A bomb tore through a Pakistan political rally Monday, killing 14 people and wounding 56 in one of the deadliest attacks of the campaign for Pakistan's historic elections on Saturday.

The first challenge is corruption,” Ambassador Bernard Bajolet, representative of France to Afghanistan, stated as he completes this assignment and prepares to return to Paris for another post. Diplomats are generally paid to be discreet, polished and smooth — in short, diplomatic.

The United States was not given any warning before air strikes in Syria against what Western and Israeli officials say were weapons headed for Hezbollah militants, a U.S. intelligence official said on Sunday.

Israeli warplanes struck areas in and around the Syrian capital Sunday, setting off a series of explosions as they targeted a shipment of highly accurate, Iranian-made guided missiles believed to be bound for Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group, officials and activists said.

Egypt denied Sunday that an Arab League Middle East peace plan was amended to include land swaps between Israel and a future Palestinian state, after Qatar suggested Arab acceptance of the proposal.

Saudi Arabia has given girls at private schools the right to play sport, the education ministry said Sunday, in a step aimed at easing restrictions on women in the ultraconservative kingdom.

A total of eight NATO soldiers were killed in Afghanistan on Saturday — the bloodiest day this year for international forces — the coalition said, as a further death was announced.

Israeli warplanes targeted a Syrian weapons shipment headed for Lebanon's Hezbollah, media quoted U.S. officials as saying, with a diplomatic source reporting Saturday strikes were launched to destroy arms stored at Damascus airport.

Syria's President Bashar al-Assad made a rare public visit on Wednesday to an electrical plant in central Damascus to mark Labor Day, the presidency's official Facebook page said.

Israel on Tuesday launched its first targeted attack on a militant in Gaza since a war in November, killing a Palestinian jihadist in an airstrike that put further strain on a five-month-old cease-fire.