KABUL: Overnight fighting between Afghan police and insurgents in southern Afghanistan left 11 militants dead, officials said. Meanwhile, a NATO pilot was injured after his jet crashed following take off in the same region. Insurgents attacked the police post in Paktika province Wednesday evening and fighting raged for several hours, said Gen. Dawlat Khan, the provincial police chief. Eventually, international forces called in an air strike to help the officers. Eleven militants but no police were killed in the fighting, he said.In the southern Kandahar province, meanwhile, a British jet crashed on take off Thursday due to mechanical failure, said Lt. Cmdr Christopher Hall, a spokesman for the NATO-led force. The pilot was wounded after ejecting from the aircraft in Kandahar airfield, he said. ``There were no other passengers on board. At present we are not aware of any other casualties,'' Hall said.In another incident, police officers were again the target of an attack Thursday morning, when a suicide car bomber struck a police station in Kandahar province's Spin boldak district. Gen. Abdul Raziq, the border police district commander, said four officers were wounded in the blast. The Interior Ministry said a civilian was also wounded. The explosion killed the car bomber but there were no other deaths, Raziq said.
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...
Comments