Afghan blasts kill at least 16, half of them children

KABUL, Afghanistan – A powerful car bomb detonated outside the office of a U.S. security contractor Sunday, killing at least seven people, including two Americans, and wounding several others, officials and witnesses said.

Hours earlier, a blast wrecked a religious school in southeastern Afghanistan, reportedly killing at least eight children and one adult.

Security officials have issued several warnings in recent weeks about possible car bombings and suicide attacks in the Afghan capital. NATO forces patrolling Kabul have warned that anti-government militants, including the ousted Taliban, could try to mount attacks in a bid to disrupt the landmark presidential election scheduled for Oct. 9.

The Kabul explosion hit the office of Dyncorp Inc., an American firm that provides security for Afghan President Hamid Karzai and works for the U.S. government in Iraq, said Nick Downie of the Afghanistan NGO Security Office.

Italy: Vatican not a terror target

An online statement posted Sunday in the name of an al-Qaida-linked group pledged that the Vatican would be spared, but repeated threats to “turn Rome into hell.” “We declare that the Vatican will never be one of (our) targets,” said the statement, posted on a Web site known for its militant Islamic content. Its authenticity could not be verified. The statement, signed in the name of the Abu-Hafs al-Masri Brigades, repeated threats to ravage Rome unless Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s government withdraws Italian troops from Iraq.

The Russian government’s choice for president of war-ravaged Chechnya appeared to be the victor Sunday in an election tainted by charges of fraud and shadowed by last week’s destruction of two airliners. Acting Chechen president Sergei Abramov said preliminary results showed Maj. Gen. Alu Alkhanov, the republic’s top police official and the Russian government’s new choice, had passed the 50-percent mark needed to win, the Interfax news agency reported. In Grozny, a man blew himself up near a polling station after trying to enter it carrying a package, officials said.

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