Pakistani soldiers have raided a hospital in South Waziristan, killing at least four suspected militants and capturing 18, the military has said. It said that the hospital, in the town of Wana, was being used by Islamist fighters operating in the area. Those killed were believed to be of Arab and Sudanese origin. The army has often said it is targeting foreign militants in Pakistan’s north-western tribal areas, who it says form the backbone of the insurgency. A security official told the BBC that the raid followed a tip-off that wounded militants were being brought to the hospital from Sherwangi, a Taliban-held area under attack by the army. “Commandos and security forces raided the hospital. Militants fired on the troops and in the gunfight, which lasted more than four hours, four militants and a woman were killed, while 22 others were arrested,” an official told the AFP news agency. “One soldier was also injured. The three dead militants appear to be Arabs and one of Sudanese origin.” The identity of the woman was not initially clear, the official said

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Several people have been shot dead at a shopping centre in the southern Finnish city of Espoo, near the capital, Helsinki, Finland’s media report. Four people have been killed, according to the website of the Finnish national broadcaster, YLE, though this has not been confirmed. Police and ambulances are at the scene, but there are no reports of the gunman having been stopped. The incident is Finland’s third major shooting in the past two years. Thursday’s bloodshed reportedly broke out at about 1000 local time (0800 GMT) at the Sello shopping centre. My parents were just going up the escalator from the first floor when police started shouting at them to get out of the building Antti BBC reader, Espoo A witness said an employee of the Prisma grocery store was left lying on the floor of the shop, and that a man dressed in black was seen walking toward the Citymarket store. A separate, unconfirmed, report said one person had been shot twice in the head and another in the stomach. Parts of the shopping centre were closed and trains were not stopping at the local railway station, YLE said.

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Eight Americans working for the CIA have died in a bomb attack in Afghanistan, the worst against US intelligence officials since 2001. A bomber wearing an explosive vest entered Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost Province, near Pakistan. A Taliban spokesman said one of its members who was working for the Afghan army carried out the attack. In a separate incident, four Canadian soldiers and a journalist died in a roadside bomb attack in Kandahar. It was the worst fatal incident affecting Canadians in Afghanistan for more than two years. Army uniform A Taliban spokesman said the militant who carried out the attack at the Chapman base on Wednesday evening was working as a soldier in the Afghan army. ANALYSIS Kim Ghattas, Washington It is probably the deadliest attack against US intelligence officials since the start of the war in 2001. What was unusual about this attack was that the suicide bomber was able to detonate his explosives inside the base.

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