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(CNN) -- A Nigerian militant group has claimed responsibility after a car loaded with explosives rammed into the United Nations' building in the capital, killing 23, a government spokesman said Monday.

The suicide attack Friday shattered windows, set the building ablaze and left gaping holes on the walls.

Radical Muslim sect Boko Haram, which aims to enforce a strict version of Sharia law, has claimed responsibility, said Reuben Abati, the government spokesman.

Eighty-one people were injured, he said.

The attack targeted a building that housed 26 U.N. humanitarian and development agencies, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said last week. The Liberian and U.S. embassies are also nearby. "This was an assault on those who devote their lives to helping others," Ban said.

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan described the suicide bombing as "barbaric, senseless and cowardly" and intensified security around the capital.

The capital of Abuja has experienced a series of bombings in recent months.

Baghdad (CNN) -- A series of bomb attacks throughout Iraq left 35 people dead and scores injured, officials with Iraq's Interior Ministry and police said Sunday.

At least 28 people were killed in a suicide bombing attack in a Sunni mosque in the Ghazaliya neighborhood in western Baghdad late Sunday, an Interior Ministry official said. At least 37 others were wounded in the attack. A Sunni member of Parliament, Khalid al-Fahdawi, was among the dead.

In Tarmiyah, about 40 kilometers north of Baghdad, two people were killed and five were wounded after a bomb exploded near a Sunni mosque as worshippers finished up a nightly prayer for the celebrations of Ramadan, an Interior Ministry spokesman said.

Also Sunday, an bomb explosion killed two people in the Baghdad's Shiite-majority neighborhood of Jadriya, the spokesman said.

In Mosul, six roadside bombs exploded in the town's center, wounding five police officers and two civilians.

he death of al Qaeda's No. 2, Atiyah Abdul Rahman in Pakistan, is a hammer blow to the terrorist organization.


Al Qaeda's second-in-command, Atiya Abdul Rahman, has been killed in Pakistan, a U.S. official said Saturday.

According to a U.S. official, Abdul Rahman, a 43-year-old veteran Libyan operative, rose to the number two spot after the death of Osama bin Laden in May, which saw the Egyptian Ayman al Zawahiri take over the leadership of the terrorist group. In that capacity Rahman ran daily operations for the group, according to the official.

"There's no question this is a major blow to al Qaeda. Atiyah was at the top of al Qaeda's trusted core," the official said.

Intelligence garnered from bin Laden's compound in Abbotabad, Pakistan, showed that Rahman had emerged as bin Laden's key deputy in the years before his death.

It was mainly through Rahman that bin Laden continued to issue instructions to al Qaeda operatives around the world. These messages, U.S. intelligence agencies established, were passed on in the form of draft e–mails copied onto thumb drives that were smuggled out of the compound by a courier. Bin Laden's plans sent on to Rahman included the idea of attacking the United States on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, according to the Washington Post.


Rahman appears to have been killed by a drone strike in the tribal areas of Pakistan, a fate he may have been expecting. According to reports, he sent a message to bin Laden a year before the latter's death complaining of the danger to the organization's operatives by the strikes.

The Libyan will be very hard to replace.

"Rahman has been at the nerve center of al Qaeda's global terrorist operations," Noman Benotman, a former Libyan jihadist acquainted with Rahman, bin Laden and other top al Qaeda leaders, told CNN in an interview earlier this week. "He has become their CEO, the only person that al Qaeda cannot afford to lose."

Rahman has played a growing operational role for al Qaeda in recent years. In 2008 he helped handle Bryant Neal Vinas, an American al Qaeda recruit who helped al Qaeda develop a bomb plot against the Long Island Rail Road in 2008, according to a U.S. counter-terrorism source familiar with Vinas' subsequent interrogation.

Istanbul (CNN) -- A growing number of Syria's Middle Eastern neighbors, including its closest allies Iran and Hezbollah, are calling on the embattled and defiant Damascus regime to implement reforms.

The chorus of foreign criticism and concern comes as opposition demonstrators inside Syria have begun for the first time making public appeals for foreign "protection."

In an amateur video believed to have been filmed over the weekend in the southern town of Horan, a crowd of dozens of young Syrians clapped and chanted "the people demand international protection." In another video, also posted on YouTube this weekend, activsts held up printed signs saying "we need international protection," in English and Arabic.

This is a dramatic departure from the position demonstrators staked out during more than five months of protests against the government of Syrian president Bashar al- Assad. Previously, activists rejected the possibility of any foreign military intervention similar to the NATO bombing campaign of Libya.

But inside Syria, there are signs that the opposition movement has grown frustrated with the high death toll resulting from a brutal government crackdown. According to the United Nations, more than 2200 people have been killed during the uprising, in addition to mass arrests and allegations of torture by Syrian security forces. In the video recorded in Horan, some Syrians held up signs saying "Yes to Arab deterrent Forces." Activists tell CNN, on condition of anonymity to protect from persecution, there is more debate in opposition circles about new measures ranging from requesting a foreign military "no fly zone" over Syria to trying to arm protesters with weapons.

"In an unprecedented move over the past several days, Syrians in Syria and abroad have been calling for Syrians to take up arms, or for international military intervention," announced a prominent Syrian opposition group, the Local Coordination Committees in Syria, in an e-mailed statement on Monday.

"While we understand the motivation to take up arms or call for military intervention, we specifically reject this position as we find it unacceptable politically, nationally, and ethically," the Committees went on to say, arguing that militarization would "erode the morale superiority" of the Syrian revolution.

As frustrated protesters contemplate alternative options, Turkey and the Arab league have stepped up their criticism of the al-Assad regime.

Turkish president Abdullah Gul blasted his Syrian counterpart in remarks that were televised on Sunday, saying that Ankara had "lost confidence" in its former ally and trading partner.

Mexico City (CNN) -- Five gang members have confessed to involvement in last week's torching of a casino in Monterrey in which 52 people were killed, Nuevo Leon Gov. Rodrigo Medina de la Cruz told reporters Monday.

The five are members of Los Zetas and carried out the attack because the owners of the casino had not complied with their extortion demands, Medina de la Cruz said, according to the state-run Notimex News Agency.

The State Agency of Investigations identified the suspects as Luis Carlos Carrazco Espinosa, 25; Javier Alonso Martinez Morales, alias "el Javo," 37, from Monterrey; Jonathan Jahir Reyna Gutierrez, 18; Juan Angel Leal Flores, 20; and Julio Tadeo Berrones, 28, alias "El Julio Rayas."

The five have been arrested and "have confessed, and we have scientific proof that these people participated," Medina de la Cruz said.

The attorney general's office said evidence points to involvement by all five men, "some as intellectual authors, others as accomplices and lookouts, others as material authors, others as drivers."

"Presumably, there was a disagreement and this crime was perpetrated as a reprisal," Medina de la Cruz said.

At least two other people were being sought for alleged participation in the killings, he said, adding that he would not reveal details that might jeopardize the investigation.

The attack appears to have been directed at the casino and not at city residents, "and the situation got out of the criminals' control."

"They may not have counted on killing 52 human beings," he said.

Medina de la Cruz, who was accompanied at the news conference by Nuevo Leon Attorney General Leon Adrian de la Garza, and the state's security spokesman, Jorge Domene, underscored that the investigation into the casino properties is continuing.

CNN) -- The United Nations warned Monday of a possible resurgence of the deadly avian flu virus, saying there are indications a mutant strain may be spreading in Asia.

A variant strain of the H5N1 avian influenza virus, which can apparently bypass the defenses of current vaccines with unpredictable risks to humans, has appeared in Vietnam and China, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) stated.

Circulation of the virus in Vietnam threatens Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, Japan and the Korean peninsula, the FAO said.

The most recent death caused by avian flu occurred this month in Cambodia, where eight people have died after becoming infected this year, the organization added.