The clashes broke out in Musa Qala, a town troubled by insurgent violence in the southern province of Helmand.
"Four people have been killed and seven others, including two policemen, have been shot and injured in the clash," said provincial spokesman Ahmad Zeerak.
He noted that it was unclear whether police bullets caused the casualties and said officers had been forced to intervene after "Taliban fighters hiding among the protesters opened fire on police first".
Helmand has been the scene of some of the worst fighting between NATO troops and the Taliban since the 2001 US-led invasion which ousted the militants from power nationally.
Local official Mohammad Ismail Hotak said a suspect, who had disguised himself as a police officer, had been detained for questioning after he set fire to copies of the holy Quran which had been pulled from the shelves of a local mosque.
In 2012 US troops set fire to copies of the holy Quran, sparking days of protests in which about 40 people died.
The incident plunged relations between foreign forces and Kabul to an all-time low and forced US President Barack Obama to apologize.
[Libya Herald] Clashes are said to be continuing today in the Ghani oilfield between security guards and a militia supposedly from Ajdabiya called the Jazira Brigade. The oilfield, in the western Sirte Basin, some 50 km north of the Zella oasis, is operated by Harouge Oil, formerly Veba, a jont venture between the National Oil Corporation and Petro-Canada.
There are reports that some staff are being evacuated for their ssafety but it has not been possible to confirm this. The clashes are said to be over who can guard the facility.
Similar clashes, were reported two days ago at Waha Oil's nearby Dahra field. The two clashes are thought to be related. The guards at Dahra are said to be from Ajdabiya and the attackers from Sirte.
At the beginning of the month, there were clashes at Mellitah gas complex, some 60 km west of Tripoli, between militiamen from Zintan and Zuara over who should be guarding the complex. One man was killed in the fighting which halted gas exports to Italy. The clashes were only ended and production restarted when the army intervened and took over the site.
Neither of the clashes at Ghani and Dahra have so far affected production. However, it was reported yesterday, Tuesday, that flights between Tripoli's Mitiga airport and Dahra airfield had been temporarily suspended.
Meanwhile, ...back at the bunker, his Excellency called a hurried meeting of his closest advisors. It was to be his last. They discussed the officers's efficiency rating system... the protests at Waha Oil's Gialo 59 field are continuing, a source in the nearby town of Jalu has told the Libya Herald today. There is growing frustration among the protestors, the source said. "They were expecting feedback from the company by today regarding their demands, but there has been no feedback."
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[MAGHAREBIA] A Tizi Ouzou court on Tuesday (March 19th) sentenced al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) leader Abdelmalek Droukdel and 34 other terrorists to death in absentia for the 2011 Azazga attack, APS reported.
Fourteen Algerian soldiers died on April 15th, 2011 in a co-ordinated assault on their camp in Azazga, some 45km east of Tizi-Ouzou.
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[MAGHAREBIA] Five armed jihadists were just tossed in the clink Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! while attempting to enter Mauritania from northern Mali.
"Mauritania has made significant efforts to secure its borders to make its territory safer and safeguard the country's stability," Foreign Minister Hamadi Ould Hamadi said Sunday (March 17th) at a presser announcing the arrests.
Other members of "armed Islamist groups active in northern Mali" had also been arrested "while posing as refugees", the minister said.
The United Nations ...a lucrative dumping ground for the relatives of dictators and party hacks... High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) understood that Mauritania had made these arrests "to safeguard its security and that of its borders", the minister noted.
"The measures taken by Mauritania to strictly control its borders are the best assistance it can give to its neighbour Mali," Ould Hamadi added.
The war in Mali has "put Mauritania on the front line", terrorism expert Sheikh Tourad Ould Eli said.
The total number of refugees from Mal has neared 150,000, Ould Eli noted.
In addition to the camp at M'Bera in south-eastern Mauritania, there are now plans to set up a second camp in Aghor, a site which accommodated Malian refugees during the 1990s, he said.
"Abou El Hammam, the new leader of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), made serious threats at the beginning of the conflict, saying that Islamist fighters would target all states that participated in the war, from however far away," Ould Eli said.
The French foreign ministry last month voiced similar concerns over the danger to Mauritania: "The ongoing events in Mali... are exposing Mauritanian territory to a high risk of infiltration by terrorist elements."
In the face of this threat, the Mauritanian government, with assistance from its partners, has taken measures to make its territory more secure.
The EU-funded West Sahel Project was launched January 22nd as part of efforts to secure Mauritania's more than 5,000 kilometres of land borders, including the 2,200 with Mali. Counter-terrorism efforts by President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz have also been effective, academic Mohamed Ould Brahim said.
"His policy of covering national territory and the significant resources made available to the army have brought swift result," he said.
"The Mauritanian army has achieved several victories against AQIM and has succeeded in thwarting the terrorist organization's plans to carry out attacks," Ould Brahim added.
Terrorism expert Ould Eli also hailed the government's security strategy.
"If the president had not opted for a strategy of pre-emptive strikes on AQIM terrorist bases in Mali, Mauritania would have suffered the same fate as Mali," Ould Eli said.
Most of the regions along the shared border with Mali have also been declared "closed military zones" by Mauritania.
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[DAILYTIMES.NG] The trial of Kabiru Abubakar better known as "Kabiru Sokoto", one of the Boko Haram sect members believed to be behind the Christmas Day bombing of St. Theresa's Catholic Church Madalla, a suburb of the Federal Capital territory was on Wednesday stalled due to the absence of a Defence Lawyer.
Kabiru, a top Boko Haram operative was brought to court for formal arraignment on Wednesday by the State Security Service (SSS). However, the absence of the judge at the Federal High Court Abuja stalled the arraignment. Mr. Sokoto is expected back in court on April 19 2013.
Kabiru Sokoto, a Boko Haram leader, was re-arrested by security officials after initially escaping from the hands of the police.
The accused is expected to take his plea before the court on April 19.
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For a map, click here For a map of Zacatecas state, click here
By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com
An anonymous correspondent living in Zacatecas state says that last weekend's shootings and gunfights in Zacatecas municipality were the worst violence so far, and that armed confrontations between Los Zetas and their principle rivals the Sinaloa cartel has shifted to the cities.
Monday morning, two men were found shot to death in Zacatecas city, the capital of Zacatecas state. News accounts posted on the websites of El Sol de Zacatecas and NTR Zacatecas simply reported the discovery of the victims on Calle Aldama in Guadalupe colony of the city.
The victims were found dead aboard a Nissan Versa SUV. They were identified as Martin Hilario Barajas, of Sain Alto, and Joel de Jesus Castro Miranda, from Fresnillo.
A 9mm pistol and an AK-47 rifle were found at the scene.
The anonymous source said that Monday morning's shooting was "not an isolated situation, there have been more smaller ones in different areas and several executions and shootings between police and cartel members lately.
"The shooting last night happened all around the city but it wasn't until 2-3 a.m. that I heard them in the historic center; I heard it from home 2 long rafagas (bursts?) with a few minutes between them and later more but further away. This morning I read that two bodies had been found inside a car just by the laberinto downtown market."
Later that afternoon in Guadalupe municipality just southeast of Zacatecas municipality, one armed suspect was killed and another was wounded in an encounter with municipal police agents near the village of Tacoaleche. Police agents were dispatched to the scene on a report of a stolen vehicle and were fired on.
The news account of that incident reported on a separate article which appeared on the website of El Sol de Zacatecas, saying that a police helicopter was dispatched the the area along with a state police contingent.
"... sending even the helicopter seems to mean it was much more than some bad guys who had stolen a car."
The correspondent confirmed a separate helicopter overflight Monday morning in Zacatecas: "...there have been helicopters flying around up until a couple of hours ago."
The reporting in Zacatecas local press seems to treat the shooting deaths as isolated incidents, which the correspondent disputes:
"... it wasn't just your usual quickie 4 bullets and off we go."
"This is definitely not like Tamaulipas or la comarca lagunera but it has become quite violent and very quickly as CDG/CDS (Gulf and Sinaloa cartels) started kicking out the zetas and the areas in dispute moved from the mountains to the main cities."
Two women were found tortured and beaten to death in Enrique Estrada municipality last Saturday. The report which appeared in several Zacatecas news outlets reported the discovery, but failed to report one salient fact:
"...they could be part of a group of women kidnapped the night before in Zacatecas while waiting to go to a concert," said the correspondent.
An uptick of violence appears to have started against women in Zacatecas state in the last 60 days. Zacatecas Procuraduria General de Justicia del Estado or attorney general Arturo Nahle Garcia has so far dismissed any comparison to the mass killings of women that took place in Ciudad Juarez in Chihuahua state, but which mysteriously ended two years ago.
Special thanks to our Zacatecas correspondent for the updates.
Borderland Beat reporter Chivis Martinez contributed to this story.
Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com
[An Nahar] An alleged veteran of al-Qaida's fight against U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan who went on to plot a bomb attack on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Nigeria was charged Wednesday in New York.
Ibrahim Suleiman Adnan Adam Harun, also known as "Spin Ghul," was charged by a grand jury with conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to bomb American diplomatic facilities, as well as providing material support to al-Qaida.
Harun was born in Saudi Arabia but claims Nigerian citizenship, according to court documents.
The charges allege that Harun traveled to Afghanistan in 2001 with plans "to fight violent jihad."
After receiving "military-type training at al-Qaida training camps," he allegedly went to war against U.S.-led forces that invaded the country in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
"Harun allegedly attempted to kill United States military personnel in Afghanistan between 2002 and 2003," the Brooklyn federal prosecutor's office said.
In 2003, Harun allegedly underwent training to attack U.S. diplomatic facilities in Nigeria, where he also conspired to bomb the sites.
After an alleged co-conspirator was arrested in 2005, Harun left Nigeria, spending several years in custody in Libya, then after his 2011 release attempting to enter Italy aboard a ship filled with refugees.
It was then that he fell into the hands of Western authorities following an altercation with Italian authorities on the refugee ship, the prosecutor's office said.
"As alleged, Harun not only intended to, but did commit acts of terrorism against Americans. Now he is subject to the American justice system," FBI Assistant Director George Venizelos said in a statement.
"The defendant was a prototype al-Qaida operative, trained by al-Qaida in terrorist tradecraft, deployed to fight American servicemen, and dispatched to commit terrorist attacks throughout the world," said the chief prosecutor, U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch.
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A CAR bomb tore through a Pakistani refugee camp, killing 15 people including women and children and heightening security fears before a May general election.
More than 40 other people were wounded when the bomb exploded at Jalozai, the country's largest refugee camp, as scores of people queued for rations on Thursday.
Jalozai is home to tens of thousands of people displaced from the tribal belt, a stronghold of Taliban and al-Qaeda-linked militants, on the Afghan border and is close to the main northwestern city of Peshawar.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
But officials linked the attack to fighting in Khyber district, where the military has stepped up an offensive against Taliban and local militia, and from where most camp residents have fled.
"The bomb exploded in a car parked near the administration office where refugees had lined up to get rations and new arrivals were being registered," said camp police official Fuad Khan.
District police chief Mohammad Hussain said the bomb was detonated by a timer and carried up to 35 kilograms of explosives and mortar bombs.
An AFP reporter saw scenes of devastation, with pieces of flesh and blood splattering the area.
[Dawn] Two suicide blasts carried out by the Ansarul Islam (AI)and bombardment from military jets on Mar 18 claimed the lives of at least 33 militants, including a key-militants commander of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and injured many others, sources told Dawn.com.
Militants of the banned TTP occupied a centre of the Ansarul Islam in Bagh-Maidan area of Khyber tribal region's Tirah valley on Mar 18.
A hidden suicide bomber blew himself up killing and injuring several militants.
Another suicide bomber detonated his explosives during rescue efforts for the victims of the first blast.
A total of 25 militants, including a key militant commander of the proscribed TTP, were killed in the two blasts whereas many others were injured.
A few hours later Pakistan military jets bombarded a nearby area killing eight more suspected militants.
Tribal sources reported 33 militants as dead and numerous others as injured in all three attacks.
Most of the victims were associated with the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan militants organisation, sources added.
Moreover at least 60 suspected militants were taken into custody by security forces from Darra Adamkhel over involvement in the Taliban's Mar 17 attack on the Judicial Complex in Peshawar.
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[Dawn] A Pakistain Army soldier and a worker of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement ...English: United National Movement, generally known as MQM, is the 3rd largest political party and the largest secular political party in Pakistain with particular strength in Sindh. From 1992 to 1999, the MQM was the target of the Pak Army's Operation Cleanup leaving thousands of urdu speaking civilians dead... were rubbed out while their friend was maimed in an armed attack in a Malir locality on Tuesday, police said.
They said that gunnies riding a cycle of violence emerged at an Atta chakki (small flour mill) in Al-Badar Society, fired a volley of bullets on the three friends sitting there and rode away.
The bullets hit 25-year-old Shoaib Ejaz, 29-year-old Shafi Alam aka Bhayya and 23-year-old Yasir Hussain.
Mr Ejaz, a sepoy in the army, was shifted to the Combined Military Hospital, Malir Cantt, where he died during treatment, said Al-Falah SHO Inspector Sarfaraz Gondal.
He said that Mr Alam and Mr Hussain were moved to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital where the former died. They belonged to the Unit 103 of the MQM organizational structure, he added.
The SHO said that all the three victims were residents of the same area. The army man had come home on leave. He said that the motive for the killings was not yet clear.
"They used to sit at that place in the evening and it's quite a busy area," he said. "We have collected nine spent bullet casings of a 9mm pistol from the scene of the crime.
Investigations are at an initial stage and it will be too early to reach any conclusion."
Man killed in Landhi
A man was killed in Landhi on Tuesday, police said.
They said two men on a motorbike attacked Manzoor Zaki, 40, near Murtaza Chowrangi when he was heading home in Gulistan-e-Jauhar in his jeep.
"He sustained two bullet wounds and was struck down in his prime," said an official at the Sharafi Goth cop shoppe. "The victim was an employee of an oil refinery and resident of Gulistan-e-Jauhar."
The police said that the motive for the killing was not yet known.
Killing in Shah Faisal Colony
A 47-year-old man was rubbed out in his Shah Faisal Colony home in the early hours of Tuesday.
Police said that the killing remained a mystery as the victim's family said that he was killed during an armed robbery bid in their house.
"The family said that two men stormed into their house in Al-Haider Colony," said Shah Faisal Colony SHO Inspector Nasim Farooqi.
"When one of the family members, Malik Iftikhar, resisted they fired shots and bravely ran away. The bandidos did not take away anything."
He said that members of the family gave contradictory statements, which cast doubts on their claim.
He said that the police had not yet registered any FIR.
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Two rockets fired by militants in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip on Thursday hit southern Israel as US President Barack Obama was visiting the Jewish state, police said.
Obama arrived in Israel on Wednesday for the first visit of the US president since being elected more than four years ago, and was expected in Ramallah on Thursday for talks with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.
Israeli officials pointed the finger at Islamist movement Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, over the rocket attack. The group implicitly denied responsibility, but gave a guarded reaction to Israeli accusations.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said that one [rocket] exploded in the back yard of a house in Sderot, causing damage, and the second landed in a field, referring to a town very close to the Gaza border, which was visited by Obama on a previous trip in 2008 when he was a senator.
Military officials cited by army radio said they believed the attack was timed deliberately to coincide with Obamas visit.
(video)
An explosion at a mosque in the Syrian capital on Thursday killed at least 15 people, including a senior pro-government Muslim cleric, state television and activists said.
Syria TV said a "terrorist suicide blast" hit the Iman mosque in central Damascus, and Mohammed al-Buti, the imam of the ancient Ummayyad Mosque, was among the dead.
Buti, a government-appointed cleric, delivered the official weekly Friday mosque sermons on state television.
In one of his televised speeches, Buti had described the opposition to President Bashar al-Assad as 'scum'. He also used his position to call on Syrians to join the armed forces and help Assad defeat his rivals in the country's two-year-long rebellion.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has a network of activists across Syria, said around 15 people died in the blast in central Damascus.
The Observatory said it was unclear if the explosion was caused by a car bomb or a mortar shell. Dozens more were wounded in the attack, it said.
The explosion created panic in the city late on Thursday, residents said, with ambulances rushing to the area and traffic coming to a standstill.
Buti, 83, had been a controversial figure from the start of the uprising. He quickly threw his support behind the Assad family, which has ruled Syria for more than four decades.
The imam was reviled by the opposition, who saw him as a religious mouthpiece in support of Assad. Buti was a Sunni Muslim, the sect which makes up the majority of Syria's population.
Sunnis have led the revolt against Assad, a movement that began as peaceful protests but devolved into bloody civil war that has sparked sectarian bloodshed between Sunnis and Assad's minority Alawite population.
Buti was remembered for a sermon he gave early in the conflict in which he told President Assad he had had a vision that Syria would 'receive God's wrath', but would survive.
[An Nahar] A man was killed on Wednesday by gunshots during armed clashes in the northern city of Tripoli, LBCI television reported. "Doctor Quincy! Pick up the white courtesy phone!"
"A man who hails from (Tripoli's area of) Jabal Mohsen was killed after he received a gunshot in his head in the city's al-Mouhajirin street," it detailed, while MTV noted that his name is Talal Azaya. "Doctor Pierce! Pick up the white courtesy phone!"
Clashes erupted in the city after a shootout broke out earlier on Wednesday at the Qobbeh government hospital. "Doctor Casey! Pick up the white courtesy phone!"
The hospital's incident was soon followed by the emergence of gunmen in the area between the Tripoli neighborhoods of Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen and shells were also dropped in the region. "Doctor Kildare! Pick up the white courtesy phone!"
Taher Mohsen Jadeed and his brothers Youssef and Mehdi were wounded in the hospital shootout, reported OTV. "Doctor Zhivago! Pick up the white courtesy phone!"
MTV said that five people were injured in the incident, which was prompted by a sectarian dispute. "Doctor Kinsey! Pick up the white courtesy phone!"
The shooting was soon followed by the emergence of the gunmen near Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen, reported Voice of Lebanon radio (93.3). "Doctor Firestone! Pick up the white courtesy phone!"
It confirmed that the armed presence near the two neighborhoods was linked to the hospital shooting. "Doctor Who! Pick up the white courtesy phone!"
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[An Nahar] Five Syrian shells landed near a Lebanese border town in the northeast on Wednesday, two days after Syrian air strikes along the border area, the state-run National News Agency reported.
NNA said the shells landed on the outskirts of the town of al-Qasr in Hermel district.
There was no report of casualties.
But a local security services official told Agence La Belle France Presse that "around 9:00 am, two shells and a rocket fell on the outskirts of the village of Sahlet al-Ma" that lies near al-Qasr.
The area is adjacent to Syria's Homs province, the scene of heavy fighting in recent months between rebels and regime forces.
Residents said the missiles had fallen near a stone mill.
The shelling came as President Michel Suleiman ...before assuming office as President, he held the position of commander of the Leb Armed Forces. That was after the previous commander, the loathesome Emile Lahoud, took office as president in November of 1998. Likely the next president of Leb will be whoever's commander of the armed forces, too... condemned Syria for carrying out the "unacceptable" air strikes on Monday.
He tasked Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour with sending a message of protest to "the Syrian side so that such operations are not repeated."
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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.
[Libya Herald] Clashes are said to be continuing today in the Ghani oilfield between security guards and a militia supposedly from Ajdabiya called the Jazira Brigade. The oilfield, in the western Sirte Basin, some 50 km north of the Zella oasis, is operated by Harouge Oil, formerly Veba, a jont venture between the National Oil Corporation and Petro-Canada.
[MAGHAREBIA] Five armed jihadists were just 
[Dawn] A Pakistain Army soldier and a worker of the 
