Sidelights

Afghan blast kills 10: A roadside bomb on Thursday killed at least ten people including eight policemen in the northeastern Afghan province of Kunar, officials said.

The blast in Dangam district in the troubled province bordering Pakistan hit a vehicle carrying four police officers who earlier escaped a separate roadside bomb and were being transported for treatment for wounds sustained in that attack, Dangam district Governor Hamish Gulab Shinwari told AFP.

“The four wounded policemen were put on a passing civilian vehicle by colleagues to get to a nearby clinic, but the vehicle struck another land mine laid by the Taleban,” Shinwari said.

Eight police officers and two civilians inside the vehicle were killed, he said. (AFP) US convicts pirates: A US court on Wednesday convicted five Somali men of piracy over a 2010 attack on a US naval ship in the corsair-infested waters off the Horn of Africa.

The five men were on a skiff that fired an AK-47 at the USS Ashland, a dock-landing vessel, which fired back with a 25mm machine gun, setting the pirates’ ship on fire and killing one of its crew members.

The US vessel then deployed inflatable boats to rescue the others. There was no damage to the US ship and none of its crew were wounded.

Three of the men were alleged to have previously gone to sea on a separate raid in February 2010 before being intercepted by Britain’s Royal Navy. (AFP) Kenyans threatened: Somalia’s al-Qaeda-linked Shebab on Wednesday issued a stark warning to Kenyan voters ahead of next week’s general elections, threatening them with a “long, gruesome war.”

The Islamist group argued Kenya was safer when it ruled bordering southern Somalia but stopped short of saying who Kenyan voters should choose in the March 4 polls.

Kenyan troops, who have since become part of the 17,000-strong African Union force fighting the Shebab, invaded southern Somalia in October 2011 to attack the insurgents’ bases after a string of killings and kidnappings inside Kenya. (AFP)