INDIA: Islamic militants in northern India's disputed province of Jammu and Kashmir have admitted responsibility for a deadly car bomb yesterday, which killed five people including a policeman and a suicide bomber and wounded 14 others.
"The car bomb is our first gift to Ghulam Nabi Azad [the incoming state chief minister]," Abu Qudama, spokesman for the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (Army of Mohammad) militant group fighting for a Muslim homeland in Kashmir since 1989, told a local news agency in the state's summer capital, Srinagar, where the blast occurred.
Jaish-e-Mohammad is reportedly linked to al-Qaeda.
Police said the suicide car bomber was heading for the venue where Mr Azad was to be sworn in as Kashmir's chief minister as part of a power-sharing deal between his Congress Party, which heads the federal coalition, and the regional People's Democratic Party, but he detonated the bomb when he was stopped by police five miles away.
Meanwhile, police have released sketches of a key suspect in the staggered bombings at the weekend in New Delhi which targeted a bus and two markets crowded with people shopping for Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, which was marked by subdued celebrations on Tuesday. At least 60 people died in the blasts while another 80 were injured.
The identikit sketch of one of the Delhi bombers shows him to be a 22-year-old man, dressed in a white shirt, grey trousers and with bandages around his head and left hand.
Detectives prepared the sketches with the help of witnesses who said they saw the man slipping off a bus in the city's crowded Okhla industrial area after leaving the explosive device, which detonated minutes later.
All the passengers survived when the bomb was thrown off the moving bus by its driver just seconds before it exploded, but he sustained severe injuries. Kuldip Singh's family said he might lose his sight and the use of his right arm.
The Islamic Revolutionary Front, linked to a Pakistan-based insurgent group fighting in Kashmir, has admitted responsibility for the Delhi bombings.
India's prime minister, Manmohan Singh, also hinted at Pakistan's connivance in the blasts and urged President Pervez Musharraf, in a telephone conversation earlier in the week, to do more in fighting Islamic terrorism. Pakistan has rejected Mr Singh's comments and asked him to produce evidence to back his claims.