The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Al Qaeda

  • Niger updates death toll from militant attack to 7

    Niger updates death toll from militant attack to 7

    Four Nigerien troops and three U.S. soldiers were killed in an attack earlier this week in southwest Niger near the border with Mali, the Defense Ministry said on Friday.

    The ministry updated the casualty figures from the ambush on Thursday, adding the death toll of their own forces to the three soldiers already named by the U.S. side.

    Eight other Nigeriens were wounded, as were two members of the U.S. forces who are providing training to the Nigerien Army on combating extremists in the region.

    The joint patrol was ambushed by terrorist elements in a dozen vehicles and on 20 motorbikes,” Niger’s Defense Ministry said in a statement.

    Niger’s President Mahamadou Issoufou said in an earlier address that the terrorist attack had claimed “a significant number of victims.”

    “Our country has once again been the victim of an attack by terrorist groups,’’ Issoufou said in a speech on Thursday at the opening of an economic forum in the capital Naimey.

    The U.S. Africa Command has said their two injured servicemen have been evacuated to Germany for medical treatment.

    The attack took place around 200 kilometres north of Niamey, near the border with Mali, where the terrorist group al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb is active.

    NAN

  • France, Africans must eradicate ‘terrorists, thugs and murderers’ – Macron

    France, Africans must eradicate ‘terrorists, thugs and murderers’ – Macron

    France and its African partners must work together to wipe out Islamist militants in the volatile Sahel region, President Emmanuel Macron said at the opening of a summit in Bamako on Sunday.

    Leaders of the G5 Sahel bloc – Mali, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Niger and Chad – were expected to launch a new multi-national force at the meeting aimed at combating militants and illegal activity in the vast arid zone.

    “Every day we must combat terrorists, thugs, murderers … who we must steadfastly and with determination eradicate together,” said Macron, who was making his second visit to Mali since taking office in May.

    Islamist militant groups, some with links to al Qaeda, seized control of Mali’s desert north in 2012.

    While they were driven out of major cities and towns a year later by a French-led military intervention, they continue to carry out attacks against on UN peacekeepers, Malian soldiers and civilian targets.

    The violence has spilled over into neighbouring countries in West Africa’s Sahel region and Paris has deployed thousands of French troops to combat Islamists under a cross-border operation known as Barkhane.

  • Saudi official denies former crown prince confined to palace

    Saudi official denies former crown prince confined to palace

    A senior Saudi Arabian official on Thursday denied as “baseless’’ a New York Times report that Prince Mohammed bin Nayef has been confined to his palace and barred from traveling abroad after being replaced by the king’s son as next in line to the throne.

    The official said that Nayef, a veteran Interior Minister, had continued to host guests and there was no restrictions at all on his or his family’s movements.

    Nayef, who was admired in Washington for quashing an al Qaeda insurgency in the kingdom between 2003 and 2006, was relieved of all his duties a week ago.

    In his place as Crown Prince, King Salman appointed his son Mohammed bin Salman, who also serves as defence minister and leads an ambitious reform agenda to end Saudi Arabia’s over-reliance on oil.

    Mohammed bin Salman’s promotion ended two years of speculation about a behind-the-scenes rivalry near the pinnacle of royal power, but analysts said he still has to win over powerful relatives, clerics and tribesmen.

    The New York Times, citing four current and former American officials and Saudis close to the royal family, said Nayef has been “barred from leaving the kingdom and confined to his palace” in the Red Sea city of Jeddah.

    But the senior Saudi official expressed shock at the report, which he described as a “fabricated story” and suggested that Nayef may seek legal action against the newspaper.

    “What was published by the New York Times is untrue, completely false, and baseless,” the official said, responding to a question on the New York Times report.

    “His Royal Highness, Nayef and his family is moving freely and hosting his guests unrestrictedly.

    Nothing has changed for the Prince, except for stepping down from his government positions,” the official said.

    “He hosts guests and leaves his house on a daily basis since he has stepped down.

    “Further, there are no restrictions on his movement whatsoever, either in or outside of Saudi Arabia.’’

    Although Mohammed bin Salman’s promotion to crown prince had long been expected among those who follow the royal family closely, the timing was a surprise, and puts the kingdom’s future in relatively untested hands.

    The promotion proceeded smoothly, with royal family members, senior officials and clerics participating in a traditional ceremony held in the Muslim holy city of Mecca in
    which they pledged allegiance to the new crown prince.

    Saudi state media, eager to show the change was going smoothly, repeatedly broadcast footage of the young Mohammed bin Salman kissing the hand of Nayef, as his older cousin offered him congratulations.

    The Saudi official said Nayef was “entitled to bring legal action against the newspaper and anyone who defames his reputation by publishing such false news about him.’’

  • Al Qaeda frees abducted Swede

    Hostage Johan Gustafsson, held by al-Qaeda in Mali since 2011, has been freed, the Swedish government said on Monday.

    Mr. Gustafsson, 42, is being flown back to Sweden from Africa, Sweden’s Foreign Minister, Margot Wallström, said in a statement.

    The BBC reports that the Swede was seized by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) along with two other men, one of whom was freed in a dawn raid in 2015.

    Ms Wallström said Mr. Gustafsson was “in good spirits.”

    “It is with great pleasure that I can announce that Johan Gustafsson has been released,” Ms Wallström added.

    She said the Swede’s release was thanks to “extensive efforts” and co-operation between the Swedish foreign ministry, police and “foreign authorities.”

    Ms Wallström said she had spoken with Mr. Gustafsson, who she described as being “happy” and “overwhelmed” by Monday’s events.

    “I cannot say more at the current time,” she added.

    Sweden’s former Foreign Minister, Carl Bildt said Mr. Gustafsson’s kidnapping weighed heavily on his mind during his time in the role, which ended in 2014.

    He tweeted on Monday: “Extremely gratifying that Johan Gustafsson is free. No single case concerned me more as foreign minister.”

  • Saudi Arabia’s King Salman makes son his successor

    Saudi Arabia’s King Salman makes son his successor

    Saudi Arabia’s King Salman made his son his successor on Wednesday, removing his nephew as crown prince.

    By this, King Salman has given the 31-year old almost unprecedented powers as the world’s leading oil exporter implements transformational reforms.

    A royal decree appointed Mohammed bin Salman crown prince and deputy prime minister.

    He retains defence, oil and other portfolios.

    It said Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, a counter-terrorism chief admired in Washington for putting down an al Qaeda campaign of bombings in 2003-06, was relieved of all positions.

    Although Mohammed bin Salman’s promotion was expected among close circles it came as a surprise at a time the kingdom is facing heightened tensions with Qatar and Iran and is locked in a war in Yemen.

    The royal decree said the decision by King Salman to promote his son and consolidate his power was endorsed by 31 out of 34 members of the Allegiance Council, made up of senior members of the ruling Al Saud family.

    Always intent on dispelling speculation of internal divisions in the Al Saud ruling dynasty, Saudi television was quick to show that the change in succession was amicable and supported by the family.

    Throughout the early morning it aired footage of Mohammed bin Nayef pledging allegiance to the younger Mohammed bin Salman who knelt and kissed his older cousin’s hand.

    “I am content,” Prince Mohammed bin Nayef said. Prince Mohammed bin Salman replied: “We will not give up taking your guidance and advice.”

    Analysts said the change ends uncertainty over succession and empowers Prince Mohammed bin Salman to move faster with his plan to reduce the kingdom’s dependence on oil, which includes the partial privatisation of state oil company Aramco.

    “The change is a huge boost to the economic reform program…Prince Mohammed bin Salman is its architect,” said John Sfakianakis, director of the Riyadh-based Gulf Research Center.

    Bernard Haykel, professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton, said the king’s decision was aimed at avoiding a power struggle between his son and Mohammed bin Nayef by setting the line of succession clearly.

    “It’s clearly a transition that has happened smoothly and bloodlessly. Now it’s clear, it’s straightforward. That kind of clarity lowers the risk, there’s no question as to who’s going to be in charge.”

    “Some people were predicting that this would lead to a division in the family and strife and some kind of revolt. I don’t see that happening.”

    A senior Saudi official said the decision was taken due to what he called special circumstances presented to the members of the Allegiance Council.

    He added that Mohammed bin Nayef supported the decision in a letter sent to the king.

    The royal decree did not nominate a new deputy crown prince. The position is relatively new in Saudi Arabia where a king has traditionally chosen his own successor.

    As deputy crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman has been responsible for running Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, dictating an energy policy with global implications and spearheading plans for the kingdom to build an economic future after oil.

    That the royal succession in the world’s top oil exporter is closely scrutinized only makes the rapidity of Mohammed bin Salman’s rise to power, and the speed with which his better known cousins were brushed aside, more astonishing.

    The announcement follows two and a half years of already major changes in Saudi Arabia, which stunned allies in 2015 by launching an air war in Yemen, cutting back on lavish subsidies and proposing in 2016 the partial privatisation of state oil company Aramco.

    Financial analysts said Prince Mohammed’s promotion gave further assurance that key parts of radical reforms to diversify the Saudi economy beyond oil would continue.

    “We do not expect to see any major changes to key areas of policy, including economic,” said Monica Malik, chief economist at Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank.

    In 2016 Mohammed bin Salman, or “MBS” as he is widely known, announced sweeping changes aimed at ending the kingdom’s reliance to oil, part of his campaign to tackle systemic challenges that the kingdom has previously failed to address.

  • Gunmen attack resort outside Mali’s capital, killing two – Official

    Gunmen attack resort outside Mali’s capital, killing two – Official

    Authorities say gunmen on Sunday attacked a luxury resort popular with Western expatriates just outside Mali’s capital, Bamako, killing two people.

    Mali’s Security Minister Salif Traore who called teh attack a terrorist act, said that 36 guests were rescued.

    Four gunmen arriving on motorbikes and a car stormed Le Campement Kangaba, near Dougourakoro, to the east of the capital Bamako, a resort that foreign residents visit for weekend breaks.

    Malian security forces backed by French troops deployed to push them out.

    Traore said: “At first we thought they were armed bandits but we know how armed bandits operate, they don’t hold territory, so now we think it is a terrorist attack.”

    According to a Reuters witness, Malian security forces, UN peacekeeping mission vehicles and French military armored vehicles surrounded the resort.

    A helicopter circled overhead.

    In a later news conference, Traore said Malian forces fatally shot two of the attackers but the other two escaped and were being pursued.

    The minister said an attacker had been wounded and fled, leaving a submachine gun and six bottles of explosives behind.

    “We’re now in the process of combing the area to verify no one is hiding anywhere,” Traore said.

    One of victims killed in the attack was a French-Gabonese citizen, while the other has not yet been identified, Traore said.

    He said that both were killed by gunfire.

    The minister said two hotel staff workers and two guests were also wounded by bullet.

    Traore said eight policemen were wounded in the shootout with the attackers.

    Security has gradually worsened across Mali since French forces pushed back Islamist and Tuareg rebel fighters in 2013 from swathes of the north they had occupied the previous year.

    Initially concentrated in the desert north, attacks have increasingly struck the center and south, around Bamako.

    Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and another militant group claimed responsibility for an attack on a Bamako hotel in 2015 in which 20 people were killed.

    Traore said of the 36 people who escaped unharmed, there were 13 French citizens, 14 Malians, and also Spanish, Dutch, Egyptian and Kenyan nationals.

    Daniel Okwogo, a Kenyan guest who witnessed the attack, said that about 30 minutes after his arrival he heard the gunshots.

    “So … we took a cover, slipped under the bed and then the security team came and evacuated us,” Okwogo said.

    Witness Boubacar Sangare was just outside the compound during the attack. “Westerners were fleeing the encampment while two plainclothes police exchanged fire with the assailants,” he said.

    French troops and a 10,000-strong UN peacekeeping force have battled to stabilise Mali, a former French colony riven by ethnic conflict and plagued by dozens of armed groups.

    A spokesman for French forces in Mali declined to comment.

  • Mali: French soldiers wounded after mortar attack

    Mali: French soldiers wounded after mortar attack

    France’s armed forces said several French soldiers were wounded, including one seriously, after a mortar attack on a UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilisation Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) camp in northern Mali, on Thursday.

    In a statement, the army said the attack took place Thursday morning targeting the MINUSMA peacekeeping force in Timbuktu near a French unit operating as part of a separate counter-terrorism force.

    “In this attack several French soldiers were wounded, including one in a serious condition,” the army said.

    France intervened in 2013 to drive out al Qaeda-linked militants who seized northern Mali in 2012.

    It has since deployed more than 4,500 soldiers, known as the Barkhane force, across the region to hunt down Islamists.

    That operation paved the way for the UN to deploy its more than 10,000-strong MINUSMA peacekeeping force to the West African state.

  • Boko Haram since 2002

    Boko Haram since 2002

    Boko Haram, referred to by themselves as al-Wilāyat al-Islāmiyya Gharb Afrīqiyyah (Arabic: الولاية الإسلامية غرب أفريقيا‎‎, (Islamic State West Africa Province, ISWAP), and Jamā’at Ahl as-Sunnah lid-Da’wah wa’l-Jihād (Arabic: جماعة أهل السنة للدعوة والجهاد‎‎, “Group of the People of Sunnah for Preaching and Jihad”), is an Islamic extremist group based in northeastern Nigeria, also active in Chad, Niger and northern Cameroon. The group was led by Abubakar Shekau until August 2016, when he was succeeded by Abu Musab al-Barnawi. The group had alleged links to al-Qaeda, but in March 2015, it announced its allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Since the current insurgency started in 2009, it has killed 20,000 and displaced 2.3 million from their homes and was ranked as the world’s deadliest terror group by the Global Terrorism Index in 2015.

    After its founding in 2002, Boko Haram’s increasing radicalization led to a violent uprising in July 2009 in which its leader was summarily executed. Its unexpected resurgence, following a mass prison break in September 2010, was accompanied by increasingly sophisticated attacks, initially against soft targets, and progressing in 2011 to include suicide bombings of police buildings and the United Nations office in Abuja. The government’s establishment of a state of emergency at the beginning of 2012, extended in the following year to cover the entire northeast of Nigeria, led to an increase in both security force abuses and militant attacks.

    Of the 2.3 million people displaced by the conflict since May 2013, at least 250,000 have left Nigeria and fled into Cameroon, Chad or Niger. Boko Haram killed over 6,600 in 2014. The group has carried out mass abductions, including the kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls from Chibok in April 2014. Corruption in the security services and human rights abuses committed by them have hampered efforts to counter the unrest.

    In mid-2014, the militants gained control of swathes of territory in and around their home state of Borno, estimated at 50,000 square kilometres (20,000 sq mi) in January 2015, but did not capture the state capital, Maiduguri, where the group was originally based.] In September 2015, the Director of Information at the Defence Headquarters of Nigeria announced that all Boko Haram camps had been destroyed.

  • Self-confessed Al-Qaeda fighter convicted in US terror case

    Ibrahim Suleiman Adnan Harun, the mastermind of a botched plot to bomb the United States embassy in Nigeria in 2005, has been convicted by a US court for terrorism.

    The self- confessed al-Qaeda fighter was convicted on Thursday of federal terrorism charges for participating in a fierce firefight in Afghanistan that left two US servicemen dead.

    A jury in federal court in Brooklyn deliberated for about two hours before convicting Harun.

    “As demonstrated by this case, the United States will be tireless in its efforts to hold al-Qaeda members accountable when they target American citizens serving their country abroad,” Acting US Attorney, Bridget M. Rohde, said in a statement.

    Harun, 46, was extradited from Italy to the US in 2012.

    Prosecutors told jurors that while in Italian custody, he confessed that he threw a grenade and shot at an American military unit in a 2003 ambush that killed Army Pvt. Jerod Dennis, of Antlers, Oklahoma, and Air Force Airman Ray Losano, of Del Rio, Texas.

    While on the run, Harun later masterminded a failed plot to bomb a US embassy in Nigeria, the government said.

    He was under the direct supervision of al-Qaeda higher-ups, including some still held at Guantanamo Bay, it said.

    “The defendant is a man who made terrorism his life story,” Assistant US Attorney, Melody Wells, said in closing arguments on Thursday.

    “He made a career out of violent jihad.”

    Harun, who claims Niger citizenship, traveled to Afghanistan to join al Qaeda weeks before the attacks of September 11, 2001, on US soil, prosecutors said.

     

  • Four killed by Al Shabaab in Puntland region hotel attack

    Somalia’s al Shabaab militants stormed a hotel in the capital of the semi-autonomous Puntland region, Bosasso, on Wednesday, killing four guards, while two of the attackers also died, a senior official said.

    “Three al Shabaab fighters stormed the International Village Hotel this morning. Four guards and two of the attackers died in the fighting,” Yusuf Mohamed, the governor of Bari region, told Reuters.

    The hotel in the port city of Bosasso, which is also the capital of Bari region, is popular with foreigners.

    “Fortunately, the attackers did not enter the rooms. The fighting took place inside the compound.

    “A third fighter escaped and we are pursuing him. All the people in the hotel are safe,” Mohamed said.

    Until 2011, the al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab controlled most of Somalia including the capital, Mogadishu.

    In the past two years, African Union and Somali government forces have forced al Shabaab out of important urban strongholds but it remains active from bases in rural areas.

    Its militants often stage bomb and gun attacks in the capital and other regions in their quest to overthrow the Western-backed government and impose their own strict interpretation of sharia, Islamic law, on the nation.

    Somalia’s lawmakers are due to elect a president later on Wednesday in Mogadishu.

    The protracted vote began with 14,000 elders and prominent regional figures choosing 275 members of parliament and 54 senators, who in turn now choose whether to back President Hassan Mohamud for a second term or one of 21 rivals.

    The presidential vote, which was originally slated for August, is due to start at about noon (0900 GMT).

    It is likely to take several rounds before a winner is declared.