KABUL, Afghanistan – A roadside bomb tore through a crowded market in Afghanistan’s increasingly volatile north, killing three policemen and two civilians, a police official said Friday.

Another 15 civilians were wounded in Thursday evening’s bombing in Kunduz province’s Archi town. The blast went off as residents were shopping for foods ahead of breaking the dawn-to-dusk fast observed during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, but deputy provincial police chief Abdul Rahman Aqtash said civilians appear to have been the target.

"This was a cruel act of the enemy. There was nothing to link these people to the coalition or to politics," Aqtash said.

Kunduz, about 150 miles (240 kilometers) north of the Afghan capital, Kabul, has not traditionally been a stronghold of the Taliban, who enjoy their greatest support among ethnic Pashtuns in the country’s southern and eastern provinces.

However, insurgents have been steadily building their presence there since about 2007, mostly among Pashtuns who are a minority in the area. Attacks on a key coalition supply line running south from Tajikistan are a constant menace, along with ambushes of German forces who help provide security.

In establishing a northern foothold, Afghan authorities believe the Taliban use veterans from southern battlefields to help organize local groups, sometimes with help from the al-Qaida-linked Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which provides recruits from among the Uzbek minority.

"The situation is very bad and dangerous in Kunduz but unfortunately the security officials keep saying things are all right," Mabubullah Mabub, chairman of the Kunduz provincial council, told The Associated Press on Thursday. "Over the last two years, the situation has been getting worse."

Farther east in Badakhshan province, Afghan army commandos aided by U.S. special forces discovered a major weapons cache in the remote village of Nawci on Wednesday, NATO reported. It said weapons found included 78 rockets with launchers, 47 mortar rounds, more than 9,000 rounds of ammunition, and 24 rocket propelled grenades. All were destroyed.

The town is believed to be safe haven for Taliban fighters and drug smugglers, as well as a conduit for foreign fighters arriving from neighboring Pakistan, NATO said.

Following the release of classified American military documents by WikiLeaks, Afghan officials have become more outspoken in urging the United States to put more pressure on Pakistan to shut down terror sanctuaries on its side of the border.

President Hamid Karzai on Thursday told a visiting U.S. Congressional delegation that the war against terrorists cannot succeed as long as the Taliban and their allies maintain sanctuaries in Pakistan.

A statement by Karzai’s office said the Afghan leader told the U.S. delegation that significant progress had been made in rebuilding the country after decades of war. But he said the campaign against the Taliban and al-Qaida had faltered because of ongoing civilian casualties during NATO military operations and a lack of focus on "destroying the terrorists’ refuge" across the border.

Karzai also said President Barack Obama’s announcement that he would begin withdrawing U.S. forces from Afghanistan in July 2011 has given "the enemy a morale boost" because they believe they can simply hold out until the Americans leave.

A suicide bomber has killed at least 43 people and injured 40 more southwest of Baghdad, Iraqi police says. The bomber attacked government-backed Sunni militia members lining up to be paid in the town of Radwaniya.

The Sunni militia fighters, known as Sahwa or Awakening Councils, were once allied with al-Qaeda, but turned against the militant group in 2006. Awakening Council members, also known as Sons of Iraq, are credited with helping bring down violence in Iraq in the past two years. They are a frequent target of anti-government militants.

Among the wounded were at least two soldiers, the Interior Ministry said.

"There were more than 85 people lined up in three lines at the main gate of the military base to receive salaries when a person approached us", a survivor, 20-year-old Tayseer Mehsen, told the Reuters news agency at Mahmudiya hospital.

"When one of the soldiers tried to stop him, he blew himself up."

The Sahwa are credited with helping to reduce the overall levels of violence in Iraq since they joined the US military and government forces in the fight against al-Qaeda.

But they have been frequently targeted by militants and have recently complained about harassment from government troops as a political vacuum continues following inconclusive elections in March.

Sunni insurgents have sought to exploit the deadlock created by a failure of Sunni, Shia and Kurdish factions to agree on a new coalition government.

There are also fears that the political uncertainty could hinder the planned withdrawal of all US combat troops from Iraq by the end of August, in preparation for a full military departure by 2012.

Control of the Sahwa passed to Iraq in October 2008, and their  wages – said to have been cut from $300 under US leadership  to $100 – have been paid, often late, by the Shia-led government.

No group or person has so far claimed responsibility for the attack. Iraq has witnessed bombings and terror attacks on an almost daily basis since the US-led invasion of the country in 2003. The war toppled Iraq’s notorious dictator Saddam Hussein but also opened the gate for unrelenting violence by al-Qaeda-linked militants.

A bomb in a mosque in south-east Iran has killed at least 22 people and injured 60, the governor of Sistan-Baluchestan province said. The explosion happened in Zahedan, the provincial capital, at the time of evening prayer, Ali Mohammad Azad told Iranian state TV.

 He said "terrorists", who had planned to detonate more bombs, were arrested.  The province is often the scene of lawlessness, including clashes between police and drug dealers or militants.  Zahedan is a mainly Sunni Muslim city in a mostly Shia country. Part of the Amir al-Mohini mosque was destroyed, the official news agency Irna reported. Rescue teams were taking out the bodies of the dead and injured.
 "It was a terrorist attack and the bomb was exploded by a terrorist," Mr Azad said, according to Irna, adding that members of a terrorist group had been arrested. Mr Azad said "bandits and terrorists intended to disturb the order in the province before the election considering the insecurity in the eastern neighbouring countries".Although it occurred in a remote region, the explosion comes at a time of heightened political sensitivity nationally, with just over two weeks before the first round of the presidential election . Fars news agency quoted witnesses saying the incident had been a suicide attack, and that a second bomb had been defused near the mosque. The reports could not be verified. 

 Thursday was a public holiday marking the death of the Prophet Muhammad’s daughter, Fatima. Sistan-Baluchestan is one of the most deprived regions in Iran.  Its location on the borders of both Afghanistan and Pakistan make it a key route in the drugs trade. Despite Iran’s best efforts, a huge proportion of the world’s opiates, such as heroin and morphine, are smuggled by heavily armed drugs gangs, often in large convoys. There are also a number of militants in the area, many of them with links to the drugs gangs, and clashes with the security forces are common.

 Two years ago at least 11 people, including members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, were killed by a bomb in Zahedan. Foreigners are strongly advised to avoid the area, and a recent visit by a number of diplomats was accompanied by extremely heavy security. The insurgency is linked with the area’s large Sunni population – at odds with Iran’s Shia-led government. But the Iranian government also accuses the US and Britain of supporting the militants.
 

KAMPALA, Uganda — An al-Qaeda-linked Somali militia claimed responsibility Monday for back-to-back bombings in the Ugandan capital that killed at least 74 people watching the World Cup final on television, marking the first major international attack by the group in a region where the United States and its allies are attempting to stem the rise of Islamic radicalism. In the Somali capital, Mogadishu, a top spokesman for the hardline al-Shabab said the group carried out the bombings, and he threatened further attacks if Uganda and Burundi continued to supply troops to an African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia.

“Al Shabab was behind the blasts,” Ali Mohamud Raghe, the militia’s spokesman told reporters. “Thanks to our martyrs who carried out the attacks.”
The powerful explosions tore through two venues in Kampala where crowds were watching broadcasts of the World Cup final late Sunday, killing at least 74 and wounding scores of others, Ugandan police said. At least one American was killed and several were wounded, according to the U.S. Embassy here.  The bombings unfolded at the Kyadondo Rugby Club and at the Ethiopian Village restaurant where hundreds of boisterous and cheering soccer fans, including clusters of foreigners, had gathered to watch Spain beat the Netherlands in the final in South Africa. Among the dead at the rugby club was Nate Henn, 25, of Wilmington, Del., a worker for Invisible Children, a California-based aid group that helps child soldiers, the group said on its Web site. A 16-year-old girl from Ellicott City, Md., Emily Kerstetter, was injured, according to WMAR-TV in Baltimore. She was in Kampala with her grandmother’s church group from Pennsylvania.  Ugandan Police Chief Kale Kaihura immediately pointed blame at al-Shabab, a hard-line militia with growing ties to al-Qaeda that has perpetrated several bombings in recent months in Somalia.