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Showing posts from March 9, 2014

France indicts two women over 'Syria-bound' teenage girl

Paris: French prosecutors charged two women over the disappearance of a 15-year-old girl who is believed to have travelled to Syria to fight alongside jihadist rebels.  The pair were charged by a Paris court with complicity in criminal association in relation to a terrorist undertaking, a judicial source told AFP.  Investigators suspect that the high school girl from the southern city of Avignon had briefly stayed with one of the two indicted women.  One of those, a 24-year-old mother of four, is a resident of a Paris suburb and is believed to have been preparing to travel to Syria herself to join her husband and support jihadists in their fight against President Bashar al-Assad's regime. "My client denies any desire to leave for Syria with her children. It appears she has fallen prey to pressure from abroad," the mother's lawyer, Yassine Yakouti, said on Thursday.  According to Interior Minister Manuel Valls, as many as 700 French nationals could have joined the fi

Bomb thrown at police in Northern Ireland

London: Police officers in Northern Ireland came under attack when an explosive device was thrown at their vehicle in Belfast, a police spokesman said.  No one was seriously injured in the incident, although four members of the public were treated for shock. A local lawmaker said shrapnel from the explosion hit a passing car The attack came just hours after a bomb was found nearby, having fallen off a vehicle and failed to explode. The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said it had not ruled out the possibility that it was aimed at one of its officers.  "Police in west Belfast have escaped serious injury tonight after an explosive device detonated close to their vehicle on the Falls Road," a PSNI spokesman said yesterday.  "The incident occurred shortly before 10.30 pm close to the entrance of the City Cemetery. It is believed some form of explosive device was thrown at their vehicle." Paul Maskey, a member of parliament for the Sinn Fein republican party,

Two dead in clashes in eastern Ukraine: Police

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Kharkiv: Two people were killed in clashes that broke out between pro-Moscow and pro-Kiev supporters in Ukraine's Russian-speaking city of Kharkiv, police said on Saturday, the second such deadly incident in as many days in the country's tinderbox east.  One pro-Russia protester and a passerby were killed when Ukrainian nationalists opened fire on a group of men trying to storm their headquarters in the city late on Friday, police sources told AFP.  The deaths were likely to further fuel tensions in the region, coming less than a day after Russia warned that it reserved the right to protect compatriots in the whole of Ukraine.  Police said events leading to the deaths on Friday began when a group of nationalists opened fire from inside a car at a pro-Russian protest being held on Kharkiv's central Svoboda (Freedom) Square. No one was reported seriously hurt in the incident and a group of several dozen pro-Russian protesters chased the car, tracking it to the headquarters

18 tribesmen abducted from Peshawar

PESHAWAR- At least 18 tribesmen were kidnapped yesterday night by armed gunmen from Badhber area on the outskirts of Peshawar, the capital of restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Official sources said that about 60 to 70 armed gunmen raided Faqeer Kalley in Mashokhel area of Badbher, at around 8 pm some  kilometres away from the main city and kidnapped 18 people from the village. The local people and the police said the kidnapped people belonged to the Shinwari tribe of Afridis According to residents of the area, it was a case of kidnapping for ransom, adding that the Shinwari community was very wealthy. Police filed a First Information Report at the Badhber police station and an investigation is underway. No one has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping Source:  http://www.nation.com.pk/national/15-Mar-2014/18-tribesmen-abducted-from-peshawar

Syrian forces enter rebel stronghold near Lebanese border: TV

Beirut: Syrian soldiers entered eastern districts of the town of Yabroud, the last rebel bastion near the Lebanese border north of Damascus, on Saturday and advanced towards the main street, Al Mayadeen television said.  The Beirut-based station broadcast footage showing soldiers charging through a field towards an arched entrance of the town and a sign saying "Welcome to Yabroud".  Gunfire could be heard as the soldiers advanced. Capturing Yabroud would help President Bashar al-Assad choke off a cross-border rebel supply line from Lebanon. The town is near the highway linking Damascus to the former commercial hub Aleppo in the north and to the Mediterranean coast in the west, a stronghold of Assad's minority Alawite sect.  Thousands of people fled Yabroud, a town of an estimated 40,000-50,000 people roughly 60 km (40 miles) north of Damascus, and the surrounding areas after it was bombed and shelled last month ahead of the assault.  The government has been making incre

French airstrikes kill wanted Islamist ‘Red Beard’

BAMAKO: French airstrikes in northern Mali have killed Islamist militant Oumar Ould Hamaha, a jihadist with a $3 million U.S. government bounty on his head, Malian military sources said Friday. Hamaha, known as “Red Beard” because of his henna-dyed whiskers, became a leading figure in the Islamist coalition that seized control of northern Mali in April 2012 after drifting among armed Muslim groups in the Sahara over the last decade. A French-led military offensive launched in January 2013 broke the grip of the Al-Qaeda-linked militants over northern Mali, but small pockets of Islamists have continued to operate in the vast desert region. Two Malian military sources said Hamaha – a former member of Al-Qaeda’s north African wing who later became a leader of Mali’s Movement for Unity and Jihad in the Islamic Maghreb (MUJWA) – had been killed by French airstrikes. One of the sources said that Algerian militant Abou Walid Sahraoui, another former AQIM fighter who played a prominent role in

Kremlin website hit by 'powerful' cyber attack

MOSCOW: Victories are hard to come by for Vladimir Putin's opponents, activists are jailed, protests draw dwindling crowds, but on Friday they celebrated a minor triumph by briefly knocking out the Kremlin website. To red faces in the Kremlin and government, the central bank's site was also brought down by a cyber attack and the Foreign Ministry suffered similar problems. "A powerful cyber attack is under way on the (Kremlin) site," a spokeswoman for the Russian president's press service said by telephone as security experts struggled to curtail disruption. All three sites were working later on Friday. A group calling itself Anonymous Russia highlighted the Kremlin website's crash on Twitter, signalling it may have been behind the attack. The same group said it brought down the website in May 2012 in solidarity with protests against Putin on his return for a third term as president. A Kremlin source told Itar-Tass news agency there was no link with "the e

Policeman killed, 3 injured in shootout near Bulgaria school

SOFIA: A policemen was killed and three were injured Friday in Bulgaria in a shootout with a gunman who threatened staff and pupils at a school in the central town of Lyaskovets. "The man was arrested, injured but alive. The operation is over," Interior Minister Tsvetlin Yovchev told parliament. Petko Savov, 53, who was registered as suffering from a personality disorder, had barricaded himself in his flat opposite the Maksim Raykovich elementary school and opened fire on special police forces who had come to arrest him early Friday, officials said. Police had initially come to question the man over a series of notes he had sent to the director of the school, threatening him, the teachers and the pupils. "He said there was a lot of noise from the school, disturbing him and his mother, adding that he was a hunter and things would end badly," school director Nikolay Kozhuharov told public BNR radio. Media reports said the man, who was unemployed and has not left his f

Car bomb blast in Somali capital: police

MOGADISHU: A car bomb went off on Saturday in central Mogadishu near a hotel popular with government officials and businessmen, police and witnesses said. "There was a car bomb explosion near the rear gate of the Maka Al Mukarama hotel. It seems that the car was parked there loaded with explosives but we are still investigating casualties", Mohamed Mire, a police officer told AFP. Witnesses told AFP of casualties being carried from the scene of the blast, but it was not clear if they were injured or dead. Police confirmed at least one person was injured in the blast, which appeared to target hotel, which is popular with government officials and businessmen who have returned home after years abroad. The area around the hotel has been targeted several times in the recent past and the hotel itself was hit by a car bombing in November 2013 that left several people dead. Source  http://dailystar.com.lb/News/International/2014/Mar-15/250366-car-bomb-blast-in-somali-capital-police.a

Abbas to meet Obama ahead of peace talks deadline

As Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas prepares to touch down in Washington for a meeting on Monday with Barack Obama, an extension of peace talks with Israel looks far from certain. Palestinian and Israeli leaders have been locked in talks US Secretary of State John Kerry fought hard to launch in July after a three-year hiatus, but as negotiations have faltered, Israel has kicked up more obstacles to a peace deal that would end decades of conflict. Kerry hopes the two sides will agree on a US-proposed framework to guide final status negotiations, before the impending deadline for the current round of talks on April 29. But he is aware of the danger posed to talks by a recently-concocted Israeli demand -- that Palestinians recognise Israel as a Jewish state -- and came out strongly against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's emphasis on it, just days before Abbas's visit. "'Jewish state' was resolved in 1947 in (UN) Resolution 181 where there are more tha

Six soldiers killed in Cairo attack

Cairo: Six soldiers were killed Saturday in a dawn attack on their security checkpoint, the army said, blaming the raid on the now-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. “At 5am, an armed group belonging to the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood attacked a checkpoint manned by military police in the area of Mustrud [in northern Cairo],” the army said on its official Facebook page. It added that military explosives experts defused two bombs planted by the assaults next to the checkpoint targeting further troops. “The Armed Forces vow that these cowardly operations will just increase our determination to continue fighting terrorism.” The attack comes two days after one army soldier was killed and three others injured in an assault on a military minibus in the eastern Cairo district of Al Amirya. Security forces have been the target of a string of attacks since July last year when the army deposed president Mohammad Mursi of the Brotherhood in the wake of wide street protes

From his Pakistan hideout, Uighur leader vows revenge on China

DERA ISMAIL KHAN/ISLAMABAD - Entrenched in secret mountain bases on Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, Uighur fighters are gearing up for retribution against China to avenge the deaths of comrades in Beijing's crackdown on a separatist movement, their leader told Reuters. China, Pakistan's only major ally in the region, has long urged Islamabad to weed out what it says are militants from its western region of Xinjiang, who are holed up in a lawless tribal belt, home to a lethal mix of militant groups, including the Taliban and al Qaeda. A mass stabbing at a train station in the Chinese city of Kunming two weeks ago, in which at least 29 people were killed, has put a new spotlight on the largely Muslim Uighur ethnic minority from Xinjiang, where Beijing says armed groups seek to establish an independent state called East Turkestan. Beijing has called the Kunming bloodshed a "terrorist attack" carried out by militants, and says separatists operate traini

Malaysian Missing plane could have been hijacked to Pakistan: US media

Washington- The missing Malaysia Airline flight MH370 could have flown for an extra four hours after it lost contact with air traffic controllers and could had been hijacked and landed in Pakistan, according to American media reports. In another dramatic twist, aviation experts believe the plane flew for a total of five hours under radar. The possibility means the plane could have travelled for another 2,200 miles to Pakistan or Mongolia, according to the Wall Street Journal. The plane could had been hijacked and taken to an unknown location – one of many theories as to what may have happened to the disappearing plane.  The Wall Street Journal said it isn’t clear whether investigators have evidence of a hijacking – but they haven’t ruled the possibility out. US investigators are looking into the prospect and counter terrorism officials are investigating the idea that the plane’s transponders were turned off intentionally and the aircraft was diverted when an image appeared t

UNHRC meet: TNA raises issue of Tamil activist’s arrest

Tamil National Alliance (TNA) has raised the issue of the arrest of a Tamil woman activist and her 13-year-old daughter in Sri Lanka’s northern Kilinochchi district at the meeting of UN human rights body in Geneva. Balendran Jeyakumari and her daughter Vithushaini were arrested in Tharmapuram in Kilinochchi district on Thursday. The police had surrounded their house in search of an LTTE operative. Ananathy Saseetharan, a woman northern provincial council member from the north, raised the issue of the arrest of mother-daughter duo at the UN Human Rights Council. Police spokesman Ajith Rohana said while Ms. Jayakumari was produced before the Kilinochchi magistrate yesterday her daughter was handed over to child care officials. The police said a shooting incident took place in her house and a suspected LTTE cadre had fled from the house. A police officer was injured due to firing. Ms. Saseetharan, whose husband was an LTTE political wing leader in the East, was addressing the

Gunmen kill three in Multan

MULTAN- Unknown gunmen opened fire on a car in Matni Tal area, killing at least three people. According to the police, the three people traveling in the car were returning from a wedding when the attackers opened fire and fled the scene. The deceased were identified as Malik Zafar, Shujaat Gujjar and Akbar. Source:  http://www.nation.com.pk/national/15-Mar-2014/gunmen-kill-three-in-multan

TTP willing to hold direct talks with govt committee: Sami

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PESHAWAR - Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is willing to hold face-to-face talks with recently formed government peace committee and it is a big development to take the peace process forward, Taliban negotiation team chief and JUI-S Ameer Maulana Samiul Haq said Friday. "It is a high time to bring the government committee and Taliban at dialogue table to hold direct talks," he said this while briefing the media at Akora Khattak, Nowshera soon after the arrival of TTP's negotiation team comprising coordinator Maulana Yousaf Shah and Professor Mohammad Ibrahim Khan. A day before, the TTP committee has gone to Miranshah, North Waziristan Agency, where it held important meetings with TTP political shura to decide modalities, agenda, venue for holding next meeting and also discussed the so far progress in talks between government and Taliban. On Thursday morning, the TTP negotiation team left for North Waziristan through a special helicopter from Peshawar and after having

BLA blows up two gas pipelines in Kashmore

Kashmor- Two gas pipelines were blown up with explosives in two different areas today. Banned Balochistan Liberation Army has claimed responsibility of destroying the gas pipelines. Police said that the pipe line, which was 18 inches in diameter, was blown up in Balaj Bhangwar near Kandhkot.    The other pipeline was destroyed in Goth Shah. Source:  http://www.nation.com.pk/national/15-Mar-2014/bla-blows-up-two-gas-pipelines-in-kashmore

Al-Qaida, Jundullah, announce ceasefire in Pakistan

Peshawar- After Tehreek e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), two more militant groups have agreed over ceasefire for a limited time in Pakistan, according to local media quoting sources reported today. The talks between Taliban Shura and the dialogue committee in North Waziristan bearing fruit, some analysts claim. Two militant outfits,  Al-Qaida and Jundullah, have agreed over ceasefire in Pakistan, in a joint meeting held somewhere in Afghanistan. Commander of Jundullah militant outfit, who had claimed an attack in Peshawar cinema, has announced that al-Qaida and Jundullah groups have suspended terrorist attacks in Pakistan for a limited time period. Commander Ahmed Marwat said that the decision was made in a joint meeting of the two militant groups in Afghanistan, which was also attended by al-Qaida leader Ahmed Yahya Ghaden. The groups have ceased their operations in Pakistan for a limited time-span, reports said Source:  http://www.nation.com.pk/national/15-Mar-2014/al-qaida-jund

At least 17 killed in Pakistan bombings

Two bombings in separate parts of Pakistan have killed 17 people and left dozens of others injured. In the south-western city of Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province, 10 people died and 37 were injured when a bomb went off near a passenger bus. Four were in a critical condition. The bomb was planted on a bicycle and exploded when the bus drove by, police said. Two vehicles carrying Pakistan troops had just passed the site when the bomb exploded. In north-western ­Pakistan, a suicide attacker blew himself up near a police armoured vehicle about 12 miles south of the city of Peshawar, killing seven people. Police said most of the dead were civilians but many police officers were among the 45 people left injured. They said police had recently stepped up patrols in the area due to threats from militants from the nearby Khyber tribal region. The Pakistani army has carried out several operations in Khyber, in an effort to rid the area of militants. No one claime