Iraqi insurgent attacks spread death, violence
BAGHDAD – Insurgents bent on destabilizing Iraq killed at least 46 people in numerous attacks scattered around the country on Sunday, striking targets as varied as a coffee shop, a wedding party convoy and a carload of off-duty soldiers.
The attacks are part of a months-long wave of killing that is the country’s worst spate of bloodshed since 2008. The violence is calling into question the security forces’ ability to protect the country and raising fears that Iraq’s sectarian and ethnic divisions are pushing it back toward the brink of civil war.
One of the day’s boldest attacks happened near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, where militants set up a fake security checkpoint, captured five soldiers and shot them dead, a police officer said. The soldiers were dressed in civilian clothes and returning to base in a taxi.
Mexico train derails, killing at least 5 people
VILLAHERMOSA, Mexico – A notorious cargo train known as “the Beast” and carrying at least 250 Central American hitchhiking migrants derailed in a remote region of southern Mexico on Sunday, killing at least five people and injuring 17, authorities said.
The train company and rescue workers were bringing in two cranes to help search for more victims among the eight derailed cars, officials said. Thousands of migrants ride the roofs of the train cars on their way north each year, braving brutal conditions for a chance at crossing into the United States.
The Tabasco state government said at least 250 Honduran migrants were on the train heading north from the Guatemala border. Heavy rains had loosened the earth beneath the tracks and shifted the rails, officials said.
Honduran President Porfirio Lobo set up a call center for families to learn information about their loved ones.
Der Spiegel: NSA spied on United Nations
BERLIN – The German magazine Der Spiegel says the U.S. National Security Agency secretly monitored the U.N.’s internal video-conferencing system by decrypting it last year.
The weekly said Sunday that documents it obtained from American leaker Edward Snowden show the NSA decoded the system at the U.N.’s headquarters in New York last summer.
Quoting leaked NSA documents, the article said the decryption “dramatically increased the data from video phone conferences and the ability to decode the data traffic.”
In three weeks, Der Spiegel said, the NSA increased the number of decrypted communications at the U.N. from 12 to 458.
Snowden’s leaks have exposed details of the United States’ global surveillance apparatus, sparking an international debate over the limits of American spying.
Mubarak, Islamists cases hit courts
CAIRO – Egyptian courts Sunday heard separate court cases against former President Hosni Mubarak and top leaders of his archrival, the Muslim Brotherhood, both over allegations of killing protesters in separate instances.
Egyptian media portrayed the prosecution of longtime foes as “trials of the two regimes,” an attempt to show that both Islamists and secular-leaning Mubarak authoritarian regimes are alike after a July 3 military coup toppled President Mohammed Morsi, a Brotherhood member.
Weeks of mass rallies by Muslim Brotherhood supporters over Morsi’s ouster have weakened over the past days as security forces have detained many Brotherhood leaders. The military-backed government has responded by relaxing curfew hours, trying to signal a return to normalcy across the country.
Associated Press
