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LAHORE, Pakistan — At least 13 people were killed,

including six police officers, by a suicide bomber on
Monday during a protest by hundreds of pharmacists in Newsworthy
downtown Lahore, in eastern Pakistan, officials said. The Event
attack wounded 108 people, 13 of them critically.

A breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban, Jamaat-ul-

Ahrar, claimed responsibility for the attack and warned the
government of more strikes to come.

Hours later, two members of a bomb disposal unit were

killed while defusing an explosive device found under a
bridge in the western city of Quetta, officials said. It was not
immediately clear if that bomb was related to the Lahore
attack.

The bombings underlined the country’s continued challenge

in fighting militancy. Jamaat-ul-Ahrar has claimed
responsibility for several deadly attacks across Pakistan. The
spate of attacks had decreased since 2014, when the military
launched an offensive in the North Waziristan tribal region, Background
the main redoubt of local and foreign terrorists. However, Events
the militants continue to pose a potent threat.

In Lahore, the political home of Prime Minister Nawaz

Sharif, at least 400 pharmacists had gathered in front of the
Punjab Province assembly building to protest a new
provincial regulatory law, causing extensive traffic
congestion that lasted for hours. In the evening, as police
officers negotiated with the protesters, a suicide bomber on
foot detonated his explosives.

The suicide bomber was around 20 years old and used 13 to

18 pounds of explosives, said the provincial law minister,
Rana Sanaullah.
Muhammad Iqbal, a senior police officer who is part of the
provincial counterterrorism department, said police officers
were the target of the suicide bombing. “The
counterterrorism department forensic team is investigating,
and we will find out more about the attack,” Officer Iqbal
said.

Many local reporters and television camera crews were at

the scene covering the protest. “I was getting ready for our
reporter’s live feed for the 6 o’clock bulletin when I heard a
large blast,” said Mehboob Malik, a cameraman for Dawn
News Television. “I was about 70 feet away when the
explosion shook everything. Next, I saw people carrying the
injured.”

By nightfall, the scene of the attack was littered with debris,

and bloodstains were spread over the asphalt.

A state of emergency was declared in major hospitals in

Lahore, the provincial capital.

After the attack, Suleman Ali, 21, was standing in a corridor

of Mayo Hospital, along with several other relatives of Source
victims. “My uncle has shrapnel injuries in one leg and will
undergo surgery,” Mr. Ali said. His cousin had minor
injuries.

In another unrelated development, the Pakistani military

said three of its soldiers were killed by Indian fire in
Bhimber on the Line of Control, the de facto border
between the two countries in the disputed Kashmir region.
A Pakistani military spokesman called the Indian fire
“unprovoked.”

Also, a justice of the Islamabad High Court on Monday

banned Valentine’s Day celebrations across the country in
response to a petition that called them un-Islamic. Justice
Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui ordered a ban on holiday events and
directed an electronic media regulating authority to ensure
that television channels did not air advertisements
celebrating a day associated with love and romance. The
court order was met with shock and dismay over Twitter,
with many people criticizing the justice.
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Takiya Holmes, one of two young girls gravely wounded in
shootings in Chicago over the weekend, died on Tuesday Newsworthy
morning. She was 11. Item

Takiya was the youngest child killed by gunfire since the

gang assassination of 9-year-old Tyshawn Lee in 2015. But
that distinction was lost just hours after Takiya died at
Comer Children's Hospital, when a toddler was among two
people shot and killed in the city's Lawndale neighborhood.

The girl's death sparked a new wave of grief over a city all
too accustomed to this sort of pain, wrought by guns that
just a year earlier claimed more lives and wounded more
people than at any point since the 1990s.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel met with Attorney General

Jeff Sessions in Washington on Monday to discuss federal
help to fight gun violence. The meeting was "productive,"
according to the Justice Department. Background
Event
The meeting came just weeks after President Donald Trump
threatened to send the "Feds!" if Emanuel can't get the
gunfire under control, to which the mayor responded that
federal law enforcement agencies were already on the
ground helping to stem the flow of illegal weapons washing
into the city from across state lines.

More investigators and more federal prosecutions would be

welcome, he said.

Meanwhile, another family wept and a community wrestled

with another example of unchecked violence that had
claimed another young life.
"At 8:17 this morning Takiya passed away in her mother's
arms," Rachel Williams, a cousin and anti-gun-violence
activist, wrote on Facebook.

"She lived life, and she loved it," Patsy Holmes, the girl's
grandmother told the Chicago Tribune.

Takiya was struck by a stray bullet on Saturday evening

while sitting in the back of her mother's minivan with an
aunt and her 3-year-old brother. Source
The weekend before, she was busy making brownies with
her family. A week later, she was fighting for her life with a
bullet lodged in her spine near her brain stem.

"Our community has to come together to protect our

children," her grandmother said. "Our children are innocent
getting caught by stray bullets. The other little girl who got
shot, my prayers are going out to that family."
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The half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un died
suddenly at an airport in Malaysia's capital on Tuesday, Newsworthy
local officials told Reuters. Item

Kim Jong Nam and Kim Jong Un share a father in former

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, who died in 2011. But the
pair have different mothers.

Details remained unclear. South Korean officials said it

appears he did not die of natural causes.

Unification Ministry spokesman Jeong Joon-hee told a news

briefing on Wednesday that the South Korean government
believed Kim Jong Nam was murdered, according to
Reuters.
Background
Believed to be in his 40s, Kim Jong Nam is believed to have
fallen out of favor with the regime in 2001 after he was Event
caught trying to enter Japan under a fake passport, saying
he wanted to enter Tokyo Disneyland.

His reported death comes days after North Korea

declared its first missile test since the inauguration of
President Donald Trump.

Earlier this month South Korea said its secretive northern

neighbor dismissed its minister of state security, who was a
key aide to Kim Jong Un and ran the country's secret police.
NBC News was not immediately able to verify that the man
was the half-brother of North Korea's dictator. An official
who answered the phone at the district police headquarters
told NBC News that "the case is still under investigation."
He declined to give his name or comment on the dead
man's identity.

"We have yet to have the full briefing from the Malaysian
authorities but circumstances seems to be pointing towards
confirming that the man killed was Kim Jong Nam," Chung
Joon Hee, the spokesman of South Korea's Unification
Ministry, told NBC News on Wednesday. Source
Police said they were investigating the cause of death of
Kim Jong Nam after he fell ill at the airport in Kuala Lumpur,
according to the news agency.

South Korean lawmaker Lee Cheol Woo, the secretary-

general of the Intelligence Committee of South Korea's
National Assembly, said the committee was told by the
National Intelligence Service that the body is believed to be
that of Kim Jong Nam and were awaiting autopsy results.