GALKAYO, Somalia -- Two foreigners working for United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime have been killed at Abdullahi Yusuf airport in Mudug regional capital of Galkayo of central Somalia on Monday, Garowe Online reports.
According to Puntland government officials, airport security guard opened fire inside the airport terminal shortly after the British and French citizens arrived in Somalia's northeastern state of Puntland for official visit.
Speaking on Puntland-based independent station, Radio Garowe the Director of Puntland's Counter-Piracy Directorate Abdirizak Mohamed Ahmed said' the UN officials were set to hold a meeting with Puntland President Abdiweli Mohamed Ali Gaas and Somali remittance companies' chiefs'.
"The French Clement Garrison and the other British citizen Simon were killed in a dramatic shooting at the airport," Ahmed Added.
Puntland President Abdiweli Gaas condemned the heinous act and admitted that stable Puntland has never witnessed such terrible incident. He told that insane soldier grabbed AK-47 rifle from another soldier who was standing guard at the airport.
"The perpetrators are being held at facility and investigations are underway for the terrible incident," noted President Gaas. The plane carrying the UN officials took off from Hargeisa airport in the early hours of Monday morning.
Galkayo, at Puntland's southern gate, connects the state to south-central regions plagued by chronic insecurity.
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According to news reports from Mahaday in the Lower Shabelle region, physical confrontations occurred in the town last night.
"How physical?"
"Very physical!"
It was reported that soldiers from the Somali National Army provoked the battle by attacking a base of the Al-Shabaab militants in Mahaday.
Witnesses tell Shabelle that many of the Al-Shabaab terrorist insurgents were wounded and taken to hospitals nearby.
Mahaday was recently seized by the co-allied government troops and Somali National Army. The Al-Shabaab base in the town was heavily attacked and destroyed.
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across Buloburde of the Hiiraan region last night, targeted at military bases where government troops and African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) soldiers are stationed. The barrage of mortars also hit many neighborhoods in the district.
The precise numbers of casualties and losses are unclear although civilians affected by the mortar shells were rushed to nearby hospitals.
It was only recently when the Buloburde district was liberated from under the control of Al-Shabaab.
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[VOICEOFRUSSIA] 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... gunnies attacked a village in restive northern Nigeria, killing 17 people and setting houses and cars alight, the local government said Sunday. Among the dead were Moslem worshippers shot as they prayed in the village mosque, said Abdullahi Bego, front man for the governor of the troubled state of Yobe.
"The gunnies are Boko Haram people, it was the same pattern of attacks they are known for," he told AFP. "They also burnt several houses and many vehicles before fleeing," he said.
Yobe and neighbouring Borno states are in the grip of an almost five-year-old Boko Haram insurgency that has claimed thousands of lives. The violent Islamist group, whose name means "Western education is sinful" in the Hausa language, has attacked isolated villages, schools and churches as well as military bases in a brutal campaign.
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As many as 60 individuals have been killed in the Mexican northern border state of Tamaulipas since last Friday, according to Mexican news reports.
Officially as of Sunday evening, the death toll solely in shootings and shootouts climbed to 10, including a confrontation between a Mexican Army road patrol and a convoy of armed suspects in Miguel Aleman, and a series of shootings and shootouts in the southern Tamaulipas municipalities of Madero and Tampico, bringing to death toll to 10 total.
According to an unsigned report in Amigos de Tamaulipas2 in mforos.com, the actual death toll as of Sunday was 18. The posting said that Monday afternoon a number of gunfire exchanges had taken place, specifically in Tampico and Madero, but no deaths or wounded have been reported so far.
A news release posted on Tamaulipas' government website said that three individuals were found shot to death Monday, including one man found at around 0039 hrs in Pueblo colony and two more found in Echeverria colony. All the victims were men in their 20s. Both of these finds were made before 0900 hrs.
A second report posted Monday night on the website of Tamaulipas state said that a second gunfight took palce between a Mexican Army unit and armed suspects in Miguel Aleman municipality which ended with three armed suspects dead.
According to the news release, the gunfight took palce near a gap called Las Crucitas near the Rio Grande river Sunday night at 1935 hrs. Only one of the three were identified, Raymundo Mares Rivera. All three men who died in the encounter were in their 20s.
Soldiers seized a number of contraband including three AK-47 rifles, one AR-15 rifle, one grenade, 31 weapons magazines for AK-47, 15 weapons magazines for AR-15, two bulletproof vests and a Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck.
According to a report posted on the website of Tamaulipas state, four men were detained in Zona Centro of Tampico by a Mexican Army unit, and a number of weapons and munitions were seized Monday afternoon.
Among the contraband seized was seven rifles, one 12 gauge shotgun, one grenade launcher, three sub machine guns, two hand grenades, two rifle grenades (probably 40mm), one rifle scope, 80 metal stars, six weapons magazines, personal quantities of marijuana and cocaine, two vehicles, tactical gear and MEX $6,674.00 (USD $513.48).
An uncredited dispatch posted Monday afternoon on the website of El Diario de Coahuila news daily said the number of shooting deaths in the past 30 hours in Tamaulipas state could be as high as 60.
Tampico recently received a new Gulf Cartel plaza jefe, a criminal underboss whose territory is the municipality of Tampico, and could be a possible reason why intergang firefights have spiked in the state. Tamaulipas is a primary route for the shipment of drugs, weapons and munitions, shooters, and migrants north.
A news report posted on the website of Dia a Dia Tamaulipas news daily said that Twitter users were still reporting gunfire in Tampico as of 1830 hrs CDT. This writer saw Twitter reports as late as 2100 hrs CDT. An official associated with schools in Tampico reported public school attendance down to between 40 and 50 percent.
According to a late news report posted on the website of Milenio news daily, despite rumors to the contrary, public schools will convene normally Tuesday.
According to Informador, three universities in the area have suspended classes. The schools include Universidad Autonoma de Tamaulipas (UAT), Facultad de Comercio y Administracion de Tampico (FCAT) and Universidad del Noreste (UNE).
Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com and BorderlandBeat.com. He can be reached at grurkka@gmail.com
Six suspected members of the banned Hizb ut-Tahrir group have been arrested in Kyrgyzstan's southern province of Jalal-Abad. Regional police said that the suspects were arrested in Suzak district after police found books and electronic material with extremist content in Uzbek and Arabic in their houses.
In recent months, Kyrgyz law enforcement authorities in southern regions of Jalal-Abad and Osh have detained dozens of alleged members of Islamist groups suspected of recruiting fighters for the insurgency in Syria.
[DAWN] Unknown assailants hurled a hand grenade at the house of a journalist here at Murshidabad on Sunday morning. However, corruption finds a dozen alibis for its evil deeds... the journalist, Jamshid Baghwan, remained unhurt. The blast also damaged nearby houses in the area.
"I was asleep when I heard a loud blast outside the main gate of my residence. As I came out there was smoke and dust hovering over the houses in the locality," Mr Baghwan, who is bureau chief of Expressnews, told Dawn.
Quoting eyewitnesses, he said the attacker escaped on a cycle of violence from the street.
He said his family had no enmity with anyone. He said that on March 19 a bomb had been recovered from outside his residence, but no one was locked away Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out! so far.
When contacted officials of Yakatoot cop shoppe said that Bomb Disposal Unit personnel had visited the scene of the crime and confirmed that it was hand grenade attack.
Meanwhile, ...back at the dirigible, the pilot and the copilot had both hit the silk. Jack! Cynthia exclaimed. Do you know how top drive one of these things?
Jack wiped some of the blood from his knuckles. No, he said. Do you?... various journalists' bodies, including Khyber Union of Journalists and 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. Press Club, Safma and Pakistain Federal Union of Journalists, have announced that protest demonstrations against the attack would be held at the Peshawar Press Club on Monday (today).
Meanwhile, ...back at the mall, Clarissa suddenly spied Mr. Bartlett at the checkout counter. He was buying Grecian Formula!... many motorcyclists were detained for hours despite having relevant documents as part of security measures during the weekly round of the Sehat ka Insaf programme on Sunday. Personnel of police and Frontier Constabulary were deployed at different entry and exit points of Peshawar.
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[DAWN] TAXILA: An activist of a banned outfit, with head money worth Rs0.2 million, was placed in durance vile ... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not... by Taxila police after 16 years of hectic efforts.
Sub-Divisional Police Officer (SDPO) Malik Umer Hayat, while talking to news hounds on Sunday, said Hafiz Naeemur Rehman was an activist of the banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi ... a 'more violent' offshoot of Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistain. LeJ's purpose in life is to murder anyone who's not of utmost religious purity, starting with Shiites but including Brelvis, Ahmadis, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Rosicrucians, and just about anyone else you can think of. They are currently a wholly-owned subsidiary of al-Qaeda ... .
He had been accused of killing Advocate Ali Shah and his 12 years old daughter in a sectarian murder in Kohsar Colony area on June 6, 1998.
After that, he had gone underground. The SDPO said he was declared a proclaimed offender, and his name was added to the red book of the interior ministry.
Later on, the court also announced a head money of Rs200,000 for his arrest, either alive or dead.
Mr Hayat further said a team led by acting station house officer, Akram Gondal, raided his hideout near Havelian in district Abbottabad ... A pleasant city located only 30 convenient miles from Islamabad. The city is noted for its nice weather and good schools. It is the site of Pakistain's military academy, which was within comfortable walking distance of the residence of the late Osama bin Laden.... , and arrested him.
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[DAWN] At least four Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP) turbans, including a key commander, were killed in the Shaktoi area of South Wazoo tribal region on Monday, sources said. Just a splinter group. Nothing to get worked up about.
Official sources said unknown persons attacked a car in the Shaktoi area of South Waziristan Agency, killing four people and injuring another.
Other sources said that a clash occurred between the Khan Said alias Sajna and Waliur Rehman groups of the TTP.
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[DAWN] Frontier Corps claimed to have killed more than 30 hard boyz in Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... 's Kalat and Khuzdar districts on Monday, according to an official.
Khan Wasey, the spokesperson for FC, a para-military force, told Dawn.com the forces launched an operation against suspected hard boyz in Kalat district's Parodh area.
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Communist militants on Sunday said they captured a Philippine soldier and declared him a prisoner of war in Mindanao, a spokesman for the New People's Army said. Aris Francisco said insurgents captured Sergeant Jeric Bucio Curay at a checkpoint in Compostela Valley's Laak town on April 4. Curay, a member of the 72nd Infantry Battalion, was on a motorcycle when he was captured.
Francisco, whose group operates in the provinces of Compostela Valley, Davao and Agusan, said Curay is currently being interrogated to determine his involvement in "counterrevolutionary and anti-people" activities. He said,"Consistent with its practice of lenient treatment towards POWs, the NPA custodial force ensures the safety and security of POW Curay as he undergoes an investigation for his involvement in counterrevolutionary and anti-people activities in Laak."
Francisco said the soldier's arrest coincided with the NPA's renewed campaign against the 72nd Infantry Battalion and the 60th Infantry Battalion whom he accused of protecting big logging firms "which have wiped out the forests of Davao del Norte, Compostela Valley and Agusan del Sur provinces."
He said the wanton destruction of remaining forest and unchecked commercial logging in the provinces have harmed indigenous Lumad tribesmen and peasants and have made them more vulnerable to environmental disasters and climate change.
A new series of bombings rocked Yala town again early yesterday, a day after attacks resulted in the death of one person and wounded at least 28 others. Police said although there were no reports of casualties in yesterday's attack, the explosions caused serious damage to private property in the town.
The first three blasts erupted simultaneously in the early morning at two convenience stores and a product warehouse. The bombs damaged merchandise in the convenience stores and the warehouse, which caught fire, and extensively damaged goods stored for distribution in the region.
Those three blasts were followed by a fourth in front of an office building. The bomb was apparently placed in a dustbin in front of the building. The impact shattered the office's glass panels, but no one was wounded.
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[Ma'an] Five Paleostinians were killed on Monday in festivities between two gangs in the Paleostinian Mieh Mieh refugee camp in southern Leb, a medical source told AFP.
"Five dead and more than 20 injured were brought to hospital after festivities between gangs," the source in the Paleostinian Red Islamic Thingy hospital in the southern city of Sidon said.
Both Mieh Mieh and Ein al-Helweh, the largest Paleostinian refugee camp in Leb, are in Sidon.
A Paleostinian source in the camp said the groups involved in the festivities were not officially affiliated with any major faction.
He named them as the Ansar Allah group, led by a former member of the Fatah faction, and the Shuhada al-Awda group, whose leader is close to another former Fatah member, Mohammed Dahlan.
The medical source said Shuhada al-Awda's leader and one of his brothers were among those killed.
The secretary-general of the Fatah movement for southern Leb said the dispute between the groups began several weeks ago as a personal disagreement between their members.
He said the festivities had stopped and efforts were under way to restore calm in the camp.
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[Beirut Daily Star: Region] Rebel groups claimed gains in the city of Aleppo and Qunaitra province bordering Israel Monday, while regime troops killed several dozen rebels in attacks near the capital.
A sign that the violence had stepped up was Sunday's nationwide corpse count, compiled by the Britannia-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which said 303 people had been killed, 239 of them fighters from the various sides.
Opposition media outlets said some 30 rebel groups declared they had formed joint command centers in Qunaitra province to bolster a campaign designed to relieve pressure on rebels waging an offensive on the coast.
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[Ma'an] A powerful Wahhabi bad boy group inspired by al-Qaeda has opened a new battlefront with Iraqi security forces that could see it try to push into Storied Baghdad, officials and analysts warn.
The latest festivities, just weeks before parliamentary elections, raise key questions over the capacity of the army and police to repel bad boy attacks.
[MAGHAREBIA] The Moroccan founder of al-Qaeda inspired jihadist group Sham al-Islam died Thursday (April 3rd), along with young fighters he had brought with him to Syria.
Brahim Benchekroune (aka Ibrahim Bin Shakaran, or Abu Ahmad al-Maghribi) was killed during a clash with Syrian troops on a hilltop in Latakia, jihadist websites announced.
Fellow Moroccans Anas Halaouia and Abdul Jalil al-Qadmiri, once incarcerated
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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.
Six suspected members of the banned Hizb ut-Tahrir group have been arrested in Kyrgyzstan's southern province of Jalal-Abad. Regional police said that the suspects were arrested in Suzak district after police found books and electronic material with extremist content in Uzbek and Arabic in their houses.
[DAWN] TAXILA: An activist of a banned outfit, with head money worth Rs0.2 million, was 
Communist militants on Sunday said they captured a Philippine soldier and declared him a prisoner of war in Mindanao, a spokesman for the New People's Army said. Aris Francisco said insurgents captured Sergeant Jeric Bucio Curay at a checkpoint in Compostela Valley's Laak town on April 4. Curay, a member of the 72nd Infantry Battalion, was on a motorcycle when he was captured.
A new series of bombings rocked Yala town again early yesterday, a day after attacks resulted in the death of one person and wounded at least 28 others. Police said although there were no reports of casualties in yesterday's attack, the explosions caused serious damage to private property in the town. 
[Ma'an] A powerful Wahhabi
[MAGHAREBIA] The Moroccan founder of al-Qaeda inspired jihadist group Sham al-Islam died Thursday (April 3rd), along with young fighters he had brought with him to Syria.
