NEWS OF THE DAY
From Around the World
1 Kabul bombing: A suicide bomber struck near the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan’s capital on Tuesday, killing five people in an attack claimed by the Islamic State. Health Ministry spokesman Wahid Mujro said 20 other people were wounded in the blast, which took place in a heavily guarded area housing several diplomatic missions and the offices of international organizations. Islamic State claimed the bombing in a brief statement carried by its Aamaq news agency, without specifying the target.
2 Egypt air strikes: Egypt’s military says its air strikes have destroyed three vehicles loaded with weapons, ammunition and explosives, and killed a “large number” of militants in the western desert allegedly involved in a brazen ambush on the country’s police earlier this month. Military spokesman Col. Tamer el-Rifai said Tuesday’s air strikes took place in a mountainous area outside Fayoum province, 50 miles southwest of Cairo. The attack comes nearly two weeks after authorities announced that at least 16 policemen were killed in an ambush about 84 miles southwest of Cairo. Tuesday’s attack took place in Egypt’s western desert, where a previous series of attacks were blamed on Islamic militants coming from Libya.
3 Attack foiled: A Syrian man was arrested in northeastern Germany on Tuesday morning for allegedly planning a bomb attack targeting “the biggest possible number of people,” authorities said. Special forces arrested the 19-year-old in the city of Schwerin, federal prosecutors said. They said the man, whose identity was only given as Yaman A. in line with Germany privacy rules, was motivated by extremist Islamic ideology. They said it wasn’t clear if he had already chosen a specific target for his attack. Germany has been hit by several extremist attacks, including one in Berlin last December that killed 12.
4 “Family honor”: Police in Pakistan have arrested seven men for parading a young woman through a village naked in connection with a dispute over family honor. Police officer Mohammad Basharat Khan said Tuesday that the woman’s brother had an affair with a young woman from the suspects’ family. He says they forced the young woman from the rival family to strip down before parading her through the village in northwestern Pakistan last week. He says the two main suspects are still at large. Family honor is a sensitive issue in Muslimmajority Pakistan, where nearly 1,000 women are killed by their relatives each year for violating conservative norms on love and marriage.
5 Church reformation: German leaders on Tuesday marked the 500th anniversary since the day Martin Luther is said to have nailed his theses challenging the Catholic Church to a church door, a starting point of the Reformation. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Frank-Walter Steinmeier took part in a service in the famous Castle Church in Wittenberg, where Luther supposedly posted his 95 Theses on Oct. 31, 1517. Thousands were participating in different church services throughout the day in the eastern German town. The city also celebrated the anniversary with a medieval-style street festival including arts and cultural events. As Protestantism spread following Luther’s revolt against the Catholic Church, religious wars erupted, dividing western Christianity in a schism that resulted in hundreds of years of violence, persecution and discrimination.