HUGE BLAST ROCKS KABUL
KABUL: A huge car bomb exploded in a crowded area of Kabul, leaving dozens of people wounded and shattering windows of nearby buildings on Saturday, officials and witnesses said, in the latest attack in the Afghan capital. Interior ministry spokesman Nasrat Rahimi told Agence France- Presse the explosion was caused by a car bomb. The Italian NGO Emergency said more than 50 injured had been taken to its hospital in the city, with its coordinator Dejan Panic tweeting that it had been a “massacre.” The explosion happened in a crowded part of the city where the interior ministry, the European Union and the High Peace Council have offices. Kabul police headquarters is also in the vicinity of the blast. “I can confirm an explosion happened near the old interior ministry building in Kabul,” interior ministry deputy spokesman Nasrat Rahimi told Agence France- Presse. A security alert issued to foreigners on Saturday morning warned that the Islamic State group, which has terrorized
8 DEAD AS US STRIKE HITS IRAQ FORCES
BAGHDAD: Eight Iraqis were killed on Saturday, most of them security personnel, in a US air strike that apparently targeted them by mistake, a provincial official said. “Eight people were killed by a US strike on the center of Al- Baghdadi,” a town in western Iraq, the official said, asking not to be identified. The dead were traveling in a convoy which had been deployed to support an operation against suspected Islamic State group militants in the area. The strike destroyed most of the vehicles in the convoy and also wounded 20 people, including the town’s police chief, who was in a serious condition, the provincial official said. Iraq’s Joint Operations Command said it had ordered a special forces raid in the town after receiving intelligence of a “meeting to be attended by terrorist commander Karim al- Samarmad.” It said it had requested “air support from the international coalition.” Once the terrorist was arrested and while troops were carrying out searches, a grenade was thrown from an adjacent building. As the special forces troops returned to base, they ran into a convoy of police and paramilitaries of
SAUDI ARABIA FREES TOP BROADCASTER HELD IN ANTI- GRAFT DRIVE
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia on Friday released the owner of the influential Arab satellite network MBC nearly three months after his arrest in an anti- corruption drive targeting the kingdom’s elite, sources told Agence France-Presse. Waleed al-Ibrahim was among some 350 suspects rounded up since November 4, including billionaire princes and ministers who were detained in Riyadh’s luxury Ritz- Carlton hotel. Ibrahim held a family gathering at his residence after his release, three MBC employees told Agence France-Presse on condition of anonymity. The staff also received an official e-mail congratulating them on his freedom. The terms of his release are unclear but the government has said that most detainees have agreed on financial settlements in exchange for their freedom as the anti-corruption campaign winds down. The Financial Times reported earlier Friday that authorities had ordered Ibrahim to hand over his controlling stake in MBC to secure his release. Authorities have so far not commented on his case.