Iran blames West, Israel for bombings

Iran blamed the West and Israel on Saturday for twin suicide bombings which killed at least 27 people, despite condemnation of the attack by the European Union, United Nations and United States.Iranian police meanwhile arrested 40 people for "creating disturbances" in the southeastern city of Zahedan where the bombers struck on Thursday, the Mehr news agency reported."This blind terrorist act was carried out by the mercenaries of the world arrogance (the Western powers)," state television's website quoted Deputy Interior Minister Ali Abdollahi as saying.

Iran blamed the West on Saturday for twin suicide bombings which killed at least 27 people, despite condemnation of the attack by the European Union, the United Nations and the United States."This blind terrorist act was carried out by the mercenaries of the world arrogance (the Western powers)," state television's website quoted Deputy Interior Minister Ali Abdollahi as saying."The agents of this crime were trained and equipped beyond our borders and then came into Iran," Abdollahi said.

Iran blamed the West and Israel on Saturday for twin suicide bombings which killed at least 27 people, despite condemnation of the attack by the European Union, United Nations and United States.

Bombings across Pakistan killed more than 115 people on Thursday, including 81 in an attack on a snooker hall in the troubled southwestern city of Quetta, in one of the country's bloodiest days in recent years. Two coordinated explosions killed at least 81 people and injured more than 120 in a sectarian attack on the building in Quetta, the provincial capital of Balochistan.

Iraqi Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani is to appear before furious MPs on Thursday after Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki sacked Baghdad's security chief over attacks in the capital that killed 127 people.Maliki acted shortly after police claimed that the bombers, who also wounded around 450 people, were backed by groups in Syria or Saudi Arabia.But later an Al-Qaeda group, the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), issued a statement on a forum for Muslim extremists saying it carried out the bombings, according to US monitoring group SITE.

Experts of Iran and six world powers will meet behind closed doors in Istanbul tomorrow for “technical-level” nuclear talks aimed at turning recent diplomatic progress into concrete measures. 

QUETTA, Pakistan — A series of bombings in different parts of Pakistan killed 103 people on Thursday, including 69 who died in a sectarian attack on a bustling billiard hall in the southwest city of Quetta, officials said. The blasts punctuated one of the deadliest days in recent years in Pakistan, where the government faces a bloody insurgency by Taliban militants in the northwest and Baluch militants in the southwest.

A spate of explosions across Iraq on Thursday killed at least 50 people, most of them in twin suicide car bombings in the holy city of Karbala, the third major attack in as many days.The attacks mostly targeted pilgrims marking the Shiite Muslim mourning day of Arbaeen, and were the latest in a series of bombings that have shattered a relative calm in Iraq after the formation of a new government last month.