Ruissins Cpature Pirates off Somalia

2-13-09

Russian warship has captured three pirate vessels off Somalia, news
agencies quoted the Russian navy as saying on Friday.

The nuclear-powered warship, Peter the Great, also detained 10 pirates
on the boats, Interfax news agency quoted a spokesman for the Russian navy as saying.

Pirates from Somalia target merchant ships sailing through the busy Gulf of Aden, which
connects Europe and Asia via the Red Sea and the Suez Canal.

Navies from several different countries -- including the United States, Britain, India and Russia -now patrol the sea off the unstable Horn of Africa to deter pirates.

The Rest @ Xamar Radio

Robow Gives Three Conditions for Shabaab to Stop Fighitng

Thursday in Baioda Mukhtar Robow says he has not met the
new Somali president and vows more war against the country's new government

Talking to the press on Thursday at the former parliament hall in Baidoa, he
said that he does not intend to meet the new Somali President Sheikh
Sharif Ahmed, as there is no difference between him and his predecessor
Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, a Xamar Radio correspondent reported from Mogadishu on Thursday.

Sharif, a former member of the United Islamic Courts, affiliated with al-Shabaab had told
reporters after spending three days in Mogadishu that he met with leaders of the insurgency,
including representatives from al-Shabaab and the Islamic Party, a new coalition. Yusuf Ahmed
had advised the incoming leader to confront al-Shabaab, which is listed as a terror organization
by the US government.

Robow has put forth three conditions for supporting the new government if:

• The president orders AMISOM and foreign troops to leave the country;
• Establish Islamic law;
• Give good posts to the government to al-Shabaab authorities.

If not, Mukhtar said, al-Shabaab has vowed to continue their attacks against the government and
foreign troops till they leave the country, our correspondent said.AMISOM, African Union peacekeeping contingent serving in Mogadishu, has a force of 3,500 soldiers.

The rest @Xmarradio

Guinea-Bissau: Cassamma's Agunentas Fired Near Batista Tagme Na Wai

BISSAU (Reuters) - Guinea-Bissau's military said on Tuesday the armed forces chief had been fired on by militiamen hired to protect the president and ordered the militia to be disbanded.
But a presidential guard officer said the incident at midnight on Sunday was an accident and not an attempt to kill armed forces chief General Batista Tagme Na Wai.

The row over the shooting reflected tension between Na Wai, who has criticised some of President Joao Bernardo "Nino" Vieira's decisions and appointments, and Vieira, who survived an attack on his residence by renegade soldiers in November.

Since independence in 1974, the former Portuguese colony in West Africa has had a history of coups and military mutinies.

"At midnight on January 4 ... General Batista Tagme Na Wai was aimed at by a burst of gunfire fired by Aguentas militia mobilised and armed by Interior Minister Cipriano Cassama," the armed forces command said in a statement broadcast by state media. No injuries were reported from the incident.

A presidential guard officer said the AK-47 automatic rifle of one of Vieira's guard had gone off while General Na Wai and his escort were passing. "It wasn't an assassination attempt," adjutant Albino Bogra told reporters.

Guinea-Bissau, whose main export is cashew nuts, is among the poorest countries in the world. Its security has been threatened in recent years by Colombian cocaine cartels using its territory to smuggle drugs to Europe.

The interior ministry had recruited a 400-strong force of militia, known as Aguentas, to be Vieira's personal bodyguard after the president was the target of a machinegun and rocket-propelled grenade attack on his residence on November 23

The Rest @ All Africa.com

Shabaab is Expected to Expand Attacks in East Africa

WASHINGTON (AP) — 5:43 US EST

National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair told a Senate pannel that attacks on U.S. interests in East Africa are expected to increase in the next year, especially with the growing influence of the Somalia-based terrorist group al-Shabaab and the number of foreign fighters going there to fight alongside them.

The Rest @ The AP

Al Qaeda Threatens India Directly

Al Qaeda warns India of Mumbai like raids
Tue, 10 Feb 2009 14:17:43 GMT

A top al-Qaeda commander in Afghanistan has warned India of last year’s ‘Mumbai-style terror strikes’ if it attacks Pakistan.

Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, who was believed to have been killed in Afghanistan, has reappeared in a video message saying that “India should know that it will have to pay a heavy price if it attacks Pakistan.”

( there is alot

“We will bring mujahedin and suicide attackers from all over the world to confront you,’ he said, adding that “We will target your economic centers and raze them to the ground,” he said in a 20-minute video received by the BBC in Islamabad.

The militants’ commander also called on Pakistanis to overthrow their government led by President Asif Ali Zardari, widower of assassinated former Premier Benazir Bhutto.
Indian intelligence officials say warnings released by the Al Qaeda leader to strike India are not new.

“We will examine the video closely as it is in Arabic. But such threats are not new. There have been earlier threats as well but the security regimen which is in place now shows that our forces are on high alert,” said a top Indian intelligence official who was not identified.
Relations between New Delhi and Islamabad have been strained since militants killed 179 people in the November attacks on India’s financial capital.

India blamed the banned Pakistan-based militants for the raids and said the perpetrators were “clients and creations” of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
Islamabad authorities have denied any involvement by state agencies and have been investigating the Mumbai siege.

India’s defense minister A. K. Antony said in the wake of the warning from the al-Qaeda commander that New Delhi was capable of facing any threat to its security coming from any quarter. “One thing I can tell you. Whatever threat coming from any quarter, our armed forces are always ready to face them.”

The al-Qaeda warnings come after the Pentagon reports said that Abu-al-Yazid had been killed in a US drone strike in Pakistan last year.
Earlier in August, Pakistani media outlets had reported that he had been killed in fighting with Pakistani army in the troubled Bajaur tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

Mustafa Abu al-Yazid

The insurgents’ commander has been linked to last year’s Danish embassy bombings in Islamabad, and had claimed responsibility for assassinating Bhutto.

Al Qaeda top leaders are believed to be hiding in tribal areas along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, where their Taliban allies have strongholds. The insurgents have regrouped along the shared border between Pakistan and Afghanistan after a US-led invasion in late 2001 toppled
Taliban in Afghanistan and sent militants to border areas with Pakistan.

The spread of violence from Afghanistan to the whole South Asian region comes seven years after US-led forces under former president George W Bush’s war on terror doctrine invaded Afghanistan in 2001 to eradicate insurgency and terrorism.

Mali Government Claims Tuareg Rebellion is Finished

Mali's Defense ministry announced that after completing an offensive underway for weeks, the army now controls “all bases” of the rebels active in the north of the country. In a statement released today, the ministry specified that

“the army has routed Tuareg rebels of the Democratic Alliance for Change (ATNM)” led by Ibrahim Ag Bahanga, the last armed group active in the nation that refuses to take part in the Algiers peace process.

All the operational and logistical bases of the movement in Tin Assalek, Abeibara, Boureissa, Inerdjane and east of Touksimène have been taken and are under the control of our army and security forces”, added the ministry, referring that 22 rebels had been taken prisoner in the operation and large amounts of weapons, munitions and vehicles seized.

The wanted rebel leader Ag Bahanga is still at large.

A ceremony is due to be held on Sunday in Kidal, in the north, for the peaceful return of more than 500 former Tuareg rebels to the town of Kidal, a step outlined in the July 2006 Algiers peace agreement, committing the rebels to drop demands for the autonomy of northern Mali in exchange for a more rapid development of the three northern regions of Kidal, Gao and Timbuktu.

The ATNM in fact demanded a reduction in the military presence in the Tinzaouatène zone, on the border with Algeria, but the government refused claiming it was an international drug transit area.

The Rest @ African News Analysis

Orginally Feb 3,2009
CBS News
A leading member of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) who had reportedly turned himself in to Algerian authorities, appeared in a new propaganda video released by the group on the Internet.

“Ali Ben Touati” who is known as Amin Abou Tammam was the commander of this attack featured in the video.

He was shown briefing other members of the group on the operation. Algerian media reported Saturday that Ben Touati had turned himself in in response to the appeal made last month by the founder of the Algerian Salafist Group for Call and Combat (SGCC) Hassan Hattab.

• Hattab had then issued a statement calling on AQIM operatives to lay their arms down and take advantage of the government amnesty program launched by President Abdulaziz Bouteflika.

The video also demonstrates some of the group’s weaknesses.

• The group said it shows an attack on the headquarters of Algerian municipal guards in al Shari’a village, in Tizi Ouzou, but it seems that unexpected resistance from the soldiers barricaded inside the base has foiled the gang’s plan.
• The video, dated January 2009, opens with some reconnaissance footage captured by group members ahead of the attack.
• This was followed by pictures of group members preparing for the attack; getting their explosives ready and reviewing the attack’s plan with their chief.
• Shaky night pictures then showed the men as they launched their assault on the building and a heavy gunfire exchange taking place between the two sides.

Although the tape was meant to be a propaganda video and prove the group’s strength, it did not include pictures to support the claim that the group’s members had broken into the base after all the soldiers had either been killed or ran off.

It seemed like AQIM’s men were unable to move inside the base and two of the group’s members had been shot. Moreover, the group did not show any seized “booty” as it usually does in its video.

• The video also demonstrates the lack of basic medical supplies available to the group.
• One of the men who were wounded during the battle was shown conscious on the tape and didn’t seem to be in critical condition. But he succumbed to his wounds.
• The other had the wound on his head covered with bandages and his arms rubbed with olive oil!
• The video also featured pictures of a leading member of group who recently turned himself in to Algerian authorities.
• “Ali Ben Touati” who is known as Amin Abou Tammam, was the commander of this attack and was shown briefing other members of the group.

Algerian media reports said on Saturday that Ben Touati had turned himself in, in response to the appeal made last month by the founder of the Algerian Salafist Group for Call and Combat (SGCC) Hassan Hattab.

Hattab had then issued a statement calling on AQIM operatives to lay their arms down and take advantage of the government amnesty program launched by President Abdulaziz Bouteflika.

The Rest @ cbsnews