Egypt court sentences Morsi supporters to death
CAIRO – A court in Egypt’s second-largest city sentenced two supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi to death on Saturday for throwing two people off the roof of a building during violent protests after the Islamist president was ousted, according to Egypt’s state news agency.
The agency said the court in Alexandria found the men guilty of murdering a child and a young man in the coastal city during mass protests demanding Morsi’s reinstatement after he was removed from power by the military.
The roof incident happened July 5 of last year, two days after Morsi’s ouster. It was one of the most dramatic acts of violence on a day in which 16 other people were killed in Alexandria.
Taliban attacks threaten to undermine Afghan vote
KABUL, Afghanistan – Taliban militants attacked the main Afghan election commission’s headquarters in Kabul on Saturday, the latest in a series of audacious assaults threatening to scare voters away just a week before Afghans go to the polls.
It was the third attack in Kabul in five days claimed by the Taliban. The Islamic militant movement has promised a campaign of violence to disrupt the April 5 elections.
The five attackers disguised themselves as women, wearing the all-encompassing burqa to sneak unnoticed into a building overlooking the heavily fortified Independent Election Commission’s headquarters on the eastern edge of the capital, officials said.
They never breached the compound – which is walled off and guarded by a series of watchtowers and checkpoints – but two warehouses were set on fire as the attackers barraged the complex with rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine-gun fire.
Car bomb targeted army near Syria border
BEIRUT – A suicide bomber driving an explosives-laden car targeted a Lebanese army checkpoint near the Syrian border on Saturday evening, killing and wounding several soldiers, Lebanon’s official news agency reported.
The blast near the eastern border town of Arsal occurred hours after forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad routed rebels from two Syrian villages lying just across the border.
It wounded and killed six soldiers, the National News Agency said, without providing a breakdown.
The bombing underscored how the spilling violence of the 3-year-old uprising in neighboring Syria has ensnared its fragile neighbor, igniting violent sectarian tensions between Lebanon’s Sunnis and Shiites.
Associated Press
