Heavy firing erupts in Afghan city

Map of Afghanistan.

Taliban militants attacked government buildings in the southeastern city of Khost on Saturday with suicide bombers, AK-47 rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, officials said.

At least three suicide bombers blew themselves up during the attack, which began in the early afternoon and was ongoing, Defence Minister spokesman Gen. Mohammed Zahir Azimi said. Azimi said Afghan forces had surrounded the attackers and were firing on them.

Provincial council member Tajaly Khan Saber told The Associated Press that it was impossible to determine casualties because residents could not move about in the streets of Khost, site of a major US military base, about 95 miles south of Kabul. It was not clear if US troops were involved in the fighting on Saturday.

Ramazan Bashardost, a member of parliament and one of nearly 40 presidential candidates, was in Khost campaigning for the August 20 ballot but did not appear to be a target of the attack. He told The Associated Press by phone that he was safe. Bashardost said shops in the city were closed and streets were full of Afghan soldiers.

Khost is about 12 miles from the Pakistani border and has long been a flashpoint because of smuggling across the frontier.

Last May, 11 Taliban suicide bombers struck government buildings in Khost, killing 20 people and wounding three Americans.

On Tuesday, suspected Taliban militants armed with bombs, rifles and rocket-propelled grenades launched near-simultaneous assaults in Gardez, about 50 miles northwest of Khost, and in the eastern city of Jalalabad.

Six Afghan police and intelligence officers and eight militants died in the two attacks

Fighter jet crashes at Afghan base: NATO

NATO soldiers get out of their vehicle. Photo Courtesy: AFP

A NATO official says a fighter jet has crashed at NATO's largest base in southern Afghanistan, the second major crash at the base in two days.

Capt Ruben Hoorncelv, a spokesman for the NATO-led force, says a fighter jet crashed inside Kandahar Air Field during takeoff at 7:20 am Afghanistan time on Monday. The two-man crew ejected from the jet and are being treated at the base hospital.

Hoorncelv says there is no indication insurgent activity caused the crash, but that officials don't yet know why it went down. The jet caught fire and emergency personnel responded.

A Russian-owned civilian helicopter crashed at Kandahar Air Field on Sunday, killing 16 people on board.

Hoorncelv says he thinks the rash of crashes is coincidence.

Explosives 'identical' to Bali: Indonesian police

A security guard inspects the damage after an explosion went off at the Ritz-Carlton hotel. Photo Courtesy: AP

Explosive material recovered from the scene of two suicide bombings at hotels in the Indonesian capital is "identical" to that used by the Southeast Asian terrorist network Jemaah Islamiyah in earlier attacks, police said.

An unexploded bomb left in a room of the JW Marriott in Jakarta resembled devices used in attacks on Bali and one found in a recent raid against the network on an Islamic boarding school in Central Java, national police spokesman told a news conference on Sunday.

The culprits in Friday's attacks that killed seven and wounded 50 are believed to have belonged to Jemaah Islamiyah "because there are similarities in the bombs used," Maj Gen Nanan Sukarna said.

The decapitated bodies of two alleged suicide bombers were also recovered at the blast scenes, police said.

Anti-terrorism police were hunting for Noordin Mohammad Top, a fugitive Malaysian who heads a particularly violent offshoot of the network and has been linked to four major strikes in Indonesia since 2002.

The twin suicide bombings at the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels came four years after the last serious terrorist attack in Indonesia and unleashed a new wave of anxiety in the world's largest Muslim-majority country.

After years of sectarian violence and annual terrorist strikes, the nation of 235 million had been enjoying a period of stability. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was re-elected to a second term earlier this month, partly on the strength of government efforts to fight terrorism.

"I am shocked by these bombings," Razif Harahap, a 45-year-old graduate student, said in Jakarta on Sunday. "The same people who carried out these attacks could launch another one, because the mastermind is still at large."

Investigators have been examining body parts and other forensic evidence in an attempt to identify the two bombers, one of whom is believed to be Indonesian.

They were decapitated in the explosions, and confirming their identity could help determine if they had links to Noordin.

The official Antara news agency said Sunday that the government was intensifying efforts to find Noordin and trace the network's finances to try to uncover any links to Friday's blasts.

Officials have identified five of the dead — three Australians, one New Zealander and one Indonesian.

Among the dead was Craig Senger, the first Australian government official to be killed in a terrorist attack, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Sunday. Senger worked as a Trade Commission officer at the embassy in Jakarta.

Officials said 17 foreigners were among the wounded, including eight Americans and citizens of Australia, Britain, Canada, Hong Kong, India, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway and South Korea.

Jemaah Islamiyah rose to prominence after the 2002 nightclub bombings in the beach resort of Bali that killed 202 people, most of them foreigners.

It staged attacks in Indonesia in each of the next three years: a 2003 car bombing outside the JW Marriott hotel, a 2004 truck bombing outside the Australian Embassy, and triple suicide bombings on Bali restaurants by attackers carrying bombs in backpacks in 2005.

After the government launched a massive anti-terrorism campaign, no major attacks had been reported since then — until Friday's explosions.

Remnants of the bombs found outside the hotels had circuits that were "identical" to those in explosive devices used in previous attacks on Bali, the national police spokesman said on Sunday.

Police were also looking for connections between Friday's bombing and explosives discovered last week in the Cilacap region of Central Java, which were buried in a garden at the house of Noordin's father-in-law, who is also at large.

While the attacks rekindled old anxieties, Indonesians interviewed Sunday said they did not believe the bombings signaled a resurgence by the militants, who want to establish an Islamic state in the region.

The Islamist extremists enjoy little support among the country's largely moderate public.

The terrorists do not have the money or backing to launch another major attack soon, said Agus Triharso, 40, a motorbike taxi driver in Jakarta.

"Noordin Top and his friends have support from just a few hard-line Muslims," Triharso said. "As Muslims, we have to stop them.

Jemaah Islamiyah blamed for Jakarta blasts

A security guard inspects the damage after an explosion went off at the Ritz-Carlton hotel. Photo Courtesy: AP

Sun-Jul 19, 2009

Jakarta (Indonesia) / Agence France Presse

Indonesian police confirmed regional terror outfit Jemaah Islamiyah as the culprits behind twin suicide blasts at Jakarta hotels, and said one of the bombers had been identified.

Jemaah Islamiyah, which draws inspiration from al Qaida, has carried out dozens of bombings in Indonesia in the past decade including 2002 attacks in Bali that left more than 200 dead, mostly foreign tourists.

"We confirm that the attackers are from Jemaah Islamiyah because there are similarities in the bombs used," national police spokesman Nanan Soekarna told a press conference.

He said an exploded bomb left in a guestroom of the JW Marriott, which was attacked along with the nearby Ritz-Carlton, resembled devices used in Bali and one discovered in a recent anti-JI raid on an Islamic boarding school.

"They are from the same school. We found similar tools, similar materials and similar methods," he said.

Police have identified one of the two suicide bombers who targeted the hotels during the breakfast period on Friday when they were packed with foreign businessmen and diplomats, he said.

"Following the preliminary results of facial reconstruction, both suicide bombers are male," he said, quelling speculation that a woman was involved.

"One of them has been identified. I cannot tell you his complete name but he has the initial 'N'. And another body is still in the process of identification."

Soekarna said nine people were killed in the attacks. Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda on Saturday put the toll at eight, including four foreigners and the two suicide bombers.

Three Australians and a New Zealander have been confirmed dead. The health ministry said a Singaporean man was also killed but did not give a complete name and the Singapore embassy here said it had not verified the death.

An Indonesian man identified by the single name Darmanto was also among those killed, the health ministry said.

Soekarna has said 16 foreigners were injured, including six Americans, two Dutch, one Australian, two Canadians, one Indian, two South Koreans, one New Zealander and a Norwegian.

Site of attacks

Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith on Sunday visited the site of the attacks, as part of a trip to express solidarity with Australia's northern neighbour.

Investigators say the bombers stayed in Room 1808 of the Marriott for two nights before the attacks and disguised themselves as guests when they walked into crowded dining and meeting areas and detonated their suitcase devices.

The bombs -- brought into the hotels despite airport-style security measures -- were packed with metal nuts to maximise the carnage.

The Indonesian security ministry's anti-terror desk chief, Ansyaad Mbai, has said that evidence pointed to Malaysian-born extremist Noordin Mohammed Top, who leads a violent splinter faction of JI.

Noordin is accused of masterminding bombings at the Jakarta Marriott in 2003, the Australian embassy in 2004 and Bali restaurants in 2005 which have killed more than 40 people.

Mbai said the advanced skills and planning used to pull off the blasts at the luxury hotels -- among the most tightly guarded buildings in Indonesia -- were extremely disturbing.

"Their new skills and advanced tactics, enabling them to smuggle the explosives into the targeted site, pose a very serious threat for our country," he told AFP.

"While they previously detonated the bombs from outside of the targeted place, now they managed to smuggle the bombs into the hotel and stayed several days in the hotel room where they planned the attacks," he said.

"Nobody can predict terror attacks. What we can do is to review our security system to get a more effective approach."

National police chief General Bambang Hendarso Danuri has called on hotels and shopping malls across the vast, mainly Muslim archipelago of 234 million people to raise their security protocols in response to the bombings.

The attacks triggered the cancellation of a planned Manchester United friendly against an Indonesian All-Star team scheduled for Monday, a decision that caused great dismay among football fans here.

Iraqi gets life for killing aid worker in 2004

A court found an Iraqi man guilty of kidnapping and killing a humanitarian worker in 2004 and sentenced him to life in prison Tuesday, Iraqi court officials said.

Margaret Hassan spent nearly half her life helping Iraqis before she was kidnapped in October 2004.

Ali Lutfi Jassar al-Rawi was found guilty at Baghdad Central Criminal Court for the killing of Margaret Hassan, who headed operations in Iraq for Care International. The suspect, arrested in May 2008, was also found guilty of attempting to blackmail Hassan's family.

Al-Rawi is the second person found guilty in connection with the case. The other was sentenced to life in prison in 2006, but the sentence was reduced on appeal, court officials said.

Hassan, who was in her 60s and held British and Iraqi citizenship, appeared in hostage videos where she pleaded for her life and urged British troops to withdraw from Iraq.

The British Foreign Office issued a statement saying John Tucknott, the charge d'affaires in Baghdad, welcomed the news that the man had been "brought to justice by the Iraqi authorities for the role he played in the kidnap and murder of Margaret Hassan. Our thoughts are with Margaret Hassan's family for the suffering they continue to endure.

"We hope that this may be a step further to finding the other people responsible for this dreadful crime, and to finding Margaret's body," the office said.

"We will continue to work with the Iraqi authorities as they continue their investigation, and press them to follow up all possible aspects. We urge anyone with information on this crime to please come forward."

A Care spokeswoman had no comment on the development.

Videotapes had surfaced purportedly showing Hassan's killing. Arabic language network Al-Jazeera reported that it had "obtained a video showing a masked militant shooting a blindfolded woman, who was referred to as Margaret Hassan, in the head using a handgun. Al-Jazeera decided to wait on reporting the news until it confirmed the authenticity of the tape."

Al-Jazeera did not show the video.

Then-British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said, "Our experts have been examining a video which appeared to show that Margaret Hassan has been murdered, to establish whether it is genuine.

"As a result of our analysis, we have today had to inform Margaret Hassan's family that, sadly, we now believe that she has probably been murdered, although we cannot conclude this with complete certainty."

Hassan was born in Ireland and had lived in Iraq for 30 years.

A highly respected humanitarian official in the Middle East, she was kidnapped on the street shortly after she arrived at her office. Her abductors never explained why she was targeted.

Shortly after her 2004 abduction, patients at a Baghdad hospital took to the streets to protest the kidnapping. They credited her with helping rebuild the medical facility last year. 

Pakistan says Swat fighters killed

The military said troops rescued students seized by the Taliban in the northwest on Monday [EPA] The Pakistani military says it has killed 21 opposition fighters in operations to remove Taliban presence from the country's northwest. A military statement on Tuesday acknowledged the loss of three soldiers in the fighting, which occurred in the Swat valley in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP). "In the last 24 hours, 21 miscreants-terrorists were killed and 18 apprehended in various areas of Swat, whereas three soldiers embraced shahadat [martyrdom]," the statement said. The majority of the fighters were killed near Charbagh, a Taliban stronghold about 20km from Mingora, the main city in Swat. The military says troops have cleared Mingora of Taliban since the beginning of their five-week offensive. "Security forces have successfully secured Alam Gunj, Waliabad and Gulibagh [north of Charbagh]. Fourteen miscreants-terrorists were killed and 18 apprehended in Charbagh and Alam Gunj areas," the statement said. Student rescue In another development in the country's northwest, the military reportedly rescued 80 students and teachers taken captive by fighters in an area populated by pro-Taliban tribesmen. Troops launched a pre-dawn raid on Tuesday to end the hostage crisis, military and government officials said. In depth Videos:  Frontier police battle Pakistani Taliban  Exclusive: Swat exodus continues  Swat's fleeing Sikhs  Inside war-torn Mingora city Pictures:  Refuge for Swat's Sikhs  Lahore bombing  Diary: Imran Khan  Riz Khan: Obama's 'AfPak' strategy  Riz Khan: The battle for the soul of Pakistan  Interview: Asif Ali Zardari  Q&A: The struggle for Swat  Your views: Crisis in Swat Focus:  The fight for northwest Pakistan  Talking to the Taliban  Pakistan's war  Witness: Pakistan in crisis Major-General Athar Abbas said that 80 people, 71 of them students, were recovered by forces in the Goryam area as their convoy of vehicles was heading towards South Waziristan. The release of the hostages was confirmed by Sardar Abbas Rind, chief of the administration in the town of Bannu. Earlier, officials had said police were negotiating with the Taliban via tribal elders for the captives. Taliban fighters seized the students' convoy on Monday near the town of Bakka Khel, abducting students and staff from four vehicles of the convoy, made up of about 27 vehicles. The students from from the military-run Razmak Cadet College in North Waziristan were heading home for the summer holiday. "Kidnappings and abductions have become a norm for the militants who have been operating in that area," Al Jazeera's Kamal Hyder, reporting from Islamabad, said. "They use the money to fund their militancy and purchase weapons." The college is an army-run educational institution for civilians, with students who are reportedly aged between 15 and 25 years and were not training for the army, but were following a secular curriculum. Javed Alam, a vice-principal, said the convoy was carrying that more than 300 students and about 30 staff members and employees of the college when they were stopped. String of incidents The abduction was part of a string of incidents in the tribal belt, some of which the army says is aimed at distracting it from its offensive against Taliban fighters in the adjoining NWFP. The Pakistani army launched its offensive against Taliban fighters in Swat and surrounding districts after they violated the terms of a ceasefire. There are several Taliban and al-Qaeda-linked groups based in North and South Waziristan, in loose alliance with the Taliban in Swat. South Waziristan is also thought to be the base of Baitullah Mehsud, the Pakistani Taliban leader.

Civilians killed in Afghan blast

Violence in Afghanistan increased last year to its highest level since the 2001 US-led invasion [AFP]

Six Afghan civilians, including two children, have been killed in a blast near a major US military base in eastern Afghanistan, officials have said.

The blast ripped through a civilian vehicle near Bagram airfield, the main base for US-led military troops in Afghanistan, on Tuesday.

Afghanistan's interior ministry blamed the incident on a suicide bomber.

"Two men, two women and two children are killed. The car is totally destroyed," Zemarai Bashary, an interior ministry spokesman, was quoted the AFP news agency as saying.

At least one other child was injured in the blast.

'Worst brutality'

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Bashary said the explosion was "an act of insurgents".

"This is the worst of brutality of the enemy," he said.

A day earlier, at least four US soldiers and more than a dozen other people were killed in separate incidents in eastern and northern Afghanistan.

Violence in Afghanistan has increased during the past three years to its highest level last year since the US-led invasion of the country in 2001.

Barack Obama, the US president, has said he is sending more than 20,000 additional soldiers to the country to suppress attacks.

The US entered the country to oust the Taliban, who they accused of harbouring al-Qaeda fighters, in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks.

'Taliban killed' in Afghan province

More US troops are being deployed in east Afghanistan to fight the Taliban [GALLO/GETTY]

At least 35 Taliban fighters have been killed and another 13 wounded in fighting in the Afghan province of Zabul, the US military has said.

The fighters were killed when a US and Afghan patrol convoy came under attack, according to a statement released by the military on Thursday.

"The Afghan-led force was conducting a combat reconnaissance patrol early this morning, when the convoy came under heavy fire from militants using small arms and mortar fire," said the statement.

The incident happened hours after the US military said its forces and Afghan troops killed 29 fighters in neighbouring Paktika province in clashes in Wor Mamay district.

Details of the clash in Zabul's Daychopan district could not be independently verified.
   
The province borders Pakistan's Baluchistan, which is rife with regional insurgency and where attacks have been blamed on Taliban fighters. 

Wanted commander

Meanwhile, security forces, acting on intelligence, on Thursday raided a camp where a wanted commander of the Taliban's Haqqani network was  believed to be meeting Taliban fighters.
   
The Afghan defence ministry said 35 fighters were killed in the clash. Six blew themselves up to avoid capture, it said.

The US military said around 30 died.
   
It is not clear if the wanted commander, named Sangeen, was among the dead.
   
The network was founded by Jalaluddin Haqqani, an Afghan Soviet resistance commander, but is now believed to be led by his sons, notably Siraj Haqqani, who is said to be one of the Taliban's most powerful leaders.

Hotel attack
   
Siraj Haqqani reportedly claimed responsibility for an attack targeting a five-star hotel in the capital Kabul in January 2008, and the attempted assassination of Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, at a military parade in Kabul in April 2008.
   
In another major clash, the US and Afghan forces said they killed 60 fighters last week in the southern province of Helmand, a den of Taliban activity and opium production.

Violence has reached its highest levels in Afghanistan since the US-led overthrow of the Taliban in 2001.

East Afghanistan, which borders Pakistan, is seeing an influx of US troops as part of the extra 21,000 soliders Washington has sent to battle the Taliban.

Lebanon's intelligence war with Israel

Did some of the alleged spies help Israel with its bombing of Lebanon in 2006? Israel's ability to wage another war against the militant Shia movement Hezbollah may have been compromised by an unprecedented wave of arrests of people in Lebanon alleged to have been spying for the Israelis. Experts say the arrests appear to add up to a major strategic blow to Israel. Mobile phone footage circulating in Beirut shows one of the suspected agents being slapped and insulted as he was manhandled out of his house and into the boot of a car. Lebanese newspapers have reported that more than 40 members of more than a dozen spy networks have been detained so far in a campaign that has gathered pace over the past six weeks, and shows no sign of stopping. Israel has so far made no public comment on what could be one of its worst-ever intelligence setbacks. The Israeli army's ability to fight Hezbollah may have been undermined Hardly a day goes by without agents from the Lebanese police, army or general security raiding homes or workplaces in different parts of the country, and taking suspects away. It could be a butcher or pharmacist in a remote south Lebanese village, a customs official in eastern Baalbek, or a high-ranking army officer from the north. Several alleged agents who knew they were on the wanted list fled across the border to Israel. Lebanon has asked the United Nations forces in the south, Unifil, to get them back. Some of those detained are suspected of providing Israel with information enabling it to strike Hezbollah targets during the 2006 war, which saw dozens of buildings in Beirut's southern suburbs and other parts of the country destroyed by Israeli air or missile strikes. Others are alleged to have been involved in trying to pinpoint the whereabouts of Hezbollah or other militant leaders past and present, including the current Hezbollah chief, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah. Surprise suspects Those detained have not been seen since they were taken away, and lawyers have not had access to them. But details of the allegations and reported confessions have leaked out in Lebanese newspaper reports as interrogations continue at army and police centres. The net has appeared to spread ever wider and has produced many surprise suspects. A retired general from the Internal Security Forces, Adib al-Alam, and his wife were among the earlier detentions. Reports alleged he had confessed to being an Israeli informant for the past 15 years. Lifelong militant Newspapers reported another startling penetration among the most recent arrests - a highly-decorated, twice-wounded Lebanese army colonel from the Christian area of Akkar in northern Lebanon, who commanded the military's Special Forces school. Israeli air strikes on Beirut in 2006 destroyed dozens of buildings Another unusual suspect was Ziad al-Homsi, the deputy mayor of Saadnayel, a Sunni town in the eastern Beqaa valley. The townspeople were stunned and angered by his detention by army intelligence agents in the middle of the night. Mr al-Homsi, 60, was a pillar of his community and a lifelong militant for pan-Arab causes, who had trained at a Soviet military academy. The walls of his house are adorned with pictures of him as a young fighter battling the Israelis in south Lebanon, including one taken with Yasser Arafat in the Arqoub mountains there as long ago as 1969. "How can they accuse a man like him, who spent all his history fighting Israel, of working with the Israelis?" asked his daughter Salma. "My dad is innocent," she insisted. "There is no evidence that proclaims that he is spying for Israel. I think he is a victim of the elections in Lebanon." Mr al-Homsi was associated with the western-backed, anti-Syrian "14th of March" coalition that is fighting to retain its narrow majority in national elections on 7 June. Surveillance gadgets But the coalition did not take up his cause, and the arrests in general have not become an election issue, because they have been across the board - Sunnis, Shiites, Christians and Palestinians are all among those detained, with no obvious political or sectarian bias. Lebanese security forces displayed hi-tech communication and surveillance gadgets said to have been found concealed in the homes of some of the suspects. The Lebanese police say they seized hi-tech gadgets from the alleged spies Explaining the sudden spectacular rash of arrests, Lebanese officials have said that unspecified technological breakthroughs made it all possible. That may be so. But many unanswered questions remain. One of the basic principles in setting up espionage networks is that their cells should not be linked in any way, so that the discovery of one does not lead to the kind of wider collapse that seems now to be taking place. Did the Israelis - who have said nothing to discredit the daily revelations in Beirut - break that fundamental rule? "Certainly it seems to have been a systemic failure by Israel," said security expert Alastair Crooke, who focuses on Islamic movements. "Maybe it was a chance find, maybe it was from one person that they interrogated leading to the uncovering of many others, but that in itself would be highly unusual." Most likely, the arrests were the product of months, perhaps several years, of counter-intelligence work. Present and vigilant But by whom? Is it just coincidence that the various different arms of Lebanese security suddenly began making this series of surprise detentions? Or were they being primed by other intelligence services? Hezbollah's own role remains obscure. Lebanese officials say it has not been involved in the campaign, and it has certainly taken a low and ostensibly passive profile during the revelations.  The loss of these eyes and ears within Lebanon is undoubtedly a major strategic setback for Israel  Alastair Crooke Intelligence analyst But Hezbollah is present and vigilant in many of the areas concerned. It also has strong ties with Iran and Syria, whose intelligence services are no slouches. One Lebanese analyst even went so far as to suggest that events may have come full cycle. Before the 1979 revolution in Iran, Israel's Mossad was deeply involved in training and advising the Shah's dreaded secret police, Savak - a legacy of expertise inherited by Tehran's current Islamic rulers, who were instrumental in establishing Hezbollah in Lebanon and retain very close ties with the movement. Whatever the case, the head of Lebanon's Internal Security Forces, Gen. Ashraf Rifi, said the dismantling of so many networks amounted to a strategic blow of the utmost seriousness, unprecedented in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Other observers agree. "The loss of these eyes and ears within Lebanon is undoubtedly a major strategic setback for Israel," said intelligence analyst Alastair Crooke. "Networks of these sorts don't come off the shelf in a supermarket. You can lose them in ten minutes, but they can take 5, 10, 15 years to put in place. So the importance of this should not be underestimated." Hassan Nasrullah urged any remaining Israeli spies to turn themselves in In the meantime, Lebanon is left in a psychosis of uncertainty and speculation, with rumours that the arrests could spread higher and deeper into the country's establishment. The Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrullah, has urged remaining Israeli agents or informers to turn themselves in and "rejoin the homeland", in exchange for leniency. He has also called for the death penalty for those proven to have provided Israel with information that led to the loss of lives and property. Public consciousness of the affair is so high that it is hard to imagine that remaining Israeli spies would not be either paralysed or preparing to flee the country, if they have not done so already. In any future confrontation with Hezbollah, the Israelis would want to rely heavily on vital human intelligence. The indications are that their capabilities in that respect may have been severely compromised.

23 die in Iraq mosque blast

Tehran, May 29: The death toll from a suicide bomb attack on a crowded Shia mosque in the southeastern Iranian city of Zahedan has risen to 23, the Fars news agency said on Friday.

Mohammed Gholami, the head of the local Martyrs’ Foundation, told Fars that 23 people were killed in Thursday’s attack on the Amir al-Momenin mosque in Zahedan, the restive capital of Sistan-Baluchestan province.

In fresh violence, gunmen attacked President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s election campaign centre in the southeastern Iranian city of Zahedan on Friday, wounding three people, the official IRNA news agency said.

A top Iranian official accused the US of hiring the bombers. “Three people involved with the terrorist incident were arrested,” Jalal Sayah, deputy provincial governor of Sistan-Balochistan province, told the agency. “According to the information obtained they were hired by America and the agents of the arrogance.”

Ali Mohammed Azad, the governor general of Sistan-Baluchestan province, told IRNA that 125 others were wounded in the attack, which was carried out during evening prayers. “It was a terrorist attack and the bomb was exploded by a terrorist,” he said.

Fars quoted sources as saying the “suicide attacker exploded the bomb in the women’s section” of the shrine, the second biggest Shia mosque in Zahedan.

Fars said the mosque was a “gathering place for revolutionary Shias.” Thursday was a public holiday in Iran to mourn the death of Fatima Zahra, daughter of Prophet Mohammed.

The blast comes weeks ahead of the June 12 presidential election. The province shares border with Pakistan and Afghanistan and has a large ethnic Sunni Baloch minority.

Will Nigeria oil offensive backfire?

By Andrew Walker  BBC News, Warri For the past 13 days the Nigerian military has been mounting an offensive in the swampy creeks of the Niger Delta, pursuing oil militants who kidnapped 15 sailors, 18 soldiers and hijacked a petrol tanker belonging to the national oil company. They say the continuing military action is an attempt to rescue their men or confirm if they are dead. The militants started it, they say, and the military is just reacting, according to commander Gen Sarkin Yakin Bello, whose name means "lord of war" in the northern Hausa language.  Tompolo is not a monster, but if he came to me I'd hand him in to the authorities  Ijaw leader Edwin Clark Profile: Oil militant kingpin But security and diplomatic sources have told the BBC the military action in Delta State is part of a new "get tough" approach which has been on the army's drawing board for months in an attempt to deal with key militant leaders from the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend). The clock is ticking on the offensive, as it is disrupting business, and may begin to have a bad effect on Nigeria's already depressed oil industry. The military action could backfire and stir up militancy in the western Niger Delta, observers say. It could also spark ethnic conflict in a race to secure lucrative patronage from government and business in the Delta.