Srinagar, India

Bomb blast kills 9 soldiers, wounds 22

Islamic militants triggered a car bomb by remote control as an army convoy drove past a popular park in India’s portion of Kashmir on Friday, killing nine soldiers and wounding 22 other people, an army official said.

A large number of tourists were visiting the Nishat Garden at the park’s entrance on the outskirts of Srinagar city, said army spokesman Lt. Col. V. K. Batra.

Soon after the blast, a person identifying himself as the spokesman for a Pakistan-based rebel group, Hezb-ul-Mujahedeen, claimed responsibility in a telephone call to the Current News Service, a local news agency. The man, who did not identify himself by name, said the army convoy was the target of the attack.

Four soldiers were killed instantly and five died later in a hospital. Three civilians were among the injured, Batra said. The wounded were hospitalized in Srinagar, the summer capital of India’s Jammu-Kashmir state.

Hezb-ul-Mujahedeen is one of more than a dozen Islamic rebels groups that have been fighting for Kashmir’s independence from India or its merger with neighboring Pakistan. More than 66,000 people, mostly civilians, have died in the 15-year conflict.

Norway

Norwegian court sentences pilot, purser

A Norwegian court sentenced the pilot of a British Airways jet to six months in prison Friday for preparing to fly even though members of his crew were drunk.

The flight’s purser was sentenced to 45 days in prison for being drunk on duty.

Neither was present at the trial this week, and both have the right to appeal. A similar case against the co-pilot was still pending.

All three resigned from British Airways shortly after the Nov. 11, 2003, incident.

The Eidsvoll District Court found that the pilot, William A. McAuliffe, 51, was sober but must have known his co-pilot, David J. Ryan, 27, was intoxicated when preparing for takeoff from Oslo.

“The court notes that McAuliffe was the highest authority on board the aircraft and was responsible for his personnel being in a condition that allowed them to perform their jobs,” the ruling said.

Northern ireland

IRA apologizes for shooting teen in ’73

The Irish Republican Army apologized Friday for shooting to death a Catholic girl in 1973 during a botched ambush on a British army patrol.

The IRA had long insisted that British soldiers killed the girl, 14-year-old Kathleen Feeney, in Londonderry, Northern Ireland’s predominantly Catholic second-largest city. But in a statement published in the Derry Journal newspaper, the outlawed group said a new internal investigation had confirmed what the public had long believed: The IRA did it.

“Our failure to publicly accept responsibility for her death until now has only added to the hurt and pain of the Feeney family,” the IRA statement said. “The leadership of Oglaigh na hEireann (IRA) wish to apologize unreservedly to the Feeney family for the death of Kathleen and for all the grief that our actions have caused to them.”

The statement was the latest act of public contrition from the IRA, which killed about 1,800 people from 1970 to 1997 as part of a failed campaign to abolish Northern Ireland as a British territory.

Mark Durkan, the moderate Catholic who represents Londonderry in British Parliament, and the Irish government’s justice minister, Michael McDowell, both said the IRA should have told the truth long ago on scores of such disputed killings.

Lebanon

Funeral held for slain anti-Syrian politician

Leftist comrades in revolutionary berets marched along with Christian clergy in black robes Friday in a funeral procession for George Hawi, a former Communist boss and critic of Syria killed in a car bombing this week.

The unity shown by the anti-Syrian coalition and its supporters in the march behind Hawi’s coffin temporarily set aside the political differences emerging among the victorious allies over how to take control of the government following parliamentary elections.

Hawi, 67, was killed when his car blew up on a Beirut street Tuesday. The anti-Damascus coalition had called for Friday’s march and mass funeral, demanding an end to the close cooperation between the Lebanese and Syrian security agencies, which it claims were behind the assassinations of Hawi, former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri on Feb. 14 and journalist Samir Kassir on June 2.

“We promise you that we will work to raise Lebanon on the hope of harmony,” Bishop George Khodor said in his eulogy. “The murderers will perish in their hatred. They brought hell upon themselves.”

The Lebanese capital is rife with fear that other anti-Syrian figures might be targeted for rejecting Syria’s domination of Lebanon, which ended in April when the Syrian army withdrew from the nation after 29 years. U.S. officials said Thursday they were certain Syrian intelligence agents were still operating in Lebanon.

Indonesia

Muslim Indonesia canes for first time

Fifteen convicted gamblers were flogged Friday for illegal gaming in Indonesia – the first time caning was used as punishment in the world’s most populous Muslim country.

After traditional Friday prayers, the 15 convicts were brought to a stage erected outside a mosque, where about 600 people gathered to watch in Bireun, a town in the semiautonomous Aceh region.

Religious officials wearing masks to conceal their identities struck the men on their backs with rattan canes. The blows did not break the skin and the men did not appear in extreme pain. At least one smiled and laughed during the caning.

“I am ready to be punished, but what about everyone else, including big time corrupters and thieves?” said Zakaria, 60, the oldest man beaten. “They should also be whipped.”

Aceh, a highly conservative region, enjoys semiautonomy from the central government because of a long-running Islamic insurgency.

Indonesia has a policy of secularism, and attempts by religious hard-liners to have Islamic Sharia law, including corporal punishment, adopted nationally have failed.