Cocaine Captured on Algerian-Mali Border aftger Shootout

Thu 3 Jan 2008, 18:27 GMT


BAMAKO, Jan 3 (Reuters) - Malian customs officers seized three quarters of a tonne of cocaine worth an estimated $45 million after a desert shootout with heavily armed smugglers near the Algerian border, officials said on Thursday.

West Africa has become a major trafficking route for Colombian cocaine headed for the lucrative streets of Europe, and smuggling gangs ply their trade across thinly-policed borders at the heart of Africa's biggest desert.

The drugs were discovered on board two four-wheel-drive vehicles near the town of
Tin-Zaouatene on the Mali-Algeria border, said a senior Territorial Administration Ministry official.

"The seizure took place ... following a car chase and gun fight, or a battle, you could say, as they had military weapons," he said.

"After two hours of fighting, the smugglers, who were driving three Algerian-registered off-roaders, abandoned two of them, loaded their wounded into the third vehicle and fled over the border," he said.

Malian authorities estimated the cocaine, one of the country's biggest ever seizures, to be worth 20 billion CFA francs ($45 million) he said.

Trafficking of drugs, weapons and people via ancient trade routes has increased insecurity in the remote central Sahara, as well as in some of West Africa's coastal states which act as transit points for the illicit cargoes.

U.N. officials say the tiny, deeply impoverished state of Guinea-Bissau risks becoming a "narco-state" unless the international community helps its poorly equipped police force take on wealthy and heavily-armed Latin American drugs gangs.

(Reporting by Tiemoko Diallo; Writing by Alistair Thomson, Editing by Matthew Jones)

The Rest @ Reuters Africa

American Diplomat John Granville's Death in Sudan

Sudan claims the January 1st 2008 shooting and death of American Diplomat John Granville and his Sudanese driver was not a terrist attack, and condems the tragedy. The Sudanese Interior Ministry said Granville was being driven home after a newyears eve party when another vehicle cut off his car and opened fire before fleeing the scene. He was shot five times, and died in surgery later that day. His driver died instantly.

Granville, 33, was a USAID democracy fellow as part of his work in Sudan. According to the USAID website Reuters Video

• Granville's project involved distributing radios to people in the southern part of Sudan to maximize the effect of the agency's broadcasting initiatives.

His family reports that Granville was a Peace Corps volunteer in Cameroon, where he helped build the first school in a rural village. He was a graduate of Fordham University and earned a masters degree in International Development and Social Change from Clark University in Worcester, Mass., in 2003.

A US official said it was too early to determine a motive for the shooting, but they had received indications of terrorist threats aimed at American and Western interests in Sudan, but the warning indicated that the threat was greater outside Khartoum.

• The BBC reports the UN has taken control of the peacekeeping mission for Darfur in Sudan after months of negotiations but it remains under strength.

In Sudan in 1973, U.S. Ambassador Cleo Noel Jr. and senior U.S. official George Curtis Moore were slain by Palestinian militants, and a USAID employee died in a car accident in Khartoum in 1981.

-Shimron

More from The LA Times, and Boston.com

Nigerian Delta Guerrilas Attack Port Harcourt

Tue 1 Jan 2008, 14:21 GMT

PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria, Jan 1 (Reuters) - Suspected militants attacked two police stations, a luxury hotel and a night club in Nigeria's oil city Port Harcourt on Tuesday leaving 18 people dead, police said.

The New Year's Day assault came after troops bombed suspected rebel hideouts near the city last weekend and after the collapse of peace talks between militants and the government of Africa's top oil producer.

"The gunmen came into town from different directions and attacked several places," said Ireju Barasua, a police spokeswoman in Port Harcourt.

Barasua said four police officers were killed at two police stations in the riverside metropolis in the south of Nigeria.

Seven civilians also died in the cross-fire outside the Borokiri police station, and a security guard was killed at the Presidential Hotel when gunmen opened fire on the lobby, Police Commissioner Felix Ogbaudu was quoted as saying by the state news agency.

Several other civilians were wounded by stray bullets near the hotel as they returned from midnight mass, witnesses said. The lobby wall had bullet marks and dozens of empty AK-47 shells were lying on the road outside.

Gunmen also struck the Skippers night club, and police said they killed six of the attackers.
A prominent militia leader in Port Harcourt, Ateke Tom, had been expected to stage a counter-attack in the city after troops bombed his suspected hideouts with helicopter gunships in the creeks around the city last weekend.

The Rest @ Reuters Africa

289 Dead in Kenya post Election Violence -from Pakistan

This is a Pakistani Daily NEws papae repoirt about Kenyan Post election violence

read cautiously between the lines: Note the author says "289", then "nearly 290", then "nealry 300" all in the same story. There is an agenda here.

-Shimron

289 dead as EU calls Kenya poll flawed

• NAIROBI: EU monitors cast doubts Tuesday on the results of Kenya’s disputed presidential vote, stepping up the pressure on re-elected President Mwai Kibaki as his country reels from violence that has claimed nearly 290 lives.
• A second consecutive night of tribal conflict and clashes between police and protestors left more than 100 dead, with no end in sight to the post-election unrest that has plunged one of Africa’s more stable democracies into an unprecedented crisis.
• World leaders called on Kenya’s rival leaders to open a dialogue, but Raila Odinga, the opposition candidate narrowly defeated in the December 27 poll by Kibaki, said he would only talk when the president owned up to vote-rigging allegations.

“The conditions under which we are prepared to negotiate is that Kibaki must first accept that he did not win the elections,” Odinga said in an interview with the BBC.

• His charges of fraud were lent extra weight by the EU election monitoring team which issued a report Tuesday saying the vote had “fallen short” of international standards and called for an independent audit into the results.
• The polls were “marred by a lack of transparency in the processing and tallying of presidential results, which raises concerns about the accuracy of the final results,” the report said.
• “We believe it is vital that an impartial investigation into the accuracy of the presidential results is conducted,” chief EU observer Alexander Graf Lambsdorff told reporters
• .British PM: Britain joined international calls for calm, with Prime Minister Gordon Brown speaking by telephone to both Kabika and Odinga. “What I want to see is them coming together, I want to see talks and I want to see reconciliation and unity,” Brown said.
• While noting the widespread allegations of vote-rigging, Brown argued that “the first priority” was ending the violence.

Events

• Clashes were reported by police and witnesses overnight in most Nairobi slums as well as in several of Odinga’s strongholds in western Kenya.
• The city of Kisumu, northwest of Nairobi, appeared to be the worst affected, with a mortuary attendant telling AFP that 48 bodies were brought in overnight.
• The violence is the worst Kenya has witnessed since a failed 1982 coup.
• Slum areas were overrun by rioters burning down shops belonging to members of Kibaki’s Kikuyu tribe and looting anything from refrigerators to basic goods, which have started running out since the crisis brought East Africa’s largest economy to a standstill.

According to a tally compiled by AFP, 289 people have died in politically related violence since the December 27 elections.

The incident is likely to raise concerns that the wave of post-election violence that has now claimed nearly 300 lives in Kenya could develop into a full-blown ethnic conflict.

A police commander said police had been given shoot-to-kill orders for Eldoret, the town where the Kenya Assemblies of God church was located.

The Rest @ Daily Times-Pakistan

Mouritania Frontier Crime May be al Qaeda

This 31 December 2007 article suggests that al Qaeda or Trans-national criminal trafficers may be building infrastructure or ramping up for Action in West Africa

-Shimron

Mauritania forces unsure of al Qaeda attack claim
Mon 31 Dec 2007, 15:42 GMT
[-] Text [+]

By Ibrahima Sylla

NOUAKCHOTT, Dec 31 (Reuters) - Mauritanian forces hunting the killers of French tourists and government soldiers are not convinced by a claim that al Qaeda launched one of the attacks, security sources said on Monday.

Last week's separate attacks have shaken the normally peaceful West African country as it prepares to host a section of the Dakar Rally -- a race that gives a lucrative boost to Mauritania's nascent tourism industry.

A promise of 3,000 security personnel to ensure safe passage was enough for the rally's security chief, who has given the green light to its Mauritanian stages starting Jan 11.
But with talk of French tourists cancelling trips, Mauritanians are aware there is still time for a change of plan, should a serious al Qaeda threat be established.

Stages in neighbouring Mali were cancelled last year after French security services cited a threat from Algerian rebels.

• Last Monday three attackers, who authorities suspect are linked to al Qaeda, gunned down four French tourists and injured a fifth as they enjoyed a Christmas Eve picnic by the side of a road in the south of the country, near the border with Senegal.
• Gunmen killed three army soldiers three days later in the remote and sparsely populated north of the country, bordering Algeria and Morocco's breakaway territory of Western Sahara.
• In an audio recording aired by Al Arabiya television, a spokesman said al Qaeda's North African branch had killed four soldiers late on Wednesday, but made no mention of the French.
• Details in the statement differed from those given by the Mauritanian authorities, and the Gulf TV station said it could not verify the statement was indeed from al Qaeda.
• Security sources in Mauritania's capital Nouakchott said the al Qaeda link was just one of the lines of inquiry

Suspicion was also falling on armed smugglers who traffic drugs, weapons and people across poorly policed borders deep in the Sahara.

• The soldiers were shot dead by the occupants of two vehicles they were pursuing, who then made off with a heavy gun captured from the soldiers' vehicle.
• The rough terrain would require heavy-duty vehicles similar to those designed for military use, said one security source.
• "The heavy weapon they took, which they dismantled, could only be used by a specialist or somebody who had been trained for it," said another security source in Nouakchott.
• Security forces have detained at least seven people in relation to the killing of the French, but the three killers are still at large, possibly in neighbouring Senegal or Mali.

Mauritanian investigators say they are questioning the operator of a pirogue, or small wooden boat, who they believe ferried the attackers across the Senegal river into Senegal.
"The search goes on. So far there is no news. We have not located them -- otherwise we would have arrested them already," said Daouda Diop, spokesman for Senegal's Gendarmerie service.

The Rest @ Reuters Africa

Two US Soliders Found Dead in Hotel room in Ghana

Jan 1 (Reuters) - Two U.S. Navy sailors were found dead on Tuesday in their hotel room while on shore leave in the West African country of Ghana, the U.S. Navy said.

The cause of death was unknown and was being investigated by Ghanaian authorities in cooperation with U.S. Navy officials, the Navy said in a statement.

"Currently there is no suggestion of foul play," Lieutenant Patrick Foughty, a spokesman for the U.S. Navy Sixth Fleet, told Reuters by telephone from Naples, Italy.

The sailors, who were not identified, were stationed aboard the Fort McHenry, a 600-foot (185-
metre) dock landing ship based in Little Creek, Virginia.

The vessel was docked in the Ghanaian port of Tema, some 18 miles (28 km) east of the capital Accra, as part of a U.S. naval partnership programme in West Africa.

During a six-month mission, the Fort McHenry will train West African navies to fight drug smuggling and maritime security threats in a region which supplies nearly a fifth of U.S. oil imports.

Foughty said the sailor's deaths would not prevent the training mission from going ahead.

The Rest @ Reuters Africa

Thirty Killed in Kenya Assembly of God Church by Post Election Mob

NAIROBI (Reuters) - A mob torched a Kenyan church on Tuesday, killing about 30 villagers cowering inside, as the death toll from ethnic riots triggered by President Mwai Kibaki's disputed re-election approached 250.

Fire engulfed a church near Eldoret town where hundreds of Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe had taken refuge in fear of their lives. Witnesses said charred bodies, including women and children, were strewn about the smouldering ruins.

"This is the first time in history that any group has attacked a church. We never expected the savagery to go so far," police spokesman Eric Kiraithe said.

Kibaki was sworn in on Sunday after official election results showed he narrowly beat opposition leader Raila Odinga. Both sides have accused the other of massive vote-rigging during the Dec. 27 election.

The dispute ignited long-simmering tribal rivalries in one of Africa's most stable democracies and strongest economies.

World powers called for calm and urged the political opponents to "exercise restraint" and talk to each other.

Police and a senior security official said the blaze at the Kenya Assemblies of God Pentecostal church in western Kenya was deliberately started by a gang of youths.

• Television pictures shot from a helicopter showed plumes of white smoke pouring from burning homesteads in the area.
• Young men, some toting bows and arrows, manned roadblocks.
• Residents and a security source said the victims had sought safety at the small church, about 8 km (5 miles) from Eldoret.
• "Some youths came to the church," said a local reporter from the scene.
• "They fought with the boys who were guarding it, but they were overpowered and the youths set fire to the church."
• Local media said 20 people suffered life-threatening burns.

The attack revived traumatic memories in east Africa of the slaughter in churches of tens of thousands of victims of Rwanda's 1994 genocide, and the mass suicide of hundreds of Ugandan cult members in a church fire in 2000.

Police said more than 70,000 people had been displaced nationwide and about 170 killed. Reuters reporters around Kenya estimated the death toll at around 250.

Leading local newspaper, the Daily Nation, feared the country was on "the verge of a complete meltdown".

Fuel prices rose sharply in Uganda, South Sudan, Rwanda and Burundi, all of which get petrol, diesel and other products from Kenyan ports.

THOUSANDS FLEE

Police were out in force in the capital on New Year's Day and Nairobi's streets were initially quieter, before violence erupted in the slums again as dusk fell.

Ghana's President John Kufor, the chairman of the African Union (AU), is due in Kenya on Wednesday to meet Kibaki and "discuss the current crisis", an AU spokesman said.

Washington had first congratulated Kibaki, then switched to expressing "concerns about irregularities". Former colonial power Britain, the European Union and others pointedly avoided congratulating Kibaki. Instead, they expressed concern, urged reconciliation and a probe into suspected voting irregularities.

"The 2007 general elections have fallen short of key international and regional standards for democratic elections," the EU observer mission said in its formal assessment.

Western diplomats shuttled between both sides, trying to start mediation. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called Kibaki and his opposition rival Raila Odinga.

"The government thinks they can wait this out, but we're not convinced," one diplomat in Nairobi told Reuters.

The Eldoret area where the church massacre took place is multi-ethnic but traditionally dominated by the Kalenjin tribe.

It suffered ethnic violence in 1992 and 1997 when hundreds of mainly Kikuyus were killed and thousands more displaced.

A senior security official in Rift Valley said that as many as 15,000 people were now sheltering from the violence in churches and police stations in Eldoret.

He blamed the opposition for incitement.
"We have lived together for years, we've intermarried, we have children, but now they've asked them to turn against them," the security official said. "We don't do this in Kenya. It is what happens in Yugoslavia and Sudan."

An Irish Catholic priest in Eldoret, Father Paul Brennan, told Reuters vigilante gangs were roaming the streets.

"Houses are being burned. It is too dangerous to go outside and count the dead," he said. "The churches are full. There are four to five thousand in the main cathedral."

Most deaths have come from police firing at protesters, witnesses say, prompting accusations from rights groups and the opposition that Kibaki had made Kenya a "police state".

The Rest @ Reuters Africa