Tuesday, July 14, 2009 KANDAHAR: A helicopter carrying civilian contractors working for foreign troops in Afghanistan crashed on Tuesday in the south of the country killing at least six people on board, NATO said. It was not immediately clear why the helicopter came down in the Sangin district of Helmand province, where US Marines, British and Afghan forces are pressing assaults against Taliban strongholds in the run-up to key elections. "At around 9:00 am (0430 GMT) this morning, a private helicopter has crashed outside Sangin military base.We have at least six people killed," said a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). "The passengers were all civilians," he added, speaking from the biggest NATO base in southern Afghanistan at Kandahar. Another ISAF spokesman said the aircraft was carrying civilian contractors, but their nationalities were not immediately known and it was not clear how many people were on board.
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