Pakistan ISLAMABAD suicide bombing death toll rises to 8

Shiite Muslim

ISLAMABAD The death toll from a suicide bombing at a Shiite Muslim gathering in the capital of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir increased to eight Monday, police said, as minority Shiites marked the key holy day of Ashura.Another 80 people were wounded in Sunday night’s bombing in Muzaffarabad – a rare sectarian attack in an area police say has little history of militant violence. The dead included three police, said police official Yasin Baig, adding that another 10 police were among the wounded.The suicide bomber set off explosives he was carrying as police searched him outside a ceremony commemorating the seventh century death of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson during the Islamic holy month of Muharram.Security has been tightened across Pakistan during Muharram, and particularly for Monday’s Ashura, the 10th day of Muharram, a month of mourning that is often marred by bombings and fighting between Pakistan’s Sunni Muslim majority and its Shiite minority.

In the northwestern city of Peshawar, which has been repeatedly hit by suicide bombings in the past months, thousands of police were guarding processions, and troops were on standby, local police chief Liaqat Ali Khan said.

“Our security level is red alert,” Khan said, adding that the recent wave of attacks required police to be extra vigilant.

More than 500 people have been killed in attacks across Pakistan since October. Insurgents are suspected of avenging a U.S.-supported Pakistani army offensive against the Taliban in a northwest tribal region along the Afghan border.Maj. Aurangzeb Khan said paramilitary forces were deployed and were carrying out helicopter patrols in the southern port city of Karachi, where a blast that authorities attributed to a buildup of gas in a sewage pipe wounded about 30 people on Sunday.

“Our men will remain with all the processions till their culmination,” Khan said.To the east in Lahore, all entry and exit points to processions were blocked to traffic and anyone joining a procession had to pass through scanners, said police official Chaudhry Shafiq.

“There is always a threat, especially in the ongoing terror attacks,” Shafiq said.After Sunday night’s bombing in Kashmir’s Muzaffarabad, Baig, the police official there, said Shiite mourners at the commemoration ceremony took to the streets to protest the bombing, with some firing shots in the air. Baig said authorities restored order within about an hour.

He said it was the first time a suicide bomber attacked a Shiite gathering in the region.Muslim militants have fought for decades to free Kashmir, which is split between India and Pakistan and claimed by both, from New Delhi’s rule. But while Muzaffarabad has served as a base for anti-India insurgents to train and launch attacks, the capital – and most of the Pakistani side – has largely been spared any violence, with militants focusing on the Indian-controlled portion.

The bombing highlights the growing extremism of militants in Pakistani Kashmir. Many of the region’s armed groups were started with support from Islamabad. But some of them have turned against their former patrons and joined forces with the Taliban because the government has reduced its support under U.S. pressure.

The partnership is a dangerous development for Pakistan as it could enable the Taliban to carry out attacks more easily outside its sanctuary in the country’s tribal areas in the northwest. More than 500 people have been killed in retaliatory attacks since the military launched a major anti-Taliban offensive in mid-October in the militant stronghold of South Waziristan near the Afghan border.

Three bombs planted under a car exploded south of Beirut

Three bombs

BEIRUT Three bombs planted under a car exploded south of Beirut on Saturday, killing one person and wounding several others in an attack that apparently targeted an official from the Palestinian militant group Hamas, the state-run news agency said.The official National News Agency said the explosion was caused by “three bombs tied to each other” that were placed under the car of an official believed to be from Hamas.It did not identify the targeted official or the victims. One of the wounded was in serious condition, the report said.Lebanese security officials told The Associated Press they could not independently confirm what caused the blasts or who the explosions targeted. The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which controls the area, sealed off the streets in the southern suburb of Haret Hreik and prevented journalists from getting close to the scene.One senior police official said the blast occurred in a neighborhood that houses an office belonging to Hamas.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV only briefly mentioned the blast Saturday, quoting Lebanese security officials as saying “an explosion in Haret Hreik targeted an office belonging to Hamas, causing a number of casualties.” The broadcast offered did not elaborate, and a Hezbollah official contacted by The Associated Press said he had no information.

Osama Hamdan, the Hamas representative in Lebanon, was not available for comment Saturday and had no information, according to a person who answered his mobile phone. Other Hamas officials in Beirut and neighboring Syria, which shelters the exiled leadership of Hamas, did not answer repeated calls.The explosion comes on the even of Ashoura, Shiite Islam’s most important religious holiday.Explosions in the area, which is almost completely controlled by the Shiite Hezbollah, are rare. Hezbollah has its own arsenal with tens of thousands of rockets and missiles, which it says it needs to fight off any threat from Israel.

The area was bombed out by Israel during the monthlong 2006 war with Hezbollah.Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah is expected to address tens of thousands of supporters commemorating the Ashoura holiday by video link on Sunday.The explosion Saturday night occurred about 700 meters (2,300 feet) from a complex where hundreds of Shiite Hezbollah supporters were holding a ceremony commemorating Ashoura and listening to a live televised speech by Nasrallah.Ashoura marks the death of Imam Hussein, the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson, who died in a battle in 680 against the leader of what became the Sunni branch of Islam. The battle took place in the Iraqi city of Karbala.

BAGHDAD A bomb targeting a church in northern Iraq killed two men

Shiite Muslim men

BAGHDAD  A bomb targeting a church in northern Iraq killed two men and damaged the historic building Wednesday, a day before Christmas Eve services that will be heavily guarded for fear of more attacks on the country’s Christian minority.The bomb in the city of Mosul was hidden under sacks of baking flour in a handcart left 15 yards (meters) from the Mar Toma Church, or the Church of St. Thomas, a police officer said.

The officer said the two men killed were Muslims and that five other people were injured. A hospital official confirmed the casualties.Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information to news media.

“Instead of performing Christmas Mass in this church, we will be busy removing rubble and debris,” Hazim Ragheed, a priest at the church, said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.The blast damaged the wooden doors, windows, some furniture and one of the walls of the church, which is more than 1,200 years old, Ragheed said. Services will be moved out of the church, but Ragheed did not say where they would be held.

“We demand that the government put an end to these repeated attacks,” Ragheed said.The blast occurred in an area where streets have been closed to cars and trucks to protect Mosul’s dwindling Christian population.

Iraqi defense officials warned earlier in the week that intelligence reports pointed to attacks during Christmas, leading the government to step up security near churches and Christian neighborhoods.Most of the increased security will be in Baghdad, Mosul and Kirkuk, said Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Mohammed al-Askari.

Christians have frequently been targeted since turmoil swept the country after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, although the attacks have ebbed with an overall drop in violence. Still, tens of thousands of Christians have fled; many who stayed were isolated in neighborhoods protected by barricades and checkpoints.A coordinated bombing campaign in 2004 targeted churches in the Iraqi capital and anti-Christian violence also flared in September 2007 after Pope Benedict XVI made comments perceived to be against Islam.

Churches, priests and businesses have been attacked by militants who denounce Christians as pro-American “crusaders.” Paulos Rahho, the Chaldean Catholic archbishop of Mosul, was found dead in March 2008 after being abducted by gunmen after a Mass.

Also Wednesday, Iraqi forces increased security around the Shiite religious observance of Ashoura, which coincides with Christmas.Insurgents have routinely targeted pilgrims on their way to the southern holy city of Karbala during Ashoura, which marks the seventh-century death of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson Hussein.More than 25,000 Iraqi police and soldiers have been assigned to protect pilgrims, said Karbala police Capt. Alaa Abbas Jaafar, a media spokesman.

Elsewhere, gunmen stormed a checkpoint Wednesday in Abu Ghraib, west of Baghdad, killing four Iraqi police officers, two police officials said.

A bomb planted on a minibus killed two people and injured five in a Shiite neighborhood in north Baghdad, police and hospital officials said. Another bomb in Fallujah targeted an Anbar University professor but missed and killed the man’s brother, police said.