Gwinnett Daily Post

Drug cartel uses car bomb

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — A drug cartel has used a car bomb for the first time in Mexico’s decades-long fight against traffickers, setting a deadly trap against federal police in a city across the border from Texas, the mayor of Ciudad Juarez said Friday.

Mayor Jose Reyes said federal police have confirmed to him that a car bomb was used in the attack that killed three people Thursday.

It was the first time a drug cartel has used a bomb to attack Mexican security forces, marking an escalation in the country’s already raging drug war.

Federal police and paramedics were lured to the scene by a phone call reporting that shots were fired at a major intersection and a municipal police officer lay wounded at a major intersection, Reyes told The Associated Press.

As the paramedics were working on the wounded man, a parked car exploded, he said.

28 killed in Iraq hotel blaze

BAGHDAD — A fierce blaze at a hotel without fire escapes sent some desperate guests plunging to their deaths in a northern Iraqi oil boomtown, killing 28 people.

Half of those killed were foreigners, a reflection of the thousands of migrants who have flooded the Kurdish region in northern Iraq in recent years in search of economic opportunities. Kurdistan, which has been spared the brunt of violence in Iraq, has prospered even as the rest of the country remains mired in sectarian bloodshed and political woes that have slowed investment.

The fire began late Thursday night in the city of Sulaimaniyah and lasted well into Friday morning as firefighters battled the deadly blaze in the five-story Soma Hotel for nearly five hours.

Sunni group claims blast at Iran mosque

TEHRAN, Iran — A Sunni insurgent group said it carried out a double suicide bombing against a Shiite mosque in southeast Iran to avenge the execution of its leader, as Iranian authorities Friday said the death toll rose to 27 people, including members of the elite Revolutionary Guard.

The insurgent group, Jundallah, has repeatedly succeeded in carrying out deadly strikes on the Guard, the country’s most powerful military force — including an October suicide bombing that killed more than 40 people.