KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – Militants managed to penetrate one of the safest nooks of Kabul to detonate a massive car bomb Saturday, shaking the confidence of voters just five days before presidential elections.
The powerful blast, for which the Taliban claimed responsibility, killed seven Afghan civilians and wounded 91 more. The bomb went off outside NATO headquarters just after 8:30 Saturday morning, the beginning of the Afghan workweek. It sent a plume of smoke visible around Kabul and knocked out glass windows more than 500 feet away.

Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility on Thursday for a suicide gun and bomb attack in the city of Lahore the previous day that killed 24 people and wounded nearly 300.
The government said the attack in a high-security area where a police headquarters, emergency services building and a military intelligence office are located, was revenge for an offensive against the Taliban in the Swat valley, northwest of Islamabad.

At least 48 people were killed and 150 injured when a suicide bomber detonated explosives during Friday prayers at a mosque in the Khyber region of northwest Pakistan, according to news reports from the area and residents.
Tariq Hayat , the chief administrator of the region close to the Afghanistan border, told Geo TV that “so far we have counted 48 bodies.”
Residents said that about 250 to 300 worshipers were in the mosque at the time of the attack and that the death toll could rise sharply.

South Korea urged its citizens to leave Yemen following two suicide bomb attacks in the last week which killed four South Koreans.
The warning came after a second attack on Wednesday hit a delegation investigating an attack on Sunday.
In Seoul, about 100 activists protested against the attacks.
On Wednesday a man walked between two cars in the Korean convoy as it was driving back to the airport in Sanaa and detonated an explosives belt.

Four soldiers with U.S.-led coalition forces and an Afghan civilian working for them were killed in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb, the U.S. military said.
It said the coalition troops were on a patrol with Afghan security forces, but did not give any further details.
Some 38,000 U.S. troops are currently serving in Afghanistan alongside another 30,000 from 40 other mostly NATO nations.

At least 30 pilgrims have been killed by a female suicide bomber south of Baghdad, Iraqi police say.
At least 25 people were also injured in the attack in Iskandiriya, 40km (25 miles) south of Baghdad.
The blast targeted Shia pilgrims, many of whom have been travelling south to the city of Karbala to take part in an annual religious ceremony.
It is the third day of attacks on Shia pilgrims, with dozens killed in Baghdad and Mosul.
The Iskandiriya attack happened despite increased security along the route.

A suicide car bomb killed four Afghan civilians and wounded 13 more in an attack outside a U.S. military base and the German embassy in the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Saturday. A sewage tanker and several cars were burning at the scene and there were bloodstains on the road as police loaded the bodies of three dead civilians onto the back of a pick-up truck.
Fourteen wounded civilians were taken to the nearby Emergency Hospital and one died on the way, hospital officials said.
Six U.S. troops were also wounded by the …

Kabul, Afghanistan — A suicide bomber struck U.S. troops patrolling on foot Thursday in southern Afghanistan, killing at least two soldiers and three civilians and wounding at least nine civilians, officials said.
The bomber hit the U.S. patrol on a busy street in Kandahar province’s Maywand district, said district chief Naimatullah Khan. American victims were taken away by helicopter, Khan said, but he could not provide a number.
Army Col. Jerry O’Hara, a U.S. military spokesman, confirmed that U.S. casualties occurred but said he could not give further details.

A woman suicide bomber blew herself up among a crowd of Shiite pilgrims, including Iranians, outside a shrine in northern Baghdad on Sunday, killing up to 40 people and wounding 72 others, an Interior Ministry source said.
A powerful explosion occurred before midday when a women detonated an explosive belt at a checkpoint at the entrance of the Bab al-Qeblah gate of Kadhim shrine in the Shiite neighborhood of Kadhimiyah, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
The woman apparently targeted the Iranian group of pilgrims and killed 16 of …

At least 20 people have been killed and dozens more wounded by a bomb that exploded among a crowd in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, security officials say.
The blast, which occurred around midday on Saturday, was so powerful it could be heard several kilometres away.
Qassim Attam, an army spokesman, said the explosion was in a car park used by commuters near a bus terminal in Kadhimiyah, northwest Baghdad, where people also gather at a Shia shrine on Saturdays.