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Car bomb attack in northwest Pakistan kills 12, wounds dozens

At least 12 civilians were killed, including three children, and dozens injured Tuesday evening after two explosive-laden vehicles were detonated at an army compound in northwest Pakistan, officials said, with the attack quickly claimed by a militant group.The massive explosions and an ensuing gunfight occurred at sunset, as people were breaking their fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif denounced “cowardly terrorists who target innocent civilians during the holy month of Ramadan” and “deserve no mercy”.The attack took place in Bannu, a district in Pakistan’s turbulent Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province which lies adjacent to the country’s formerly self-governed tribal areas.A security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP late in the night that the death toll had risen to twelve, including three children and two women, with 32 wounded.An intelligence official earlier told AFP that 12 militants had attempted to storm the compound after the suicide bombings, and that six of the attackers had been shot dead.”The blasts created two four-foot craters, and due to their intensity, at least eight houses in the locality have been damaged,” a police official said.The attack was claimed by a faction of the Hafiz Gul Bahadur armed group, which actively supported the Afghan Taliban in its war against the US-led NATO coalition since 2001.”Our fighters got access to an important target and took control,” the group said in a statement, without providing further details.Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari condemned the attack in a statement as “heinous”, saying the “entire nation rejects such despicable acts.”- ‘Apocalyptic’ -Plumes of gray smoke rose into the air after the two explosions, while gunshots continued, with gunfire heard from a distance in the area.”The force of the explosion threw me several feet away… The explosion was so intense that it caused significant damage to the neighbourhood,” 40-year-old local Nadir Ali Shah told AFP in hospital, as he received treatment for head and leg injuries.”It was a scene of apocalyptic devastation,” he added.The attack comes days after a suicide bomber killed six people at an Islamic religious school in Pakistan, attended by key Taliban leaders in the same province.Similar attacks have increased in Pakistan since the Taliban authorities returned to power in Afghanistan in August 2021.Hafiz Gul Bahadur carried out another attack on the same compound last July, detonating an explosive-laden vehicle against the boundary wall, killing eight Pakistani soldiers.Last year was the deadliest in a decade for Pakistan, home to 250 million people, with a surge in attacks that killed more than 1,600 people, according to Islamabad-based analysis group the Center for Research and Security Studies.The violence is largely limited to the country’s border regions with Afghanistan.Islamabad accuses Kabul’s rulers of failing to root out militants sheltering on Afghan soil as they prepare to stage assaults on Pakistan, a charge the Taliban government denies.

Syria interim president seeks pressure on Israel to withdraw from south

Syria’s interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa on Tuesday called on the international community to pressure Israel to “immediately” withdraw its troops from the south, as he attended his first Arab summit since assuming office.Since Sharaa’s Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) spearheaded an offensive that toppled longtime Syrian president Bashar al-Assad on December 8, Israel has deployed troops to a UN-patrolled buffer zone that has separated Israeli and Syrian forces on the strategic Golan Heights since 1974.Israel has occupied much of the Golan Heights since 1967 and later annexed the area abutting Syria’s southeast in a move not recognised by the United Nations.Beyond ground incursions, Israeli forces have also carried out repeated air strikes against Syrian military sites in recent days.”We urge the international community to uphold its legal and moral commitments by supporting Syria’s rights and pressuring Israel to immediately withdraw from southern Syria,” Sharaa told a summit of Arab leaders in Cairo.The “hostile (Israeli) expansion is not only a violation of Syrian sovereignty, but also a direct threat to security and peace in the entire region”, he said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last month demanded “the complete demilitarisation of southern Syria” and said his country would not accept the new Syrian authorities to be present there.Sharaa was in Cairo for an Arab League summit on Gaza, his first such meeting since ousting Assad nearly three months ago.The Syrian presidency published images of Sharaa meeting with senior officials including United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and European Union chief Antonio Costa on the sidelines of the summit.Guterres and Sharaa “exchanged views about the historic opportunity to chart a new course for Syria as well as the challenges facing the country”, according to the UN.The United Nations envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen in a statement strongly condemned Israel’s “military escalations” including air strikes” on its northern neighbour.Under Assad, Syria was suspended from the Arab League over his deadly 2011 crackdown on pro-democracy protests which spiralled into a devastating civil war.In 2023, Syria under Assad was allowed to return to the bloc after years of regional isolation.Regional powerhouse Saudi Arabia had been instrumental to Assad’s short-lived return to the fold, after it became a major market for captagon, an addictive drug linked to the ousted Syrian leader.A UN Security Council committee approved a travel ban exemption for Sharaa, enabling him to visit Egypt for Tuesday’s summit despite his inclusion on a sanctions list.The meeting was called in response to a widely criticised proposal by President Donald Trump for the United States to take over Gaza and force its Palestinian inhabitants to relocate to Egypt or Jordan.Sharaa has called Trump’s proposal “a very huge crime that cannot happen”.

Double car bomb attack kills 10 at Pakistan military compound

Suicide bombers belonging to a militant group drove two explosive-laden cars into an army compound in northwestern Pakistan on Tuesday evening, triggering massive explosions and killing at least 10 civilians, police told AFP.”The death toll has now risen to ten, including three children and two women. At least 20 others were injured in both explosions,” a senior police official told AFP late Tuesday on condition of anonymity.”All of the victims are civilians. Security forces are still working to clear the area,” he added.The attack took place in Bannu, a district in Pakistan’s turbulent Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province which lies adjacent to the country’s formerly self-governed tribal areas.”The blasts created two four-foot craters, and due to their intensity, at least eight houses in the locality have been damaged,” the police official said.”Apart from two suicides, six militants were shot dead in an exchange of fire,” he added.An intelligence official told AFP that 12 militants had attempted to storm the compound after the suicide bombs.The attack was claimed by a faction of the Hafiz Gul Bahadur armed group, which actively supported the Afghan Taliban in its war against the US-led NATO coalition since 2001.”Our fighters got access to an important target and took control,” the group said in a statement, without providing further details.Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari condemned the attack in a statement as “heinous”.”The entire nation rejects such despicable acts.”- ‘Apocalyptic’ -The attacks occurred at sunset, at the time when people were breaking their fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.Plumes of gray smoke rose into the air after the two explosions, while gunshots continued, with gunfire heard from a distance in the area.”The force of the explosion threw me several feet away… The explosion was so intense that it caused significant damage to the neighbourhood,” 40-year-old local Nadir Ali Shah told AFP in hospital, as he received treatment for head and leg injuries.”It was a scene of apocalyptic devastation,” he added.The attack comes days after a suicide bomber killed six people at an Islamic religious school in Pakistan, attended by key Taliban leaders in the same province.Similar attacks have increased in Pakistan since the Taliban authorities returned to power in Afghanistan in August 2021.Hafiz Gul Bahadur carried out another attack on the same compound last July, detonating an explosive-laden vehicle against the boundary wall, killing eight Pakistani soldiers.Last year was the deadliest in a decade for Pakistan, home to 250 million people, with a surge in attacks that killed more than 1,600 people, according to Islamabad-based analysis group the Center for Research and Security Studies.The violence is largely limited to the country’s border regions with Afghanistan.Islamabad accuses Kabul’s rulers of failing to root out militants sheltering on Afghan soil as they prepare to stage assaults on Pakistan, a charge the Taliban government denies.

Tunisia puts opposition figures on mass trial decried as ‘absurdity’

The trial of several prominent Tunisian opposition figures accused of national security offences opened on Tuesday, with lawyers and relatives denouncing the case as politically motivated.The around 40 high-profile defendants include activists, politicians, lawyers and media figures, some of whom have been vocal critics of President Kais Saied.They face charges including “plotting against the state security” and “belonging to a terrorist group”, according to lawyers, which could entail hefty sentences and even capital punishment.In the courtroom, relatives of the accused chanted “freedom” and accused the judiciary of acting on government orders.Defence lawyer Abdelaziz Essid pleaded with the judges to end the “absurdity” of the legal case, which Human Rights Watch dubbed a “mockery of a trial” based on “abusive charges”.The hearing was adjourned in the afternoon for the court to review requests from the defence team, an AFP journalist reported.A defence lawyer said the next hearing was set for April 11.The defence team’s requests included the physical presence of the detained defendants and their release from prison.Lawyers have denounced the trial as unfair after defendants who have been in detention were not allowed to attend in person, instead following the hearing remotely.- ‘Judicial harassment’ -The case has named politician and law expert Jawhar Ben Mbarek, Ennahdha leader Abdelhamid Jelassi, and National Salvation Front co-founder Issam Chebbi.Activists Khayam Turki and Chaima Issa, businessman Kamel Eltaief, and Bochra Belhaj Hmida, a former member of parliament and human rights activist now living in France, have also been charged in the case.Dalila Msaddek, a defence committee lawyer, told the judges she feared that “the sentences have been ready” and decided beforehand.Speaking to AFP earlier, she described the case as “hollow” and “based on false testimony”.Some of the defendants are accused of getting in contact with foreign parties and diplomats, according to lawyers.Several of the defendants were arrested in February 2023, after which Saied labelled them “terrorists”.Others have remained free pending trial, while some have fled abroad, according to the defence committee.Saied, elected in 2019 after Tunisia emerged as the only democracy from the Arab Spring, staged a sweeping power grab in 2021. Rights groups have since raised concerns over a rollback on freedoms.Defence lawyers have complained that they did not have full access to the case file.”None of the lawyers have the complete file,” said Essid during the trial.”You can put an end to this madness and absurdity,” he told the judges.In a letter from his cell, Ben Mbarek called the trial a form of “judicial harassment” aimed at “the methodical elimination of critical voices”, insisting the accusations were baseless.- ‘Pattern of arrests’ -Lawyer Samir Dilou called the proceedings a government plot “against the opposition”.National Salvation Front head Ahmed Nejib Chebbi, who is also named in the case, called the trial “unjust”.He said the defendants were “figures in Tunisia known for their non-violence and respect for the law”.”Opposing the authority in place is not a crime, it is a right,” he recently said.Unlike his brother Issam, he remains free while awaiting the trial’s verdict.On Sunday, during a visit to the streets of the capital Tunis, Saied told a woman who asked him to intervene for her imprisoned sons — unrelated to the trial — that he “never intervenes” in judicial matters.”Let this be clear to everyone,” he was heard telling her in a video posted on the presidency’s official Facebook page.Other critics of Saied have been detained and charged in different cases, including under a law to combat “false news”.In early February, the leader of Islamist-inspired Ennahdha party Rached Ghannouchi, 83, was sentenced to 22 years in prison for plotting against state security.The United Nations urged Tunisian authorities last month to bring “an end to the pattern of arrests, arbitrary detentions and imprisonment of dozens of human rights defenders, lawyers, journalists, activists and politicians”.Tunisia’s foreign ministry dismissed the UN statement with “astonishment” and denounced its “inaccuracies”.”Tunisia can give lessons to those who think they are in a position to make statements,” it said.

Abbas says PA ready to run Gaza as Arab leaders discuss reconstruction

Mahmud Abbas said his Palestinian Authority was ready to reassume control over Gaza, as Arab leaders in Cairo on Tuesday hammered out a plan for rebuilding the devastated territory to counter a widely condemned proposal by US President Donald Trump.The prospect of the PA governing Gaza was far from certain, however, with Israel having ruled out any future role for the body, and Trump having closed the Palestine Liberation Organization liaison office in Washington during his first term while stepping up support for Israel.Shortly after returning to power in January, Trump triggered global outrage by suggesting the United States “take over” the Gaza Strip and turn it into the “Riviera of the Middle East”, while forcing its Palestinian inhabitants to relocate to Egypt or Jordan.Tuesday’s Arab League summit in Cairo aimed to offer an alternative to that vision, a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the Trump plan “visionary and innovative”.In his opening remarks on Tuesday, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said his country’s plan for Gaza would ensure Palestinians “remain on their land”, but was careful not to criticise Trump.Calling for “a serious and effective political process that leads to a just and lasting solution to the Palestinian cause”, he added: “I am confident that President Trump is capable of doing that.”Sisi said that under the Egyptian plan, Gaza would be run by a committee of Palestinian technocrats, “paving the way for the return of the Palestinian Authority to the Strip”.Abbas, also addressing the summit, said a working committee had been formed to prepare for the PA resuming its role in Gaza and taking up security “responsibilities after restructuring and unifying its cadres present in the Gaza Strip and training them in Egypt and Jordan”.The PA had previously governed Gaza before losing power there in 2007 to Islamist militant group Hamas — whose October 7, 2023 attack on Israel sparked the latest war in the territory.- Draft plan -Palestinians, Arab states and many European governments have rejected Trump’s proposal for US control of Gaza, opposing any efforts to expel its people.Trump has recently appeared to soften his stance, saying he was “not forcing” the plan, which experts have said could violate international law.A draft version of the Egyptian plan seen by AFP lays out a five-year roadmap with a price tag of $53 billion — about the same amount the United Nations estimated Gaza’s reconstruction would cost.A proposed early recovery phase, expected to last six months and cost $3 billion, would focus on clearing unexploded ordnance and debris, and providing temporary housing, according to the draft.That would be followed by a $20 billion initial reconstruction stage running until 2027 and focusing on rebuilding essential infrastructure and permanent housing.The next stage of reconstruction, extending to 2030 at an estimated cost of $30 billion, aims to build more housing, infrastructure, and industrial and commercial facilities.The plan proposes an internationally supervised trust fund to ensure efficient and sustainable financing, as well as transparency and oversight.UN chief Antonio Guterres, who was also in Cairo on Tuesday, gave his strong endorsement to “the Arab-led initiative” to rebuild Gaza, adding the UN was prepared to “fully cooperate”.While several Arab heads of state participated Tuesday, de facto Saudi ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was notably absent, sending his top diplomat instead, state media said.As far and away the Middle East’s largest economy, Saudi Arabia’s backing would be essential to any regional reconstruction effort.- Ceasefire impasse -Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza has left the territory largely in ruins and created a dire humanitarian crisis that.A fragile ceasefire since January saw an influx of humanitarian aid into Gaza, before Israel on Sunday announced it was blocking any deliveries.”We look forward to an effective Arab role that ends the humanitarian tragedy… and thwarts the (Israeli) occupation’s plans to displace” Palestinians, Hamas said in a statement as the Cairo summit was convening.The talks are taking place as Israel and Hamas find themselves at an impasse over the future of the ceasefire.The truce’s first phase ended at the weekend, after six weeks of relative calm that included exchanges of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners.While Israel said it backed an extension of the first phase until mid-April, Hamas has insisted on a transition to the second phase, which should lead to a permanent end to the war.Israel announced on Sunday that it was halting “all entry of goods and supplies” into Gaza, and that Hamas would face “other consequences” if it did not accept the truce extension.Hours before the summit opened Tuesday, Israel’s top diplomat Gideon Saar said it demanded the “total demilitarisation of Gaza” and Hamas’s removal in order to proceed to the second phase of the ceasefire deal.Hamas leader Sami Abu Zuhri rejected the demand, telling AFP: “The resistance’s weapons are a red line for Hamas and all resistance factions.”