The arrest of a senior Taliban weapons dealer suspected to be behind an attack which killed two New Zealand soldiers in Afghanistan comes as a 'relief', the grandfather of one of the fallen soldiers says.
Lance Corporals Pralli Durrer and Rory Malone, both aged 26, were killed by insurgents in Bamiyan Province on August 4 after a fierce three-minute gun fight in a village near Do Abe. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.
Lance Corporal Jacinda Baker, 26, Private Richard Harris, 21, and Corporal Luke Tamatea, 31, died two weeks after Durrer and Malone when their Humvee was hit by a bomb in Bamiyan Province.
#1
He'll be released for lack of evidence, if he hasn't already been released for lack of prosecutorial zeal (or surplus of prosecutorial fear.) And/or he's not guilty in the first place, but was just busted as a PR stunt.
15 people were killed and at least 20 more injured in a suicide bomb attack in a Mogadishu café on Thursday, according to witnesses .
The attack took place across the street from the National Theatre, near the presidential palace.
Two unidentified men entered the village café at around 5:30 pm yesterday and detonated bombs, killing a total of 15 people and injuring 20, according to police officers.
Ali Mohamud Rage, a spokesman for the militant insurgent group Al-Shebab, said the bombing was carried out by supporters of his group.
More than 200 fighters from the Islamist militant group al-Shabaab surrendered Saturday in Somalia to troops from the African Union's Amisom peacekeeping force.
A statement, issued from the AU's base in Addis Ababa, said the insurgents were disarmed and taken into custody in Garsalem, about 80 kilometres from Mogadishu.
Eight militants were killed in the region in fighting before the surrender, according to the AU, which called the Saturday's capture a meaningful defeat for al-Shabaab.
United Nations refugee officials said Friday that at least 10,000 people have fled this month from Kismayo, a key Somali port city controlled by al-Shabaab, for fear of an impending battle over the area. African Union forces and militias loyal to Somalia's government have been advancing toward Kismayo.
In 2007, US Special Forces tried to kill Ahmed Madobe. Today, he is a key ally, working to run Al Shabaab out of Somalia.
Its been a long-fought battle with the Al Qaeda affiliate, one that may reach its end at least in conventional military terms in the days ahead as a regional coalition makes its way to the port town of Kismayo, the militant groups last remaining stronghold.
Madobes remarkable turnaround from terrorist enemy to trusted friend is emblematic of the pragmatism and shifting allegiances that have helped make Somalia a graveyard for foreign peace efforts over the last two decades.
The UN refugee agency said on Friday it was closely following the situation around the Somali port city of Kismayo as thousands of residents fled in anticipation of new clashes.
The Refugee Agency puts the figure at more than 10,000 adding that 7,500 people fled the area in the past four days amid growing tension.
Human Rights Watch said earlier in August that Kenyan armed forces and other parties to the conflict in Somalia should make every effort to minimize civilian harm during military operations ahead of a major military offensive being mounted to the capturing of the strategic town from the Al-Shabaab fighters.
The UN report adds that most of the internally displaced Somalis are leaving Kismayo and its surroundings on minibuses with poorer households undertaking the journey in lorries and trucks, in some cases using donkey carts. Majority of those fleeing are said to be moving towards Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, and the refugee camps in Dadaab, north-east Kenya.
#1
Good idea. But flee to where? There is nowhere for these people to go - except the refugee camps located across the border inside Kenya. That's not exactly what Kenya wants to happen.
The Libyan army ejected a rogue militia from its headquarters on Sunday, the first move in a government-threatened crackdown on such groups.
Libya's new government appears intent on capitalizing on the popular backlash that erupted locally in the wake of the killing of the American ambassador this month.
Militias that have held sway in much of Libya since the revolution that toppled Moammar Gadhafi last October appear to have rapidly retreated in recent days amid mass demonstrations that appear to have emboldened the government to take action.
Abuja, Sep 24 (IANS) At least three people were killed and 22 injured in a suicide bombing at a Catholic church in Nigeria, officials said.
The explosion rocked the St. John's parish in Wunti area of northern Bauchi state during the Sunday morning mass, Xinhua reported.
Rescue officials at the scene of the incident said the three corpses included that of the suicide bomber, a female adult and a child.
Officials said the toll may increase.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
In a previous attack on a church in June, 12 people were killed when a suicide bomber from the Boko Haram group blew himself up in the northern city of Bauchi.
Ynet updates injury toll to 45, adds that it was a suicide car bomb.
Four terrorists militants died on Sunday in the Russian Republic of Dagestan after a gun battle with local security forces.
An Investigative Committee source said, "The incident took place in Khasavyurt on the Aksayevsky Highway. Security forces tried to stop a vehicle for a check, but people inside opened fire. In the course of the gunfight, four people in the car were killed. The security personnel were unhurt. The identity of those killed is being established."
Two men, ages 18 and 40, were placed in long-term storage Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out! in La Belle France on suspicion of plotting to behead the editor of the satirical journal Charlie Hebdo, which ran caricatures mocking the Mohammedan Prophet Muhammad earlier this week.
Several knives have been found in the teen suspect's home, and he is said to have posted a call to behead the editor on a jihadist website.
#1
Several knives have been found in the teen suspect's home
Not to say he's innocent, but I bet everyone in France and here has several knives in their home.
Greek riot police used tear gas and pepper spray to disperse Mohammedan protesters during a rally against a film produced in the United States that denigrates Islam's Prophet Muhammad. No injuries were reported.
Police say six people were tossed in the calaboose Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un! during Sunday's demonstration in central Athens. About 600 people attended the rally, which featured heated speeches but was mostly peaceful. It briefly turned violent when some in the crowd clashed with riot police, throwing objects at them. Three cars were damaged and three storefronts smashed.
Two key commanders of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) were killed in an encounter with police and LEAs in Azakhel area on Sunday here, Geo News reported.
Police claimed that both TTP commanders were planning to kill Provincial Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain.
Police said that militants Matiullah alias Commander Moosa alias Commander Foji and his brother Latifullah alias Naqeebullah alias Rehan Pahari had entered into Nowshera through a mountainous route for a major action, when an action was taken against them by the police and LEAs.
In the encounter Matiullah and his brother Latifullah were killed.
Matiullah is said to be militants' commander in Peshawar and its surrounding areas.
They were allegedly involved in several blasts in Peshawar, Nowshera, Charsada and Mardan besides killing of important leaders and LEAs personnel.
A Palestinian worker was killed and another injured when an underground smuggling tunnel underneath the Gaza Strip's southern borders with Egypt collapsed, medical sources said on Saturday, Xinhua informed.
The medics said that Ramadan Abu Ermana, 32, died in the accident and another worker was injured after the tunnel collapsed.
The tunnel's cave-in was natural and caused the suffocation of the workers, according to medics at Abu Yousef al-Najjar in the town of Rafah, who added that the injured worker's condition is unstable. Natural? A man-made structure failing is natural? Only in Palestine.
The smuggling business flourished when Israel imposed a closure on Gaza in June 2007, but declined after Israel eased the sanctions in 2010. Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed while working in the tunnels. If they would just stop killing Jews, they could have a free and open border. But no! Some things are more important in life.
Sobhi Radwan, Rafah mayor, told Xinhua that more than 80 percent of the underground tunnels had completely stopped operating following the intensifying of Egyptian security measures after the attack in Sinai on Aug. 5, during which 16 Egyptian soldiers were killed and seven others wounded. Egyptians putting the screws on, eh? Good for them. It's about time, it only took Islamists attacking Egyptians for this to happen. Killing Jews was OK though.
A Lebanese Christian political leader and ally of the Shi'ite group Hezbollah said he escaped an liquidation attempt when his convoy came under fire in the south of the country.
Michel Aoun ...a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hizbullah... , head of the Free Patriotic Movement Despite its name a Christian party allied with Hizbullah, neither free nor particularly patriotic... (FPM), was returning to Beirut on Saturday evening when one of the cars in his convoy was shot at in the mainly Sunni city of Sidon. "I have been exposed to three liquidation attempts (in the past) and the perpetrators were discovered," the website quoted Aoun as saying. "This is the fourth and we hope they will be revealed."
Syrian activists say government and rebel forces continue to clash across the country, a day after the rebel Free Syrian Army announced it was moving its command center from Turkey to Syria.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports that most of the casualties from fighting Sunday occurred in the northern part of Syria. The Britain-based group also said the government was using aerial support to target rebel forces in central Homs province.
A day earlier, the Free Syrian Army - formed mostly of military defectors - released a video saying it is moving its command to what it called "liberated areas" of Syria. FSA chief, Colonel Riad al-Asaad, said the group hopes to launch an offensive on the capital, Damascus.
Troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad shelled the provinces of Aleppo and Daraa after the rebel Free Syrian Army said it moved its command center into the country as part of a strategy to liberate Damascus.
Shelling yesterday in Aleppo in the north and Daraa in the south, as well as the capital and its suburbs left more than 30 people dead, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Syrian rebel fighters on the Turkish border are pushing ahead with a plan to turn territory in Idlib province that has been mostly under their control since early summer into a logistics and training base for fighters across the country.
The move, which could draw the regime's attention back to this swath of northwestern territory, shows how Syria's rebels are trying to consolidate control over pockets of liberated land along the Turkish border even as war rages farther north in Aleppo.
#1
Let me show you their logistics and training concentrations, then we will finish our medovukha. It will be as they say, a walk in the Vorobyevy Gory (park).
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.
Two men, ages 18 and 40, were 
Greek riot police used tear gas and pepper spray to disperse 
Two key commanders of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) were killed in an encounter with police and LEAs in Azakhel area on Sunday here, Geo News reported.
A Palestinian worker was killed and another injured when an underground smuggling tunnel underneath the Gaza Strip's southern borders with Egypt collapsed, medical sources said on Saturday, Xinhua informed.
Michel Aoun
Syrian rebel fighters on the Turkish border are pushing ahead with a plan to turn territory in Idlib province that has been mostly under their control since early summer into a logistics and training base for fighters across the country.
