In eastern Afghanistan, a suicide bomber killed at least 21 people, including three coalition soldiers, in an attack on a joint NATO and Afghan patrol. Also, at least six women and children were killed Tuesday when the tractor they were riding on struck a roadside bomb in Logar province.
Egypt's Election Commission says it has delayed Thursday's planned announcement of the results of a runoff presidential vote while it continues to review appeals from the two candidates, hiking tension as allegations of fraud mounted.
Officials in Pakistan say an al-Qaida leader has been detained near the country's border with Iran. Pakistani authorities said Wednesday that Naamen Meziche, a French national of Algerian origin, was captured during a raid near Quetta - the capital of Baluchistan province. They said he was arrested while trying to flee the country, but provided no further details
Syrian rights activists say violence across the country Wednesday has killed at least 53 people, after the head of a United Nations monitoring mission says his team is committed to staying in the war-torn country. Shelling and bombings killed Syrians from north of Aleppo, to the southern city of Daraa, to the eastern city of Deir Ezzor and the northwestern province of Latakia. Abdelrahman also reported deaths from attacks in Hama, Idlib and Damascus provinces.
A suicide bomber killed at least 21 people, including three coalition soldiers, in an attack on a joint NATO and Afghan patrol in eastern Afghanistan.
Provincial police chief General Sardar Mohammad Zazai told VOA the attacker struck a checkpoint where coalition and Afghan forces were conducting biometric surveys of residents in Khost city. The blast took place near a busy market.
The U.S. Embassy in Kabul said three NATO service members and an Afghan interpreter were among those killed in the blast.
The coalition soldiers were said to be American. Afghan officials say police officers were also among the dead. More than 32 people, including women and children, were wounded in the attack.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing. The al-Qaida and Taliban-linked Haqqani network is said to be active in Khost Province, which borders Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal region.
The militant group has been blamed for a number of deadly attacks against international forces in Afghanistan.
Elsewhere in the east, Afghan officials say at least six women and children were killed Tuesday when the tractor they were riding on struck a roadside bomb in Logar province.
Egypt
Egypt's Election Commission says it has delayed Thursday's planned announcement of the results of a runoff presidential vote while it continues to review appeals from the two candidates, hiking tension as allegations of fraud mounted.
The commission said Wednesday that judges are still looking into some 400 complaints of alleged campaign violations and disputed vote counting submitted by Mohammed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood candidate, and his rival, former prime minister Ahmed Shafiq.
No new date to announce a winner was given.
On top of the potentially explosive election dispute looms renewed uncertainty over the latest health scare of 84-year-old former President Hosni Mubarak, who was ousted in Egypt's uprising last year and is now serving a life prison sentence.
The state news agency reported overnight that Mubarak was near death and put on a respirator after suffering a stroke. He was transferred to a military hospital from the Cairo prison hospital where he has been kept since his June 2 conviction for failing to stop the killing of protesters during the uprising.
Security officials said Wednesday the ousted leader was in a coma and off life support and that his heart and other vital organs were functioning. A later report in The New York Times quoted a lawyer for the ex-leader as saying Mubarak had only fallen down in the prison bathroom.
There have been more complaints about the presidential runoff than any election since Mubarak's ouster. But foreign and local monitors say the violations they observed were not serious or large-scale enough to question the legality of the process.
An unofficial tally released Wednesday by a coalition of independent judges showed Morsi with 13,238,335 votes compared to 12,351,310 for Shafiq.
Aides to the Islamist Brotherhood's candidate said Morsi received 52 percent to Shafiq's 48 percent. The Shafiq camp countered that the former air force commander won with 51.5 percent of the vote.
Some Mubarak supporters, including Tanya El Ossify, gathered outside the Armed Forces Hospital, where the ex-president was taken.
"I came here today to say that Mubarak is a great man," said El Ossify. "He fought to bring peace to Egypt. Everyone is thinking about the money [that anti-Mubarak protesters say the president has allegedly stolen] and forgot about his great history. They forgot that he brought victory (in the 1973 Arab-Israeli War) to Egypt."
Another supporter warned Egyptians would soon regret Mubarak's ouster.
"Do you think that Egypt is going to live in peace like we did before? No, this time has passed and you will miss the days of President Mubarak," he said.
Many Egyptians Wednesday also gathered in Tahrir Square, a central point of the protests that drove Mubarak from power last year. Ali Mohamed Ali was among Egyptians who looked to move on from the Mubarak era.
"Mubarak is no longer in our hearts," said Ali. "He has no value to us anymore. We need to focus on the present and future. What's been done is done, but may God fix his situation."
Former presidential candidate and veteran diplomat Abdullah al Ashaal - who is now supporting the Muslim Brotherhood's Morsi - told VOA he thinks much of the maneuvering by the military council could backfire.
"I think the military council is testing the determination of the people and they are trying to find a way back to power as the 30th of June is approaching," said al Ashaal. "They declared before that the 30th will be the final day to settle power to the civilian government. So now, we have arrived to the terminal."
The powerful Brotherhood movement has vowed to challenge the military's recent moves restoring martial law, dismissing the Islamist-dominated parliament and curbing the powers of the incoming president.
But Professor Marius Deeb at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies tells VOA despite the public protests, the military and the Muslim Brotherhood are not at odds.
"It's an old game," said Deeb. "Now it's more in the open - the Muslim Brotherhood and the military. Despite appearances, they need each other."
Deeb says whether the Brotherhood's Morsi is declared the winner or whether Shafiq emerges victorious, the outcome ensures little will actually change.
"They [the Muslim Brotherhood] have been propped up by Sadat and Mubarak as a bogeyman against any liberal or democratic alternatives to Sadat and Mubarak's regime," he said. "And, of course, the bogeyman became slightly bigger but still manageable. But the important thing is that the liberals, the revolutionaries are crushed. And that's what they've done."
A unilaterally declared interim constitution grants the ruling military council's generals and the courts final say over much domestic and foreign policy and the constitutional drafting process. It rules that no election can be held until a military-appointed panel writes a permanent constitution whose articles the generals can veto.
Pakistan
Officials in Pakistan say an al-Qaida leader has been detained near the country's border with Iran.
Pakistani authorities said Wednesday that Naamen Meziche, a French national of Algerian origin, was captured during a raid near Quetta - the capital of Baluchistan province. They said he was arrested while trying to flee the country, but provided no further details.
Officials say Meziche was a close associate of senior al-Qaida leader Younis al-Mauritani, who was arrested in Baluchistan last September with the help of the CIA. Mauritani was believed to have been tasked with targeting economic interests in the United States, Europe and Australia.
Meziche has been linked to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S. and is said to be a member of an al-Qaida cell in Germany.
Meziche's arrest comes amid U.S. criticism that Pakistan is not doing enough to crack down on militant safe havens.
Earlier this month, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the U.S. was "reaching the limit" of its patience with Pakistan and urged the country to take action against insurgents who attack American forces in Afghanistan. Pakistan's foreign ministry rejected Panetta's comments, saying they did not contribute to peace and stability in the region.
Relations between the U.S. and Pakistan have been strained over a number of recent issues, including Pakistan's closing of the NATO supply routes into Afghanistan after the mistaken killing of 24 Pakistani troops in U.S. airstrikes last November.
Pakistan has also condemned U.S. drone strikes targeting Taliban and al-Qaida-linked militants in the country's northwest.
Islamabad also sharply criticized the covert U.S. raid that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad last May.
Syria
Syrian rights activists say violence across the country Wednesday has killed at least 53 people, after the head of a United Nations monitoring mission says his team is committed to staying in the war-torn country.
Rami Abdelrahman, the head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told VOA (by phone) that he fears Syria will become "the new Somalia or the new Afghanistan."
The Observatory has a network of contacts in Syria including rebels, activists and state security members. Abdelrahman said at least 28 Syrian soldiers, one army defector and 24 civilians and rebels died Wednesday.
He said clashes, shelling and bombings killed Syrians from north of Aleppo, to the southern city of Daraa, to the eastern city of Deir Ezzor and the northwestern province of Latakia. Abdelrahman also reported deaths from attacks in Hama, Idlib and Damascus provinces.
The latest violence comes as the International Committee of the Red Cross said it is preparing to evacuate wounded people and trapped civilians from the city of Homs. The ICRC said Wednesday both sides agreed to its request for a temporary halt in fighting so the ICRC can carry out the evacuations and bring in much-needed medical supplies.
On Tuesday, the head of the U.N. observer mission in Syria said the "suffering of the Syrian people" is getting worse and that questions about canceling the monitoring mission are premature.
"I remain committed with the mission in the positions we are currently in. We're not going anywhere," said Major General Robert Mood.
Mood told the U.N. Security Council Tuesday that attackers have targeted his 300-strong unarmed observer team several times in the last few weeks. He says at least nine U.N. vehicles have been damaged.
Mood and U.N. peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous said the mission in Syria was suspended on Saturday because of escalating violence, but team members did not leave the country. The decision was the clearest sign yet that a peace plan brokered by international envoy Kofi Annan has collapsed.
Meanwhile, U.S. President Barack Obama said in Los Cabos, Mexico, on Tuesday that Russia and China have "not signed on" to any plan for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's removal from power, but that both countries' leaders recognize the dangers of an all-out civil war.
Obama said the Syrian leader has lost all legitimacy and that it is impossible to conceive of any solution to the violence that leaves him in power. The U.S. president acknowledged the lack of any breakthrough with the leaders of Russia or China, despite intensive talks.
Moscow and Beijing are long-time allies of Syria and have shielded Assad from U.N. sanctions sought by Western and Arab powers who oppose his nearly 12-year autocratic rule.
The Security Council agreed to send the observer mission to Syria in April to monitor government and rebel compliance with a U.N.-backed cease-fire agreement, but the truce never took hold. The observers' 90-day mandate expires in mid-July.
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