QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Through its actions, Russia has chosen to undermine the very foundations upon which with our cooperation is built.”

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, NATO’s secretary-general, who ordered an end to “all practical and military cooperation” with Russia because of its military intervention in Ukraine and annexation of Crimea Article, this page

Afghans line up for voting registration

KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghans lined up by the hundreds Tuesday in a last-minute rush to register for voting cards before Saturday’s elections.

The Taliban have vowed to “use all force” to disrupt the balloting, and the militants already have staged several high-profile attacks in the Afghan capital of Kabul in recent weeks. But men and women queuing on the last day of registration said they won’t let the threats keep them from the polls as Afghanistan experiences its first democratic transfer of power.

President Hamid Karzai, who has ruled the country since shortly after the Taliban were ousted by a U.S.-led invasion in 2001, is constitutionally barred from a third term. The new leader will guide the country as foreign combat troops prepare to withdraw by the end of this year.

21 killed, 17 hurt in Nigeria bombing

More than a dozen people were killed in a suicide bombing in northern Nigeria, the Defense Ministry said Tuesday.

A suicide bomber set off one of four car bombs in the village of Mulai, near the Borno state capital of Maiduguri, Defense Ministry spokesman Chris Olukolade said. Three suicide bombers were shot to death by soldiers before they could set off their explosives.

Fifteen civilians and six suicide bombers died, and five soldiers and 12 civilians were wounded, Olukolade said. The four vehicles appeared to be headed for the oil depot, he said.

Borno is one of three northern states that Nigeria’s government placed under a state of emergency in May to curb violent attacks by the extremist Islamist sect Boko Haram.

Boko Haram, which means “Western education is forbidden,” has been active in the Muslim north of the West African country, carrying out attacks against government institutions and civilians.

Since 2009, more than 6,000 people have been killed in the violence.

Syria war’s toll tops 150,000, group says

BEIRUT - The death toll in Syria’s three-year conflict has exceeded 150,000, an activist group said Tuesday as fighting raged across the country, including an attack in the north that killed at least 31 people, nine of them children.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it has documented 150,344 deaths in the conflict that started in March 2011. The figure includes civilians, rebels, and members of the Syrian military. It also includes militiamen fighting alongside President Bashar Assad’s forces and foreign fighters battling for Assad’s ouster on the rebels’ side.

The Observatory bases its tally on information the group receives from a network of informants inside Syria.

In January, the United Nations said it had stopped updating its tally of the Syrian dead because it can no longer verify the sources of information that led to its last count of at least 100,000 in late July.

Of the 150,344 people who died in the conflict, about a third - or 51,212 - were civilians, including 7,985 children and 5,266 women, the Observatory said. The number also includes 26,561 rebel fighters and 35,601 Syrian soldiers as well as 22,879 Assad-loyal fighters and 11,220 foreign fighters battling on the opposition side. The group said unidentified casualties total 2,871.

Attack on Thai protesters leaves 1 dead

BANGKOK - Gunmen killed one person and wounded four others in an attack Tuesday on anti-government protesters, in the latest violence in Thailand’s long political crisis, authorities said.

The shots were fired at a bus and a flatbed truck carrying demonstrators to their camp in central Bangkok after they had protested at a government office complex just north of the city.

Emergency services said three men and two women were shot and that one of the men had died. Ramathibodi Hospital said 52-year-old Wasan Kamwong died from severe injuries to his head.

The attack underlined the continuing potential for violence in the country’s ongoing political crisis. Supporters of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, worried that she might be forced out of office by legal maneuvering, are threatening to take to the streets, opening up the possibility of clashes with anti-government demonstrators.

Since November, Yingluck’s opponents have been staging aggressive protests in Bangkok, temporarily blockading and occupying government offices, interfering with registration and voting in a general election in February, and clashing fiercely with police on several occasions.

Front Section, Pages 6 on 04/02/2014