At Least 62 Killed in Attack on Police Academy in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD – At least 62 people were killed, including the attackers, and around 100 others were wounded in an attack on a police training academy in the city of Quetta in western Pakistan, a government spokesperson told EFE.

“Fifty-nine people died in the police center, in addition to the three attackers, and around 100 were injured,” said Anwar-ul-Haq Kakar, government spokesperson for Baluchistan province whose capital is Quetta.

The attack occurred Monday night when three attackers entered the police training center and clashed with security forces, said Quetta police spokesperson Gulab Khan.

Khan said the three attackers were wearing suicide vests and two blew themselves up.

A cadet from the center told television channels that he saw three men dressed in camouflage entering the dormitory with Kalashnikovs.

“They began to shoot, but I could escape by climbing over a wall,” he said.

Major General of the Frontiers Corps Sher Afgan told reporters the attackers belonged to the Sunni insurgent group of the sectarian Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and that they were in contact with Afghanistan during the attack.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack yet.

Balochistan witnesses frequent attacks by secessionist groups, Islamist militias and mafia networks that operate across the country.

racist thug smashes a plank of wood into Spanish tourist's face after hearing him.

U.S. Soldier Killed in Blast in Northern Iraq

WASHINGTON – An American soldier died Thursday in a bomb blast in northern Iraq, officials at the headquarters of the U.S. military operation against Islamic State.

“Today, a U.S. service member died fr/ wounds sustained in an improvised explosive device blast in northern Iraq. Further info when available,” Col. John L. Dorrian said on Twitter.

Dorrian, the spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve, did not say whether the dead service member was part of the U.S. contingent supporting the Iraqi-Kurdish offensive to expel IS from the northern city of Mosul.

The U.S. military has assigned between 100 and 200 personnel to back the push to retake Mosul, Iraq’s second city, which fell to IS in June 2014.

Though the Pentagon says that U.S. service members are not taking part in combat, they remain exposed to danger amid the chaos of battle and the lack of a well-defined front line in the conflict with Islamic State.

Iraqi and Kurdish units started their advance toward Mosul on Monday and have gained ground more quickly than planners expected.

But the resistance is likely to intensify as the Iraqis and Kurds get closer to the city, where IS fighters are preparing for urban warfare.

Norwegian ISIS fighter 'murdered two-year-old stepson'

A Norwegian Islamist fighting in Syria murdered the two-year-old son of a rival, after marrying the man's ex-wife, journalist Åsne Seierstad has claimed in her new book, Two Sisters.

According to Seierstad, Bastian Vasquez killed the son of Arfan Bhatti, a leading figure in the Norwegian Islamist group Profetens Ummah, after the boy came to Syria with his mother to engage in Jihad.  Vasquez was then executed by ISIS for the crime. 

 

The sensational new claim about the Chilean-Norwegian Islamist, who before his death last year was believed to be one of the most senior European figures in the Islamic State hierarchy, is a side-story to Seierstad’s investigation into the two teenage sisters who went from Norway to Syria in 2013. 

 

According to the book, the boy’s mother Aisha Shezadi, was first married to Bhatti, but then went voluntarily to Syria where she she became Vasquez’s second wife. 

 

Before his death, Vasquez presented some of ISIS’s most disturbing propaganda videos. In one, he first shows a group of captives imprisoned in a building, and then shows the building being blown up as he laughs and praises Allah. After the videos were published, Vasquez was charged under Norway's anti-terror laws. 

 

Bhatti as a teenager was a member of Oslo's Young Guns gang, and in 2006 was charged for firing shots at the Oslo Synagogue and the Israeli and US embassies. He resurfaced as an Islamist in 2012. 

Sharia law - Face slap !

Female TV reporter in Karachi slapped by a law enforcement official outside a national identity card issuing officepic.twitter.com/SDqQeFZTRg

— omar r quraishi (@omar_quraishi) October 20, 2016

Oliver, 8, jumps from balcony to escape scary clown

Published: 19 Oct 2016 09:48 GMT+02:00

A terrified eight-year-old boy in western Sweden leapt from a balcony to get away from a man dressed as a clown.

Eight-year-old Oliver was briefly left alone when his mother and sister went out to buy groceries in Skara early on Saturday evening, local radio station.

When he heard someone banging on the front door of the family apartment the boy went out to greet his mother but instead came face to face with what appeared to be a tall, fully grown man in a clown suit. 

Oliver turned on his heels and fled to the balcony. Neighbours then looked on in horror as the boy jumped three metres into the courtyard to get away from the intruder.

When Oliver’s mother returned home she was met by her son and a group of agitated parents, who had seen the clown in the family's living room window. She searched every inch of the apartment and called the police but the imposter had managed to get away undetected. 

Oliver’s feet were sore from the jump but he was otherwise physically unharmed. The incident has however left its mark. 

“He looks all around him to make sure there’s nobody behind him, it was very trying,” his mother told P4 Skaraborg. 

Oliver told the station he was most scared in the evenings “because that’s when the clowns come”. 

Vegan wins battle to be accepted by Swiss army

Published: 19 Oct 2016 11:31 GMT+02:00

A Swiss man who was told he would not be accepted for military service because of his strict veganism has finally succeeded in making the army change its mind.

Antoni Da Campo, a strict vegan and member of Swiss animal rights organization PEA, was keen to undertake his obligatory military service and last December passed all the medical and physical tests required by the army.

But he was declared “unfit” for service because the army felt it could not accommodate his vegan diet or his refusal to wear leather boots – despite the fact he had offered to pay for synthetic boots.

Speaking to The Local earlier this year, Da Campo said: "They declared me doubly unacceptable, meaning that I can't do civil service either. It's for that reason that I find their decision discriminatory and arbitrary”.

As a result, he would have to pay a tax on his income until the age of 30 instead of serving.

Unwilling to accept the army’s stance, Da Campo took his case to a Lausanne appeal court in March – and lost.

He then appealed a second time to the Federal Administrative Court, arguing that the army’s decision went against his human right to maintain his personal convictions.

In a statement sent to The Local on Wednesday, Da Campo said he argued there was no legal basis for declaring a person unfit for military service simply because of his veganism.

Demanding he pay a tax because of his philosophical beliefs constituted a discrimination and violated the principle of proportionality, he said.

The court ordered the two parties to discuss the matter further between themselves, and as a result, the army decided to change its mind and has now declared Da Campo “fit” for service,  he said.

"There are more and more vegans in our society and I am happy to see that the army, like all public institutions, chooses to adapt itself to this reality” said Da Campo.

“Vegans should enjoy the same rights and duties as other citizens and not be forced to pay a tax just because they refuse to put [on] boots that involved the killing of animals."