Islamabad, Pakistan – A powerful bomb ripped through a bus carrying employees from the armed forces, while a device tied to a motorcycle went off in a commercial district near Pakistan’s capital today, authorities and local media said. At least 15 people were killed in the blasts.
The first bomb exploded on a bus traveling through Rawalpindi, a garrison city about 7 miles southwest of Islamabad, killing at least 10 people, said Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad, an army spokesman.
Mohammed Afzal, an area police official, said the 72-seat bus belonged to the Pakistan army and was destroyed in the blast.
As the ambulances were transporting victims from the bus blast, a second bomb went off in one of Rawalpindi’s commercial districts, killing at least five people, Afzal said. He didn’t provide any information about those killed or injured in the second blast.
Pakistan is a key ally of the U.S. in its war on terrorism. It has witnessed scores of bomb attacks and other acts of terrorism since the Sept. 11 attacks in the U.S. Officials have blamed pro-Taliban and al-Qaeda elements for most of the attacks.
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LOS ANGELES
Documents: Risk to Iraq convoy ignored
Senior managers for Houston- based defense contractor KBR overruled calls to halt supply operations in Iraq in spring 2004 and ordered unarmored trucks into an active combat zone where at least six civilian drivers died in an ambush, according to newly available documents.
Confidential company e-mails and other internal communications reveal that before KBR dispatched the Good Friday convoy, security advisers predicted an increase in roadside bombings and attacks on Iraq’s highways. They recommended suspension of convoys.
“(I) think we will get people injured or killed tomorrow,” said KBR regional security chief George Seagle, citing “tons of intel.” But in an e-mail sent a day before the convoy was dispatched, he also acknowledged: “Big politics and contract issues involved.”
KBR was under pressure from the military to deliver on its multi billion-dollar contract to transport food, fuel and other vital supplies to U.S. soldiers. At the Baghdad airport, a shortage of jet fuel threatened to ground some units.
After consulting with military commanders, KBR’s top managers decided to keep the convoys rolling.
“If the (Army) pushes, then we push, too,” wrote an aide to Craig Peterson, KBR’s top official in Iraq.
Six American truck drivers and two U.S. soldiers were killed when the convoy rumbled into a 5-mile gantlet of weapons fire April 9, 2004, making an emergency delivery of fuel to the airport. One soldier and a seventh trucker are missing and presumed dead.
BODEGA BAY, Calif.
Tunnel collapses on 2 brothers; boy, 10, dies
A cave that two brothers were digging into the side of a sand dune collapsed, killing the younger boy, authorities said.
The 10-year-old boy and his brother were tunneling under a 40-foot cypress tree at Salmon Creek State Beach on Sunday, fire officials said. The tree fell over, and the tunnel collapsed.
The older boy was able to dig himself out, and he ran for help, Bodega Bay Fire Chief Sean Grinnell said.
It took more than an hour for rescue personnel to pull the 10- year-old out of 6 to 8 feet of sand.
PANAMA CITY, Panama
Construction begins on expanding canal
Panama blasted away part of a hillside next to the canal Monday, marking the start of the waterway’s biggest expansion since it opened 93 years ago.
In the presence of former President Jimmy Carter, who signed the 1977 treaty that gave Panama control of the waterway, Panamanian President Martin Torrijos celebrated the start of construction on two wider sets of locks on both sides of the canal.
The $5.25 billion expansion is expected to double the 50-mile canal’s capacity and lower the price of consumer goods on the East Coast of the U.S. by allowing wider vessels to squeeze through with more cargo.
About two-thirds of the cargo that passes through the canal is headed to or from the U.S. China is the canal’s second-largest user.
KHARTOUM, Sudan
Visiting U.N. chief to push peace talks
Secretary-General Ban Ki- moon is in Sudan to “give a push” for a new round of talks to end the four-year regional conflict and mobilize support for the speedy deployment of a new 26,000- member peacekeeping force, a top U.N. official said Monday.
Ban was to have dinner with President Omar al-Bashir before heading to southern Sudan today to assess implementation of the 2005 agreement that ended a separate 21-year civil war between Sudan’s Muslim government in the north and the mostly Christian southern rebels.
He was due in Darfur on Wednesday to visit a camp for some of the 2.5 million people displaced by the conflict there.
