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/ 18 October 2007
Former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto set out on Thursday on a journey home to end eight years of self-exile, under threat of assassination from militants linked to al-Qaeda once she reaches Karachi. For years Bhutto had promised to return to Pakistan to end military dictatorship, yet she is coming back as a potential ally for President Pervez Musharraf.
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/ 17 October 2007
Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto said she would return to Pakistan on Thursday to end eight years of self-exile and lead her party into national elections despite threats of al-Qaeda inspired suicide attacks. Despite being out of power since 1996, the charismatic Bhutto (54) remains one of the most recognisable women politicians in the world.
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/ 12 October 2007
A bomb hidden in a cart of toys killed two children and wounded 17 others in a playground in northern Iraq on Friday, the first day of a national holiday to celebrate the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The attack came the day after United States forces killed nine children and six women in an air strike north-west of Baghdad.
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/ 12 October 2007
A bomb killed a child and wounded 13 others in a playground as they celebrated the Islamic festival of Eid on Friday in the northern Iraqi town of Tuz Khurmato, police said. Police Colonel Abbas Mohammed said a would-be suicide bomber hid the explosives in a cart he was pushing that was filled with children’s toys.
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/ 11 October 2007
Thirteen suspected insurgents, including three members of al-Qaeda in Iraq responsible for the assassination of a Sunni Arab preacher, were killed in a United States air strike. The strike on Wednesday west of Baghdad came hours after the imam, identified as Abu Bilal and who had been preaching against Sunni Islamist al-Qaeda, was killed.
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/ 10 October 2007
Dozens of families, many of them empty-handed, returned on Wednesday to a bombed-out Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon that was the scene of 15 weeks of fierce battles between the army and Islamist militants. Buses and mini-vans hired by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency picked up the first families from the Beddawi refugee camp.
Pakistani jets pounded militant hideouts near a troubled tribal town for the third day on Tuesday as officials said about 250 people had died in some of the heaviest clashes since 2001. The fighting has forced thousands to flee from Mir Ali, a town that President Pervez Musharraf has previously pinpointed as a den of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network.
Thousands of families began fleeing a town in a Pakistani tribal region after three days of fierce clashes between pro-Taliban militants and security forces that killed nearly 200 people. Around 150 militants and 45 soldiers were killed in fighting around Mir Ali, a town known as an al-Qaeda haunt.
Two suicide car bombs killed at least 22 people in northern Iraq on Tuesday in attacks targeting a police chief and a Sunni Arab tribal leader working with United States forces to fight al-Qaeda, police said. ”Look at this. Is this acceptable? Does God accept this?” said a youth hold ing torn, blood-splattered pages of the Qu’ran.
An Algerian army operation against a group suspected of links to al-Qaeda has left 22 militants and seven soldiers dead in recent days, the daily Liberte reported on Monday. Security officials would not immediately comment on the sweep, which reportedly targeted the region of Tebessa, 650km east of the capital, Algiers.
About 50 Pakistani troops are missing in a tribal area bordering Afghanistan after fierce battles with Islamic militants that have already claimed 80 lives, the army said on Monday. The soldiers have been out of radio contact since early on Monday in rugged North Waziristan, where the United States says Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network is regrouping.
Pakistani soldiers backed by helicopter gunships killed 20 pro-Taliban militants in an attack on Sunday in the North Waziristan region on the Afghan border, a military spokesperson said. The army attack came hours after staunch United States ally President Pervez Musharraf swept the most votes in a presidential election.
Pakistani military ruler Pervez Musharraf swept the most votes in a presidential election on Saturday but he has to wait for the Supreme Court to confirm the legality of his bid before he can be declared winner. Doubts over whether the election result will stand have fuelled uncertainty.
President George Bush said on Friday that the United States does not use torture during interrogations, amid renewed debate about his administration’s methods in the war on terror. ”This government does not torture people. We stick to US law and our international obligations,” Bush said.
A United States air strike killed about 25 suspected Iraqi militants linked to Iranian-backed Shi’ite militias on Friday and another 12 al-Qaeda fighters were killed in separate raids, the US military said. US troops said they were engaged in a heavy firefight west of Baquba, capital of volatile Diyala province north of Baghdad, during a dawn raid.
Pakistan’s Supreme Court kept the fate of President Pervez Musharraf’s re-election bid in its hands by deciding a vote could go ahead on Saturday, but a winner cannot be declared until it rules if he was eligible to stand. United States ally General Musharraf is sure to win the vote in Parliament and the country’s four provincial assemblies.
Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary Riaz Muhammad Khan on Wednesday urged the United States to be more patient as his country fights extremists in tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. Khan acknowledged his country suffered an ”image problem” but said there needed to be a greater understanding of the enormous challenges.
Poland’s ambassador to Iraq was wounded in an explosion targeting a Polish embassy convoy in Baghdad on Wednesday, a diplomatic source in the Iraqi capital said. Poland backed the United States-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 which toppled Saddam Hussein and currently has around 1 000 troops in the country.
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/ 30 September 2007
A suicide bomber killed 28 Afghan troops and two civilians on Saturday in an attack on an army bus in Kabul, the Afghan president said. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, the deadliest in the Afghan capital since the hard-line Islamist movement was ousted from power for harbouring al-Qaeda leaders.
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/ 29 September 2007
The United States on Friday warned that Somali Islamist militants might kidnap Western tourists on vulnerable Kenyan beaches. In a message to US nationals in Kenya, the US embassy in Nairobi said it had received information that Islamic extremists from southern Somalia may be planning kidnapping operations across the border.
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/ 27 September 2007
Pakistan military leader President Pervez Musharraf filed nomination papers on Thursday to run for re-election on October 6, while the Supreme Court prepared to rule on the army chief’s eligibility to stand. A bench of nine judges is due to deliver a ruling on Friday that could have far-reaching consequences for Pakistan’s transition to greater democracy.
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/ 27 September 2007
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe accused United States President George Bush of ”rank hypocrisy” on Wednesday for lecturing him on human rights, and likened the US Guantánamo Bay prison to a concentration camp. ”His hands drip with innocent blood of many nationalities,” Mugabe said in a typically fiery speech to the United Nations General Assembly.
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/ 27 September 2007
Militants are exploiting weak law enforcement in West Africa to raise funds from rackets ranging from people smuggling to drug trafficking and even fake Viagra, experts said. In the past two years, South American cartels have switched their trafficking routes into Europe to funnel drugs via lawless swathes of war-scarred West Africa.
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/ 26 September 2007
Pakistan deployed dozens of police officers including elite commandos as the South African cricket team arrived in Karachi on Wednesday for a month-long tour of the country. South Africa are due to play two Tests and five one-day internationals in the violence-hit Islamic republic.
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/ 25 September 2007
A suicide car bomber struck the police headquarters in Basra on Tuesday, killing at least three officers and wounding 20 people amid fears over the southern city’s deteriorating security situation. In Baghdad, meanwhile, at least seven people were killed — six in a car bombing on a shopping street.
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/ 25 September 2007
An Iraqi man stands with his hands up in surrender, surrounded by an American soldier, Iraqi security forces, a militiaman, an al-Qaeda fighter and a faceless thug. ”Hands up! Legs up! Head down!” they all bark at him as the cartoon takes a satirical swipe at how poorly ordinary Iraqis are treated.
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/ 21 September 2007
A suicide bomber rammed a booby-trapped car into a convoy in Algeria on Friday, wounding two French engineers and an Italian, in an attack only hours after al-Qaeda called for an offensive against French targets. Six Algerians, five of them police, were also injured in the attack near the town of Lakhdaria.
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/ 21 September 2007
Pakistan’s General Pervez Musharraf appointed a new military spy chief and made several other promotions on Friday, days after announcing his plan to step down as head of the army. Appointments are closely watched in Pakistan, as generals have ruled for more than half of the 60 years since the country was founded.
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/ 20 September 2007
Al-Qaeda’s second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri urged Sudanese Muslims in a video posted on Thursday to fight a force of African Union and United Nations peacekeepers. Al-Zawahri accused Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of abandoning his Muslim brothers to appease the United States.
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/ 18 September 2007
Chinese and Russian spies are stalking the United States at levels close to those seen during the tense covert espionage duels of the Cold War, the top US intelligence officer warned on Tuesday. Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell was to raise the spectre of a new era of clandestine intelligence wars during a House of Representatives hearing on a contentious new law on wiretapping.
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/ 17 September 2007
Algeria’s ambassador to Sweden on Monday condemned death threats from al-Qaeda in Iraq against a Swedish artist who drew a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad and a newspaper editor who published it. ”I vehemently condemn this kind of practice … Islam has nothing to do with this, by any means,” Merzak Bedjaoui said.
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/ 17 September 2007
Somali leaders meeting in Saudi Arabia said they wanted to replace foreign forces backing the interim government against rebels with Arab and African troops under the aegis of the United Nations. The pact came days after a rival meeting in Eritrea by an opposition alliance that included leaders of the Islamic courts movement.