Suicide Bombings

A man blew himself up Thursday among worshipers streaming toward a Shiite mosque in central Pakistan, killing 24 people and wounding 40. The attack in the city of Dera Ghazi Khan, in Punjab province, could spark sectarian fury in a country already battling rising militancy along the border with Afghanistan and at odds with India over a November terrorist attack in Mumbai. Television channels showed bystanders and emergency workers trying frantically to help victims lying in the darkened street.

Afghan authorities said Tuesday that they had broken up a suicide bombing cell responsible for a string of attacks in the capital, including a massive explosion last month that killed an American serviceman and wounded five other U.S. soldiers.

A suicide bomber killed the deputy leader of Iraq's second-biggest Sunni Arab political bloc Sunday as he and other politicians met to discuss the upcoming provincial elections, the party's leader said. Hassan Zaidan Lahaibi of the Iraqi National Dialogue Front was killed by a suicide bomber who stormed his house, shot at guards and blew himself up in a crowded reception room, said Saleh Mutlak.

A suicide bomber struck U.S. troops patrolling on foot Thursday in southern Afghanistan, killing at least two soldiers and three civilians and wounding at least nine civilians, officials said. The bomber hit the U.S. patrol on a busy street in Kandahar province's Maywand district, said district chief Naimatullah Khan. American victims were taken away by helicopter, Khan said, but he could not provide a number. Army Col. Jerry O'Hara, a U.S. military spokesman, confirmed that U.S.

A suicide bomber attacked police here Sunday as they rushed to treat civilians injured by a smaller explosion, killing seven people and wounding at least 25, said police official Sanaullah Khan. Of the seven slain, five were police officials and two were civilians, Khan said, and 16 police were among the wounded. Amanullah Khan, a wounded police official, said he and his colleagues were attending to four civilians injured by the first explosion when the bomber struck.

A suicide bomber killed at least 28 people Friday and injured dozens more in a town near Pakistan's tribal areas, the latest in an escalating series of attacks targeting the country's Shiite Muslim minority. The attack, aimed at a funeral procession for a Shiite Muslim leader in the town of Dera Ismail Khan, triggered a riot, with furious crowds burning shops, homes and cars. The army was called in and the town was placed under curfew.

A suicide bomber in Sri Lanka attacked a Muslim religious procession Tuesday, killing at least 13 people and injuring more than three dozen, including a government minister, officials said. The army blamed the Tamil Tigers separatist group, which for a quarter of a century has been fighting for a homeland in the northern part of the South Asian island nation. Tiger militants, formally known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or LTTE, are on their heels.

A car bomb exploded Wednesday near several restaurants in a Shiite neighborhood of northwest Baghdad, killing at least 34 people and injuring more than 70, police and hospital officials said. The blast appeared timed for maximum civilian casualties, going off about 7 p.m., when many Baghdad residents take advantage of cooler evening temperatures for shopping and dining in outdoor kebab restaurants.

Officers guarding Pakistani police and intelligence agencies saw the gunmen jump out of the white van that had stopped at their gate. The assailants wore white shirts and trousers, and sprayed gunfire in the air and at the police. One tossed a grenade in the direction of officers who had begun firing back. Then, on a bustling workday morning in the heart of Pakistan's second-largest city, the explosives-laden van rammed the steel gate and detonated.

A suicide bomber killed six people in an attack Wednesday in a former insurgent stronghold in Iraq's western province of Anbar, police said. A Baghdad bombing killed five other people. The bomber in Ramadi struck a checkpoint of Iraqi soldiers and police, killing a policeman and five civilians, a local police officer said.