Suicide Bombings

A suicide bomber killed at least 25 people and wounded 70 others Friday in Diyala province, a troubled region northeast of Baghdad. The nighttime explosion tore through a crowded cafe frequented by Shiite Kurds. Rescuers had to sift through rubble in search of survivors, said witnesses and a police officer who provided the casualty figures. The attack bore the hallmarks of the militant group Al Qaeda in Iraq. Its probable intent was to escalate frictions in the province, with its mix of Shiite Arabs, Sunni Arabs and Shiite and Sunni Kurds.

A suicide bomber detonated explosives packed into a car outside a busy market in the volatile North Caucasus region Thursday, killing at least 16 people and injuring more than 100, officials said. The blast in Vladikavkaz occurred just before noon, when market activity was at its peak. A slow-moving sedan pulled up near the market's front gate and exploded, overturning cars and kiosks, and shattering windows in nearby houses, said Samir Sabatkoyev, spokesman for the Interior Ministry of Russia's North Ossetia republic.

A suicide bombing Friday targeting a Shiite Muslim procession in the southern city of Quetta killed 58 people and injured more than 100, police said. The explosion came two days after bomb attacks killed 35 people during a Shiite march in another Pakistani city. The Shiite procession near Meezan Square, a busy shopping area in the heart of Quetta, was to express solidarity with the Palestinian movement, said Malik Iqbal, inspector-general of the Baluchistan provincial police.

An Islamic militant group whose leader was recently executed by Iranian authorities claimed responsibility Friday for a devastating pair of bomb blasts the previous night that killed at least 27 people, including members of the elite Revolutionary Guard, and injured 270 others at a mosque in southeastern Iran. Jundallah, a Sunni organization that draws support from Iran's ethnic Baluch minority and inspiration from Osama bin Laden's extremist ideology, said it dispatched two suicide bombers to the mosque in the city of Zahedan during an evening prayer ceremony.

An Islamic militant group whose leader was recently executed by Iranian authorities claimed responsibility for a pair of late Thursday bomb blasts that killed at least 27 people, including members of the Revolutionary Guard, at a mosque in southeastern Iran. Jundollah, a militant group that draws support from Iran's ethnic Baluch minority, said it dispatched two suicide bombers to the mosque during an evening prayer ceremony in the city of Zahedan in order to kill members of the Revolutionary Guard and avenge the arrest and hanging last month of their leader, Abdolmalek Rigi.

A suicide car bomber struck a Western convoy on a busy road in the Afghan capital Tuesday, setting off a powerful blast that killed at least 18 people, including five American service members and a foreign soldier whose nationality was not immediately disclosed. The explosion, which occurred at 8 a.m. when many people were on their way to work, carved a deep crater in the road near a ruined imperial palace on the city's western edge, overturning cars and scattering shrapnel over a wide area.

Almost Dead A Novel Assaf Gavron Translated from the Hebrew by Assaf Gavron and James Lever HarperPerennial: 328 pp., $14.99 paper How great is Assaf Gavron's fourth novel, "Almost Dead"? The answer, I suppose, depends on how comfortable you are with the idea of a black comedy about suicide bombing, which is what this book is. That it's also more than that should go without saying, although in our culture, with its penchant for the sound bite, those textures run the risk of being overlooked.

The entire world was spooked by the March 29 attack by two Chechen "black widow" suicide bombers who killed 38 people in the Moscow subway. As far away as New York, police squads armed with assault weapons were deployed to prevent a copycat strike. There is no doubt that suicide attacks can be deadly -- and terrifying. But are they effective in furthering the larger goals of the attackers? Osama bin Laden & Co. would like us to think so. Jihadists crow that they "love death" while the West "loves life," giving them an insuperable advantage that no conventional army can overcome.

Taliban militants reeling from American and Pakistani attacks launched a sophisticated raid on the heavily guarded U.S. Consulate in Peshawar on Monday, killing at least five security personnel in suicide bomb blasts and barrages of grenades and automatic gunfire. The midday attack failed to penetrate the facility in the volatile city near the Afghan border, and none of the staff members were injured or killed. The consulate is instrumental in channeling millions of dollars in U.S. aid into Pakistan's impoverished tribal areas and the Swat Valley region, part of Washington's long-term strategy aimed at eliminating support for the Taliban.