Washed It!

The two sisters wear Islamic head scarves and say they have no problem with their secular friends and classmates, who don’t. Yet on the streets, in classrooms and along the hallways of apartment buildings in the cramped Fatih district of Istanbul, Deniz and Daria Ker remind them every now and then that they’ll stew in a fiery hell if they don’t cover up.

“We say, ‘If a single strand of hair comes out and a man sees it, you’ll be damned for 40 years,’” says Daria, an 18-year-old high school student, a white head scarf covering her head as she helps her 20-year-old sister work the cash register of a children’s clothing store. “It’s a must in our religion.”

In much of Turkey, observant and secularist Muslims live largely apart, inhabiting different enclaves within big cities like Istanbul and in different regions of the country.

But in Fatih, an ancient district that’s home to about 450,000 people near the center of Turkey’s economic and cultural capital, members of the two main cultural camps are side by side. They interact, sometimes uncomfortably, every day.

For centuries, Istanbul has been a crossroads of East and West, straddling the European and Asian continents on either side of the Bosporus strait. Fatih, a mostly working- and lower-middle-class district on the city’s European side, is a microcosm of contemporary Turkey. As a growing and prosperous Muslim middle class rises to take the helm in Turkey, Fatih’s fate also may be a test for the country’s future, and possibly that of the West as it attempts to integrate Islam into its ethnic and religious landscape.

“Turkey is one country, but there is a polarization,” says Nilufer Narli, a professor of sociology at Bahcesehir University in Istanbul, who has studied Fatih since the late 1990s. “The polarization isn’t new, but it has been sharpened within the last few years.”

In Fatih, the observant and secular share new five- to10-story apartment buildings as well as the ancient streets. They shop at the same large chain clothing stores and corner groceries. They bump against one another on crosswalks, stare at the same store displays, negotiate over the price of tomatoes.

Every day, people here grapple with questions that have confounded politicians and social scientists, questions about the meaning of faith and of sovereignty over public spaces.

“The secularists lived with secularists for 150 years. Religious people lived with their own kind for 150 years,” said Etyen Mahcupyan, director of the democratization program at the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation, an Istanbul think tank. “Now there is a social sphere where they are tangential to each other. They are touching each other.”

Cheap rents and proximity to the center of the city lured migrants from Turkey’s Anatolian interior to Fatih, Istanbul’s oldest neighborhood. Some of the wealthier and more secular residents moved to more exclusive enclaves, but many also remained.

A low-level cultural war between the country’s surging Islamic past and its century-old commitment to secularism unfolds daily on Fatih’s streets. It is a conflict between the “closed,” those families whose women wear the hijab, or head scarf, and publicly abide by a strict interpretation of Islam, and the “open,” the secular Turks who dominated the country politically and economically during the 20th century.

Class resentment fuels the tensions. Cosmopolitan Istanbul residents speak of Fatih as though it were Kandahar, a backwater of extremists huddled together. “Those people live together because they want to live that way,” said one resident of Bebek, an upscale northern suburb of Istanbul.

The subtle struggle plays out in how one presents oneself: in the cut of an outfit, the length of a woman’s skirt, the growth of stubble on a man’s face. It is felt in the duration of a stare at a scantily clad or heavily covered-up woman, or the rumble of an imam’s voice on the mosque loudspeaker as he recites a particularly moralistic passage from the Koran.

Residents say there’s no overt antagonism between the two groups, no violence or clashes on the street. Somehow, they say, they all work, walk and play next to one another, if not always with one another.

But what is unmistakable is a cultural chauvinism that is clearly practiced by the Islamists, one that frightens and angers many secular Turks who are worried that their cultural identity is being worn away.

“There’s no harsh pressure,” Hossein Avnikar, a local official, said of complaints by secular women that they’re constantly asked to cover up. “They say it. But they say it very sweetly.”

The observant speak of masoulieh tabliq, a Muslim’s responsibility to promote the faith, to get the unbelievers to believe and the less-observant to practice their religion more strictly. As Maksut Senocak, a religiously observant 50-year-old builder explained during a tea at one of the local cafes: “Of course they would tell each other what is sin, because our prophet and imams at the mosque are saying that we should.”

The neighborhood can be a cultural minefield, especially for secular women. Mediha Hasakin, 30, an accountant who has lived in Fatih her entire life, said she has begun to cover her shoulders or wear a jacket when she walks in or near certain areas, especially Carsamba, a neighborhood of 50,000 described by many as Istanbul’s most conservative.

“We’re being careful, up on the hill,” she said, gesturing toward the warren of narrow streets where men sport lengthy beards and skull caps, women dress in all-covering Arabian-style black abayas and restaurants remain shuttered in the daytime during the dawn-to-dusk fast of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

In old Istanbul quarter, Islamic and secular Turks grope toward coexistence

A suicide bombing struck a large crowd at military parade in western Iran on Wednesday, killing at least nine people and injuring 20 during a nationalist holiday meant to underscore Iran’s battle readiness, Iranian media reported.

According to Iran’s Arabic language Al-Alam television channel, the bombing struck a large crowd gathered in the city of Mahabad for annual Sacred Defense Week celebrations marking the 1988 end of the Iran- Iraq war.

Officials described the bombing as a “terrorist attack” that took place about 11 a.m. along a sidewalk.

“Almost all of the martyrs and injured are women and children,” Vahid Jalalzadeh told the official Islamic Republic News Agency. “Anti-revolution elements have always carried out such bestial acts in Mahabad in order to take revenge on the people.”

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

Mahabad is in Iran’s Kurdish heartland and carries enormous symbolic weight for ethnic Kurds throughout the world. It was the capital of a short-lived Kurdish autonomous republic set up in 1946 and was the birthplace of Massoud Barzani, the de facto leader of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region.

The Kurdish separatist militant group PEJAK, Party for the Free Life of Kurdistan, operates in the area of Mahabad and has clashed with Iranian troops in recent years. PEJAK is the Iranian branch of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, which has been fighting the Turkish government for decades.

Kurds are believed to be the world’s largest ethnic group without a homeland. They have been fighting for autonomy and cultural rights against governments of Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria for decades.

A nearby mountainous stretch along the Iran-Iraq border has also sheltered Al Qaeda-linked extremist groups, such as Ansar al-Islam.

daragahi@latimes.com
Suicide bomber kills 9 at parade in Iran

Two gunmen opened fire Sunday on tourists near one of India’s largest mosques, injuring two Taiwanese before making their escape on a motorcycle, raising security concerns two weeks before India hosts a major international sporting event.

The tourists were shot about 11:10 a.m. as they were boarding a bus parked near the Jama Masjid mosque in New Delhi’s crowded, labyrinthian old city, police said, sparking a major manhunt and a security alert in the Indian capital and Mumbai.

A few hours after the attack, the BBC’s Hindi-language service said it received an e-mail purportedly sent by the Indian Mujahedin, an Islamic militant group, which threatened to attack the upcoming Commonwealth Games.

“We know preparations for the games are at their peak,” the e-mail reportedly said. “Beware, we too are preparing in full swing for a great surprise.”

Police said it was not clear whether the e-mail was related to the attack and downplayed the likelihood it was the work of an organized terror group, saying it could have been done by disgruntled youths or a gang of local criminals.

There were also reports that a car caught fire two hours later in the same area under suspicious circumstances.

Indian officials, who have sought to reassure tourists, athletes and foreign governments for months that the capital is safe, were quick to point to the extensive precautions and high level of security in place.

Over 5,000 athletes are set to arrive within days for the Oct. 3-14 Games, which will feature teams from 71 countries.

“Please do not panic,” said Sheila Dikshit, New Delhi’s top elected official. “An incident like this is something worrying, but nothing to panic about.”

But analysts said the incident likely would raise concerns among national sports delegations and individuals planning to attend the Games, which have already seen weak ticket sales after media reports of infrastructure problems, alleged corruption and a dengue fever epidemic.

Shortly after Sunday’s shooting, the U.S. Embassy issued a security advisory warning Americans to “maintain a heightened situational awareness.”

Palaniappan Chidambaram, India’s home minister, visited the two injured Taiwanese men in the hospital after one underwent an operation for a stomach wound.

Analysts said the apparent random targeting of tourists and the mosque location suggested that any of several groups could be involved.

“It’s a bit surprising those hit were Taiwanese,” said Rahul Bronsle, a retired brigadier general and head of Security-Risks.com, an analysis group. “If it was a Commonwealth person injured, one could think they were going after the games. But a stray attack on any tourist raises a number of other speculations.”

While the attack may be directed at the Games, it also could be linked to divided Kashmir — where nearly 100 people have died since June in clashes with Indian security forces — or to a legal decision expected on Friday over a disputed religious site in Ayodhya that has sparked tension and past deadly riots between Muslims and Hindus.

Sunday was also the second anniversary of an incident in which two alleged Indian Mujahedin militants were killed by police.

The Indian Mujahedin, which reportedly has ties with the banned Pakistan-based Islamist group Lashkar-e-Taiba, was outlawed in June amid suspicion that it played a part in an attack on a bakery in the western Indian city of Pune in which 10 people died and was behind blasts in several cities.

mark.magnier@latimes.com

Anshul Rana in the Times’ New Delhi bureau contributed to this report.
Gunfire in India raises security concerns ahead of Commonwealth Games

A Sunday service at a historic church in eastern Turkey underscored both the desire for reconciliation between Turks and Armenians and the hurdles that remain nearly a century after a violent massacre of Armenians.

It was the first service held in the 1,100-year-old Armenian Church of the Holy Cross since 1915, when a wave of violence largely destroyed one of the largest Christian communities in the Middle East.

Many Armenians in the diaspora and the neighboring republic of Armenia boycotted and denounced Sunday’s service on Akdamar Island after Turkish authorities did not allow a cross to be raised on the dome of the church, allowing it to be placed on the church grounds nearby instead.

Still, hundreds of Armenian pilgrims attended, many coming from the relatively large Armenian community in Istanbul, Turkey’s main city, but also from Iran, Germany, France and from as far away as the United States. They flooded local hotels and traversed Lake Van by boat to get to the site as they sang hymns.

“There is a village far, far away,” one group sang. “It’s my village even though I never go or I haven’t seen it.”

Most visited the small church for a few minutes and watched the ceremony via giant television screens set up in the gardens outside.

“I feel bittersweet about being here, because I grew up hearing about the life in Van from my parents,” said Paul Shahinian, a 58-year-old visiting from New Jersey. “I always had images in my head about Van. I never imagined I could come here because Turkey didn’t welcome Armenians.”

The church, surrounded by verdant mountains and hills, is decorated on the outside with carvings of different animals such as peacocks, goats and owls, which are common in Armenian iconography. Painted figures inside are meant to represent the heavens.

“This church, which is a valuable piece of art, is a cultural monument that belongs to the whole of humanity,” Archbishop Aram Atesyan of the Armenian Patriarchate of Turkey said during a two-hour service he led, according to Turkey’s semi-official Anatolia News Agency.

The 8-year-old government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has strived to heal the wounds of the past by reaching out to Armenians in Turkey and abroad in an attempt to bolster its international reputation and smooth out obstacles to possible Turkish entrance into the European Union. In 2005, Turkey began a $1.5-million restoration of the church, opening it as a museum in 2007. It will host an annual religious service from now on.

Some critics in both Turkey and among Armenians have denounced the handling of the church opening as an attempt by Turks to whitewash a violent history. But others describe the Sunday’ event as an important gesture by an activist Turkish government that appears more ready and able than previous political elites to address the country’s domestic and international sore spots.

But attempts at reconciliation between Armenians and Turks have often faltered, as much over misunderstandings of gestures as substantive differences, the latter including Turkey’s refusal to abide by the widely accepted description of the killings as genocide.

The cross controversy underscores the sensitivity of relations between Turks and Armenians, even over relatively minor matters. Turkish officials blamed the church’s Italian architect, saying the dome could not handle the 440-pound cross. The provincial governor of Van has promised that a cross would be mounted on the church within six weeks.

But many Armenians suspect continued chauvinism by Turks, who are governed by a political party that has roots in the country’s Islamist movements. “The cross wasn’t there because of the fears of the governments,” said Rafi Altunkeser, a 40-year-old Armenian Turk visiting from Istanbul.

But other Armenians called for reconciliation. Harry Parsekian, a Boston resident, said his family originally hailed from eastern Turkey but was driven out. He first returned to the Van region in 1985 and has since returned many times.

“When I was young I never imagined I would have Turkish friends,” said Parsekian. “But I do have really good Turkish friends now. And I believe this is a good step for the Armenians and Turks.”

daragahi@latimes.com

Saracoglu is a special correspondent.
Armenians worship in eastern Turkey, and for some it’s a bittersweet moment

A violent protest that left dozens of people injured in the Afghan capital Wednesday points to concerted efforts by the Taliban to keep alive the controversy over an American pastor’s discarded plans to burn copies of the Koran, Afghan authorities said.

White Taliban flags flew above a crowd of about 800 people who burned tires, shouted anti-American slogans and pelted security forces with stones. Police fired assault rifles into the air to break up the early-morning protest on the outskirts of Kabul.

At least 35 police officers and about 15 demonstrators were injured in the melee, the Interior Ministry said.

The demonstrations, which have persisted for days after the abandoning of plans by a small Florida church to burn the Muslim holy book, suggest an orchestrated campaign that could continue for some time, perhaps disrupting Saturday’s parliamentary elections.

The Taliban movement has already threatened to attack voters and polling places, and some districts are considered too dangerous for balloting to take place. The Taliban website this week carried a fresh denunciation of the Koran-burning plan, calling it part of a larger Western assault on Islam.

Afghan authorities say the insurgents are seeking to tap into the outrage generated by the church’s threat to whip up fury against Western forces and President Hamid Karzai. Wednesday’s rally featured fiery speeches denouncing the Afghan government and the presence of foreign forces, which now number about 150,000.

The organizing of a protest in the capital itself appears to mark an escalation from previous demonstrations, most of which have taken place in rural areas.

The demonstrations’ organizers are also able to exploit the fact that in a country where illiteracy is widespread, many people were unaware that Florida pastor Terry Jones of Gainesville did not carry out his plans, which had been condemned by the Obama administration and Gen. David H. Petraeus, the commander of Western troops in Afghanistan.

Gen. Zahir Khan, head of the crime investigation department for the Kabul police, said that at this point the threatened Koran-burning was little more than a pretext to rally anti-government sentiment.

“This was a very violent protest,” he said. “And the Taliban were in the crowd.”

laura.king@latimes.com
Dozens injured in Kabul protest over Koran-burning threat

The leader of a tiny church on Thursday backed off his threat to burn the Koran, saying he gave up the plan in exchange for a deal to move a planned Islamic center and mosque away from New York’s ground zero. The imam planning the center, however, quickly denied any such deal.

The Rev. Terry Jones had been under intense pressure to back off, including a statement from President Barack Obama and a personal call from U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Jones made his announcement outside his church alongside Imam Muhammad Musri, the president of the Islamic Society of Central Florida.

After the news conference, Musri told The Associated Press there was an agreement for him and Jones to travel to New York and meet Saturday — on the actual anniversary of the 9/11 attacks — with the imam overseeing plans to build a mosque near ground zero.

“I told the pastor that I personally believe the mosque should not be there, and I will do everything in my power to make sure it is moved,” Musri said. “But there is not any offer from there (New York) that it will be moved. All we have agreed to is a meeting, and I think we would all like to see a peaceful resolution.”

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf said he was surprised by the announcement and that he would not barter.

Speaking to reporters later, Jones was adamant that he was promised that the Islamic center would be moved, and said he would be “very, very disappointed” if it were not.

Jones, the pastor of a Florida Pentecostal church of 50 members, has said that he believes the Koran is evil because it espouses something other than biblical truth and incites radical, violent behavior among Muslims.

Jones on Thursday said he prayed about the decision and that if the site of the mosque was moved, it would be a sign from God to call off the Koran burning.

“We are, of course, now against any other group burning Korans,” Jones said during the news conference. We would right now ask no one to burn Korans. We are absolutely strong on that. It is not the time to do it.”

His decision comes after a firestorm of criticism from leaders around the world. President Barack Obama, the top U.S. general in Afghanistan and several Christian leaders had urged Jones to reconsider his plans. They said his actions would endanger U.S. soldiers and provide a strong recruitment tool for Islamic extremists. Jones’ protest also drew criticism from religious and political leaders from across the Muslim world.

They warned that the plan would put Americans in danger around the world. In Afghanistan, hundreds of angry Afghans burned an American flag and chanted “Death to the Christians” to protest the planned Koran burning.

Musri thanked Jones and his church members “for making the decision today to defuse the situation and bring to a positive end what has become the world over a spectacle that no one would benefit from except extremists and terrorists” who would use it to recruit future radicals.

Russ Blackburn, Gainesville city manager: “It’s very good news for Gainesville and good news for everyone involved.”

Jones’ neighbors in Gainesville, a city of 125,000 anchored by the sprawling University of Florida campus, also have said they disapprove. At least two dozen Christian churches, Jewish temples and Muslim organizations in the city have mobilized to plan inclusive events — some will read from the Koran at their own weekend services.

Jones’ Dove Outreach Center is independent of any denomination. It follows the Pentecostal tradition, which teaches that the Holy Spirit can manifest itself in the modern day. Pentecostals often view themselves as engaged in spiritual warfare against satanic forces.
Florida pastor cancels plan to burn Korans on Sept. 11

The fate of the U.S.-sponsored peace talks launched Thursday in Washington could hinge in part on how things play out in this hotly disputed West Bank city, where extremists on opposite sides suddenly find they share a common purpose: to sabotage the process.

The militant Palestinian movement Hamas, which hasn’t openly attacked West Bank settlers in about two years, renewed its campaign of violence this week with two drive-by shootings. It claimed responsibility for killing four settlers near Hebron on Tuesday and injuring two others a day later near Ramallah.

Jewish settlers around Hebron responded by throwing rocks at Palestinians and setting fire to a field. On Thursday, they demonstrated their contempt for what they termed the “fancy ceremonies” in Washington by rolling out bulldozers and cement mixers to resume construction in defiance of Israel’s 10-month moratorium. Settlers are also calling for the reinstallation of West Bank checkpoints and the waiving of gun permits to enable settlers to carry weapons.

The developments serve as a reminder that before Israeli and Palestinian negotiators can tackle big-picture issues such as the borders of a Palestinian state, the status of Jerusalem and refugees, the peace process will have to survive some daunting short-term challenges. Among them are the Sept. 26 expiration of Israel’s construction moratorium and a spike in Palestinian violence.

Hebron, home to more than 150,000 Palestinians and 400 Jewish settlers, is often at the center of the storm, and it is once again. Residents are bracing themselves and warn that violence could spread to other parts of the West Bank.

“The talks have renewed the cycle of violence,” said Khaled Amayreh , a Palestinian journalist and analyst. “Things are heating up.”

The next month will test the resolve of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, analysts say. Friction and violence at the launch of peace talks is nothing new. The question is whether the leaders will press ahead despite provocations or use them as justification to walk away.

The two leaders agreed in their first direct talks Thursday to meet again in the Middle East in two weeks, and then to reconvene about every two weeks thereafter. U.S. envoy George J. Mitchell cited a “constructive and positive mood” in the meeting.

However, the unresolved conflicts also were apparent. Netanyahu raised the issue of the attacks on Israelis in the West Bank this week. Abbas called on Israel to end all settlement activity.

“In every conflict, the closer the sides have gotten to an agreement, the more the peace spoilers started coming out of the woodwork,” said Professor Tamar Hermann, senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute, a research group. “But this is a transitional phase and if we give in to it, we will miss the opportunity.”

The settlement construction issue could offer the first glimpse of how committed both sides are to talks. Netanyahu has resisted Palestinian demands to extend the freeze, whereas Abbas has threatened to quit talks unless the freeze continues. Both men are under tremendous domestic pressure to stick to their positions and equally strong pressure from the U.S. and international community to bend.

Analysts have said that the two sides need to find a way to finesse the issue in coming weeks so they can move on to other, equally weighty topics.

Netanyahu’s position will demonstrate how serious his intentions are, wrote Eitan Haber, Israeli analyst and former advisor to assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, on the Ynet news site Thursday. “Americans and Palestinians will view the freeze as a test case.”

At the same time, if Netanyahu refuses to budge, Abbas will face a similar dilemma over whether to reverse his stance or abandon what many experts believe could be the last round of negotiations for some time.

The attacks against Israeli settlers upped the ante for both men.

Netanyahu rejected immediate calls for him to quit the talks and return home.

David Wilder, spokesman of the Jewish Community of Hebron, blasted the U.S.-brokered peace process as an attempt to “sink Israel…. These attacks cannot continue, and the only way to stop them is to stop acquiescing to Obama and the terrorists who want to destroy us.”

The killings also hardened the resolve of many Israelis against pressure to extend the construction moratorium, a move they argue could now be seen as rewarding terrorism.

For Abbas, the killings meant being forced onto the defensive just as negotiations began. They bolstered Netanyahu’s demand that talks begin on the issue of security, rather than borders or settlements, which are Palestinian priorities.

Hamas leaders promised the violence would only continue, calling the first two attacks the start of a “series of operations” to be carried out by its militant wing.

Although Hamas controls the Gaza Strip, where 1.5 million Palestinians live, its operatives in the West Bank moved underground after the 2007 split with Abbas’ more moderate Fatah movement. In response to the Hamas attacks this week, Palestinian Authority security officers arrested several hundred Hamas supporters, Hamas officials said.

The attacks marked a turning point for Hamas, which has generally avoided armed assaults and rocket attacks against Israeli citizens since Israel’s 22-day assault against Hamas’ positions in the Gaza Strip in late 2008 and early 2009. Though rocket attacks from Gaza have continued to strike southern Israel, other militant groups claimed responsibility and Hamas had even tried to prevent such attacks, arguing that they were not in the “Palestinian national interest.”

That informal policy appears to have changed, probably because of the resumption of peace talks. Hamas officials say the resumption of armed attacks in the West Bank is not an attempt to spoil peace talks, but critics note that the Islamist movement has been harshly critical of the process.

The group’s attacks could soon present another challenge to budding peace talks. So far, Israel has not responded militarily, but Hamas officials are bracing for a round of retaliatory airstrikes in Gaza once Netanyahu concludes the peace summit in Washington.

edmund.sanders@latimes.com

Batsheva Sobelman in The Times’ Jerusalem Bureau and special correspondent Rushdi abu Alouf in Gaza City contributed to this report.
West Bank city of Hebron could be powder keg as Mideast peace talks begin

Five U.S. troops were killed by roadside bombs and insurgent fire in southern and eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, the latest casualties in a particularly bloody spell that has left 12 service members dead in two days, and 19 since Saturday.

Meanwhile, on the southern outskirts of the capital, Kabul, a gunman opened fire on a busload of Afghan Supreme Court clerks, killing three and wounding 12, the Interior Ministry reported.

Assailants on two motorcycles halted the bus Tuesday morning in the Musayi district, an area where insurgents are active, court spokesman Abdul Malik Kamawi said. One gunman then boarded the bus and opened fire with an automatic weapon, killing two people, Kamawi said. A third died later in a hospital.

“We’re trying to find out who they were. For now, we can only say they are the enemies of the Afghan people,” Kamawi said.

Suspicion immediately fell on Taliban insurgents who have waged a continuous campaign against Afghan government officials and institutions and have stepped up attacks in the run-up to Sept. 18 elections for the lower house of parliament. Candidates and their aides have been threatened, kidnapped and killed, and many voters say they plan to stay away from the polls for fear of violence.

In Tuesday’s attacks, NATO said four troops were killed by a roadside bomb in eastern Afghanistan, while a fifth died in a battle with insurgents in the country’s south. No other details were given and the service members were not identified by name, as is standard procedure.

The deaths came a day after roadside bombs killed eight other members of the international force in Afghanistan, including seven U.S. troops, NATO said Tuesday. A 20-year-old Estonian soldier was also killed.

The deaths bring this month’s total to 55, including a Marine killed in fighting in the volatile southern province of Helmand on Friday whose death was not announced until Monday night. That is still fewer than the 66 killed in July, the deadliest month for U.S. troops in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion.

Almost all of the recent coalition deaths have come in southern and eastern Afghanistan where the Taliban insurgency is most deeply entrenched and where fighting has been heaviest.

Those areas are also closest to the mountainous border with Pakistan, where insurgents maintain safe havens and training bases to instruct recruits, including foreign fighters, who are later infiltrated into Afghanistan.

NATO commanders have warned casualties will mount as coalition and Afghan forces enter areas under longtime Taliban control, particularly in the hard-line Islamic movement’s spiritual heartland of Kandahar province. The NATO force swelled this month to more than 140,000 — including 100,000 Americans — with the arrival of the last of the reinforcements that President Barack Obama ordered to Afghanistan in a bid to turn the tide of the nearly nine-year war.

Also Tuesday, NATO also said its forces, working with Afghan army and police, had killed 19 insurgents and captured five in a major air assault on the village of Omar in the eastern province of Kunar.

Ground forces taking part in the assault that began Monday uncovered insurgent fighting positions, along with weapons caches and ammunition stockpiles inside the village, it said.

The coalition also said it killed two insurgents and wounded a third in an airstrike Monday on a Taliban commander in charge of logistics in Kandahar, including the coordination of homemade bomb attacks.

A number of Taliban and allied Haqqani Network commanders were also detained in operations Monday, including one recently returned from teaching bomb-making techniques in Pakistan, NATO said.

In Zabul province bordering Kandahar, insurgents on Monday night ambushed a convoy carrying food and other supplies, killing two private security guards and wounding five others, provincial government spokesman Mohammad Jan Rasoolyar said.
12 U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan in 2 days

A string of car-bomb attacks killed at least 45 people across Iraq on Wednesday. The violence shook at least seven cities from north to south and appeared timed to undermine confidence in the Iraqi army and police as the U.S. military ends it formal combat mission in the country. The bloodshed coincided with Iraqis’ mounting frustrations over the failure of political blocs to form a new government nearly six months after national elections. U.S. officials have insisted Iraqi forces are up to securing the country, even if Iraq is locked in a political crisis.

In the deadliest explosion Wednesday, a car bomb struck a police station near the offices of the governor in Kut, southeast of Baghdad. The attack killed 16 and wounded 18, according to Kut’s governor, Latif Turfa. In Baghdad, a suicide car bomber exploded his vehicle at a police station in the northeastern neighborhood of Qahira, killing at least 15 people, including six policemen, police said. The blast left another 60 people wounded.

Explosions disrupted the northeastern province of Diyala. At least three people were killed when a parked car blew up by the City Council in Muqdadiyah in northeastern Diyala, according to police.

In Baqubah, Diyala’s capital, a car bomb exploded near a police patrol, leaving one policeman and two civilians dead. Another 16 people were wounded in the blast. Insurgents also blew up the homes of three policemen and one electoral commission employee in Baqubah’s outer district of Buhruz, according to police. Five people were wounded and the attackers planted the black flag of the Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella group for extremists, which includes Al Qaeda in Iraq, police added.

The strife also spread to Anbar province. The western region, once the symbol of the country’s Sunni insurgency, had quieted after 2007 due to a local revolt against Al Qaeda in Iraq. But the last year has seen a return to violence. In the province’s capital Ramadi, a car bomb struck a bus station, killing two policemen and a civilian, police said. In Fallujah, the province’s other main city, a council member was killed when assailants planted a bomb on his car. A policeman also died when assailants blew up his car. Another three policemen were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded during their patrol. A bomb also killed an Iraqi soldier in the center of Fallujah, police said.

In the Shiite heartland, insurgents also caused mayhem. Militants struck in Basra, setting off a car bomb that left 11 people wounded. A car bomb attack in the southern pilgrimage city of Karbala by a police station left another 19 wounded, according to police and medical sources.

The attacks followed the announcement by the U.S. military on Tuesday that their troop numbers had now dropped to 49,700 soldiers as soldiers switched from a combat mission to the job of training the Iraqi army and police and assisting them when asked. Iraqis are concerned that the scaled-back American presence could help fuel violence.

nathaniel.parker@latimes.com

Staff writer Nadeem Hamid contributed to this report.
Car bombings across Iraq kill 45

Three bomb blasts killed 34 people Monday in northwest Pakistan, authorities said. Though no one claimed responsibility for the attacks, they came at a time when government officials have been warning that Islamic militants might try to exploit the strain that this summer’s catastrophic floods have put on the country’s military and government by unleashing a new wave of violence.

One of the attacks occurred in South Waziristan, a tribal area along the Afghan border long regarded as a stronghold for the Pakistani Taliban. A teenage suicide bomber appeared at a mosque in the town of Wana where 200 worshippers were praying and detonated explosives strapped to his body, witnesses said. The blast killed 25 people and injured 36 others, hospital officials said.

Among the dead was Maulana Noor Muhammad, a former lawmaker and head of the Islamic school where the mosque was located. He had just finished translating verses from the Koran when the blast occurred. Muhammad was a member of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (Fazlur Rehman) party, which historically has been sympathetic to the Taliban movement.

“I saw a teenager who shook hands with Maulana Noor Muhammad before detonating the explosives,” said Ayub Wazir, a worshipper who survived the blast.

The motive of the attack was unclear. At times, violence in the tribal areas occurs between rival tribal and militant factions.

A second attack occurred in the Kurram tribal district when a remote-controlled bomb exploded in a school where tribal elders had been meeting. The blast, which occurred in the village of Parachamkani, killed six people and injured seven others, authorities said.

The third attack occurred early in the evening on the outskirts of northwest Pakistan’s largest city, Peshawar. A bomb planted in a push cart exploded in the town of Mattani, killing three people and injuring six others, police said. Dilawar Khan, head of a local anti-Taliban militia, said his militia was the target of the attack. Two of the dead belonged to the militia.

In both South Waziristan and Kurram, Pakistani troops have launched offensives over the last year to flush out Taliban militants and reestablish governmental control over the regions. Despite the offensives, pockets of militants remain active in many parts of the tribal areas.

Last week, Mian Iftikhar Hussain, information minister for northwest Pakistan’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, warned that militants had been regrouping in the tribal areas to take advantage of a time when the state has had to deploy thousands of Pakistani soldiers and police to cope with the ongoing flood crisis, which has killed more than 1,600 people and submerged vast swathes of the country.

In the tribal district of North Waziristan, two U.S. drone missile strikes killed 12 people and injured 15 others, intelligence sources said.

One of the missiles targeted Dandy Darpakhel, an area known as a stronghold of the Haqqani network, a wing of the Afghan Taliban. Among the seven killed were four women, the sources said. The other strike killed five people in the village of Derga Mandai, sources said.

alex.rodriguez@latimes.com

Special correspondent Ali reported from Peshawar and staff writer Rodriguez from Islamabad.
34 killed in Pakistan; bombings occur in Taliban stronghold areas