Car bomb kills at least 10 in central Syria

BEIRUT: A car bomb struck a pro-government neighborhood in the central Syrian city of Homs on Sunday, killing at least 10 people, setting cars on fire and sending thick plumes of black smoke into the sky, activists and a government official said.

The blast in the Zahra district, sent tremors through Homs, where rebels and the government have struck two cease-fire deals this month that have restored at least a semblance of peace to the shattered city.

The provincial governor, Talal Barazi, said the attack targeted such reconciliation efforts.

An official in the Homs governor´s office said 10 people were killed in Sunday´s explosion and more than 40 were wounded.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media.

The director of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights activist group, Rami Abdurrahman, put the death toll at 12. He also said more than 40 were wounded.

Casualty figures frequently vary in the immediate aftermath of attacks in Syria. (AP)

Car bomb kills eight in central Iraq

HILLA: A car bomb exploded at a police checkpoint south of Baghdad on Thursday, killing eight people, as Iraq struggles with daily violence ahead of an election next week.

The blast five kilometres (three miles) north of the city of Hilla also wounded 20 people, a police captain and a doctor said.

Iraq is suffering a protracted surge in bloodshed that has killed more than 2,750 people this year, and the April 30 parliamentary vote -- the first since American troops departed in 2011 -- will be a major test for security forces.

They were able to keep violence to a minimum during provincial elections last year, but security forces have failed to halt a subsequent year-long surge in unrest.

The heightened violence has been principally driven by widespread anger among the Sunni Arab minority, who say they are mistreated by the Shiite-led government and security forces.

It has also been fuelled by the bloody civil war in neighbouring Syria, which has bolstered militant groups.

Militias attack fleeing Central Africans: UN

The U.N. refugee agency says Christian militias in the Central African Republic are attacking people trying to flee the country, forcing them to take more dangerous routes across the border.

UNHCR spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said on Friday that the agency had registered four wounded refugees in Cameroon in recent days, three of them hacked with machetes and one who had been shot.

People arriving in Cameroon told UNHCR that militias have blocked the main roads across the border, forcing them to travel through the bush, sometimes for up to three months.

According to agency numbers from March, more than 300,000 people have fled the Central African Republic, which descended into sectarian violence following a coup last year.

On Thursday, the U.N. Security Council approved nearly 12,000 peacekeepers, but they won’t arrive until September.