The New Nation - Internet Edition

28 killed in Baghdad market bombings

Reuters, Baghdad

A pair of car bombs exploded in central Baghdad Monday and a suicide bomber blew himself up among police and civilians who rushed to help the wounded, in a triple strike that killed 28 people and wounded 68, police said.

The attack, one of the deadliest incidents in Iraq for months, took place in the Kasra neighborhood on the east bank of the Tigris River in a bustling area of tea shops and restaurants near a fine arts institute.

Male and female students, many of whom were having breakfast at the time of the strike, were among the dead and wounded, as were Iraqi soldiers and police who had rushed to the scene.

Militants no longer control whole swathes of Iraq's towns and villages, and overall violence has decreased dramatically over the past year. But bomb attacks on civilian and military targets still occur daily.

Police said the first explosion was in a car. The second happened when a suicide bomber detonated an explosive belt in the middle of a crowd that had gathered around the vehicle.

Police officials giving the toll were unclear how many died in each blast and gave only an overall total.

Some police put the death toll at 25 with 45 wounded. Police officials who gave the toll spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not supposed to release the information.

Abbas Fadhil said he was working in a nearby restaurant that was damaged in the blasts.

"I rushed to the site and saw several girl students trapped in a bus and screaming for help. We took the girls outside the bus and rushed them to the hospitals," he said.

Ahmed Riyadh, 54, owner of a nearby grocery, said called it a "vicious attack" that "did not differentiate between Shiites and Sunnis."

"We are fed up with such attacks and we want only to live in peace," he said. "The politicians should work hard and set aside their differences to stop the bloodshed."

No group claimed responsibility for the blasts, the single deadliest attack in the Iraqi capital in weeks.

But suicide attacks against Shiite civilians are the hallmark of al-Qaida in Iraq, which maintains a limited presence in Baghdad despite military setbacks and the Sunni revolt against the terror movement last year.

Violence is down significantly in Baghdad since the worst of the Sunni-Shiite fighting in 2006 and 2007.

In recent weeks, however, there appears to have been an uptick in small-scale bombings during the morning rush hour - targeting Iraqi police and army patrols, government officials heading for work or commuters, in an attempt to undermine public confidence.

At least 24 people were killed Oct. 2 in suicide attacks against two Shiite mosques in Baghdad. A string of explosions Sept. 28 in mostly Shiite areas of Baghdad killed at least 32 people and wounded nearly 100.

The continuing attacks show the determination of extremist groups to continue the fight against the U.S.-backed government and lie behind U.S. military concern about drawing down the 151,000-member U.S. military force too quickly.

A still unratified security agreement with the U.S. would keep American soldiers here until 2012.

President-elect Barack Obama has pledged to withdraw all combat troops within 16 months of taking office Jan. 20, although he has said he would consult with the Iraqi government and U.S. commanders before ordering any drawdown.

US-led air strike kills 37 Afghan civilians

Reuters, Kabul

A joint Afghan-U.S. investigation has found that an air strike last week killed 37 civilians and wounded 35 after Taliban militants used the victims' village as cover for an ambush, the U.S. military said.

President Hamid Karzai said after the incident that mounting civilian casualties was the biggest source of tension with his main backer, the United States.

He called on President-elect Barack Obama to make it his priority to stop the killing of innocent bystanders.

A string of mistaken U.S. air strikes this year has killed at least 150 Afghan civilians, undermining public support for the continued presence of more than 60,000 NATO-led and U.S. coalition troops in Afghanistan.

Villagers told investigators a large number of insurgents arrived at the village of Wech Baghtu, in southern Afghanistan, and used homes to fire on a joint patrol of U.S.-coalition and Afghan forces, the U.S. military said in a statement.

The militants prevented people from fleeing, the statement released late on Saturday said.

The patrol "was taking accurate fire from the high ground and was separated from its relief unit by an improvised roadblock, and used close air support to suppress enemy fire," it said.

NATO and the U.S. military accuse the Taliban of deliberately launching attacks from within populated areas in order to provoke a response that kills civilians.

"We regret this tragic loss of innocent lives and express our condolences to the families and to the people of Afghanistan," U.S. forces spokesman Colonel Greg Julian said in the statement.

In a separate incident, the governor of the eastern province of Khost said an air strike killed 14 Afghan security guards working for a road construction project.

But the U.S. military said instead that 14 suspected insurgents had opened fire when troops attempted to stop their vehicle. U.S.-led coalition forces shot back and, aided by fire from a helicopter, killed them.

A joint investigation with the Afghan Interior Ministry has been launched into the incident, Julian said.

Indian troops kill 11 in Kashmir

AFP, Srinagar

Indian security forces shot dead 11 suspected Muslim militants in fighting over the weekend in the disputed Kashmir region, police said Sunday.

Five militants were killed in Poonch district, close to the de facto border between India and Pakistan, a police official said, while four others were killed in the southern district of Doda.

Kashmir is in the grip of a 19-year insurgency against New Delhi's rule that has left more than 43,000 people dead by the official count.

Violence has declined since India and Pakistan launched a peace process in 2004 to resolve all pending disputes, including on Kashmir-a scenic region they hold in part but claim in full.

"Security forces have fought pitched battles with militants at several places during the past two days," a police spokesman said.

"An army officer was wounded and nine militants were killed in firefights."

Officials say clashes between Indian troops and Muslim militants have intensified as militants descend on to the plains to avoid the icy winters of the Himalayan mountain tops.

Multi-stage elections are due to start from Nov. 17 in Kashmir, which has witnessed for the past several months some of the biggest anti-India protests since a separatist revolt against New Delhi's rule broke out in the region in 1989.

Kashmiri separatists demanding an end to Indian rule in the region have called for a complete boycott of the elections.

New front opens in Congo amid fears of wider conflict

AFP, Kinshasa

Fighting between rebels and pro-government forces opened up on new front in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, as southern African nations said they were ready to send in peacekeepers.

As Kinshasa warned it may deploy Angolan troops, raising fears of igniting the volatile Great Lakes region, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) said it was prepared to provide assistance to the DRC armed forces.

The clashes on the borders of the two provinces of Nord-Kivu and Sud-Kivu started before dawn on Sunday and prompted thousands of people to flee, the United Nations said.

The fighting that has erupted in August with rebels led by renegade Tutsi general Laurent Nkunda, in violation of a January ceasefire, had so far been limited to Nord-Kivu.

Tomaz Salomao, the head of SADC, told reporters after a summit meeting in Johannesburg that the region backed calls for a ceasefire and the creation of a humanitarian corridor.

"SADC should immediately provide assistance to the armed forces of DRC," he said, reading out the summit's communique.

"SADC will not stand by and witness any destructive acts of violence by any armed groupst and if necessary will send peacekeeping forces," he said.

Salomao said a military advisory team would be deployed immediately to lend advice to the DRC's armed forces, while another team would be sent to evaluate the situation on the ground to determine what other help might be needed.

Lanka rejects latest Tiger truce offer

Reuters, Colombo

Sri Lanka's government rejected the latest Tamil Tiger truce offer out of hand on Monday, again demanding the separatist rebels surrender or be destroyed.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eeelam (LTTE) over the weekend reiterated what they say is a longstanding desire for a truce in the 25-year-old war, one of Asia's longest insurgencies. The government has previously called the offer disingenuous.

In parliament, Agriculture Minister Maithripala Sirisena repeated President Mahinda Rajapaksa's stance, which has been in place since the government scrapped a 2002 ceasefire in January after accusing the LTTE of using it to rearm.

"The government will not go for a ceasefire with the LTTE. We will not have any form of discussion with the LTTE. We have already told them to lay down arms and there is no change in our stand," Sirisena told the legislature.

Sirisena is the latest government official targeted by a Tiger suicide bomber. He escaped harm in a suicide blast that hit his convoy on Oct. 9 in Colombo, which killed one person and injured five including his deputy.

Diplomats say the government has little incentive to negotiate right now, since their military offensive appears to have put the rebels on their heels as it nears the LTTE's headquarters town of Kilinochchi.

And the Tigers have less diplomatic traction in the post-Sept. 11 world since they are on U.S., E.U. and Indian terrorism lists, a point Sri Lanka's government has increasingly pressed in its foreign relations.

Blair urges Obama to make Mideast peace a priority

AFP, London

The international community's envoy on the Middle East peace process Tony Blair on Sunday urged US president-elect Barack Obama to make peace between Jews and Palestinians a priority.

The former prime minister said negotiations on a peace deal required the "energy, commitment and dedication" of the new president. Speaking to BBC radio after a meeting of the Middle East Quartet in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, Blair said: "There is a foundation on which a new American administration and a new Israeli prime minister, with the Palestinians and ourselves in the international community, can build. "What we've got to do is move it forward with the energy and the commitment and the dedication from the first day of the new American president that is necessary to achieve this."

Blair said the expectations of Obama were "immense".

He said: "In the conversations I've had with him, I think the thing that struck me is that he is a very thoughtful and intelligent person who understands that after the euphoriat there are some very hard choices and decisions to make.

"He's also somebody who has a genuine vision of how America can play a healing role in the world and has also some real sensitivity to the fact that people want America to do that."

Israelis, Palestinians reaffirm peace commitment

AP, Sharm El-Sheik

Israeli, Palestinian and international negotiators pledged Sunday to continue peace talks launched last year by President Bush, even though the quest for peace will certainly outlast his administration.

But future talks will be held in an increasingly uncertain terrain, with the prospect of a hawk coming to power in Israel's February parliamentary elections and deeply divided Palestinian factions controlling the West Bank and Gaza. It is also unclear how high Mideast peacemaking will figure on Barack Obama's agenda.

Despite the impending failure to meet the year-end target set at a November 2007 peace conference in Annapolis, Md., Israel and the Palestinians affirmed their commitment to the process.

The chief negotiators "asked that the international community support the parties' sustained efforts in the framework of the Annapolis process," the international diplomatic quartet of Mideast peacemakers said following several hours of talks at Egypt's Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheik.

At the same time, the Quartet - the United States, the United Nations, the EU and Russia - said in a joint statement that it "emphasized the importance of continuity of the peace process."

"I believe that the Annapolis process is now the international community's answer and the parties' answer to how we finally end the conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis," U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters after the talks.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat praised Sunday's meeting as a positive step toward making the peace process irreversible. But he also said Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, known as Abu Mazen, had warned Israel the next few months are a sensitive time.

China says no compromising on Tibet's future

Reuters, Beijing

The Dalai Lama's calls for "high-level autonomy" for Tibet will never be accepted by Beijing, a Chinese official said, taking an unbending line before talks by exiled Tibetans about the future of their cause.

Zhu Weiqun, a vice minister of the Chinese Communist Party's United Front Work Department, said Monday that envoys of the Dalai had pressed his long-standing demand for "genuine autonomy" for the mountain region during talks in Beijing last week.

Ahead of an agenda-setting meeting of exiled Tibetan activists, the Dalai's representatives gave their Chinese hosts a "Memorandum for all Tibetans to enjoy genuine autonomy." But Zhu's public response was unyielding. China would "never allow ethnic splitting in the name of genuine autonomy," he told a news conference.

"In fact, this is seeking a legal basis for so-called Tibetan independence, or semi-independence or covert independence," said Zhu, whose department oversees the ruling Party's dealings with religious organizations.

His remarks were Beijing's first detailed comment on the talks with envoys from October 31 to November 5, the ninth such discussions since 2002 and the first since the Beijing Olympic Games.

They also laid out China's stance ahead of the meeting of exiled Tibetans, some of whom embrace more radical demands going beyond their 73-year-old leader's ideas for autonomy.

"Contacts and talks failed to make progress, and they should assume full responsibility for it," Zhu added, referring to last week's meetings.