World in brief: Insurgents kill 13 in northwest city

Insurgents used an array of tactics to kill 13 people across northwestern Pakistan on Thursday, ambushing police officers with small-arms fire, detonating explosives planted in a crowded market and attacking security checkpoints with suicide bombers.

Most of the deaths occurred in Peshawar, the largest city in the northwest, and security forces appeared to be the targets of much of the violence.

The attacks marked the second consecutive day that extremists have used a combination of gunfire and explosives to terrorize a major Pakistani city. The tactics echo two spectacular South Asian gun-and-bomb strikes in recent years – the Mumbai siege late last year and the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in December 2007.

The attacks in the northwest followed an assault on a police building and intelligence agency office in the eastern city of Lahore on Wednesday that killed as many as 30 people. The Taliban asserted responsibility for that attack, and government officials were quick to blame the group for Thursday’s attacks as well.

Washington

U.S. ready for war with North Korea

The United States could fight an old-fashioned war against North Korea if necessary, even while newer forms of conflict against terrorists and extremists continue, the Army’s top officer said Thursday.

Asked whether the United States would be prepared to fight if war broke out between South Korea and North Korea, Gen. George Casey replied, “The short answer is yes,” then added that “it would probably take us a little bit longer to shift gears” away from the type of counterinsurgency fighting that now occupies the Army.

North Korea has threatened war following condemnation of its underground nuclear test this week.

From wire reports