US ‘MOAB’ toll hits 94

Sri Lanka landslide buries 19

KABUL, Afghanistan, April 15, (Agencies): The number of militants killed in an attack by the largest nonnuclear weapon ever used in combat by the US military has risen to 94, an Afghan official said Saturday.

Ataullah Khogyani, spokesman for the provincial governor in Nangarhar, said the number of Islamic State group dead was up from the 36 reported a day earlier. A Ministry of Defense official had said Friday the number of dead could rise as officials assessed the bomb site in Achin district.

“Fortunately there is no report of civilians being killed in the attack,” Khogyani said.

The US attack on a tunnel complex in remote eastern Nangarhar province near the Pakistan border killed at least four IS group leaders, Khogyani said. He said a clearance operation to assess the site of the attack was continuing.

The strike using the Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb, or MOAB, was carried out Thursday against an Islamic State group tunnel complex carved into the mountains that Afghan forces had tried to assault repeatedly in recent weeks in fierce fighting in Nangarhar province.

Former Afghan president Hamid Karzai on Saturday criticized both the Afghan and US governments for the attack in Nangarhar. Addressing a gathering in capital Kabul, Karzai said that allowing the US to carry out the bombing in Nangarhar was “a national treason” and an insult to Afghanistan.

The office of current President Ashraf Ghani said Friday there was “close coordination” between the US military and the Afghan government on the operation, and they were careful to prevent any civilian casualties.

The US estimates 600-800 IS fighters are in Afghanistan, mostly in Nangarhar. The US has concentrated on fighting them while also supporting Afghan forces against the Taleban. The US has more than 8,000 US troops in Afghanistan, training local forces and conducting counterterrorism operations.

A rubbish dump landslide in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo killed at least 16 and injured over a dozen, military spokesman and hospital officials said on Saturday, as emergency workers dug into the mountain of trash in search of survivors.

The estimated 300-foot (91 metre) dump collapsed after flames engulfed it late on Friday, the island nation’s traditional new year’s day, and witnesses said around 100 houses could have been buried.

The crash sparked an explosion that killed the driver of the tanker and people on the bus on a highway in Guerrero state, said Marco Cesar Mayares, secretary of the

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The death toll rose to 16 as more bodies were discovered on Saturday, army spokesman Roshan Senivirathna said. At least four teenagers were among the dead, a nurse at the main Colombo hospital told Reuters.

Eight Pakistanis who brutally murdered a fellow university student over his liberal views were charged with murder and terrorism on Saturday, court officials said.

Mashal Khan, a journalism student, was stripped, beaten, shot, and thrown from the second floor of his hostel at the Abdul Wali Khan university in the conservative northwestern town of Mardan on Thursday by a large mob.

So far a total of 12 people have been arrested over the incident and police are hunting for more suspects.

“Eight students were presented before an anti-terrorism court in Mardan over murder and challenging the writ of the state,” public prosecutor Rafiullah Khan told AFP.

Four others were arrested Saturday, Khan said.

A senior Pakistani official says an Indian naval officer who faces the death penalty for espionage and sabotage will not be immediately executed because he has the right to appeal his conviction by a military tribunal.

Sartaj Aziz, the prime minister’s adviser on foreign affairs, told reporters Friday that Kulbhushan Jadhav is entitled to file a mercy petition to the army chief if an appellate court upholds his conviction.

Aziz’s comments were aimed at easing tensions with India, which has warned Pakistan of serious consequences if it executes Jadhav. He said Jadhav can also seek a pardon from the president of Pakistan.

Jadhav was arrested by Pakistan last year and a tribunal of the country’s military sentenced him to death this month.

Pakistan’s military says security forces have raided a militant hideout in central Pakistan, triggering an intense shootout in which three soldiers and 10 militants were killed.

In a statement, it said two soldiers were also wounded in Friday’s raid in the Dera Ghazi Khan district.

Local militant commanders were among the 10 insurgents who were killed, the statement said.

The paramilitary Rangers were still carrying out a search operation in the region to arrest more suspects, according to the military.

Guerrero Civil Protection service.

The state authorities’ securities spokesman Roberto Alvarez Heredia said in a statement that 24 people were killed, raising an earlier estimate given by Mayares.

A report by the Civil Protection service cited survivors saying they were heading on holiday to the beach district of IxtapaZihuatanejo in Guerrero.

Passengers recounted feeling an impact in the back of the bus before the explosion, and a handful of them managed to flee from the vehicle amidst the flames, it said.

The injured were taken to a hospital in the neighboring state of Michoacan.

Mayares said the bus was carrying tourists from the town of Morelia in Michoacan. (AFP)