TEHRAN — A senior commander in Iran’s powerful Revolutionary has warned that Iran will target U.S. bases in the region should a war with Israel break out.
Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh said no Israeli attack can happen without U.S. involvement, making all U.S. military bases a legitimate target.
He said regional states will get involved in any war because Iran will attack U.S. bases in Bahrain, Qatar and Afghanistan.
Gen. Hajizadeh made the comment Sunday during an interview with Iran’s state Al-Alam TV.
The U.S. and its allies believe Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons, and Israel has suggested it might strike Iran’s nuclear facilities unilaterally. Tehran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.
INDONESIA
Police arrest 10 militants, seize homemade bombs
JAKARTA — An elite Indonesian antiterrorism squad has arrested 10 Islamic militants and seized a dozen homemade bombs from a group suspected of planning suicide attacks against security forces and the government, police said Sunday.
Eight suspects were arrested Saturday in Central Java’s Solo town and a ninth in West Kalimantan on the island of Borneo, national police spokesman Brig. Gen. Boy Rafli Amar said.
He said a 10th suspect, Joko Parkit, was arrested Sunday in Solo.
Mr. Parkit’s brother, Eko Joko Supriyanto, was fatally shot by police in 2009 during raids seeking Southeast Asia’s most wanted Islamist militant, Noordin M. Top. Noordin was killed by police a year later.
Gen. Amar said two of those arrested worked to recruit young men and taught at least one member of the group how to make bombs.
JAPAN
China cancels events marking ties with Japan
TOKYO — China has canceled events to commemorate 40 years of diplomatic relations with Japan, further signaling its anger over a simmering territorial dispute.
Japanese Foreign Ministry official Hiroaki Sakamoto confirmed that China has canceled the events, planned for Thursday. He did not provide details.
China’s Xinhua News Agency, citing officials with the China-Japan Friendship Association and another government-affiliated group, reported Sunday that the events would not take place as planned.
It said they would be held “at a proper time.”
Calls to China’s Foreign Ministry were not answered Sunday. In its evening broadcast, China Central Television said the timing of the events was being “adjusted.”
Relations have sunk to their worst level in years as the two sides spar over islands in the East China Sea claimed by both countries and by Taiwan.
In the latest large anti-Japan protest in China, as many as 3,000 people demonstrated Sunday in the southern city of Guangzhou, Xinhua reported.
IRAQ
Police: 5 killed in attacks on security forces, Shiites
BAGHDAD — Attacks killed five people in Iraq’s capital Sunday, targeting security forces and Shiite Muslims in the small but steady stream of continuing violence across the country.
The victims were top targets of Sunni insurgents who have sought to shake public trust in the Shiite-led government and rekindle widespread sectarian fighting like the kind that brought Iraq to the brink of civil war just a few years ago.
In the deadliest attack Sunday, a minibus exploded in the Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City.
Police said three passengers were killed and seven wounded in the noontime blast in what is one of Baghdad’s poorest areas and traditional stronghold of a Shiite militia that used to fight the Sunni insurgency.
Several hours later, officials said gunmen killed a federal police general and his aide in a drive-by shooting on a western Baghdad highway.
Police said Brig. Gen. Naif Abdul-Razzaq and his driver were headed home from work when they were shot. The gunmen escaped before they could be caught, police said.
Medics in nearby hospitals confirmed the death toll in both incidents.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for either attack.
NEPAL
9 climbers killed, 6 missing in avalanche
KATMANDU — An avalanche hit climbers on a high Himalayan peak in Nepal on Sunday, leaving at least nine dead and six others missing, officials said. Many of the climbers were French or German.
Police official Basanta Bahadur Kuwar said the bodies of a Nepalese guide and a German man were recovered and that rescue pilots had spotted seven other bodies on the slopes of Mount Manaslu in northern Nepal, the eighth highest mountain in the world.
In Madrid, Spain’s Foreign Ministry said one of those killed was Spanish, but did not release the person’s name.
The identities of the other victims were still being confirmed.
Ten other climbers survived the avalanche but many were injured and were flown to hospitals by rescue helicopters, Mr. Kuwar said.
LEBANON
Christian leader say she escaped assassin
BEIRUT — The leader of Lebanon’s largest Christian bloc in parliament, which supports the Syrian-backed Shiite Hezbollah group, says he was the target of a failed assassination attempt when his convoy came under fire.
Tensions in Lebanon linked to the conflict in neighboring Syria are on the rise.
Michel Aoun said in comments carried by his party’s website Sunday that gunmen shot at one of the cars in his convoy in the predominantly Sunni southern port city of Sidon late Saturday.
Interior Minister Marwan Charbel confirmed the shooting and said investigations were under way to determine whether it was an assassination attempt.
Saturday’s attack is the latest reported attempt to assassinate a prominent Christian politician in Lebanon in the past few months.
• From wire dispatches and staff reports
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