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Multiple blasts kill dozens in Kabul

By Mirwais Harooni and Jessica Donati

KABUL (Reuters) - A wave of attacks on the Afghan army and police and U.S. special forces in Kabul killed at least 50 people and wounded hundreds, dimming hopes that the Taliban might be weakened by a leadership struggle after their longtime leader's death.

The bloodshed began on Friday with a truck bomb that exploded in a heavily populated district of the capital and ended with an hours-long battle at a base used by U.S. special forces. It became the deadliest day in Kabul for years.

The Islamist insurgents claimed responsibility for both the police academy attack and the battle at the U.S. special forces base, though not for the truck bomb.

The scale of the violence heightened obstacles to reviving the stalled peace process and conveyed a no-compromise message from the Taliban at a delicate time following last week's revelation of Mullah Mohammad Omar's death and a dispute over the leadership of the insurgency.

"The question is, who is sending the message?" Thomas Ruttig of the Afghanistan Analysts Network said.

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Men sit amid debris of their properties at the site a truck bomb blast in Kabul, August 7, 2015. REU …

The U.N. mission in Afghanistan said the incident was the worst since it began recording civilian casualties in 2009, with 355 civilians killed or injured. The U.N. Special Representative, Nicholas Haysom, called it "extreme, irreversible and unjustifiable in any terms".

On Saturday, NATO-led coalition forces confirmed that one international service member and eight Afghan contractors were killed in the attack on Camp Integrity, a base used by U.S. special forces near the main airport.

The blast outside the base was powerful enough to flatten offices inside, wounding occupants who were airlifted by helicopter to military hospitals during the night.

"There was a big explosion at the gate ... (The gunfire) sounded like it came from two different sides," said a special forces member who was wounded when his office collapsed.

The initial blast caused by a suicide car bomb at the gate was followed by other explosions and a firefight that lasted a couple of hours, he said.

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An Afghan man stands outside his damaged shop near the site of an attack after a overnight battle ou …

Camp Integrity is run by U.S. security contractor Academi, which was known as Blackwater before being sold to investors. Academi did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

"The helicopters went on for hours... medevacing people out," a U.S. contractor at a camp nearby said.

POLICE UNIFORM

The Camp Integrity assault followed a suicide bombing at a police academy on Friday evening that killed and wounded more than 40 people, the Afghan Interior Ministry said on Saturday. A police source said the final tally was higher -- 26 killed and 28 wounded.

"The bomber was wearing a police uniform and detonated his explosives among students who had just returned from a break," a police official said.

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Afghan policemen keep watch at the site of an attack after an overnight battle outside a base in Kab …

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the insurgents launched both the police academy and Camp Integrity attacks, but he earlier refused to comment on Friday's early morning truck bomb that tore through buildings in central Kabul, killing at least 15 people and wounding 248 others.

The Taliban, who were toppled from power by the U.S.-led military intervention in 2001, rarely admit to attacks that kill a high number of civilians.

Divisions have broken out within the Taliban high command following last week's appointment of Mullah Akhtar Mansour as new leader. Previously seen as open to reviving peace talks, he has since pledged to press on with the insurgency that has killed and wounded thousands this year.

Analyst Ruttig said that with the latest attacks in Kabul, Mansour could be sending a message of resolve to the militant rank and file as well as to the Afghan government.

On the other hand, Taliban factions opposing Mansour's leadership could be seeking to kill off any hope of future talks by launching their own wave of violence.

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An Afghan policeman keeps watch at the site of a suicide attack in Kabul, Afghanistan August 7, 2015 …

"The hope of some people was that the death of Mullah Omar would put the Taliban in disarray and possibly weaken them," Ruttig said. "I think that was a little over-optimistic."

The coalition death at Camp Integrity marked the second of an international service member in Afghanistan this year after most foreign troops withdrew at the end of 2014. The service member's nationality was not released.

The conflict between the Western-backed government and the Taliban has intensified since the NATO combat mission ended last year, but Afghan security forces and civilians have borne the brunt of the violence.

There have been almost 5,000 civilian casualties in Afghanistan in the first half of the year, U.N. figures show.

(Additional reporting by James Mackenzie and Kay Johnson; Editing by Alison Williams)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Wherever their summer travels have taken them, Supreme Court justices probably will weigh in over the next few days on Texas' plans to execute two death row inmates in the week ahead.

If past practice is any guide, the court is much more likely to allow the lethal-injection executions to proceed than to halt them.

Opponents of the death penalty took heart when Justices Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg made the case against capital punishment in late June as arbitrary, prone to mistakes and time-consuming. Even if death penalty opponents eventually succeed, the timeline for abolition probably will be measured in years, not months.

That's because Breyer, joined by Ginsburg, was writing in dissent in a case involving death row inmates in Oklahoma, and five sitting justices, a majority of the court, believe "it is settled that capital punishment is constitutional," as Justice Samuel Alito wrote in his opinion for the court in that same case.

Texas has scheduled back-to-back executions Wednesday and Thursday for Daniel Lee Lopez and Tracy Lane Beatty.

Lopez was convicted of running over a Texas police officer with his car during a high-speed chase. Lopez' lawyer already has asked the court to stop the execution.

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This undated handout photo provided by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice shows Daniel Lopez. …

Beatty strangled his 62-year-old mother, then stole her car and drained her bank accounts. He has an appeal pending in lower courts and could also end up at the Supreme Court.

The justices rarely issue last-minute reprieves to death-row inmates. Even after Breyer's opinion calling for a re-examination of capital punishment by the Supreme Court, no justice publicly backed a Missouri inmate's plea to halt his execution to allow the court to take up the constitutionality of the death penalty.

Similarly, the three Oklahoma inmates who lost their high court case now face execution in September and October and want the justices to reconsider the decision from June in light of Breyer's dissent. The court almost never does that.

The heightened attention on the death penalty comes amid declining use of capital punishment in the United States, and a sharp drop in the number of death penalty prosecutions.

The 18 executions that have taken place so far this year have been carried out in just five states — Texas, Missouri, Georgia, Florida and Oklahoma. Nine of those were in Texas. Twelve states with the death penalty have not had an execution in more than five years. That list includes California and Pennsylvania, which between them have more than 900 death row inmates.

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This undated handout photo provided by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice shows Tracy Beatty. …

The relatively small number of states that actively seek to carry out death sentences underscores what Ginsburg characterized in late July as "the luck of the draw."

"If you happen to commit a crime in one county in Louisiana, the chances you will get the death penalty are very high. On the other hand, if you commit the same deed in Minnesota, the chances are almost nil," she said at a Duke University law school event in Washington.

Texas is far and away the leader in carrying out executions, but it too has seen a drop in the number of new inmates on its death row. No new death sentences have been imposed in Texas this year, said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center.

Geographic disparity was among several defects Breyer and Ginsburg identified in June. Another is the length of time many inmates spend living under a sentence of death, which Breyer had previously suggested also might be a violation of the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Six of the 18 men who have been executed in 2015 spent at least 20 years on death row, including one who served 31 years before his execution.

Yet for all the systemic problems opponents of capital punishment can cite, they also have to reckon with what death penalty opponent Michael Meltsner called the "world of brutality and the awful capacity of people to commit violent crimes." One example: The Justice Department, which has otherwise advocated for criminal justice reforms during the Obama administration, won a death sentence in the case of convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

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In this photo taken May 27, 2010, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg are s …

"When awful things happen, people don't think about the costs and benefits. They react to circumstances. There is an ambivalence that has tracked the death penalty debate for many years," said Meltsner, a Northeastern University law professor and experienced civil rights lawyer.

Among the questions surrounding the possibility that the Supreme Court would take up the constitutionality of the death penalty is the makeup of the court itself.

With four justices in their late 70s or early 80s, the next president might have the chance to fill several vacancies and could change the court's direction.

"Obviously, the composition of the court matters greatly and the biggest unknown variable about the life of the American death penalty is the presidential election of 2016. My expected time frame for constitutional abolition varies greatly based on the result," said Jordan Steiker, a University of Texas law professor.

It took Breyer and Ginsburg more than 20 years on the Supreme Court to voice their doubt about capital punishment. Justices Harry Blackmun and John Paul Stevens likewise spoke out at the very end of their time on the court.

Steiker said he thinks Breyer's dissent will serve as a road map for death penalty lawyers and future justices who may not feel constrained to wait before grappling with executions.

"It was invigorating to those who'd like to see constitutional abolition," he said. "The arguments not new, but they had not been marshaled as effectively by a justice until this opinion."

According to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, police were responding to a burglary call at a car dealership in Arlington, Texas. Police said Taylor had used a vehicle to drive through the glass of the showroom window.

From the paper:

“The officers went and confronted him. There was an altercation. An officer discharged his weapon and struck the suspect,” [police spokesman Sgt. Paul] Rodriguez said.

Taylor, who was pronounced dead at the scene at 1:47 a.m., was not armed, Rodriguez said.

The officer, identified by the department as 49-year-old Brad Miller, graduated from the police academy in March. He has been in field training and working under the supervision of a training officer, the department said.

The training officer and other officers were on the scene when the shooting occurred, Rodriguez said.

Miller has been placed on administrative leave, as is routine in deadly-force incidents.

Rodriguez said both criminal and administrative investigations into the incident were underway. He also said surveillance tape showed Taylor engaging in "criminal activity" before he was shot.

Clyde Fuller, Taylor’s great-uncle, told the Star-Telegram he didn’t think his nephew was robbing the dealership.

“He was a good kid. I don’t see him stealing no car or nothing like that,” Fuller said. “I think something is going on that somebody is lying about. They say he’s burglarizing the place by running up in there? Nuh-uh. Something doesn’t sound right.”

Taylor was enrolled at Angelo State and preparing to start football camp on Wednesday. Taylor, a sophomore, had two interceptions in the Angelo State’s spring game.

Angelo State coach Will Wagner used Twitter to express his condolences.

Follow Will Wagner @Coachwillwagner Heart is hurting 12:17 PM - 7 Aug 2015 6060 Retweets 8484 favorites

Follow ASU Ram Football @ASURamFootball Our thoughts and prayers are with the family of Christian Taylor. Your presence will be missed, but not forgotten. #ramfam 5:13 PM - 7 Aug 2015 8080 Retweets 8080 favorites

Taylor had no previous criminal record after charges from a September 2013 traffic stop when police found 11 hydrocodone tablets that were not prescribed to him was dismissed following served probation.

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Graham Watson is the editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at dr.saturday@ymail.com or follow her on Twitter!

BAMAKO, Mali (AP) — The first attack by Islamic extremists in a central Mali town, in which 10 people died, shows that jihadist aggressions are spreading in the country and hitting more directly at the government military and the U.N. peacekeeping force, an expert said Saturday.

Three of the attackers also were killed, and seven suspected militants were detained, the government said. Four U.N. employees were rescued.

Additional U.N. personnel may still be missing, said a U.N. official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of lack of authorization to speak to the press.

The militants first targeted the army camp in Sevare on Friday but when they faced resistance they moved to the nearby Hotel Debo before assaulting the Hotel Byblos, popular with U.N. staff, to take hostages, said a Mali government report, according to the U.N. official.

Sevare, a garrison town about 600 kilometers (375 miles) northeast of the capital, Bamako, is at the heart of Mali's tourism industry and up until now had not been targeted in the attacks more common in the northern towns of Gao and Timbuktu.

"It's a troubling sign that the armed Islamist groups are intent on stepping up the pressure both on the Malian government and on the U.N. and French presence," said Bruce Whitehouse, Mali expert and associate professor at Lehigh University. "They want to show they are not just contained within the north and that they're not afraid to confront their primary enemies where they're strongest."

Whitehouse said the attack was likely intended "to signal all Malians everywhere that neither their government nor the U.N. can keep them safe," but he noted the rapid response by Mali's forces.

The attackers may be followers of Amadou Koufa, a leader who has been linked to attacks on Mali's army including a January attack that killed 10 soldiers in Nampala, said Col. Souleymane Maiga, chief spokesman for the military.

The four rescued U.N. employees are two South Africans, a Russian and a Ukrainian who are all in good health, said U.N. mission in Mali spokeswoman Radhia Achouri.

"Our contractors survived because at no time was their presence discovered by the terrorists in the hotel," she said adding there was not much resistance Saturday morning during the rescue by special forces.

In a statement later Saturday, the U.N. mission in Mali said five of its contractors died, including a Malian driver, a Nepalese, a South African and two Ukrainians. The bodies will be taken to Bamako, it said.

Military spokesman Col. Maiga confirmed that these five — earlier thought to be hotel workers — were among those found dead Friday and after the operation Saturday morning.

The 13 total dead also included five Malian soldiers and three of the attackers, he said.

The 38-year-old South African who died in the attack worked for an aviation company that was assisting the U.N. contingent in Mali, Nelson Kgwete, spokesman for South Africa's foreign ministry, said on Twitter.

Islamic extremists took over Mali's north in 2012. A French-led offensive ousted them from the northern cities in early 2013. Remnants of the extremists have staged attacks on U.N. peacekeepers and Malian forces.

Mali's jihadi groups have been stepping up their attacks further south. The most recent extremist attack in the capital occurred in March when masked gunman opened fire in a restaurant popular with foreigners, killing five people.

___

Petesch reported from Dakar, Senegal. Associated Press writer Christopher Torchia in Johannesburg and Lynn Berry in Moscow contributed to this report.

Hostages rescued from Mali hotel

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Raw: Typhoon Soudelor Hits Taiwan; 4 Dead

BEIJING (AP) — A typhoon was pounding southeast China late Saturday, leaving more than a million homes without power after lashing Taiwan, where it downed trees, traffic lights and power lines, and left six people dead and four missing.

Typhoon Soudelor hit the city of Putian in Fujian province late Saturday night and was expected to move across the region, China's official Xinhua News Agency reported.

The storm earlier caused more than 3 million households in Taiwan to lose electricity, with streets strewn with fallen trees. All 279 domestic flights on the island were canceled Saturday, as well as at least 37 international flights. At least 101 people were injured in the storm.

An 8-year-old girl and her mother died when they were swept out to sea Thursday from a beach on the east coast, Taiwan's official Central News Agency reported. The girl's twin sister remains missing.

Other casualties included a firefighter who was killed and another injured after being hit by a drunken driver as they attempted to move a fallen tree in the island's south.

The center of the storm made landfall in eastern Taiwan before daybreak Saturday. By mid-morning, Soudelor was packing maximum sustained winds of 162 kilometers (100 miles) per hour, Taiwan's Central Weather Bureau said.

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In this image released by the New Taipei Fire Department, emergency rescue personnel carry a child t …

The typhoon weakened later Saturday with top winds of up to 144 kph (89 mph) while moving away from the island in a northwesterly direction.

Strong winds and heavy rains were expected to continue in Taiwan.

Authorities in southeast China evacuated about 163,000 people and ordered around 32,000 ships back to port ahead of the typhoon, Xinhua reported. More than 7,000 soldiers and police were on standby, provincial authorities said.

The provincial capital of Fuzhou was being battered by heavy rain and strong winds, and all flights to the city were canceled, Xinhua said. The neighboring province of Jiangxi also issued a typhoon alert.

Heavy rains were forecast through Sunday morning in the northern part of Fujian.

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In this image released by the New Taipei Fire Department, emergency rescue personnel carrying childr …

Even before the storm made landfall, strong winds caused power outages to more than 1.41 million household in the province, Xinhua said.

On Friday afternoon, marine police rescued 55 university students and teachers trapped on a small island where they had been attending a summer camp, after strong gales stopped ferry services, Xinhua said.

The U.S. government was sending more aid to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, which was battered by Soudelor last Sunday. The powerful typhoon snapped utility poles and toppled trees, leaving residents without electricity and running water.

The Pacific Daily News reported that food, water, dry milk, power generators and temporary shelter are expected to arrive on the main island of Saipan this weekend.

The goods left Guam aboard the USS Ashland on Friday. Hundreds of Marines are also on the amphibious dock landing ship, which was returning to Japan from a three-week military exercise off Australia but rerouted to Saipan.

President Barack Obama has declared the Northern Marianas a disaster area and ordered federal aid to help the U.S. territory