Reports from Pakistan say 14 soldiers have been killed in an attack in the southwestern province of Balochistan. The attack on a unit of the army's frontier corps took place later on Wednesday. The security services in Balochistan face insurgencies by separatists and Islamic militants.
The militant Islamist sect in Nigeria Boko Haram has released a video seeking to justify its recent attacks on Christians. The man regarded as the group's leader, Abubakar Shekau, said the attacks were in revenge for the killing of Muslims across northern Nigeria. He warned the Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan that the security forces would be no match for his group.
Security agents who have taken up their arms against us and their accomplices, these are the people we are at war with and of course Christians because everyone knows what they did to us.
Hours later, suspected Boko Haram gunmen killed four Christian traders in the northern city of Potiskum. Boko Haram has carried out a series of bombings, including one on a church outside the capital Abuja on Christmas Day which killed 37 people.
BBC News.
United States has denied any involvement in the killing of an Iranian scientist employed at one of Iran's nuclear facilities. Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan, who worked in Natanz uranium enrichment plant, was killed when two motorcyclists attached a magnetic bomb to his car. Iran accused the US and Israel of being behind the attack. But the American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton rejected the accusation.