An outspoken anti-Taliban governor and 14 other people were killed Friday when a massive blast tore through a mosque in northern Afghanistan, a police commander told AFP.

A government spokesman said the explosion was caused by a planted bomb in Taluqan, the capital of Takhar province.

The U.S. administration wants lawmakers to restore millions of dollars in U.S. military aid to the Lebanese army that they suspended over concerns it could be used to target Israel, senior administration and congressional officials told The Associated Press.

They said a review of the assistance has concluded its resumption was in the interest of America's national security and Middle East stability.

Naomi Campbell testified before the war crimes tribunal Thursday, confirming that she had received some "dirty-looking stones" after a dinner with former Liberian ruler Charles Taylor but stopping short of saying they were diamonds or that she was given the gift by Taylor himself.

Campbell was being questioned in Taylor's war crimes trial about claims made by actress Mia Farrow that Taylor gave the model an uncut diamond or diamonds after a dinner party hosted by Nelson Mandela that they all attended in South Africa in 1997.

North Korea's military threatened Tuesday to retaliate against South Korea over its planned naval drills this week near their disputed sea border.

The North's official Korean Central News Agency said that the military would crush the naval drills with a powerful physical blow and warned all civilian ships to stay away from areas near the sea border.

Outbreaks of violence in Pakistan's largest city of Karachi killed at least 31 people overnight following the murder of a lawmaker in a drive-by shooting, officials said.

Lawmaker Raza Haider from the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), a partner in the Sindh provincial ruling coalition led by the Pakistan Peoples Party, was shot dead by gunmen on motorcycles Monday.

About 130 Kurdish rebels have been killed since March in military operations inside Turkey and neighboring Iraq, where the militants take refuge, a Turkish military official said Friday.

Intelligence obtained after a May 20 air raid on Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) hideouts in northern Iraq indicated that more than 100 militants of the group were killed, General Fahri Kir told reporters.

The EU's refusal to accept Turkey as a member swiftly has partly caused Ankara's foreign policy shift and the deterioration in its relations with Israel, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Wednesday.

"The deterioration in the relationship between Turkey and Israel over the past year or so is a matter of concern," Gates told reporters in London.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad led a chorus of defiant Iranian criticism of new U.N. sanctions imposed on the Islamic republic on Wednesday, saying they deserved to be "thrown in the trash bin."

"These resolutions are not worth a dime for the Iranian nation," he said.

NATO blamed the Taliban on Thursday over an attack on an Afghan wedding that killed more than 40 people in an area U.S.-led troops are massing to dislodge insurgents from their fiefdom.

The cause of the carnage has been unclear, but the government said initial reports indicated that a suicide bomber strapped with explosives had walked into the party reportedly attended by members of an anti-Taliban militia.