War in Iraq

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. General Assembly's human rights committee condemned Iran on Friday for a violent crackdown on protesters after presidential elections this year that the Iranian opposition says were rigged. Tehran's U.N. Ambassador Mohammad Khazaee sharply criticized the Canadian-drafted resolution, saying that assembly decisions of this kind have "created an atmosphere of confrontation and polarization." The 192-nation assembly's Third Committee, which focuses on human rights, approved the nonbinding resolution 74-48, with 59 abstentions. The committee adopted similar resolutions condemning North Korea and Myanmar by much wider margins on Thursday. The Iran resolution "expresses its deep concern at serious ongoing and recurring ... Read Full Story

Bombers on Friday killed 18 people in Afghanistan, a deadly start to President Hamid Karzai's second term in office that underscored spiralling insecurity nine years into the US-led war. The attacks brought to 30 the number of people killed since Karzai was sworn in for another five years on Thursday, pledging to try to bring peace to the nation and take over security from foreign forces in five years. A suicide bomber on a motorcycle struck the capital of the southwestern province of Farah, killing 15 people, while a roadside bomb killed three civilians in the east. The Taliban-led insurgency against the Western-backed government ... Read Full Story

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S.-backed Sunni militia leader whose arrest provoked violence between Sunni fighters and forces of Iraq's Shi'ite-led government has been sentenced to death for murder and kidnapping, a court spokesman said on Thursday. Adil al-Mashhadani, who controlled part of east Baghdad's crime-ridden al-Fadhil neighborhood, is one of thousands of Sunni insurgents who now back U.S. forces after turning against al Qaeda. The arrest of some of them after they switched sides has sparked anger among so-called "Sahwa" members, who fear the Shi'ite-led government is out to get them for crimes committed in their insurgent pasts. Three people were killed and 15 ... Read Full Story

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - A suicide bomber blew himself up outside a court building in Peshawar on Thursday, killing 18 people, officials said, in the latest of a series of attacks on the northwestern Pakistan city. The city, near the Afghan border, has been targeted several times since the army began an offensive against the Taliban in South Waziristan last month and militants stepped up retaliatory attacks. "The attacker was on foot and blew himself up when guards tried to search him at the gates of the court," senior city administrator Sahibzada Anis told reporters. The army went on the offensive in South Waziristan ... Read Full Story

A suicide bomber struck a court in Peshawar Thursday killing 19 people, the sixth attack on the northwestern city in 11 days as Pakistani troops press a major anti-Taliban offensive. The bomber hit at the main gate of the building, near the five-star Pearl Continental Hotel, where at least nine people were killed when attackers shot their way through a security checkpost and blew up a truck bomb in June. Blood, flesh and shattered window glass littered the ground outside the court building, whose main gate was uprooted and where an old man who used to repair spectacles and fountain pens was killed, an ... Read Full Story