BBC News with Marian Marshal.
A suicide bomber has blown himself up inside a busy cafe in the Iraqi capital Baghdad. At least 37 people have died and more than 50 are injured. Simon Ponsford reports.
The bomb exploded in a tea shop popular with young Iraqis in a mainly Shia district of Amil. The BBC’s Harda Sali was in Baghdad said it was a particularly cold-blooded attack.
The suicide bomber was carrying two packs and he managed to get into that tea shop where younger people who playing backgammon and drinking tea and mocking tea shop.
Distressed relatives have been gathered outside the hospital where survivors have been treated. The tea shop attack mounts another grime day for Iraq where the level of violence is at its worst for five years. Earlier in the day, suicide bombers attacked police army and government buildings in town of Rawa and the home of a senior police officer in Samarra.
The Afghan authorities say an army special forces commander in eastern Kunar province has defected to an insurgent group taking his union’s guns and other equipments with him. Anbarasan Ethirajan reports.
The Afghan special forces commander in Kunar province Monsif Khan gave leave to all his soldiers during the Eid religious festival and then escaped with his team’s guns, night vision goggles, binoculars and their Humvee truck. Officers say Mr. Khan is the first special forces commander to switch sides joining the Heze-e-Islamic organization which carries out attacks on the Afghan government and Nato-led forces. Security forces have launched a manhunt for the missing commander and tribe elders have promised to help.