Blast kills at least 16 at mosque in Pakistan

Blast kills at least 16at mosque in Pakistan
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- A suicide attacker detonated a huge bomb inside a crowded Shiite Muslim mosque in an eastern Pakistani city during prayers today, killing at least 16 people and wounding dozens, officials said.
Police said that hundreds of people were inside the Zainabia mosque in the city of Sialkot at the time of the blast, which severely damaged walls and left body parts scattered inside.
No group claimed responsibility for the attack, which comes less than a week after Pakistan killed a top Al-Qaida suspect in a shootout in southern Pakistan -- leading the government to claim it had broken the back of the terror network in the country.
Witnesses reported that a man with a briefcase entered the mosque shortly before the blast and the briefcase had exploded, Sialkot police chief Nisar Ahmed said. "We are almost certain it was a suicide attack," he told The Associated Press. He said bomb disposal experts were examining remains of the briefcase, and their initial assessment was that it contained explosives.
He said that at least 16 people were killed. "Dozens of people have been taken to hospital in critical condition, and I think the casualties and death toll will rise," he said.
Israeli armored vehiclesgather along Gaza border
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- Armored vehicles massed on Gaza's border today after Israel's security Cabinet approved a large-scale military operation -- dubbed "Days of Penitence" -- to stop Palestinian rocket fire.
Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz had ordered troops to "exact a price" from the militants, security officials said, after a Hamas rocket killed two children, ages 2 and 4, in an Israeli border town.
The Cabinet approved the offensive late Thursday, at the end of a day of heavy fighting between troops and Palestinian gunmen in the Jebaliya refugee camp, the Palestinians' largest and most densely populated.
In bloodshed today, five Palestinians were killed and 17 wounded in two missile strikes in Jebaliya. The army said troops fired at one group of militants planting explosives and another setting up a rocket launcher.
On Thursday, 28 Palestinians were killed and 139 wounded, most of them in Jebaliya. It was the highest single-day toll in fighting in 30 months. In violence elsewhere in Gaza that day, two Israeli soldiers and a settler were killed by Palestinian fire.
Gay marriage ban
WASHINGTON -- The House followed the Senate in decisively rejecting a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, ending for this year debate on what has become the dominant issue for the Republican Party's conservative base.
The 227-186 vote in the House Thursday was well short of the two-thirds majority needed to advance a constitutional amendment, but fulfilled a promise by backers to get lawmakers on the record on the highly sensitive issue in the run-up to Election Day.
"This is only the beginning, I'm telling you," said Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, stressing that the issue was too important to abandon. "Marriage is the basic unit of society, the very DNA of civilization, and if that civilization is to endure, marriage must be protected," he said.
Democratic opponents said the motives for holding the vote were tinged more with election-year politics than protecting the nation from gay marriages.
"The purpose in bringing this amendment to the floor today, just four weeks before the election, is to create the fodder for a demagogic political ad that appeals to voters' worst fears and prejudices," said Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the House's second-ranked Democrat.
Visitors face new checkswhen entering the U.S.
LOS ANGELES -- Closing a perceived national security gap, the United States has begun fingerprinting and photographing citizens of 27 countries -- including nations that are staunch allies -- when they arrive for short visits.
Business travelers and vacationers from the United Kingdom, Japan, Germany and other nations joined much of the rest of the world Thursday in being required to deliver "biometric" information to customs officers.
The program went into effect at the country's 115 international airports and 14 seaports, and will be expanded to border crossings later.
At Los Angeles International Airport, there was some surprise but no complaint as visitors, passports in hand, stuck their right and left index fingers on a device that electronically fingerprinted them and then had their digital photos snapped. "No problem. If it's good for security, then it's good for me," said Frank Herbert, 38, of Austria, who arrived for a Southern California vacation.
Associated Press