more horror in the mid-East

Battles, airstrikes in Pakistan kill 250

MIRAN SHAH, Pakistan - Fighting between Islamic militants and security forces near the Afghan border has killed as many as 250 people over four days — the deadliest clashes in Pakistan since it threw its support behind the U.S.-led war on terrorism in 2001, the army said Tuesday.

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2 Iraqi women killed by convoy guards

BAGHDAD - Guards in a security convoy opened fire on a car at an intersection in central Baghdad on Tuesday, killing two Iraqi Christian women, police said. The State Department said no American convoy was involved. Across Iraq, violence claimed the lives of at least 44 people, including 19 who died in coordinated suicide car bombings in the north that targeted a local police chief and a Sunni sheik.

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