Kyrgyzstan

Cargo Plane Crash Kills at Least 37

A Turkish cargo plane crashed in a residential area just outside the main airport in Kyrgyzstan, destroying half of a village and killing at least 37 people in the plane and on the ground, the Emergency Situations Ministry said.

The Boeing 747 crashed at 7:40 a.m. local time Monday while approaching Manas airport, south of the capital, Bishkek, in the Central Asian nation.

Images showed the plane's nose protruding from a brick house and large chunks of debris scattered around. A dozen body bags were laid out in the yard of one home. A car parked nearby was mangled in the crash.

The bodies of 15 victims, including five children, all of them Kyrgyz citizens, had been identified by Monday evening, the Kyrgyz government said on its website.

Kyrgyz Emergency Situations Minister Kubatbek Boronov said 23 out of the 43 houses in the village had been destroyed. Several dozen homes were near the fence surrounding the runway.

The plane, which had departed from Hong Kong, belonged to Turkish cargo company ACT Airlines. The cause of the crash wasn't immediately clear.

ACT Airlines said the crash wasn't the result of "technical reasons or factors linked to the freight" on the plane. It didn't specify the plane's cargo.

--Associated Press

France

Envoys Signal Trump On Peace Process

Top diplomats gathered in Paris to affirm their stance on peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians, days before President-elect Donald Trump takes office.

Some 75 governments and international organizations used Sunday's meeting to send a message to Mr. Trump that the only viable solution to the conflict is the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

French President François Hollande said that decades of talks to create a Palestinian state can't be "improvised or overturned."

Mr. Trump's moves on Middle East policy have threatened to upset the delicate balance that the U.S. has striven to preserve between Israel and the Palestinians. He has pledged to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, a step seen by Palestinians as backing Israel's claim to the contested city as its exclusive capital.

--Matthew Dalton and Rory Jones

Afghanistan

Islamic State Blamed For Clerics' Kidnapping

Afghan officials accused Islamic State of kidnapping 14 Muslim clerics from a religious school in Nangarhar province, a seizure that fuels fears the militant group is making a comeback in its eastern stronghold after setbacks at the hands of Afghan and U.S. forces last year.

The abductions occurred Sunday morning in the district of Haska Mina, said Mohammad Asif Shinwari, a local education official. Those taken from the Sunni Muslim school included 12 lecturers and two administrators, he said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the kidnappings, but Mr. Shinwari blamed the local affiliate of Islamic State.

"No other militant group except Daesh operates in the area," he said, referring to the militant group by its Arabic acronym.

--Habib Khan Totakhil

TURKEY

New Year's Gunman Said to Be Caught

A gunman suspected of killing 39 people during a New Year's attack on an Istanbul nightclub has been caught in a police operation, Turkish media reported.

Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the nightclub massacre, saying the attack was in response to Turkish military operations in northern Syria. The man identified as the suspect had been on the run since the attack.

A Kyrgyz man and three women were detained along with the suspect, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported. Police were carrying out raids on other suspected Islamic State group cells, the news agency said without providing details.

--Associated Press

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 17, 2017 02:48 ET (07:48 GMT)

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