Twin blasts kill a dozen in Baghdad
BAGHDAD, Sept. 5 (UPI) -- Five suicide bombers executed twin attacks in central Baghdad Sunday, killing at least 12 people and injuring at least 29 others, police said.
The bombers, who are included in the 12 deaths, fought with security personnel at the back door of a military base when two suicide vests detonated, the Kuwait News Agency reported.
Besides the suicide attackers, KUNA said seven Iraqi citizens died, while CNN said four soldiers and three civilians died.
The attack came four days after the United States officially ended its combat operations in Iraq.
The target of Sunday's attack was the base used as an Iraqi army recruitment center and attacked by a suicide bomber Aug. 17, killing at least 48 people.
In a separate attack Sunday, CNN said at least five people were wounded in a roadside bombing in eastern Baghdad.
N. Korea power transfer expected to start
PYONGYANG, North Korea, Sept. 5 (UPI) -- North Korean leader Kim Jong Il may use a meeting of Workers' Party officials as the first step for transferring power to his son, experts said.
South Korean experts and officials said Kim's youngest son, Kim Jong Eun, is widely expected to receive at least one leadership position, the first step to claiming authority on a level similar to his father's, The Washington Post reported Sunday.
North Korean officials haven't announced when the party delegates will meet in Pyongyang, however, Good Friends, a Seoul-based humanitarian group with ties to North Korea, said the forum would begin Saturday. Other experts said it would open Monday, with Kim Jong Eun being promoted on the final day, the Post said.
North Korea celebrates the anniversary of its founding Thursday.
Observers say Kim Jon Il, who had a stroke in 2008, was accelerating the transfer-of-power process because of health issues.
"This conference would be an opportunity to lay the foundation of the post-Kim Jong Il era," said Kim Heung-kyu, a professor at Sungshin Women's University in Seoul.
The Post said analysts in Seoul and Washington expect Kim Jong Il will try to rebuild power in the Workers' Party -- which has lost influence to the military and watched its membership decline -- or water down the military's power.
Lashing ordered for woman condemned to die
TEHRAN, Sept. 5 (UPI) -- An Iranian woman sentenced to die for adultery faces a sentence of 99 lashes because of a case of mistaken identity, a human rights group says.
The International Committee Against Stoning said Iranian authorities imposed the lashing of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, sentenced to death by stoning for adultery, after seeing a photo of a woman without a head scarf in The Times of London, CNN reported Sunday.
The Times apologized for misidentifying the woman, saying the woman in photo was really Susan Hejat, a political activist living in Sweden. The London newspaper said one of Ashtiani's former lawyers, Mohammed Mostafaei, gave the paper the photo.
Mostafaei told CNN he still thinks the photo may be of his former client. The Times said Mostafaei told editors Ashtiani's son e-mailed him two photographs several months ago, saying both were of his mother.
"One was the widely used picture of Ms. Ashtiani with her face obscured by a chador (cloak), and the other was the one used by The Times," the newspaper said in a statement Friday. "That showed the full face of a woman."
The Committee Against Stoning said Mostafaei was responsible for providing "an explanation as to why he has disseminated (a) counterfeit photo and information regarding Sakineh's case; his action has only led to increased pressure on Sakineh and her family."
The committee also condemned the "barbaric new sentence of 99 lashes" on Ashtiani, demanding it be revoked immediately."
Trio held in Boston pizza bushwack killing
BOSTON, Sept. 5 (UPI) -- Boston police said three suspects have been arrested in the ambush killing of a part-time pizza deliveryman at an empty apartment.
The trio includes two high school students and a 20-year-old whom police said made off with about $100 and a pizza after allegedly stabbing Richel Nova to death.
Nova, 58, was a native of the Dominican Republic who worked as an airline mechanic and moonlighted for a Domino's pizza outlet in Hyde Park. He was killed while making a delivery at an apartment that turned out to be unoccupied.
The Boston Globe said Sunday that police believe Michel Andre St. Jean, 20; Alexander Emmanuel Gallett, 18, and Yamiley Mathurin, 17, broke into the apartment and ordered a pizza to be sent to the address.
"His killers likely didn't target him personally, but they selected a worker who would be carrying the small amount of money they felt was worth a human life," Suffolk District Attorney Daniel Conley told a news conference Saturday.
