Gunmen Open Fire on a School Van in Pakistan's Punjab Province, Killing 2 Children

File photo: View of a damaged car after a suicide blast in Karachi, Pakistan April 19, 2024. REUTERA/Akhtar Soomro
File photo: View of a damaged car after a suicide blast in Karachi, Pakistan April 19, 2024. REUTERA/Akhtar Soomro
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Gunmen Open Fire on a School Van in Pakistan's Punjab Province, Killing 2 Children

File photo: View of a damaged car after a suicide blast in Karachi, Pakistan April 19, 2024. REUTERA/Akhtar Soomro
File photo: View of a damaged car after a suicide blast in Karachi, Pakistan April 19, 2024. REUTERA/Akhtar Soomro

Gunmen opened fire on a school van in Pakistan's eastern Punjab province Thursday, killing two children and wounding six other people, police and officials said.
Authorities said the driver, who was among the wounded, seemed to be the target of the attack, the Associated Press said.
“Our initial investigations indicate that the driver had an enmity with someone,” Mohammad Shakil, a local police official, said. He provided no further details.
Police were still investigating to determine who was behind the firing, and no one has claimed responsibility.
The dead and wounded were transported to a nearby hospital, said Ghias Gull, a district police chief in Attock, where the shooting occurred.
Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari and Interior Minister Mohsoin Naqvi denounced the attack and ordered the best possible medical treatment be provided to the wounded.
Attock is a district in Punjab province but is not far away from Pakistan's restive northwest.
Militant attacks have surged in Pakistan in recent years, mostly in the northwest bordering Afghanistan. In 2014, Pakistani militants in the worst assault on an army-run school in the northwestern city of Peshawar killed 147 people, including 132 children.



Drone Attacks on a Military Facility in Southern Russia Spark a Fire

File photo: A local views the destruction following a Russian missile strike in a village outside of Kyiv, 18 August 2024 amid the Russian invasion. EPA/SERGEY DOLZHENKO 60404
File photo: A local views the destruction following a Russian missile strike in a village outside of Kyiv, 18 August 2024 amid the Russian invasion. EPA/SERGEY DOLZHENKO 60404
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Drone Attacks on a Military Facility in Southern Russia Spark a Fire

File photo: A local views the destruction following a Russian missile strike in a village outside of Kyiv, 18 August 2024 amid the Russian invasion. EPA/SERGEY DOLZHENKO 60404
File photo: A local views the destruction following a Russian missile strike in a village outside of Kyiv, 18 August 2024 amid the Russian invasion. EPA/SERGEY DOLZHENKO 60404

A drone attack sparked a fire at a military facility in the Volgograd region of southern Russia on Thursday, regional officials and the country's Ministry of Defense said.
Regional Volgograd Governor Andrei Bocharov said on Telegram that a “defense ministry facility” was on fire after being attacked with drones in the area of Marinovka. There were no casualties, he said.
Bocharov did not specify what was damaged but Russian Telegram channels said that drones attempted to attack a military air base near Marinovka in the village of Oktyabrsky, The Associated Press said.
Ukraine did not acknowledge the attack but it comes as Ukraine has intensified its attacks on Russia, with a ground offensive into the Russian region of Kursk and drone attacks that targeted Moscow on Wednesday in what the capital's mayor called one of the largest done attacks to date since Russia's all-out invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Videos shared on Russian social media channels showed thick black smoke rising from the air base and an explosion in the night sky reportedly near the base. Marinovka is about 300 kilometers (185 miles) east of the Ukrainian border and about the same distance west from the border with Kazakhstan.
The Baza Telegram channel, which is close to Russian law enforcement, said one drone was taken down several kilometers (miles) from the airfield and that wreckage from another fell on a trailer near the air base, causing it to catch fire.
Data from NASA fire satellites, which monitor Earth for forest blazes, showed fires breaking out around the air base’s apron, where fighter jets previously have been seen parked.