Chinese authorities say train station attack in SW China that left 28 dead is terrorism act

BEIJING — More than 10 knife-wielding attackers slashed people at a train station in southwestern China late Saturday in what authorities called a terrorist attack, and police fatally shot five of the assailants, leaving 28 people dead and 113 injured, state media said.

The attackers, most of them dressed in black, stormed the Kunming Train Station in Yunnan Province and started attacking people in the late evening, witness Yang Haifei, told the official Xinhua News Agency in an interview from a hospital where he was being treated for chest and back wounds.

“I saw a person come straight at me with a long knife and I ran away with everyone,” he told Xinhua, adding that people who were slower ended up severely injured. “They just fell on the ground,” Yang said.

Xinhua did not identify who might have been responsible for the attack, but said authorities considered it to be “an organized, premeditated violent terrorist attack.”

In an indication of how seriously authorities viewed the attack — one of China’s deadliest in recent years — the country’s top police official, Politburo member Meng Jianzhu, was en route to Kunming, the Communist Party-run People’s Daily reported.

UN says attacks kill 703 in Iraq in February as wave of assaults washes over country

BAGHDAD — The United Nations said Saturday that violence across Iraq in February killed 703 people, a death toll higher than the year before as the country faces a rising wave of militant attacks rivaling the sectarian bloodshed that followed the U.S.-led invasion.

The figures issued by the U.N.’s mission to Iraq is close to January’s death toll of 733, showing that a surge of violence that began 10 months ago with a government crackdown on a Sunni protest camp is not receding. Meanwhile, attacks Saturday killed at least five people and wounded 14, authorities said.

Attacks in February killed 564 civilians and 139 security force members in February, the U.N. said. The violence wounded 1,381, the vast majority civilians, it said. That compares to February 2013, when attacks killed 418 civilians and wounded 704.

The capital, Baghdad, was the worst affected with 239 people killed, according to the U.N. Two predominantly Sunni provinces — central Salaheddin with 121 killed and northern Ninevah with 94 killed — followed.

U.N. mission chief Nickolay Mladenov appealed to Iraqis to stop the violence.

Pakistani Taliban announces 1-month cease-fire to restart peace talks

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — The Pakistani Taliban announced Saturday that the group will observe a one-month cease-fire as part of efforts to negotiate a peace deal with the government, throwing new life into a foundering peace process.

Spokesman Shahidullah Shahid said in a statement emailed to reporters that the top leadership of the militant group has instructed all of its units to comply with the cease-fire.

“Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan has initiated talks with the government with sincerity and for good purpose,” Shahid said, referring to the group by its formal name.

The leader of the government’s negotiating team, Irfan Sadiqui, praised the cease-fire announcement while speaking on Pakistan’s Geo Television, saying the government will review any written document from the Taliban about it.

“Today, we are seeing a big breakthrough,” Sadiqui said.

By wire sources