• Car bombs kill at least two in Russia's Dagestan

    AFP - Getty Images

    Police investigators work at a blast site outside a building used by court officials in central Makhachkala, Russia, on Monday. At least eight people were killed and more than a dozen injured in twin car-bomb blasts.

    By Steve Gutterman, Reuters

    MAKHACHKALA, Russia - Two car bombs killed at least two people on Monday in Dagestan, a turbulent province in Russia's North Caucasus region where armed groups are waging an Islamist insurgency. 

    The mother of the two brothers suspected of the Boston Marathon bombing has told ITV News that her sons went to the event last year. Her chilling admission comes a day after her youngest son was charged with the crime in hospital. From her home town in Dagestan, ITV's Martin Geissler reports.

    Car bombs, suicide bombings and firefights are common in Dagestan, at the centre of an insurgency rooted in two post-Soviet wars against separatist rebels in neighbouring Chechnya. 

    Investigators initially said eight people had been killed by the successive blasts in the provincial capital Makhachkala, but law enforcement officials later put the death toll at two and said more than 20 people had been wounded.

    Both explosions were near the headquarters of the court bailiffs' service and appeared to have been detonated by remote control, said the federal Investigative Committee, a Russian state agency.

    Twisted wreckage of a car could be seen near the building, which was cordoned off by police.

    The main suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings in the United States, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, lived in Dagestan with his family about a decade ago and visited the region last year.

    The visit by Tsarnaev, who was shot dead by U.S. police after the April 15 bombings that killed three people and wounded 264 others, is being scrutinised by U.S. investigators for signs of ties with insurgents.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered law enforcement authorities to ensure insurgents do not attack the 2014 Winter Olympics next February in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi, which is close to the North Caucasus.

    Most of the wounded and the two dead were caught by the second of Monday's explosions, a few minutes after the first, the investigators said.

    Insurgents in the North Caucasus have often sought to increase casualties by setting off an initial blast to attract law enforcement officers and then detonating a second bomb.

    Dagestan, an ethnically mixed, mostly Muslim region between Chechnya and the Caspian Sea, has become the most violent province in the North Caucasus, where insurgents say they are fighting to carve out an Islamic state out of southern Russia.

    At least 405 people were killed in Dagestan in violence linked to the insurgency last year, according to the Caucasian Knot website, which tracks developments in the region.

    Putin launched the second war in Chechnya as prime minister in 1999 and likes to take credit for preventing the region from splitting from Russia. But his 13 years in power have been marred by deadly attacks claimed by or blamed on the insurgents.

    Related: 

    This story was originally published on Mon May 20, 2013 9:06 AM EDT

    Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

  • 11 killed as blasts rock shopping area in Hyderabad, India

    Two bombs explode in a shopping are of Hyderabad, India, killing at least 11 people and wounding dozens more in what officials are calling the worst bombing in India in more than a year. NBCNews.com's Dara Brown reports.

    By Omer Farooq, The Associated Press

    HYDERABAD, India -- A pair of bombs exploded Thursday evening in a crowded shopping area in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, killing at least 11 people and wounding 50 more in the worst bombing in the country in more than a year, officials said.

    The blasts occurred about two minutes apart outside a movie theater and a bus station, police said. Storefronts were shattered and television footage showed the wounded being rushed to hospitals.

    "This is a dastardly attack, the guilty will not go unpunished," Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said. He appealed to the public to remain calm.

    The bombs were attached to two bicycles about 150 meters (500 feet) apart in the district of Dilsukh Nagar, Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said. The district is a usually crowded shopping area near a residential neighborhood.

    Eight people died in one explosion and three in the other, Shinde told reporters in the Indian capital of New Delhi.

    Mahesh Kumar, a 21-year-old student, was heading home from a tutoring class when a bomb went off.

    "I heard a huge sound and something hit me, I fell down, and somebody brought me to the hospital," said Kumar, who suffered shrapnel wounds.

    Hyderabad, a city of 10 million, is a hub of India's information technology industry and has a mixed population of Muslims and Hindus.

    An injured person is attended to at a hospital after a bomb blast in Hyderabad, India, on Feb. 21. A pair of bombs exploded Thursday evening in a crowded shopping area in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, killing several people and wounding many in the worst bombing in the country in more than a year, officials said.

    The explosions Thursday were the first major bomb attack to hit India since a September 2011 blast outside the High Court in New Delhi killed 13 people. The government has been heavily criticized for its failure to arrest the masterminds behind previous bombings.

    Home Secretary R.K. Singh said officials from the National Investigation Agency and commandos of the National Security Guards were leaving New Delhi for Hyderabad.

    India has been in a state of alert since Mohammed Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri, was hanged in a New Delhi jail nearly two weeks ago. Guru had been convicted of involvement in a 2001 attack on India's Parliament that killed 14 people, including five gunmen.

    Many in Indian-ruled Kashmir believe Guru did not receive a fair trial, and the secrecy with which the execution was carried out fueled anger in a region where anti-India sentiment runs deep.

    © 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

  • Thousands told to evacuate after more WWII bombs found in Germany

    Nestor Bachmann / EPA

    A smoke column rises over the roofs of Oranienburg, Germany, on Aug. 30, 2012, following a controlled blasting of a World War II bomb near the Oranienburg train station.

    By Andy Eckardt, NBC News

    MAINZ, Germany -- Another bomb scare hit Germany Thursday with the discovery of two unexploded devices dropped by U.S. forces during World War II.


    Bomb-disposal experts have begun to disarm a 550-pound bomb in the city of Oranienburg, near Berlin, formerly part of East Germany. Later in the day, a controlled explosion of a second bomb was carried out near the city’s main train station.

    Thursday’s bombs will be number 137 and 138 in a long list of unexploded ordinances that have been found since officials started searching for them in 1990, shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall. According to local media reports, more than 22,000 bombs were dropped on Oranienburg by allied forces at the end of the war.

    Such incidents are routine for the bomb experts in Brandenburg state.

    But, after a large controlled explosion of a bomb in the city center of Munich on Tuesday caused a bright fireball, smashed shop windows and set nearby buildings alight, media attention and public interest are higher than usual.

    PhotoBlog: Controlled explosion of WWII bomb ignites Munich fires

    Two days after they were evacuated from their homes, many residents in the southern German city still cannot return as at least 16 buildings are at risk to collapse and need to be inspected by local engineers.

    'Difficult situation'
    Meanwhile, a debate about compensation for the damages has started.

    In the aftermath of the supposedly controlled explosion in Munich, the situation was tense in Oranienburg.

    In Munich bomb experts destroyed a bomb found in a building slated for demolition, igniting an explosion heard throughout the city. NBC's Brian Williams reports.

    “This is an exceptional and difficult situation,” city spokesman Bjoern Luettmann told NBC News.

    “The many undetonated bombs are a burden for the city and its residents, especially on days like this,” Luettmann added.

    Nearly 6,000 residents were due to be evacuated Thursday. Public transportation has come to a near standstill and the majority of train connections in and out of Oranienburg have been cancelled.

    “The explosive devices in Oranienburg are a ticking time bomb because many were equipped with so called long-period delay detonators,” Luettmann said.

    “These are detonators that do not trigger an explosion upon impact to the ground and those that did not explode at all can go off at any time now,” he added.

    Designed to 'create chaos'
    The delayed-action bombs were designed to explode between 2 and 150 hours after impact.

    “They were designed to create chaos on enemy territory,” Luettmann said.

    Oranienburg is the only city in Germany that has been systematically searching for unexploded World War II bombs, mostly with the help of old aerial photos that were released by Britain and the United States in the 1990s.

    Unexploded WWII bomb disrupts Amsterdam Schiphol airport

    During World War II, Allied forces suspected there was a nuclear bomb research site in Oranienburg. The city also hosted an aircraft factory and had other strategically important manufacturing facilities.

    Several years ago, the local state had a professional assessment done that offered short- and long-term plans on handling the threat. Officials stated in their report that an unusually high number -- more than 4,000 -- of the delay-action bombs were dropped on Oranienburg.

    While the detonators are decaying underground, the explosives within – mostly TNT -- are not. Several construction workers in Germany have been injured or killed in the past when their heavy maintenance vehicles accidentally ran over such bombs.

    "We wish that we could get more financial support from the German government, the search and subsequent measures are costly," Luettmann said.

    City officials say that on average nearly 3 million euros -- the equivalent of $5 million -- are spent on the search for explosive devices.

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  • Bombs go off after Obama arrives in Colombia; leftist guerrillas suspected

    By Ian Johnston, msnbc.com

    Four small bombs exploded in Colombia in what police said may have been a protest by leftist guerrillas against the presence of U.S. President Barack Obama in the country for the Summit of the Americas.

    A senior police source in the capital Bogota told Reuters that two explosives were placed in a ditch in a residential area near the attorney general's office and the U.S. Embassy.

    "There are windows broken, but nobody hurt or killed," the source added.

    Secret Service agents sent home from Colombia, involvement with prostitutes alleged

    Obama landed in Cartagena, on Colombia's northern coast far from Bogota, earlier on Friday. "It might be a protest by an urban guerrilla cell against Obama," the source told Reuters.

    Local authorities in Cartagena told NBC News that two small bombs also went off in Cartagena, about a 45-minute drive away from the summit site itself.

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  • Wave of bombs kills dozens in 12 cities across Iraq

    Ako Rasheed / Reuters

    Iraqi security forces inspect the site of a bomb attack in Kirkuk on Tuesday. A car bomb exploded near a police headquarters, killing seven people and wounding 30, police and health sources said.

    By msnbc.com staff and news services

    Updated at 3:18 p.m. ET: At least 52 people were killed and 250 wounded as car and roadside bombs exploded in at least 12 cities and towns across Iraq Tuesday, police and hospital sources said, extending a spate of violence ahead of next week's Arab League summit in Baghdad.

    The meeting is seen as the country's debut on the regional stage following the withdrawal of U.S. troops in December and Iraq's government is anxious to show it can reinforce security to host its neighbors. Tuesday is the ninth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion.

    The AFP news agency reported that while violence in Iraq was down from the peak in 2006 and 2007, a total of 150 Iraqis were killed last month.

    The deadliest attack on Tuesday occurred in the southern Shiite Muslim holy city of Kerbala, where twin explosions killed 13 people and wounded 48, according to Jamal Mahdi, a Kerbala health department spokesman.

    "The second explosion caused the biggest destruction. I saw body parts, fingers, hands thrown on the road," 23-year-old shop owner Murtadha Ali Kadhim told Reuters.

    "The security forces are stupid because they always gather at the site of an explosion and then a second explosion occurs. They become a target," he added.

    Iraqis worried
    Security forces are frequently targeted in Iraq, where bombings and shootings still occur on a daily basis and Sunni Muslim insurgents and Shiite militias are still capable of carrying out lethal attacks.

    'American hostage' handed over to US embassy in Iraq

    Many Iraqis worry whether their government has the wherewithal to impose security on the country.

    American teacher shot dead by student in Iraq

    In the northern city of Kirkuk, a car bomb exploded near a police headquarters, killing seven people and wounding 30, police and health sources said, while a suicide car bomber killed three and wounded 21 in central Baghdad.

    Four hours of chaos: Dozens die as terrorists attack 12 cities in Iraq

    A car bomb targeting a police patrol in Mahmudiya in the south killed three people and wounded 12, while a car bomb blast near a convoy carrying the governor of Anbar province killed one of his security men and wounded eight other people.

    Blasts also occurred in Baiji, Samarra, Tuz Khurmato, Daquq and Dhuluiya, all north of Baghdad, and Hilla and Latifiya in the south. Police in the northeastern city of Baquba said they had also found and defused eight bombs.

    The Arab League summit is due to be held in Baghdad on March 27-29, the first time Iraq will host the event in more than 20 years.

    Reuters contributed to this report.

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  • Red Cross desperate to deliver aid as Syria shells Homs again

    An aid convoy has been refused access to Baba Amr district of Homs, where residents have been without water for the last four days. Elsewhere in Syria, there have been anti-government protests following Friday prayers. Human rights campaigners claim that 13 people were killed when troops fired a mortar into a crowd of demonstrators in the town of Rastan. Britain's Channel Four News correspondent Carl Dinnen reports.

    By msnbc.com news services

    Armed forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad on Saturday bombarded the Jobar residential neighborhood of Homs, where a standoff continued between a Red Cross convoy and the government that has blocked the delivery of food, medical supplies and blankets to the thousands still stranded in the area.

    Thousands of civilians from another area overrun by the army have taken refuge in the neighborhood, an opposition activist organization said.

    "In an act of pure revenge, Assad's army has been firing mortar rounds and ... machine guns since this morning at Jobar. We have no immediate reports of casualties because of the difficulty of communications," the Syrian Network for Human Rights said in statement.

    Jobar is adjacent to the district of Baba Amr in Homs, from where Free Syrian Army rebels pulled out this week after almost a month of army shelling. Activists reported mass executions by loyalist troops who subsequently entered the area.

    The Local Coordination Committees activist network said mortars slammed into Khaldiyeh, Bab Sbaa and Khader districts of the city early Saturday.

    Red Cross supplies arrived in the stricken Syrian city of Homs on Friday as evidence mounted of its humanitarian crisis after a month of bombardment from President Bashar Assad's forces. ITV's Paul Davies reports.

    Graphic: The siege of Homs

    Abu Hassan al-Homsi, a doctor at a makeshift clinic in Khaldiyeh district of Homs, said he treated a dozen wounded.

    "This has become routine, the mortars start falling early in the morning," he said. Several homes were damaged from the morning shelling, which he described as steady but intermittent. Most of those he treated were lightly wounded, al-Homsi added.

    Aid convoy blocked
    The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said Saturday it was still negotiating with Syrian authorities who have denied its aid convoy access to the shattered Baba Amr district.

    An ICRC convoy of seven trucks carrying food and other life-saving relief supplies, joined by Red Crescent ambulances to evacuate the sick and wounded, has been stalled in the city of Homs since arriving there on Friday.

    Red Cross convoy prevented from entering former Syrian rebel stronghold

    "The ICRC and Syrian Red Crescent are not yet in Baba Amr today (Saturday). We are still in negotiations with authorities in order to enter Baba Amro. It is important that we enter today," ICRC spokesman Hicham Hassan told Reuters in Geneva.

    ICRC President Jakob Kellenberger, in a statement issued on Friday after waiting all day for Syrian authorities to grant entry to the team, said the delay was "unacceptable" as civilians had waited for weeks for emergency assistance.

    U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Friday he had received "grisly reports" Syrian government forces were arbitrarily executing, imprisoning and torturing people in the battle-scarred city of Homs after rebel fighters had fled.

    PhotoBlog: The fear of carnage to come

    'Terrorist' suicide bombs
    Meanwhile, the Syrian state news agency Sana reported Saturday that a suicide bomber killed two people and wounded several others in the southern town of Deraa.

    "The terrorist explosion led to the martyrdom of two citizens," the agency said.

    The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported that at least two people were killed and several others wounded in the explosion.

    Syrians flee to northern Lebanon

    Syria has seen a string of suicide bombings, the last on Feb. 10, when twin suicide bombs struck security compounds in the government stronghold city of Aleppo, killing 28 people and bringing significant violence for the first time to the city.

    The capital Damascus, another stronghold of Assad's, has seen three suicide bombings in the past two months.

    The regime has touted the attacks as proof that it is being targeted by "terrorists." The opposition accuses forces loyal to the government of being behind the bombings to tarnish the uprising.

    Saturday's bombing in Deraa marked the first time a suicide bombing struck an opposition stronghold. Daraa is the birthplace of the nearly year-old uprising against Assad. The revolt has killed more than 7,500 people, according to most recent U.N. estimates.

    More from msnbc.com and NBC News:

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    Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

  • Bangkok blasts wound Iranian attacker, 4 others

    A suspected Iranian man is severely injured in Thailand after a grenade explodes on a Bangkok street. Msnbc's Chris Jansing reports the incident could escalate tensions between Israel and Iran, whom Israel accuses of several assassination attempts on its citizens.

    By NBC News, msnbc.com and news services

    BANGKOK -- An Iranian man carrying grenades blew off his own legs and wounded four civilians Tuesday after an earlier blast shook his house in Bangkok, Thai authorities said. The explosions came a day after an Israeli diplomatic car was bombed in India — an attack Israel blamed on Iran.

    Authorities said it's unclear whether the Bangkok explosions were linked to the New Delhi attack, but in Jerusalem Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said, "we can't rule out any possibility."

    Thai security forces found more explosives in a house where the Iranian man was staying in Bangkok, but the possible targets were not known, Police Gen. Pansiri Prapawat said.

    A passport found at the scene of one blast indicated the assailant was Saeid Moradi from Iran, Pansiri said. Authorities in Tehran could not immediately be reached for comment.

    PhotoBlog: Graphic photo of bomb scene

    Tuesday's violence began in the afternoon when a stash of explosives apparently detonated by accident in Moradi's house, blowing off part of the roof. Police said two foreigners quickly left the residence, followed by a wounded Moradi.

    "He tried to wave down a taxi, but he was covered in blood, and the driver refused to take him," Pansiri said. He then threw an explosive at the taxi and began running.

    Police who had been called to the area then tried to apprehend Moradi, who hurled a grenade to defend himself. "But somehow it bounced back" and blew off his legs, Pansiri said.

    EPA

    A member of Thailand's explosives disposal unit inspects the scene of a bomb blast that injured a man thought to be Iranian on a roadside in Bangkok Tuesday.

    Photos of the wounded Iranian showed him covered in dark soot on a sidewalk strewn with broken glass. He lay in front of a Thai primary and secondary school. No students were reported wounded.

    A motorcycle taxi driver who arrived on the scene shortly after the explosion said he saw the man identified as Moradi lying on the ground with his leg blown off.

    "Luckily school hadn't finished yet, otherwise there would be more injuries," Dechchart Puangket told NBC News.

    A dark satchel nearby was investigated by a bomb disposal unit. Pansiri said police found Iranian currency, US dollars and Thai money in the bag.

    Three Thai men and one Thai woman were brought to Kluaynamthai Hospital for treatment of injuries, said Suwinai Busarakamwong, a doctor there.

    The blasts came a day after bomb attacks targeted Israeli embassy staff in India and Georgia. Israel accused Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah of being behind those attacks. Hezbollah is a Shiite Islamist group backed by Syria and Iran that is on the official U.S. blacklist of foreign terrorist organizations.

    An Israeli official told news website Ynet that the Bangkok explosions appeared to be a "bombing gone wrong." 

    Second Iranian detained
    Another Iranian was detained Tuesday night at Bangkok's international airport as he attempted to leave for neighboring Malaysia, said police commander Winai Thongsong. Authorities were interrogating the man, but it was not yet known whether he was involved in Tuesday's blasts.

    Kerek Wongsa / Reuters

    Tuesday's violence began when a stash of explosives apparently detonated by accident in a Bangkok house, blowing off part of the roof.

    While Thai officials declined to speculate on whether the two men they had detained were involved with any militant group,

    Israeli Minister of Defense Ehud Barak blamed Iran.

    "The attempted terrorist attack in Bangkok proves once again that Iran and its proxies continue to perpetrate terror,'' Barak said on a visit to Singapore.

    "Iran and Hezbollah are unrelenting terror elements endangering the stability of the region, and endangering the stability of the world,'' said Barak, who spent a few hours in Bangkok on Sunday.

    Israel accuses Iran of bombings in India, Georgia

    Last month, a Lebanese-Swedish man with alleged links to pro-Iranian Hezbollah militants was detained by Thai police. He led authorities to a warehouse filled with more than 8,800 pounds of urea fertilizer and several gallons of liquid ammonium nitrate.

    Israel and the United States at the time warned their citizens to be alert in the capital, but Thai authorities said Thailand appeared to have been a staging ground but not the target of any attack.

    Immigration police are trying to trace Moradi's movements, but initial reports indicated he flew into Thailand from Seoul, South Korea on Feb. 8, Pansiri said. He landed at the southern Thai resort town of Phuket, then stayed in a hotel in Chonburi, a couple hours drive southeast of Bangkok, for several nights.

    Bangkok's blasts came one day after bombs targeted Israeli diplomats in India and Georgia. The attack in India wounded four people, while the device found in Georgia did not explode. Iran has denied it was responsible.

    Israeli police have increased the state of alert in the country, emphasizing public places, foreign embassies and offices, as well as Ben-Gurion International Airport.

    Thailand has rarely been a target for foreign terrorists, although a domestic Muslim insurgency in the country's south has involved bombings of civilian targets.

    NBC News, Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

     

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  • Millions invested in research to minimize injuries from IEDs

    Roadside bombs continue to kill and maim in Afghanistan, leaving many servicemen with life-changing injuries. But millions of dollars are being invested in research to give soldiers a better chance, by reducing the blast's impact on their body. NBC's Annabel Roberts reports.