Lebanese officer killed as helicopter comes under fire

A Lebanese army officer was killed on Thursday when gunmen opened fire on a military helicopter flying over a village in a Hizbullah stronghold in the south of the country.

An army official said the helicopter was conducting a training mission over the village of Sejoud when it came under fire and was forced to make an emergency landing, adding that several members of the crew were also wounded.

A Lebanese army statement identified the dead officer as First Lieutenant Samer Hanna.

The incident occurred in an area near the border with Israel, which was the scene of fierce fighting between Hizbullah fighters and Israeli forces before their withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000.

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Twin suicide blasts kill 64 at Pakistan munitions factory

Two suicide bombers blew themselves up outside Pakistan's main army munitions factory Thursday, killing 64 workers in the deadliest attack on a military installation in the country's history.

In the second bombing to rock the feuding coalition government since President Pervez Musharraf resigned Monday, the attackers struck a crowd of workers leaving the huge complex in Wah, near Islamabad.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the atrocity and threatened to carry out further attacks if an army offensive against militants near the Afghan border is not stopped.

It's a massive attack," local police chief Nasir Durrani told AFP. "Two men apparently blew themselves up outside the factory during a shift change.

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Twin car bomb attacks kill 11 people in eastern Algeria

Two car bomb at tacks in eastern Algeria killed at least 11 people, state radio reported Wednesday, with the country still in shock from a suicide bomber who killed 43 people a day earlier.

At least 31 people were wounded in the latest attacks in the town of Bouira, one on a passenger bus and another near a military headquarters,Algerian radio said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility but an AlQaeda group has staged several attacks in Algeria over the past year and has been involved in clashes with government forces in the oil and gas rich state.

Bouira is part of a so-called "zone of death" it forms with Algiers,Tizi Ouzou and Boumerdes where attacks have been rife.

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Up to eight dead as massive bomb targets Danish Embassy in Pakistan

A suicide car bomb outside Denmark's embassy in Pakistan killed up to eight people and wounded 27 Monday in a possible new backlash over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, state media and officials said.

The massive blast damaged the mission in central Islamabad and nearly destroyed a nearby UN agency. Dozens of cars were also wrecked by the force of the explosion, which gouged a huge crater out of the road.

There was no claim of responsibility but officials said the attack was likely linked to the row over the Prophet cartoons, which Danish newspapers first published in 2005 and then reprinted in February.

Pakistani Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik said the "dastardly" bombing "could be a reaction to blasphemous sketches published in Denmark" and pledged that the culprits would be caught.

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