Students with a particularly devout Muslim appearance in northern Mali are facing summary execution by Malian forces as French troops continue their airstrikes against Islamist rebels.

Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi, witnessed a surge of violence on Thursday when a total of 17 men were killed in different parts of the city. Mufti Abdul Majeed Deenpuri, the vice president of Binoria seminary, his colleague Mufti Saleh and student Hassan Ali were killed in a brazen attack on Shahra-e-Faisal near Nursery.

Suicide bombers have attacked an army post in Pakistan’s northwest, killing 13 soldiers and 11 civilians, officials said, in an assault claimed by the Taliban.

At least two people have been killed and six others wounded in two separate bomb explosions in Pakistan’s financial capital Karachi.

French and Malian troops have taken control of the historic Malian city of Timbuktu, after rebel occupiers fled the ancient Sahara trading town and torched several buildings, including a priceless manuscript library.

Two Pakistan Air Force security guards and a shopkeeper have been killed in an attack carried out by gunmen in Pakistan’s troubled southwestern Balochistan province, officials say.

The outstanding Sunni scholar, Shaikh Abdol-Hameed Ismaeelzahi, made it clear in a mass gathering of Sunni worshippers in Zahedan that nations can get progress and efflorescence only through unity, urging solidarity can not be obtained by slogans and mere wishes.

Mali forces backed by French troops are advancing towards the northern key town of Timbuktu after seizing the rebel stronghold of Gao, French officials have said.

At least 21 policemen were killed and 18 others, mostly civilians, were wounded in two separate suicide attacks Saturday in a crowded area of the northeast Afghan city of Kunduz and southern Kandahar city, provincial authorities said.

French and Malian troops have entered the key central Malian towns of Diabaly and Doutenza, both of which have been in the hands of al-Qaeda-linked rebels for weeks.