the entrance, he braked and triggered the explosion literally in the middle of a crowd of police personnel; most did not have a chance to escape the impact.

The Media Centre for National Security (MCNS) said that the injured were taken to the general hospitals in Vavuniya and adjoining Anuradhapura. Nine police personnel died on the spot while three more died on way to the nearest hospital.

Vavuniya district and town are considered to be of strategic importance as they connect the north  where the LTTE and the country's armed forces are locked in battle  and the southern parts of Sri Lanka. The way to many of the main battle fronts, like Mannar, cuts through Vavuniya.

This is the second time in about 30 days that a suspected LTTE suicide bomber has targeted the police. In the middle of May, in a similar attack, a motorcycle-borne cadre had rammed himself into a parked bus packed with policemen, killing several personnel.

The editorial, published on Wednesday, called the accused in the Thane theatre blast case "fools" for the shoddy manner in which the blast was carried out.

"When we heard that Hindus have been making bombs, we were happy. But we felt ashamed when we read that the blast injured were Hindus," said the editorial, triggering angry reactions from other political parties. The editorial even suggested that the accused could take tips from Islamic terrorists in this matter.

The Sena will celebrate its 42nd Foundation Day on Thursday.

The Congress has demanded the arrest of Saamna editor and Sena Chief Bal Thackeray. Deputy Chief Minister RR Patil said the police would go through the editorial and decide if action could be taken against the paper and its editors.

Criticising the comments, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday advised its ally to respect the law. "People should not take law into their hands. It is the duty of the government to counter terror," BJP Vice President Venkaiah Naidu said.

Four men were arrested for planting a crude bomb at auditoriums in Thane and Vashi to protest against the Marathi play Amhi Pachpute. The accused later told the police that they were members of Hindu organisations Janjagruti Samiti and Sanatan Sanstha, and were angry as the play insulted Hindu gods.

While the police defused the bomb planted at the Vashi auditorium, seven people were injured in Thane where the bomb had been planted in the parking lot.

"We have arrested suspected suicide bombers," said Rao Iqbal police chief of Rawalpindi, according to the same source. "We have recovered three vehicles with a large quantity of explosives from the Dhok Kala Khan area," he added.

It appears that the security forces found several explosives, which amounted to nearly 500 kilograms.

"It was a major terrorist plot aimed at causing death and destruction in the twin cities," a senior security official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Al-Qaeda claimed in an Internet statement Wednesday to have carried out the attack on the Danish mission as a revenge for the publication in Danish newspapers of the controversial cartoons insulting Islam's Prophet Mohammed.

Security in the capital was tightest along Constitution Avenue the broad duel carriageway leading to the presidency building, National Assembly, Supreme Court, various ministries and the diplomatic enclave where many embassies are located.

The city of Rawalpindi lies 12km (seven miles) south of the capital of Islamabad and is the headquarters of Pakistan's military. It also houses the residence of President Pervez Musharraf.

Authorities say such installations may have been the target of the planned sucide bomb attacks.

Source: enews20.comPakistan Foils `Terror Plot'

The huge blast badly damaged 15 houses in the north Baghdad neighborhood of Shaab, killing 18 civilians and wounding 29, according to the U.S. military. Iraqi police put the death toll at 13 and said 52 people were injured.

Police said four civilians were killed and nine people, including three policemen, were wounded when a parked car bomb targeting a police patrol exploded near a restaurant in the mainly Shi'ite Jadriya neighborhood of southern Baghdad.

Elsewhere, gunmen killed three American soldiers in the Sunni Arab town of Hawija, 210 km (130 miles) north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said.

A roadside bomb struck an army and police convoy, killing two policemen and one soldier and wounding four policemen near Falluja, 50 km (32 miles) west of Baghdad, police said.

The Iraqi police said a suicide bomber detonated the truck bomb near the house of a senior police officer, Brigadier-General Nadhim Taeih, in the mainly Shi'ite Baghdad suburb of Shaab.

Taeih was not at home but his nephew was killed and his father was seriously wounded in the blast, police sources said