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Bombs kill 57, wound 92 during Baghdad pilgrimage

AP, Baghdad

Three suicide bombers and a roadside bomb struck Shiite pilgrims taking part in a massive religious procession in Baghdad on Monday, killing at least 57 people and wounding 92, police said.

The attacks occurred in quick succession as tens of thousands of Shiite worshippers streamed toward a shrine in northern Baghdad for an annual event marking the death of an eighth-century saint. The event climaxes on Tuesday.

Police said there were indications that the suicide bombers were women. At least two children were among the dead, said police officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

The attacks took place in the mainly Shiite Karradah district, which is several miles away from the site of the pilgrimage in Kazimiyah, northern Baghdad. The majority of the dead were women and children, police and health officials said.

Mustapha Abdullah, a 32-year-old man who was injured in the stomach and legs, said the blasts took place when pilgrims from Baghdad's predominantly Shiite neighborhood of Zaafaraniyah reached the district's Kahramanah Square.

"I heard women and children crying and shouting and I saw burned women as dead bodies lay in pools of blood on the street," said Abdullah, speaking at the hospital where he was being treated.

Insurgents have increasingly been using women this year to stage suicide bombings in a bid to avoid security measures. Women are more easily able to hide explosives under their all-encompassing black Islamic robes, or abayas, and they often are not searched at checkpoints.

Security forces have deployed about 200 women volunteers this week to search female pilgrims near the Baghdad district of Kazimiyah, where the Shiite saint is buried in a golden domed shrine.

On Sunday, at least seven pilgrims were killed south of Baghdad in an ambush by gunmen near a Sunni town, Madain, south of the capital.

The marchers were commemorating the death in 799 A.D. of Imam Moussa ibn Jaafar al-Kadhim, one of the 12 principle Shiite imams.

Since the 2003 ouster of Saddam Hussein, who was a Sunni, Shiite political parties have encouraged huge turnouts at religious festivals to display the majority sect's power in Iraq. Sunni religious extremists have often targeted the gatherings to foment sectarian war, but that has not stopped the Shiites.

In 2005, at least 1,000 people were killed in a bridge stampede caused by rumors of a suicide bomber in Baghdad during the Kazimiyah pilgrimage.

But recent pilgrimages have been relatively peaceful as a U.S. troop buildup, a Sunni revolt against al-Qaida in Iraq and a Shiite militia cease-fire helped drive violence down to its lowest level in more than four years.

Sunday's ambush occurred in a former al-Qaida in Iraq stronghold that has been touted by the U.S. military as a success story with its streets now patrolled by U.S.-allied Sunni groups known as Awakening Councils.

The main Iraqi military spokesman in Baghdad, Brig. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, on Sunday said 100,000 Iraqi security forces will be deployed along with U.S. reinforcements and air support to protect the ceremonies in kazimiyah.

Vehicles have been banned from the area and most Baghdad bridges would be closed to traffic, al-Moussawi said, adding that pilgrims were banned from carrying weapons or cell phones - rules that have been widely flouted in the past.

The Kazimiyah ceremonies have in the past attracted around 1 million pilgrims. They have often been chaotic, with the task of protecting the pilgrims stretching police resources.

Bush to press Gilani on extremist attacks

AFP, Washington

US President George W. Bush will meet with Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Monday in an effort to press Islamabad to take a tougher stance against Pakistani-based Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants, who launch attacks against Afghanistan.

Bush said he was "troubled" by the movement of extremists from Pakistan to Afghanistan and would discuss the threat with Gilani, who is making his first White House visit since he took over the helm in March. Gilani is well aware of the stakes for the trip, which comes amid mounting fears that the US is prepared to launch military "hot pursuit" raids into Pakistan's troubled tribal belt in pursuit of extremists.

"It is in the interest of Pakistan to curb extremism and terrorism," Gilani told reporters before leaving for the three-day official visit. But he will be under pressure to explain his government's counterterrorism strategy-or, as some experts see, the lack of one.

"I think Gilani has his work cut out for him in terms of explaining how his government intends to get a handle on this problem, which is not only a Pakistani problem but a problem for the international community as well," said Lisa Curtis, a former State Department advisor and ex-CIA analyst.

Meanwhile, a suspected U.S. missile strike on a Pakistani madrasa killed six people, including foreigners, on Monday in tribal lands regarded as an al Qaeda and Taliban hotbed, intelligence officials said.

The target of the pre-dawn attack was a house close to a madrasa used by militants near Azam Warsak village, about 20 km (12 miles) west of Wana, the main town of the South Waziristan region bordering Afghanistan. The attack, one of many in recent months, was launched hours before Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani was due to meet President George W. Bush in Washington for talks.

that will focus on the conduct of the war against terrorism.

The United States, alarmed by rising casualties among Western forces in Afghanistan, wants Pakistan to do more to contain the al Qaeda and Taliban threat in its territory.

Istanbul bomb attacks kill 17

AFP, Istanbul

Two bombs exploded in a crowded Istanbul street, killing at least 17 people and wounding more than 150 hours before a key court hearing Monday that could result in a ban on Turkey's ruling party.

An opposition party leader said police believe separatist Kurdish rebels were behind the deadliest attack on civilians in Turkey since 2003 when 63 people were killed in suicide bombings in Istanbul blamed on the Al-Qaeda network.

The Turkish media said the attack late Sunday appeared to be in retaliation for a crackdown on the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan pledged a firm response to the "savagery".

The head of Istanbul's forensic medicine institute put the death toll at 17, while Health Minister Recep Akdag warned it could rise as seven people remain in critical condition.

The blasts raised tensions ahead of the start Monday of a crucial meeting of the Constitutional Court on whether to ban the ruling Justice and Development Party for undermining Turkey's secular system.

Both bombs were planted in concrete rubbish containers on a crowded street lined with shops and cafes in the popular Gungoren neighbourhood on Istanbul's European side, officials said.

A small bomb went off around 10:00 p.m. (1900 GMT) Sunday creating the initial panic.

A second, more powerful explosion followed about 10 minutes later, some 50 metres (yards) away, as passers-by and residents milled around the site of the first explosion.

The second bomb claimed all the lives, including that of a 12-year-old girl hit in the heart by a piece of shrapnel as she looked down on the street from her fourth-storey balcony, Anatolia news agency reported.

There were scenes of panic with people covered in blood fleeing the area littered with debris and shattered glass.

"People gathered after the first blast. There was a real crowd. Five to 10 minutes later there was another one, much stronger than the first," resident Alaattin Hatayoglu told Anatolia.

"The building I was in was shaking. People were wounded in a 40-metre radius," he said.

The authorities did not blame any group for the bombs, but main opposition leader Deniz Baykal, who met with officials handling the case, said the attack was believed to be the work of the PKK.

Indian PM visits bomb-hit city, more attacks feared

AFP, Ahmedabad

India's prime minister was to visit the bomb-hit city of Ahmedabad on Monday, as the entire country was on a high state of alert amid reports of more threats by a shadowy Islamist group.

Bombs ripped through 16 crowded places on Saturday-including markets, buses and hospitals struggling to treat the victims-killing at least 49 people in the commercial hub of western Gujarat state. About 160 people were injured in the attacks, police said.

Police on Monday were questioning several people but no arrests had been made, a senior official involved in the investigation told AFP. "Presently there are no arrests," said police official Ashish Bhatia. "Some interrogations are going on-the figure must be around 10 or so." Forensic reports confirmed the bombs were made from ammonium nitrate and fuel oil, Bhatia said. Many of the victims were peppered with red-hot nuts, bolts and ball bearings that were packed into the bombs, which were clearly designed to cause maximum casualties.

The police official added that the situation was now "totally normal" in the city-the scene of major Hindu-Muslim riots six years ago-ahead of the visit by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and ruling Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi.

The army, which was deployed after the attacks to avert any fresh religious riots, were taken off the streets Monday as life began to return to normal.

"It's been quiet for two days so my mother said it's all right to go to school," said 15-year-old Athar Kothawala as he walked to school.

A little-known group calling itself the "Indian Mujahedeen" claimed responsibility for the Ahmedabad bombs in an email sent minutes before the explosions began and also warned of repeat attacks elsewhere in India.

Radical Islam stirs in China’s remote west

Reuters, Kashgar

In a backstreet of the old Silk Road city of Kashgar, Chinese authorities have been spray-painting signs on dusty mud brick walls to warn against what it says is a new enemy-the Islamic Liberation Party.

Better known as Hizb ut-Tahrir, the group says its goal is to establish a pan-national Muslim state, or Caliphate.

China says Hizb ut-Tahrir are terrorists operating in the far western region of Xinjiang, home to some 8 million Muslim, Turkic-speaking Uighurs, many of whom chafe under Chinese rule.

But the group and some observers say it does not espouse violence and accuse China of playing up the threat as an excuse to further crack down in restive Xinjiang, especially ahead of the Beijing Olympics.

"Strike hard against the Islamic Liberation Party" and "The Islamic Liberation Party is a violent terrorist organization" read the signs in Kashgar, written in red in both Chinese and Uighur's Arabic-based script.

Residents passing by appear to pay little heed to the notices, accustomed to barrages of government propaganda denouncing "splittism," "illegal religious activities" and calling for ethnic unity and harmony.

"I don't know what that group is," said one Uighur, who declined to give his name, shaking his head and scurrying away.

As in another strife-hit Chinese region, Tibet, many Uighurs resent the growing economic and cultural impact of Han Chinese who have in some cases been encouraged by the government to move to far-flung and under-populated parts of the country.

Beijing accuses militant Uighurs of working with al Qaeda to use terror to bring about an independent state called East Turkestan.

The government says it has foiled several Xnjiang-based plots this year to launch attacks during or in the run-up to the Games, including one which apparently would see athletes targeted by suicide bombers or be kidnapped.

But the emergence of Hizb ut-Tahrir is a recent phenomenon in Xinjiang.

Iran should take US seriously, says Obama

Reuters, Chicago

Presidential candidate Barack Obama said President George W. Bush's decision to send a senior diplomat to nuclear talks with Iran was a substantive move and should be taken seriously by Tehran.

Obama, a Democrat, has been highly critical in the past of Bush's policies toward Iran and has promised that if elected he would pursue a policy of greater engagement aimed at persuading Tehran to abandon its nuclear enrichment program.

But in a rare signal of solidarity with the current Republican administration, Obama told a news conference in Paris on Friday that Iran should not wait for the next U.S. president to try to reach a deal over its nuclear program.

He also praised Bush's decision to send senior U.S. diplomat William Burns to talks in Geneva with Iranian officials.

"Bill Burns is a very serious guy. And the Iranians should take that gesture seriously," Obama told Reuters in an interview on Saturday as he flew back from a weeklong tour abroad.

Obama, who is running against Republican John McCain in the November election, is seeking to burnish his foreign policy credentials. He traveled to Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait, Jordan, Israel, Germany, France and Britain.

Iran was a key topic in many of the meetings he had with leaders of those countries.

Iran has refused demands to freeze sensitive atomic work the West fears is aimed at making bombs. Tehran says the nuclear program is aimed at the peaceful purposes of generating electricity.

Envoys from the United States, Russia, China, France, Germany and Britain-the so-called sextet of world powers-attended the Geneva meeting.

"I want the Bush administration to be successful in working with the Europeans to get Iran to stand down on its nuclear weapons program," Obama said.

Karadzic likely to be extradited today

AP, Belgrade

Radovan Karadzic's lawyer said he expected his client to be extradited before a Tuesday evening anti-government rally by ultranationalist supporters of the war crimes suspect.

The rally organizers - the right-wing Serbian Radical Party - plan to bus Karadzic's supporters from all over Serbia and Bosnia. There are fears of violence on Belgrade streets and that the ultranationalists will try to prevent Karadzic's extradition by force.

The war crimes court in Belgrade that is dealing with the case of the ex-Bosnian Serb leader said Monday that his appeal had not arrived by start of morning office hours.

Karadzic's lawyer Svetozar Vujacic said he mailed the appeal at the last possible moment late Friday, trying to delay Karadzic's extradition to the tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, for as long as possible.

Karadzic faces 11 charges at the U.N. tribunal, including genocide and conspiracy to commit genocide. He is accused of masterminding the 1995 slaughter of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica and the 3 ½ year siege of Sarajevo, which left 10,000 people dead.

Officials say the war crimes suspect was captured a week ago in Belgrade, where he lived under an assumed identity. His lawyer claims that Karadzic was kidnapped July 18 and held for three days by unknown captors.

Vujacic said late Sunday that he wants to prevent his client's extradition before the rally scheduled for Belgrade on Tuesday evening.

"They (the authorities) are using all illegal means to try send him to The Hague before the rally," Vujacic said.

"Karadzic and I want to make sure it does not happen before Tuesday," Vujacic said. "But we are unfortunately aware the extradition will take place" before the rally.

A spokeswoman for Serbia's war crimes court, Ivana Ramic, said the letter with Karadzic's appeal had not arrived by the start of working hours Monday.

Olmert doubts peace deal can come in 2008

AP, Jerusalem

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says he doesn't believe a peace accord can be reached with the Palestinians in 2008.

Speaking to the parliament's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Olmert says the status of Jerusalem is unlikely to be resolved that quickly.

A participant in the meeting says Olmert told the committee that there "is no practical chance" of reaching an overall understanding on Jerusalem this year.

At a U.S.-hosted peace conference last year, Israel and the Palestinians pledged to make all efforts to secure a peace deal by the end of President Bush's tenure in 2008.

Olmert added that on other core issues, like refugees and borders, the side were closer to each other.

Nepal's new president calls for end to political deadlock

AFP, Kathmandu

Nepal's first president on Sunday appealed for rival parties in the newly-republican nation to form a consensus government and end weeks of political deadlock, in his maiden address to the people.

"I hope the new government which is going to be formed soon will work in consensus and include all the political parties and bring policies and programmes that will benefit all," Ram Baran Yadav said in a televised address.

"We don't have any alternative other than maintaining our politics of consensus and reconciliation to bring the peace process to a logical conclusion," the new president said.Nepal has been without a proper government since May 28, when a newly-elected assembly that will write a new constitution for the Himalayan country abolished a 240-year-old monarchy and declared a republic. "We have an arduous task of drafting a new constitution in two years' time, so the need of the hour is to maintain unity among all the parties represented in the assembly," said Yadav, a 61-year-old former health minister.

Nepal's Maoists won over a third of the seats in April elections to the 601-seat constitutional assembly but have been unable to muster a majority to form a government on their own.

Despite earlier saying they would not head the government to lead the impoverished nation after their presidential candidate lost, they now say they are willing to lead a new administration if certain conditions are met.

The former rebels want the main rival political blocs to guarantee that no attempts will be made to topple their government for at least two years.

They also want the rival parties to agree to allow the Maoists to push through a "minimum programme."

The ex-rebels want to deliver sweeping reforms, including a major shake-up of what they see as a feudal land-ownership structure.

However, the two largest parties in the assembly after the Maoists, the centrist Nepali Congress and the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist, have rejected the Maoist demands.

Typhoon kills one in Taiwan, heads for China

Reuters, Taipei

A typhoon dumped up to 700 mm (28 ins) of rain on Taiwan on Monday, killing one person, injuring five, causing widespread flooding and closing businesses and financial markets.

Typhoon Fung-Wong, Chinese for phoenix, was expected to weaken into a tropical storm over the next 24 hours after it makes landfall in China.

In the Chinese provinces of Fujian and Zhejiang, authorities evacuated more than 340,000 people and called back 12,875 fishing boats. Ferry services between China and Taiwan were suspended.

At 0800 GMT, Taiwan's Central Weather Bureau had the storm moving northwest at 20 kph in the Taiwan Strait, with sustained winds of 119 kph and gusts of up to 155 kph, according to the CWB's Website (http://www.cwb.gov.tw).

The storm also prompted the issue of rough sea warnings and disrupted land and air traffic, leading to the suspension of most domestic rail service and cancellation of most domestic and some international flights into early Monday afternoon.

Tropical Storm Risk (http://www.tropicalstormrisk.com) said the typhoon would likely be downgraded to a tropical storm over the next day.

Fung-Wong is the second typhoon to hit Taiwan in the last two weeks. On July 18, typhoon Kalmaegi killed at least 20 people and caused extensive flooding, landslides and crop damage in the south and central part of the island.