At least 50 people were also injured when fierce fire engulfed packaging factory north of the capital Dhaka.

Weak fire protection systems are common in factories in Bangladesh [Mahmud Hossain Opu/Al Jazeera]

by Al Jazeera

At least 20 people have been killed and 50 injured after a fire engulfed a packaging factory north of the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka.

The Dhaka Tribune newspaper reported on Saturday that the fire erupted due to a boiler explosion at the Tampako Packaging Factory in the industrial town of Tongi, 20km north of the capital.

Citing hospital officials, the paper said the bodies of 17 people were taken to a nearby hospital while three others succumbed to their injuries while undergoing treatment.

Michael Shipper, the Secretary of Labour and Employment Ministry told Al Jazeera that the death toll stood at 22.

About 100 people are believed to have been working at the building when flames tore through the four-storey factory.

A series of deadly incidents have raised concern over safety standards in the South Asian country’s factories.

Working conditions have been described as notoriously poor, with little enforcement of safety laws, while overcrowding and locked fire doors are common.

A fire at a plastics factory last year killed 13, and in 2013 more than 1,100 people died in the Rana Plaza factory collapse, Bangladesh’s worst industrial accident.

Officials from Iran, Saudi trade verbal blows after countries fail to reach agreement on this year’s pilgrimage.

Iran boycotted the Hajj for three years between 1988 and 1990 [Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

Iran has urged the Muslim world to unite and punish Saudi Arabia as the bitter war of words between the two countries escalates ahead of the annual Hajj pilgrimage.

On Monday, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei criticised Saudi Arabia over how it runs Hajj after a stampede last year killed over 750 people.

He said Saudi authorities had “murdered” some of them, describing Saudi rulers as godless and irreligious.

“This incident proves once again that this cursed, evil family does not deserve to manage the holy sites,” Khamenei said.

In response, Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz Al al-Sheikh said he was not surprised at Khamenei’s comments.

“We have to understand that they [Iran’s leaders] are not Muslims,” he told the Makkah daily. “They are children of the Magi and their hostility towards Muslims is ancient.”

Magi refers to Zoroastrians and those who worship fire. Predating Christianity and Islam, Zoroastrianism was the dominant religion in Persia before the Muslim conquest.

Custodian of Islam’s holiest sites in Mecca and Medina, Saudi Arabia organises the annual Hajj, one of the five pillars of Islam which every able-bodied Muslim who can afford to is obliged to undertake at least once in a lifetime.

Millions of Muslims from around the world have already arrived in Saudi for this year’s pilgrimage, which culminates on Sunday.

Relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia hit a new low after the two countries failed to reach a deal on arrangements for Iranian citizens to attend this year’s pilgrimage.

At the leadership level, Saudi Arabia and Iran follow different branches of Islam – Sunni and Shia.

Iran boycotted the Hajj for three years between 1988 and 1990 after clashes between Iranian pilgrims and Saudi police in 1987 left around 400 people dead.

Diplomatic ties were restored in 1991, but relations have deteriorated in recent years, particularly over the countries’ support for opposing sides in the Syria and Yemen wars.

In January, relations were severed again after Iranian demonstrators torched Saudi Arabia’s embassy and a consulate following Saudi Arabia’s execution of a prominent Shia leader along with 47 “terrorists”.

“If the existing problems with the Saudi government were merely the issue of the Hajj … maybe it would have been possible to find a way to resolve it,” said Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani at a cabinet meeting.

“Unfortunately, this government – by committing crimes in the region and supporting terrorism – in fact shed the blood of Muslims in Iraq, Syria and Yemen,” Rouhani added.

On Monday night, Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif joined the fray on Twitter.

Meanwhile, the head of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council hit back on Wednesday, calling Khamenei’s remarks “inappropriate and offensive … and a desperate attempt to politicise” the Hajj.

Khaled Batarfi, senior columnist with the Saudi Gazette, told Al Jazeera that the rebuke to Saudi Arabia over last year’s tragedy contrasted with Iran’s health minister, who said during a visit to the country at the time of the accident that Saudi authorities had provided all needed medical assistance and care to victims of the crush, including Iranian pilgrims.

Security forces say all three attackers killed, 11 hours after they took over Pamlarena’s offices in a residential area.

The siege came after at least 24 people were killed in the bombings [Jawad Jalali/EPA]

by Al Jazeera

Afghan officials say at least six civilians have been wounded after armed men stormed a building housing of an international aid organisation in Kabul, provoking a deadly firefight with security forces.

Early on Tuesday, police special forces killed all three men involved in the overnight attack in the Shar-e Naw district of Kabul, said Sediq Sediqqi, a spokesman for the Afghan interior minister.

The interior ministry initially said one civilian had been killed but a later statement said only the attackers died in the gun battle.

Security forces blocked all roads leading to the Shar-e Naw neighbourhood while the siege last.

The assault began late on Monday night with a suicide car bombing close to a building belonging to Pamlarena, the charity CARE International, after which the attackers entered the building.

“Police special forces immediately reached the site of the attack and started rescuing people from the building. … 42 people who were trapped were evacuated by the security forces,” the interior ministry statement said.

In a statement on Tuesday, CARE said that “an armed group launched an attack on what is believed to have been an Afghan government compound located close to the Kabul office of CARE International”.

It said the incident continued through to the early morning, “with damage sustained to the CARE compound.

“All CARE staff have been evacuated, are safe and are accounted for”.

The area being home to several guest houses, many foreigners and diplomats reside there.

Amnesty International, the human-rights advocacy group, on Tuesday termed the attack a “war crime”.

“The attack by an armed group on the aid agency CARE International in Kabul is the deliberate targeting of civilians and constitutes a war crime,” said Champa Patel, Amnesty International’s South Asia director.

“The cardinal rule of international humanitarian law is that parties to an armed conflict must never deliberately attack civilians.”

The attack on Pamlarena’s offices commenced several hours after a double suicide bombing near the Afghan defence ministry killed at least 35 people and wounded more than 100 others.

An army general and two senior police commanders were among the dead, a defence ministry official said.

Another official said the deputy head of President Ashraf Ghani’s personal protection force was among those killed.

The Taliban later claimed responsibility for the attack on the defence ministry.

Surging violence

The Taliban’s ability to conduct coordinated deadly attacks in Kabul has mounted pressure on Ghani’s government, which has struggled to reassure the population that it can guarantee security.

Two weeks ago, fighters attacked the American University in Kabul, killing 13 people.

At least 80 people were killed by a suicide bomber who targeted a demonstration on July 23 in an attack claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group.

Outside Kabul, the fighters have stepped up their military campaign, threatening Lashkar Gah, capital of the strategic southern province of Helmand, as well as Kunduz, the northern city they briefly took last year.

At least 40 killed and dozens wounded in five explosions in mostly government-held areas, including Tartous and Homs.

The blasts targeted four government control cities including Homs [EPA]

At least 40 people have been killed and dozens wounded in five explosions across mostly government-controlled areas of Syria, according to state media reports.

Monday morning’s blasts hit the coastal city of Tartous, the central city of Homs, the suburbs of the capital Damascus as well as the northeastern city of Hasaka, which is mostly controlled by Kurdish forces but where the government maintains a presence.

The blast in Hasaka was claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group.

State media said at least 11 people were killed and 45 injured in a double bomb attack just outside Tartous, in the coastal province of the same name, which is a base of President Bashar al-Assad’s government.

“Two terrorist blasts on Arzuna bridge, the first a car bomb and the second a suicide bomber who detonated his explosive belt when people gathered to help the wounded,” Syrian state television said.

State media also reported five people killed in Hasaka, in the northeast of the country.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a Britain-based monitor, said the blast hit a checkpoint belonging to the Kurdish Asayesh security forces.

And state media also reported a car bomb at the entrance to the Al-Zahra neighbourhood in Homs, which is controlled by the government.

It said at least two people were killed and four wounded in the bombing, which is the latest in a series of attacks targeting Al-Zahra, where most residents are Alawite, the sect to which President Bashar al-Assad belongs.

State media also reported another bomb attack on a road west of the capital Damascus, but gave no immediate toll in the blast.

That attack targeted a checkpoint and left three people dead, said the SOHR.

Top diplomats from the US and Russia on Monday failed to reach a deal to ease fighting in Syria amid the string of bomb attacks in the country.

As blasts maimed and killed in Syria, a senior State Department official said fresh crisis talks between Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the margins of the G20 summit in China had ended without agreement.

A deal to provide aid to Aleppo’s ravaged civilians and at least partially halt Russian and Syrian bombardments had looked likely on Sunday, before talks collapsed.

US officials accused Russia of backtracking on already agreed issues which Washington refused to revisit, but the talks seemed to have been overtaken by developments on the ground.

Syrian government troops renewed their siege of Aleppo on Sunday, with state media saying they had taken an area south of the city, severing the last opposition-held route into its eastern neighbourhoods.

Once Syria’s economic powerhouse, Aleppo has been ravaged by the war that began with protests against President Bashar al-Assad’s government in March 2011.

More than 300 people evacuated amid fears of forced demographic changes around the capital.

More than 300 people were evacuated from the besieged Damascus suburb of Moadamiyeh on Friday [Reuters]

Buses carrying more than 300 Syrians left the besieged Damascus suburb of Moadamiyeh on Friday, in the first stage of a deal that will enable the government to retake control of the rebel-held area.

In the first stage of the deal, 303 people, including 62 gunmen who agreed to lay down their arms and accept a presidential amnesty deal, were bussed out of the area and taken to the nearby government-controlled town of Horjelah, according Syrian state news agency SANA.

The Moadamiyeh agreement comes just a week after a deal was struck in neighbouring Daraya that brought about the full evacuation of the suburb, a move heavily criticised by the international community as forced displacement.

Those who left Moadamiyeh on Friday were originally from Daraya, having fled heavy bombardments earlier in the year.

“The heroic acts of the Syrian army in Daraya led to the achievement in Moadamiyeh,” Alaa Ibrahim, the governor of rural Damascus, told Syrian state TV.

Al Jazeera’s Hashem Ahelbarra, reporting from Gaziantep on the Turkey-Syria border, said the concept of “forcing deals on local populations” has been criticised by the United Nations and the international community as something “that would give the government precedent to continue starving its own population into surrender”.

The UN’s Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura voiced concern that the Daraya agreement was part of a larger strategy by the government to empty rebel enclaves and that it may soon be extended to other areas.

There are “indications that after Daraya we may have other Darayas,” he told reporters in Geneva on Thursday.

“There is clearly a strategy at the moment to move from Daraya” to other besieged areas “in a similar pattern”.

Jan Egeland, the UN humanitarian chief, said the UN humanitarian task force for Syria had “failed the people of Daraya”.

The UN has underlined that it was not consulted on the Daraya deal, and described the evacuation of the suburb as a forced displacement.

Fears of ‘demographic change’

In the second stage of the Moadamiyeh deal, rebels who refuse to hand over their weapons will be forced to leave the suburb, probably to rebel-controlled Idlib province.

It was not clear when the second stage would be implemented or when government security forces would take over control of the suburb.

The deal was reportedly reached on Tuesday in a meeting between Moadamiyeh’s local council, government officials and Russian military officers at the army’s 4th Armoured Division headquarters in the mountains on the southern outskirts of Damascus.

“It wasn’t a negotiation or a conversation, it was a threat,” Moadamiyeh-based media activist Dani Qappani told Al Jazeera. “They basicallly told us: ‘Either surrender or we burn Moadamiyeh.'”

“They know the situation here. There’s little to no food or medical supplies,” said Qappani, adding that residents of the besieged suburb could not hold out much longer.

“Once they finish evacuating people of Daraya who are living here, they’ll try to begin the process of surrendering arms and dismantling the revolutionary establishments inside the city.”

Fears of ‘demographic change’

In the second stage of the Moadamiyeh deal, rebels who refuse to hand over their weapons will be forced to leave the suburb, probably to rebel-controlled Idlib province.

It was not clear when the second stage would be implemented or when government security forces would take over control of the suburb.

The deal was reportedly reached on Tuesday in a meeting between Moadamiyeh’s local council, government officials and Russian military officers at the army’s 4th Armoured Division headquarters in the mountains on the southern outskirts of Damascus.

“It wasn’t a negotiation or a conversation, it was a threat,” Moadamiyeh-based media activist Dani Qappani told Al Jazeera. “They basicallly told us: ‘Either surrender or we burn Moadamiyeh.'”

“They know the situation here. There’s little to no food or medical supplies,” said Qappani, adding that residents of the besieged suburb could not hold out much longer.

“Once they finish evacuating people of Daraya who are living here, they’ll try to begin the process of surrendering arms and dismantling the revolutionary establishments inside the city.”

At least 14 people killed and dozens wounded after two bombs go off at a court in northwestern Pakistan.

Police said some of the wounded in the blasts were in a critical condition [AFP]

At least 14 people were killed and dozens wounded when two bomb blasts went off at a district court in northwestern Pakistan, officials said.

A suicide bomber threw a hand grenade at police guards before storming into the compound and blowing himself up in the court in Mardan town in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.

Nasir Khan Durrani, provincial police chief, told AFP news agency that the death toll had reached 14, with at least 58 people wounded, three of whom were critical.

Officials said the bomber had up to eight kilogrammes of explosives packed into his vest, while the dead included lawyers and police.

Amir Hussain, president of the Mardan Bar Association, said lawyers were being targeted because they are “an important part of democracy, and these terrorists are opposed to democracy”.

“Our morale is not dented. It is still high,” he told AFP.

Earlier, four suicide bombers who were trying to attack a Christian colony were killed during a gunfight with security forces outside the northwestern city of Peshawar, the army said.

Soldiers backed by army helicopters fought back the fighters who had tried to attack the colony near Warsak Dam, just north of Peshawar.

Asim Bajwa, an army spokesman, said “all four suicide bombers were killed” in the operation carried out against the fighters on Friday and that a clearance operation was under way.

Local sources, though, told Al Jazeera that at least one civilian was killed and several wounded in the attack.

Two of the four suicide bombers detonated their vests and the other two were shot dead, the sources said.

Pakistani Taliban faction Jamaat-ur-Ahrar claimed responsibility for the attacks.

The group’s spokesman, Ehsanullah Ehsan, promised more attacks in a statement released to media.

“We appeal to civilians to remain away from law enforcement installations and these un-Islamic courts. We will target them more,” he said.

Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder, reporting from Islamabad, said despite army claims to have limited the number of attacks, armed groups still managed to operate across the country.

“Just yesterday the Pakistan military gave a press conference in which they said they had been able to control the number of attacks in the country,” he said.

“But it appears that the Tehreek-e-Taliban and their factions are still able to operate within Pakistan and carry out these attacks.”

Last month, the Pakistan Taliban faction and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL,also known as ISIS) both claimed responsibility for a suicide attack at a hospital in Pakistan’s Quetta that killed at least 70 people.

The attack targeted a group of mourning lawyers, who had gathered at the emergency department of the hospital to accompany the body of a murdered colleague.

The Pakistan army launched Operation Zarb-e-Azb under US pressure in 2014 in an effort to wipe out fighters and their bases in the North Waziristan tribal area.

Uzbekistan’s President Islam Karimov has died, Turkey says – despite no official confirmation from the Uzbek government.

Mr Karimov, 78, was taken to hospital last week after a brain haemorrhage. However, the Uzbek government has only said Mr Karimov is critically ill.

On Friday, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told a televised meeting Mr Karimov had died.

Mr Karimov had governed Uzbekistan in an authoritarian manner since 1989.

He has no clear successor. There is no legal political opposition and the media is tightly controlled by the state.

A UN report has described the use of torture as “systematic”. Mr Karimov has often justified his strong-arm tactics by highlighting the danger from Islamist militancy.

“Uzbek President Islam Karimov has passed away. May God’s mercy be upon him, as the Turkish Republic we are sharing the pain and sorrow of Uzbek people,” Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said in a cabinet meeting broadcast live.

Long before Mr Yildirim’s statement, rumours were circulating that Mr Karimov had already died. He had not appeared in public since 17 August.

Earlier on Friday, Reuters news agency said three unnamed diplomatic sources had confirmed Mr Karimov’s death.

An opposition website, Fergana, reported that preparations were under way for his funeral in his home town, Samarkand.

Samarkand’s airport has been closed to scheduled flights on Saturday.

ISIL-linked website says Adnani was killed while monitoring military operations in Aleppo province.

by Al Jazeera

The main spokesman for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) armed group, Abu Mohamed al-Adnani, has been killed in the Syrian province of Aleppo, according to an ISIL-linked website.

Amaq, the ISIL-affiliated media, said on Tuesday Adnani was killed while monitoring military operations in Aleppo.

A US defence official said the US-led coalition forces battling ISIL had conducted an air strike Tuesday targeting a “senior leader” of the group, without specifying who the leader was.

“Coalition forces conducted an air strike in al-Bab, Syria, targeting an [ISIL] senior leader,” the official said, according to the Paris-based AFP news agency.

“We are still assessing the results of the operation at this time.”

Adnani, described as ISIL’s second most senior leader, was one of the group’s longest-serving figures.

The details of Adnani’s death remain unclear.

Al Jazeera’s Patty Culhane, reporting from Washington DC, said there was no immediate comment or confirmation from US officials of his death.

Believed to had been born in Syria, Adnani “was often seen on video urging followers to carry out attacks abroad”, our correspondent said.

Adnani has been the voice of ISIL, also known as ISIS, over the past few years, and has released numerous, lengthy audio files online in which he urged followers to carry out attacks.

“Adnani commanded widespread respect within the movement [ISIL],” Shiraz Maher, Deputy Director of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at King’s College London, said.

“What made him particularly dangerous was that he personally oversaw and directed ISIL’s external operations. His prominence meant that he even eclipsed the leader of ISIL, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in terms of public pronouncements, so the group will feel his absence quite pointedly.”

Earlier this year, Adnani called for massive attacks during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. He has also called for attacks in Western countries.

ISIL controls large swaths of territory in Syria and Iraq, and is fighting Syrian troops, US-backed fighters and other rebel groups in northern Syria, as well as in Iraq.

Offensive said to be campaign by Turkey and US-led coalition to clear ISIL from Syrian border town of Jarablus.

The operation reportedly involved artillery and rocket shelling as well as warplanes and tanks [Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

Turkish tank units have entered Syria as part of a military operation backed by Turkish and US-led coalition warplanes to clear the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group from the Syrian border town of Jarablus, according to Turkish state media.

Turkish special forces had crossed the border and entered Jarablus early on Wednesday, officials said.

“The operation, which began at around 4am local time (01:00 GMT), is aimed at clearing the Turkish borders of terrorist groups, helping to enhance border security and supporting the territorial integrity of Syria,” Anadolu Agency quoted Turkish officials as saying.

Turkish media said the operation involved artillery and rocket shelling as well as warplanes, before the ground forces, including heavy armoured vehicles, entered Syria towards noon.

So far, Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters backed by Turkey have captured four villages and total of 46 ISIL fighters have been killed in the operation, Dogan news agency said on Wednesday.

Turkish daily Hurriyet reported that Turkish tanks in Syrian territories blocked ISIL’s support routes and Turkish fighter jets along with coalition jets pounded ISIL vehicles headed from the al-Bab region to support ISIL fighters in the Jarablus area.

Meanwhile some 5,000 FSA fighters, including groups from the Sultan Murat Brigade, Sukur al-Jeber, Sham Front and Feylek al-Sham, were reportedly advancing toward central Jarablus.

PYD and ISIL targeted

The operation is targeting ISIL and Syrian Kurdish fighters in northern Syria to end attacks on Turkey’s border, President Tayyip Erdogan said in a speech in the capital Ankara on Wednesday.

“At 4:00 this morning, operations started in the north of Syria against terror groups which constantly threaten our country, like Daesh [the Arabic acronym for ISIL] and the PYD [the Syrian Kurdish group],” he said in a speech in Ankara.

Turkey had pledged on Monday to “completely cleanse” ISIL fighters from its border region after a suicide bomber suspected of links to the group killed 54 people at a Kurdish wedding in the southeastern city of Gaziantep.

Turkey is also concerned about the growing influence of Syrian Kurdish groups along its border, where they have captured large expanses of territory since the start of the Syrian war in 2011.

Turkey sees them as tied to the PKK, which has been waging an armed campaign mainly in the country’s southeast.

“It is hard to conduct this operation without the green light from Moscow, Tehran, Damascus and Washington,” Metin Gurcan, security analyst, told Al Jazeera from Istanbul.

“The open objective in this operation is that Turkey is trying to create an ISIL-free humanitarian zone by clearing Jarablus for possible flow of refugees,” he said.

“The covert objective is another one. The PYD’s recent advances alarmed Ankara. Turkey aims to deny the PYD’s objective of connecting cantons it controls and creating monolithic Kurdish entity.”

The military operation against ISIL comes as Syrian rebels, backed by Turkey, also say they are in the final stages of preparing an assault from Turkish territory on Jarablus, aiming to pre-empt a potential attempt by Syrian Kurdish forces of PYD to take it.

The PYD, a critical part of the US-backed campaign against ISIL, took near-complete control of Hasaka city on Tuesday.

The group already controls chunks of northern Syria where Kurdish groups have established de facto autonomy since the start of the Syria war – a development that has alarmed Turkey.