Istanbul
Pope shooter freed: The man who shot Pope John Paul II in 1981 was freed this week after more than 29 years behind bars, and he promptly predicted the apocalypse. Mehmet Ali Agca, 52, spent 19 years in an Italian prison for his attempt on the pope’s life before he was transferred to a Turkish prison, where he served 10 years for the 1979 murder of a journalist. He was slated for mandatory army service, but Turkish doctors pronounced him too mentally disturbed to serve. “I am the Christ eternal,” Agca said in a statement. “I proclaim the end of the world. Every human being will die in this century.” It’s still unclear whether Agca acted alone in his assassination attempt on the pope or was backed by Soviet agents.
Baghdad
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Sunnis barred from election: The legitimacy of Iraq’s upcoming elections was thrown into question after hundreds of Sunni and secular candidates were disqualified from running because of alleged ties to Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party. The Accountability and Justice Commission barred 511 out of the 6,592 candidates, including several Sunni party leaders and even the defense minister. But many Iraqis don’t trust the commission, which is headed by Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi politician who gave faulty intelligence to the U.S. before the war and is now widely believed to be an Iranian agent. U.S. officials fear that Sunni parties, which boycotted the last election but had been cajoled back into the political process, will now boycott the March vote. “This is a perversion of the political process,” said Nada Jbouri, a Sunni lawmaker.
Sanaa, Yemen
Attacking al Qaida: Yemeni authorities said they killed six of the top leaders of al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula in an airstrike last week. Yemen has been under severe U.S. pressure to crack down on the group since Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the alleged underwear bomber, said he had received terrorist training there. But some local tribal leaders told Yemeni newspapers they had seen the top militants alive after the airstrike, and al Qaida said none of its members was killed. The group also issued a fresh call to all Yemenis to help it fight “the infidels and their agent helpers.”
Kabul, Afghanistan
Taliban attacks capital: Bombs and grenades shook central Kabul this week when a small group of militants launched a series of brazen attacks outside the presidential palace just as President Hamid Karzai was swearing in Cabinet members. Two of the men blew themselves up, while five others fought to the death, throwing grenades and machine-gunning anyone in sight. The battle with security forces lasted four hours, and ended with two civilians and three Afghan police dead and dozens wounded. A hotel and a shopping mall were destroyed by fire. Attacks on Kabul, once rare, are growing more common, as the new Taliban strategy is to try to make Afghans feel their government can’t protect them anywhere.
