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suicide bomb attack

At least 45 people have been killed in a suicide bomb attack at a volleyball tournament in Paktika province, eastern Afghanistan, officials say.

Local reports say a suicide bomber walked into the large gathering before detonating the explosives.

About 60 people were also wounded in the bombing in Yahyakhail district.

It came after Afghan lawmakers approved security deals allowing NATO and US soldiers to remain after the withdrawal of most foreign troops next month.

The total number of soldiers in the new NATO force will be about 12,000. Their mission has been defined as training, advising and assisting the Afghan security forces.

There will also be a separate US-led force dealing with the remnants of al-Qaeda.

Sunday’s bombing occurred when a crowd of people were preparing to watch the final of a regional volleyball tournament.

The crowd was made up mostly of young people and all of the casualties were civilians.

The dead and injured have been taken to a local hospital. Several people had died on the journey to the hospital.

President Ashraf Ghani, who came to power in September, described the incident as a “heinous attack”, according to his spokesman.

The Taliban have stepped up attacks on both Western and Afghan targets across the country this year.

The agreements with NATO and the US still need to be ratified by the Afghan upper house.

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Syrian PM Wael al-Halqi has survived a car bomb attack targeting his convoy in western Mazzeh district of Damascus, state television said.

There are also reported to be a number of casualties.

UK-based activist group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said Wael Halqi’s bodyguard had been killed, AFP news agency reported.

The blast is believed to have been a suicide attack.

Syrian PM Wael al-Halaqi has survived a car bomb attack targeting his convoy in western Mazzeh district of Damascus

Syrian PM Wael al-Halqi has survived a car bomb attack targeting his convoy in western Mazzeh district of Damascus

Syrian state television said the explosion happened at a busy intersection. A picture which activists said was of the scene after the attack showed a large plume of black smoke rising into the air near a road and a high-rise building.

Activist groups said a bus and a car had been set on fire.

Mezzeh is a government-controlled quarter housing a military airport which is vital to the regime’s defenses.

Syrian forces and rebels have been fighting around Damascus for months but with neither side gaining an upper hand.

Monday’s attack is the latest bombing inside government-controlled areas.

Late last year there was a suicide bomb attack on the interior ministry. The state media said top officials had escaped unhurt, but it later emerged that the minister himself had been badly injured.

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At least 30 people have been killed after gunmen and a suicide bomber attacked a police headquarters in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, police say.

A city official told AFP news agency that militants had tried to seize the compound but were unsuccessful.

No group has said it carried out the attack.

Kirkuk is ethnically mixed, and at the centre of a dispute between the Iraqi government and Kurds over oil and land rights.

Two weeks ago at least 10 people were killed in a suicide bomb attack on the offices of the Kurdish Democratic Party in the city.

Sunni insurgents linked to al-Qaeda have been blamed for much of the recent violence in Iraq.

However, there has been a relative calm in recent days.

At least 30 people have been killed after gunmen and a suicide bomber attacked a police headquarters in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk

At least 30 people have been killed after gunmen and a suicide bomber attacked a police headquarters in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk

The attack took place during morning rush hour in the centre of Kirkuk, police Brig-Gen Natah Mohammed Sabr told AFP.

At least 70 people were injured as militants reportedly dressed in police uniforms and armed with guns, grenades and suicide vests rushed the main gate of the headquarters after a bomb was detonated.

They threw grenades but were killed before they reached the building of the headquarters.

The attack caused massive damage to nearby buildings, Brig-Gen Sabr added.

Traffic in the city centre was stopped, and offices in the area were evacuated.

With its massive oil reserves, Kirkuk is the most bitterly contested of Iraq’s disputed territories.

It houses a mixture of Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen.

The Kurds want to incorporate it into their largely autonomous region, while Arabs and Turkmen oppose any change to its current status, ruled directly from Baghdad.

Correspondents say militants often exploit differences between the Iraqi and Kurdish security forces by launching deadly attacks in the city.

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At least 37 people have been killed in a suicide bomb attack at a mosque in Maymana, northern Afghanistan, officials say.

More than 40 people were wounded in the attack at the front of the mosque in Maymana, capital of Faryab province.

The provincial governor and police chief were said to be among those attending the prayers to mark the Eid al-Adha holidays, but they reportedly escaped without serious injury.

Civilians and police officers were among the dead, officials said.

Eye witnesses and officials said the suicide attacker approached the mosque and detonated his suicide vest after the Eid prayers had finished.

It is not clear now the attacker managed to get past at least four security checkpoints to target the mosque.

Deputy provincial governor Abdul Satar Barez told the AFP news agency that the attacker himself was wearing a police uniform.

Attacks in northern Afghanistan are far less common than in the south and east, and Faryab province has been considered to be relatively peaceful.

However at least 10 people were killed in an incident in April 2012 when a suicide bomber on a motorbike targeted a meeting of officials near the main vegetable market in Maymana.

 

At least 15 people have been killed and up to 30 wounded in a car bomb attack on a market in the town of Darra Adam Khel, north-west Pakistan, local security officials say.

Some reports said a suicide attacker detonated the bomb in the town of Darra Adam Khel near the Khyber tribal area.

It was apparently aimed at a pro-government militia set up to fight the Taliban, local security officials said.

Some of the wounded were being taken to hospitals in other towns, because local facilities could not cope.

Some were being taken to Peshawar, about half-an-hour’s drive to the north.

Officials said no group had claimed responsibility for the bombing, but previous attacks in the area have been blamed on the Taliban.

President Asif Ali Zardari strongly condemned the blast. In a condolence message he said the incident showed that extremists had no regard for human life.

The blast occurred outside the office of the local “peace committee” – a group of militants who used to fight with the Taliban but switched sides and now support local elders and the government.

At least 20 nearby shops were also badly damaged in the explosion, Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper reported.

It was not immediately clear how many of the victims were members of the peace committee and how many were local people going about their shopping on a Saturday morning, local government official Fakhar-ud-Din told the AFP news agency.

Darra Adam Khel is a small town on the edge of the ethnic Pashtun tribal belt along the border with Afghanistan.

The government has fought a long campaign to bring the region, which is a haven for militant groups, under its control.

Darra Adam Khel has been a centre for arms trading, with locally made weapons on sale openly at stalls in the town.

A suicide bomb attack on a mosque in the town two years ago killed more than 70 people.

Prayers were held in schools across Pakistan on Saturday for a young victim of the Taliban, 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai, who was shot this week in the Swat Valley.

The girl, who had campaigned for the right to an education, was picked out by name by an armed man on a bus, and shot in the head.

A military spokesman said she was still on a ventilator in hospital on Saturday and that the next 36 to 48 hours would be critical.

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Suspected Al-Qaeda militants have attacked the intelligence headquarters of Yemen’s southern city of Aden killing 14 people, officials say.

The militants attacked the building from two sides, firing rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons inside.

The “well-planned” attack took place in Aden’s coastal Tawahi neighborhood.

Al-Qaeda remains active in the area, after a security vacuum was created in a year of protests against former president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Suspected Al-Qaeda militants have attacked the intelligence headquarters of Yemen's southern city of Aden killing 14 people

Suspected Al-Qaeda militants have attacked the intelligence headquarters of Yemen's southern city of Aden killing 14 people

Militants have seized large parts of the south and east of the country.

A recent, two-month military offensive backed by the US drove them from their strongholds in towns in the southern Abyan province but many escaped into nearby mountains from where they continue to launch attacks.

Among the dead in the Aden attack were at least 11 soldiers, many of whom were reported to be sleeping when hand grenades were thrown into their rooms.

The militants launched the attack from both sides of the intelligence complex, situated next to a state television building. They then managed to escape.

“The operation seemed to have been well planned,” a security source told Reuters, adding he believed the attackers belonged to Al-Qaeda.

A few weeks ago, suspected Al-Qaeda militants carried out a suicide bombing that killed at least 45 people during a funeral in the city of Jaar.

In May, more than 90 people died in a suicide bomb attack at a military parade rehearsal in the capital, Sanaa.

 

 

A policeman has been killed and 17 people have been injured in a suspected suicide bomb attack outside a police station in the central Turkish province of Kayseri.

The two attackers, who also died, tried to ram a car into the building in the town of Pinarbasi, Interior Minister Idris Naim Sahin said.

A bomb in the vehicle went off shortly after clashes with security guards.

Sixteen civilians and another police officer were also injured, some seriously, reports said.

Some of the people who were hurt were the children of officers staying in nearby police lodgings, Idris Naim Sahin said.

The condition of the second police officer was unclear but Hurriyet newspaper said that he had been revived in hospital.

A policeman has been killed and 17 people have been injured in a suspected suicide bomb attack outside Pinarbasi police station in the central Turkish province of Kayseri

A policeman has been killed and 17 people have been injured in a suspected suicide bomb attack outside Pinarbasi police station in the central Turkish province of Kayseri

The interior minister described how the car had earlier sped through a police check point 90 km (55 miles) away in neighboring Kahramanmaras province, ignoring police calls to stop.

The attackers had driven into Pinarbasi after abandoning plans to strike another, unidentified target, reports said.

Television footage showed frantic scenes outside the police station, with fire engines and ambulances on site. Local media described an exchange of gunfire just before the bomb exploded.

“I heard a gun being fired and saw a policeman fall to the ground and suddenly there was an explosion. Shattered glass cut my hands, and I ran inside,” eyewitness Bahattin Ekinci said.

It is not clear if the device was detonated deliberately or as a result of the shooting.

Hasan Gumus, a civil servant who was working near the scene, said he and his colleagues had heard a “huge blast”.

“We saw a big cloud of smoke rising,” he told Reuters news agency.

Kayseri province is in the centre of Turkey, about 325 km from the capital, Ankara.

Nobody has so far said they carried out the bombing. But in an apparent reference to the separatist Kurdish PKK movement, Idris Naim Sahin said: “The crazy attacks of the terrorist organisation are continuing.”

Clashes between the PKK and the Turkish armed forces have increased in south-eastern Turkey over the past year, and the PKK has in the past carried out bombings in other parts of the country.

In September a powerful bomb in Ankara killed three people and wounded 15. That blast was blamed on the PKK.