MAZAR-I-SHARIF: Four Taliban prisoners escaped from a northern Afghanistan jail and killed two guards using weapons that had been smuggled inside, officials said Friday.
The incident occurred in the relatively peaceful Faryab province on Thursday night, provincial spokesman Ahmad Jawed Deedar told AFP. The inmates used smuggled tools to break through their cell wall, later attacking a security watch tower with at least two grenades and a pistol, he said.
âUnfortunately two members of our security forces were killed and one injured, while one of the attackers was also killed trying to escape,â Deedar said.
The account was confirmed by the provincial deputy police chief Mohammad Naeem Andarabi, who said they suspected the weapons and tools were provided through visitors. He added that a manhunt was underway. âThis is unacceptable to see the prisoners manage to attack our security men from within the prison, we will get to the bottom of this and hunt the fugitives down,â he said.
Prison breaks are not uncommon in Afghanistan.
We should say not...
In March, a dozen Taliban fighters managed to walk free out of the main jail in Kandahar after forging a letter from Afghanistanâs Attorney General ordering their release. In April 2011, around 500 prisoners, most of them Taliban inmates, tunnelled for a quarter-of-a-mile under the walls of fortified prison in southern Kandahar province.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/19/2014 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
POLICE yesterday identified and released details of two suspected Alshabab financers in Mombasa county. Police said the suspects are behind recruitment of youths to join alshabab fighters, mainly within Majengo area in Mombasa.
Detectives believe the two are among key Alshabab sympathisers funding radical teachings. The teachers have been blamed for brainwashing and luring Muslim youths to join the terror groups. Mombasa county commissioner Nelson Marwa said the two allegedly support Jihad conventions in the country.
He said their motive is to incite youths to cause chaos through violent sermons in mosques. Marwa was speaking during a security meeting at the Mombasa police headquarters. He said the two are blamed for raising radicalisation that has seen muslim youths forceful take over mosques within Majengo area.
âOur Intelligence reports indicate the two recruit mainly convince young youths to join the terror group at a small fee. And they later cross over to Somalia to undergo military training in Somalia,â Marwa said.
He said the youths are given as little as Sh20,000 by the financiers, to join the terror group. Marwa said police are profiling them and investigating their source of their income before they are arrested and charged. âTheir details have been circulated among intelligence units,âhe said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/19/2014 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under: al-Shabaab
According to news reports from Balâad, a town in the Middle Shabelle region, a fierce confrontation erupted today between government troops including the military soldiers and police officers.
Officers from the Somali police force left Mogadishu this morning and were on the way to Jowhar, another town in the Middle Shabelle region, when they were attacked by military soldiers from the government on the main road near Balâad.
Although the precise numbers has not been specified yet, high-ranking officials and soldiers were killed in the intense clashes. The chief of the Somali police force for the Middle Shabelle region was also reported to have been slain in the ghastly skirmish.
The spokesperson for the Middle Shabelle regional administration claimed that the district commissioner of Balâad was responsible for todayâs violence resulting in the death of many. According to the spokesperson, the commissioner named Osman Hadole ordered military soldiers to attack the police officers that were en-route to Jowhar.
Several battlewagons belonging to the police officers were seized before the physical encounter erupted shortly as they were passing Balâad, a distance of 30km from the capital city Mogadishu.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/19/2014 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
"If you're the Police, show us your badges"
"badges, we don't have to show you no steenking badges"
*bang*
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/19/2014 8:57 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Now this fella can write good. Rarely see ghastly skirmish, not to mention battlewagons, used in a story these days.
[AnNahar] A landmine blast killed a soldier on Friday in western Tunisia's Mount Chaambi area, the defense ministry said, after warning of the growing threat from jihadists in the remote region.
"A landmine went kaboom! inside the closed military zone at 11:45 am (1045 GMT). The driver of a military vehicle was killed," ministry front man Taoufik Rahmouni told Agence La Belle France Presse.
He said a shootout between soldiers and Islamist bully boyz had broken out earlier.
Tunisia this week declared Mount Chaambi, as well as some surrounding areas including the mountains of Sammama, Salloum and Mghilla, "zones closed for military operations".
Rahmouni had said on Thursday that the decision was prompted by the "growing number of threats made by terrorist organizations based in the area" and was designed to contain and limit their activities.
Since late 2012, security forces have been battling dozens of bully boyz hiding out in the Mount Chaambi region just a few kilometers (miles) from the border with Algeria.
In July, eight soldiers were killed in an ambush in the area, and others have died or been maimed in kabooms caused by improvised landmines.
Rahmouni said the security operations in the region were taking place with the cooperation of the Algerian army, and were also targeting organized crime networks trafficking weapons and drugs.
The Tunisian army has repeatedly sought in its western border region to eradicate the threat posed by jihadists whom the authorities say are linked to al-Qaeda.
It launched a major air and ground operation targeting the bully boyz last August.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
04/19/2014 07:03 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in North Africa
An Egyptian police officer was killed late Friday when an explosion rocked a busy district in central Cairo, state news agency MENA reported.
A bomb targeting a traffic checkpoint was detonated in the Lebanon Square in western Mohandessin district of Giza, killing a police officer from the Giza traffic department and injuring another, the security forces said, Xinhua reported.
Witnesses said several attackers riding a motorbike threw the bomb from a nearby bridge above the checkpoint.
An investigation has been launched to search for the attackers and more possible devices.
No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack. But a Sinai-based Jihadist group Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis, closely related to al-Qaida, had claimed responsibility for most of similar attacks.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/19/2014 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
[Iran Press TV] People have taken to streets across Bahrain to protest against the Al Khalifa regime following the death of an anti-regime protester.
Friday's protest, dubbed "The Demands Remain," followed the death of Bahraini activist Abulaziz al-Abbar.
"Abbar has been martyred today, after police directly shot his head on February 23," said al-Wefaq National Islamic Society, the main opposition bloc in the country, on its Twitter feed earlier in the day.
In Abbar's hometown, the village of Sanabis which is situated in the west of the capital Manama, police used force against the demonstrators to put an end to the protest.
In the village of Daih, also in the west of the capital, protesters rolled their eyes, jumped up and down, and hollered poorly rhymed slogans real loud against violations committed by the ruling Al Khalifa family.
Sheikh Ali Salman, the head of al-Wefaq, was also seen among the crowd at a protest in the village of Salmabad, southwest of Manama.
Similar demonstrations were also held in the eastern island of Sitra.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/19/2014 10:31 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under: Arab Spring
A drone strike Saturday killed 15 Al-Qaeda suspects and three civilians in Yemen's central Baida province, a stronghold of the bad boy group, a security official said.
The jihadists were traveling in a vehicle towards the southern Shabwa province, witnesses said. The three civilians were passing by in another car.
The United States is the only country that operates drones in Yemen, but officials rarely discuss the covert program.
Last month, Yemen's President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi defended the use of drones against Al-Qaeda in his country, which has killed dozens of snuffies in a sharply intensified campaign over the past year.
Drone strikes "have greatly helped in limiting Al-Qaeda activities, despite some mistakes which we are sorry about," Hadi told the pan-Arab Al-Hayat daily.
The drone program has come under criticism from human rights One man's rights are another man's existential threat. activists concerned over civilian casualties.
The United Nations ...the Oyster Bay money pit... said 16 non-combatants were killed and at least 10 maimed when two separate wedding processions were targeted in December.
The victims had been mistakenly identified as members of Al-Qaeda, it quoted local security officials as saying at the time.
Following the deaths, Yemen's parliament voted for a ban on drone strikes, but analysts say politicians are unlikely to be able to halt the US campaign.
The United States has defended the drone campaign, which allows it to target Al-Qaeda without the use of ground forces in lawless areas where authorities cannot or will not act against the group.
Yemen is the ancestral home of the late Osama bin Laden ... who used to be alive but now he's not... and the home base of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which has been linked to a number of failed attacks on the US homeland.
The group has taken advantage of the weakening of the central government since 2011, when a popular uprising erupted that eventually forced president President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it... to step down after 33 years in power.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
04/19/2014 07:44 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Arabia
[Iran Press TV] Large crowds of demonstrators in the southern Pak port city of Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... have held a large rally to protest against the targeted liquidation of their fellow Shia Mohammedans.
On Friday, the Shia community in Karachi also held a funeral procession for a citizen who was rubbed out by Takfiri ...an adherent of takfir wal hijra, an offshoot of Salafism that regards everybody who doesn't agree with them as apostates who most be killed... terrorists.
Arshad Hussein Naqvi and two of his Sunni friends came under attack on Tuesday. His friends was struck down in his prime while Naqvi sustained serious injuries, resulting in his death.
Naqvi was a leading member of a Shia group, responsible for the security of religious processions in Karachi.
Violence against Shia Mohammedans has been on the rise across Pakistain. At least 10 senior figures, including two doctors, two lawyers and an academic, have been killed over the past few weeks.
The banned group Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistain ...a Sunni Deobandi organization, a formerly registered Pak political party, established in the early 1980s in Jhang by Maulana Haq Nawaz Jhangvi. Its stated goal is to oppose Shia influence in Pakistain. They're not too big on Brelvis, either. Or Christians. Or anybody else who's not them. The organization was banned in 2002 as a terrorist organization, but somehow it keeps ticking along, piling up the corpse counts... (SSP) is reportedly responsible for the liquidation.
The Shia mourners shouted slogans against the myrmidon group as well as the government in Islamabad.
They blamed the foreign-funded Takfiri elements and pro-Taliban groups for the violence.
Shia Mohammedans in Pakistain also say the government must take decisive action against the forces involved in the assassinations. They also accuse Islamabad of failing to provide security for the Mohammedan community.
Pro-Taliban groups have launched a violent campaign against Shia Mohammedans and appear to have widened their terror campaign in major Pak cities.
Several Shia religious gatherings have been targeted in different parts of the country over the past few months.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/19/2014 02:05 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under: Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan
PESHAWAR: A soldier was killed and two others were injured on Friday as militants attacked a security forcesâ vehicle on the Frontier Road in the outskirts of Peshawar. The attack came just two days after the Taliban shura refused to extend the 40-day ceasefire with the government. DSP Fazle Wahid told local reporters that the convoy was attacked near Aziz Market in Sheikhan village that borders the Khyber tribal region.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/19/2014 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
PESHAWAR: An ammunition depot in Landi Kotal Cantonment caught fire due to short-circuiting at around 2am on Friday as a result of which a massive fire erupted and plenty of explosions took place.
Nobody claimed responsibility for an 'attack'? That's a terrorist free-be right there...
According to sources, many shells landed in the nearby area of Khuga Khel and a 12-year-old girl was injured with splinters of a mortar that hit her house. However, all security personnel remained safe. The explosions continued for four hours as bullets, mortars, hand grenades, canon shells and rockets exploded and went in all four directions. This created huge panic among the locals, source added.
Personnel of security forces took positions and all entry and exit routes to the contentment were sealed, sources said. The administration ordered closure of schools as a precautionary measure. It asked the locals to stay away from live shells, if found at any place, and inform the Khasadar force at the earliest.
As opposed to re-use...
Security forces said that the incident took place because of short-circuiting. They denied that it was an outcome of militantsâ attack.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/19/2014 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
QUETTA: Akbar Bugti Express of the Pakistan Railways came under attack in Bolan area of the Balochistan on Friday with no casualties reported. According to the details, gunmen in the mountains attacked the train at a time when it was en route from Rawalpindi to Quetta. The gunfire did damage the bogies of the train, but luckily no casualties were reported.
The law enforcement agencies reached the site shortly after the incident and escorted the train to Quetta. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/19/2014 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
[Ynet] Thai report confirms claims that Hezbollah terror cell planned a Passover attack in Bangkok, claims two out of nine-man cell already in jug. Search for bombing making material continues after suspect supplies information.
Official in Thailand claim that a Hezbollah cell locked away Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! early this week was planning a terror attack against Israeli tourists visiting Bangkok during the Passover holiday, the Bangkok Post reported.
The attack was suppose to take place in the Khao San Road, the city's main tourist hub popular with Israeli travelers, during the holiday of Songkran which coincides with Passover.
A source within the investigation told the Bangkok Post that the two suspects arrested were French-Lebanese national Daoud Farhat and Lebanese-Filipino national Youssef Ayad. It is unclear whether Bilal Bahsoun, an additional suspect petitioned in relation to the attack, is in Thailand.
According to the report both Farhat and Ayad were born in Leb, though Thai authorities have yet to confirm whether the travel documents were genuine or not.
The report further claimed that the Thai police received intelligence information from Israel about the planned Passover attack, and claimed Sherlocks believe at least nine suspected foreign Death Eaters connected to Hezbollah are somewhere in the nation.
According to a source cited by the report, Ayad had supplied the police with useful information and admitted the group entered Thailand to carry out an attack against Israelis in the city's Khao San Road.
"Now we can seize materials, such as nails and bolts, used in making bombs from their homes in Bangkok. We are taking the holder of the Philippines passport to Rayong province to search for more bomb-making material kept there," the source told the post.
"If we had been unable to arrest the men during Songkran (Passover holiday), a kaboom would certainly have taken place somewhere on Khao San Road," the source further said.
Thai Police Lt. Gen Winai said the two Death Eaters would be deported immediately after Thai police finish questioning them: "They are still being questioned thoroughly. We have not yet pressed any charges against them. Once we finish questioning them, we will deport them.
More than 30 alleged members of the insurgent New People's Army (NPA) surrendered to Philippine government troops on Friday.
At least 37 members of the NPA's Armed Propaganda Unit, People's Militia and the tribal Solid Mass Organization (MASSO) turned themselves in.Mindanao's Agusan del Sur province, said Captain Christian Uy. They included an NPA squad leader who also handed over an Ingram sub-machine pistol. The other former militants also surrendered 36 various firearms and improvised explosives.
Uy said, "The reason of their surrender is a realization that their cooperation with the NPAs brought them no benefits but only made them suffer. The NPAs exploited them by using them as work force in constructing their bases, manning their communal farms and in manufacturing and laying of IEDs.".
#1
"The NPAs exploited them by using them as work force in constructing their bases, manning their communal farms and in manufacturing and laying of IEDs."
Thai police have denied authorities were involved in the fatal shooting of a key insurgent who was wanted for six security-related crimes in the far South.
Mukta Ali-mama was killed on Thursday night after unknown attackers opened fire on him and his six-year-old son in Yala province. The boy later died at the hospital. After the shooting, police rushed to the scene but were forced to retreat in the face of a storm of bullets.
Yala police chief Colonel Sukon Sri-arun said, "An ongoing investigation suggests that internal conflicts within his [Mukta's] group might have led to the fatal attack."
Mukta has been blamed for several crimes in the far South. In 2007, he allegedly played a role in the attack on a military base at a school that killed a ranger. Mukta was also accused of killing Pol Captain Thoranit Srisuk, a famous bomb-disposal expert. He was also facing numerous charges relating to multiple attempts to murder officials.
Also on Thursday night, a local leader was dragged out of a mosque in Pattani province and gunned down in front of it. The victim was the chairman of the Tambon Korlortanyong Administrative Organisation.
Witnesses reported that while Adisak was praying inside the mosque with several people, two men stormed in and arm-locked his neck. A police source said, "After they dragged him out, one of them used the victim's gun to shoot him in the head."
Adisak had previously survived two other shooting attacks. Police are trying to determine the motive behind his killing.
[AnNahar] Syrian army forces advanced Friday around rebel-held areas of the Old City of Homs, as a boom-mobile hit a regime-controlled part of the city, killing 14 people.
Around 1,200 rebel fighters and nearly 200 civilians are believed to be inside the rebel-held parts of the Old City, under army siege for nearly two years.
The army, which began a broad offensive there on Tuesday, "is progressing daily by capturing buildings and tightening the noose around the terrorist groups", a security source said.
Syrian authorities refer to all those seeking the ouster of Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Leveler of Latakia... as "terrorists".
The source added that regime forces had seized a church in the Old City.
State news agency SANA said the army had captured buildings in the Bab Hud and Wadi al-Sayeh districts and "killed a number of forces of Evil in Homs city and around it".
Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, confirmed the advance, saying the army was shelling Bab Hud and Wadi al-Sayeh.
But he said the regime had so far only captured buildings rather than whole streets and fighting was continuing.
"There are street battles, but the loyalist forces are not advancing much because the buildings are mined," said the head of the monitoring group, which collects its information from a network of medics on the ground and opposition activists.
The remaining rebel fighters in Homs "know the area very well and refuse to leave. They want to fight until the end", he added.
On Thursday, members of the U.N. Security Council expressed concern ...meaning the brow was mildly wrinkled, the eyebrows drawn slightly together, and a thoughtful expression assumed, not that anything was actually done or indeed that any thought was actually expended... over the plight of Syrian civilians caught in the renewed fighting in Homs.
And they called for implementation of a resolution passed in February urging immediate access of humanitarian assistance in all parts of Syria.
The U.S. on Friday described the situation in Homs as "desperate and tragic" and called on the Syrian government to stop attacks in the city.
A State Department statement called for an "end to the barbaric acts committed against civilians".
In February, a U.N.-led operation evacuated around half of the 3,000 people trapped under army siege in rebel-held parts of Homs city.
On Thursday, U.N.-Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... envoy Lakhdar Brahimi urged the Syrian government and opposition to resume discussions about lifting the siege.
"It is a matter of deep regret that negotiations were brutally stopped and violence is now rife again when a comprehensive agreement seemed close at hand," Brahimi added.
On Friday afternoon, state media and the Observatory reported, a boom-mobilewent kaboom! outside a mosque in the government-controlled Homs district of Al-Walid.
State media said it detonated as people were leaving the mosque after weekly Friday prayers.
Meanwhile, ...back at the Alamo, Davy was wondering if Buck was okay. He suspected he wasn't... in northern Aleppo city, the Observatory said at least 10 people had been killed in shelling and aerial bombardment of rebel-held areas.
At least three children were among those killed, the monitoring group said.
The Syrian regime has waged a campaign of aerial raids including the use of explosives-packed barrel bombs that has prompted an exodus of civilians from rebel-held areas.
In recent days fighting between rebels and regime forces in the city has ramped up, with some 50 combatants from both sides killed in an opposition assault on a military base on an eastern outskirt of Aleppo, according to the Observatory.
And in Mleiha, in Damascus province, the Observatory said at least 15 air raids had been carried out as regime forces backed by fighters from Leb's Hizbullah ...Party of God, a Leb militia inspired, founded, funded and directed by Iran. Hizbullah refers to itself as The Resistance and purports to defend Leb against Israel, with whom it has started and lost one disastrous war to date, though it did claim victory... battled rebels on the ground.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
04/19/2014 07:44 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[6 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
[AnNahar] The Israeli army released late Thursday two Lebanese shepherds, the same day it kidnapped them from Lebanese territories in the South.
The Lebanese army said in a communique that shepherds Hassan Zahra and his brother Ismail Zahra, who hail from the border town of Shebaa, crossed into Leb through the Naqoura crossing with the help of U.N. peacekeepers.
An Israeli foot patrol kidnapped the two men along with two women and a child after crossing the border into the area of Bastara farms.
The army said in a prior communique that the women - Nuhad Ali Awad and Wafaa Ali Moussa and the child Wouroud Hussein Zahra - were detained after they attempted to thwart the kidnapping.
But Israel later released them, the military said.
[Ynet] 14 people were killed by a boom-mobile that went kaboom! outside a mosque in a pro-government district of the central city of Homs, Syrian state television ... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
said Friday.
The bombing occurred as worshippers were leaving the Bilal al-Habshi mosque on the edge of Akrama after attending Friday prayers, according to the report.
Syrian opposition activists confirmed the kaboom in the predominantly Alawite district but had no immediate details on casualties.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
04/19/2014 02:47 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[6 views]
Top|| File under: Arab Spring
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
MAZAR-I-SHARIF: Four Taliban prisoners escaped from a northern Afghanistan jail and killed two guards using weapons that had been smuggled inside, officials said Friday.
PESHAWAR: A soldier was killed and two others were injured on Friday as militants attacked a security forcesâ vehicle on the Frontier Road in the outskirts of Peshawar. The attack came just two days after the Taliban shura refused to extend the 40-day ceasefire with the government. DSP Fazle Wahid told local reporters that the convoy was attacked near Aziz Market in Sheikhan village that borders the Khyber tribal region.
PESHAWAR: An ammunition depot in Landi Kotal Cantonment caught fire due to short-circuiting at around 2am on Friday as a result of which a massive fire erupted and plenty of explosions took place. 
QUETTA: Akbar Bugti Express of the Pakistan Railways came under attack in Bolan area of the Balochistan on Friday with no casualties reported. According to the details, gunmen in the mountains attacked the train at a time when it was en route from Rawalpindi to Quetta. The gunfire did damage the bogies of the train, but luckily no casualties were reported. 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
