Saturday, October 29, 2011

Early Snow Pelts East Coast, Cuts Power to 1.7 Million

Rare October snowstorm pelts the Northeast | Reuters

Bombing in Afghanistan kills 13 NATO force members - latimes.com

REPORTING FROM KABUL, AFGHANISTAN -- Insurgents mounted several attacks across Afghanistan Saturday, including a car bomb that hit a NATO military vehicle in downtown Kabul, killing thirteen.

A U.S. official told Associated Press all 13 NATO service members killed in the suicide bombing were American troops.

An attacker in an Afghan military uniform in the southern part of the country also turned his weapon on members of the U.S.-led military coalition, killing two before he was killed in return fire.

And in a third incident in Eastern Afghanistan, a female suicide bomber wearing a burqa tried to enter a government building. She was killed, according to local news reports, when guards became suspicious of her behavior and opened fire, prompting her to detonate her explosives.

She was the only casualty in the incident, which occurred near the local branch of the National Directorate of Security, the country’s spy agency, according to Abdul Sabor Allayar, Kunar province’s deputy police chief, although two agency employees and two civilians were wounded.

The Kabul car bombing took place at 11:30 a.m. on Darulaman Road, one of the capital’s busiest, which runs past parliament and Darulaman Palace -– or “abode of peace” -- built in the 1920s in a bid to modernize the country. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack in text messages to media organizations.