RUSSIA
MAKHACHKALA — A female suicide bomber blew herself up in the southern Russian region of Dagestan on Saturday, injuring at least 18, including two children and five police officers, police said. The attacker was later identified as a widow of two Islamic radicals killed by security forces. It was the first suicide bombing in Dagestan since the Boston Marathon bombings last month. The Tsarnaev brothers suspected of carrying out those attacks lived in this turbulent Caucasus province before moving to the United States. (AP)
Gay rights activists, opponents clash
MOSCOW — Gay rights campaigners and their opponents clashed at an unsanctioned rally in the Russian capital on Saturday, but a heavy police presence in Ukraine kept the two sides apart. Russian police said they arrested at least 30 gay rights campaigners and Christian Orthodox vigilantes in Moscow. The campaigners tried to unfurl banners denouncing Kremlin-backed antigay legislation in front of Russia’s lower house of Parliament, but they were attacked by vigilantes carrying religious icons. (AP)
PAKISTAN
AFGHANISTAN
12 killed by bomb in Kabul mosque
KABUL — A blast during Friday night prayers in a mosque in central Afghanistan killed 12 people, eight of them Taliban insurgents, officials said Saturday. The insurgents placed explosives in a corner of the mosque, in Ghazni province’s Andar district, before joining worshipers, a local official said. (Washington Post)