At Least 37 Dead In Afghan Suicide Attack During Eid Prayers

*Source: RT

At least 37 dead in Afghan suicide attack during Eid prayers

At least 37 people were killed and 50 more injured after a suicide bomber attacked a mosque in Afghanistan’s northern city of Maymana, local officials reported. Worshipers had gathered at the mosque to celebrate the Eid al-Adha Islamic holiday.

The bomber was reportedly wearing a police uniform when he detonated his explosives in front of the Mosque.

The local authorities said that over half of those killed were police officers. The provincial governor and police chief were in attendance at the prayer service and narrowly escaped with their lives.

“There was blood and dead bodies everywhere,'' said Khaled, a doctor who happened to be in the mosque at the time of the blast to AFP. “It was a massacre.” 

The attack follows Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s appeal to insurgent to cease “the destruction of our mosques, hospitals and schools.”

In his Eid message Karzai urged the Taliban “to stop killing other Afghans.”

Pakistan Cabinet Minister Offers $100k to Murder Anti-Islam Filmmaker

*Source: RT

Pakistani students carry swords at a protest rally in Lahore on September 22, 2012, against a US-made anti-Islam film (AFP Photo / Arif Ali)

Amid protests that killed more than 20 people throughout Pakistan on Friday, the country’s Cabinet minister offered a $100,000 reward for the murder of the US filmmaker that ridiculed Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.
­Minister Ghulam Ahmad Bilour told the Associated Press that he encourages the Taliban and al-Qaeda to perform this “sacred duty.” He himself would pay the reward out of his pocket, he said.
“I announce today that this blasphemer, this sinner who has spoken nonsense about the Holy Prophet, anyone who murders him, I will reward him with $100,000,” he said at a news conference in Peshawar Saturday. “I invite the Taliban brothers and the al-Qaeda brothers to join me in this blessed mission.”
Worldwide, offended Muslims have expressed their outrage against the film titled “Innocence of Muslims,” which was allegedly produced by 55-year-old filmmaker and Egyptian-born Coptic Christian, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, also known as Sam Bacile. Death threats against the alleged filmmaker are being made across social media websites, causing the Californian man and his family to go into hiding.
“I also announce that if the government hands this person over to me, my heart says I will finish him with my own hands and then they can hang me,” the minister said. The government of Pakistan has already proclaimed that it has disassociated itself from the minister’s statement. But as protests raged on, anger at the filmmaker continued to brew among those who felt personally offended by the 13-minute anti-Muslim YouTube clip.
“Insallah, we will kill him,” wrote one Facebook user from Karachi, Pakistan.
And as more than 5,000 protesters marched towards the parliament in Islamabad Saturday, there was much chanting about the filmmaker who enraged so much of the world. Knowing that he was committing a crime by endorsing murder, Minister Bilour said he was ready to carry out the deed himself.
“Punishment for those who humiliated our Prophet,” the protesters chanted while rallying in the capital, just a day after exceptional violence erupted throughout the country.

Taliban attacks U.S. embassy in Kabul

As insurgents carried out coordinated attacks in three areas of Kabul today, taking over a tall building overlooking the central diplomatic compounds and firing rocket-propelled grenades down on the US embassy, the Taliban were sending out text messages to journalists giving a blow by blow account of the assault.

Reports from the US compound said that hundreds of diplomats and staff had taken shelter in the embassy bunker. Presumably among them was the ambassador, Ryan Crocker, who was quoted in yesterday’s Washington Post as saying: “It’s better than I thought. The biggest problem in Kabul is traffic.”

Today, the Taliban gave western officials something to keep their minds off city centre congestion. Crocker was appealing for ‘strategic patience’ back home, and offering evidence of progress. By carrying out a complex attack in the heart of the capital, the insurgents are seeking to demonstrate that such claims are illusory.
Read entire article here