Deadly blasts strike Indian city

At least 29 people have been killed and more than 100 wounded after a series of explosions struck the western Indian city of Ahmedabad, officials have said.
More than a dozen blasts to have hit residential areas, crowded markets, a train station and a bus in Gujarat state's commercial capital.
It is thought the explosions were caused by crudely-made devices hidden in boxes and on bicycles.
On Friday a series of similar blasts hit the southern city of Bangalore.
The Ahmedabad explosions came in two waves - the first occurring over a 20-minute period from about 1830 (1300 GMT).
There was another series of blasts shortly after.

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TV images showed a damaged bus
TV stations broadcast images of a bus with its side blown up, shattered windows and the roof half-destroyed.
Footage also showed the body of a man lying motionless on the ground next to the bus, covered in blood.
The BBC's Damian Grammaticas, in India, says the explosions appear to have been a planned and highly co-ordinated attack.

In pictures: Ahmedabad blastsSome of the bombs in the second wave targeted the hospitals where the injured were being taken, he adds.
"We saw a blue bag near the trauma centre, and before we could react we saw it explode in a shine of blinding light, and some 40 people were hit by flying shrapnel," doctor Vipul Patil, at the Dhanwantari Hospital, told AFP news agency.
Ahmedabad is an ethnically diverse city which has suffered from political instability in the past.
Riots broke out there in 2002 between Hindus and Muslims.
Reports suggested many of Saturday's blasts were in the city's crowded old quarter - a religiously-mixed area.
Analysts believe the attack may be linked to the Bangalore bombs and could be designed to whip up trouble between religious communities.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has appealed for people to remain calm.
India has been hit by several waves of bombings in recent years. Targets have ranged from mosques and Hindu temples to trains and courthouses.

Nag anti-tank missile back in reckoning

Eighteen years after it was first tested, the meandering saga of the indigenous Nag anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) is finally entering the climax phase after an expenditure of over Rs 300 crore. Or so it seems, with Defence Research and Development Organisation planning the "final developmental flight trials" of Nag at Pokhran on July 27-28, which will be followed by the "user-trials" in mid-September, say sources. Having placed an order for 443 Nag missiles and 13 Namicas (Nag missile tracked carriers) for induction over three years, the Army is keeping its fingers firmly crossed. The urgent need for ATGMs can be gauged from the fact that after ordering 4,000 Konkurs-M missiles, the Army is now looking for 4,100 "advanced" ATGMs with tandem warheads for "better kill probability" of enemy tanks. The Army, in fact, has agreed to reframe its GSQRs (general staff qualitative requirements) for the 4,100 new missiles - by reducing its "essential" strike range from 2,000 metres to 1,850 metres - to enable defence PSU Bharat Dynamics Ltd (BDL) to participate in the programme. BDL, incidentally, manufactures variants of the second-generation 2-km-range "Milan" and 4-km-range "Konkurs" ATGMs, under licence from French and Russian companies, at around Rs 4.50 lakh per unit. The third-generation Nag missile, with a four-km strike range, will also be manufactured by BDL. But there is many a slip between the cup and the lip. Over 60 developmental trials of Nag have been conducted over the years but recurring problems in the guidance systems, especially in the "imaging infra-red (IIR) sensor-based seeker", has meant the missile is still to become fully operational. DRDO, however, is quite confident now, holding that Nag will be among the world's most advanced ATGMs, better than other contemporary missiles like Israeli 2.5-km Gill and four-km Spike missiles. "The Army has already accepted the Nag, which has fire-and-forget, day-and-night and top-attack (the missile pops up and hits the tank's vulnerable upper portion like the gun-turret) capabilities," said a DRDO official. "There have been delays due to import embargoes, problems in development of the IIR seeker, change in NAMICA configurations and the like. But Nag, which also has high immunity to counter-measures, is fully-ready now," he added. Apart from the NAMICA platform, that can carry 12 missiles, Nag will also have an airborne version named "Helina" to be fitted on the Dhruv Advanced Light Helicopter, which will be configured to carry eight missiles in two launchers. Incidentally, Nag was one of the "core missile systems" of the country's original Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP), launched as far back as in 1983. Announcing the IGMDP's "virtual closure" earlier this year, DRDO declared that development work on all other missiles - Agni, Prithvi, Akash and Trishul - had been completed. Though work on "strategic" long-range nuclear-capable missiles like Agni-III (3,500-km range) and Agni-V (over 5,000-km) will still be "undertaken in-house", India will also look at foreign collaboration in other armament projects to cut down on delays.

ISI involved in Indian Embassy bombing: NSA

NEW DELHI: India has a "fair amount" of intelligence inputs about Pakistan's involvement in the Monday's suicide attack on its Embassy in Kabul, National Security Advisor M K Narayanan said on Saturday. (Watch) "We not only suspect but we have a fair amount of intelligence (on the involvement of Pakistan)," Narayanan told television channels when asked whether India suspects Pakistan's involvement in the attack. "The ISI needs to be destroyed. We made this point, whenever we have had a chance, to interlocutors across the world... there might have been some tactical restraint for some time, obviously that restraint is no longer present," he said.

ISI hand suspected in Kabul embassy blast: Sources

NEW DELHI: The involvement of Pakistan's intelligence agency ISI is suspected in the terror strike at the Indian embassy in Kabul, whose main targets appear to have been the two senior officials, including the Defence Attache killed in the attack

An explosive-laden car rammed into the Indian embassy gate in the Shahr-i-Naw area as two cars carrying Brigadier Ravi Dutt Mehta and Counsellor V Venkateswara Rao were entering the embassy compound, official sources said here.

Brig Mehta was just beginning his tenure in Kabul having been posted to the city nearly five months back on February 15, 2008. He was an air defence artillery officer who was commissioned into the armed forces in June 1976. Two ITBP personnel Ajai Pathania and Roop Singh were also among the 41 people killed in the strike in which 141 were injured. Rao's body was flung over the roof by the impact of the explosion that blew off the embassy's gates and outer structure and damaged buildings inside the compound. Two Indian embassy vehicles were also damaged, an official said, adding over 140 people were injured in the blast. Wounded people lay on the road wailing for help amid blood and severed limbs after the blast as a cloud of dust and smoke billowed from the site. Mehta had recently taken his wife Sunita and two children -- Flight Lieutenant Udit Mehta, M S Bhawiya Mehta -- to Kabul to spend their summer vacation. India said it is rushing a high-level team, headed by Nalin Surie, Secretary (West) to Kabul to assess the "emergency" situation there. Afghan President Hamid Karzai had blamed the "enemies" of the strong friendship between Afghanistan and India for the attack but did not name any person or group.

Bomb rocks India embassy in Kabul

A suicide bomber has rammed a car full of explosives into the gates of the Indian embassy in the Afghan capital, killing 41 people and injuring 141. Five embassy personnel were killed - India's defence attache, a senior diplomat and two security guards - as well as an Afghan man.

Five Afghans died at Indonesia's embassy nearby.
No-one has admitted being behind the attack, the deadliest in Kabul since the Taleban overthrow in 2001.

Afghanistan has seen a sharp increase in violence, particularly in the south and east - and Taleban militants recently vowed to step up their attacks in the capital.
But the latest blast - in what was supposed to be a secure area of Kabul - will greatly concern Afghan government officials, says the BBC's Martin Patience in Kabul.

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