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• MUMBAI, India (AP) -- India executed the lone surviving Pakistani gunman from the 2008 terror attack on Mumbai early Wednesday, providing Indians much-needed closure over the three-day rampage that shook the nation's core and deepened enmity with neighbor Pakistan.
• India blames a Pakistan-based militant organization for the attacks carried out by Mohammed Ajmal Kasab and his comrades that killed 166 people at a train station, a Jewish center and two luxury hotels in its financial capital. India accuses Pakistan's intelligence agency of training, arming and sponsoring the attackers, allegations Pakistan denies.
• Kasab, a Pakistani citizen, was hanged in secrecy at 7.30 a.m. at a jail in Pune, a

city near Mumbai, after Indian President Pranab Mukherjee rejected his plea for mercy.
• Indian authorities faced public pressure to quickly execute Kasab, and the government fast-tracked the appeal and execution process, which often can take years, or in some cases, decades.
• Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde said the home ministry sent Kasab's mercy plea to Mukherjee on Oct. 16 and Mukherjee rejected it on Nov. 5.
• ___

• KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Two Taliban suicide bombers struck near a U.S. base in Kabul early Wednesday, killing two Afghan guards in the heart of a neighborhood filled with foreign forces and embassies. The attack came despite increased security ahead of a Muslim holy day that last year saw one the capital's deadliest attacks.
• The bombers apparently meant to target the American base but were spotted by security guards as they approached on foot. The guards fired on the assailants, killing them, but not before one of the vests exploded, said Gen. Mohammad Daoud Amin, the deputy provincial police chief.
• Two Afghan security guards were killed and five civilians were wounded in the morning explosion, he said.

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