Afghanistan: Blast kills 7 civilians in east

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — An explosion killed seven Afghan villagers Sunday as they tried to pull bodies of insurgents killed from the rubble of a village mosque after a night raid by NATO and Afghan troops in the country's east, officials said. Four insurgents and an Afghan soldier were also reported to have been killed.
The predawn operation in Sayedabad district was aimed at capturing a Taliban fighter who had holed up in a village, said Wardak province spokesman Shahidullah Shahid . The international and Afghan forces captured their target but came under attack from insurgents, sparking a two-hour gunfight during which at least one large blast sounded, he said. Four insurgents were dead by the time fighting ended around 4:30 a.m.
Then at about 6 a.m. local time, residents came out to find the local mosque partly destroyed and started digging through the rubble to uncover bodies. Shahid says something exploded as they dug, killing seven civilians. He says the insurgents were wearing suicide vests, but it was not immediately clear if that caused the explosion.
A spokesman for international forces in Afghanistan confirmed that four insurgents were killed but did not have any immediate reports of civilian deaths.
"I am aware of reports that indicate there may have been civilians killed and ISAF and Afghan officials are assessing the situation to determine the facts," said Jamie Graybeal, a spokesman for the international military coalition in Afghanistan.
He said that there was no airstrike as part of the operation, but that the NATO and Afghan troops did discover a large cache of weapons, which they destroyed there on the site, causing a large explosion.
The NATO force said in a statement that an Afghan soldier was also killed in the operation.

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6 arrested in new rape of a bus passenger in India

NEW DELHI (AP) — Police said Sunday they have arrested six suspects in another gang rape of a bus passenger in India, four weeks after a brutal attack on a student on a moving bus in the capital outraged Indians and led to calls for tougher rape laws.
Police officer Raj Jeet Singh said a 29-year-old woman was the only passenger on a bus as she was traveling to her village in northern Punjab state on Friday night. The driver refused to stop at her village despite her repeated pleas and drove her to a desolate location, he said.
There, the driver and the conductor took her to a building where they were joined by five friends and took turns raping her throughout the night, Singh said.
The driver dropped the woman off at her village early Saturday, he said.
Singh said police arrested six suspects on Saturday and were searching for another.
Gurmej Singh, deputy superintendent of police, said all six admitted involvement in the rape. He said the victim was recovering at home.
Also on Saturday, police arrested a 32-year-old man for allegedly raping and killing a 9-year-old girl two weeks ago in Ahmednagar district in western India, the Press Trust of India news agency reported. Her decomposed body was found Friday.
Police officer Sunita Thakare said the suspect committed the crime seven months after his release from prison after serving nine years for raping and murdering a girl in 2003, PTI reported Sunday.
The deadly rape of a 23-year-old student on a New Delhi bus in December led to the woman's death and set off an impassioned debate about what India needs to do to prevent such tragedies. Protesters and politicians have called for tougher rape laws, police reforms and a transformation in the way the country treats women.
"It's a very deep malaise. This aspect of gender justice hasn't been dealt with in our nation-building task," Seema Mustafa, a writer on social issues who heads the Center for Policy Analysis think tank, said Sunday.
"Police haven't dealt with the issue severely in the past. The message that goes out is that the punishment doesn't match the crime. Criminals think they can get away it," she said.
In her first published comments, the mother of the deceased student in the New Delhi attack said Sunday that all six suspects in that case, including one believed to be a juvenile, deserve to die.
She was quoted by The Times of India newspaper as saying that her daughter, who died from massive internal injuries two weeks after the attack, told her that the youngest suspect had participated in the most brutal aspects of the rape.
Five men have been charged with the physiotherapy student's rape and murder and face a possible death penalty if convicted. The sixth suspect, who says he is 17 years old, is likely to be tried in a juvenile court if medical tests confirm he is a minor. His maximum sentence would be three years in a reform facility.
"Now the only thing that will satisfy us is to see them punished. For what they did to her, they deserve to die," the newspaper quoted the mother as saying.
Some activists have demanded a change in Indian laws so that juveniles committing heinous crimes can face the death penalty.
The names of the victim of the Dec. 16 attack and her family have not been released.

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Roadside bomb kills 14 Pakistani soldiers

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan (AP) — A roadside bomb hit a Pakistani army convoy Sunday in a mountainous militant stronghold in the northwest, killing 14 soldiers, one of the deadliest attacks against the army in that sector, intelligence officials said.
The North Waziristan tribal area is a major trouble spot that the military has been reluctant to tackle. The remote region is home to Pakistani Taliban and al-Qaida militants at war with the government. It is also used as a sanctuary by other militants who have focused their attacks in neighboring Afghanistan.
The attack Sunday occurred near Dosalli village in North Waziristan, said Pakistani intelligence officials. The blast destroyed two vehicles and damaged a third, they said.
The 14 dead and 20 wounded were brought to a military hospital in the nearby town of Miran Shah, the officials said.
Pakistani military officials confirmed the bombing but said four soldiers were killed and 11 others wounded. The discrepancy could not immediately be reconciled.
Then officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters.
The Pakistani military is worried that if it targets its enemies in North Waziristan, that could trigger a backlash whereby other militants in the area turn against Pakistan. The most powerful group in the area, the Afghan Haqqani network, is also believed to be seen by the army as a potential ally in Afghanistan after foreign forces withdraw, making a military offensive even more complicated.
North Waziristan has been a sore point in relations between Pakistan and the United States. Washington has repeatedly pushed Islamabad to launch an operation in the area, especially against the Haqqani network, considered one of the most dangerous groups fighting in Afghanistan. But Pakistan has refused.
North Waziristan has also become an increasing problem for Pakistan. It is the only part of the tribal region where the army has not conducted an offensive, and many Pakistani Taliban militants have fled there to escape army operations. The Taliban and their allies have staged hundreds of attacks across Pakistan that have killed thousands of people.
One of those allies, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, carried out a twin bombing at a billiards hall in the southwest city of Quetta on Thursday that killed 86 people. The attack targeted minority Shiite Muslims, whom many radical Sunnis consider heretics.
Thousands of Shiites protested in Quetta for a third day Sunday, pressing their demands for greater security by blocking a main road with dozens of coffins of relatives killed in the attack on the billiards hall.
Pakistani Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf traveled to Quetta on Sunday and met with representatives from the Shiite community in an attempt to pacify the protesters, said Dawood Agha, who attended the meeting.
The country's religious affairs minister failed the day before to persuade them to bury those killed in attack.
The group is demanding that the provincial government be dismissed and the army take over responsibility for the city, Shiite leader Ibrahim Hazara said.
On Saturday the prime minister ordered authorities to give policing powers to paramilitary forces in Quetta to improve law and order, but the move did not appear to satisfy the protesters.
More than 400 Shiites died in attacks in Pakistan in 2012, the deadliest year in history for the minority sect, according to Human Rights Watch. The rights group has accused the government of not doing enough to protect Shiites.
Also Sunday, a Pakistani cleric and thousands of his supporters left the eastern city of Lahore on a "long march" to demand sweeping election reforms before national elections expected this spring.
Police officer Suhail Sukhera estimated the crowd to be at least 15,000. They left for Islamabad in hundreds of buses, cars and trucks. Some waved flags and pictures of the 61-year-old Sunni Muslim cleric, while others shouted, "Revolution is our goal, brave and religious leader Qadri."
Critics of Qadri, who returned last month after years in Canada, are worried he is bent on derailing elections, possibly at the behest of the country's powerful military — allegations the cleric has denied.
Qadri has a large following that extends outside Pakistan and has a reputation for speaking out against terrorism and promoting his message through hundreds of books, an online television channel and videos.
Now, Qadri's focus is on Pakistan's election laws. He is suggesting vaguely worded changes, such as making sure candidates are honest as well as ending exploitation and income disparities so that poor people are free to vote for whomever they want.
His plan to hold a massive rally in Islamabad on Monday has alarmed many members of Pakistan's political system. The government has deployed a large number of police throughout the capital and set up shipping containers to block protesters from reaching sensitive areas.
Qadri accused the provincial government of Punjab, where Lahore is the capital, of harassing his supporters Sunday to make it difficult for them to participate in the march.
"These negative tactics will not work, and God willing the march will reach Islamabad with a sea of people," Qadri told reporters.

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