Bombs kill 13

    TWO coordinated suicide bombings near and inside a Shi’ite Muslim mosque in Baghdad killed at least 13 worshippers yesterday, Iraqi police and an Interior Ministry source said.

    The attack will amplify concerns that Iraq is being dragged towards all-out Sunni-Shi’ite conflict as its delicate sectarian balance comes under growing strain from the civil war in neighboring Syria.

    More than 1,000 people were killed in militant attacks in Iraq in May, according to the United Nations, making it the deadliest month since the sectarian war of 2006-2007.

    Turkish arrests

    POLICE raided addresses across Turkey yesterday and detained dozens of people in an operation linked to three weeks of often violent protests against Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan.

    Overnight in Ankara, riot police used tear gas and water cannon to disperse hundreds of protesters who had gathered in and around the government quarter of Kizilay.

    Interior Minister Muammer Guler said 62 people had been detained in Turkey’s biggest city Istanbul and 23 in the capital Ankara. State broadcaster TRT also said a further 13 had been held in Eskisehir.

    King asked to testify

    A WOMAN who says she is the unrecognized daughter of Belgian King Albert II has summoned the monarch and two of his children to appear in a Brussels court in her bid to prove he is her father, her lawyer said yesterday.

    Delphine Boel, a 45-year-old artist, has repeatedly stated that she is the daughter of the king and has used this as a theme in some of her work.

    First reports about Boel’s claims appeared in the Belgian media in the late 1990s. The king has never made any official statement on the subject.