KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The leading presidential candidate defiantly vowed to press ahead with his campaign after narrowly escaping an assassination attempt Friday that underscored Afghanistan's fragility as it prepares for its first democratic transfer of power and the withdrawal of foreign combat troops.

Two bombs struck Abdullah Abdullah's convoy as it was traveling between campaign events in the capital. The candidate was unharmed but it was a close call. At least 10 people, including three in his entourage, were killed and dozens were wounded in the attack, which heavily damaged the front of Abdullah's armored car, destroyed several vehicles and storefronts and left the street littered with twisted metal and other rubble.

"The aim of this incident is to create fear and anxiety among the people and prevent them from deciding their own destiny," Abdullah, 53, calmly told a rally at a Kabul hotel. "We will continue with our election campaign as usual, and no one can separate us from our people with these types of plots."

Although there was no immediate claim of responsibility, the bombings bore the hallmarks of Taliban militants who have vowed to disrupt the election as part of their fight against the Western-backed government.

The bombings happened eight days before a runoff in which Afghans are to choose a new leader to replace outgoing President Hamid Karzai. The Taliban have staged a series of high-profile attacks this year, though the first round of voting on April 5 was relatively peaceful. The attempt on Abdullah's life appeared to be the first direct attack on a candidate, as earlier ones targeted only campaign offices and workers.

If one of the candidates were to die, that would have huge implications not only for Afghanistan's stability but for the Obama administration's hopes for a signed security agreement in time to make preparations for keeping about 10,000 U.S. troops in the country for another two years. The Afghan constitution says new elections must be held in the event of a candidate's death.

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Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah talks on his phone during an election campaign after …

Karzai condemned the bombings, saying they were staged by "enemies of Afghanistan who don't want free elections."

Abdullah had just addressed a rally at a wedding hall and was heading toward a campaign event at the Intercontinental Hotel when his convoy was hit along a street in a commercial area of western Kabul. The attack took place about noon, when many Afghans were indoors for Friday prayers.

Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said a suicide bombing was followed by a roadside bomb. But Gul Agha Hashim, Kabul's criminal investigation chief, said the first blast was carried out by a suicide bomber on foot and the second by a suicide car bomber.

Health Minister Suraya Dalil told The Associated Press that 10 people were killed and 37 wounded. Three of those killed were a driver and two were bodyguards in another car in Abdullah's convoy, according to Fazel Sangcharaki, a spokesman for the candidate.

A former Afghan foreign minister, Abdullah was the runner-up in the disputed presidential elections of 2009 and hopes again now to succeed Karzai, who is constitutionally barred from seeking a third term.

Abdullah is the front-runner for the June 14 runoff, facing former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai. In the initial balloting, he garnered 45 percent of votes while Ahmadzai came in second with 31.6 percent. Former presidential candidate Zalmai Rassoul, who is now supporting Abdullah, also was in the car with Abdullah on Friday but was not injured.

Abdullah — who is half Pashtun and half Tajik — has a strong following among ethnic Tajiks but has sought to broaden his support base by choosing a well-known leader of the minority ethnic Hazara group and a Pashtun leader of the powerful Hezb-i-Islami group as vice presidential candidates.

The vote comes at a pivotal time as the international community prepares to withdraw combat forces by the end of this year. The U.S. and its coalition allies have tried to transform a small and ineffectual Afghan military and police into a huge force of 350,000, but huge obstacles remain. Large parts of the country have become practically inaccessible.

Both Abdullah and Ahmadzai have pledged to sign a security pact with the U.S. that will allow American troops to remain in the country after 2014 in a training and advisory capacity. Karzai refused to sign it and has irritated Washington with his anti-American rhetoric.

Although billions of dollars have poured into the country since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, much of this money landed in the pockets of corrupt businessmen and politicians, further widening the divide between rich and poor. The rampant poverty has helped keep alive the Taliban insurgency, which shows no sign of letting up.

In the early days after the U.S.-led alliance toppled the Taliban regime in 2001, Abdullah became the face of Afghanistan's anti-Taliban movement, giving frequent press conferences to international media.

Abdullah previously served as a close aide to the late Ahmad Shah Masood, the Northern Alliance rebel commander who was killed in an al-Qaida suicide bombing two days before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"The enemy cannot defeat us or prevent the decision of the people of Afghanistan," the candidate declared after Friday's attack.

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Suicide bombers target the convoy of runoff favorite Abdullah Abdullah, killing four people.
Taliban suspected

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A federal judge struck down Wisconsin's ban on same-sex marriage on Friday, but her decision resulted in confusion over whether gay couples could immediately be given marriage licenses.

Clerks in Madison and Milwaukee planned to start marrying same-sex couples despite disagreement over the effect of the ruling. However, both Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen and Chris Ahmuty, director of the Wisconsin chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, which challenged the law in court, said the ruling did not clear the way for marriages to begin.

But clerks in the state's two largest cities weren't waiting for clarification. Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele said he was keeping his courthouse open until 9 p.m. to begin marrying same-sex couples.

"I have been waiting decades for this day to finally arrive and we won't make loving couples wait longer than they want to get married," Abele said.

U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb issued the ruling late Friday, saying the law was unconstitutional. Van Hollen vowed to appeal the ruling.

But the judge also asked the couples who sued to describe exactly what they wanted her to block in the law, then gave Van Hollen's office a chance to respond. She said that after both sides respond, a process that could take weeks, she would decide whether to put her underlying decision on hold while it is appealed.

The ACLU filed a lawsuit in February on behalf of four gay couples, then later expanded to eight, challenging Wisconsin's constitutional ban on gay marriage. The lawsuit alleged that Wisconsin's ban violates the plaintiffs' constitutional rights to equal protection and due process, asserting the prohibition deprives gay couples of the legal protections that married couples enjoy simply because of their gender.

One of the plaintiff couples got the news in Milwaukee, where the gay festival PrideFest opened Friday. Garth Wangemann, 58, and Roy Badger, 56, said they are eager to be married — they have their clothes picked out — but OK with waiting a bit longer.

"We all wanted the day to come where young people (can) now take it for granted, they can marry the person they love," Wangemann said.

Gay rights activists have won 15 consecutive lower court cases since a landmark Supreme Court ruling last summer, with Wisconsin being the latest. Many of those rulings are being appealed.

"This case is not about whether marriages between same-sex couples are consistent or inconsistent with the teachings of a particular religion, whether such marriages are moral or immoral or whether they are something that should be encouraged or discouraged," Crabb wrote in the Wisconsin ruling. "It is not even about whether the plaintiffs in this case are as capable as opposite-sex couples of maintaining a committed and loving relationship or raising a family together.

"Quite simply, this case is about liberty and equality, the two cornerstones of the rights protected by the United States Constitution. "

In May, Milwaukee County Clerk Joe Czarnezki and Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell said they had trained additional staff to issue marriage licenses and worked with the chief judge to have judges on hand to perform ceremonies. They also planned to waive a normal waiting period so couples could wed immediately.

Voters amended the Wisconsin Constitution in 2006, to outlaw gay marriage or anything substantially similar. The state has offered a domestic partner registry that affords gay couples a host of legal rights since 2009, but its future is in doubt; the conservative-leaning Wisconsin Supreme Court is currently weighing whether it violates the constitution.

Republican Gov. Scott Walker, a potential 2016 Republican candidate for president, has a long history of opposing gay marriage and Wisconsin's 2009 domestic registry law. But in recent months he's avoided talking directly about the state's ban, which he supported, saying it's an issue that needs to be decided by the courts and state voters who can amend the constitution.

"It is correct for the Attorney General, on this or any other issue, to defend the constitution of the state of Wisconsin, especially in a case where the people voted to amend it," said Walker's spokeswoman Laurel Patrick.

Walker's likely Democratic challenger in the governor's race, Mary Burke, supports legalizing gay marriage.

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Associated Press writer M.L. Johnson contributed to this report from Milwaukee.

MONCTON, New Brunswick (AP) — A chilling portrait of a man obsessed with guns and anti-government rhetoric began to emerge as people in this eastern Canadian city struggled to reconcile the knowledge that the person charged with murdering three Mounties was the same one who had seemingly lived quietly among them.

Justin Bourque, 24, was caught and charged with three murders and two attempted murders Friday, ending a 30-hour manhunt that closed schools, forced residents to hide inside their homes and paralyzed Moncton with fear. He appeared briefly in court Friday after he was charged in the second deadliest attack on the Royal Canadian Mountain Police nearly 130 years.

But as neighbors of his parents and others who knew Bourque spoke of a quiet man from a well-liked, religious Catholic family that home-schooled its children, recent posts on social networks told a very different tale — a litany of paranoid conspiracies that included statements on Russia being a threat to Canada and deep animosity toward authority figures.

A friend, Trever Finck, said he noticed changes in Bourque's behavior over the last year, particularly after he created a new Facebook page for himself in February and filled it with anti-police messages and conspiracy theories. His profile picture shows him standing in the woods with a friend, wearing camouflage gear and clutching a shotgun. What appear to be dozens of spent shell casings lie at their feet.

"I just want to know what was going through his head," Finck said.

Church administrator Dianne LeBlanc said it had been many years since she had seen Bourque, who moved out of the family home about 18 months ago. But his parents never missed a Sunday service at Christ the King Catholic church, she said. They often arrived with at least a couple of their grown children in tow, she added.

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Paramedics participate in a candlelight vigil in Moncton, New Brunswick, on Friday, June 6, 2014, fo …

LeBlanc said parents Victor and Denise home-schooled their children, who were raised speaking French.

"They're a good family," LeBlanc said. "They were such good Catholics. I'm sure (parishioners) are very sad for them."

Bourque was charged with three counts of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder Friday, during a short court appearance in which he appeared bearded and shaggy-haired amid high security. Clad in aqua-colored jail clothes, he stared ahead intently, paying attention but showing little emotion. Bourque nodded when the judge said his name. Officers stood guard outside the courtroom with their weapons drawn.

Bourque, who was represented by a court appointed legal aid attorney, is due back in court July 3. Prosecutors and the defense agreed that a psychiatric evaluation was not immediately necessary.

On Friday, police released the names of the victims: Constables David Ross, 32, originally of Victoriaville, Quebec; Fabrice Georges Gevaudan, 45, originally of Boulogne-Billancourt in France; and Douglas James Larche, 40, of Saint John, New Brunswick.

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A woman and child participate in a candlelight vigil in Moncton, New Brunswick, on Friday, June 6, 2 …

Roger Brown, commanding officer of RCMP in New Brunswick, choked back tears as he addressed journalists.

"Fortunately most people will never have to experience what our officers have gone through in the last two days," he said. "I can't dig deep enough to explain the sadness that we all feel."

Ross' mother, Helene Rousseau, said there was a difficult road ahead for her son's wife, who has a one-year-old and is due to have a second child in September.

"These children won't remember of course. They will not have had the opportunity of knowing their father," Rousseau said.

Armed with high-powered long firearms, Bourque was spotted three times Thursday as he evaded the manhunt that all but shut down the normally tranquil city of about 60,000 people east of the Maine border. Schools and businesses were closed for a day and police asked residents of the city's northwest section to lock themselves in their homes as nearly 300 police officers searched for Bourque. A tip led police to a wooded, residential part of Moncton where they found Bourque at 12:10 a.m. Friday. He wasn't carrying any weapons, but some were found nearby, police said.

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Flowers and candles are placed outside RCMP headquarters in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada on Friday …

"I'm done," a witness heard him tell the arresting officers.

Police have not given a possible motive for the shootings.

Meanwhile, residents moved from feeling relief at Bourque's capture to grieving for the lives lost. Families and school groups placed flowers and notes on the steps of a downtown police station, where one person placed a portrait of a solemn Mounty atop a horse. Hundreds attended a vigil Friday night.

"It goes from fear to happiness to joy to sadness," said Lynne Lannigan. "At this point it doesn't matter if you're blood related or not."

Back in Bourque's neighborhood, a trailer park community in the city's suburban outskirts, Nathalie Aube described Bourque as someone neighbors rarely noticed — until her husband saw him for the last time Wednesday as he walked down the street carrying what looked like long firearms.

"It's over now. We can breathe," Aube said. "We're still leery, but it's nice that he's away."

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Gillies contributed to this report from Toronto.

Chilling portrait of suspect in Mounties' death

Justin Bourque became obsessed with guns and was deeply suspicious of authority, some who know him say.
Troubling Facebook page

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Damascus (AFP) - Guided more by what they can hear than see, Syrian troops and rebels are battling in the bowels of Damascus, digging tunnels in a campaign to control the eastern entrance to the capital.

This is the suburb of Jobar, next to Abassid Square, a stronghold of President Bashar al-Assad's regime. The army knows that if it is lost to the rebels, the capital's entire defences are in danger.

Inside an empty building, a hole in the floor leads to an observation room seven metres (23 feet) down, where army computers are linked to cameras rigged up inside a network of army tunnels.

But Mazen, a captain, explains that the cameras are of only limited use in tracking the enemy's movements.

"We depend above all on our ears. When we've located the source of the noise, we dig in that direction."

"Then it's a surprise: either the rebels are there and we fight, or we cut off the tunnel, or we use it ourselves."

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A Syrian army soldier walks through holes linking buildings in Jobar, a mostly rebel-held area on th …

There are two wars going on here, one above ground, the other below.

In the open air, snipers from both sides fire from buildings sometimes just metres apart, the thunder of shells and regime air strikes occasionally rocking the area.

"There are two cities. There's the virtual one above, and the real one below," says a soldier monitoring computer screens.

- Cat and mouse -

To evade the snipers, men on both sides have linked the buildings they control through a network of tunnels dug through the red earth and lighted with lamps.

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A Syrian army soldier makes his way through a tunnel reportedly previously used by rebel fighters in …

"The first tunnel is for food supplies, the second to communicate between our positions and the third to evacuate the wounded," explains Maher, a bearded army officer in fatigues.

"The last, which can go to depths of 12 metres, surrounds the building and, if the enemy tries to get in, we detonate bombs placed inside it."

The two sides dig their tunnels at different levels to reduce the potentially deadly risk of bumping into each other, in what has become a game of cat and mouse.

"Captain Ali drives them crazy, because he knows how to dig and launch surprise attacks," says one of his men.

The army was forced to respond when its position in western Jobar came under attack last year, with rebels bombing some of the buildings it occupied.

"The tactics of the gunmen are twofold; to dig right up to our buildings and blow them up, or to drill tunnels passed our lines so they can get into the city behind our backs," says a local commander, Colonel Ramez.

- 'Massive attack thwarted' -

Ramez has called in geologists equipped with sensors capable of detecting cavities at a depth of up to 15 metres, but sometimes they just find pipes dating back to Roman times.

For the army there are two red lines -- Abbasid Square and Jobar's March 8 Tower, which would allow rebel snipers to target much of eastern Damascus if captured.

Several months ago the army discovered a rebel tunnel that ran behind their lines, and managed to thwart "a massive attack on Damascus" at the last minute, the colonel says.

According to a Syrian intelligence officer, their plan was to send 30 suicide bombers to target several buildings, opening the way for 1,000 rebels to sow chaos in the army's ranks.

In a document entitled "War of the Tunnels", the press office of the Syrian Revolutionary Forces also said the tunnels had several purposes, including securing food supplies for besieged towns, reaching the enemy and destroying their positions.

"There has never in the world been such a thick network of tunnels as there is in Syria. It started in Homs in 2012, and the army has since discovered 500 of them. But I think there are twice as many," says Salim Harba, an academic in Damascus.

Ukraine President-elect Petro Poroshenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed during a meeting Friday that Russia would send an envoy to Ukraine in to resolve points of conflict between the two nations. And Russia is sending its ambassador to Ukraine, Mikhail Zurabov, to Poroshenko's inauguration this weekend.

The U.S. welcomed the moves — along with Putin agreeing to meet Poroshenko at all — as a positive step that could potentially lead to de-escalation of the ongoing crisis in Ukraine. A senior White House official said President Obama was going home "more optimistic" about a resolution after hearing of the envoy and talking with Putin Friday. However, the administration warned more steps need to be taken.

"We are encouraged that President Putin spoke with President-elect Poroshenko in Normandy today and that Russia is returning its Ambassador to Ukraine for the inauguration this weekend. But clearly much more needs to be done going forward," Marie Harf, the State Department's deputy communications director, told Business Insider.

Analysts view Putin's moves Friday as the latest savvy calculation by Putin that has no downside for him. Russia is attempting to placate the West while still maintaining as much influence as possible over Ukraine's future. It buys time for Russia to avoid new sanctions without giving up any of its gains in Ukraine.

"Moscow is playing both sides," Ian Bremmer, the president of Eurasia Group, told Business Insider in an email.

Bremmer described the Kremlin as "more than happy to show that they can negotiate, engage with the Ukrainian government, at the same time that Moscow-supported separatists continue to destabilize the country."

According to Bremmer, "sending an envoy to Kiev makes it harder to coordinate tougher sanctions against Moscow, while not giving up any of the leverage Russia has been building up against Kiev."

On the ground in eastern Ukraine, the fighting between pro-Russian separatists and the Ukrainian military continues to escalate, and civilian deaths were reported on Friday. Rebels attacked positions of Ukraine's national guard near Slovyansk with mortar fire Friday.

After Russia's annexation of Crimea in March, Putin has continued to attempt to extend Russia's sphere of influence in Ukraine and prevent the country from developing close ties with the West. The leaders of the G-7 countries snubbed Putin and Russia this week in Europe, meeting without him and declaring conditions Russia must meet to de-escalate the crisis.

"We urge the Russian Federation to recognize the results of the election, complete the withdrawal of its military forces on the border with Ukraine, stop the flow of weapons and militants across the border and to exercise its influence among armed separatists to lay down their weapons and renounce violence," the G-7 leaders said in a declaration from their summit.

They added they were ready to impose further "costs" on Russia if it did not meet those requirements in the coming weeks.