Worldcrunch
The Somali Islamist outfit al-Shabab has claimed responsibility for the bloody attack on the exclusive Westgate shopping mall in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi. Al Jazeera looks at the origins and objectives of the group that is one of a growing number of local organizations that falls under the global umbrella of al-Qaeda.
La Stampa’s veteran war correspondent Domenico Quirico was held hostage in Syria for five months by rebel soldiers. Earlier this week, along with Belgian writer Pierre Piccinin, the 61-year-old was released after what he described as a “very dangerous and complex” captivity. Here is his first account of what happened… TURIN — We entered Syria […]
BBC, AL JAZEERA (Qatar), AFP Worldcrunch BAGHDAD — Coordinated bombings in Iraq’s capital of Baghdad killed at least 44 people and wounded 157 more Wednesday, the BBC reports. Aimed at the Shia Muslim community, bombs exploded during rush hour in most of the city’s Shia neighborhoods and in two mixed towns to its south. A […]
FOREIGN POLICY, REUTERS, BBC, RUSSIA TODAY, SANA (Syria) Worldcrunch DAMASCUS – American intelligence services say they have intercepted “panicked phone calls” between an official at the Syrian Ministry of Defense and a leader of a chemical weapons unit last Wednesday, after the alleged chemical attack took place. The magazine Foreign Policy, which reported the claim […]
REUTERS, BBC, RUSSIA TODAY, AFP Worldcrunch BEIRUT — Israel’s Air Force bombed a militant target south of Beirut Friday in retaliation for rockets fired into Israel from Lebanon the day before, Reuters reports. “Israel will not tolerate terrorist aggression originating from Lebanese territory,” military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner said in a statement. According to […]
BBC NEWS (UK) Worldcrunch SANA’A – Yemen said on Wednesday it had foiled an al-Qaeda plot to blow up oil pipelines and seize some of the country’s main ports. Security remains tight – and hundreds of armoured vehicles have been deployed to protect key targets. Both the U.S. and UK have withdrawn diplomatic staff from […]
SANA (Syria), REUTERS Worldcrunch BEIRUT – Sixty-two rebel fighters were killed in a Syrian army ambush at dawn on Wednesday near the town of Adra, east of Damascus, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group opposed to President Bashar al-Assad. The state news agency SANA did not give a death toll for […]
NEW YORK TIMES (USA) Worldcrunch WASHINGTON – Nineteen American diplomatic outposts across the Middle East and North Africa will remain closed this week, the State Department said Sunday, despite what officials said was no new information about terrorist plots that they believe are in the works. One day after President Obama’s top national security aides […]
CNN Worldcrunch Al Qaeda’s No. 2 man in Yemen, Said al-Shihri, once emerged from the aftermath of drone strikes in the past to lambast the CIA for trying to kill him. Now, it has been confirmed, US forces have finally struck their target. A message on jihadi websites announced al-Shihri’s death Tuesday. It was purportedly […]
KASSERINE – Sitting on his doorstep, squinting under his straw hat, the shepherd looks closely at the military tank that crosses his land with a deafening rumble. “For now, we let them, but if it goes on, we, the people, we will revolt and stop this joke by all available means,” says Ridha Messaoudi. Early […]
Tuesday, June 24, 2014 ISIS CLAIMS CAPTURE OF IRAQ OIL REFINERY Jihadist group ISIS has claimed to have taken control of Iraq’s biggest oil refinery in Baiji, after it offered hundreds of Iraqi soldiers safe passage if they laid down their weapons, Al Jazeera reports. But Iraq’s foreign minister rejected the claims, and New York […]
Friday, June 13, 2014 ISIS FIGHTERS GAIN MORE GROUND Islamist group ISIS gained more ground in Iraq overnight with the capture of two more towns east of Baghdad, where the government is reinforcing its defenses, Al-Arabiya reports. Yesterday, U.S. President Barack Obama suggested that Washington might act. “I don’t rule out anything, because we do […]
Tuesday, June 10, 2014 UKRAINE TO CREATE HUMANITARIAN CORRIDORS Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko announced creation of “humanitarian corridors” for eastern Ukrainian civilians to leave areas where Kiev’s “anti-terrorist operation” in under way, Interfax reports. Human Rights Watch said it welcomed the decision, while leaders of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic expressed their mistrust at the […]
A look at what the world has been saying, week of May 23-30.
BBC NEWS (UK), AL JAZEERA (Qatar), AP, REUTERS Worldcrunch BAGHDAD – A series of bomb attacks killed at least 13 and wounded dozens on Thursday morning in Iraq, in the latest surge of violence sweeping the country, officials told AP. According to the police, most of the attacks happened in Baghdad, including a car bomb […]
DAWN, NEWS PAKISTAN, PAKISTAN TODAY (Pakistan), WASHINGTON POST (U.S.), REUTERS Worldcrunch MIRAMSHAH – At least seven people were killed in a reported U.S. drone attack early Wednesday in northeastern Pakistan. The drone fired two missiles at a mud-built house in the tribal region of North Waziristan, which is considered a bastion of Taliban and al-Qaeda […]
BBC (UK), CNN, WASHINGTON POST (USA) Worldcrunch NEW YORK – A key United Nations lawyer leading a probe on the use of drones has praised President Barack Obama’s speech on changes to the United States’ anti-terrorism policy, which included new more restrictive guidelines for using unmanned aircrafts to strike targets on the ground. UN attorney […]
AL JAZEERA (Qatar), CNN (USA), REUTERS Worldcrunch BAGHDAD – At least 32 people have been killed and scores injured on Monday in a series of car bombs and shootings across Iraqi cities. Reports are still conflicting as to the number of attacks and casualties in this latest spate of violence plaguing the country. CNN reports […]
BBC NEWS (UK), AL JAZEERA (Qatar), REUTERS, AP Worldcrunch BAGHDAD – A wave of coordinated attacks Monday in Baghdad, Kirkuk, and other towns has left dozens killed and hundreds of injured across Iraq. The exact number of people killed in the bombings is still unclear, with Al Jazeera reporting at least 19 casualties and AP […]
Across the border from Mali, the former French colony of Mauritania is prime territory for Islamist leaders, as poverty and radical preachers lay the groundwork for Jihad.
REUTERS, BBC NEWS Worldcrunch BAGHDAD – A spate of car bombs and shootings killed at least 56 people and wounded more than 200 in Baghdad, on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq that toppled Saddam Hussein. Reuters reports that several car bombs hit Shi’ite districts of Baghdad on Tuesday […]
NIAMEY – The small restaurant sits on the corner of two sandy streets in Niger’s capital city, Niamey. It is here, at Le Toulousain, that two Frenchmen were kidnapped by AQIM (Al Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb) on Jan. 7, 2011. The two young hostages – an aid worker and his friend – were killed during […]
CHINA AND TAIWAN MEET FOR HISTORIC GOVERNMENT TALKS Representatives of the China and Taiwan governments met today in the Eastern Chinese city of Nanjing, the first face-to-face meeting of cross-strait officials since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949, which saw the separation of the two states. While no official agenda was released […]
UKRAINE PM RESIGNS Ukraine Prime Minister Mykola Azarov offered his resignation early Tuesday in an effort to end the country’s political crisis. This was followed by news that the Ukrainian Parliament had voted to repeal nine of the 12 anti-protest laws that reignited the anti-government protests two weeks ago. SYRIAN DEFENSE MINISTER’S HOMETOWN BOMBED According […]
FRANCE 24, FRANCE TV INFO, AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE (France), REUTERS Worldcrunch PARIS – French forces, supported by the Mali army have captured both the rebel strongholds of Timbuktu and Gao in a fast-moving offensive against Al Qaeda-linked fighters occupying northern Mali. Battling together to loosen the grip of Islamist fighters in the country’s north, French […]
AFP, FRANCE 24 (France), REUTERS Worldcrunch BAMAKO- Two weeks after the start of the French military intervention in Mali, the Ansar Dine Islamist militant group has split into two, with the dissident faction calling for peace negotiations. The dissident group is calling itself the Islamic Movement of Azawad (MIA) according to France 24. In a […]
GENEVA TALKS CONTINUE OVER SYRIA’S FUTURELakhdar Brahimi, the UN mediator for peace in Syria, will hold separate meetings with representatives of the Syrian government and of the opposition in a bid to bring them to the negotiating table ahead of tomorrow’s talks in Geneva. According to the BBC, it’s still not clear whether the two […]
The terrorist attack and hostage-taking in neighboring Algeria is just one of the ways that France’s intervention in Mali could spread across Africa, and beyond.
EL WATAN (Algeria), LE MONDE, AFP (France) Worldcrunch Two people were killed and as many as 41 Westerners were taken hostage in an attack Wednesday by an Islamist group at a gas treatment facility in Algeria. A British citizen and an Algerian are believed to be dead and six other people wounded in the assault […]
EURONEWS, AFP, LE MONDE (France) Worldcrunch MOGADISHU – Somali Islamist militants announced on Wednesday that they had decided to execute a French hostage they have been holding since 2009, reports the AFP. French DGSE secret-service commandos launched a raid last Saturday in an bid to rescue French intelligence agent Denis Allex, but the attempt failed, […]
CNN (USA), LE FIGARO (France), REUTERS Worldcrunch U.S. troops lent “limited technical support” in France’s bloody and failed bid in Somalia to rescue Dennis Allex, a French intelligence agent who’d been held hostage by al-Qaeda linked terrorists since 2009. President Barack Obama detailed the U.S. military involvement in the Friday night mission in a letter […]
“FRIENDS OF SYRIA” TO MEET IN PARIS ON SUNDAY Foreign Ministers of the group of 11 countries dubbed “Friends of Syria,” including the U.S., UK and France, will meet with the opposition group Syrian National Coalition on Sunday in Paris, AFP quotes an official source as saying. On the battleground, opposition fighters are still fighting […]
International security experts are watching Nigeria “s radical Islamist movement Boko Haram with concern. The militant group has destabilized northern Nigeria and attracted the attention of other jihadist groups, including al-Qaeda affiliates gaining strength in neighboring northern Mali. Boko Haram is highly diffuse. It has an important Islamic revival dimension, but also has political and […]
Exclusive investigation: The terror network in Syria includes dozens of European members, and wants to get its hands on Assad’s stockpile of chemical weapons.
PETRA (Jordan), INDEPENDENT, GUARDIAN (UK), AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE (France) Worldcrunch AMMAN – Jordanian police say they have arrested 11 suspected terrorists who had crossed the border from Syria and were planning a major attack against foreigners in Jordan’s capital. The U.S. embassy in Jordan was among the targets, an embassy spokesman confirmed to the Independent. […]
MOGADISHU – General Barisse’s men are in the pick-up trucks, one next to the other, holding their weapons, looking around. They do not fidget, a military patience having descended upon them: they simply wait. They have been waiting for food, pay, the enemy’s attack — in this, they also wait for the end of a […]
YEMEN OBSERVER (Yemen), REUTERS Worldcrunch SANA’A – A U.S. Embassy employee was assassinated on his way to work in the Yemeni capital Thursday. Yemen Observer reports that Qassem Aqlan, a Yemeni senior security officer working at the U.S. Embassy, was shot dead by masked gunmen on a motorcycle around 10 am Thursday. Gunmen opened fire […]
CNN (USA), BBC (UK), AL JAZEERA (Qatar) Worldcrunch PESHAWAR – At least four people were killed in a suicide bombing that hit a U.S. consular vehicle in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, reports Al Jazeera. The American embassy in Islamabad said that no U.S. citizens were killed in the attack, although there were conflicting accounts […]
REUTERS (UK), DAWN (Pakistan), AFP (France) Worldcrunch A US drone aircraft killed at least 12 people in Pakistan’s North Waziristan region on Friday. Reuters reported that the attacks targeted three walled compounds, which are suspected to be militant hideouts used by insurgents crossing the nearby border with Afghanistan. Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper reported the identities of […]