[DAWN] The Taliban launched a brazen assault in the Afghan capital on Tuesday, with a jacket wallah detonating his vehicle outside an election office on the edge of Kabul while two other gunnies stormed into the building, trapping dozens of employees inside and killing four people.
A candidate for a seat on a provincial council was among those killed, along with an election worker, a civilian and a policeman, Kabul Police Chief Gen. Mohammed Zahir said.
The attack triggered a standoff that lasted more than four hours. Zahir said another four people were maimed, including two coppers.
The assault was the latest in the turbans' violent campaign against the country's April 5 elections, when Afghans are to choose their next president and local council members. The Taliban have vowed to disrupt the polls.
Since campaigning began in January gunnies have attacked candidates' convoys, their campaign workers and killed one election commission official. Also, an election observer from Paraguay was among the nine people who were killed last Thursday when the Taliban attacked the Serena Hotel in Kabul.
Fierce gunfire reverberated across the neighborhood of Karte Char throughout the afternoon Tuesday as heavily armed troops from the Afghan rapid response force surrounded the election office building, located near the home of presidential candidate Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai.
Ahmadzai was not at home at the time and was not the target of the attack but the local office of Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission, officials said.
Police official Sayed Gul Aga Hashmi said the assault started with one suicide bomber detonating his car, paving way for other attackers to storm inside the building, Hashimi said.
As the battle unfolded, an election commission official told The News Agency that Dare Not be Named first that there were about 20 election workers trapped in the building but later raised that figure to around 70 trapped. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to media. He said he had spoken to a colleague who was hiding inside the bathroom with seven others and who had told him there were more employees elsewhere in the building.
Police eventually rescued all but three -- the slain candidate for the post of provincial council member, the election worker and the unidentified civilian.
The Taliban grabbed credit in a statement to media, saying their target was the election office.
The building in Karte Char is in the southwestern Kabul, near the historic war-damaged Darulaman Palace built by Afghan King Amanullah. The landmark palace was heavily damaged during the Afghan civil war and stands empty.
Also Tuesday, gunnies carried out attacks on a bank in northeastern Kunar province ... which is right down the road from Chitral. Kunar is Haqqani country..... and on an Afghan outpost in the eastern Khost province ... across the border from Miranshah, within commuting distance of Haqqani hangouts such as Datta Khel and probably within sight of Mordor. Khost is populated by six different tribes of Pashtuns, the largest probably being the Khostwal, from which it takes its name... , on the border with Pakistain.
In Kunar, three gunnies with boom jackets stormed the government-owned Kabul Bank, killing two coppers and wounding three others who were guarding the premises in the scenic provincial capital of Asadabad.
One attacker went kaboom! and the other two were shot and killed by police, said provincial police chief Abdul Habib Sayidkhili. None of the bank employees or customers was hurt, including seven coppers who were there to collect their monthly salaries. They all hid in the basement during the attack, Sayidkhili said.
And in Khost, dozens of gunnies armed with rocket propelled grenades and heavy machine guns laid siege to a border outpost. Provincial Police Chief Faizullah Ghyrat said two police border guards were killed, along with five turbans.
The Taliban took responsibility for the Khost attack.
In other developments, Afghan police said they detained eight senior employees of a private security company that provided guards to the Kabul hotel attacked by the Taliban last week.
The interior ministry said in a statement that the company employed by the Serena Hotel was negligent, which enabled the four attackers to hide small handguns in their shoes and avoid detection to enter the premises on Thursday evening.
The gunnies opened fire inside the hotel restaurant, killing nine people, including two children and four foreigners. The attackers were killed by police.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/26/2014 00:00 ||
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According to news reports from Hafeey, a territory on the outskirts of Buurdhuubo of the Gedo region, state that armed fighters from Al-Shabaab attacked the town today.
Officials from the Somali government in Hafeey with whom we have contacted over the phone, confirm that 3 soldiers from the government's troops were killed in the clashes.
Maybe they tried to catch a thrown mortar shell...
The environment now is peaceful except for the three dead guys and the town is occupied by soldiers from the Somali National Army.
It was only recently when Buurdhuubo in Gedo region was liberated from the rebel group, Al-Shabaab.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/26/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
Difference between "liberated" and "in control of."
Yesterday afternoon, African Union troops and soldiers from the Somali National Army liberated Maxaas from the control of Al-Shabaab. The Ethiopian troops in the town threw mortar shells at a territory known as the âDhalaweyn Intersectionâ, approximately 5km from Maxaas in the Hiiraan region.
Criminy, even the AU doesn't know what to do with a mortar shell...
The intersection was destroyed and was reported to house numerous Shaboobs fighters of Al-Shabaab with locals alleging that they heard the impact of the heavy mortar shells.
Locals reported that there were casualties and losses caused by the attacks although they have not been specified.
Aadan Abdulle Awale, one of the officials from Ahlusunna Waljamaaca spoke to Radio Shabelle and added that emergency aid is needed to be provided to residents in Maxaas and that their conditions are poor.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/26/2014 00:00 ||
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[Ynet] An Egyptian court on Tuesday opened another mass trial of Islamist suspects, with 683 defendants - including the Moslem Brüderbund's top leader - facing an array of charges, from murder and inciting violence to sabotage.
The proceedings in Minya, south of Cairo, came a day after the same court handed down death sentences to nearly 530 suspected backers of ousted president Mohammed Morsi ...the former president of Egypt. A proponent of the One Man, One Vote, One Time principle, Morsi won election after the deposal of Hosni Mubarak and jumped to the conclusion it was his turn to be dictator... over a deadly attack on a cop shoppe.
Only 68 of the 683 defendants were in the dock Tuesday. The rest are being tried in absentia.
That verdict, which capped a swift, two-day mass trial in which defense attorneys were not allowed to present their case, drew wide public and international criticism.
The charges in Tuesday's proceedings also stemmed from rioting last August sparked by the security forces' storming of two Brotherhood sit-ins in Cairo that killed over 600 people.
Only 68 of the 683 defendants were in the dock Tuesday. The rest are being tried in absentia. A handful of other defendants held in the case, including the Brotherhood's spiritual leader Mohammed Badei and other senior figures who are enjugged Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try! in Cairo, were not present at the trial in Minya. Authorities cited security reasons for not bringing them to the hearings.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
03/26/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
The Egyptian army are doing a better job of taking care of Islamist badboys than Obama would ever do!
Posted by: Paul D ||
03/26/2014 19:45 Comments ||
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[GULFTODAY.AE] Suspected Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... turbans on Tuesday hurled explosives in Nigeria's troubled northeastern city of Maiduguri, killing five coppers, while a separate blast killed three.
The attacks were the latest to hit the Borno state capital, which is the epicenter of Boko Haram's brutal insurgency which has killed thousands since 2009, including more than 700 this year.
In two separate incidents, a moving car packed with explosives blew up in Maiduguri's Government Farm Area at 7:50 am (0650 GMT), killing three civilians, Borno police front man Gideon Jibrin said.
The vehicle "was obviously meant to be used against (a) target somewhere in the city", he said, but went kaboom! prematurely for reasons that were not immediately clear. It was not yet possible to determine if there was anyone other than the driver inside the vehicle because "it was so mangled and burnt", Jibrin added.
Ten minutes after the first blast, a police van in Maiduguri's Dalori area was targeted and five officers were killed, the front man said.
A vehicle approached the parked van and an explosive was thrown towards it, he explained, with the blast killing all the officers inside as well as the three attackers. Borno state has been under a state of emergency since May when the military launched a major offensive aimed at crushing the Islamist uprising.
Initially, the military had some success in tempering attacks within Maiduguri, but Boko Haram has carried out a series of daring raids in the heart of the city in recent months.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/26/2014 00:00 ||
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Yemeni security forces have managed to free two Italians working for the UN office in the capital Sanaa, just a few hours after they were kidnapped earlier on Tuesday, local officials said, Xinhua reported.
The security forces also arrested the kidnappers after brief clashes near the presidential palace area south of Sanaa.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/26/2014 00:00 ||
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[AnNahar] Russian security forces on Tuesday killed five suspected Islamist hard boyz in a special operation in 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... that also left one serviceman dead, the National Anti-Terror Committee (NAK) said.
"As a result of the clash five criminals were neutralized," it said in a statement quoted by Russian news agencies, naming one as a senior local Death Eater named Tural Atayev, a citizen of Azerbaijan.
It said that one member of the security forces had also been killed and one other maimed in the clash in the village of Pervomaiskoe in the Khasavyurt region of Dagestan.
The security forces acted after receiving information that the hard boyz were in a house in the area and they opened fire after the rebels refused to lay down their weapons.
The NAK said that Atayev had helped organize an attack in the Caucasus spa town of Pyatigorsk in December 2013 killed three people.
The Kremlin is still fighting a deadly insurgency against Salafist tough guys in the Northern Caucasus, with unrest particularly intense in Dagestan, were festivities happen on an almost daily basis.
Chechen rebel leader Doku Count Doku Umarov ... Self-styled first emir of the Caucasus Emirate. Count Doku has announced that his forces will not target civilians, but qualified that statement by saying there aren't any civilians in Russia... , whose Caucasus Emirate group grabbed credit for a string of deadly attacks in Russia over the last years, has been killed, a pro-insurgency website said last week -- although this has yet to be confirmed by Russian officials.
[Ynet] An al-Qaeda sympathizer who admitted trying to build pipe bombs in a New York City basement and aiming to blow up cop shoppes or military installations has been sentenced on Tuesday to 16 years in prison.
Jose Pimentel pleaded guilty last month to attempted criminal possession of a weapon as a crime of terrorism.
The Dominican-born Mohammedan convert was tossed in the slammer Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un! in November 2011. The Manhattan district attorney's office says he was assembling bombs from clocks, Christmas tree lights and other everyday items. He said he wanted to undermine support for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
[DAWN] Indian police jugged Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out! Tuesday the alleged head of turban group the Indian Mujahideen A locally recruited auxilliary of Pakistain's Lashkar-e-Taiba, designed to give a domestic patina to Pakistain's terror war against its bigger neighbor... , blamed for a string of deadly attacks including one at a rally in October by election frontrunner Narendra Modi, reports said.
New Delhi police arrested Tehseen Akhtar, 23, alias Monu, one of India's most desperados, just days after the home-grown turban group's bomb maker was also taken into custody.
The outfit is thought to head a network of home-grown turban groups, with some analysts believing it has links with Lashkar-e-Taiba ...the Army of the Pure, an Ahl-e-Hadith terror organization founded by Hafiz Saeed. LeT masquerades behind the Jamaat-ud-Dawa facade within Pakistain and periodically blows things up and kills people in India. Despite the fact that it is banned, always an interesting concept in Pakistain, the organization remains an blatant tool and perhaps an arm of the ISI... (LT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed turban organizations.
The top officer of Delhi's anti-terror cell, S. N. Shrivastava, confirmed the arrest to the Press Trust of India news agency, without giving further details. Police have called a presser for later Tuesday.
With the country on high security alert for national elections starting next month, local media said the arrest was a major breakthrough.
The banned Indian Mujahideen came to public attention in Nov 2007 following serial blasts in the state of Uttar Pradesh. It is accused of a number of attacks since including in Mumbai, Bangalore, New Delhi and Pune that have killed hundreds.
The group was also blamed for a series of small kabooms that killed six people at a rally by Modi, the main opposition's prime ministerial candidate, in October last year.
Although a favourite of India's business community and leading in opinion polls, Modi is not exactly the preferred candidate of many Mohammedans.
He was chief minister of western Gujarat ...where rioting seems to be a traditional passtime... in 2002 when the state was engulfed by communal riots that left more than 1,000 people, mostly Mohammedans, dead.
Akhtar has reportedly been in charge of the Indian Mujahideen since last August when its co-founder and the nation's most wanted man, Yasin Bhatkal, was arrested near the Nepal border.
Akhtar's arrest comes after Delhi police seized on the weekend suspected key member Ziaur Rehman along with three of his aides in the western state of Rajasthan.
Police said then that the four arrests helped prevent a major turban strike on Indian soil ahead of the elections.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/26/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
The ISI wont be happy.
Posted by: Paul D ||
03/26/2014 19:36 Comments ||
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[Al Ahram] The board of Iraq's electoral commission resigned en masse on Tuesday in protest at political and judicial "interference", throwing a general election due next month into disarray.
The sudden decision comes with doubts already swirling over whether the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) could organise polling nationwide on April 30 with anti-government fighters in control of a city on Storied Baghdad's doorstep.
Much is at stake in the election, as Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki bids for a third term with his security credentials thrown into question by a surge in violence to levels not seen since 2008, with 35 more people killed on Tuesday.
The nine-member IHEC board handed in its resignation in protest at what it said were conflicting rulings from parliament and the judiciary on the barring of would-be candidates for the election.
"The commission is today caught between two authorities -- the legislative and the judicial -- and the two have issued contradictory decisions," IHEC front man Safa al-Mussawi told AFP. "We are stuck in the middle, so we have decided to resign."
An aide to IHEC chairman Sarbat Rashid told AFP that he backed the decision. An IHEC board member, who did not want to be identified, said the same.
"They are very frustrated with this judicial panel for the elections... excluding candidates," a diplomatic source said on condition of anonymity. "They are very unhappy with judicial interference, with political interference."
The resignations still have to be approved by parliament, the source added.
Several candidates have been barred in recent weeks on the grounds of alleged ties to now executed dictator Saddam Hussein's Baath party.
But a greater source of frustration for the IHEC board has been the exclusion of scores of hopefuls on the basis of what critics say is a vague provision in Iraq's electoral law that requires that parliamentary hopefuls be "of good reputation". Those barred, who include former finance minister Rafa al-Essawi, a Maliki opponent, have no obvious avenue of appeal against the judicial panel's decision.
Parliament has meanwhile reportedly ruled that IHEC must not bar any candidates unless they have criminal convictions, a decision the IHEC front man said was at odds with that of the judicial panel.
It was not immediately clear what impact the resignation of the IHEC board would have on next month's election, which all major parties are agreed must take place on schedule.
One analyst said the resignations themselves were unlikely to disrupt the timetable.
"The election will go ahead on time, whatever the situation, because there is no way parliament will approve these resignations," said Ihsan al-Shammari, a politics professor at Storied Baghdad University.
"The resignations are a message to the two authorities... not to interfere in their work," he said. "The conflict between the two authorities has put pressure on IHEC ... and forced them to present their resignations."
The looming vote has been a factor in the rising bloodshed in recent months, analysts and diplomats say.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/26/2014 00:00 ||
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[AnNahar] Violence concentrated in predominantly Sunni areas of Iraq killed 37 people Tuesday, the majority of them in the Storied Baghdad area, as the worst protracted unrest since 2008 showed no let-up.
The bloodshed comes just weeks before Iraq is due to hold its first general election since 2010, although the poll was thrown into disarray on Tuesday when the entire electoral commission resigned in protest at alleged political interference.
The surge of unrest has been driven by anger among the Sunni Arab minority, who complain of mistreatment by the Shiite-led government and security forces, as well as by the civil war in neighboring Syria.
The deadliest of Tuesday's violence struck in Storied Baghdad and towns just north of the capital.
In Tarmiyah, a mainly Sunni Arab town 45 kilometers (30 miles) from Storied Baghdad that is frequently hit by deadly violence, hard boyz opened fire on an army patrol, killing eight people, including seven soldiers, security and medical officials said.
Another 14 people were maimed, 10 of them soldiers.
In confessionally mixed Taji, also north of the capital, a boom-mobile targeting another army patrol killed four soldiers and maimed 11 others.
In Storied Baghdad itself, separate vehicles rigged with explosives killed 11 people.
Attacks elsewhere in the country, all in predominantly Sunni areas, killed 14 people.
Among the attacks were twin roadside kabooms targeting a convoy of Sunni politicians near the restive city of Baquba. The MPs were unharmed, but three of their guards were killed and three more maimed.
Elsewhere in and around Baquba and in the cities of Tikrit and djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... further north, shootings and bombings killed 11 people. Among them were four coppers and a woman working in the office of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's political coalition.
No group has grabbed credit for most of the recent rise in bloodshed, but Sunni myrmidons, including those linked to powerful jihadist group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant ... the current version of al-Qaeda in Iraq, just as blood-thirsty and well-beloved as the original... , have been widely blamed.
More than 400 people have been killed so far this month and upwards of 2,100 since the beginning of the year, according to Agence La Belle France Presse figures based on reports from security and medical sources.
Analysts and diplomats have called for the Shiite-led authorities to do more to reach out to the disaffected Sunni minority in a bid to reduce support for militancy.
But with the election looming on April 30, politicians have been loath to be seen to compromise.
[Ynet] Naval troops said they heard secondary kabooms after the fired on the two boats sailing from Sinai to Strip.
Israeli naval troops in the Mediterranean Sea opened fire in the early hours of Wednesday morning on suspected Paleostinian smugglers travelling in two boats from Sinai to the Gazoo Strip. The Paleostinians said that four people on the boats had been maimed.
It is not clear what exactly the boats were carrying, but the IDF said that the boats were damaged, and that they had heard secondary kabooms after they had opened fire.
During the incident, gunnies on the Gazoo coast opened fire on the Israeli vessels. There were no injuries to the Israeli troops, who returned fire.
The incident occurred at around 3 am, several hundred meters from the Gazoo coastline.
Soldiers from a nearby naval base were patrolling the area when they noticed two small boats making their way back from the Sinai coast to southern Gazoo. The IDF is still unclear as to what the boats were carrying, but the secondary kabooms have raised suspicions that the two vessels were carrying weapons.
The IDF called the incident a thwarted smuggling attempt, and that the troops had followed the necessary procedures as part of routine security and enforcement of the naval blockade on the Gazoo Strip.
This is the second incident of this kind in a week. In the previous incident, gunnies fired at naval ships at sea; there were no casualties.
[AnNahar] A "dangerous" Syrian runaway and a Lebanese State Security agent were locked away Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit! Tuesday in the Bekaa border town of Arsal.
"The army arrested at its Ain al-Shaab checkpoint in Arsal the Syrian dangerous runaway Mohammed al-Hakami and a Lebanese person called M. H. who was trying to help him escape," state-run National News Agency reported.
The army also seized a stolen, blue Toyota FJ Cruiser in Arsal, NNA added.
Meanwhile, ...back at the precinct house, Sergeant Maloney wasn't buying it. It was just too pat. The whole thing smelled phony, kind of like a dead mackeral but without the scales... several media reports said the arrested Lebanese man is a State Security agent.
On Saturday, NNA said the army had arrested 43 Syrians in three days in Arsal.
It noted that the detainees were members of the rebel Free Syrian Army ... the more palatable version of the Syrian insurgency, heavily influenced by the Moslem Brüderbund... and the al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front.
On Monday, the army arrested two Lebanese and 19 Syrians in Wadi Khaled for entering Leb with a Kalashnikov rifle, two guns, ammunition, 30 mobile phones, a laptop and various foreign currencies in their possession.
The un-demarcated Lebanese-Syrian border has facilitated the flow of gunnies from and into Syria.
[Ynet] A Syrian woman has been hospitalized on Tuesday after setting herself on fire to protest difficult living conditions for refugees in Leb, Lebanese police said.
The woman set herself ablaze in front of the offices for a UN relief agency in the northern Lebanese 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... . She is in now stable condition at the city's Al-Salam hospital, police said.
Hospital officials identified the woman as Miriam Abdulkader, a mother of four from the Syrian city of Homs. She has lived in Tripoli for two years.
Syriaâs opposition fighters seized a Mediterranean coastal village on Tuesday as they pushed to consolidate their presence in a key regime bastion near the Turkish border, a monitoring group said. The capture of Samra in Latakia province comes a day after rebels seeking to topple President Bashar Al Assad seized the area around Kasab, the last government-held crossing post with Turkey.
In retaliation, the army pounded rebel positions in the northwestern coastal province, heartland of Assadâs Alawi sect and scene of fierce fighting since Friday, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Rebels including Al Nusra Front âtook control of Samra village in Latakia province early on Tuesday,â said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.
âFierce fighting has raged on in the outskirts of the village,â he said.
Samra is located in a valley near the Turkish border, and gives the rebels access to the sea.
Latakia is important because of its location on the coast, and because it is the heartland of both the Assad clan and the Alawi sect. Losing it would be a tough blow for the regime, said Latakia activist Omar Al Jeblawi.
âThe area is so strategic to the regime, that whenever fighting does break out in Latakia, the army pulls back from other areas in order to redeploy here,â he told AFP.
According to Jeblawi âthousands of opposition fightersâ have deployed in the Latakia region in recent days.
âThe advances are quick. And the takeover of Kasab was only the beginning of the road to liberating Latakia.â
A security source in Damascus denied that Samra fell saying âfierce fightingâ was still under way.
âThe Syrian army is completely in control... of the mountainsâ overlooking Samra. It is impossible (for the rebels) to take over the area,â the source said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/26/2014 00:00 ||
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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.
[DAWN] The Taliban launched a brazen assault in the Afghan capital on Tuesday, with a 
[Ynet] An Egyptian court on Tuesday opened another mass trial of Islamist suspects, with 683 defendants - including the 
[GULFTODAY.AE] Suspected 
Doku 
[Ynet] An al-Qaeda sympathizer who admitted trying to build pipe bombs in a New York City basement and aiming to blow up 
[DAWN] Indian police 
[Al Ahram] The board of Iraq's electoral commission resigned en masse on Tuesday in protest at political and judicial "interference", throwing a general election due next month into disarray. 
[AnNahar] Violence concentrated in predominantly Sunni areas of Iraq killed 37 people Tuesday, the majority of them in the Storied Baghdad area, as the worst protracted unrest since 2008 showed no let-up.
