Pak court adjourns 26/11 trial again 
Islamabad, June 25
A day after India pressed Pakistan for a "satisfactory closure" of the 26/11 trial, the trial of LeT's Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi and six other Pakistanis charged with involvement in Mumbai attacks was today adjourned for a fortnight as no new judge had been appointed for the anti-terrorism court hearing the case following the transfer of Justice Rana Nisar Ahmed.

Puli Alam, June 25
A huge car bomb at a hospital today killed 60 persons in Afghanistan’s worst attack for three years, days after US President Barack Obama said 10,000 US forces would leave the country this year.

The brazen suicide attack in Logar province, about 75 km south of the capital Kabul, killed women and children and also wounded 120.

As an eyewitness described horrific scenes of victims on fire following the blast in the usually safe Azra district, officials described the attack as “unprecedented” in the near-decade-long Afghan war.

“Sixty of our countrymen including children, women, youths and men... have been martyred and 120 others, including health workers, have been injured,” the ministry of public health said in a statement. “This inhumane act is unprecedented in the history of the conflict in our country and targeted a place where wounds are healed and patients receive treatment.”

Din Mohammad Darwaish, the Logar provincial spokesman, said the blast, which took place close to Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan, was a suicide car bombing.

The Taliban denied it was behind the attack, which completely destroyed the building. Spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said: “We condemn this attack on a hospital... whoever has done this wants to defame the Taliban.” One man who lives near the hospital, Abdul Rahman, said he lost seven relatives in the explosion.

“Seven members of my family, including three women and two children, went to that hospital this morning,” he said, through tears.

“I was at home, then I heard a big explosion. When I rushed to the site, I saw many dead and injured people. Many of them were burning, on fire. There were body parts everywhere. My family is dead, I can’t find them, they are under the rubble.” The huge blast caused the highest death toll in Afghanistan since a July 2008 car bomb attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul killed more than 60 persons.

It came at the end of a week when Obama announced that 33,000 US forces would leave Afghanistan by the end of next summer. All foreign combat forces are due to pull out of the country by the end of 2014. There are currently up to 150,000 foreign forces in Afghanistan, including about 99,000 from the US.

Some analysts fear that Afghan security forces may struggle to contain the insurgency, which has hit record levels of violence, as withdrawals begin.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned the attack as “savage and ignorant” in a statement released by his office.

It came as Karzai told a counter-terrorism summit in Tehran that militancy was on the rise in both his country and the region.

“Not only has Afghanistan not yet achieved peace and security but terrorism is expanding and threatening more than ever Afghanistan and the region,” he told the opening session.

The two-day summit is being attended by the heads of state of six regional countries, including Afghan neighbours Iran and Pakistan.

The blast in Logar is the second major attack in Afghanistan in two days. Yesterday, 10 persons were killed by a bicycle bomb which went off in a busy bazaar in Khad Abad district of the northern province of Kunduz. — AFP 

Islamabad: At least 10 policemen were killed as a suicide bomber blew himself up when security forces mounted an operation to rescue hostages taken by a group of militants who stormed a police station in northwest Pakistan today.

Eight to 10 militants took control of the police station in Kulachi town of Dera Ismail Khan district, after firing indiscriminately and lobbing grenades at guards this afternoon. “Ten policemen, including the police station chief, were killed and we rescued the other hostages,” Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain said. It was believed that all the attackers had either been killed or injured in the operation, Hussain said. — PTI

Beirut, June 25
Hundreds of Syrians, some of them with gunshot wounds, streamed into neighboring Lebanon today in search of a refuge from the increasing violence in their homeland, a Lebanese security official said.

The arrivals at the border began shortly after Syrian security forces opened fire on anti-government protesters across the country, killing 20 persons, including two children aged 12 and 13, Syrian activists said.

The Local Coordination Committees, a group that tracks the anti-government protests in Syria, said most of the deaths occurred in the Barzeh neighborhood of the capital Damascus, as well as the suburb of al-Kaswa.

Several others died when security forces opened fire in the central city of Homs, sending residents fleeing into neighboring Lebanon.

The violence has prompted thousands of Syrians to seek a safe haven in neighboring countries. Up to 1,000 Syrians crossed overnight into Lebanon through the al-Qusair crossing in the region of Akkar near Wadi Khaled in northern Lebanon.

There were at least six Syrians with gunshot wounds among those who crossed into Lebanon. — AP