28 Pakistani pilgrims killed in bus crash in Iran | The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

28 Pakistani pilgrims killed in bus crash in Iran

TEHRAN, Iran – A bus carrying Shiite pilgrims from Pakistan to Iraq crashed in central Iran, killing at least 28 people, an official said Wednesday.

The crash occurred on Tuesday evening in the central Iranian province of Yazd, said Mohammad Ali Malekzadeh, a local emergency official, according to the state news agency IRNA.

Another 23 people were injured in the accident, 14 of them seriously, he added. He said all the bus passengers were from Pakistan.

At the time of the crash outside the city of Taft, about 500 kilometers southeast of the Iranian capital Tehran, there were 51 people on board.

Iranian state television later broadcast images of the bus overturned on the highway, its roof smashed in and all doors open. Rescue workers carefully walked through the broken glass and debris that littered the road.

In the state television report, Malekzadeh attributed the accident to the bus's brakes failing and the driver's lack of attention. A surveillance video later broadcast on state television showed the bus speeding past a parked car into a dirt parking lot shortly before the accident, narrowly missing pedestrians.

Pakistani man accused of cyberterrorism

LAHORE, Pakistan – Pakistani authorities on Wednesday arrested and charged a man with cyberterrorism, accusing him of spreading misinformation that sparked mass unrest in Britain earlier this month.

The suspect is 32-year-old freelance web developer Farhan Asif, said Imran Kishwar, deputy inspector general of investigations in Lahore, the capital of the eastern Punjab province.

The man is accused of spreading false information on YouTube and Facebook about the British teenager suspected of killing three girls and injuring 10 others in a knife attack at a dance class in northwest England on July 29.

The false information stated that the suspect was a recently arrived asylum seeker and that his name suggested that he was Muslim.

Channel3 Now, an account on social media platform X that claims to be a news channel, was one of the first channels to report the fake name Ali Al-Shakati. A Facebook account of the channel stated that it is managed by people in Pakistan and the US.

The website's editor-in-chief posted an apology on July 31 for “the misleading information published in a recent article on our website Channel3 NOW. We deeply regret any confusion or inconvenience this may have caused.”

At a press conference in the eastern Zimbabwean city of Lahore, police officer Kishwar said Asif had been arrested at his home in the city for questioning.

He said Asif claimed he was not the source of the false news but reposted it from social media. Kishwar said Asif operated the Channel3 Now account and claimed he spread false news to gain more viewers and revenue.

Greece rescues almost 150 migrants

ATHENS, Greece – Greek authorities rescued nearly 150 migrants in 24 hours trying to reach the country by sea in small boats, officials said Wednesday, including one with 115 people crammed into it.

A coast guard statement said the ship was found in distress off the eastern Aegean island of Lesbos, near the Turkish coast, on Tuesday. Three patrol boats picked up 67 men, 27 women and 21 children and took them to a migrant reception center on Lesbos.

The boat sank shortly after the passengers were rescued, the statement said. It was one of the largest single boatloads of migrants to reach the island from Turkey in recent months.

The coast guard also said on Wednesday that 25 men and seven boys had been rescued from a boat that got into distress 35 miles south of Crete. It quoted the migrants as saying they had spent three days crossing the Mediterranean after boarding the vessel in eastern Libya.

Two of the men were arrested on suspicion of belonging to a smuggling ring that had organized the trip.

Three staff members killed in Bosnian school shooting

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina – A school employee shot and killed three people in a northwestern Bosnian town on Wednesday, police said. The gunman was seriously wounded in a suicide attempt.

The shooting occurred around 10 a.m. local time at a secondary school in Sanski Most, about 290 kilometers northwest of Bosnia's capital Sarajevo, said regional police spokesman Adnan Beganovic.

Beganovic told the Associated Press that the man used a “military weapon, an automatic rifle.” He then attempted to take his own life and is in serious condition in a hospital in nearby Banja Luka.

The victims included the school's principal, a secretary and a teacher, Beganovic said. Bosnian schools are closed for the summer holidays, but Beganovic said there were people at the school because re-examinations were underway.

Regional television station N1 reported that there had been an argument between the man and the school administration.

Further details were not immediately available.

A police officer stands outside a school building in Sanski Most, northwest of Bosnia's capital Sarajevo, on Wednesday after a school employee shot and killed three people. (AP/Edvin Zulic)