More than 17 people have been killed and hundreds wounded in a gunbattle between security forces and Lal Mosque students here Tuesday that led to put red security alert across the country, said police and hospital sources.

An Al-Qaeda leader in Iraq boasted before last week’s failed bombings in London and Glasgow that his group was planning to attack British targets and that “those who cure you will kill you,” The Times newspaper revealed Wednesday.

Boris Berezovsky, the exiled Russian billionaire and fierce Kremlin critic who lives in London, has been formally accused by Russian authorities of plotting a coup.