Indonesian police Saturday were studying DNA evidence from the remains of two suicide bombers who carried out twin attacks on luxury Jakarta hotels, as security was tightened across the country.
Suspected Islamist suicide bombers detonated powerful devices at the Ritz-Carlton and JW Marriott hotels in an upmarket business district Friday, leaving nine dead and up to 50 injured including at least 18 foreigners.
A New Zealand businessman was confirmed dead and Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith, who is due in Jakarta later Saturday, said he feared the worst for three missing Australians, including diplomat Craig Senger.
BAGHDAD – Suicide bombers struck two Shiite mosques in Baghdad on Thursday, killing at least 24 people and wounding dozens during celebrations marking the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
To the north, suspected Shiite militiamen gunned down six members of a Sunni family, including women and children, police reported.
Those attacks occurred four days after a series of explosions killed 32 people and wounded nearly 100 in Shiite areas of Baghdad, raising fears that al-Qaida in Iraq is trying to provoke Sunni-Shiite reprisal killings now that the last of the American “surge” troops have left the country.
ALGIERS (AFP) – Three people were killed and six others were wounded in a suicide attack near the Algerian capital, APS news agency quoted security officials as saying on Monday.
The bomber blew up his car packed with explosives near the town of Dellys, about 40 kilometres (20 miles) east of Algiers, late Sunday at the end of the daily Ramadan fast.
APS did not indicate who might have been targeted in the attack.
The lives of those injured were not in danger, the report said.
JERUSALEM, Sept. 23 (Xinhua) — Over a dozen Israeli soldiers and some civilians were wounded here late Monday night when a Palestinian man steered a car into a crowd, said police and rescue workers.
The driver was shot dead at the scene by a military officer in the incident, which happened around 11:00 p.m. (2000 GMT) at a busy intersection just outside the Old City, said the police, terming it a terrorist attack.
A total of 15 soldiers and four civilians were wounded and rushed into hospital for treatment, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told Xinhua at the spot. The Magen David Adom rescue service reported that two of them were in serious conditions.
Rescuers picked their way yesterday through the smouldering ruins of the Marriott hotel in Islamabad, looking for more bodies after a huge bomb devastated the building in one of Pakistan’s worst terrorist attacks.
The death toll last night stood at 53, with 266 wounded, after a bomber blew up a lorry containing 600kg of explosive on Saturday evening. The corpse of Ivo Zdarek, the Czech Ambassador, was among the bodies pulled from the rubble. Mr Zdarek, 47, only moved to Islamabad in August. Two Americans, said to be US Defence Department employees, were also killed in the blast but their identities were not revealed.
The blast came after dusk on Saturday, when hundreds of people were dining in several restaurants inside the hotel. Closed-circuit TV footage showed the driver of the lorry ramming into the hotel’s security gates but failing to breach a second barrier.
JAKARTA: A bomb exploded Sunday near an airport built by a U.S. gold mining giant in Indonesia’s Papua Province, the police said. No one was hurt and there was little damage.
The blast about a kilometer from the runway at Moses Kilangin airport came days after two mortars were detonated on a road leading to the massive mine operated by Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold.
“Whoever did this is trying to create unrest and to get international attention,” the region’s police chief, Major General Bagus Ekodanto, said as an anti-terrorism unit and bomb squad rushed to the scene.
Papua is home to separatist rebels who have long denounced the mine operated by PT Freeport Indonesia, a subsidiary of the New Orleans company. They see it as a symbol of Jakarta’s rule over the region.
BAGHDAD: Eight people were killed and 25 wounded Wednesday in double bombings in a busy section of central Baghdad filled with currency exchange shops and medical clinics, according to an official with the Interior Ministry.
The first bomb exploded at about 11:20 a.m. and appears, according to several witnesses, to have been placed in a pickup truck that belonged to Raad al-Maliki, a former member of the local municipal council and owner of one of the money-changing businesses that dot the area. Maliki, who was inside his shop at the time, survived the bombing.
About five minutes after the first blast, a second bomb planted next to a kiosk that sells cigarettes and soft drinks about 100 meters away exploded. Iraqi and U.S. soldiers immediately cordoned off the area and cut off traffic.
Smashed storefronts, burned vehicle remains and scattered debris were reminiscent of scenes Baghdad residents have been eager to forget.
Heavily armed militants opened fire on the United States Embassy in Sana, Yemen, on Wednesday and detonated a car bomb at its gates, in an attack that left at least 16 people dead including six of the attackers, Yemeni officials said.
No Americans were killed or wounded in the blast or when guards began to return fire, said a Yemeni official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter.
Yemeni security officials and witnesses said the death toll was at least 16, including four bystanders, one of them an Indian woman. The other dead were six attackers and six security guards, the Yemeni officials said, speaking in return for anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters.
Yemen’s official Saba news agency also reported that 16 people were killed.
At least seven people were killed and more than 70 hurt when blasts tore through crowds celebrating independence day, Mexican authorities have said.
The explosions happened shortly before midnight, as people gathered in the centre of the western city of Morelia.
Local media reports suggest they may have been caused by grenades.
The city is the capital of Michoacan, a state hit by a wave of drug gang violence in recent years. It is not known who was behind Monday’s blasts.
At least 22 people have been killed and 32 wounded by a female suicide bomber who blew herself at a police gathering in Iraq’s Diyala province, police say.
The guests were attending an Iftar banquet, when Muslims break their fast during the month of Ramadan, in Balad Ruz, 70km (45 miles) north of Baghdad.
Officials told the BBC the party was being held by a policeman to celebrate his recent release from US detention.
Earlier, two car bombs exploded in central Baghdad, killing 12 people.
The blasts were in the busy Karrada district, near a courthouse and passport office.
