HELSINKI — A gunman went on a shooting rampage in Finland Thursday, killing his former girlfriend then slaying four others at a suburban shopping center before fatally shooting himself, police said.

Finnish police said three men and one woman, all employees at the Sello shopping center in Espoo, 10 kilometers west of Helsinki, were shot dead by a man using an unlicensed 9mm handgun.

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KABUL — Authorities in southern Afghanistan’s Helmand province said Thursday that a military operation on Taliban has claimed the lives of seven civilians in the province.

“NATO-led troops carried out air strike outside Helmand’s provincial capital Lashkargah on Wednesday, killing seven civilians and wounding two others,” spokesman for provincial administration Daud Ahmadi told Xinhua.

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ISLAMABAD — Pakistani police arrested a senior Pakistani Taliban commander, Khalil Ullah, the chief of the banned Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in east province of Punjab, local TV channel reported Thursday.

Khalil was alleged the mastermind behind a market bombing in Punjab’s capital city of Lahore on Dec. 7 that killed more than 40 people, the private TV DAWN News reported.