Dozens Dead After Bomb Explodes in Pakistan Mosque

A bomb exploded inside a mosque during midday prayers in northwest Pakistan on Friday, killing at least 40 people and wounding 85, according to news agency reports.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which comes during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

The Associated Press reported that an estimated 300 people had gathered for prayers Friday afternoon in the Sunni mosque. Many were on their way out of the building when the bomb exploded, a local administrator, Iqbal Khan, said.

Television footage showed a heavily damaged building, with clothing and prayer mats scattered across a blood-splattered floor.

The English-language newspaper Dawn said the bombing was the deadliest incident since twin attacks in a crowded supermarket-hotel complex killed 39 people in Peshawar in June.

The bomb went off in Ghundi, a village in the Khyber tribal region, a part of Pakistan’s tribal belt, The Associated Press reported.

The Pakistani Army has waged multiple operations in Khyber aimed at pacifying the region but with limited success. Khyber also is a key region for the United States and NATO, because a large portion of nonlethal supplies heading to U.S. forces in Afghanistan passes through it.

Src  : The New York Times

Suu Kyi leaves home for first trip to Burmese capital

Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi left her home in Rangoon on Friday morning to attend a national-level workshop on economic development in Naypyitaw, the political capital, said party sources.

Under a security arrangement with the government, Suu Kyi was picked up by car at 9 a.m. local time. A commander of the Special Branch Police, Colonel Win Naing Tun, led the government team escorting her. It was not clear if the security staff of the National League for Democracy (NLD) would also accompany her to Naypyitaw.

In her first-ever trip to Naypyitaw and first high-level official function since her release from house detention in November, she may meet President Thein Sein, who was Burma’s prime minister in the previous junta-led government.

Suu Kyi’s official status at the workshop is as an observer, since the government has dissolved the NLD party because it failed to re-register as a political party. Government officials, political party representatives and businessmen will attend the workshop.

Recently, Suu Kyi met twice with Social Welfare and the Labour Minister Aung Kyi in talks that they said were “productive,” and relations between Suu Kyi and the government have taken a positive turn in recent months. For the first time since her release, Suu Kyi recently traveled outside Rangoon, visiting Bagan, the ancient temple complex in central Burma, and Pegu, about 60 km north of Rangoon, to open two libraries named in her honour.

          Aung San Suu Kyi on her visit to Pegu. Photo: Mizzima

Src  : Mizzima