14 Killed From Suicide Bombing in Pakistan

Map of Pakistan

A suicide bombing in southwestern Pakistan left 14 people dead and 20 others injured Wednesday, police said.


Wednesday's blast took place in the city of Quetta, a militant hotspot close to the Afghan border.


Abdullah Afridi, a senior police official in the city of Quetta, said a suicide bomber tried to enter in the residence of a senior official of the Frontier Corps - a paramilitary force - and blew himself up when the soldiers fired at him.


Police officer Hamid Shakil says the target was a group of Frontier Corps soldiers standing outside a government building in the city. City commissioner Quetta Nasim Lehri says there were soldiers among the 14 people killed.


Quetta is the capital of Balochistan province, which has been a hotbed for militancy.


Recently, Pakistan's military announced it apprehended three al-Qaeda leaders from the suburbs of Quetta with the help of paramilitary forces.


The military said the Frontier Corps helped nab the three al-Qaeda leaders.


Islamist militants are waging war against the Western-allied Pakistani state. Several thousand people have been killed since 2007.

Earthquake 6,2 Richter Hit Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan

An earthquake measuring 6.2 rocked south-western Kyrgyzstan and eastern Uzbekistan early today, triggering panic in the region, seismologists and witnesses said.

The quake hit in the middle of the night at 1:35am (local time) shaking the region some 400 kilometres south-west of the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek, with the epicentre 42 kilometres south-west of the Uzbek town of Fergana, the US Geological Survey said.

"We were woken up by a noise and strong jolts which lasted for about 40 seconds. The house began to shake," said Albek Seitov, a resident of the Kyrgyz town of Och in the Fergana Valley.

"I thought it was a dream, a nightmare. I went out in the street like my neighbours. Everyone is afraid, panicking," he said.

The quake struck the border region at a depth of just 9.2 kilometres, rocking Fergana which has some 200,000 residents.

"The people were scared and went out onto the streets. It lasted for a few seconds. There are cracks on the ceiling and the paint has started to fall off in my home," said Abdullah, who did not want to give his family name.

Another Fergana resident, Sukhrob, said the tremors had stopped, but people were frightened of returning home.

"I haven't seen houses destroyed. But the people are still outside, they're afraid of going home," he said.

The earthquake centres in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan could not be contacted early on Wednesday and there were no immediate reports of victims or serious damage to property.

The Fergana Valley is an area shared uneasily by Kyrgyz, Tajik and Uzbek ethnic groups and the scene of periodic violence and unrest since the 1991 Soviet collapse.

Osama bin Laden is Dead!

CNN - Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the worst terrorist attacks on American soil, is dead - almost 10 years after the attacks that killed about 3,000 people.

The founder and leader of al Qaeda was killed by U.S. forces Monday in a mansion in Abbottabad, about 50 kilometers (31 miles) north of the Pakistani capital of Islamabad. Four others in the compound were also killed. One of them was bin Laden's adult son, and another was a woman being used as a shield by a male combatant.

Bin Laden's body was later buried at sea. Many Muslims adhere to the belief that bodies should be buried within one day.

In an address to the nation Sunday night, U.S. President Barack Obama called bin Laden's death "the most significant achievement to date in our nation's effort to defeat al Qaeda." Washington is nine hours behind Pakistan.

The killing of bin Laden was the culmination of years of intelligence work and months of following a specific lead, senior U.S. administration officials said.

Bin Laden eluded capture for years, once reportedly slipping out of a training camp in Afghanistan just hours before a barrage of U.S. cruise missiles destroyed it.
He had been implicated in a series of deadly, high-profile attacks that had grown in their intensity and success during the 1990s. They included a deadly firefight with U.S. soldiers in Somalia in October 1993, the bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa that killed 224 in August 1998, and an attack on the USS Cole that killed 17 sailors in October 2000.

Мany Americans were soaking up the historic moment.

Information about bin Laden's organisation - Al-Qaeda

Barack Obama speaking about Osama bin Laden's Death