2 killed, top politician injured in blasts in SW Pakistan
Two persons were killed and over a dozen others, including a top politician, injured in two bomb attacks in the restive Balochistan province of southwest Pakistan on Saturday.
Majid Abro, the advisor to the Balochistan Chief Minister, was among four persons injured when a remote-controlled bomb went off on Airport Road in the provincial capital Quetta.
Mr Abro is a member of the provincial assembly and a senior leader of the PML-N.
Deputy Inspector General of Police Muhammad Jaffar said Mr Abro and his bodyguard were injured but out of danger. “Abro was going to the airport when the bomb was triggered,” he said.
Bombings kill 20 in Baghdad as Iraq violence surges
Sinan Salaheddin, Associated Press9:25 a.m. EST January 5, 2014
BAGHDAD (AP) — A new wave of bombings hit Iraq’s capital, Baghdad, killing at least 20 people Sunday, officials said, the latest assault by militants who have been fighting Iraqi security forces and allied tribes in country’s west.
The deadliest attack took place in Baghdad’s Shiite northern Shaab neighborhood, when two parked car bombs exploded simultaneously near a restaurant and a tea house. Officials say those blasts killed 10 people and wounded 26.
Authorities said that a parked car bomb ripped through in capital’s Shiite eastern district of Sadr City, killing five and wounding 10. Another bombing killed three civilians and wounded six in a commercial area in the central Bab al-Muadham neighborhood, officials said. Two other bombings killed two civilians and wounded 13, police said.
Bangladesh elections marred by violence, boycott
3 protesters shot dead by police
The Associated Press Posted: Jan 04, 2014 11:54 AM ET Last Updated: Jan 05, 2014 12:44 AM ET
Tensions run high in Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka as the opposition press its demands through general strikes and transportation blockades ahead of Sunday’s elections. (Rajesh Kumar Singh/ Associated Press)
Police in Bangladesh shot dead three protesters as suspected opposition activists stabbed an election official to death and set more than 100 polling stations on fire in a bid to disrupt general elections Sunday that threaten to deepen the crisis in the South Asian nation.
The opposition and its allies are boycotting the vote, a move that undermines the legitimacy of the election and makes it unlikely that the polls will stem a wave of political violence that killed at least 275 people in 2013.
Police opened fire to stop protesters from seizing a polling centre in northern Rangpur district, killing two people. In a similar incident in neighbouring Nilphamari district, police fired into about two dozens of protesters, leaving one person dead.
Police gave no further details, but Dhaka’s Daily Star newspaper said the three men belonged to the opposition Jamaat-e-Islami party.
Syrian rebels battle Al-Qaeda-linked fighters
January 05, 2014 10:34 AM (Last updated: January 05, 2014 04:20 PM)
By Diaa Hadid
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| Free Syrian Army fighters cheer during an anti-Syrian regime protest in Maarat Al-Nouman, Idlib, January 3, 2014. REUTERS/Fadi Mashan |
REUTERS/Fadi Mashan BEIRUT: Syrian opposition fighters seized a compound garrisoned by an Al-Qaeda-linked rebel faction Sunday, in some of the most serious infighting to date within the vast array of rebel groups trying to topple President Bashar Assad, activists said.
The clashes between a loose alliance of opposition brigades and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant have spread across northern Syria since they began late last week. The rebel-on-rebel violence marks the strongest pushback yet by moderate and ultra-conservative anti-Assad fighters against radical extremist insurgents linked to Al-Qaeda who have sought to impose their strict interpretation of Islam on opposition-held areas of the country.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, which has many foreign fighters in its ranks, has clashed repeatedly with more moderate rebel groups since it aggressively pushed into Syria from neighboring Iraq in last spring. The infighting has left scores dead on both sides, and has undermined the overall rebel movement’s efforts to oust Assad.
The latest clashes broke out on Friday after residents accused ISIL members of killing a doctor in Syria’s northern province of Aleppo. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the doctor was found dead after being shot several times.
The newly created Islamic Front, an umbrella group of powerful, mostly ultra-conservative Islamic fighters, issued a statement ordering the ISIL to hand over the doctor’s killers so they can stand trial. Clashes later erupted between the groups.
Egypt Death Toll Rises After Security Forces Break Up Rallies
More Than a Dozen Killed in Muslim Brotherhood Demonstrations
Supporters of Egypt’s deposed president, Mohamed Morsi, gather stones during clashes with riot police in the northeastern part of Cairo’s Nasr City district on Friday. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
CAIRO—More than a dozen people were reported killed Friday after Egyptian security forces broke up protests against the military regime’s designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization.
The death toll was the highest since October, when some 50 people were killed in a day of clashes. Street action had declined dramatically as security forces, backed by new laws, began using increasing force to disperse protests sympathetic toward Mohammed Morsi, a Muslim Brotherhood leader who was ousted as president in a July coup.
But a coalition of Islamist groups against the coup had called for large demonstrations on Friday to protest the Dec. 25 decision declaring the once-powerful Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization.
Clashes kill at least 23 in north Yemen
Updated: January 05, 2014 15:45 IST
Sanaa: Two days of clashes between Shiite rebels and Sunni tribesmen fighting alongside hardline Salafists in northern Yemen have killed at least 23 people, sources said on Sunday.
Fighting has centred for months on a Salafist mosque and Koranic school in Dammaj, which has been besieged by the Shiite rebels known as Huthis.
But the conflict has spread in the northern provinces, embroiling Sunni tribes wary of the power of the Huthis, who have repeatedly been accused of receiving support from Iran.
On Sunday, at least 10 people were killed in Jawf province in clashes between rebels and armed men from the Daham tribe, a tribal chief told AFP.
Seven people were killed at Harf Sufyan, in the northern province of Amran, another tribal chief said on Sunday, while two others died in shelling of Dammaj, in Saada province, Salafist websites reported.
Four people died in fighting that took place in Jawf on Saturday, another tribal chief said.
Jihadists kill 31 rebels in Syria: monitor
Jihadists killed at least 31 rival rebels in northern Syria as clashes raged on a new front in the country’s brutal war, a monitor said Sunday, citing insurgents and medics.
Fighting flared on Friday between rebels and forces loyal to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, an Al-Qaeda affiliate that moved into Syria amid the armed uprising against President Bashar al-Assad in late spring last year.
It began when rebels, including Islamists, attacked checkpoints and bases manned by ISIL, which is accused of horrific abuses against other insurgents, activists and civilians in areas where they operate.
ISIL has also been accused of seeking hegemony by taking key roads and checkpoints from its rivals, and some Assad opponents have even accused it of serving regime interests.
Near Tal Rifaat, a village in the northern province of Aleppo, at least 10 rebels were killed Saturday when ISIL attacked their vehicles, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
If a Republican was President, the newspapers would have front page CHAOS! articles blaming the White House. Instead it gets downplayed, no connecting of the dots. The Islam world is on fire, obsessed, dysfunctional, violent, and bent on destroying the infidel. It really doesn’t take a genius to see it.