BELEDWEYNE, Somalia - Heavy fighting erupted on Thursday in central Somalia after Al Shabaab militants attacked nomadic communities, Garowe Online reports.
Local reports say Al Shabaab militants "killed a number of nomads" in a village approximately 50km west of Beledweyne, capital of Hiran region, after a dispute as Al Shabaab wanted to collect some of the nomad's livestock as "payment". However, nomadic communities organized themselves and launched a counter-attack against Al Shabaab militants.
Mohamed Ibrahim Abdikarim, Hiran deputy governor for security matters, told reporters that, "the nomad fighters killed 12 Al Shabaab militants and seized their weapons".
Give those nomads some extra ammo and a few more AKs...
Al Shabaab group has not publicly addressed the matter
...since they were fleeing...
and casualty reports could not be independently identified.
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BAIDAO, Somalia -- An explosion i n Baidoa's busy market killed 1 person and injured 14 on Saturday, Garowe Online reports. The explosion occurred Saturday morning after a grenade was hurled at an Ethiopian military vehicle in a busy market in Baidoa capital of Bay region.
According to local sources, the Ethiopian forces opened fire after the explosion. Shop owners in the market said no one was injured by the gunfire. Ethiopian troops were unharmed in the attack.
Governor of Bay region Abdi Adan Heesow confirmed to media that one person was killed in the explosion while visiting the injured at Baidoa's hospital. It is unknown who committed the attack in Baidoa.
No clue at all. Couldn't have been a Shaboob because they say they're peaceful, so it must have been a Lutheran or a Baptist...
Bay region, once the headquarters of Al Shabaab, has been home to Somali government forces, Ethiopian and AMISOM troops who have managed to remove the terrorist organization from the major cities in the region. However Al Shabaab still has a strong presence in rural villages and an even stronger presence in the neighboring region of Bakool.
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[ AnNahar] Suspected al-Qaeda bully boyz killed a policeman and a civilian in a grenade attack on a checkpoint in southeastern Yemen on Saturday, a security official and witnesses said.
The two assailants threw a grenade at the police checkpoint in the coastal town of Al-Shihr in Hadramawt province, the sources said, adding that two other coppers were maimed.
The security official said the attack bore the hallmarks of al-Qaeda bad turbans, who are active in the region, without giving further details.
Fighters loyal to al-Qaeda have seized villages near the port city of Mukalla, the Hadramawt capital, in an apparent bid to take over parts of the province, the interior ministry said on Friday.
It said the uprising in Hadramawt would suffer the "same fate as that in Abyan ...a governorate of Yemen. The region was a base to the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army terrorist group until it dropped the name and joined al-Qaeda. Its capital is Zinjibar. In March 2011, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula declared the governate an Islamic Emirate after seizing control of the region. The New York Times fastidiously reported that those in control, while Islamic hard boyz, are not in fact al-Qaeda, but something else that looks, tastes, smells, and acts the same. Yemeni government forces launched an effort to re-establish control of the region when President-for-Life Saleh was tossed and the carnage continues... " province east of the main southern port of Aden.
Al-Qaeda bully boyz seized several towns in Abyan from 2011 to 2012, taking advantage of the collapse of central government control during 11 months of protests that eventually forced veteran president President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it... from power.
In the towns they seized, the bully boyz enforced a strict version of sharia (Islamic law), which included punishments such as public executions and amputations, before the army drove them out.
zaz
A remotely-detonated bomb planted in a military vehicle killed a soldier and a civilian and injured six other soldiers in the Hadramaut region of eastern Yemen on Saturday evening, a local security official said, Reuters reported.
The explosion took place in the town of al-Shehr as the vehicle drove along a main road, the official said. He added Islamist militants were suspected of the bombing.
It wasn't the Ruritanians...
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Dhaka, May 25 (UNB) -- A suspected mugger was killed in police firing in the city's Agargaon area on Saturday night.
Police said sub-inspector Rakib along with his team was paroling the area riding two rickshaws in plainclothes since evening.
Around 9:00 pm, they said, three muggers swooped on SI Rakib's rickshaw and tried to snatch his valuables.
When SI Rakib challenged them, the muggers set off a cocktail targeting the law enforcers. The law enforcers then fired gunshots, leaving two of the muggers injured.
Later, another SI, Mohsin, took one of the unidentified injured to the Dhaka Medical College Hospital where doctors pronounced him dead. Two other suspected muggers fled the scene, according to the police.
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[AnNahar] Twelve people were hospitalized and two of them were in a critical condition after a female jacket wallah blew herself up in Russia's restive Dagestan ...a formerly inoffensive Caucasus republic currently bedevilled by low-level Islamic insurgency, occasional outbreaks of separatism, ethnic tensions and terrorism, primarily due to its proximity to Chechnya. There are several dozen ethnic groups, most of which speak either Caucasian, Turkic, or Iranian languages. Largest among these ethnic groups are the Avar, Dargin, Kumyk, Lezgin, and Laks. While Russers form less than five percent of the population, Russian remains the primary official language and the lingua franca... region Saturday, in the second bombing attack this week, a police spokeswoman said.
The bomber blew herself up not far from the interior ministry building in the center of Makhachkala, spokeswoman Fatina Ubaidatova told Agence La Belle France Presse.
The Moscow-based Investigative Committee said an unidentified woman came up to traffic coppers and detonated an explosive.
All the injured were hospitalized. Five were coppers and two of them were in a "critical condition," Ubaidatova said.
The suicide bomber herself died. State television broadcast a picture of a young woman, her head covered with a scarf, suggesting she might have been behind the bombing.
The latest attack in Russia's troubled Northern Caucasus region comes after twin boom-mobiles killed four people and maimed more than 40 in the same city on Monday.
Dagestan is one of Russia's most violent regions. It is also home to the parents of Boston marathon bombing suspects Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
Since 2000, at least two dozen female suicide bombers, most of them from the Caucasus, have carried out terrorist attacks in Russian cities and aboard trains and planes. All were linked to an Islamic insurgency that spread throughout Dagestan and the predominantly Mohammedan Caucasus region after two separatist wars in neighboring Chechnya.
The bombers are often called "black widows" in Russia because many of them are the wives, or other relatives, of forces of Evil killed by security forces.
Rioting spread to several Swedish towns on Friday night as police stepped up arrests during a sixth night of unrest and far-right vigilantes chased non-whites in southern Stockholm.
In Linköping, central southern Sweden, police responded to 120 incidents as cars, caravans and two schools were set alight. At one point a blazing truck was rolled into a building, which caught fire.
"We see the night's events as an offshoot of what has happened in the Stockholm area in recent days," local police told Swedish television.
In Orebro, 120 km west of Stockholm, police were stoned after cars and a school were torched. In Uppsalla, north of Stockholm, there was minor violence.
In Stockholm, police made 18 arrests - the largest number since the disturbances broke out last Sunday night in the northern suburb of Husby a week after an elderly immigrant was shot dead by police. The violence appears to have been sparked by young, second-generation immigrants from north Africa and the Middle East angered by racism and social exclusion.
And by being forced to accept benefits including cash, housing, medical care and education...
Some 20 cars were torched overnight in the city, according to media reports. On Saturday morning, a further 21 cars were set alight in less than an hour in Åkersberga, just outside Stockholm, Swedish television reported. Police pursued the perpetrators by helicopter.
In the southern suburb of Tumba, at least 50 rightwing extremists chased immigrants, according to numerous media and eye-witness reports on Twitter.
Police told Aftonbladet newspaper that the far-right had planned for several days on social media to "help" deal with the riots. Dagens Nyheter newspaper reported that 10 police vans were needed to prevent neo-Nazis from attacking locals. No arrests were made.
A group claiming to be the driving force behind the vigilantes wrote on Facebook that there was a "large group of Swedes" in southern Stockholm and "smaller groups out on the streets to help maintain law and order".
We're no fans of the far-right nutters here at the Burg, but if the police don't step up to stop the riots -- and the politicians don't allow the police to step up -- then average people are going to look to whoever promises security.
The anti-immigration Sweden Democrats, polling around 10 per cent ahead of elections next year, have called for harsh measures to deal with rioters.
Swedes with immigrant backgrounds promised to mobilise to keep the far right out of their neighbourhoods.
They're not mobilizing to stop the youts, you notice...
The British Foreign Office and the US State Department issued warnings to citizens visiting Stockholm to stay away from the areas where rioting and protests had taken place.
Wonder if Foggy Bottom is about to open a cultural center there...
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PARIS - A French soldier patrolling a business neighborhood west of Paris was stabbed in the neck and injured on Saturday by a man who fled the scene and is being sought by police, President Francois Hollande said.
The 23-year-old was patrolling in uniform with two other soldiers as part of France's Vigipirate anti-terror surveillance plan when he was approached from behind around 6 p.m. and attacked with a knife or a box-cutter.
A police union spokesman said surveillance footage of the attacker showed him as tall and bearded, aged about 35, possibly of North African origin and wearing a white Arab-style tunic.
So he must be a tourist...
Hollande, in the Ethiopian city of Addis Ababa, commented on the stabbing to say police were hunting for the attacker but did not provide any details about his identity or any possible motivation for the attack.
No, no clue about motive whatsoever...
"We still don't know the exact circumstances of the attack or the identity of the attacker, but we are exploring all options," Hollande told journalists.
Exploring all motives indeed, except for the obvious one...
Three days after a British soldier was killed in a London street by two men who said they acted to avenge violence against Muslims, the attack near Paris raised questions about a possible copycat attempt to kill a French soldier.
Interior Minister Manuel Valls noted the similarity in an interview on France 2 TV saying the attacker was clearly trying to murder his victim, but he added that it was too early to offer any theories.
"Let's be prudent for now," Valls said of the attacker's identity and motivations. "Everything is being done to arrest this individual."
Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told journalists near the site of the attack: "The soldier was attacked because he is a soldier."
Pierre-Andre Peyvel, police prefect for the Hauts-de-Seine area west of Paris, said the soldier had lost a considerable amount of blood but would survive, and was being treated in a nearby military hospital.
Witnesses near the commuter train station where the attack occurred gave conflicting descriptions of the fleeing suspect. One asserted on TV that he saw two men fleeing, while another said the scene was too confused to tell.
Peyvel declined to confirm or deny any description and said further details would be forthcoming. A source said police would broadcast the man's likeness if no arrest was made soon.
Why not broadcast the likeness now to help with a quick arrest?
Valls said France would retain its current terror alert level at "red, reinforced", one step down from "scarlet", which is only activated in case of a serious and confirmed attack.
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#1
The relative safety of my armchair, this appears to be an urban combat patrol TTP rear security lapse. Yes, a blinding flash, but in need of saying nonetheless. I doubt the French will permit a reoccurrence.
Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told journalists near the site of the attack: "The soldier was attacked because he is a soldier."
Not at all certain I agree with the Defense Minister's assessment.
PESHAWAR: Gunmen killed seven police in an ambush attack in the Taliban-plagued northwest, officials said on Saturday.
The target of the late Friday attack was top police officer Dilawar Bangash who "survived with minor injuries", two officials said. Bangash was heading from the region's main city of Peshawar to the garrison town of Kohat near the lawless tribal region when the attack occurred.
"More than a dozen gunmen opened fire from both sides of the road" as Bangash's vehicle, which was escorted by another police van, crossed the militant infested town of Mattani, senior police official Shafiullah Khan said. "Militants who were armed with light and heavy weapons opened fire, killing six police officials in the lead police van," Khan said.
Three others were wounded, including Bangash, who was travelling in the other vehicle.
The gunmen also attacked a police rescue team, killing one policeman and wounding two more, he said.
"The firing was sudden and intense, the exchange of gunfire continued for quite sometime, but Allah saved my life," Bangash told AFP.
There's always tomorrow...
Another police official Fazal Naeem said police retaliated but he had no details on possible militant casualties because the incident took place around midnight on Friday.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province is on the frontline of a nearly seven-year Taliban insurgency and borders the semi-autonomous tribal belt where Pakistani troops are fighting against home-grown militants. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
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PESHAWAR: Anti Terrorism Court has remanded 6 suspects, including a woman, into police custody here on Saturday.
The city police had raided a house in Tarnab area, arresting six suspected militants, including a woman and had claimed recovering explosive material, suicide vests and bombs from them. According to police, the suspects during initial interrogation confessed
"Ouch! Ooch! I'll confess! I was on the grassy knoll! Stop doing that!"
their involvement in attacks on different political parties including an assault on former federal minister and leader of Awami National Party (ANP) Arbab Ayub Jan.
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UPPER DIR: At least three policemen sustained injuries when their vehicle was attacked with a remote-controlled bomb in Upper Dir on Saturday.
According to police, the mobile van of police was on routine patrol in Joghabun area near Sahibabad when it was attacked. The injured policemen were immediately shifted to a local hospital. The police vehicle was partially damaged in the explosion. The security forces started a search operation in the area to nab the miscreants involved.
Danged miscreants...
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[AnNahar] Iraqi forces mounted a massive operation on Saturday to better secure the country's western desert amid concerns it is being used by Sunnis heading to fight in neighboring Syria.
Some 20,000 troops attacked suspected hideouts of fighters linked to Sunni myrmidon groups, including al-Qaeda, and looked to secure a key road leading to Syria, top officers said.
Troops were also moved to the 600-kilometer (375-mile) border with Syria.
"The operation is large and backed by the air force," Staff General Ali Ghaidan Majeed, the head of ground forces, told AFP. "It has resulted in the arrest of several al-Qaeda members and the destruction of some of their strongholds."
"The target of the operation is also to clean the desert of the terrorist elements that exist there."
Two senior commanders in al-Qaeda's local front group, the Islamic State of Iraq, were among those killed.
Majeed did not say how many troops had been sent to the border.
The operation is being carried out in parts of border provinces Anbar and Nineveh, where Iraqi and Western officials are concerned that Sunni myrmidon groups opposed to the regime of Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Scourge of Qusayr... and to Iraq's Shiite-led government have set up camp.
Among the mostly-Sunni rebels fighting Assad's regime are groups allied to al-Qaeda. That has fueled fears in Storied Baghdad ...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate... of a spillover from neighboring Syria increasing tensions and violence in Iraq.
The more than two-year uprising in Syria has reportedly left more than 94,000 people dead.
At least five Iranian pilgrims have been killed and 20 others injured after a car bomb hit their bus in north of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, Press TV reported.
The bomb exploded on Saturday on the highway from Balad to Samarra, a provincial police source said. The attack occurred when a booby-trapped car hit the bus near the city of Samarra, some 110 km north of Baghdad.
This is the second blast against pilgrims travelling the same route this week as a car bomb went off on Monday, killing 14 people and wounding at least 15.
More than 400 people have been killed and hundreds more injured in bombings and others acts of violence in Iraq since the start of May. This comes as the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) said on May 2 that April was the deadliest month in Iraq since 2008 as terrorist attacks killed over 700 people and injured more than 1,600 others across the country. UNAMI also stated that Baghdad was the worst affected governorate, with a total of 211 killed and nearly 500 injured.
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Clashes between gunnies from rival neighborhoods in the northern city of 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... left three people dead as fighting intensified on Saturday morning.
The festivities that had subsided at dawn, again spiraled out of control in the morning with fighters from both Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen using rockets and other heavy weapons.
Three people were killed and four were maimed in Saturday's festivities.
Caretaker premier Najib Miqati chaired a meeting in the afternoon with the participation of the North's MPs to discuss measures to be taken the restore calm in Tripoli.
"We call for the implementation of a security plan that would restore security in the city," al-Mustaqbal ... the Future Movement, political party led by Saad Hariri... MP Mohammed Kabbara said after the talks. "We also urge the Public Prosecution to continue its investigation with those committing the crime of threatening and attacking the city."
They stressed on the army's role in "preserving civil peace," urging the military institution to "fairly and equally implement rules without any discrimination between one neighborhood and another."
"We demand the army to tighten security measures and suppress all sniper activities from Jabal Mohsen, because despite the troops' deployment in the area, these operations were not halted and have caused the fall of many victims."
The MPs reiterated their rejection of the state of chaos that is prevailing in the northern city, demanding the army to remove all presence of gunnies in the North.
Saturday's battles raised the six-day corpse count to 26 and fed fears of the Syrian civil war spreading to Leb and other neighboring countries.
Leb has been on edge since the uprising in Syria began in March 2011.
This week's fighting in Tripoli has been linked to a Syrian regime offensive against the rebel-held city of al-Qusayr in western Syria that has included Hizbullah fighters supporting Syrian troops against the rebels.
Tripoli is overwhelmingly Sunni but has a tiny community of Alawites, members of Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Leveler of Latakia... 's minority sect, which is an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
Bab al-Tabbaneh's residents are mostly Sunni while the majority of Alawites reside in Jabal Mohsen.
[AnNahar] Syrian forces entered a key objective north of the besieged central town of Qusayr on Saturday, the army said, battling rebels inside the former military airport of Dabaa.
"The Syrian army infiltrated Dabaa airport from the northwest, and now fighting is taking place inside the airport after they broke the rebel defense lines," an army source said.
Activists said elite troops from the army and its ally Hizbullah led the attack.
The former military airport lies just outside Qusayr on the only road north of the town.
Earlier on Saturday, forces loyal to Assad unleashed their heaviest artillery and rocket barrage yet in a week-long battle to dislodge rebels from a strategic western town, activists said.
Pro-Assad troops, including fighters from Hizbullah, have been trying to push rebels out of Qusayr. They have gained ground, but rebels have clung to some positions.
Rami Abdul Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told Agence La Belle La Belle La Belle France Presse "the fighting and shelling, which took place on Saturday on the main roads inside and outside of Qusayr, are the most intense since the beginning of the offensive."
He said Qusayr, rebel areas north of the town like Hamdiyeh, Dabaa and Arjuneh have been subjected to heavy bombardment by regime forces using surface-to-surface missiles.
Qusayr is a key prize for the rebels, a conduit through which weapons and fighters can be channeled from Leb, only about 10 kilometers (six miles) away.
It is also important for Assad's forces because of its strategic location between Damascus and the Mediterranean coast, the Alawite heartland of the embattled president's regime.
Rahman said "the intensification of the fighting can be explained by Hizbullah's desire to score points before the speech their leader Hasan Nasrallah is due to deliver this evening," marking the 13th anniversary of Israel's withdrawal from Leb.
On Friday, anti-regime demonstrators across Syria denounced the Hizbullah chief, waving placards reading "Nasrallah, impostor of the resistance," and "Homs is not Jerusalem," a reference to the group's slogan about liberating Jerusalem.
[AnNahar] Syrian troops have captured much of the rebel stronghold of Qusayr, in central Homs province, squeezing opposition fighters into the north of the strategic town, a military officer told Agence La Belle France Presse on Friday.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights watchdog said regime forces backed by members of Hizbullah were bombing northern areas of the city, encircling rebel fighters there.
"The gunnies are surrounded on all sides, there is no escape for them now," the officer told an AFP journalist accompanying army forces in the embattled town.
The regime uses the term "gunnies" to refer to the rebel forces fighting to overthrow Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor. If he'd stuck with it he'd have had a good practice by now...
"The battle will continue until the complete liberation of Qusayr. We're in the second and penultimate phase of the fight," the officer said.
The Syrian army, backed by Hezbollah fighters, began on Sunday their assault on Qusayr.
They advanced into the south, east and west of the city, quickly claiming the municipality building in the center of town.
The eastern part of the town, which has been abandoned by residents, has effectively been transformed into a military barracks, the AFP journalist said.
Armored vehicles, military positions and fortifications can been seen in every street and on every corner.
Soldiers are posted on all the buildings overlooking the northern part of the town.
"There are many snipers who are trying to infiltrate buildings to monitor army movements in the secured areas," another army officer says.
At the entrance to a bakery, soldiers drink coffee and smoke cigarettes, while another group keeps a close eye on the main road, "to stop any infiltration by gunnies," one of them said.
The army says it now controls the road linking Qusayr to the Lebanese Bekaa city of Baalbeck, a stronghold of Hizbullah which is allied to the Syrian regime.
Qusayr is strategically important for both the rebels and the regime.
For the rebels, the town of 25,000 people is a conduit on a route along which weapons and fighters arrive from Leb.
The regime wants to control the town to deny the rebels their strategic prize and also keep open the road between Damascus and the coast, which runs by Qusayr.
The Observatory reported violent festivities in the areas of Hamdiyeh and Arjuneh, as well as Dabaa airport, north of the city of Qusayr.
"The regime forces are trying to isolate Dabaa airport from the town to completely encircle the rebel groups," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.
Hezbollah, meanwhile, "is using heavy artillery and mortars" in the fight against the rebels, he added.
The Observatory said at least 67 people had been killed across Syria on Friday, including 18 soldiers, 17 civilians and 32 rebel fighters.
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.
BELEDWEYNE, Somalia - Heavy fighting erupted on Thursday in central Somalia after Al Shabaab militants attacked nomadic communities, Garowe Online reports.
Dhaka, May 25 (UNB) -- A suspected mugger was killed in police firing in the city's Agargaon area on Saturday night.
Rioting spread to several Swedish towns on Friday night as police stepped up arrests during a sixth night of unrest and far-right vigilantes chased non-whites in southern Stockholm.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
Najib Miqati
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
