Pakistan

LAHORE, Pakistan - Bombings in two Pakistan cities killed 46 people Monday, as militants struck back in the wake of an army offensive against a Taliban stronghold in the northwest near the Afghan border. Two synchronized bombs ripped through a market in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore about 9 p.m., igniting a massive fire that killed 36 people, authorities said. Hours earlier a suicide bomber killed 10 people outside a courthouse in the northwestern city of Peshawar.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - - A suicide bomber disguised as a Pakistani security officer attacked the lobby of a heavily guarded and fortified U.N. office in Islamabad on Monday, killing five other people and heightening fears of renewed violence in Pakistan's capital after a long lull in suicide attacks. The midday bombing occurred at Islamabad headquarters of the World Food Program. Dressed in the uniform of a paramilitary police officer, the bomber asked a security official at the agency's main gate for permission to use the bathroom, said Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - -A U.N. official and a guard were shot and killed Thursday during a botched kidnapping attempt at a displacement camp in northwest Pakistan, underscoring the level of violence plaguing the country even as government leaders assert it's safe for camp dwellers to return home to the volatile Swat Valley. The slayings occurred at the Kacha Garhi camp outside Peshawar, northwest Pakistan's largest city. Zelle Usman, a Pakistani citizen and a U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees field officer assigned to the camp, was in his car getting ready to leave late Thursday morning when four gunmen approached and tried to kidnap him, said Abdul Ghafoor Afridi, a senior Peshawar police official.

Car bomb kills at least 27 in crowded Iraq market BAGHDAD - A car bomb exploded in a crowded outdoor market in the northern city of Kirkuk on Tuesday, killing at least 27 people, police said, a deadly reminder of the challenges facing the Iraqi government even as it celebrated the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from cities. The bombing marred what had otherwise been a festive day as Iraqis commemorated the newly declared National Sovereignty Day. It also came hours after four U.S. soldiers were killed in combat Monday in Baghdad.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan - - Pakistan announced Sunday that it planned to expand its offensive against Taliban militants into the troubled South Waziristan region. The announcement came just hours after a bomb in a crowded market in the area killed eight people and wounded 38. The deadly bombing was the latest in a series of attacks believed to be in retaliation for the Pakistani army's ongoing offensive against strongholds of the Islamic militant group. Owais Ghani, North-West Frontier Province governor, announced Sunday that the army would extend its fight against militants to the portion of Waziristan abutting the border with Afghanistan.

LAHORE, Pakistan - -An explosives-laden van rammed a steel gate outside buildings for Pakistan's top police and intelligence officials in the country's second-largest city Wednesday, killing 30 and injuring more than 250 people. It was one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in Pakistan this year. And it succeeded at again unsettling a nation that had begun to feel a renewed sense of confidence as Pakistani troops continued retaking parts of the country's northwest that had fallen into Taliban hands.

WASHINGTON -The Pakistani government has agreed to allow the U.S. a greater role in training its military, part of an informal agreement that will also send counterinsurgency equipment - possibly including helicopters - to help Islamabad step up its offensive against militants. Washington has been watching with growing alarm as Taliban forces have made military gains in Pakistan, and U.S. officials have stepped up pressure on Islamabad to do more. Although the Pakistani military began a broad offensive against the Taliban on Tuesday, senior U.S. defense officials remain deeply worried about Islamabad's ability to beat back the militant advance.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -Taliban forces consolidated control of two northwestern Pakistan districts and sent patrols into a third Thursday, stepping up their defiance of a government peace deal and raising fears of further advances by violent Islamists who have now come within 60 miles of this capital city. Officials reacted with only mild concern, saying the Taliban should comply with their pledge to lay down arms but the peace deal should be given a chance. The national security adviser, Rehman Malik, said security had actually "improved" in the past two weeks but force would be "the only option" if the militants do not halt violence.

WASHINGTON -The Obama administration plans to complete its overhaul of U.S. policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan by April, in advance of a critical NATO summit, the White House said yesterday. But even before the reassessment is complete, President Barack Obama is likely to decide on the details of a U.S. troop increase in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said. "The president will have several options in front of him, and I think he will make those decisions probably in the course of the next few days," Gates said.

WASHINGTON - U.S. and allied combat troops will withhold efforts to destroy Afghanistan's narcotics industry, which finances the Taliban insurgency, unless Afghan government forces take the lead, a senior military officer said yesterday. But with the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai widely believed to be riven with corruption and its army and police units unable to conduct complex operations, the drug industry has flourished virtually untouched, military officers said. Senior civilian and military officials have acknowledged that the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, launched by President George W. Bush weeks after the Sept.