A series of bomb explosions in Afghanistan has left eleven civilians, including five children, dead. The children were killed in a roadside bomb blast in western Herat province on Saturday, Afghan Interior Ministry confirmed.
The ministry also reported the loss of six civilian lives in two similar blasts in south of the country.
Taliban militants use roadside bombs to target Afghan and foreign forces. But the explosive devices also kill civilians. The United Nations has reported that more than 2,400 civilians were killed in Afghanistan last year.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/29/2010 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Taliban
Somali pirates have hijacked an Iranian ship carrying $4 million worth of Egyptian oranges off the coast of Yemen, Iranian media said on Saturday.
Fars news agency quoted Reza Nourani, head of the fresh fruits importers and exporters union, as saying the 5,000-tonne ship was seized last week while heading to Iran from Egypt. The media reports said the ship was currently 640 km (400 miles) off the coast of Somalia and the hijackers were believed to be Somali.
Nourani said the ship was named as Talca and belongs to two members of the Iranian union.
Somali pirates have stepped up attacks in recent months, making tens of millions of dollars in ransoms from seizing ships in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/29/2010 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Pirates
#1
WHO and HRC issued a joint statement :
All the pirates are safe and well , and will not be suffering from scruvy this year .
Posted by: Oscar ||
03/29/2010 8:23 Comments ||
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#2
"...head of the fresh fruits importers and exporters union..."
[Maghrebia] Two Algerian soldiers were killed and five others seriously injured in an attack on an army patrol near Kadiria, west of Bouira, El Watan reported on Friday (March 26th). According to security sources, terrorists detonated the two roadside bombs on Thursday morning.
In other news Friday, the Algerian army on Friday killed three terrorists near Ait Yahia Moussa, some 30 kilometres south of Tizi Ouzou. The military operation was launched Wednesday following information about the presence of armed groups in the region.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/29/2010 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in North Africa
25 in the first bomb -more in the second
At least 38 people have been killed after two female suicide bombers blew themselves up on Moscow Metro trains in the morning rush hour, officials say. Twenty-four died in the first blast at 0756 (0356 GMT) as a train stood at the central Lubyanka station, beneath the offices of the FSB intelligence agency.
About 40 minutes later, a second explosion ripped through a train at Park Kultury, leaving another 14 dead.
The FSB said it was likely a group from the North Caucasus was responsible.
The BBC's Richard Galpin in Moscow says no group has yet said it carried out the attacks, but past suicide bombings in the capital have been carried out by or blamed on Islamist rebels fighting for independence in Chechnya.
In February, Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov said "the zone of military operations will be extended to the territory of Russia... the war is coming to their cities".
At an emergency meeting with senior officials, President Dmitry Medvedev vowed to uphold the "policy of suppressing terror and the fight against terrorism".
"We will continue operations against terrorists without compromises and to the end," he said.
Federal security forces have scored a series of successes against militants in the North Caucasus in recent weeks. In February, at least 20 insurgents were killed in an operation by troops in Ingushetia.
Emergency services ministry spokeswoman Irina Andrianova said the first explosion tore through the second carriage of a train as it stood at Lubyanka at the peak of the rush hour. The station, on both the busy Sokolnicheskaya and Tagansko-Krasnopresnenskaya lines, lies beneath the headquarters of the Federal Security Service (FSB).
"I was moving up on the escalator when I heard a loud bang, a blast. A door near the passage way arched, was ripped out and a cloud of dust came down on the escalator," an eyewitness named Alexei told Rossiya 24 TV channel.
"People started running, panicking, falling on each other," he said.
The second blast at Park Kultury, which is six stops away from Lubyanka on the Sokolnicheskaya line, came at 0838 (0438 GMT). It struck at the back of the train as people were getting on board.
"I was in the middle of the train when somewhere in the first or second carriage there was a loud blast. I felt the vibrations reverberate through my body," one passenger told the RIA news agency.
"People were yelling like hell," he said. "There was a lot of smoke and within about two minutes everything was covered in smoke."
More than 60 people were injured in the two attacks, 30 of them badly, officials said.
In a meeting with President Medvedev, FSB chief Alexander Bortnikov said its investigators believed the attacks had been carried out by "terrorist groups related to the North Caucasus".
"This is likely to be our main conclusion, because fragments of the bodies of two female suicide bombers were found earlier at the scene of the incident and examinations show that these individuals came from the North Caucasus region," he said.
Citing a preliminary forensic report, Mr Bortnikov added that the devices had been made with the powerful explosive, hexogen, which is more commonly known as RDX.
The bomb that went off at Lubyanka station had an equivalent force of up to 4kg of TNT, while the bomb at Park Kultury was equivalent to 1.5-2kg of TNT, he said. The devices were filled with chipped iron rods and screws for shrapnel.
Federal prosecutors said they had opened an investigation into "suspected acts of terrorism".
'Heinous crime'
Moscow's Metro is one of the most-used underground railways in the world, carrying about 5.5 million passengers a day. Parts of the system were closed down as a precaution after the bombings, and 700 interior ministry troops deployed on the streets.
"The whole city is a mess, people are calling each other, the operators can't cope with such a huge number of calls at a time," said Olga, a BBC News website reader in Moscow. "Those who witnessed the tragedy can't get over the shock."
President Medvedev asked officials to increase security on the public transport system nationwide. "What was being done needs to be substantially strengthened," he said. "Look at this problem on the scale of the state, not only as it applies to a particular type of transport and a particular city."
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who has cut short a visit to the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, said a crime that was "terrible in its consequences and heinous in its manner" had been committed.
"I am confident that law enforcement bodies will spare no effort to track down and punish the criminals. Terrorists will be destroyed," he added.
US President Barack Obama condemned the "outrageous acts", and said the American people stood united with the people of Russia in opposition to violent extremism.
The EU's foreign affairs chief, Baroness Ashton, also condemned the bombings and offered the bloc's "solidarity to the Russian authorities". Nato Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen pledged its commitment to fight with Russia against terrorism.
The co-ordinated attacks were the deadliest in Moscow since February 2004, when at least 39 people were killed by a bomb on a packed metro train as it approached the Paveletskaya station. Six months later, a suicide bomber blew herself up outside another station, killing 10 people. Both attacks were blamed on Chechen rebels.
In November, Doku Umarov said his Caucasian Mujahadeen had carried out a bombing that killed 26 people on board an express train travelling from Moscow to Russia's second city of St Petersburg.
The attack came six months after President Medvedev declared an end to Russia's "counter-terrorism operations" in Chechnya, in a bid to "further normalise the situation" after 15 years of conflict that claimed more than 100,000 lives and left it in ruins.
Despite this, the mainly Muslim republic continues to be plagued by violence, and over the past two years Islamist militants have stepped up attacks in neighbouring Ingushetia and Dagestan.
#1
TWO suicide bombers blew themselves up today on trains on Moscow's metro system, killing more than 30 people during morning rush-hour, emergency workers and prosecutors said.
#4
THE twin blasts on the Moscow metro that killed dozens of people today were carried out by female suicide bombers, Russia's FSB security service said.
#18
Bring SpetsNaz to Helmland province to do the mokriye dela. Share missile technology with the Russians and put a joint US-Russian base on Ajad's doorstep, in Azerbaijan.
#21
That's OK Besoeker,
They don't have anyone with a last names of Bush or Cheney.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
03/29/2010 11:39 Comments ||
Top||
#22
The former Soviet state has never been hesitant about meting out retribution on Islamic hardliners. When Islamic fundamentalists kidnapped four Soviet diplomats in Beirut on 30 September 1985, at the height of the foreign hostage crisis in Lebanon, and demanded Moscow press its client state Syria to stop shelling Sunni Muslim militiamen in the northern port of Tripoli, the KGB responded with characteristic vigour.
After clandestine negotiations failed to secure the men's release, Soviet agents grabbed half a dozen fundamentalists in West Beirut and reportedly sliced off a few of their fingers, sending the severed digits to the fundamentalist leadership with the message: "Release our people or you'll get your people back piece by piece."
#23
sorry but why would Russia want our say in anything like this. Seems too me their responses have been alot better than ours and they have plenty of good weapons. Their only weak spot is the conscript army like was sent too chechnya in the first place.
Posted by: chris ||
03/29/2010 13:13 Comments ||
Top||
#24
WAFF > AZERBAIJIAN SAYS PLOT THWARTED TO ATTACK SCHOOL.
* SAME > HAMAS CALLS FOR SUICIDE OPERATIONS AGZ ISRAELI BUSES AND RESTAURANTS.
#25
Just in case you're wondering what's in it for the female suicide bombers: Girls Gone Wild
Fundamentalist Muslim mythology has it that terrorist "martyrs" are greeted in heaven by 72 virgins. With Palestinian Arabs increasingly making use of female suicide bombers, we've often wondered what they get in heaven. Now we have the answer, thanks to a report in London's Sunday Telegraph from an Israeli prison:
One of the inmates, Ayat Allah Kamil, 20, from Kabatya, told me why she had wanted to become a martyr: "Because of my religion. I'm very religious. For the holy war [jihad] there's no difference between men and women shaid [martyrs]."
According to the Koran, male martyrs are welcomed to Paradise by 72 beautiful virgins. Ayat, as with many of the women she is incarcerated with, believes that a woman martyr "will be the chief of the 72 virgins, the fairest of the fair."
That is to say, the highest aspiration for a fundamentalist Palestinian girl is murder, suicide and prostitution. Has there ever been a more depraved culture?
[Dawn] According to official sources, security forces and militants clashed in Gadra area of lower Orakzai agency.
Forces are heavily targeting militant hideouts in the agency for the last five days and claim to have killed over 135 militants so far. At least five security personnel have also lost their lives during the offensive.
Meanwhile, mass exodus also continues in the agency. Large numbers of people are migrating from Sultanzai, Feroze-Khel, Anjani, Mishit-Mela and surrounding areas to safer places in Hangu and Kohat.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/29/2010 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: TTP
[Dawn] A bomb attack Sunday wounded five people and destroyed a music shop in northwestern Pakistan, police said.
A bomb planted near the shop exploded in a bazaar in the neighbourhood of Hayatabad in Peshawar, the troubled capital of Northwest Frontier Province which has seen several attacks blamed on Pakistani Taliban.
"The bomb was planted near the CD shop, at least five people were injured," Sher Akbar, a senior police official told AFP.
The shop was destroyed while two nearby grocery shops were slightly damaged, he added.
The injured have been shifted to Hayatabad hospital for medical treatment.
According to officials, between 1 and 1.5kg of explosives were used in the blast.
There was no claim of responsibility, but local police officials blamed the incident on 'miscreants', a term often used for Taliban militants.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/29/2010 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] Pakistani troops repulsed a Taliban attack Sunday on an army base and bombed two militant hide-outs close to the Afghan border, killing 22 insurgents in a region where the army is pressing an offensive, a government official said. The fighting occurred in Orakzai tribal region where many militants are believed to have fled from a major operation in their former stronghold of South Waziristan.
The official, Samiullah Khan, said a group of militants attacked the base with rockets and automatic weapons. Security forces retaliated and killed 10 attackers. The military helicopter gun ships later bombed the hide-outs in nearby Chapri Ferozkhel area, killing another 12 of them, he added.
The government says more than 100 suspected militants and five soldiers have been killed in fighting in the region in the last week. Officials have said the militants killed so far include Uzbek and Arab nationals.
The region has been the main base of the Pakistani Taliban commander Hakimullah Mehsud. A suspected US missile strike is believed to have killed him in another tribal region, North Waziristan, early this year. Taliban have denied that, though they failed to prove otherwise.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/29/2010 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: TTP
[Dawn] A series of explosions in western Iraq killed six people on Sunday, including an official of a political faction in former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's electoral coalition, police said.
Four bombs went off near the house of Ghanim Radhi, a member of the Development and Reforms movement, in the town of Qaim in Anbar province, 300 km (185 miles) west of Baghdad. Radhi and one of his brothers were killed.
Police said four other people were killed at the scene but gave no details of their identities. They said 15 people were wounded.
Radhi did not stand in the parliamentary election on March 7 but his movement is a minor faction in Allawi's Iraqiya list which emerged with the most seats, according to preliminary results released on Friday.
Two days before the explosions, Iraqiya premises were damaged by fire in the southern province of Kerbala, a Shia religious centre.
The cause of the fire was not immediately known and Iraqiya officials said an investigation was under way to determine whether it was sabotage or an electrical failure.
The Development and Reforms movement won three seats in the election in predominantly Sunni Anbar province.
Anbar had been relatively quiet since 2006 when Sunni Muslim tribal leaders turned on Sunni Islamist groups such as al Qaeda, which had once dominated it, but insurgents continue to operate in the vast desert province.
Overall, violence has dropped sharply in the past few years but a series of explosions in recent weeks has illustrated the fragility of Iraqi security.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/29/2010 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Islamic State of Iraq
#1
Are they trying to intimidate Allawi's crowd, or are the culprits actually Allawi supporters trying to encourage sympathy for Allawi?
Posted by: American Delight ||
03/29/2010 6:09 Comments ||
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[Ma'an] Israeli forces imposed tightened entry restrictions for Palestinians into the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem, banning men under 50 from access.
The move follows an increase in security procedures on the even of the Jewish Passover. Residents living beside the compound, known in Arabic as Al-Haram Al-Sharif (the Noble Sanctuary) told Ma'an that Israeli border police shut down the gates leading into the compound.
Onlookers said a significant Israeli force was dispatched around the Old City and the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, implementing a police decision on Saturday aimed at "restoring security and order during the Jewish holiday that will end next Tuesday."
Meanwhile, Israel has imposed a West Bank lockdown over the Jewish holiday, which coincides with the Christian Easter celebrations.
The latest restriction follows the detention of 11 Palestinians in the West Bank city of Bethlehem on Palm Sunday, protesting restrictions preventing Christians from performing religious rites in Jerusalem over Easter.
Dozens of protesters, joined by international peace activists and Muslim supporters, took to the streets after Sunday prayers held for the Christian holiday of Palm Sunday in the Nativity Church.
Participants performed the symbolic march of Jesus Christ to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, carrying palm branches and banners denouncing Israel's wall and continued settlement expansion.
The Palm Sunday detainees remain in Israeli custody.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/29/2010 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under:
#1
The Israeli police and military also is guarding the temple mount from a Jewish minicult who are desire to ascend it to make a paschal lamb offering.
[Dawn] Several Israeli armoured vehicles including bulldozers entered Gaza on Sunday apparently to destroy tunnels near the site of deadly weekend clashes, according to witnesses.
The forces moved around 500 metres (yards) inside Gaza, dug large trenches and fired warning shots to keep farmers away, they said. There were no reports of anyone wounded or killed.
The Israeli military would not immediately comment on the reports.
Sunday's incursion in the southern Khan Yunis area was near to the site where Israeli tanks, bulldozers and jeeps backed by helicopters late Friday conducted an operation in which one Palestinian was killed and seven others were wounded and two houses damaged.
That operation was launched after a firefight in which two Israeli soldiers were killed and two others wounded, one of them seriously.
The weekend fighting was the heaviest since the 22-day Gaza war ended in January 2009.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/29/2010 00:00 ||
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[Ma'an] The body of a Palestinian was found in the southern Gaza Strip on Sunday evening, an Israeli military source told Ma'an.
Medics confirmed that a body was picked up shortly after the find. It was identified as Suleiman Arafat by medical officials in Gaza City.
Muawiya Hassanein, director of ambulance and emergency services, said that Arafat's body was transferred to the An-Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis when a crew of medics found him Al-Faqqassa, east of A'basan.
Hassanein added that Suleiman was the brother of Hamdi Arafat, who died of wounds sustained in Friday's clashes with Israeli forces entering in the south of the coastal enclave.
The Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad movement, announced that Arafat was one of the fighters involved in the deadly clashes, the bloodiest since the end of Israel's Operation Cast Lead 14 months ago.
The movement had previously announced that the body of one of its combatants was missing following violent confrontations, in which two Israeli soldiers were killed, as well as two Palestinian resistance fighters, and injuring dozens.
Several Israeli military vehicles crossed into southern Gaza hours earlier, reportedly opening fire as bulldozers destroyed land. Witnesses said the forces were predominantly targeting olive groves and almond fields in the Abasan Al-Jadida area east of Khan Younis.
An Israeli military spokesman said the incident was sparked when a force found an explosive device, which he said was detonated. On Saturday, the army reported destroying "terrorist infrastructure" in the same area, that was the site of Friday's clashes.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/29/2010 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Islamic Jihad
A village headman was shot dead in full view other guests attending a wedding in Yala's Muang district on Monday, police said. Police said Doromae Leedong, 46, chief of a village in tambon Thasap, and his wife were sitting in a tent among many other villagers at the wedding. Two men arrived on a motorcycle and the pillion rider walked over to him and shot him three times in the head and twice times in the back, killing him instantly. The gunman fled on the waiting motorcycle.
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.
A series of bomb explosions in Afghanistan has left eleven civilians, including five children, dead. The children were killed in a roadside bomb blast in western Herat province on Saturday, Afghan Interior Ministry confirmed. 
Somali pirates have hijacked an Iranian ship carrying $4 million worth of Egyptian oranges off the coast of Yemen, Iranian media said on Saturday.
[Dawn] According to official sources, security forces and militants clashed in Gadra area of lower Orakzai agency.
[Dawn] A bomb attack Sunday wounded five people and destroyed a music shop in northwestern Pakistan, police said.
[Dawn] Pakistani troops repulsed a Taliban attack Sunday on an army base and bombed two militant hide-outs close to the Afghan border, killing 22 insurgents in a region where the army is pressing an offensive, a government official said. The fighting occurred in Orakzai tribal region where many militants are believed to have fled from a major operation in their former stronghold of South Waziristan.
[Dawn] A series of explosions in western Iraq killed six people on Sunday, including an official of a political faction in former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's electoral coalition, police said.
[Dawn] Several Israeli armoured vehicles including bulldozers entered Gaza on Sunday apparently to destroy tunnels near the site of deadly weekend clashes, according to witnesses.
[Ma'an] The body of a Palestinian was found in the southern Gaza Strip on Sunday evening, an Israeli military source told Ma'an. 
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