World in brief: Evidence claimed against Americans
Iran announced Tuesday that it had uncovered new evidence against two imprisoned Americans and had launched an expanded investigation into their alleged activities against the Islamic republic.
The statement dashed hopes of any imminent breakthrough in the cases, after Iran announced last month that it was in the final stage of its probe and would announce whether the dual U.S.-Iranian nationals would be tried or freed within two or three days.
The two Americans are Haleh Esfandiari, a Potomac, Md., resident and director of the Middle East program at the Smithsonian’s Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and Kian Tajbakhsh, a New York-based social scientist. Both have been charged with unspecified crimes against Iran’s national security.
New Delhi
Rebels, police clash; 49 dead
Maoist rebels using mortars and machine guns battled police in eastern India in an hours-long fight that left 24 policemen and 25 rebels dead, a police official said today.
The rebels ambushed more than 100 policemen and the gunbattle lasted more than five hours in Dantewada district of Chattisgarh state, said Rajendra Kumar Vij, inspector general of state police.
At least 25 communist rebels were killed in the gunbattle Monday night, but their bodies were yet to be recovered, he said.
The rebel assault was the latest in a series in the region, where widespread poverty has fueled a lengthy insurgency by militants who demand land and jobs for agricultural laborers and the poor. The movement claims inspiration from Chinese revolutionary Mao Zedong.
Kabul, Afghanistan
Suicide bomber attacks bazaar
A suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowded bazaar in central Afghanistan on Tuesday, killing at least 17 other people and injuring 51 others, officials said.
At least a dozen of the dead were children, the Afghan Interior Ministry said in a statement. It was one of the deadliest attacks in a year that has already seen an escalation in suicide bombings by Taliban insurgents.
“Some of the children were walking to school, while other children were selling goods in the market,” said Gen. Qasem Khan, the police chief of Oruzgan province, where the explosion ripped through a bazaar in the town of Deh Rawood.
Among the injured were eight NATO troops who may have been the bomber’s intended target. U.S. Air Force Maj. John Thomas said that a foot patrol of alliance soldiers was in the market at the time.
The nationalities of the injured soldiers were not released, but that part of Afghanistan, a region where the insurgency is particularly intense, is normally under the protection of Dutch troops.
The bomber apparently detonated himself outside a pharmacy as the NATO patrol entered the bazaar.