HEARAT: Afghan police said Wednesday that a US-led air strike killed six women and two children in western Afghanistan, but the US military said up to 15 militants died. The bodies of eight men were found after Monday's strike on the outskirts of the city of Herat, the police chief for western Afghanistan, Ikramuddin Yawar, told. Three of the men appeared to belong to the "armed opposition" but the identities of the other five were unclear, the police officer said. Those five bodies were found near the dead women and children, who were from a nomad tribe and killed close to their tents, he said."We sent a police and army team to investigate the incident. They reported back to me that six women and two children as well as eight men -- three of them in one location and five in another -- were killed," he told. "The women and children no doubt were civilians. Three of the men could be from the armed opposition, but we are not sure about who the other five were," Yawar added.The US military said in a statement that the strike targeted a key insurgent commander called Gholam Yahya Akbari. "Killed in the attack were up to 15 militants suspected of associating with Yahya," it said. The police chief said Yahya was not dead. The military said it had no official reports of civilian casualties. "However, when we receive confirmed reports of civilian deaths, we take those reports very seriously and investigate them along with our Afghan counterparts," said spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Rick Helmer.
BEIRUT: Thousands of people converged Saturday on central Beirut to mark the fourth anniversary of the assassination of Lebanese former premier Rafiq Hariri.Waving Lebanese flags and carrying pictures of the slain leader, men, women and children gathered under sunny skies in Martyr's Square where members of the parliamentary majority were to address the crowd. The rally comes as final preparations are underway in The Hague for the launch of the international tribunal set up to bring Hariri's killers to justice. It also comes as the country prepares for legislative elections in June that will pit Western-backed political parties against a Hezbollah-led alliance backed by Syria and Iran.Hariri died in a massive car bombing on February 14, 2005 that also killed 22 others. The assassination was widely blamed on then Lebanese power-broker Syria, which has denied any involvement. The attack on the Beirut seafront was one of the worst acts of political violence to rock Lebanon since t...
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