PESHAWAR, Pakistan: A pair of suicide bombers blew themselves up amid hundreds of worshippers at a historic church in northwestern Pakistan on Sunday, killing 78 people in the deadliest-ever attack against the country’s Christian minority.
A wing of the Pakistani Taleban claimed responsibility for the bombing, raising new questions about the government’s push to strike a peace deal with the militants to end a decade-long insurgency that has killed thousands of people.
The Jundullah arm of the Taleban said they would continue to target non-Muslims until the United States stopped drone attacks in Pakistan’s remote tribal region. The latest drone strike came Sunday, when missiles hit a pair of compounds in the North Waziristan tribal area, killing six suspected militants.
The attack on the All Saints Church, which wounded 141 people, occurred as worshippers were leaving after services to get a free meal of rice offered on the front lawn, said a top government administrator, Sahibzada Anees.
“There were blasts and there was hell for all of us,” said Nazir John, who was at the church in the city’s Kohati Gate district along with at least 400 other worshippers. “When I got my senses back, I found nothing but smoke, dust, blood and screaming people. I saw severed body parts and blood all around.”
Survivors wailed and hugged one another in the wake of the blasts. The white walls of the church, which first opened in the late 1800s, were pockmarked with holes caused by ball bearings contained in the bombs to cause maximum damage. Blood stained the floor and the walls. Plates filled with rice were scattered on the ground.
The attack was carried out by two suicide bombers who detonated their explosives almost simultaneously, said police officer Shafqat Malik.
The 78 dead included 34 women and seven children, said Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan. Another 37 children were among the 141 wounded, he said.
The number of casualties from the blasts was so high that the hospital ran short of caskets for the dead and beds for the wounded, said Mian Iftikhar Hussain, a former information minister of surrounding Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province who was on the scene.
“This is the deadliest attack against Christians in our country,” said Irfan Jamil, the bishop of the eastern city of Lahore.
Pope Francis led several thousand people in a prayer for the victims while on a visit to Sardinia. Those who carried out the attack, he said, “took the wrong choice, one of hatred and war.”
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the “atrocious” attack in the strongest possible terms and expressed deep concern at “the repeated attacks of blind violence against religious and ethnic minorities in Pakistan,” UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said.
Ban said “these acts of terror cannot be justified by any cause,” reiterated the UN’s solidarity with the government’s ongoing struggle against terrorism and extremism, and urged the government to continue effort to build tolerance and strengthen relations between diverse religious and ethnic communities, Nesirky said.
One of the wounded, John Tariq, who lost his father in the attack, demanded of those behind the bombing: “What have we done wrong to these people? Why are we being killed?“
Ahmad Marwat, who identified himself as the spokesman for the Jundullah wing of the Pakistani Taleban, claimed responsibility for the attack.
“All non-Muslims in Pakistan are our target, and they will remain our target as long as America fails to stop drone strikes in our country,” Marwat told The Associated Press by telephone from an undisclosed location.
Jundullah has previously claimed responsibility for attacks on minority Shiite Muslims in southwestern Baluchistan province. Hard-line Sunni extremists like the Taleban consider Shiites to be heretics.
The bishop in Peshawar, Sarfarz Hemphray, announced a three-day mourning period and blamed the government and security agencies for failing to protect the country’s Christians.
“If the government shows will, it can control this terrorism,” said Hemphray. “We have been asking authorities to enhance security, but they haven’t paid any heed.”
Hundreds of Christians burned tires in the street in the southern city of Karachi to protest the bombing.
Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif condemned the attack in a statement sent to reporters, saying, “The terrorists have no religion and targeting innocent people is against the teachings of Islam and all religions.”
“Such cruel acts of terrorism reflect the brutality and inhumane mindset of the terrorists,” he said.
Islamic militants have carried out dozens of attacks across the country since Sharif took office in June, even though he has made clear that he believes a peace deal with the Pakistani Taleban is the best way to tamp down violence in the country.
Pakistan’s major political parties endorsed Sharif’s call for negotiations earlier this month. But the Taleban have said the government must release militant prisoners and begin pulling troops out of the northwest tribal region that serves as their sanctuary before they will begin talks.
There are many critics of peace talks who point out that past deals with the Taleban have fallen apart and simply given the militants time to regroup.
“I don’t think appeasement will work,” said Farhatullah Babar, a senior leader of the main opposition group, the Pakistan People’s Party. “This is a message from them that they don’t believe in negotiations. If they don’t, we should also stand up and fight them.”
Supporters of negotiations say they are the only way forward since military operations against the Taleban in the tribal region have failed to subdue them.
Sharif defended the government’s decision to push for peace talks but acknowledged the effort didn’t seem to be working.
“It was not a bad thing, I think, to do a good job with a good intention,” Sharif told reporters outside the Pakistan High Commission in London. “But the regret is that the thinking, the desire the government had, is not capable to make progress.”
The US has repeatedly demanded that Pakistan take stronger action against Islamic militants, especially members of the Afghan Taleban who use the country as a base for cross-border attacks on American troops in Afghanistan.
The US has carried out several hundred drone attacks against Taleban militants and their allies in Pakistan’s tribal region. The strike on Sunday took place in the Shawal area of North Waziristan, the main sanctuary for militants in the country, said Pakistani intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
Pakistani officials regularly decry drone attacks as a violation of the country’s sovereignty, but the government is known to have secretly supported some of the strikes in the past, especially ones that have targeted Pakistani Taleban militants at war with the state.
The Pakistani and Afghan Taleban are allies, but have focused their fight on opposite sides of the border.
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Abbot reported from Islamabad. Associated Press writers Zarar Khan and Asif Shahzad in Islamabad, Rasool Dawar in Peshawar and Ishtiaq Mahsud in Dera Ismail Khan contributed to this report.
Toll in Pakistan church attack: 78 dead, 141 wounded
Toll in Pakistan church attack: 78 dead, 141 wounded
French president calls for joint recognition of Palestinian state by France and UK
- After talks with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in London, Emmanuel Macron stresses urgent need for a 2-state solution to Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- Starmer reaffirms his country’s commitment to a just political settlement of the Palestinian issue
LONDON: French President Emmanuel Macron has urged his country and the UK to jointly recognize Palestinian statehood, describing it as “the only path to peace.”
Speaking during a joint press conference with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer in London, Macron stressed the urgent need for efforts to advance a two-state solution to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.
“I believe in the future of the two-state solution, and in the need to unify our voices in Paris, London and beyond to recognize the State of Palestine and launch this political dynamic that alone can lead to a horizon of peace,” Macron said.
Starmer reaffirmed the UK’s commitment to a just political settlement of the Palestinian issue, and highlighted the importance of international support for the Palestinian people and the need for stability in the region.
Macron concluded on Thursday a three-day state visit to the UK. It was the first such visit by a French statesman since 2008, and the first by an EU leader since Brexit in 2020.
On Wednesday, the Palestinian Authority welcomed comments by Macron during his speech to the British Parliament in which he affirmed the position of France on recognition of a Palestinian state as a way to help ensure stability in the Middle East.
Organizers of an international conference to garner support for Palestinian national independence, planned for mid-June and sponsored by Saudi Arabia and France, had to postpone the event because of the outbreak on June 13 of war between Iran and Israel.
In recent weeks, several members of Parliament belonging to Starmer’s ruling Labour Party have called on his government to officially recognize a Palestinian state and join with France in doing so.
Years later, key figures in Russia investigation face new scrutiny from Trump administration
- Former FBI Director James Comey and former CIA Director John Brennan targetted in probe by Trump administration
- Comey and Brennanamid were central players in the 2017 intel assessment on Russian election interference in the 2016 US election
WASHINGTON: FBI Director Kash Patel pledged at his confirmation hearing that the bureau would not look backward, but the Trump administration’s fresh scrutiny of the Russia investigation has brought back into focus a years-old inquiry that continues to infuriate the Republican president.
The Justice Department appeared to acknowledge in an unusual statement this week the existence of investigations into two central players from that saga, former FBI Director James Comey and former CIA Director John Brennan, amid a new report revisiting a 2017 intelligence community assessment on Russian election interference.
That the Russia investigation, which shadowed President Donald Trump through his first term, would resurface is hardly surprising given Trump’s lingering ire over the inquiry and because longtime allies, including Patel and current CIA Director John Ratcliffe, now lead the same agencies whose actions they once lambasted. Whether anything new will be found is unclear in light of the numerous prior reviews on the subject, but Trump has long called for investigations into Comey and Brennan, and Patel — in his memoir — placed them on a list of “members of the Executive Branch Deep State” deserving of derision.
“The conduct at issue or alleged conduct at issue has been the subject of numerous other investigations — IG investigations, special counsel investigations, other internal investigations, congressional investigations. And none of those past investigations turned up any evidence that led to criminal charges against any senior officials,” said Greg Brower, a former FBI senior executive and ex-US attorney in Nevada.
Word of the inquiry came as FBI and Justice Department leaders scramble to turn the page from mounting criticism from prominent conservatives for failing to release much-hyped files from the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking investigation. And as federal investigators have taken steps to examine the actions of other perceived adversaries of the administration, fueling concerns that the administration is weaponizing the criminal justice system for partisan purposes.
At issue now is a newly declassified CIA report, ordered by Ratcliffe, that faults Brennan’s oversight of a 2017 intelligence community assessment that found that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election because Russian President Vladimir Putin aspired to see Trump beat Democratic opponent Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The report does not challenge that conclusion but chides Brennan for the fact that a classified version of the intelligence assessment included a two-page summary of the so-called “Steele dossier,” a compilation of opposition research from a former British spy that included salacious and uncorroborated rumors about Trump’s ties to Russia.
Brennan testified to Congress, and also wrote in his memoir, that he was opposed to citing the dossier in the intelligence assessment since neither its substance nor sources had been validated. He has said it was included at the FBI’s urging.
But the new report casts Brennan’s views in a different light, asserting that he “showed a preference for narrative consistency over analytical soundness” and brushed aside concerns over the dossier because of its “conformity with existing theories.” It quotes him, without context, as having written that “my bottomline is that I believe that the information warrants inclusion in the report.”
Fox News reported Tuesday evening that the FBI had begun investigating Brennan for potentially making false statements to Congress as well as Comey, though the basis for that inquiry is unclear. A person familiar with the matter confirmed to The Associated Press that Ratcliffe, a staunch Trump defender and vocal critic of the Russia investigation, had referred Brennan to the FBI for possible investigation.
The person spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a referral that has not been made public.
A Justice Department spokesperson issued a statement Wednesday referencing, without elaboration, the “criminal investigations” of Brennan and Comey, saying the department did not comment on “ongoing investigations.” It was not clear if the statement also referred to the continued scrutiny of Comey over the Instagram post. The FBI declined to comment.
Representatives for the men declined to comment this week, though Brennan said in an MSNBC interview on Wednesday that he had not been contacted by the FBI and knew nothing about an inquiry. He said he remained proud of the work intelligence agencies did to examine Russian interference in the 2016 election.
“I think this is unfortunately a very sad and tragic example of the continued politicization of the intelligence community, of the national security process,” Brennan said. “And quite frankly, I’m really shocked that individuals who are willing to sacrifice their reputations, their credibility, their decency to continue to do Donald Trump’s bidding on something that is clearly just politically based.”
A lengthy investigation by former special counsel John Durham that reviewed the intelligence community assessment as well as the broader Russia investigation did not find fault with Brennan.
Comey has separately been interviewed by the Secret Service after a social media post that Republicans insisted was a call for violence against Trump. Comey has said he did not mean the Instagram post as a threat and removed it as soon as he realized it was being interpreted that way.
The Justice Department has taken steps in recent months to scrutinize other people out of favor with Trump opening inquiries into whether former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo lied to Congress about his state’s response to the coronavirus pandemic and into whether New York Attorney General Letitia James, who has sued Trump and his company, engaged in mortgage fraud. Both have vigorously denied wrongdoing. In other instances, the Justice Department has been directed by Trump to examine the actions of ex-government officials who have criticized him.
At the same time, the department refrained from opening an investigation into administration officials who disclosed sensitive military plans on a Signal chat that mistakenly included a journalist.
“Donald Trump is not interested in justice — he’s interested in settling scores and he views the vast prosecutorial powers of the Department of Justice as a way to do that,” said Liz Oyer, who was fired in March as the Justice Department’s pardon attorney after she says she refused to endorse restoring the gun rights of actor Mel Gibson.
Russia seizes $50 billion in assets as economy shifts during war in Ukraine, research shows
- ‘Fortress Russia’ uses host of mechanisms to take major assets
- Some domestic businesses also face nationalization, report says
MOSCOW: Russian authorities have confiscated assets worth some $50 billion over the past three years, underscoring the scale of the transformation into a “fortress Russia” economic model during the war in Ukraine, research showed on Wednesday.
The conflict has been accompanied by a significant transfer of assets as many Western companies fled the Russian market, others’ assets were expropriated and the assets of some major Russian businesses were seized by the state.
In response to what Russia called illegal actions by the West, President Vladimir Putin signed decrees over the past three years allowing the seizure of Western assets, entangling firms ranging from Germany’s Uniper to Danish brewer Carlsberg.
Besides the Western assets, major domestic companies have changed hands on the basis of different legal mechanisms including the need for strategic resources, corruption claims, alleged privatization violations, or poor management.
Moscow law firm NSP (Nektorov, Saveliev & Partners) said that the scale of what it called the “nationalization” amounted to 3.9 trillion roubles over three years, and it listed the companies involved.
The research was first reported by Kommersant, one of Russia’s leading newspapers, which said it illustrated a “fortress Russia” economic model.
The 1991 break-up of the Soviet Union ushered in hopes that Russia could transform into a free-market economy integrated into the global economy, but vast corruption, economic turmoil and organized crime undermined confidence in democratic capitalism through the 1990s.
Putin, in his first eight years in power, supported economic freedoms, targeted some so-called oligarchs and presided over a significant growth of the economy to $1.8 trillion in 2008 from $200 billion in 1999.
In the 2008-2022 period, the economy grew to $2.3 trillion, though Western sanctions hit it hard after Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, according to figures from the International Monetary Fund.
Though the Russian economy has performed better than expected during the war in Ukraine, its nominal dollar size in 2024 was just $2.2 trillion, according to IMF figures, much smaller than China, the European Union or United States.
‘Fortress Russia’
Russian officials say that the Ukraine war — the biggest confrontation with the West since the depths of the Cold War — has demanded extraordinary measures to prevent what they say was a clear Western attempt to sink the Russian economy.
Putin says the exit of Western firms has allowed domestic producers to take their place and that the Western sanctions have forced domestic business to develop. He has called for a “new development model” distinct from “outdated globalization.”
But the wartime economy, geared toward producing weapons and supporting a long conflict with Ukraine, has put the state — and those officials who operate it — in a much more powerful position than private Russian businesses.
Russian prosecutors are now seeking to seize billionaire Konstantin Strukov’s majority stake in major gold producer Uzhuralzoloto (UGC) for the state.
More than a thousand companies — from McDonald’s to Mercedes-Benz — have left Russia since the February 2022 start of Russia’s war in Ukraine by selling, handing the keys to existing managers or simply abandoning their assets.
Others had their assets seized and a sale forced through.
US senators pushing bipartisan bill on new Russia sanctions brief European allies and Ukraine
ROME: The co-sponsors of a new bipartisan US sanctions package targeting Russia briefed European allies and Ukraine on the legislation Thursday, in an effort to show continued resolve to help Kyiv and force Moscow to the negotiating table through what they describe as a “game-changer” bill.
The bill backed by Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham and Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal calls for a 500 percent tariff on goods imported from countries that continue to buy Russian oil, gas, uranium and other exports — targeting nations like China and India, which account for roughly 70 percent of Russia’s energy trade and bankroll much of its war effort.
Graham and Blumenthal told The Associated Press in Rome that they hope to bring the legislation to a vote in the Senate before the August recess. They said Thursday they are convinced that it would give President Donald Trump the tools and flexibility he needs to force Russian President Vladimir Putin to negotiate an end to the war.
“We’re not gonna play whack-a-mole anymore with Russia and sanctions,” Graham said. “We’re going after his customer base. And that’s what the Europeans, I think, are most pleased with.”
“This is not just kind of a continuation of our current strategy. This is a real turning point,” Blumenthal added. “It’s a real game-changer because it says to Putin, ‘We’re going to hit you right where it hurts.’”
A coalition of the willing
Graham and Blumenthal briefed a meeting in Rome of the coalition of the willing, the 30-plus countries that are prepared to send troops to keep the peace in Ukraine after hostilities cease. The meeting, which the United States attended for the first time, was held on the sidelines of a Ukraine recovery conference.
Joining them was retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia. The senators stressed that no US troops would be in Ukraine, but that they participated in the gathering at the invitation of host Italy to bolster the US presence at the Rome meeting and show congressional commitment to Ukraine.
“I think we gave Ukraine, the Europeans encouragement that America, the Congress was involved in a bipartisan fashion,” Graham said. “We want to empower the president to get Putin to the table and with tools he doesn’t have today.”
“Hopefully we can get this legislation to the president by the end of the month, is the goal,” he said.
A deadline before summer break
Congress is prepared to act on the legislation, which has overwhelming bipartisan support in the Senate, but has been waiting for Trump to give the green light before lawmakers recess for the summer break.
So far, the White House has expressed some reservations. Trump wants full authority over the waiver process to lift the sanctions, tariffs or other penalties, without having to cede control to Congress.
Under the initial bill, the president “may terminate” the penalties under certain circumstances, but immediately reimpose them if the violations resume. Graham said the president would be allowed to waive the sanctions, for 180 days, and could also renew a waiver.
But the president’s decision would eventually be subject to congressional review. To overturn the president’s waiver would require a vote in Congress. It would need to clear the Senate’s high-bar of a 60-vote threshold, Graham said. That is often difficult to reach in the narrowly divided chamber.
“That’s not going to happen, unless some crazy thing happens,” he said.
The senators explained that the waiver authority in their bill is standard, similar to what has been included in past legislation. But with the president’s insistence on fully waiver authority, and also Congress wanting its own backstop, the legislation continues to evolve.
A work in progress
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said this week he hopes to bring the measure forward before Congress goes on recess in August. House Speaker Mike Johnson has also signaled a readiness to act in his chamber.
While Thune said the sanctions bill has “tremendous” bipartisan support, the GOP leader acknowledged it’s still a work in progress as the White House engages with the process.
“We are working with the administration, with the House to try and get it in a form where it’s ready,” he said. Whether that happens in the next few weeks is still “a bit of an open question,” he said. “But I’m hopeful we can.”
Graham and Blumenthal said the legislation would also have a deterrent effect on China and curb its ambitions in Taiwan, with Graham saying the threat of such a massive economic hit for its support of Russia was a “trial run for Taiwan.”
“The other important lesson for China here is that a small country, out-manned and out-gunned, can win,” Blumenthal said.
Russia bombards Kyiv before ‘frank’ talks with US and aid pledges
- Rubio meets Lavrov in Malaysia, voices frustration
KYIV/ROME: Russia unleashed heavy airstrikes on Ukraine on Thursday before a conference in Rome at which Kyiv won billions of dollars in aid pledges, and US-Russian talks at which Washington voiced frustration with Moscow over the war.
Two people were killed, 26 were wounded, according to figures from the national emergency services, and there was damage in nearly every part of Kyiv from missile and drone attacks on the capital and other parts of Ukraine. Addressing the Rome conference on Ukraine’s reconstruction after more than three years of war, President Volodymyr Zelensky urged allies to “more actively” use Russian assets for rebuilding and called for weapons, joint defense production and investment.
Participants pledged over 10 billion euros to help rebuild Ukraine, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said. The European Commission, the EU’s executive, announced 2.3 billion euros in support.
US President Donald Trump has been increasingly frustrated with Vladimir Putin over the lack of progress toward ending the war raging since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and has accused the Russian president of throwing a lot of “bullshit” at US efforts to end the conflict.
At talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov while in Malaysia, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he had reinforced the message that Moscow should show more flexibility.
“We need to see a roadmap moving forward about how this conflict can conclude,” Rubio said, adding that the Trump administration had been engaging with the US Senate on what new sanctions on Russia might look like.
“It was a frank conversation. It was an important one,” Rubio said after the 50-minute talks in Kuala Lumpur. Moscow’s foreign ministry said they had shared “a substantive and frank exchange of views.”
Zelensky said Thursday’s assault by Russia had involved around 400 drones and 18 missiles, primarily targeting the capital.
Explosions and anti-aircraft fire rattled the city. Windows were blown out, facades ravaged and cars burned to shells. In the city center, an apartment in an eight-story building was engulfed in flames.
“This is terror because it happens every night when people are asleep,” said Karyna Volf, a 25-year-old Kyiv resident who rushed out of her apartment moments before it was showered with shards of glass.
Air defenses stopped all but a few dozen of the drones, authorities said, a day after Russia launched a record 728 drones at Ukraine.
Escalating Russian strikes in recent weeks have strained Ukraine’s defenses at a time when its troops are facing renewed pressure on the front line, and forced residents in Kyiv and across the country into bomb shelters.
Russia’s defense ministry said it had hit “military-industrial” targets in Kyiv as well as military airfields. It denies targeting civilians although towns and cities have been hit regularly in the war and thousands have been killed.
Moscow’s mayor later said Russian air defenses had brought down four Ukrainian drones bound for the Russian capital.
In Kursk region in western Russia, the acting governor said a Ukrainian drone had killed a man in his own home, two days after four people died in a drone attack on the city’s beach.
In Rome, Zelensky urged European allies to make more use of Russian assets frozen during the war for reconstruction. He was also seeking critical weapons, joint defense production and investment.
After a pledge by Trump this week to send more defensive weaponry to Kyiv, Washington has resumed deliveries of shells and precision artillery missiles, two US officials said.
Trump has also signalled willingness to send more Patriot air-defense missiles, which have proven critical to defending against fast-moving Russian ballistic missiles.
Speaking in Rome, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz urged Trump to “stay with us” in backing Ukraine and Europe. He said Germany was prepared to buy Patriot air defense systems from the US and provide them to Ukraine.
The Kremlin said on Wednesday it was relaxed about Trump’s criticism and would keep trying to fix “broken” relations with Washington.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov denied there was a slowdown in normalizing ties and said new consultations would be arranged “in the near future.”
