NATION/WORLD

Suspicious package sickens 10 at IRS site

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - A suspicious package that smelled like ammonia sickened several people at an IRS building in downtown Kansas City, Mo., on Friday, federal authorities said.

Officials said about 10 people reported being ill, including vomiting and nausea, after the package arrived at the sprawling building’s mailroom Friday morning.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Lucy Martinez said some people reported feeling ill with “watery eyes,” and several people were evaluated and treated at hospitals.

Martinez said the package was an envelope that smelled like ammonia, though no other details were released about the envelope’s contents or where it may have originated.

She said the investigation has been taken over by the U.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, a division in the IRS that investigates fraud. The Federal Protective Services, which responds to terrorism and criminal acts against U.S. government infrastructure, also is involved in the probe.

NATO soldier killed in attack in Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan A Taliban suicide bomber disguised as a woman

rammed his motorcycle into an international convoy, killing a NATO soldier and two Afghan civilians in an attack north of the Afghan capital, the U.S. military said Friday. It was the second deadly assault this week on a NATO convoy.

Stepped up Taliban attacks this week have focused mostly on the country’s south, but there was also a deadly bombing in the western city of Herat, where 32 people died in a militant assault on a Shiite mosque.

Thursday evening’s attack hit the NATO patrol near the town of Qarabagh, 18 miles north of Kabul, the Afghan capital, the U.S. military said.

The day before, a suicide attacker hit a convoy on the edge of the southern city of Kandahar, killing two U.S. soldiers and wounding another four.

Both attacks were claimed by the Taliban.

U.S. airstrike kills al-Shabab leader

MOGADISHU, Somalia - The U.S. military on Friday confirmed it killed a high-level commander of the al-Shabab extremist group with an airstrike in Somalia over the weekend, targeting a man blamed for planning deadly attacks in the capital of the Horn of Africa nation.

A U.S. Africa Command statement said the drone strike on July 30 killed Ali Mohamed Hussein. The statement said he was “was responsible for leading al-Shabab forces operating in the Mogadishu and Banadiir regions in planning and executing attacks against the capital of Mogadishu.”