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Syrian suicide bomber kills Assad’s three top men
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Taliban destroys 22 NATO supply trucks in Afghanistan
Zardari writes to
Manmohan, hails Indo-Pak cricket ties
Blast in bus kills 13 in Pak’s northwest
Phnom Penh, July 18 Cambodia closed all kindergartens and primary schools today to prevent the spread of a killer virus that causes a severe form of hand, foot and mouth disease, the government said. A girl walks back home with her father after schools were shut in Phnom Penh on Wednesday. — AFP Most-wanted Nazi war crimes suspect arrested Court accepts NAB plea to reopen Sharifs' cases
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Syrian suicide bomber kills Assad’s three top men Damascus, July 18 The bombing, which an official blamed on a bodyguard attending a meeting of security chiefs at their Damascus headquarters, prompted US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta to warn the situation in Syria was "spinning out of control." The attack which targeted Assad's inner core for the first time in a 16-month uprising came ahead of a showdown between the West and Russia and China over a UN resolution calling for sanctions that now appears to have been pushed back by a day to Thursday. A Syrian security official told AFP the bombing was carried out by a bodyguard of one of the ministers or security chiefs at the meeting. The attacker had been wearing an explosives belt. The blast killed defence minister General Daoud Rajha, Assad's brother-in-law Assef Shawkat and Hassan Turkmani, the head of the regime's crisis cell, head of National Security, the channel and security officials said. Among those wounded was interior minister Mohammed al-Shaar and General
Hisham Ikhtiyar. The rebel Free Syrian Army claimed responsibility for the attack which came as its fighters battled forces loyal to Assad across Damascus for a fourth straight day. The FSA command "announces the good news of the outstanding operation this morning that targeted the National Security headquarters and the killing" of the officials "responsible for barbaric massacres," it said. The rebels said the attack, part of Operation Damascus Volcano launched on Monday, "is the first in a series... aimed at bringing down Assad and the pillars and symbols of the regime, whether civilian or military." The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights called Shawkat's death "a severe blow to the Syrian regime since he played the main role in operations by regular forces to crush the revolution." State television reported Assad had appointed Fahd al-Freij as new defence minister, while the army vowed to "continue fighting terrorism." "The terrorist act increases the armed forces' determination to clean the country of terrorist groups," it said. — AP
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Taliban destroys 22 NATO supply trucks in Afghanistan Kabul, July 18 In western Afghanistan, a NATO copter crashed, injuring two troops serving with the US-led military coalition, NATO said. The helicopter went down early today at an undisclosed location in the relatively peaceful west. No other information has been released about the crash, which is under investigation. The Taliban said it attacked NATO supply trucks parked overnight in the Samangan province in the north. “We put explosives on a fuel tanker. When it exploded, we fired on the trucks,” Taliban spokesperson Zabiullah Mujahid said. Sidiq Azizi, a spokesperson for the province, said many tankers and semi-trailers caught fire after the bomb went off around 2 am. By midday, heavy black smoke still emanated from the Rabatak area of the province where the truckers had stopped to rest. Firefighters were spraying water on the burning vehicles. “There was a big boom,” Azizi said. “It’s possible that is was a magnetic bomb from insurgents. We are investigating”. “I counted 20 fuel tankers burning. There is still a big fire,” said Azizi, who was at the scene. "The weather is hot and it’s hard to get close to the fire,” he said. The tankers were transporting fuel south toward the Afghan capital, Kabul, from the neighbouring Uzbekistan to the north. Earlier this week, three NATO supply trucks were destroyed by militants in Sayd Abad district of eastern Afghanistan. — AP
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Zardari writes to Manmohan, hails Indo-Pak cricket ties Islamabad, July 18 "I am sanguine that cricket matches between our countries would prove to be a formidable confidence-building measure and a way forward towards encouraging people-to-people contacts," he said. — PTI
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Blast in bus kills 13 in Pak’s northwest Islamabad, July 18 The incident occurred in Sepoy village of Orakzai Agency, officials of the local political administration said. The bomb was triggered by remote control while the bus was passing through the area. Seven persons were killed instantly and six more succumbed to their injuries in a nearby
hospital. Two women, a three-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy were among the dead. The injured were taken to a hospital at Kohat in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province and officials described their condition as critical. No group claimed the responsibility for the attack. Security forces and a local ‘lashkar’ or anti-Taliban militia launched a search operation after the blast. — PTI
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Cambodia closes schools after virus scare Phnom Penh, July 18 At least 54 children, most aged under three, have died from the disease since mid-April, out of 61 cases, according to the latest update from the World Health Organisation (WHO). The school closure also aims at easing parents' fears about the outbreak, said Mak Vann, secretary of the state at Cambodia's Education Ministry. "This is to prevent the spread of the disease. Parents have voiced concern that the disease can infect their children," he said. The illness and its high fatality rate initially stumped health experts in Cambodia, but the WHO said last week most victims tested positive for Enterovirus 71 (EV-71), which causes a lethal strain of hand, foot and mouth disease and is fairly common in Asia. The UN health body also found that the use of steroids as part of the treatment worsened the condition of patients with EV-71, whose symptoms include high fever and respiratory problems. In neighbouring Thailand, 22 schools in the capital had closed after fears of an outbreak, but by today all but three of those had re-opened, according to Bangkok authorities. Hand, foot and mouth disease is contagious and spreads through direct contact with the bodily fluids or faeces of an infected person. Experts say good hygiene is the best form of prevention. — AFP
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Most-wanted Nazi war crimes suspect arrested Budapest, July 18 “Csatary, accused by the Wiesenthal Centre of having helped organise the deportation of some 15,700 Jews to the Auschwitz death camp during the World War II, has been taken into custody,” the public prosecutors office said. They said Csatary, full name Laszlo Csizsik-Csatary, a former senior police officer in Kosice, which at that time was in Hungary but is now in Slovakia, has been charged with committing war crimes. In 1948, a Czechoslovakian court condemned Csatary, who the Wiesenthal Centre said was in charge of the Jewish ghetto in Kosice, to death in absentia. But he had made it to Canada, where he worked as an art dealer in Montreal and Toronto until in 1990s he was stripped of his citizenship there and was forced to flee. He ended up in Budapest where he has lived undisturbed ever since until the Wiesenthal Centre alerted Hungarian authorities last year, providing it with evidence it said implicated Csatary in war crimes. — AFP
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Court accepts NAB plea to reopen Sharifs' cases An accountability court in Rawalpindi on Wednesday accepted the applications submitted by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) seeking the reopening of three references against former premier Nawaz Sharif’s family. NAB Prosecutor General KK Agha submitted the applications in the court, which were signed by NAB Chief Admiral (retd) Fasih Bokhari. Bokhari, on the recommendation of a special committee, had decided to reopen cases against the Pakistan Muslim League - Nawaz chief’s family, which allege their involvement in money laundering worth more than $32 million. On May 17, the bureau had said the decision to initiate inquiries against Nawaz and Shahbaz Sharif came after the President order.
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