Truck bomb kills at least 19 in northern Iraq

BAGHDAD – A suicide truck bomber hit a residential area of a Kurdish village in northern Iraq before dawn Thursday, killing at least 19 people and injuring 30 others, officials said, in what appeared to be the latest in a string of ethnic attacks in the region.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing, but it bore the hallmarks of al-Qaida in Iraq and other Sunni insurgents who remain active in Mosul and surrounding areas.

A police officer and health official in Mosul said the bomb went off around 12:30 a.m. in the village of Wardek, about 35 miles (55 kilometers) southeast of the city — a region where U.S. commanders have warned that insurgents appear to be trying to stoke an Arab-Kurdish conflict.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.

The blast took down a number of houses and the casualty toll was expected to rise because many people are still missing in the rubble, the officials said.

Local security forces intercepted a second suicide truck bomber, killing the driver and defusing the bomb before it could be detonated, they said.

Insurgents in northern Iraq, who have maintained a stronghold in the city of Mosul, have frequently targeted remote villages and towns that depend on small security forces for protection.

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Teen ends life as parents forbid him

Ashar Mendon was all set to study in Australia.



But now, the 18-year-old's dream has died with him.

Ashar, the son of a garment exporter committed suicide by hanging himself in their flat in Colaba on Monday.

The reason: his mother scared by the racial attacks on Indians in Australia forbade him to go.

Just days ago, Ashar had got admission at the Bond university in New South Wales for an undergraduate Information technology course.

The police have not recovered any suicide note and are investigating his mobile records and going through his computer to get an idea of why he took this extreme step.

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Doctor arrested for poisoning twin daughters

A gynaecologist, who allegedly poisoned her twin daughters and attempted suicide a week ago in the city, was arrested following her discharge from hospital, police said on Tuesday.

Rupa Singh (35) allegedly injected her four-year-old twin daughters -- Tanya and Twinkle -- on July one and attempted suicide after a fight with her surgeon husband Rajiv Ranjan (38), over the issue of setting up of a hospital.

The woman, working in Ambedkar Hospital in Rohini, had walked out of their Maurya Enclave residence in northwest Delhi with her two daughters and checked into City Park hotel in Peetampura.

She had injected some poison to her daughters before injecting herself with the same substance. While the girls died, Rupa was admitted to Max Hospital in Peetampura.

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Rejected by DU, student commits suicide

Unable to get admission in Delhi University allegedly drove a 17-year-old girl to hang herself at her residence in east Delhi on Tuesday evening.

Prachi Singh Gaur had applied for the BA English course in five DU colleges after her Class XII results were announced. She could not get through any of the two university cut-off lists. Prachi had dreamt of becoming a news anchor and was depressed that her friends got their names in the second cut-off lists on Monday.


Gopal Singh Gaur, Prachi's father, is struggling to come to terms with his daughter's sudden death.

Prachi did not leave behind a suicide note but the family says Prachi was deeply upset with not making it to Delhi University's cut-off list.

Prachi scored 46 per cent in her Class 12 boards but the cut off for the BA pass course in the college she applied to was at least 15 per cent higher.

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Twin suicide blasts in Pakistan, 4 killed

LAHORE: A prominent anti-Taliban Pakistani Muslim cleric was killed on Friday in a suicide bomb attack in the city of Lahore, police said. In another blast at around the same time, a suicide car-bomber set off explosives near a mosque in the northwestern town of Nowshera, killing at least three people, police said.

The blasts came as Pakistani forces stepped up attacks on militants across the northwest after the US House of Representatives approved tripling aid to Pakistan to about $1.5 billion a year for the next five years.

Security forces have made progress in more than a month of fighting against Taliban militants in the Swat valley, northwest of Islamabad, and in recent days have begun operations in several other parts of the region. The militants have responded with a series of bomb attacks. Moderate cleric Sarfraz Naeemi was attacked at his mosque complex just after leading Friday prayers.

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