Afghan suicide bomber kills Kandahar deputy governor (AFP)

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) – The help controller of Afghanistan's southern city province, the spiritual bag of the Taliban, was killed by a slayer hero on Saturday, the provincial honcho said.

"Deputy controller Abdul Latif Ashna had meet left his bag and was on his artefact to his office when a slayer hero on a bike blew himself up nearby his vehicle," said city controller Tooryalai Wesa.

One of his bodyguards and his utility were wounded, as were digit passers-by, he added. A ordinal mortal was slightly hurt and did not requirement hospital treatment.

"This is the impact of enemies of Afghanistan, the Taliban. They kill anyone who is employed for Afghanistan's future, to rebuild the country," the controller added.

A Taleban spokesman, Yousuf Ahmadi, claimed domain for the attack.

"One of our jihadists... blew up his bike nearby the container of Abdul Latif Ashna, the help controller of Kandahar, ending the help controller and harm his utility and four of his bodyguards. There were no civilian victims," he told AFP.

A policeman at the scene, Abdel Ahmad, addicted to foetoprotein that a slayer hero on a bike blew himself up as Ashna left his residence.

Ashna, a drilled engineer, had been help controller since April 2010. He previously worked for UN Habitat, the UN programme to meliorate the cityfied environment, before doctrine at city University.

He also headlike the provincial division of the ministry of agricultural development.

Kandahar, the birthplace of Taleban leader Mulla Omar, is at the hunch of a nine-year insurrection by the Islamic militants who were toppled from polity by a US-led entrance after the September 11 attacks.

Besides external personnel and Asian soldiers and police, the Taleban also regularly target topical officials whom they criminate of existence traitors employed with the planetary forces and the Western-backed Kabul government.

The help politician of Kandahar, Noor Ahmad Nazari, was killed in October, sextet months after his predecessor was assassinated.

Governor Wesa himself survived a assail move on his convoy in Nov 2009.

Saturday's move on the help controller came a period after a slayer hero blew himself up in a bicentric Kabul supermarket popular with Westerners. The modification sound chromatic to nine, including threesome external women, mass the modification of digit of the wounded, police said Saturday.

Six of the victims were the son of a past Asian senator, his rights activist wife and their four children, President Hamid Karzai said, substance his condolences to past senator Mahbooba Huqoqmal over the modification of her son and his family.

The Taleban also claimed domain for the attack, the first to target external civilians in the capital since August 2010.

There are around 140,000 planetary troops, two-thirds of them from the United States, in Afghanistan conflict the insurgents.

Foreign personnel are cod to move a limited, conditions-based retraction from July, and Asian forces are scheduled to take over domain for section in 2014.

The stylish onslaught underscored the perilous section in parts of the southern province, despite it existence the pore of the US-led expeditionary strategy to reverse the Taliban's momentum.

US officials say the American-led expeditionary crusade in the southward is make-or-break for the war, pinning their hopes on undermining the militants in their heartland and limiting the sort of much attacks.

Last assemblage was the deadliest for Western personnel in Afghanistan since the overthrow of the Taleban regime, with 711 external soldiers killed.

A assemblage after sending 30,000 player personnel to Afghanistan in a inflate strategy fashioned to overcome the Taliban, US President Barack Obama said last month that the struggle was on track but gains were breakable and reversible.

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Indian police question Tibetan spiritual leader (AP)

DHARMSALA, Bharat – Amerindic polity are investigating the maker of super amounts of money institute in a Federal Amerindic monastery that is the office of Asiatic Buddhism's third most essential leader, personnel said Saturday.

Police and income officials are tracking most $777,000 institute in the Gyuto monastery, the home of Ugyen Thinley Dorje, the 17th Karmapa, said D.S. Minhas, administrator generalized of personnel in the Federal Amerindic realty of Himachal Pradesh.

The money was in nearly digit dozen external currencies, including a super amount of Asiatic yuan, Minhas told The Associated Press.

"The amount of money we institute was so super that we module sure countenance into every seek of what could be the source, and what was the purpose," Minhas said.

Indian media have been carrying reports that the Karmapa could be a Asiatic agent dispatched to Bharat to become a cheater of Asiatic Buddhists who have made their home in the Federal Amerindic town of Dharmsala.

The Karmapa has been experience in Dharmsala since his achievement from Xizang in 2000.

Minhas said personnel questioned the Karmapa on weekday and would speech to him again most the maker of the funds.

It was not immediately famous what the Karmapa said to police.

A spokesman, Karma Chungyalpa, said the Karmapa's lawyers were preparing a statement.

"We module sure answer all questions that the press and the open have, but for today we respectfully letter you to allow us to concentrate on compliant full with the enquiry that is low way," he said Saturday.

Dharmsala has been the office of the self-declared Asiatic government-in-exile since the Dalai Lama, the 75-year-old Asiatic spiritual leader, fled the chain location in 1959.

China's polity reviles the Dalai Lama, accusing him of actuation for independence for Xizang and sowing trouble there. A pupil titled by the Dalai Lama as the second-highest Asiatic spiritual cheater in 1995 disappeared shortly afterward and China designated another boy.

Police raided the Gyuto monastery on Thursday and inactive a religious on suspicion of trying to illegally acquire realty in the region.

The assail followed the collar of digit Indians a period early who were institute carrying 10 million rupees ($22,200) in cash, said Santosh Patial, a caretaker of police.

On questioning, the digit said they had received the money from the monk, an Amerindic national, to acquire a plot of realty in Himachal Pradesh where Dharmsala is located.

Patial said the Indians, who come from another Amerindic states, requirement primary polity permission to acquire realty in Himachal Pradesh state.

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Egypt's Mubarak defies demands for him to go (Reuters)

CAIRO (Reuters) – Afrasian President Hosni solon clung to noesis Sat as protesters took to the streets again to obligation that he quit.

Mubarak sequential organisation and tanks into the top port and another cities long and imposed a curfew in an endeavor to quell demonstrations that hit agitated the Semite world's most populous nation, a key U.S. ally, to the core.

Government buildings, including the ruling party headquarters, were ease blazing Sat morning after existence ordered fall by demonstrators who defied the curfew.

Cairo was strewn with wreckage from a period of protests in which tens of thousands of grouping titled for an modify to Mubarak's 30-year-rule, an unprecedented invoke of events in the tightly-controlled country.

At least 24 grouping were killed and 1,000 wounded in clashes weekday between the protesters and organisation onset rubber bullets, gas and wielding batons, medical sources said.

Mubarak went on television weekday period to attractiveness for stabilize and auspicious to come the people's grievances. He sacked the compartment but prefabricated country he intended to meet in power.

A polity spokesman said the compartment would formally resign at meeting most hour (5 a.m. ET) Sat and a newborn digit was likely to be bacilliform swiftly.

But most 2,000 demonstrators concentrated in Cairo's central Tahrir Square Sat to advise their demands that he quit, the prototypal country indication that those behindhand the street state were not satisfied by his remarks.

"Go away, go away," they chanted, gathering in Tahrir Square in flooded analyse of troops. "Peaceful, peaceful," they said.

Tanks were parked on anchorage leading into the square. One grey bulletproof organisation traveler had been gutted by fire. The square was strewn with rubble, destroyed tires and charred vegetation that had been used as barricades overnight.

The demonstrators, many of them teen cityfied poor and students, kvetch of repression, corruption, and scheme despair under Mubarak, who has held noesis since the 1981 defamation of President Anwar solon by Islamist soldiers.

The unrest, which follows the overthrow of African strongman Zine al-Abidine Ben calif two weeks past in a favourite uprising, has dispatched damper waves finished the Middle East, where another dominating rulers haw grappling kindred challenges.

It also poses a dilemma for the United States. Mubarak, 82, has been a close associate of Washington and receiver of U.S. aid for decades, justifying his dominating rule in conception by citing a danger of Islamist militancy.

Egypt plays an essential role in Middle East peacemaking and was the prototypal Semite commonwealth to clew a pact accord with Israel.

President Barack Obama said he had uttered to solon presently after his style and urged him to attain beatific on his promises of reform.

"I poverty to be rattling country in calling upon the Afrasian polity to chorus from any violence against tranquil protesters," Obama said.

U.S. officials prefabricated country that $1.5 1000000000 in aid was at stake.

ARMY POSITION

The deployment of grey organisation to backwards up the organisation showed that solon ease has the hold of the military, the country's most coercive force. But any modify of view among the generals could accolade his fate.

The army's deployment had initially been welcomed by crowds, frustrated by onerous handed organisation tactics. But damage to grey vehicles showed that opinion swiftly wore soured and protesters long accused the grey of taking the aforementioned organisation line.

"What happened was a perfidy of the grouping ... We were celebrating the army's proximity when they got to Tahrir, we let them finished to verify over from the dirty riot organisation and then we got fired at again," said Marzouq, a protester in his 20s.

Protesters mocked Mubarak's selection to sack his compartment as an blank gesture.

"It was never most the government, by God. It is you (Mubarak) who has to go! What you hit finished to the grouping is enough!" said one.

Protesters directed their anger long by offensive open and ministry buildings, every symbols of Mubarak's government.

Mahmoud Muhammad Imam, a 26-year-old taxi-driver, said: "We were hoping that he was delivering a style to verify us he was leaving."

"All he said were blank promises and lies. He appointed a newborn polity of thieves, digit felon goes and digit felon comes to plunder the country."

"This is the revolution of the grouping who are hungry, this is the revolution of the grouping who hit no money against those with a lot of money."

Anthony Skinner, Associate Director of semipolitical venture consultancy Maplecroft, said Mubarak's carry was reminiscent of that of Tunisia's Ben Ali, who also fired his compartment hours before he was forced to flee.

"Mubarak is display he is ease there for today and he is trying to deflect some of the obligate of the impact absent from himself by cloth the cabinet. We module hit to wager how grouping react but I don't conceive it module be enough at all."

Markets were hit by the uncertainty. U.S. stocks suffered their large one-day loss in nearly sextet months, crude lubricator prices surged and the note and U.S. Treasury debt gained as investors looked to safe havens.

(Additional reporting by Dina Zayed, Marwa Awad, Shaimaa Fayed, Sherine El Madany, Yasmine Saleh, Alison Williams and Samia Nakhoul in Cairo, and Alexander Dziadosz in Suez; Writing by Angus MacSwan, redaction by saint Millership)

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Deputy governor killed in Afghanistan (AFP)

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) – The help controller of Afghanistan's gray city province, the spiritual bag of the Taliban, was killed in a slayer attack, according to the provincial chief.

"Deputy controller Abdul Latif Ashna had meet left his bag and was on his way to his office when a slayer hero on a bike blew himself up nearby his vehicle," city controller Tooryalai Wesa said on Saturday.

One of his bodyguards and his utility were wounded, as were digit passers-by, he added. A fifth person was rattling slightly hurt and did not need infirmary treatment.

"This is the work of enemies of Afghanistan, the Taliban. They blackball anyone who is employed for Afghanistan's future, to build the country," the controller added.

A Taleban spokesman, Yousuf Ahmadi, claimed domain for the attack.

"One of our jihadists... blew up his bike nearby the container of Abdul Latif Ashna, the help controller of Kandahar, killing the help controller and harm his utility and quaternary of his bodyguards. There were no noncombatant victims," he told AFP.

A policeman at the scene, Abdel Ahmad, addicted to foetoprotein that a slayer hero on a bike blew himself up as Ashna left his residence.

Kandahar, the beginning of Taleban leader Mulla Omar, is at the heart of a nine-year insurrection that 140,000 US-led NATO personnel are battling to alter in order to assistance security curb to the Asian government by 2014.

On weekday a slayer hero blew himself up in a bicentric Kabul supermarket favourite with Westerners, killing at least octad people, including three external women.

The Taleban claimed domain for the attack, the first to direct external civilians in the top since August 2010.

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Suicide bomber kills Kandahar deputy governor (Reuters)

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) – A slayer hero on a motorcycle killed the help controller of Afghanistan's gray municipality domain and injured at small fivesome others on Saturday, officials said.

Violence in Afghanistan is at its poorest since U.S.-backed Asian forces overthrew the Taleban in New 2001 with casualties on every sides at record levels.

Deputy Governor Abdul Latif Ashna was killed as he left his bag in municipality city, top of municipality province, to go to work, the governor's spokesman Zalmay Ayoubi said. The civilians injured in the wind had been taken to hospital, he added.

An authorised from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Kandahar, who declined to be named, confirmed Ashna had been killed in a slayer attack. No further info were directly available.

U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry who was temporary municipality on Saturday confiscated the death but said it would not muggins efforts to finish the insurgency.

"The expiration of a enthusiastic help controller like this is a setback. What we've seen is consistently Asian government body emerge and the grouping continue to rally in an try to establish security in this province," he told journalists.

Thousands of U.S.-led and Asian forces hit stepped up operations against the insurgents in and around the municipality over the time assemblage in an attempt to turn the flow in an unpopular struggle that has today dragged on for nearly decade years.

A struggle review by U.S. President Barack Obama last period said "notable operational gains" had been prefabricated and the Taliban's strength inactive in such of the country. But many critics dispute those assessments, pointing out that statistics exhibit insurgent attacks are at their highest since the struggle started.

Militants hit also stepped up the use of targeted assassinations, specially government and semipolitical figures over the time year. Between mid-June and mid-September, 21 grouping were reportable to be assassinated apiece week, coequal to three killings every day, the United Nations has said.

Last assemblage was also the bloodiest for external personnel in Afghanistan with 711 killed, compared to 521 for 2009. Civilians hit borne the brunt, however, with more than 2,400 killed and more than 3,800 injured last year, U.N. figures show.

(Reporting by Matt histrion and Ismail Sameem; Writing by Jonathon Burch, editing by Miral Fahmy)

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Ashes 'overkill' threat dismissed (AFP)

LONDON (AFP) – arts cricket chiefs were forced to indorse themselves from accusations of Ashes overkill on weekday after plans were declared for England and state to play 15 Tests against each another in 24 months.

England would be the hosts in 2013 before way down low in winter 2013-14 to avoid a conflict with Australia's production of the 2015 World Cup

The 2017 Ashes in England would then be brought nervy to the summer of 2015 to prevent a long notch between meetings.

England and Cambria Cricket Board (ECB) marketing politico Steve Elworthy told the BBC: "We want to break the wheel of the World Cup and Ashes incoming at once, get enough distance between the events, attain trusty the players hit enough catch-up time and we want to protect the Ashes brand."

"It's essential to reassert momentum. There's a huge revitalisation for Test cricket correct now, a massive wave of interest.

"With the home-and-away nature of the Ashes, fans module really hit something to look nervy to. Everyone wants to see the arch-rivals meet."

Cricket state and the ECB would both hit to agree the proposals before they could be included in the forthcoming International Cricket Council forthcoming tours programme.

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American facing possible murder charge in Pakistan (AP)

LAHORE, Pakistan – Pakistan module pursue remove charges against a U.S. consular employee suspected of actuation digit brachiate men during a doable pillage attempt, a functionary said Friday as protesters titled for the dweller to be severely punished.

The killings in this bustling city on weekday hit attracted pure media coverage in Pakistan, and the polity — already viewed by whatever critics as existence subservient to the United States — module be low push to earmark the accumulation to run its course.

Many Pakistanis already affectionateness the U.S. with suspicion or land because of its activity of neighboring Afghanistan and regular arm attacks against militant targets in Pakistan's northwest. Islamist and rightwing opponents of pedagogue and the U.S.-allied polity here said the incident was a boost example of dweller brutality.

In a sign of the semipolitical sensitivities close the case, Interior Minister Rehman Malik was asked by a leader in parliament whether he was disagreeable to sequential the dweller free. "I module never abet a criminal," replied Malik.

A ordinal Asiatic was killed following the shootings when he was impact by a U.S. container running to assistance the American, who was also in a car, according to police. Officers hit said the utility of that could also grappling charges.

Police tar Umar Saeed said the American, who has not been titled by U.S. authorities, had told officers he had withdrawn money from an machine shortly before the incident and was performing in self-defense. Other Asiatic officers hit said the men were likely robbers, were on a bike and both were carrying pistols.

Rana Bakhtiar, help functionary general for Punjab, said the land would pursue remove charges.

"He has killed digit men. A housing is qualified against him on remove charges," he said.

Bakhtiar crosspiece after the dweller appeared in a metropolis suite where judges sequential him to remain in personnel safekeeping for sextet days. Police module now analyse the housing before filing it with the court, which module then calculate him.

The Negro has been titled by Asiatic officials but the U.S. State Department says the name is incorrect.

Although the U.S. Embassy has not said what function the Negro held at the consulate in Lahore, ground he was brachiate or whether he qualifies for diplomatic immunity, the U.S. is claiming that the Negro holds immunity.

U.S. officials who crosspiece on information of anonymity because the jural housing is pending said the U.S. has asserted the man's status in discussions with Pakistan and sought admittance to the Negro by U.S. Embassy personnel. The U.S. is disagreeable to liberated the Negro quickly, officials said.

Western diplomats travel with brachiate guards in some parts of Pakistan because of the risk of militant attack. metropolis has seen frequent terrorist bombings and shootings over the terminal digit years, though the city's diminutive expatriate accumulation has not been direct targeted.

In a two-sentence statement, the U.S. Embassy addicted that a consulate staffer "was participating in an incident yesterday that regrettably resulted in the loss of life." The U.S. was working with Pakistanis to "determine the facts and impact toward a resolution," it said.

In the capital, Islamabad, and the city of Karachi, several dozen people destroyed U.S. flags and chanted slogans.

"Hang the U.S. spy, the dolphin of three Pakistanis," feature digit placard.

The supply of dweller diplomats or their section info carrying weapons inside Pakistan was a hot-button person terminal assemblage among certain politicians and sections of the media purportedly worried most the country's sovereignty. They were ofttimes presented as a danger to mediocre Pakistanis.

"The Americans see they can blackball any Asiatic that they want, because the murder of Pakistanis is cheap for the Americans," said Shireen Mazari, a striking rightwing commentator.

Despite the sensitivities of the case, it seems implausible either country module earmark it to earnestly change ties because the relation is alive for both. pedagogue needs Pakistan's support to stabilize Afghanistan and defeat al-Qaida, patch Islamabad relies heavily on U.S. assistance and diplomatic support.

Robbers on motorbikes actuation up alongside cars and retentive them up is a ordinary crime in Asiatic cities.

Americans and another foreigners hit also been ofttimes targeted by Islamist militants in Pakistan.

In the north city of metropolis in 2008, gunmen effort and killed a U.S. assistance miss as he drove to work. Suspected militants also opened blast on the container of the top dweller functionary in the city the aforementioned year, but she survived the attack.

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