Somali Islamist militants on Friday promised to avenge the killing of a man said to be an al-Qaeda’s chief, warning citizens from countries they considered hostile to stay away from the war-torn country. The United States military on Thursday killed Moalim Aden Hashi Ayro and 11 others when it bombed a house in Somalia’s central town of Dhusamareb.
A United States air strike killed an Islamist commander thought to be al-Qaeda’s leader in Somalia and at least a dozen other people on Thursday, the insurgents and witnesses said. Aden Hashi Ayro died in the latest of several US bombings in recent months to have targeted Somali rebel leaders.
Denmark has evacuated staff from its embassies in Algeria and Afghanistan because of terror threats following the reprint in Danish newspapers of a caricature depicting the Prophet Muhammad, officials said on Wednesday. The threat ”is so concrete that we had to take this decision”, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said.
Barack Obama on Monday effectively conceded he would not win Tuesday’s Democratic primary in Pennsylvania, but hinted he expected to do well enough to cast doubt on Hillary Clinton’s ability to stay in the race. Clinton, after a string of defeats, needs more than just victory to resuscitate her campaign.
Pakistan’s envoy to Afghanistan, Tariq Azizuddin, who went missing in February, appeared on Saturday in a video aired by al-Arabiya news channel in which he said that he was held by the Taliban. ”We were on our way to Afghanistan in our official car on February 11 when we were kidnapped,” said Azizuddin.
Spanish, French and American tourists once filled the winding alleys of Sanaa’s old quarter, drawn by Yemen’s 2 500-year-old history and unique architecture. But a spate of attacks on foreigners is driving visitors away and souvenir shop owner Hussain Abdel Moghni says the only tourists who come to Yemen these days are ”adventurers”.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu had kind words on Friday for United States First Lady Laura Bush and both Democratic candidates for president. But when asked about President George Bush’s legacy to the world, Tutu avoided the question and left the stage in an exaggerated tiptoe as the audience roared.
”Martyrdom” videos glorying in alleged planned bomb attacks on aircraft leaving from Heathrow were shown in court on Friday in the trial of eight alleged members of a British terror cell. The jury at Woolwich Crown Court also heard transcripts of videos in which the men talked of body parts ”decorating the streets”.
The head of the main United States spy agency has warned that al-Qaeda is training operatives who ”look Western” and could enter the United States undetected to conduct terrorist attacks. Central Intelligence Agency Director General Michael Hayden said the terror network has shed its operational reliance on mastermind Osama bin Laden.
Osama bin Laden urged Palestinians on Thursday to use ”iron and fire” to end an Israeli blockade of Gaza, in a recording after the Vatican rejected accusations by the al-Qaeda chief of a ”new crusade”. In an audiotape broadcast by the Qatar-based al-Jazeera satellite channel on Thursday, bin Laden urged Muslims to keep up the struggle against US forces in Iraq
An internet audio message from Osama bin Laden was released on Wednesday night in which the al-Qaeda leader threatened the European Union over the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad two years ago, but did not address contemporary issues.
George Bush marked the fifth anniversary of the Iraq invasion on Wednesday with an uncompromising speech in which he described the war as noble, necessary and just and claimed there was now an unprecedented Arab uprising under way against Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.
President George Bush will acknowledge on Wednesday the Iraq war has been fought at a high cost but will insist a United States troop build-up has opened the door to a ”major strategic victory” against Islamic militants. ”The successes we are seeing in Iraq are undeniable,” Bush will say in an upbeat assessment.
Dale Steyn used to be a well-scrubbed bloke who wore a goofy grin that wobbled harmlessly under starry, starry eyes. He was polite and cheerful, and he could bowl a bit. He probably never said ”Well, golly gee.” But if he did, we would have chuckled heartily and ruffled his hair as if the lot of us were in a Spur commercial.
United Nations peacekeeping troops are heading for ”Iraq-style disaster” in Darfur as long as talks between the government and rebel groups remain stalled and the United States maintains its hostile stance, Sudanese officials and regional experts warned on Wednesday.
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/ 28 February 2008
Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama faced off on Wednesday in a possible prelude to a United States presidential election battle, tangling over whether Iraq would be prey for al-Qaeda if US troops are withdrawn. McCain, who has linked his candidacy to a successful outcome in Iraq, attacked Obama’s stance on the war.
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/ 27 February 2008
Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir said on Wednesday that Danes will not be allowed to set foot in his country after Danish newspapers reprinted a satirical cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad. Protests and rioting erupted in 2006 in Muslim countries around the world when the cartoons first appeared in a Danish daily.
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/ 25 February 2008
Foreigners wander freely among the handsome stone and baked-brick houses of Sanaa’s Old City, but elsewhere in Yemen al-Qaeda attacks have damaged a fledgling tourism industry already hurt by tribal kidnappings. The government, which hopes tourism earnings can help offset flagging oil revenues, is struggling to shore up security by providing armed police escorts for travel to certain areas.
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/ 18 February 2008
Vote counting got under way on Monday after a lacklustre turnout in Pakistan’s parliamentary elections, which passed off relatively peacefully despite fears of sabotage by Islamic militants. With his future hanging in the balance, President Pervez Musharraf resolved to work with the new civilian government.
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/ 12 February 2008
Pakistani security forces wounded and captured a prominent Taliban commander on Monday near the border area with Afghanistan. Mullah Mansour Dadullah took over as commander of Taliban forces in the southern Afghan province of Helmand after his brother, Mullah Dadullah, was killed by British forces in May.
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/ 8 February 2008
John McCain effectively secured the Republican presidential nomination on Thursday when his main rival, Mitt Romney, near to tears, dropped out of the race. Only one person now stands between McCain and the United States presidency: the Democratic choice for the November election.
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/ 1 February 2008
A top al-Qaeda commander who led Osama bin Laden’s terror network in Afghanistan was believed to have been killed when a missile fired by a United States drone hit his Pakistani hideout, officials said on Friday. Abu Laith al-Libi is said to be one of bin Laden’s key lieutenants.
New Hampshire goes to the polls on Tuesday for the second key clash of White House hopefuls, with surging Democrat Barack Obama likely to deal a second defeat to former first lady Hillary Clinton. Just five days after his Iowa triumph spun momentum into his White House quest, Obama enjoyed a solid lead in New Hampshire.
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/ 30 December 2007
Al-Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden warned Sunni Muslims in Iraq not to take up arms against the terror network and promised the "liberation of Palestine" in a new online message. In the 56-minute tape released late on Saturday, the Western world’s most wanted man also accused the United States of seeking to control the region through the Iraqi government.
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/ 29 December 2007
Former Guantánamo Bay inmate David Hicks walked free from an Australian jail after completing a sentence for supporting terrorism on Saturday, vowing not to let down those who got him home. More than six years after he was captured in Afghanistan, the so-called "Aussie Taliban" was escorted from Adelaide’s maximum security Yalata jail.
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/ 20 December 2007
Hundreds of subscribers to jihadist websites are posting questions for al-Qaeda’s leadership at the invitation of Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s deputy. ”Individuals, agencies and all information media outlets” have been told they can question Egyptian-born Zawahiri.
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/ 7 December 2007
The CIA destroyed video evidence of the coercive interrogation of al-Qaeda operatives held under its secret rendition programme in order to shield agents from prosecution, it was revealed on Thursday. The decision to destroy two videotapes documenting the use of waterboarding against Abu Zubaydah and another high-value al-Qaeda detainee was made in November 2005.
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/ 28 November 2007
Saudi Arabia said on Wednesday it had arrested 208 people for involvement in several cells that planned an ”imminent attack” on an oil installation, and attacks on clerics and security forces. State television said one of the cells was planning to smuggle in missiles.
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/ 19 November 2007
A propaganda video shot inside a radical Maldives mosque and posted on the Internet has raised fears that al-Qaeda is gaining a foothold in the Indian Ocean tourist paradise. The video was recorded at the Dhar-al-Khuir mosque on the remote Himandhoo island in the hours before it was raided on October 6.
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/ 15 November 2007
The Algerian army is ”on the road to victory” over the Maghreb branch of the al-Qaeda network, responsible for suicide attacks in the North African country, according to a French anti-terrorism expert. The Maghreb branch has introduced suicide bomb attacks that have targeted government and army positions in Algeria.
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/ 11 November 2007
Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf said on Sunday a general election will be held by January 9 — but under a state of emergency he imposed eight days ago. Musharraf, under pressure to put Pakistan back on a path to democracy, said the National Assembly and provincial assemblies will be dissolved in coming days.
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/ 10 November 2007
Opposition leader Benazir Bhutto described Pakistan on Saturday as a pressure cooker about to explode, as President Pervez Musharraf’s government tightened screws on media by ordering out three British journalists. Having invoked emergency powers a week ago, Musharraf has sacked most of the country’s judges and ordered police to round up most of the opposition leadership.