44 dead in deadly Taliban insurgent attack in Kabul

KABUL, Afghanistan — In one of the deadliest insurgent attacks in the decade-long war in Afghanistan, nine Taliban fighters dressed as Afghan soldiers stormed a government compound in the western part of the country on Wednesday morning, killing at least 44 people and wounding more than 100 in a hostage standoff.

The complex assault began at around 8:45 a.m., when two suicide attackers detonated explosives packed into an army pickup truck at the entrance gate of the provincial government compound in Farah, according to police officials. After the explosion, which ripped through the mayor’s office and neighboring buildings, insurgents rushed the packed provincial courthouse, taking civilians and a handful of employees hostage.

Afghan security forces surrounded the building, firing at the Taliban fighters tucked away on the second floor. At some point during the nearly seven-hour gunfight, the insurgents took the hostages downstairs to the basement and shot them, the police said.

By 4 p.m., the fight was over, leaving behind a scene of carnage and destruction. The death toll: 34 civilians, 10 Afghan security forces and all nine insurgents, the Farah police said. More than 100 people, mostly civilians, suffered wounds.

“Terrorists once again have shed the blood of innocent people visiting government departments for their work,” President Hamid Karzai said in a statement. “Terrorists should know that they must answer for this before the nation and that they will face the God’s punishment in the afterlife.”

The attack highlighted the deteriorating security situation in Farah, a restive province that borders Iran to the west. The last major assault in the province occurred in May, when four insurgents dressed as police officers staged an attack on the governor’s compound, killing at least 11 people and wounding a dozen others. But violent attacks in general have been on the rise recently in the province.

Officials from Farah said the province had become a hotbed for the insurgency and drug traffickers, as the government focused its resources on more violent areas of the country. Humaira Ayobi, a member of the Parliament who represents Farah, said that a recent effort by the police to stem the drug trade may have contributed to the violence seen on Wednesday. Last month, five police officers were killed in the province while conducting a poppy eradication campaign.

As warm weather spreads throughout Afghanistan, a period referred to as the fighting season, Taliban violence is expected to increase. And as Afghan forces take the lead role in securing the nation, they are preparing for a particularly fierce year of fighting ahead of the planned 2014 withdrawal of international forces.

“Farah is bleeding and crying today,” Ms. Ayobi said. “The province will mourn for weeks.”

On the street where the attack took place on Wednesday, witnesses described a nightmarish scene, with bodies splayed all over. Ambulances carted charred bodies from the buildings, including the offices of the mayor, the prosecutor and the governor.

“When I reached the street I saw that all shops and houses around the courthouse were destroyed,” said Jalil Khan, 47, a civil servant at the customs office. “I saw men, women and some children lying on the ground, bleeding or burned. Some of them didn’t know where they were or what had happened to them.”

Shujauddin, 22, a teacher in Farah city, said he was in the courthouse to address a land dispute when the first explosion struck the government compound. When Shujauddin, who uses one name, tried to escape, he was shot in the arm twice and caught a third bullet in the leg. He woke up hours later in the hospital, he said.

The attack in Farah Province coincided with the highly anticipated return of Afghanistan’s powerful intelligence chief, Asadullah Khalid, who was seriously wounded in a December suicide attack. Mr. Khalid, who was treated in the United States and required multiple surgeries, returned to Kabul on Wednesday morning.

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US deploying missile defense system to Guam in light of rising DPRK tensions

BBC: The US is moving an advanced missile system to the Pacific island of Guam as a precaution following threats by North Korea, the Pentagon has said.

The Department of Defence said it would deploy the ballistic Terminal High Altitude Area Defense System (Thaad) in the coming weeks.

Pyongyang has threatened to target South Korea and the US in recent weeks.

The state's warlike rhetoric follows new UN sanctions and joint military drills by the US and South Korea.

The Thaad system includes a truck-mounted launcher, interceptor missiles, and AN/TPY-2 tracking radar, together with an integrated fire control system.

The Pentagon said in a statement the missile system would be moved to Guam as a "precautionary move to strengthen our regional defense posture against the North Korean regional ballistic missile threat".

"The United States remains vigilant in the face of North Korean provocations and stands ready to defend US territory, our allies, and our national interests," the statement added.

Jon Stewart's remarks cause security headache for US Embassy in Cairo.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Embassy in Cairo has at least temporarily shut down its Twitter feed following an unusual diplomatic incident involving "The Daily Show" host Jon Stewart and the Egyptian government.

U.S. officials say the embassy's Twitter account was taken offline on Wednesday after Egyptian authorities objected to a tweet containing a link to a Stewart monologue this week. Stewart mocked Egypt's president for the arrest of a high-profile satirist. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

It was not immediately clear if or when the feed would be restored. The Twitter blackout comes as tensions between Washington and Cairo have soared in recent days over concerns that the Egyptian government is backsliding on the protection of human rights.

Pakistan Power Plant attacked by terrorists

BBC: A policeman and a plant employee were killed on the spot and nine people were taken hostage, police said.

Five bodies were later recovered from a nearby field but the whereabouts of the four remaining hostages are unknown.

No group has said it carried out the raid, but the Taliban frequently launch attacks in the region.

The attack temporarily disrupted power to parts of the city - the supply has now been restored.

The assault by militants armed with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades took place in the early hours of Tuesday in the southern Badh Bher suburb of Peshawar, an area frequently targeted by militants, correspondents say.

"They attacked the power station at around 02:30 (21:30 GMT Monday). They killed two officials on the spot," Javed Khan, a senior police official in the area, told Agence France-Presse news agency.

The dead include police officers and employees of the power plant.

"They entered the grid station and started setting ablaze each and every thing," police official Mohammad Ishaq told Reuters news agency.

"They kidnapped nine people and killed five of them later and threw their bodies in the fields."

The BBC's Orla Guerin in Islamabad says that there had been fears militants would step up attacks in advance of elections to be held in May.

North Korea firing up Yongbyon nuke facility

By Chico Harlan, Updated: Tuesday, April 2, 8:58 AM

SEOUL — North Korea said Tuesday that it will resume operations of a shuttered nuclear reactor at its Yongbyon facility, allowing the secretive nation to potentially expand its stock of fissile material for nuclear weapons as it threatens war against the United States and its allies.

The brief announcement, carried by the state-run news agency, marked a notable escalation from the rhetoric of recent weeks, which has been fiery but until now backed up by little action.

The graphite-moderated reactor — along with several related facilities — had been shut down in 2007 as part of a diplomatic deal that sent heavy fuel oil to the North. Pyongyang said Tuesday it wanted to to restart the reactor and other nuclear facilities to ease the nation’s “acute shortage of electricity” and to bolster the “nuclear armed force both in quality and quantity.” Experts who have visited the Yongbyon facility say the small reactor is ill-suited for power production and geared instead to produce weapons-grade plutonium.

Plutonium can be culled from the spent fuel that is a byproduct of the reactor’s generating process. When the reactor is fully running, it can produce enough plutonium for about one bomb per year, according to atomic experts.

Restarting the reactor will take about six months, “unless they have been doing much of the preparatory work quietly,” Siegfried Hecker, a former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory who has visited the North’s nuclear facilities numerous times, said in an e-mail.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Tuesday he was “deeply troubled” by rising tensions on the Korean Peninsula and called for negotiations to resolve them.

“Nuclear threats are not a game,” he said at a news conference during a visit to Andorra. “Aggressive rhetoric and military posturing only result in counteractions and fuel fear and instability. Things must begin to calm down, as this situation, made worse by the lack of communication, could lead down a path that nobody should want to follow.”

Ban, a former South Korean foreign minister, said there was “no need” for North Korea “to be on a collision course with the international community.” He said he was sure that no nation intends to attack the North “because of disagreements about its political system or foreign policy. But he expressed fear “that others will respond firmly to any direct military provocation.” Ban added, “Dialogue and negotiations are the only way to resolve the current crisis.”

The North’s announcement comes in the wake of a Workers’ Party pledge that described nuclear weapons as the “nation’s life,” tradable not even for “billions of dollars.” The announcement also suggests that new leader Kim Jong Un is willing to expand his nation’s weapons program even if it upsets neighbors, including the North’s key benefactor, China, whose Foreign Ministry expressed “regret” about the decision to resume operations at Yongbyon.

A former U.S. official who has visited Yongbyon, speaking on condition of anonymity to speak frankly, said the North’s apparent decision is “very dangerous,” because the facilities are not monitored by outsiders.

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