Baghdad: Bombs striking Shiite neighbourhoods, security forces and other targets across Iraq on Sunday killed at least 23 people, officials said.

It was the latest instance in which insurgents launched coordinate attacks in multiple cities across the country in a single day.

The deadliest attack came in the town of Taji, a former al-Qaida stronghold just north of Baghdad, where three explosive-rigged cars went off within minutes of each other. Police said eight people died and 28 were injured in the back-to-back blasts that began around 7:15 am. I

In all, at least 82 people were wounded in the wave of attacks that stretched from the restive but oil-rich city of Kirkuk in Iraq’s north to the southern Shiite town of Kut. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the violence, but car bombs are a hallmark of al-Qaida in Iraq.

The militant network has vowed to take back areas of the country, like Taji, from which the Sunni insurgent network was pushed before US troops withdrew last December. Shortly after the Taji attacks, police said a suicide bomber set off his explosives-packed car in the Shiite neighbourhood of Shula in northwest Baghdad. One person was killed and seven wounded.

Police could not immediately identify the target. Within an hour, another suicide drove a minibus into a security checkpoint in Kut, southeast of Baghdad.

Three police officers were killed and five wounded, Maj Gen Hussein Abdul-Hadi Mahbob said. (AP)

Kabul: An Afghan soldier turned his gun on American troops at a checkpoint in the country’s east, killing two Americans and two fellow members of Afghanistan’s army in a shooting that marked both the continuance of a disturbing trend of insider attacks and the 2,000th US troop death in the long-running war, officials said on Sunday.

The string of insider attacks is one of the greatest threats to NATO’s mission in the country, endangering a partnership key to training up Afghan security forces and withdrawing international troops.

Saturday’s shooting took place at an Afghan army checkpoint just outside a joint US-Afghan base in Wardak province, said Shahidullah Shahid, a provincial government spokesman.

At least two Afghan soldiers died, he said. “Initial reports indicate that a misunderstanding happened between Afghan army soldiers and American soldiers,” Shahid said.

He said investigators had been sent to the site to try to figure out what happened. It was not clear if the assailant was killed.

The attack happened about 5 pm in Sayd Abad district, Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Gen Zahir Azimi said in an emailed statement.

He did not provide further details. NATO forces announced the assault early Sunday morning, saying only that it was “suspected insider attack” and that a NATO service member and civilian contractor were killed.

One US official confirmed that the service member killed was American, while another confirmed that the civilian was also American.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the nationality of the dead had not yet been formally announced.

Afghan soldiers and policemen or militants in their uniforms have gunned down more than 50 foreign troops so far this year, eroding the trust between coalition forces and their Afghan partners.

An equal number of Afghan policemen and soldiers also died in these attacks, giving them reason as well to be suspicious of possible infiltrators within their ranks.

The attacks are taking a toll on the partnership between international and Afghan forces, prompting the US military to restrict operations with small-sized Afghan units earlier this month.

The close contact with coalition forces working side by side with Afghan troops as advisers, mentors and trainers is a key part of the U.S. strategy for preparing the Afghans to take the lead in security operations as the US and other nations prepare to pull out their last combat troops at the end of 2014, just 27 months away.

The number of American military dead reflects an AP count of those members of the armed services killed inside Afghanistan since the US-led invasion on October 7, 2001. (AP)

NEW YORK: Former New York Times publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, who led the company for 34 years in a period of growth that made it a multibillion-dollar media enterprise, died on Saturday at the age of 86, the newspaper said.

Sulzberger, whose family bought the Times in 1896, died at his home in Southampton, New York, after a lengthy illness, his family said.

Sulzberger, known by his childhood nickname Punch, became publisher of the Times in 1963 and it won 31 Pulitzer Prizes under his leadership. He turned over the publishing job to his son, Arthur Sulzberger Jr, in 1992 and gave him the chairman’s position in 1997.

“Punch, beloved by his colleagues, was one of our industry’s most admired executives,” Sulzberger Jr. said in a statement.

While he has not been active in the company for more than a decade, the elder Sulzberger’s stamp on one of the world’s most influential newspapers is still in place.

He helped the company achieve financial stability, started nationwide distribution, added sections that are now staples in newspapers across the country and took it public in 1969 using a duel class structure in which the family controls around 90 percent of Class B shares.

Sulzberger’s grandfather Adolph S. Ochs purchased the Times in 1896 and the Ochs-Sulzbergers are one of a small group of families in the United States still serving as stewards of newspapers and media empires.

Storied newspaper names like the Pulitzers, Chandlers and Bancrofts have since exited an industry racked with challenges.

Newspapers are suffering from a drastic decline in advertising revenue and a loss of readership as people turn online and to digital products to get their news.

The passing of Sulzberger comes at a time of uncertainty for the Times.

It has been selling off many of its properties and has not paid a dividend in several years. Its share price also has been slumping.

“He was a great champion of the newsroom,” said Joseph Lelyveld, executive editor of the Times from 1994-2001. (PTI)

London: Signalling another step towards political reform, Myanmar President Thein Sein has said that democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi would be acceptable as the country’s president if the people vote for her in 2015.

Sein has initiated a series of reforms in recent years that have seen the beleaguered country gradually emerge out of its international isolation.

Western countries have either suspended or eased sanctions due to the new direction in hitherto military-control in Myanmar’s politics.

Speaking to BBC, Sein said he would accept Suu Kyi as president if the people voted for her, and insisted that the will of the people would be respected whoever they chose in an election due in 2015.

Reiterating his commitment to the country’s reform programme, he said he and Suu Kyi were working together.

He said: “Whether she will become a leader of the nation depends on the will of the people. If the people accept her, then I will have to accept her. There isn’t any problem between me and Aung San Suu Kyi. We are working together.”

But he added that the army, which retains many of the seats in parliament, will continue to play a central role in the country’s politics, and renewed his appeal for western economic sanctions placed on his country to be lifted.

67-year-old Aung Sang Suu Kyi is a politician and chairperson of the National League for Democracy (NLD) in Myanmar.

She remained under house arrest for almost 15 of the 21 years from 1989 until her most recent release in November 2010, becoming one of the world’s most prominent political prisoners. (PTI)

BEIRUT: Hundreds of shops were burning in the ancient covered market in Aleppo on Saturday as fighting between rebels and state forces in Syria’s largest city threatened to destroy a UNESCO world heritage site.

Heavy clashes erupted outside several military sites in Aleppo on Saturday evening. Activists said rebels were battling government forces outside the Neirab military air base.

The uprising-turned-civil war that is now raging across Syria has killed more than 30,000 people, according to activist groups such as the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

But beyond the dramatic human cost, many of Syria’s historic treasures have also fallen victim to an 18-month-old conflict that has reduced parts of some cities to ruins.

Rebels fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad announced a new offensive in Aleppo, Syria’s commercial hub of 2.5 million people, on Thursday, but neither side has appeared to make significant gains.

In Aleppo, activists speaking via Skype said army snipers were making it difficult to approach the Souk al-Madina, the medieval market of vaulted stone alleyways and carved wooden facades in the Old City, once a major tourist attraction. Videos uploaded to YouTube showed dark black clouds hanging over the city skyline.

Activists said the fire might have been started by shelling and gunfire on Friday and estimated that between 700 and 1,000 shops had been destroyed so far.

The accounts were difficult to verify because of government restricts on foreign media.

Aleppo’s Old City is one of several locations in Syria declared world heritage sites by UNESCO, the United Nations cultural agency, that are now at risk from the fighting.

UNESCO believes five of Syria’s six heritage sites – which also include the ancient desert city of Palmyra, the Crac des Chevaliers crusader fortress and parts of old Damascus – have been affected. The British-based Observatory for Human Rightssaid Assad’s forces and rebels blamed each other for the blaze. (Reuters)