JERUSALEM -- A state ceremony in memory of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will be held Monday at the parliament building in Jerusalem, officials announced.

Services for Sharon, who died Saturday at 85 after being incapacitated for years by a stroke, are expected to draw dignitaries from around the world and thousands of admirers in Israel.

All meetings scheduled for Knesset committees Sunday and Monday have been canceled, according to arrangements announced after the Ministerial Committee for Symbols and Ceremonies convened Saturday to discuss plans for the ceremony and funeral, along with representatives of the army, police, Foreign Ministry and the Sharon family.

Sharon's coffin will arrive at the Knesset on Sunday. Special shuttles will be made available to members of the public wishing to pay their respects, officials said.

The attack occurred about 3:30 p.m., targeting a bus carrying police from a training center on Kabul's busy Pul-e-Charki road, said Kabul police spokesman Hashmat Stanikzai. 

The force of the blast was so great the bus was blown off the ground and crashed 10 yards away, witnesses said.  Pieces of twisted wreckage littered the road. 

More than 100 police and intelligence forces -- as well as French soldiers from the NATO coalition -- responded to the scene. 

A spokesman for the Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, which again demonstrated the  insurgents' ability to strike in the heart of the capital even as Afghanistan prepares for presidential elections in April and U.S.-led coalition forces plan to withdraw by the end of 2014. 

Hamed, a 22-year-old...

JERUSALEM -- The death of former Israeli prime minister and military leader Ariel Sharon was met with emotional responses Saturday in Israel and the Palestinian territories; in some quarters eliciting cries of sorrow, in others, tears of joy.

“My dear friend, Arik Sharon, lost his final battle today,” eulogized President Shimon Peres, among the last surviving members of Israel’s founding generation. He called Sharon a brave soldier and a daring leader and one of Israel’s “most important architects.”

Peres said Sharon knew no fear and “certainly never feared vision.” He knew to take difficult decisions and implement them, the president said.

In Gaza, meanwhile, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri called the day historic. Sharon’s hands were “stained with the blood of the Palestinian people” in Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank, he said, calling Sharon a war criminal.

In the West Bank city of Ramallah, the Associated Press...

JERUSALEM -- President Obama and other top American officials past and present offered their condolences on the passing of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who died on Saturday, eight years after suffering a massive, debilitating stroke.

Statements poured in from Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State John F. Kerry, as well as former President Clinton. Leaders of the Senate and House also extended sympathies.

Sharon was a man of controversy but the statements reflected a consensus of respect for the former leader’s dedication to his country, his courage to change his mind and his working friendship with the U.S.

“On behalf of the American people," the president's statement said, "Michelle and I send our deepest condolences ... on the loss of a leader who dedicated his life to the State of Israel.”

Obama stressed the enduring friendship between the two nations and reiterated U.S. commitment to bring peace and security to Israel, including a...

Shortly after midnight, Lutsenko tried to intervene in a confrontation between several hundred riot police and about a thousand protesters in downtown Kiev when police suddenly used tear gas and clubs against the crowd, Larisa Sargan, Lutsenko's press secretary, told the Los Angeles Times.

“Yuri was hit several times over the head with a club before he fell,” Sargan said in a phone interview. “His eyeglasses were broken, his head was badly bleeding when he was taken to a hospital. He passed out at least three times along the way.”

The Kiev protests turned violent in November and early December after President Victor Yanukovich refrained from signing a free trade and association agreement with the European Union, but since then they have been mostly peaceful, while sometimes drawing hundreds of...

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military secretly sent a small team of advisors to Somalia last month to assist with operations against militants, the first time U.S. troops have been stationed there since two helicopters were shot down and 18 American soldiers were killed in 1993.

The three-man advisor detachment is based at the airport in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, where a force from multiple African nations attempting to stabilize the war-ravaged Horn of Africa country has its headquarters, U.S. officials said.

The U.S. soldiers assist a force of more than 18,000 under the auspices of the African Union, which has been heavily backed by the United States and other Western countries since deploying to Somalia in 2007 with logistics help, intelligence and planning, the officials said.

The Americans also are helping Somalia’s fledgling security forces, which have struggled to assert control beyond Mogadishu and have often been the target of fierce attacks from the Shabab, an...

Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Friday condemned the killing of a 4-year-old boy this week during a security patrol by international forces, adding to the animosity between Kabul and Washington that may leave the war-ravaged country on its own at the end of this year to deal with a resurgent Taliban.

Karzai learned of the boy's death from visiting Helmand Gov. Naeem Baloch, presidential spokesman Aimal Faizi told journalists in Kabul.

The boy apparently was hit when shots were fired during an International Security Assistance Force patrol through farmland in Helmand province, an ISAF spokesman said.

"We condemn the killing of this boy in the strongest terms," Faizi said on behalf of Karzai, who was once closely aligned with U.S. officials but has become unpredictable and at times hostile toward his supposed wartime allies.

"We have been calling for the complete end of military operations in residential areas," Faizi said. "This demand has not been taken seriously by foreign troops and...

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa – The Central African Republic’s interim president, Michel Djotodia, agreed to resign Friday under regional pressure after failing to halt the brutal sectarian violence that has devastated the country, officials announced.

Djotodia, the Muslim Seleka rebel alliance leader who seized power last March in a coup, and interim prime minister, Nicolas Tiengaye, were stepping down, officials said at a special security summit in Chad convened by the Economic Community of Central African States.

Thousands of people took to the streets of the Central African Republic’s capital, Bangui, in jubilant celebration of the news, many of them displaced civilians hoping to return home.

Since the rebels ousted Christian-backed President Francois Bozize, nearly a million people have been forced to flee their homes. More than 1,000 people have been killed in the last month alone, in fighting between Christian and Muslim militias, according to human rights...

She answered questions Friday on Reddit about life inside the reclusive country and about leader Kim Jong Un, who celebrated his 31st birthday this week at an exhibition basketball game where he was serenaded by former NBA star Dennis Rodman.

Here are a few of the questions that generated interest. For more on North Korea, read the full Reddit AMA or follow Demick on Twitter @BarbaraDemick.

Questions from Reddit user would-prefer-not-to:

1) Thanks for doing this. What are your thoughts on international sanctions against trade with NK? I saw Katharina Zellweger give a talk where she decried them, saying that they punish the people for having an odious government and achieve little.

2) I read "Nothing to Envy" and it was one of the best non-fiction books I've ever come across. It read like a...

WASHINGTON -- The White House launched a harsh attack on supporters of a Senate bill to impose fresh sanctions on Iran, suggesting that they have a hidden goal of drawing the country into another Mideast war.

If supporters “want the United States to take military action, they should be up front with the American people and say so,” Bernadette Meehan, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said in a statement. “Otherwise, it’s not clear why any member of Congress would support a bill that possibly closes the door on diplomacy and makes it more likely that the United States will have to choose between military options or allowing Iran’s nuclear program to continue.”

[Updated at 1:30 p.m. on Jan. 10:  A pro-sanctions advocacy group, United Against a Nuclear Iran, pushed back.

“It is wrong for the White House to continue questioning the integrity and motives of anyone who supports more sanctions,” said Mark Wallace, chief executive...

CARACAS, Venezuela -- On the day a Venezuelan actress and her ex-husband, both slain by gunmen, were laid to rest, the head of the country's Roman Catholic bishops said the church is ready to join the government in a campaign to persuade those with firearms to give them up.

Bishop Diego Padron of Caracas was responding to an appeal by Interior Minister Miguel Rodriguez Torres, who since the Monday night slayings of Monica Spear, an actress and 2004 Miss Venezuela, and former husband Thomas Henry Berry, has launched an effort to reduce firearm ownership.

The pair were the best-known among thousands of people slain each year in Venezuela, which is among the most violent countries in the hemisphere. President Nicolas Maduro has announced a "pacification plan" to reduce the number  firearms, although details on how he will accomplish it have been scarce.

Padron said that clergy members won’t take physical possession of any weapons and that the campaign should be part of a renewed...