Nine al-Shabab Islamic extremists, most wearing suicide vests, stormed Somalia's main court complex on Sunday while the Supreme Court was in session, firing a barrage of bullets during a running gun battle with security forces that lasted two hours, officials said.
A preliminary death toll stood at 16, including all nine attackers.
The assault was the most serious in Mogadishu since al-Shabab militants were forced out of the capital in August 2011. Al-Shabab controls far less territory today than in years past, and its influence appears to be on the decline, but Sunday's attack proved the extremists are still capable of pulling off well-planned and audacious assaults.
The attack on the Supreme Court complex began at around 12:30 p.m., sparking running battles with police and army forces. Two bomb blasts were heard and gunmen were seen on the roof of a court building firing shots, an Associated Press reporter at the scene said. Police officer Hassan Abdulahi said he saw five dead bodies lying at the entrance to the court.
The militants took an unknown number of hostages during the siege. Many other government workers and civilians in the court complex -- a confusing labyrinth of buildings and rooms -- hid while fearing for their lives.
Western officials knew militants had been planning something major. The British Foreign Office on Friday released a travel warning for Somalia that warned of a high threat of terrorism. "We continue to believe that terrorists are in the final stages of planning attacks in Mogadishu," it said.
The complex and sustained nature of the assault on the court system suggested militants hoped to inflict severe casualties. Later, a suicide car bomber rammed a vehicle carrying Turkish citizens.
On a Twitter feed believed to belong to the militants, al-Shabab appeared to take credit for the attack. A posting said five militants from the "Martyrdom Brigade" took part in the "daring" attack.
[An Nahar] A jacket wallah killed at least three Chadian soldiers in Mali Friday, military sources said, in a deadly demonstration of the troubled nation's ongoing security crisis days after La Belle France began withdrawing its troops.
The soldiers were shopping in the northern city of Kidal when an Islamist bomber struck, according to Malian and Chadian sources who gave a provisional toll of three soldiers killed and four maimed.
"Three Chadian soldiers were killed in an attack Friday in Kidal. It was jihadists who did it. The toll is still provisional," a Malian military source told Agence La Belle France Presse while a Chadian source spoke of "three Chadian soldiers killed and four others injured".
No details were initially available on how the attack was carried out.
"The center of Kidal is now sealed off. This is an Islamist attack against the Chadian troops," said one regional security source.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/14/2013 00:00 ||
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[Jpost] Libyan authorities have tossed in the slammer Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! 20 people after an attack on a police vehicle compound in the desert south in which one person was killed, the army chief said on Saturday.
The attack on the compound took place on Thursday in the southern town of Sabha, some 800 km (500 miles) south of the capital Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... "They arrived by car, armed with guns and starting shooting. They stole some cars and escaped," Yusef al-Mangoush, army chief of staff, told Rooters.
"One person died from injuries sustained in the attack. Those arrested have been transferred to Tripoli. We cannot say who they are yet as the investigation is still ongoing," he said, adding the stolen cars had been retrieved.
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04/14/2013 00:00 ||
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[Guardian Ng] THE former chairman of Abadam local government area of Borno state, Alhaji Mustapha Gadobe, was at the weekend kidnapped by gunnies suspected to be members of the Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... sect in Wadiya community, a suburb of Maiduguri metropolis at about 7.35pm Friday.
The abductors, according to a source, said they would kill the ex-council boss unless a 50m ransom is paid.
The source said Gadobe was ambushed at gunpoint and driven off in his Toyota Cruiser to an unknown destination.
The Guardian also learnt that a serving member of the Borno State House of Assembly is currently handling negotiations between the abductors and the Borno State government.
A top political appointee said the abductors threatened to kill their hostage when the mediator offered to pay N3m.
The source said that yesterday another offer of N10m was made to the abductors, which they turned down.
A top official of the State Security Service confirmed the abduction in a telephone chat, but refused to give more details on steps being taken to rescue the ex-council chairman.
Meanwhile, ...back at the hoedown, the fiddler suddenly struck a sour note. The dancing stopped abruptly. Everyone looked at Bob... suspected Boko Haram gunnies on Wednesday killed several students of Monguno Secondary School.
The victims whose throats were slit had finished writing their Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (SSCE) and were returning home.
Monguno is 135 kilometres north of Maiduguri, the state capital. It is the epicentre of Islamists activities.
The attackers, according to a villager, bound the hands of the victims along a footpath leading to the school, slit their throats and fled on three cycle of violences towards Marte council area.
Men of the Joint Task Force (JTF) arrived at the scene, three hours later.
JTF front man, Lt. Col Sagir Musa, and the Borno State Commissioner for Education, Alhaji Musa Inuwa Kubo, confirmed the incident yesterday.
They described the situation as "unfortunate and frightening".
Sagir and Kubo, as at Saturday, could not ascertain the exact number of students killed by the attackers.
Kubo in a telephone interview said: "I am calling on the people of Borno State to continue to pray and fast, so that the incessant attacks and killings in the state would cease."
A JTF source told The Guardian that: "until political, traditional and religious leaders in Borno State collectively condemn the activities of members of Boko Haram, there might be no peace, despite the deployment of troops and coppers by the Federal Government since June, 2011."
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04/14/2013 00:00 ||
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When Kim Jong Un first appeared in Pyongyang's carefully stage-managed public spotlight in the fall of 2010, North Korea watchers began scouring for clues to learn whether the pudgy heir apparent would be a reformist or simply the newest face of a despotic regime. I didn't insert that word, pudgy, it's right out of the WaPo!
Nearly 16 months after taking the reins of the hermit state following the death of his stoic father, North Korea's 30-year-old fat leader appears to be careening toward the latter -- at least on the surface.
Having disavowed his country's armistice with South Korea and threatened to fire his increasingly capable missiles toward the United States, Suet Face Kim has put the Korean Peninsula and Washington on a war footing. His behavior follows the playbook of his predecessors, with one notable and potentially dangerous departure that appears to have him backed into a corner.
"His father and his grandfather always figured into their provocation cycle an off-ramp of how to get out of it," Adm. Samuel Locklear III, the commander of U.S. troops in the Pacific, told Congress this past week. "It's not clear to me that he has thought through how to get out of it. This is what makes this scenario, I think, particularly challenging."
As Kim Jong Un eases into the top job of a nation whose elite has long been presumed to be rife with intrigue and rivalries, he appears determined to assert a tight grip on the levers of power.
"He has an inferiority complex," said Kongdan Oh Hassig, a North Korea expert at the Institute for Defense Analyses in Alexandria. "He is trying to show that he has a strategic mind, that the military stands behind him and that no one stands against him." I used to think he was just dangerous, but with an inferiority complex... inherently unstable comes to mind.
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/14/2013 08:27 ||
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#1
The double "n" in the title was sticky fingers, but maybe it's also a pun?
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/14/2013 8:34 Comments ||
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#3
unfortunately - if this de-nuclearization policy goes forward then Pudgy's reckless behavior will be rewarded in a big way. His fight to obtain full control of the N. Korean military will be won, and he will have learned a major lesson - if you don't get what you want ... act even more reckless.
I'm in favor of not seeing Seoul or Pyongyang get nuked ... but if the US removes nukes from the peninsula then it's also likely that future non-nuclear conflicts will be a definite reality.
#8
"what happens when you mix an inferiority complex with a narcissistic complex?"
D.C., Bobby. :-(
Posted by: Barbara ||
04/14/2013 12:47 Comments ||
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#9
Elmeret .. the USA may have withdrawn nukes from S. Korean soil. But that doesn't mean they were dropped from the defense strategy. They are (presumably) still on US aircraft carriers. And the USA usually has at least one carrier within comfortable sailing distance of "hot spots" in Asia. So the implied threat is still there.
But you raise a good question. If the USA says that de-nuclearization is the new (intended) policy - how exactly does that get implemented? How would N. Korea ever know whether the US has nukes stationed in Guam, or on an aircraft carrier - and therefore how they would be deployed? Basically, the US strategy can never be verified by the N. Koreans - so why should they go for "de-nuclearization"?
#10
So when KJU took the brinksmanship course, did he pass, fail, drop out, or skipped classes? Or did he do it by correspondence?
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/14/2013 18:28 Comments ||
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#11
he was "present", which is a lot like someone else we know...
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/14/2013 18:49 Comments ||
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#12
The irony here is that for the two Koreas to reunify, both NOKOR + SOKOR may need to dev Nukes.
However, the above must be weighed agz the notion that most Perts believe China will never accept a non-Commie, non-Chinese-dominated, pro-Western or pro-Democratic unified Koreas on the Peninsula - MORESO WID FORMAL SINO-TAIWAN REUNIFICATION STALLED INDEFINITELY.
In "Mahanist" China's mind, TAIWAN = China's equivalent of "Mahanist" America's "PEARL HARBOR/HAWAII/HAWIIAN ISLANDS' for entry into the Pacific during the late 19th-early 20th Century. China has times said that widout soveriegnty or control of Taiwan, there is NO China or Chinese "Manifest Destiny" as "post-US", future "World #1" in place of the USoA.
Both Taiwan + the PHIL are US Allies, espec wid the US as existential "guarantor" for democratic Taiwan as China is for Commie NOKOR, hence "Pudgy" = KJU/NOKOR = China? aims its "MUSUDAN(S)" at China's historical rival Japan.
Something has to change = "give" as per starving North Korea, + something has to also change vee China's anti-US "Manifest Destiny".
NORTH KOREA PER SE IS FACING DE FACTO CHINESE TAKEOVER NO MATTER THE SCENARIO, IMO HENCE ITS WILLINGNESS TO THREATEN TO ATTACK EVERYONE.
[Dawn] Four people were rubbed out -- including a prayer leader on 'sectarian grounds' and a local ANP leader in a targeted attack --in the city on Friday.
The prayer leader was rubbed out by unidentified gunnies in what the police described as a sectarian killing in Nazimabad on Friday.
The police said that in Nazimabad No.3 Maulana Ghazanfar Ali, 70, was heading for Masjid Noor-e-Eman when two gunnies riding a cycle of violence targeted him and fled from the scene, District Central SSP Amir Farooqui said.
"The elderly man was shot six bullets -- two bullets hit him in the head causing his sudden death," the SSP told Dawn.
"The killing is surly carried out on sectarian grounds," SSP Farooqui concluded.
Several spent bullet casings of 9mm pistol were collected from the scene of the crime, he added.
The victim was a resident of Nazimabad, the police said.
The police took the body to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital for medico-legal formalities. Later the body was taken to the Old Rizvia Imambargah.
A front man for the Majlis Wahdat-e-Mohammedaneen condemned the killing saying that it was a part of ongoing sectarian strife going on in the city.
He said that the slain holy man was a prayer leader in Masjid-o-Imambargah Safina-e-Ahlebait in Toori Bangash Colony in Orangi Town.
The victim's funeral was held in Rizvia Society in the evening, which was attended by a large number of people.
ANP man rubbed out
A local leader of the Awami National Party was bumped off by faceless myrmidons in Orangi Town on Friday, the police said.
They added that in Qasba MPR Colony unidentified gunnies came on a bike and opened fire on ANP ward president Bismillah Jan, 45, at the Jamshed Pump near the Quetta Awaran hotel.
The victim was taken to the JPMC where he was pronounced dead. He's dead, Jim! on arrival, the police added.
A handout issued by the ANP said that Bismillah Jan was the MPR Colony ward president of their party. The victim was a cloths trader, the police added.
College student killed
A teenage college student was killed by an unidentified gunman in Gulshan-e-Iqbal in the early hours of Friday, the police said.
They added that the incident took place in a house located near the Central Pool of Vehicles where the unidentified gunman rubbed out 19-year-old Raheel Khan and fled.
DSP of the Aziz Bhatti cop shoppe Nasir Lodhi said that when the police reached the house it looked like a robbery scene.
However, a poor excuse is better than no excuse at all...
after inquiries it transpired that a tenant named Mohsin -- a medical student at a private medical college -- was living in a single room with a few clothes and a laptop on the top floor of the house, the DSP added.
The victim and his family lived on the ground floor, he said.
The tenant, Mohsin, told the police that he heard a gunshot from Raheel's room on the ground floor and saw someone fleeing the house.
The police did not arrest the tenant, but he was being questioned, the DSP added.
The police took the body to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre for medico-legal formalities.
Passer-by killed in robbery
A passer-by was killed and another man maimed when bandidos fleeing after a robbery opened fire on them in a Bin Qasim locality late on Friday, the police said.
They added that in Peeri Goth in Bin Qasim two gunnies came to a shop and tried to rob the shopkeepers and other people at gunpoint. After the hold-up they tried to flee while opening fire which hit two men, the police added. However, there is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened... the police reached the spot and managed to arrest the two suspected robbers, they said.
A pistol was recovered from their possession, the police said.
One of the victims who died in the firing was identified as Niaz Junejo, an employee of the Sindh secretariat.
Cracker attack
Two vehicles were partially damaged when faceless myrmidons hurled an bomb at a filling station in Orangi Town on Friday night.
District West SSP Asif Ajaz Sheikh said that near the Banaras flyover unidentified bikers hurled a cracker at the pump.
No casualty was reported in the incident, he said
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04/14/2013 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] The Anti-Violent Crime Cell (AVCC) of police on Friday jugged ... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not... an inspector for passing on information to members of the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP) and some gangs of kidnappers.
"We have arrested Inspector Rana Ishrat, 45, after collecting incriminating technical evidence against him for his involvement and contacts with the outlaws," said SSP AVCC Niaz Ahmed Khosa while speaking to Dawn.
Inspector Ishrat was inquiry officer of the case pertaining to the kidnapping of Zainul Abidin, who used to supply oil to NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A single organization with differing goals, equipment, language, doctrine, and organization.... forces in Afghanistan, in Keamari. During investigation, Inspector Ishrat came into contact with the TTP men involved in the kidnapping and went to Khyber Agency to collect money from them, SSP Khosa said.
"We got the information about the suspicious activities of the inspector and we started monitoring him," said the SSP AVCC.
Meanwhile, ...back at the bunker, his Excellency called a hurried meeting of his closest advisors. It was to be his last. They discussed the officers's efficiency rating system... an ASI posted at the AVCC, Mohammad Fayyaz, was killed, he added. The investigation showed that the inspector was not directly involved in the ASI's killing but was instrumental in passing on sensitive information to the killers and was part of a wider plan to eliminate more coppers, including the SSP AVCC, the officer explained.
The inspector was getting money from the culprits in return for passing on sensitive information to them, he added.
After collecting all the technical evidence, including call record data, the AVCC started the paperwork but haven't done much else against the inspector and arrested him, SSP Khosa said.
The suspect hailing from Sialkot had been working at the AVCC for the past eight years, the officer said, adding that he resided along with his family in the Police Headquarters, Garden.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/14/2013 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] Taking notice of torture on ANP woman candidate in Swabi Najma Hanif by her opponents, KP Caretaker Minister for Information Musarrat Qadeem has directed the relevant officials to take action against those involved in this unfortunate incident.
She also directed the district administration to ensure that no such incident occurred in future. In a statement here on Friday she termed the incident as political violence. She called upon all the political forces to show tolerance in politics and keep the democratic principals supreme while competing each other.
The minister maintained that women enjoyed high esteem in an Islamic society, saying such acts were against the ethics of Islam, Pakhtun traditions and culture.
Meanwhile, ...back at the wrecked scow, a single surviver held tightly to the smashed prow... the minister also condemned the kaboom on the ANP NA-4 Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire. candidate Arbab Mohammad Ayub Jan and asked the administration to take effective measures for safety of the contesting candidates.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/14/2013 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] Three people, including a policeman, were killed and three coppers received bullet injuries in an encounter at Shagai Road in the limits of cantonment circle here on Friday evening.
An official of Regi cop shoppe said that police were on routine patrolling on Shagai Road when gunnies in car opened fire on them. He said that as a result of the attack one police constable identified as Rafaqat, a resident of Badbher, was killed while three of his colleagues, including Khalid Hameed, Qazafi and Ijaz, sustained injuries.
The official said that in retaliatory fire two attackers were also killed in their car. However, a woman is only as old as she admits... their identity could not be established so far.
The attackers also hurled hand grenades at police, he said and added that personnel of bomb disposal unit had been called to defuse in case there was any explosive in the vehicle.
The injured were shifted to Khyber Teaching Hospital.
IED DEFUSED: Police on Friday recovered an improvised bomb outside the residence of a police official in Bana Mari in Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire.
A police official said that the IED was planted outside the residence of traffic police inspector Rabnawaz, but he had timely informed the police about presence of a suspected thing. "We called personnel of bomb disposal unit and they defused the device," he said. Bana Mari police have registered the case.
SURVIVES ATTACK: In Swabi, Awami National Party candidates Mr Rehmanullah and his son Ameer Rehman survived attempt on life while a party worker was injured in a grenade attack on them on Friday.
Mr Rehmanullah is contesting election from NA-12, Swabi-1 and Mr Ameer from PK-31, Swabi-1 on the ANP tickets.
Mr Rehmanullah, who is also ANP's district president, told Dawn that they were going to the party election camp in Sheikh Jana when unidentified attackers hurled two grenades on them at Shewa graveyard. "One grenade went kaboom!, but we survived," he said. However, a woman is only as old as she admits... a party worker Shamal Khan was injured.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/14/2013 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] Militants blew up the election office of an independent candidate in North Wazoo tribal agency on Saturday, adding to security fears ahead of historic national polls next month.
No one was hurt in the bombing in Miranshah ... headquarters of al-Qaeda in Pakistain and likely location of Ayman al-Zawahiri. The Haqqani network has established a ministate in centered on the town with courts, tax offices and lots of madrassas... , the main town in North Waziristan, bordering Afghanistan. But the bombing is likely to fuel concerns that violence will mar the national and regional elections on May 11, which will mark the country's first democratic transition of power after a civilian government has served a full term in office. Violence is the sauce on Pakistain's political spaghetti.
"Militants blew up the election office of Kamran Khan with explosives at around 5:00 am," an intelligence official in Miranshah told AFP, adding that all three rooms of the office were destroyed.
Residents in Miranshah confirmed the bombing "Ay-yup. Blowed right up. I seen it."
and told AFP that an adjacent mosque was also damaged in the blast. Not surprising, when every other building in town is a mosque.
Khan is a former politician from North Waziristan who supported the outgoing government led by the Pakistain People's Party (PPP), the official said
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04/14/2013 00:00 ||
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Today's Pakaboom... [India Express] At least nine persons were killed and 15 others wounded Saturday when a powerful blast ripped through a minibus on the outskirts of Peshawar city of northwest Pakistan, police and witnesses said.
Police officials said a bomb planted inside the minibus exploded as the vehicle was passing through a market in the suburb of Mattani on Saturday afternoon.
Fifteen injured people, including two women and a child, were taken to a nearby hospital, officials said. The minibus had about 20 passengers at the time of the explosion.
No group claimed responsibility for the blast.
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04/14/2013 00:00 ||
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[Ynet] A 14-year-old boy was locked away Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw! in Nazareth after local coppers and dectives found a fully loaded Kalashnikov rifle in his house. The boy will be brought for the Nazareth Magistrate Court on Saturday for extension of remand.
So what exactly does fully loaded mean in this context, and is it as bad as it sounds?
Security forces in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip have started arresting suspected collaborators with Israel after a month-long amnesty ended, a Hamas official said on Saturday.
Since yesterday (Friday), we arrested several collaborators with the Israeli occupation, interior ministry spokesman Islam Shahwan told AFP, declining to give a number.
On March 12, Hamas announced a month-long grace period for collaborators to turn themselves in in return for leniency.
And if you can't believe a promise for leniency from Hamas, what can you believe?
Shahwan said that some people had surrendered during the amnesty but did not give details on their likely treatment.
Under Palestinian law, collaboration with Israel is punishable by death. All executions must be approved by the Palestinian president before they can be carried out, but Hamas no longer recognises the legitimacy of ineffectual incumbent Mahmud Abbas, whose four-year term ended in 2009.
A Gaza official said that five or six suspects fled into neighbouring Israel before they could be apprehended.
During an eight-day conflict with Israel last November, at least seven people were gunned down after being accused of being collaborators. The bodies of six were dragged behind vehicles through the streets of Gaza City. The killings were claimed by Hamas militants from the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades in notes pinned to their bodies, which accused them of being traitors.
New York-based Human Rights Watch criticised Hamas on Thursday for failing to honour promises to investigate the killings.
Hamass inability or unwillingness to investigate the brazen murders of seven men makes a mockery of its claims that it is upholding the rule of law in Gaza, HRWs Middle East director Sarah Leah Whitson said in a statement.
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04/14/2013 00:00 ||
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Songkran celebrations were held amid tight security throughout the far South yesterday as a teenager was killed and her mother wounded in a drive-by shooting in Pattani province.
No details about the attack have yet been revealed as security officials delayed their inspection of the scene until yesterday morning for fear they could be caught in a trap by terrorists insurgents operating under the cover of darkness.
The attack began before 8 p.m. when four or five gunmen opened fire on the base. A firefight broke out between the gunmen and base defenders that lasted for about five minutes. The assailants broke off when an additional ranger force arrived to reinforce the base.
Police believe the attack was carried out by opponents of the ongoing peace talks between the government and terrorist insurgent groups. They said they were particularly concerned that the violence happened near the house of Hussan Toyib, a key figure of the Barisan Revolusi Nasional insurgent group, who took part in last month's round of peace talks.
On April 3, an unnamed Syrian army officer made the warning clear. By continuing to advance on Damascus, he said, "the rebels and their leaders" were assured of "certain death."
At about the same time, the Syrian ruler had ordered protective suits for chemical warfare and gas masks distributed to the 4th and 3rd Divisions defending the capital. Tank commanders were told to activate their filtering systems against chemical and biological agents.
Protective suits have since been distributed to the Syrian army units fighting in southern Syria and the Golan.
These steps were registered by the joint counter-chemical warfare center set up between the US, Israel, Turkey and Jordan when President Barack Obama visited their capitals in the third week of March. In the last few days, Israeli troops were asked by this center to start handing out atropine injections or IV drips to Syrian rebels fighting Syrian troops on the Golan.
Atropine is highly effective for blocking such nerve agents as sarin, VX, soman and tabun and counteracting the effects of poisoning, such as nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramping and low heart rate.
The IDF's distribution of a chemical weapon antidote to Syrian rebels may be regarded as the first Israeli intervention in the Syrian conflict.
The British disclosure April 12 in the Times of London of soil samples smuggled out of Syria provided forensic evidence of the use of chemical weapons but carefully avoided assigning responsibility.
Though containing traces of "some kind of chemical weapon" collected from an unidentified "neighborhood on the outskirts of Damascus,"
Posted by: Water Modem ||
04/14/2013 00:00 ||
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#2
There are various chemical weapons. Atropine would be for nerve gases, such as tabun (GA), sarin (GB), soman (GD) and VX. As the little photo post from the Great War illustrates, it wouldn't help with mustard gas or phosgene type weapons.
Syrian government troops trying to relieve a besieged military base in the countrys northwest ambushed a rebel checkpoint Saturday, killing at least 12 opposition fighters, activists said.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the government forces surprised the rebel fighters on the outskirts of the village of Baboulein in Idlib province. The Observatory, which relies on a network of local activists on the ground, said many opposition fighters were also wounded in the attack.
Rebels have wrested much of the countryside of Idlib and other provinces in northern Syria from regime forces, although government troops still control many military bases in the region from which they launch attacks on opposition-held areas.
Observatory director Rami Abdul-Rahman said the assault Saturday was part of government efforts to resupply the embattled military base at Wadi Deif outside of the town of Maaret al-Numan, which is just north of Baboulein on the Damascus-Aleppo highway.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/14/2013 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.
[Guardian Ng] THE former chairman of Abadam local government area of Borno state, Alhaji Mustapha Gadobe, was at the weekend kidnapped by 
When Kim Jong Un first appeared in Pyongyang's carefully stage-managed public spotlight in the fall of 2010, North Korea watchers began scouring for clues to learn whether the pudgy heir apparent would be a reformist or simply the newest face of a despotic regime.
[Dawn] Four people were 
[Dawn] Three people, including a policeman, were killed and three 
Wazoo
[India Express] At least nine persons were killed and 15 others wounded Saturday when a powerful blast ripped through a minibus on the outskirts of Peshawar city of northwest Pakistan, police and witnesses said.
On April 3, an unnamed Syrian army officer made the warning clear. By continuing to advance on Damascus, he said, "the rebels and their leaders" were assured of "certain death."
