Latest News

The bomber ploughed his explosive-laden vehicle into the check post, 20 kilometres west of Wana, the main town in South Waziristan, which has become a haven for Taliban and Al Qaeda militants.

"The attacker came in a pick-up truck and exploded it, killing eight security officials in the check post," local administration official Mawaz Khan said.

The post was completely destroyed in the attack, he added.

A military official also confirmed the bombing, which is the latest in a series of deadly attacks in Pakistan.

Chief military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said the check post was near the area headquarters of the paramilitary Frontier Corps.

"The bomber in a truck hit his vehicle into the check post. Eight security officials were killed and two wounded," General Abbas said.

The attack came after two missiles fired by a suspected US drone at a militant hideout near Wana killed 12 suspected rebels on Friday.

Nearly 100 people were wounded in the attack in Orakzai region which comes a day after a suicide blast inside the heavily guarded police headquarters in the Pakistani capital in which 8 policemen were wounded.

The bomber blew himself up when around 500 members of Alizai tribe were gathered to draw up a strategy as part of government-backed efforts to drive out militants from tribal areas regarded as safe havens for al Qaeda fighters and their Taliban allies.

"We were discussing plans to take action against the militants when all of a sudden a man drove a car in the middle of the meeting, trampling few people and then blowing up the car," Qeemat Khan Orakzai, a tribal elder, told Reuters.

"I fell down and got unconscious. When I woke up, I saw dead and wounded around me."

At least 23 people were killed in a suicide blast in Sri Lanka

The blast, immediately blamed on the Tamil Tigers, also injured at least 80 people, the military said.

The bomber struck during the opening of a new office for the opposition United National Party (UNP) in the north central town of Anuradhapura, 124 miles north of the capital Colombo, attended by retired Major-General Janaka Perera, who led many successful campaigns against the separatist Tamil guerrillas in the country's 25-year-long civil war.

Last month Mr Perera unsuccessfully ran to be North Central Province's chief minister, a powerful local position.

The opposition accused the government of ignoring repeated requests for better security for Mr Perera - an open critic of the way Colombo has conducted its military campaign against the rebels.

Anuradhapura is huge tourist draw and home to some of Sri Lankan Buddhism's holiest sites. For a millennium it was the seat of the kingdom of the Sinhalese, who make up 75 per cent of the Indian Ocean island's 21 million people.

It has many ancient ruins, but is also a hub of major military operations to supply the war zone further north.

The bomber blew himself up at the residence of PML-N leader Rasheed Akbar Nawani, a prominent politician of Bhakkar district and a member of the National Assembly, almost destroying his home and shaking the entire area sending his panicked neighbours and shopkeepers scurrying for safety.

Nawani was injured in the attack and rushed to a hospital, where channels said his condition was serious.

Though TV channels reported that 25 people were killed, the interior ministry confirmed 20 deaths. The death toll could rise as many of the injured are in critical condition, witnesses said.

Punjab's Inspector General of Police Shaukat Javed said the head of the suicide bomber had been found.

Nawani's residence was sealed off by policemen and investigators scoured the site of the blast for clues. Police officials said the bomber's jacket, with an Afghan currency note inside it, had been recovered.

Over 200 people had gathered at Nawani's home to exchange Eid greetings at the time of the attack. Though special security arrangements were made at the lawmaker's residence, the bomber managed to sneak inside and detonate his explosives, police officials said.

Nawani is a Shia and reports suggested that the attack might have been carried out by rival sectarian groups.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, which was condemned by President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif.

Media reports said that the lawmaker was embracing people and wishing them Eid greetings when the blast occurred.

The convoy of over 30 vehicles was going from Bannu in North West Frontier Province (NWFP) to Miranshah, the headquarters of North Waziristan tribal agency, when the attack occurred.

Citing official sources, Dawn News channel said that at least 10 soldiers were killed and a dozen others injured in the attack, which occurred at a spot 12 kilometres from Miranshah.

The Bannu-Miranshah road was closed to traffic after the attack and troops cordoned off the site of the blast.

The Waziristan area is a stronghold of the followers of Pakistani Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud.

Yemeni soldiers in front of the American Embassy in Sana. A group that called itself Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack.

It was the deadliest and most ambitious attack in years in Yemen, a poor south Arabian country of 23 million people where militants aligned with Al Qaeda have carried out a number of recent bombings.

The attack began at 9:15 a.m. when gunmen dressed in camouflage uniforms drove up and began firing rifles and rocket-propelled grenades at a checkpoint outside the heavily fortified United States Embassy compound, said one Yemeni official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment.

As the embassy guards began firing back, the suicide bombers drove through the checkpoint and detonated their cars on the concrete barriers nearer to the compound's front gate, the official said.

Satellite television images showed thick black smoke rising from the blast site as Yemeni security forces and medical teams streamed in and closed off the streets around the sprawling embassy compound, which is in one of the capital's most secure areas.

The attack was especially shocking to Yemenis because it came during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, when the faithful fast during the day and are meant to abstain from sin.

Just last month, the embassy had reversed an order made in April for all nonessential personnel to leave the country, said Ryan Gliha, an embassy spokesman, speaking by telephone from Sana. The order was rescinded because the security situation appeared to have improved after a series of bombings in the spring, Mr. Gliha said.

Also, Yemeni counterterrorism forces had scored some notable successes in hunting down militants, Mr. Gliha added, including an attack on a Qaeda safe house on Aug. 11 in which five militants were killed.

After the attack on Wednesday, a little-known Yemeni group that calls itself Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility. Yemeni officials seemed skeptical, however, saying they suspected Al Qaeda's Yemeni branch, which has become more active over the past year.

The banquet took place at the home of Aziz Moklif Ghatha al-Zubai, who was among the dead, an interior ministry official said on Sunday.

The guests were celebrating the release of a local man from US detention.  

Associates of Salim Abdallah Ashur al-Shujayri are also thought to have been involved in the kidnap and murder of Margaret Hassan, the aid worker seized by insurgents in west Baghdad in October 2004, and the kidnap of Norman Kember, the British peace campaigner.

Al-Qaeda has warned that it would target members of Sunni Awakening groups, supported and financed by the US military. Awakening groups first appeared in the western province of Anbar in 2006 when Sunni tribal leaders first started to turn against the Islamist group.

Local residents say the village used to be an al-Qaeda stronghold until the US military began sponsoring the formation of the groups.

The U.S. military, meanwhile, have announced the arrest of an al-Qaida in Iraq figure who allegedly planned the kidnapping in 2006 of American journalist Jill Carroll.

The journalist was kidnapped in Baghdad but was released after nearly three months in captivity.

Pakistan is on the front line of the U.S.-led campaign against terrorism and al Qaeda-lined militants have launched a wave of attacks on the security forces over the past year, bombing military camps, patrols and transport.

The violence combined with political uncertainty has helped undermine investor confidence and send the country's financial markets on a downward spiral.

"Fifteen to 20 people have been killed in two blasts," said police officer Sardar Shahbaz at the scene outside the industrial complex in Wah, 30 km (20 miles) northwest of Islamabad.

"I can see several bodies," he said.

Wah is home to Pakistan's main defense industry complex where about 25,000 workers produce explosives, ordnance and weapons in about 15 factories.

One of the bombers blew himself up outside the complex's main gate while the second detonated his explosives at almost the same time near another gate, Shahbaz said.

A television station reported one the bombers blew himself up among workers coming out of the complex.

Soldiers cordoned off the area and kept reporters back as ambulances arrived to take away casualties, a witness said.

Since July last year, Pakistan has suffered a wave of militant violence, particularly in the northwest, in which hundreds of people have been killed including many security force members.

Violence subsided when a coalition government that came to power after a February election opened talks with militants.

But militants stepped up attacks after their top leader, Baitullah Mehsud, suspended the talks in June.

This week's resignation of President Pervez Musharraf, under threat of impeachment from the ruling coalition, has raised questions about the government's commitment to tackle militant violence.

Although Musharraf's support for the U.S.-led war on terrorism is deeply unpopular, the government has vowed to keep up efforts to fight the militants.

Nineteen people were also injured in the blast, when a bomber rammed a van full of explosives into a police station in the northern part of the country on Saturday night.

The blast occured at Zemmouri el-Bahri,
a popular beach resort

The attack happened at Zemmouri el-Bahri, a popular beach with holidaymakers, near Boumerdes, east of the capital Algiers.

An officer fired on the vehicle as it was approaching the police station causing the car to explode before it hit the building, the local radio said citing security officials.

It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack.

A bombing last week at a police station in another northern city injured more than 20 people.

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, an al-Qaeda-linked group, claimed responsibility for that attack, and said it had been a suicide car bombing.

The bomber targetted a police vehicle in a bazaar in Deh Rawud district, the provincial police chief told Reuters.

"Seventeen civilians and four policemen died in the attack. Thirty seven more civilians and five police have been wounded," Juma Khan Himat said by phone, adding the death toll could rise.

Himat said most of the civilian victims were children.

He blamed Taliban insurgents for being behind the attack, part of a rising tide of violence in Afghanistan, where the militants largely rely on such tactics as part of their campaign against the foreign troops and the Afghan government.

The Taliban could not be immediately reached for comment.

Over 800 civilians have been killed in Afghanistan so far this year, according to the United Nations and Afghan officials.

Growing insecurity has added to the rising frustration of many Afghans nearly seven years since U.S.-led troops overthrew Taliban's government after it refused to hand over al Qaeda leaders who had masterminded Sept. 11 attacks on America.

The violence comes despite the increasing presence of foreign forces currently numbering more than 70,000, and top Taliban as well as al Qaeda leaders are still at large.

It has prompted some Western politicians to warn recently that the country may slide back into anarchy.

Since 2006 when the Taliban regrouped, Afghan and foreign troops have been locked in almost daily clashes with the militants who have some sanctury in the lawless tribal regions of Pakistan.

In one of the latest such clashes, five Pakistani Taliban were killed and 13 more wounded after they infiltrated a remote district in northeastern Nuristan on Saturday, interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashari said.

The fighting was going on Sunday and locals were helping the police for defending the district, he said.