At least nine civilians have been killed in festivities between African Union troops and anti-government fighters in Somalia, medical sources and witnesses say. I've often wondered if the occasional AU or al-Shabaab casualty is accidental...
Three days of heavy fighting ... as opposed to the more usual light or sporadic fighting... in the strife-torn capital has claimed at least 30 lives and injured another 50 people, a Press TV correspondent reported form Mogadishu.
There have been concerns over the increasing number of civilian casualties, as the government of the lawless Horn of Africa nation and pro-government troops seek to defend the country's fragile government, our correspondent said.
In Tuesday's attack, mortars fired by the AU forces hit the busy Bakara market in southern Mogadishu, leading to most of the civilian tolls, witnesses told AFP.
"Our medical team has collected around nine civilians who were killed in the shelling in Bakara market and neighborhoods in northern Mogadishu's Karan district. They also reported 21 injured civilians," said Ali Muse, the head of Mogadishu's ambulance service.
Other witnesses put the civilian corpse count at 11.
"The African forces started firing heavy artillery shells at Bakara and other neighborhoods after fighting broke out at their positions in Hodan and Karan districts. I saw 11 civilians killed in the shelling, five of them in one spot at Bakara," AFP quoted a witness, Omar Moalim Adan, as saying.
However, The infamous However... Somali government forces have denied accusations by residents that Ugandan and Burundian soldiers serving under the AU mission in Somalia used excessive force and were firing indiscriminately at residential areas.
"The violent elements were firing mortars and anti-aircraft weapons during the fighting and the African Union troops returned fire," said Abdi Isa, a government security official.
"But I can assure you that they never targeted civilian populated areas," he added.
Boilerplate follows...
Somalia has lacked a functioning government since 1991, when warlords overthrew former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
Clashes between rival factions, famine, and disease have claimed over one million lives in the past two decades.
There are more than 1.4 million internally displaced people in Somalia, of whom over 300,000 are sheltering in Mogadishu.
Most of the displaced live in poor and degrading conditions in makeshift camps in southern and central Somalia, according to the United Nations, aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society High Commissioner for Refugees.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/01/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
I'm beginning to wonder how many of those "civilian" casualties are really al-shaboob gunnies without their guns.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/01/2010 12:53 Comments ||
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#2
When al-Shabaab enters your family's shack, keeps all present there and starts shooting from it, and the AU isn't constrained by things like an ROE...
[Yemen Post] At least two soldiers were maimed in an attack that hit a military vehicle in Lawder town in Yemen's southern province of Abyan.
No casualties were reported but according to local sources, one of the two soldiers is at death's door, after the attack which took place in southern Yemen.
Lately, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has grabbed credit for a suicide kaboom attack which killed at least 26 people and maimed others, at procession of Houthis in northern Yemen last week.
In recent months, (AQAP) has stepped up attacks against security and military officers, vehicles and buildings, mainly in southern and southeastern provinces.
In response, the authorities have been waging large-scale operations against gunnies killing, wounding and arresting many of them.
AQAP was behind international bombing attempts, including the parcel bombs intercepted in Britain and Dubai in route to the United States in October.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/01/2010 00:00 ||
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[Al Jazeera] Rangzieb Ahmed, a British man of Pak origin and allegedly al-Qaeda's top agent in the UK, is appealling a conviction against "terrorism" offences handed down two years ago.
At the centre of the appeal, which began in London on Tuesday, are his claims that the British government was involved in the torture that he was subjected to by Pakistain's Intelligence Services [ISI] . "Alistair!"
"Sir!"
"Torture that man!"
In 2006 Ahmed was held in Pakistain by the ISI during a British counter-terrorism operation, following which he was deported and tried in Manchester in 2008.
He was convicted of being an al-Qaeda member and also of directing a terrorist organisation.
Ahmed also admitted to membership of Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, a group considered a terrorist organisation by the British.
The 34-year-old is currently serving a life sentence in prison.
'Travesty of justice'
Judges at the court of appeal in London have heard Ahmed's account of torture carried out by the ISI, who removed three of his fingernails during questioning, and claims that Britain MI5 and Greater Manchester Police knew about it.
Ahmed, who is pushing to have his conviction overturned, says it was evidence gained during this time that was used to convict him of leading an al-Qaeda cell in 2008.
His appeal, which he has been watching via videophone from his prison cell in northern England, is expected to continue in the coming days and judges will also hear from government lawyers.
Ahmed previously sent a letter to Al Jizz in which he calls these proceedings a "charade" and a "travesty of justice".
The UK government's response to the allegations of complicity in his torture was heard while the court was sitting in camera.
Al Jizz's Paul Brennan said "the whole issue of complicity in torture is a very sensitive one for the British government".
"The ruling that was made by the judge [in the interim] after legal argument had finished, but before the trial which ended in his conviction, has stayed secret ever since [2008]."
Despite attempts by the British media to have the file opened it has remained confidential.
"The suspicion is that there is something in that file which certainly MI5 and the police do not want opened, potentially embarrassing, but at the moment we simply do not know what it is," Brennan said.
"On the basis of the evidence, he [Ahmed] is a very dangerous individual, nevertheless, what the authorities do to combat such individuals is what is under the spotlight."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/01/2010 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: al-Qaeda
#1
Got tortured, in Pakistain, by the Pakis, and it's Britain's fault?
#2
Sounds like he needs to choke on a pork sausage while in prison. The West is going to have to learn that lying, cheating, misrepresenting, and just plain out making sh$$ up is par for the course for Islamist terrorists, and learn to ignore it. People like this need to take a non-stop flight halfway out into the Atlantic and not come back with the aircraft.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/01/2010 12:59 Comments ||
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For a map, click here
A firefight between a detachment of the Mexican Army and armed suspects in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas has left two suspects dead, according to Mexican press accounts.
The unit of the Mexican 8th Military Zone conducting a patrol in the Nuevo Milenio colony was fired on by armed suspects near the intersection of Libramiento Aeropuerto and Calle Miguel Trillo in Nuevo Laredo.
Two armed suspects died in the military return gunfire.
Soldiers seized seven rifles, 135 magazines, 2,450 rounds of ammunition and a vehicle.
Google Translate
Three confrontations between Mexican security forces and suspected drug criminals in Nuevo Leon since last Sunday has left a balance of two dead suspects and five wounded including three Nuevo Leon state police agents, according to Mexican news accounts.
A detachment of the Mexican 7th Military Zone exchanged fire with armed suspects early Sunday morning near the intersection of calles Primero de Enero and Insurgentes in the Sierra Ventana sector.
The unit was sent to the location after the Secretaria de Defensa Nacional (SEDENA) received reports about drug sales in the area.
A vehicle with five armed suspects traveling aboard a vehicle fired on the Mexican Army patrol at about 0140 hrs Sunday morning. Return fire from the military apparently disabled the vehicle, which the suspects subsequently abandoned. One suspect died and was left at the scene.
Inside the vehicle soldiers found a rifle, seven magazines and 154 rounds of ammunition, and an amount of marijuana and crack cocaine.
Later that day in the same sector, a Mexican Army patrol was fired on by armed suspects, The unit had been sent to the area on reports about gunfire in the area.
Luis Mendoza Contreras, 22, died and David Ulises Arzola Martinez, 18, was wounded after receiving gunfire from Mexican soldiers near the intersection of calles Emiliano Zapata and 24 de Julio.
It is unclear if the two men were involved in the attack on security forces.
Lastly three Agencia Estatal de Investigaciones (AEI) agents were hurt in a car crash following a pursuit of armed suspects early Sunday morning.
The pursuit began near the intersection of Calle Rangel Frias and Avenida Lincoln in the Lincoln colony when armed suspects aboard several vehicles threw a hand grenade at a patrol of the Grupo de Reaccion Inmediata (GRI).
The grenade failed to detonate.
The subsequent pursuit ended when the driver of the Dodge Avenger carrying the agents crashed into a power line transmission pole.
AEI functions as a state major case squad, and the GRI is an adhoc grouping of Mexican Federal, state of municipal security elements originally formed to react to criminal operations such as road blocks and shootings.
(Itar-Tass) - An kaboom occurred in downtown Bishkek on Tuesday morning near the building of the Kyrgyzstan Sports Palace (KSP).
A Republican Interior Ministry officer has told Itar-Tass that, according to preliminary data, four copperswere maimed. "They all are suffering from slight injuries, including those inflicted by the blast wave," the officer said.
Preliminary information has it that the so far unidentified bomb was planted under a sewer system manhole.
A trial of ex-president Kurmanbek Bakiyev, some of his relatives and former high officials has been going on at the KSP for several days now. They all are suspected of being implicated in the April 7 firing at a demonstration of opposition supporters in the centre of Bishkek. Almost 90 people were killed and over 100 maimed as a result of the firing.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/01/2010 00:00 ||
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Spanish police have arrested seven men suspected of having links to Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT)
The six Pakistanis and a Nigerian man are suspected of sending forged documents and money to a group with ties to al-Qaeda. Three others - a Thai national and two Pakistanis - were held in Thailand as part of the same operation. The suspects allegedly were part of a group in Thailand linked to LeT.
Spain's Interior Ministry said that anti-terrorist officers detained the suspects in raids in and around Barcelona late on Tuesday and early on Wednesday. The arrests were part of an international operation, and that the head of the organisation - a Pakistani living in Thailand - had been detained.
Barcelona. Say, isn't that a long way from Pakistain?
The ministry said the man had "directed the cells based in Europe, decided the features of the passports to obtain and, once they were received in Bangkok, supplied them to different terrorist groups".
It added that the operation "neutralises an important cell providing passports to al-Qaeda".
[Dawn] A bomb went kaboom! in Kalat's Mangochar area on Tuesday, DawnNews reported. The blast occurred shortly after Governor Balochistan Nawab Zulfiqar Magsi's convoy passed through the area, sources said. There was no word on casualties.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/01/2010 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] The head of Pakistain's branch of global anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International said Tuesday he had received death threats for exposing the "misdeeds" of the government.
"I have received death threats," Syed Adil Gilani told AFP by telephone from his Bloody Karachi office, but declined to name those who had issued the threats. "I can say no more!"
"They are calling me anti-state and a foreign agent," he said.
The group downgraded Pakistain eight places in its 2010 Corruption Perception Index, saying the country was regarded as the world's 34th most corrupt. "We are exposing misdeeds of government officials," Gilani said.
The head of Transparency International, Huguette Labelle, has written to President Asif Ali President Ten Percent Zardari ... husband of the late Benazir Bhutto, who showed remarkably little curiosity about who actually done her in ... and Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry over growing concerns about the ability of the Pak chapter to operate freely.
According to a copy of the letter to Chaudhry seen by AFP, Labelle asked the top judge "to address any possible state intimidation against TI Pakistain".
The letter cited press reports that government departments were asked to sever contacts with the watchdog's Pak chapter.
It also said Interior Minister Rehman Malik reportedly called TI "a detective agency", threatened legal action against its officials for "bribery"and threatened that the organisation would not be allowed to work in Pakistain.
The letter asked the judge "to promote our shared quest for good governance by helping our colleagues in Pakistain re-establish common ground and purpose with the current administration without worry about the legal basis for their work".
Casy Kelso, advocacy director of Transparency International's secretariat in Berlin, told AFP by telephone that there had been no
He confirmed that the head of the Pak chapter had received "more than one death threat" but did not give further details.
Gilani linked the intimidation campaign to TI monitoring the flow of money under a record 7.5 billion dollar US aid programme passed by Congress.
The group signed an agreement with USAID in September to set up a hotline to monitor use of the funds.
The US embassy in Islambad confirmed receiving the same letters from Transparency International, but said the hotline was not yet up and running, so cast doubt on a direct link to the USAID programme.
Kelso said that when Transparency International chapters start measuring specific misuse or divergence of funds, intimidation can increase and take on a more serious form.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/01/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
Surprise, surprise. Bad people behaving badly.
If it were me, I would be pointing out how the chief of police was taking bribes from outside the country.
Posted by: Mike Ramsey ||
12/01/2010 5:30 Comments ||
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[Dawn] Police said they jugged four Talibs on Tuesday who were planning "terror attacks" in Bloody Karachi.
The four members of main beturbanned goon umbrella group, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP), were jugged during a police raid in the Sohrab Goth area, senior police official Omar Shahid told a presser.
"The police are interrogating the four men, Amanuddin Munnoo, Ehsan Ullah, Barkat Ullah and Umer Sohrab, who had recently arrived in Bloody Karachi from North Wazoo tribal region," Shahid said.
"They have told us that Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud sent them to Bloody Karachi to launch terror attacks," Shahid said.
"They had plans to attack police offices, shrines and tombs and kill political and religious leaders who are against their bully boy thoughts."
Three suicide jackets, rifles, pistols and explosives had been recovered in the raid, he said.
The men were planning to bring jacket wallahs to the city from North Wazoo but "the arrests foiled their attempts to strike terror in Bloody Karachi", senior police official Mohammad Aslam Khan said.
He said Sherlocks were questioning the suspects about the recent attacks on a police headquarters and a sufi shrine in Bloody Karachi.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/01/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
So, which graphic would be more appropriate for this story, revolving door or cake and ice cream?
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/01/2010 10:30 Comments ||
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[Dawn] A jacket wallahwent kaboom! near a cop shoppe in northwestern Pakistain on Tuesday, killing six people, including two children, officials said.
The attack occurred in the town of Bannu, which lies close to Pakistain's tribal belt on the Afghan border.
"It was a suicide kaboom. The bomber came on foot and let 'er rip near a police van close to a cop shoppe," said Bannu police chief Iftikhar Khan.
"The corpse count is now six. They include two boys aged seven and nine, one police official and three pedestrians. Nineteen people were maimed," Khan told AFP.
Officials had said earlier that four people died.
"Our van was the target of the blast," police official Raza Khan told AFP.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, but Talibs frequently bomb government security forces in the northwest.
Around 4,000 people have been killed in suicide and bomb attacks across Pakistain since government forces raided an Islamic myrmidon mosque in Islamabad in 2007. The attacks have been blamed on Taliban and al Qaeda-linked networks.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/01/2010 00:00 ||
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[Iran Press TV] Fifty suspected faceless myrmidons were jugged on Monday in a number of raids carried out across Amara, the capital of the southern province of Maysan, local police chief Col. Kazem Neaama told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.
The detainees confessed during initial interrogations to involvement in several terrorist attacks against a number of citizens, the colonel added.
The arrests come a day after police captured a senior leader of the Ansar al-Sunna group in Kirkuk province. ... a thick stew of Arabs, Turkmen, Kurds, and probably Antarcticans, all of them mutually hostile most of the time...
"Kirkuk Districts police Department forces jugged a senior leader of Ansar al-Sunna group, Ghazi Ahmad Kalous, in accordance with Article 4 of Anti-Terrorism Law," Police chief Brig. Gen. Sarhad Qader confirmed.
He also noted that the man and his group have launched more than 15 terrorist operations in the oil-rich Kirkuk.
Jemma Ansar al-Sunna (Army of the Followers of the Sunna) is based in northern and central Iraq, and includes both Kurdish and Sunni Arab members as well as foreign cut-throats, according to Aswat al-Iraq.
Iraq became a safe haven for al-Qaeda-linked groups following the US-led invasion of 2003 which toppled the notorious dictator Saddam Hussein but also opened the gate for snuffies and terrorist elements, believed to be funded by Wahhabi movements in neighboring countries.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/01/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
Only 50?
Just scratched the surface.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
12/01/2010 21:08 Comments ||
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#2
Related to this?
http://www.alsumaria.tv/en/Iraq-News/1-57045-
Islamic-State-of-Iraq-Security-Minister-arrested.html
Islamic State of Iraq Security Minister arrested
Wednesday, December 01, 2010 12:48 GMT
Anti-terrorism and organized crime forces at Iraqs Interior Ministry arrested so-called Interior Minister of the Islamic State of Iraq during an operation in central Ramadi.
The arrested named Hazem Abdul Razzaq Al Zawi is the cousin of Islamic State of Iraq leader Abu Omar Al Baghdadi, a source told Alsumaria News.
Al Zawi confessed about communicating with the Emir of Islamic State of Iraq Abu Baker Al Baghdadi uncovering the cells hideouts, the source added.
[An Nahar] Iraqi forces have thwarted an attempt by a jacket wallah to blow up a vehicle by the French embassy in Storied Baghdad, an Iraqi general told Agence France Press on Monday.
The attack, if carried out, would have been the second by bad boy groups against foreign embassies this year, after three jacket wallahs detonated explosives-packed cars nearly simultaneously against regional and European missions, killing 30 people on April 4.
"We aborted a car boom attempt led by a jacket wallah against the French embassy," Brigadier General Ahmed Abu Rheef, the director of internal affairs and security at the interior ministry, said.
Abu Rheef did not give details of when or how the attack was stopped, but said that the group attempting to bomb the embassy was the same as the one that took dozens of worshippers hostage at a Storied Baghdad cathedral.
The October 31 church siege ended in the deaths of 44 worshippers, two priests and five security force members in an attack which sparked an international outcry.
Around 60 other people were maimed in the bloodbath, and the five forces of Evil who carried it out were also killed.
Al-Qaeda said it launched the church attack to force the release of converts to Islam it said were being nabbed by the Coptic Church in Egypt. Days later it declared Christians everywhere "legitimate targets."
The French embassy declined to comment on the news of the aborted bomb plot when contacted by Agence France Press.
The interior ministry had informed officials from several countries of the foiled attack at a briefing earlier on Monday, according to a European diplomat with knowledge of the meeting.
The ministry told them that the arrests this month of a dozen people suspected of helping to carry out the church attack directly led to the thwarting of the embassy plot.
"During the meeting, someone raised the fact that the arrests which were made prevented a bomb attack from happening at the French embassy," the diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity. ... for fear of being murdered...
Among those apprehended following the church seige were Huthaifa al-Batawi, the Storied Baghdad chief of the Islamic State of Iraq, the Al-Qaeda front group which carried out the attack, while senior ISI leader Ammar al-Najadi was killed, an interior ministry official said on Saturday.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/01/2010 00:00 ||
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[Straits Times] GUNMEN have released 10 of 12 villagers they kidnapped this weekend in a clan feud over land in a remote area of the southern Philippines, officials said on Tuesday.
The villagers were returning from a fishing trip on Saturday on Basilan Island - where Al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf faceless myrmidons are active - when about 10 men forced them at gunpoint to a nearby town, said regional police chief Ben Latag.
Basilan Vice Governor Al Rasheed Sakkalahul told The News Agency that Dare Not be Named the abductors and two of the victims belong to the same clan, and the gunnies are demanding a share of their ancestors' land.
'They are demanding a share of the land and they are asking the elders to negotiate,' Mr Sakkalahul said.
Ten of the victims who are neighbours of the abductors' rival relatives were released late Tuesday and have returned to their homes, he added. None of the victims - including those still held - appear to have been harmed, he said.
Ransom kidnappings are common on Basilan and elsewhere in the south, where Mohammedantough guys have fought for self-rule in the predominantly Roman Catholic nation for decades.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/01/2010 00:00 ||
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(KUNA) -- The US Department of the Treasury announced here Tuesday the designations of five corporate officers and 10 businesses affiliated with either the Islamic Theocratic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL) or Bank Mellat, two entities previously designated by Treasury for supporting Iran's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program and carrying military cargoes.
The Treasury indicated that firms designated today were Pearl Energy Company, a Malaysian-based entity owned by a subsidiary of Bank Mellat, its Director Ali Afzali, as well as Pearl Energy Services, SA, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Pearl Energy Company.
Treasury also designated four top IRISL executives; and eight IRISL front companies located on the Isle of Man.
"Today's designations were taken pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13382, which targets for sanctions proliferators of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and their supporters, thereby isolating them from the U.S. financial and commercial systems," the Treasury stressed.
In this regard, Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Stuart Levey said in a statement "as long as Iran uses front companies, cut-outs and other forms of deception to hide its illicit activities, we intend to expose this conduct and thereby counteract Iran's attempts to evade US and international sanctions." He added that "today's actions will help governments, banks and other private companies around the world ensure that they do not inadvertently facilitate Iran's proliferation and support for terrorism." Including today's action, Treasury has designated nearly 80 IRISL front companies and affiliates and has identified more than 100 ships as being the property of IRISL or its front companies and affiliates.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/01/2010 00:00 ||
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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.
At least nine civilians have been killed in 
[Yemen Post] At least two soldiers were 
[Al Jazeera] Rangzieb Ahmed, a British man of Pak origin and allegedly al-Qaeda's top agent in the UK, is appealling a conviction against "terrorism" offences handed down two years ago.
(Itar-Tass) - An 
Spanish police have arrested seven men suspected of having links to Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT)
[Dawn] A 
