Terrorism Watch

Lagos: At least six people were killed and five others injured following a bomb explosion in northwest Nigeria`s  Kano  state, police said Saturday. The incident occurred Friday night when a suicide bomber went into a filling station pretending to buy fuel for the vehicle he was driving, Aderinle Shinaba, the state commissioner of police, told reporters. The police chief said immediately the hoodlum entered the service station, he detonated the bomb which was inside his car, according to Xinhua. He added that two vehicles were completely burnt down, while two others were damaged. Shinaba said the injured people had since been taken to hospital for treatment. Nigeria has been witnessing some of the worst violence in recent years. Terrorism and violent activities by Boko Haram militants have killed thousands of civilians in Nigeria, according to a recent UN report. Source zeenews.com

Washington, Nov 11 (EFE).- Officials from Spain, Peru and the United States and authorities from the Organization of the American States, OAS, have clamied that the protection and rehabilitation of victims of terrorism needs more attention and called for greater awareness of their rights. While more progress has been made on this issue in Europe, in Latin America anti-terrorism legislation largely ignores the victims, OAS Secretary-General Jose Miguel Insulza said at a conference in Washington on Monday. Attending the conference were the Director-General of Support for Victims of Terrorism of the Spanish Interior Ministry, Sonia Ramos; Spanish diplomat Javier Ruperez, who between 2004 and 2007 was the U.N. Counter-Terrorism Committee director; and the President of the Foundation for Victims of Terrorism, Maria del Mar Blanco. Victims give a human face to the brutality and violence of terrorism, explain its barbarity, and so must be at the forefront of the fight against terrorism, said

Español Despite ongoing peace negotiations between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), violent confrontations between the two parties continue. On November 9, one such battle  resulted  in the death of a Colombian solider, three wounded, and two others missing. A third Colombian solider, who initially went missing, was later found alive with his equipment intact. The Colombian government is currently in talks with the FARC in Havana, Cuba, seeking to end Colombia’s bloody 40-year civil war. Jaime Alfonso Lasprilla, a Colombian Army commander, claimed the FARC kidnappings were “a flagrant violation of human rights and international humanitarian law.” “The FARC have pledged to no longer kidnap citizens, including soldiers,” said Lasprilla, referring to an agreement reached between the two parties in early 2013. General Luis Herlindo Mendieta, who was himself kidnapped by the FARC in 1998, described the kidnappings as “pitiful” and “unusual.” He

A leader of a faction of Nepal’s CPN-M party on Saturday threatened to launch another round of armed insurgency should it be excluded from the country’s political process. The CPN-M faction led by party secretary Netra Bikram Chand said they would go for revolution if mainstream parties continue to bypass them in the overall political process,  Xinhua  reported. At a press conference after a secret meeting of the party, Mr. Chand said the party needed its own army and organisations to fight for the welfare of the people. “The state has already raised the weapons so it would be legitimate for us to launch revolt for establishing people’s rights,” Mr. Chand said. Source thehindu.com

The CPI (Maoist) on Friday took responsibility for the attack on the corporate office of Nitta Gelatin India Limited (NGIL) in Kochi on last Monday. A press note released by the Western Ghat Zonal Committee of the CPI (Maoist) in Thrissur said the urban action team under the committee carried out the attack. Going by the claim of the Maoists, the attack on NGIL corporate office, located in the prime spot in Kochi, would be the organisation’s first sortie into a Kerala city. NGIL’s unit in Thrissur district, which manufactures ossein from animal bone, has been facing protests over polluting a nearby river. A nine-member gang, wearing masks, stormed into the corporate office after threatening the security staff. Using iron rods, they demolished the computers and window panes. They also left a letter, which has reference to Maoists, forcing the police to suspect the involvement of the ultra outfit. The press release in Thrissur said the attack on NGIL was a symbolic action and was a warni

The insurgent guerrilla group Shining Path, founded in the 1980s, has retreated to a southern jungle region of Ayacucho, where it maintains operations. ( Wikimedia ) Español The Peruvian military arrested two suspected members of the Shining Path guerrilla group on Thursday after a gun battle,  according  to the Peruvian Armed Forces Joint Command. Authorities identified the suspects as César Valencia Curo and Emilio Meléndez Borda, the latter believed to be a cousin of Alejandro Borda, a former Shining Path commander also known as “Comrad Alipio.” A military patrol reportedly intercepted their vehicle just after midnight on Thursday as the pair was traveling. A confrontation then took place on a road near the town of Panti Tinuy, in the southern province of Huanta, region of Ayacucho. Once the shootout was over, soldiers confiscated two rifles, a pistol with two magazine clips, magazine clips for an UZI submachine gun, a FAL combat rifle, and PER$700 (roughly US$240) in cash. Officers

BBC security correspondent Islamic State rejects the authority of Saudi King Abdullah, pictured centre The leadership of Islamic State (IS) has no intention of standing still. In a 17-minute audio message, purportedly from its elusive leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the group sets its sights firmly on Saudi Arabia, birthplace of Islam and the world's largest oil producer and exporter. The speaker does not refer to it as Saudi Arabia, since this is a name derived from the ruling tribe, the al-Saud, whose authority IS does not accept. Instead he calls it "the land of Haramayn", the land of the two holy places, meaning Mecca and Medina. Reaching out to IS's growing number of Saudi followers, he sets out a target list for attack, starting with the Shia who make up a minority of Saudi nationals, living mostly in the oil-rich Eastern Province, and whom hardline Salafi radicals view as heretics. So deep are the sectarian divisions opened up in the Middle East by the insurgency

Boko Haram militants have seized the north-eastern Nigerian town of Chibok, from where they kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls in April.  Militants attacked and took control of the town, in Borno state, on Thursday evening, residents who escaped told the BBC. Boko Haram has repeatedly targeted villages around Chibok over recent months. The group says it is fighting to create an Islamic state in Nigeria. The schoolgirl kidnappings in Chibok caused worldwide outrage and sparked a social media campaign. Separately on Friday, a suicide attack at a petrol station in the northern city of Kano left at least six people dead, police said. Changed tactics A senator for Borno state, Ali Ndume, told the BBC Hausa service that security forces posted in Chibok, a relatively small, mainly Christian town, ran away when the insurgents attacked. Residents told the Sahara Reporters news website that the militants headed to the centre of Chibok and declared that they were taking it over as part of their

The aftermath of the 1980 attack, which hit a Paris synagogue on Rue Copernic A Canadian academic accused of a deadly 1980 bombing outside a synagogue in Paris has arrived in France after losing an extradition battle. University professor Hassan Diab landed at Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris on Saturday morning, reports say. He will next be transferred to a Paris courthouse to hear the charges against him. Lebanese-born Mr Diab is the main suspect in the Paris bombing on Rue Copernic, which killed four people. He had fought for six years to stay in Canada, but his extradition was approved by Canada's Supreme Court on Thursday. In a statement, the 60-year-old said his failed legal bid was "a very sad day for me, my family and supporters, and the state of extradition law in Canada". Supporters say the sociology professor is not guilty of the bombing and could be convicted on tainted evidence, but the French embassy in Ottawa said Mr Diab will be presumed innocent. Canadi

The three left the airport soon after they were prevented from travelling to Beijing Three pro-democracy student leaders from Hong Kong have been stopped from boarding a plane to Beijing. They had hoped to meet China's leaders as part of their push for greater democracy, but were told at the airport that their travel permits were invalid. Protesters have been camped out on the streets of the territory since late September. They want Beijing to allow more candidates to stand in the territory's next leadership election in 2017. The group were greeted at the airport by fellow democracy activists, who unfurled yellow umbrellas - a symbol of Hong Kong's democracy movement. The group was mobbed by other protesters and the media before trying to board the flight They were led by Alex Chow, who heads the Hong Kong Federation of Students, which has played a key role mobilising the protests The three said they wanted to talk directly with national leaders because so far, the Hong Kon

The Baiji oil refinery has seen fighting between Islamic State and Iraqi forces for months. Iraqi forces say they have driven away Islamic State militants from around the country's largest oil refinery. It comes a day after officials said they had retaken the nearby town of Baiji, which had been under militant control since June. The top US military officer, General Martin Dempsey, has also arrived in Iraq on an unannounced visit. It is his first trip since a US-led coalition began a campaign of airstrikes against the militants. More than 1,000 non-combat American forces are in Iraq to help train the national army. President Obama has authorised sending up to 1,500 more to support Iraqi forces. Baiji accounts for almost a quarter of Iraq's oil production General Dempsey met with US soldiers on his unannounced visit The Baiji oil facility, 200km (130 miles) north of Baghdad, accounts for around a quarter of Iraq's oil production. "Iraqi forces... reached the gate of the

Luhansk: British national Samantha Lewthwaite, dubbed as the 'White Widow', has been shot dead by a Russian sniper, reports said on Friday. Lewthwaite, a British-born terrorist, was one of the world’s most-wanted woman. The Interpol had issued an international arrest notice for the British national Samantha at Kenya's request in September. However, there has been no official confirmation on the 'White Widow's' killing. According to TASS, Russian news agency Lugansk militias have no information about the alleged killing of Lewthwaite. Some reports say that a USD 1 million bounty has been put on the head of the Russian sniper who has killed the notorious British terror suspect. However, conflicting reports claimed that the 30-year-old, mother of four, was believed to have been fighting alongside the dreaded Islamic State terrorists in Syria (ISIS) and was shot dead two weeks ago in Ukraine. Russian news agency TASS also reported that she supposedly fought on the s

TRIPOLI, Libya –   Car bombs went off outside the Egyptian embassy and that of the United Arab Emirates in the Libyan capital on Thursday, causing some damage to the buildings, long-shuttered in the wake of the violence roiling Tripoli, officials said. No one was hurt in the near-simultaneous explosions that rocked the city's upscale neighborhood housing foreign missions, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to media. Both the Egyptian and the Emirati embassy, along with most diplomatic missions, foreign and international organizations have been closed for months as Islamist-allied militias seized Tripoli after weeks of fierce fighting. Egypt condemned the attack, saying it harmed the "historic, blood ties" between the two nations. "Terrorist groups are using violence to reach political goals," Egypt's Foreign Ministry said in a statement. The blasts occurred a day after three car bombs, including one

Samantha Lewthwaite or the White Widow and the world's most wanted woman terrorist, has reportedly been gunned down in war-torn Ukraine by a Russian marksman. According to The Mirror, Lewthwaite had joined the Ukraine conflict just two weeks ago and was fighting on the side of a pro-government group, Aidar, as a sniper. The Russian sniper who killed the British terrorist now has a bounty of 630,000 dollars on his head from Ukrainian special services. Muslim convert Lewthwaite, who was married to London 7/7 suicide bomber Germaine Lindsay, had been on the run ever since she was linked to a failed plot to blow up hotels and a shopping centre in Mombasa, Kenya, in 2011. Interpol made her world's most wanted woman terrorist after her involvement in a Nairobi Mall attack that killed 67 people last September. Reports last month had said that she had joined the Islamic State (IS) and was one of its most prominent female fighters. Source  http://wap.business-standard.com/article/news-a

Courtesy:  Mail Today Majority of madrasas are not involved in jehadi activities: Report Abhishek Bhalla   New Delhi, Thursday, November 13, 2014 Madrasas with Indian teachers are not nurseries of jehad but those with staff from other countries are a potential hunting ground for terror groups. This has been the finding of a secret report that has been put together over the last one year and submitted to the Union home ministry. It is at such madrasas that young Muslims are indoctrinated in jehad. "There is no hate propaganda if the teachers are Indian Muslims and there is no jehadi indoctrination," the report states. Under scanner Sources, however say that in many of these madrasas there are teachers from Bangladesh who need to be put under scrutiny. The report suggests that majority of madrasas are not involved in jehadi activities, but in states like West Bengal and Assam there could be elements involved in anti-India activities. The report also sheds light on the condition

Reuters The  ceasefire  in eastern Ukraine is all but dead, Ukraine's representative to the Organisation of Security and Co-operation in  Europe  (OSCE) told Austrian newspaper  Die Presse . The truce, which the OSCE is monitoring, was agreed in the Belarussian capital Minsk on September 5 after weeks of fighting between Ukrainian government forces and separatists. It was now barely possible to still speak of a ceasefire, Ihor Prokopchuk was quoted as telling the newspaper in an interview. "Since the Minsk agreement ...we have more than 2,400 breaches of the ceasefire by militant groups. More than 100 Ukrainian soldiers and dozens of civilians have been killed," he said The truce has been violated daily, and increasingly since the rebels held what the West and Ukrainian President  Petro Poroshenko  said were illegitimate leadership elections on November 2. The  death toll has passed 4,000 since the truce was agreed , with  Kiev accusing  Moscow  of sending more troops int

An Nov. 3 article from the Winnipeg Free Press detailed what is already happening all over the world — eco-terrorism is being intensified by the severe weather. This weather, scientifically regarded as a result of climate change, is enabling eco-terrorists, most known cases being in the Middle East, to take advantage of now unstable of insufficient natural resources to gain power and/or enact violence on the people around them. Unknown to many, the United States has its own eco-terrorists. There is only one major difference. The Earth Liberation Front, an extreme environmental group, fights to protect our environment from capitalistic expansion, which prioritizes profit over our environmental wellbeing. These very people fighting for our environment, to prevent detrimental climate change, are given the same label, put in the same prisons and seen as equals in the eyes of the law as those overseas who are taking advantage of capitalistic environmental negligence, by taking advantage of

The intercepted call at the centre of a case against a man charged with a terrorism offence after a series of raids in  New South Wales  has a “glaring error” in the translation, defence lawyers have claimed. On Thursday 22-year-old Omarjan Azari made his first appearance in court since the raids in September, in which police raided more than 500 homes across  Sydney . Azari was charged with conspiring to prepare an act of terrorism. Azari’s counsel, the criminal law barrister Winston Terracini, told magistrate Greg Grogin errors had been identified in the translation of an intercepted call that was so far the key evidence disclosed in court. He also told the court Azari was being held in the high-security Goulburn jail and has not been allowed visits by family and friends. “There are inaccuracies in the translation,” Terracini said. “We’ve already had one look and there is at least one glaring error. “There is no explanation why he is in Goulburn. We’ve asked for a review by correctio

NEW YORK — The Obama administration told a UN panel in Geneva on Wednesday that the United States had tortured terrorism suspects after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, but that it had since taken steps to prevent any future use of unlawful, coercive interrogation techniques. “The United States is proud of its record as a leader in respecting, promoting, and defending human rights and the rule of law, both at home and around the world,” Mary McLeod, the acting State Department legal adviser, told the panel. “But in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, we regrettably did not always live up to our values.” Continue reading below The panel addressed by McLeod monitors compliance with the UN Convention Against Torture. In her testimony, she formally introduced a new position by the US government on whether a provision of that treaty, which prohibits “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment,” imposes legal obligations on its conduct abroad. The George W. Bush administration contended that it applied on

Police have defended a proposal to give them easier access to unprecedented powers by claiming terrorism is greater than any other crime. Australian Federal Police assistant commissioner Neil Gaughan wants streamlined access to control orders, he told a parliamentary committee reviewing the foreign fighters Bill on Thursday. Control orders, which must be issued by a court, impose obligations and restrictions on a person to protect the public from terrorism. The order may include a curfew, wearing an electronic monitoring tag, restrictions on communications, regular reporting to police, and a range of other measures. But they're controversial. They have only been sought and issued twice since their introduction in 2005 - to Jack Thomas and David Hicks. The UK abolished its control order regime in 2011. The AFP wants to streamline the process of applying through the attorney-general to save time and paperwork. When asked by the committee why the AFP needed control orders instead of a

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday made an anti-terrorism pitch at East Asia Summit and urged countries to reject any linkage between religion and terrorism. "Comprehensive response against terrorism requires a genuinely international partnership against all terrorism," PM Modi said in his address at the East Asia Summit. "Challenges of terrorism and extremism are increasing and they are linked to drugs, money laundering," the PM said, adding, "Cyber and space should remain a source of connectivity and prosperity, not new theatres for conflict." Prime Minister Modi announced India's support to the East Asia Summit Declaration on the Islamic State. The Prime Minister urged countries to follow international law and norms for peace and stability. "In a world of inter-dependence and globalization, there is no option but to follow international laws and norms," the PM said. "We need to follow global norms for peace in the Sou

World Bulletin/News Desk Members of the left-wing and pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party, or HDP, are hopeful that the stalled solution process to settle the Kurdish issue will soon be resumed. The solution process is an effort launched early last year by the Turkish government to secure an end to the decades-long conflict with the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, which has claimed the lives of more than 40,000 people. "After the meeting we had yesterday [Tuesday] with the members of the Solution Process Council, I can say that there is a mutual willingness to continue the talks which have been interrupted for a while," HDP group deputy chair, Pervin Buldan, told a press conference on Wednesday. The so-called Solution Process Council was established in October by Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu's cabinet in order to guide the efforts towards seeing the Kurdish issue through to a final agreement as soon as possible. Buldan said that they applied to the