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One-third of Gaza dead, injured are children: UN

AP, United Nations

Palestinian children are dying at a heavy rate in the Israeli-Hamas fighting - about one of every three persons killed, according to Gaza statistics.

As of Thursday, 257 children were among the approximately 760 reported dead in Gaza. There were another 1,080 children among the 3,100 injured in the conflict, according to statistics from Gaza's health ministry.

The U.N.'s top humanitarian official, John Holmes, described the numbers as "credible" and deeply disturbing. U.N officials say about half of the casualties were civilians.

Holmes and John Ging, head of Gaza operations for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, both expressed anger and regret at their decision Thursday to temporarily suspend aid shipments in the Gaza Strip because it was too risky for their aid workers."It's particularly distressing and horrifying that the current casualties seem to be increasingly civilian casualties, with an increasing incidence of whole families being buried in houses which have been hit," Holmes said.

Ann Veneman, executive director of the U.N. children's agency, UNICEF, warned the suspension of aid would put children even more in harm's way.

"This can only deepen an already critical humanitarian situation and put children at even greater risk of death or permanent damage. The distribution of food, water, fuel and medicine should not be impeded," she said.

The Israeli military said in a statement that it cooperates closely with foreign aid groups to help civilians, and said Hamas uses civilians as human shields.

The decision to suspend aid deliveries in Gaza came after Israeli strikes killed two drivers for UNRWA and injured a third in marked vehicles, U.N. officials say.

In all, four of UNRWA's Gaza staff have been killed since Israel launched a major attack on Hamas 13 days ago, according to the U.N. UNRWA said its deliveries of food have served as a "lifeline" for 750,000 Palestinian refugees in Gaza.

Holmes cited another incident in which a U.N. convoy of two armored vehicles and an ambulance were "targeted by small-arms fire during its passage" Thursday, even though its movement was "agreed in advance" by the Israeli authorities.

The World Health Organization said Gaza's health services were "on the point of collapse" - the hospitals overwhelmed, health care workers exhausted. It said the dead included 21 medical personnel, 30 more were injured and 11 ambulances have been struck by attacks.

The Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross, or ICRC, accused Israel Thursday of "unacceptable" delays in letting rescue workers reach three Gaza City homes hit by shelling where they found 15 dead and 18 wounded.

The wounded included young children too weak to stand, but the ICRC said the Israeli army refused to give permission for rescuers to reach the site in the Zeitoun neighborhood for four days and ambulances could not reach the neighborhood because the Israeli army erected large earthen barriers that blocked access.

Israel blamed the delay on fighting in the area.

Israel delayed access to Gaza wounded: Red Cross

AP, Geneva

The international Red Cross accused Israel on Thursday of "unacceptable" delays in letting rescue workers reach three Gaza City homes hit by shelling where they eventually found 15 dead and 18 wounded, including young children too weak to stand.

The Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross, or ICRC, said the Israeli army refused rescuers permission to reach the site in the Zeitoun neighborhood for four days. Ambulances could not get to the neighborhood because the Israeli army had erected large earthen barriers that blocked access.

Israel said the delay was caused by fighting in the area and accused Hamas of using Palestinian civilians as human shields. Since Wednesday, Israel has observed a daily three-hour halt in operations to allow humanitarian evacuations and aid deliveries throughout Gaza.

The ICRC normally conducts confidential negotiations with warring parties, and its accusation against Israel was a rare public criticism of one party in a conflict over a specific incident.

Eventually, rescuers from the international Red Cross and Palestine Red Crescent received permission to go into the shelled houses during the halt in fighting Wednesday, four days after the buildings were hit by Israeli shells.

"This is a shocking incident," Pierre Wettach, head of the ICRC for the region, said.

The rescue team "found four small children next to their dead mothers in one of the houses.

They were too weak to stand up on their own. One man was also found alive, too weak to stand up," the statement said. "In all, there were at least 12 corpses lying on mattresses" in one of the houses, it added.

The organization said the children and the wounded had to be transported by donkey cart to ambulances.

"The Israeli military must have been aware of the situation but did not assist the wounded," the international Red Cross said. "Neither did they make it possible for us or the Palestine Red Crescent to assist the wounded."

Two US soldiers among 14 killed in Afghan bombings

Reuters, Kabul

Two U.S. soldiers were killed in a suicide car bomb attack in a market in southern Afghanistan, NATO said Friday, adding the Taliban had claimed responsibility.

The attack happened Thursday beside a busy market in the Maywand district of Kandahar province and a district police chief told Reuters three civilians were also killed. NATO-led forces identified one dead civilian.

The attack also wounded 21 civilians.

"The bomber's target was a busy market. We strongly condemn this attack t This attack shows the real face of the Taliban, who have claimed responsibility for this barbaric action," General David McKiernan, commander of NATO-led troops in Afghanistan, said in a statement. NATO forces in Kabul said a Taliban spokesman posted a statement on a website, claiming responsibility. Kandahar, one of Afghanistan's most dangerous provinces, is home to the headquarters of NATO-led forces for their operations in the south, where more than 18,000 mainly Canadian, British, Dutch and U.S. troops are locked in a battle against a resurgent Taliban.

Heart report adds: A suicide bomber killed 10 civilians, a senior Afghan police officer and his bodyguard in southwest Afghanistan Friday, a provincial governor said.

At least 20 civilians were also wounded in the attack and the toll could rise further as casualties were still being pulled from the rubble of four shops destroyed in the blast in a market in Zaranj, the capital of Nimroz province, its governor Ghulam Dastegir-Azad told Reuters.

A Taliban spokesman said they had carried out the attack, which he said killed eight policemen, including two police commanders. The Taliban often exaggerate the number of security forces they have killed.

The attack comes a day after two U.S. soldiers and a senior Afghan policeman were killed by a Taliban suicide bomber in the southern province of Kandahar.

Late Thursday, a car packed with explosives was detonated beside a busy market in the Maiwand district of Kandahar, killing two U.S. soldiers, NATO said.

Some 21 civilians were also wounded by the blast and a district police chief told Reuters three civilians were also killed, while NATO said one civilian had been killed.

More than 18,000 mainly Canadian, British, Dutch and U.S. troops are based in southern Afghanistan, locked in a fierce battle against a resurgent Taliban.

The United States is planning to send more than 20,000 troops to Afghanistan in the next six months, most of them to the south, the birthplace of the Taliban.

40 killed in Pakistan slum fire

AFP, Karachi

At least 40 people were killed, more than half of them children, when a fire tore through dozens of homes in a shanty town in Pakistan's largest city Karachi, officials said Friday.

Initial reports indicated the blaze in the teeming southern port city was sparked by a power wire that fell onto the roofs of the huts, said the health minister of Sindh province, Saghir Ahmed.

City police official Majid Dasti told AFP that investigators were also looking into the possibility that residents had started a small fire to beat the cold, and that the wind whipped the flames out of control.

Twenty-two children were killed in the blaze, which broke out just before midnight (1900 GMT Thursday) when most residents were asleep, city police Waseem Ahmad said.

Two people died in hospital in the hours after the fire, taking the toll to 40, Ahmad said.

More than 20 people were injured, some of them suffering severe burns, said Mashhood Zafar, an official at the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital in Karachi.

An AFP photographer at the scene said more than 30 huts had been gutted in the massive blaze. The provincial health minister said the huts destroyed had been home to about 200 people.

"This is just a catastrophe. I have lost everything. My life is destroyed," said weeping survivor Mohammed Khan, whose wife and two children were killed.

Thick black smoke could be seen rising from the scene of the blaze in Karachi, Pakistan's commercial capital on the Arabian sea which is home to more than 12 million people.

Some residents wept as others desperately combed through the ruins looking for survivors.

Illinois House on verge of impeaching Blagojevich

AP, Springfield

Gov. Rod Blagojevich faces almost certain impeachment by the Illinois House, a historic step that would trigger a trial to determine whether the Democratic governor should be tossed out of office.

A simple majority vote will be enough to impeach. With Blagojevich defenders almost impossible to find, the outcome appears set.

The governor seemed to acknowledge the inevitable when he issued a statement Thursday night that looked past the House vote and predicted a different outcome in the subsequent Senate trial.

His statement criticized the hearings leading up to the House vote as unfair and biased.

A House committee has been studying the possibility of impeachment since shortly after the governor's arrest on federal corruption charges. On Thursday, the 21-member panel unanimously recommended impeachment, saying Blagojevich has abused his power and mismanaged the state.

"He's mortally wounded politically and cannot lead our state. His political life is over," said Rep. Jack Franks, a Democrat.

Wasting no time, House Speaker Michael Madigan scheduled a vote for the following morning.

"The people of the state want us to move forward with all due speed, providing that there will be a protection of constitutional rights," Madigan said.

Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn, who would take over if Blagojevich is ousted, said it's time for the governor to "face reality" and give up his office.

"That's what President Nixon did back in 1974 during another ordeal that our country faced. In this case, our state has been put under an ordeal for a month. It is time to put an end to it," Quinn said.

13 killed Iraq violence

Reuters, Baghdad

At least 13 killed in different incidents in Iraq.

A roadside bomb targeting an Iraqi Army patrol killed five Iraqi soldiers Friday in the northern town of Baiji, 180 km (110 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

It was the second lethal attack on an army convoy in northern Iraq in two days. At around midnight Wednesday, two roadside bombs hit a patrol in a village in Iraq's volatile Diyala province, north of Baghdad, killing five and wounding eight.

Earlier report adds: Two simultaneous roadside bombs tore through an Iraqi army patrol responding to a mortar attack Thursday north of Baghdad, killing 8 Iraqi soldiers, police said. Two other Iraqi soldiers died in another blast near the city of Kirkuk.

Rebel bombing kills 7 in east Sri Lanka

AP, Colombo

Sri Lankan troops battled to force the Tamil Tigers out of their last remaining strongholds in the north, while the rebels detonated a roadside bomb in the east that killed seven people, the military said Friday.

The attack outside the eastern city of Trincomalee signaled that the rebels were turning to guerrilla tactics to attack the military. The government captured the east from the rebels in 2007, but attacks in the area have increased in recent months.

On Friday, the rebels triggered a roadside bomb as a convoy escorted by the troops passed by, said military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara. The bomb killed three air force troops and four civilians and injured six others, he said.

Rebel officials could not be contacted for comment.

Meanwhile, the soldiers who captured the rebels' administrative capital of Kilinochchi last week pushed eastward from the town toward new rebel defense lines, Nanayakkara said.

Soldiers fought the rebels Thursday in two villages and found the bodies of seven insurgents, Nanayakkara said.

Military forces were also closing in on the strategic rebel base at Elephant Pass, the gateway to the northern Jaffna peninsula. Most of Jaffna, the cultural capital of the country's ethnic minority Tamils, is in government hands, though the rebels retain a shrinking stronghold on the peninsula's southern edge.

On Thursday, troops sweeping in from the north overran the rebel base at Pallai on the peninsula and then marched on, capturing Sorampattu, several miles (kilometers) to the south, the military said.

Pakistan fires national security adviser

AP, Islamabad

Pakistan's decision to fire its national security adviser has exposed cracks within the shaky, civilian government as it faces growing U.S. and Indian pressure to punish the alleged plotters of the Mumbai terrorist attacks.

The move against Mahmood Ali Durrani, a former ambassador to Washington and a proponent of close ties with India, came hours after he and other top officials told reporters that the sole surviving Mumbai attacker was a Pakistani citizen. A spokesman for Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said Durrani was fired late Wednesday because "he gave media interviews on national security issues without consulting the prime minister."

Indian media quoted Durrani as saying earlier that Mohammed Ajmal Kasab was Pakistani, while other top Pakistani officials separately confirmed it to media outlets. There was no sign that the other officials would also be fired, suggesting that Durrani's ouster was caused by other, unpublicized reasons.

India had long alleged that Kasab - along with nine other militants who died during the siege - were Pakistani. Islamabad's refusal to acknowledge this was seen as a sign it was not prepared to follow through on vows to crack down on the organizers of the November attacks.

Doubts over Pakistan's commitment have been fueled by suspicions that the attackers were from Lashkar-e-Taiba - a militant group created by Pakistani intelligence agencies in the 1980s to fight Indian rule in Kashmir, a Himalayan region claimed by both countries and the trigger for two of their three wars since 1947.

Some analysts say the group maintains ties to the powerful military-run spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence and that the government cannot act too aggressively against it as a result.

The United States is pushing for Islamabad to dismantle Lashkar and other militant groups, but does not want to destabilize the pro-Western government while al-Qaida and Taliban militants gain strength close to the Afghan border.

Durrani, a former general, had advocated improving India-Pakistan ties and was seen by some critics as too pro-American. There had been no public sign or media speculation in recent days that he was on his way out.

Indian PM says terrorism, extremism won't destabilise country

AFP, New Delhi

Indian Premier Manmohan Singh said Thursday that India would work with the international community to deny militants "launching pads" for attacks, and that they would not destabilise the country.

"There are some who would not like to see India succeed but we have shown over and over that we will not allow the forces of terrorism and extremism to destabilise our economy and society," Singh told a gathering in Chennai.

Earlier this week New Delhi gave Islamabad what it said was evidence that the gunmen behind the November attacks on Mumbai had direct instructions from elements in Pakistan. After weeks of denial, Pakistan on Wednesday confirmed that the lone surviving gunman from the siege, Mohammed Ajmal Amir Iman, also known as Kasab, was a Pakistani citizen.

India's foreign minister criticised what he said was inconsistent and vague statements coming from Pakistan.

"We have seen a consistent flip-flop in the reaction of the government in Islamabad," Pranab Mukherjee told the same meeting in Chennai.

He also slammed Pakistan's "recalcitrance" in bringing to justice its nationals accused of involvement in the Mumbai attacks.

India has said that diplomacy is the best way to convince Pakistan to crack down on Islamic militancy, but tensions between the two nuclear-armed rivals have nonetheless escalated since the events in Mumbai, which killed 165 people.