In brief: Suicide bombing kills Syrian rebel leaders

BEIRUT – The leader of an ultraconservative Islamic rebel group in Syria was killed Tuesday in a suicide bombing along with other of its top officials, its allies said, weakening the ranks of the country’s already shaky armed opposition.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack that killed Hassan Aboud and other leading members of Ahrar al-Sham, part of the strongest front that challenged the Islamic State group, which holds wide swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria. But given that forces loyal to President Bashar Assad’s government do not typically use suicide bombers, it appeared likely that forces in the murky mix of opposition fighters in Syria’s 3-year-old civil war were involved.

The attack struck a high-level meeting of Ahrar al-Sham, or The Islamic Movement of Free Men of the Levant in English, held in the northwestern town of Ram Hamdan in the Syrian province of Idlib, one of its strongholds. A statement from the group said the blast killed Aboud, also known by the nom de guerre Abu Abdullah al-Hamwi, along with 11 other top leaders.

An activist collective called the Edlib News Network, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Syrian state media also reported Aboud’s death. The activist reports said the men died in a suicide bombing.

Ahrar al-Sham was part of the Islamic Front, an alliance of seven powerful conservative and ultraconservative rebel groups that merged in late November. The Islamic Front wants to bring rule by Shariah law in Syria and rejects the Western-backed Syrian National Coalition, but cooperates with some of their fighters on the ground.

Quake hits near eastern Indonesia

JAKARTA, Indonesia – A strong earthquake has hit off the coast of Sulawesi island in eastern Indonesia, but there were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the magnitude-6.5 quake struck today at a depth of 13 miles and was centered about 76 miles southeast of Mondayang, a town in northern Sulawesi.

Flooding kills 440 in Pakistan, India

JHANG, Pakistan – Raging monsoon floods sweeping across India and Pakistan have killed more than 440 people, authorities said Tuesday, warning hundreds of thousands more to be prepared to flee their homes as helicopters and boats raced to save marooned victims.

Authorities in Pakistan say the floods, which began Sept. 3, are the worst since massive flooding killed 1,700 people in 2010. Pakistan’s minister for water and power, Khwaja Mohammad Asif, warned parliament that some 700,000 people have been told to leave their homes, which could be inundated in the next four days.

Pakistani and Indian troops have been using boats and helicopters to drop food supplies for stranded families and to evacuate victims. However, the challenge of the situation grows as more than 1.5 million people are now affected as the rushing waters have destroyed the homes of thousands of families.

Padilla gets longer prison sentence

MIAMI – Convicted terrorism plotter Jose Padilla has received a new prison sentence of 21 years after a federal appeals court ruled his original term of 17 years was too lenient.

U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke imposed the sentence Tuesday. Padilla was convicted in 2007 on charges of supporting al-Qaida and terrorism conspiracy.

He was arrested by the FBI in 2002 on what authorities said was an al-Qaida mission to detonate a radioactive “dirty bomb” inside the U.S. Those accusations were later dropped and Padilla was added to another terrorism case.

Before trial, Padilla was held without charge as an enemy combatant for over three years.

Five children found dead; dad detained

CAMDEN, Ala. – A man is suspected of killing his five children in South Carolina and then driving for hours before dumping their bodies, wrapped in individual garbage bags, on a dirt road in rural Alabama, authorities said Tuesday.

Timothy Ray Jones Jr., 32, led investigators to the site where the bodies of the children were found, off a two-lane highway near Camden, Alabama, said Alabama Department of Public Safety spokesman Sgt. Steve Jarrett.

Jones has been charged with child neglect and police expect to lodge additional charges against him in connection with the children’s deaths, authorities in South Carolina and Mississippi said.

The children ranged from 1 to 8 years old and were reported missing by their mother on Sept. 3, authorities said.

Wilcox County, Alabama, District Attorney Michael Jackson told the Associated Press that Jones is suspected of killing the children in South Carolina before bringing their bodies to Alabama.