Nine National Police officers on a coca eradication mission were killed near Landazuri in Colombia’s northeast Santander department May 9, when a roadside bomb exploded, destroying their truck. Six other officers were injured. All were members of a mobile unit… Read moreColombia: roadside blast hits coca eradication patrol
Pirates off Somalia’s coast have hijacked a cargo ship headed for Mogadishu, the third attack since January. Andrew Mwangura, coordinator of the Mombasa-based Seafarers Assistance Program (SAP), said the UAE-registered freighter was seized and taken to Hobyo, a well-known pirate… Read moreSomali pirates strike again
One of the seven US marines facing charges related to the killings of 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha has admitted to lying about the deaths of five of them. Sgt. Sanick Dela Cruz said he saw squad leader Sgt. Frank… Read moreNew revelations in Haditha atrocity
Some 900 German federal police troops raided 40 sites in Berlin, Brandenburg, Hamburg, Bremen, Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony, in a move against 21 anti-globalization militants allegedly suspected of setting up an organization to launch arson attacks at the Group of… Read moreGermans at it again
The conservative Washington Times exploits the arrest of four Kosovar Albanian youth in the apparent Ft. Dix terror conspiracy, raising once again Slobodan Milosevic’s specter of a Balkan jihad. Good timing, just as Kosova is poised to become Europe’s first… Read moreKosovars busted in Ft. Dix terror plot: xenophobe fodder
What a bizarre irony. The international press are playing up the lovefest between the once-implacable enemies who have united to revive the “devolved” government at Stormont for the first time since the power-sharing assembly was suspended in October 2002: new… Read moreUlster: old enemies unite in new government —and opposition
A US helicopter opened fire on an elementary school in Diyala province May 8, killing seven students and wounding three, according to Iraqi security sources and local residents. Iraqi sources said the helicopter was fired on from the ground and… Read moreIraq: US kills civilians —again
An air raid killed 21 civilians in Afghanistan’s southern province of Helmand May 8, the provincial governor charged. “Twenty-one civilians, including women and children, were killed” in the raid on a village in Sangin district, Gov. Assadullah Wafa said. AlJazeera… Read moreAfghanistan: air strike kills civilians —again
Transitional government security forces in Somalia have begun seizing and burning women’s face veils in Mogadishu in an attempt to stop insurgents disguising themselves in order to carry out attacks. When the city was under the control of the Islamic… Read moreSomalia: transition government bans hijab
Another bloody entry in Ansar al-Islam‘s bid to extend the “insurgent” terror campaign to Iraq’s (relatively) stable Kurdish autonomous zone. The need to mollify these thugs may explain the increasing conservative Islamist tilt of the supposedly secular Kurdish regional authorities… Read moreIraq: truck bomb in Irbil —Ansar al-Islam strikes again?
From AlJazeera, May 7: Two Palestinian were killed and four wounded during clashes between rival factions in Lebanon’s main refugee camp of Ein el-Helweh. Palestinian security sources said the two dead men belonged to the Fatah movement of Mahmud Abbas,… Read morePalestinian factions clash in Lebanon: Fatah versus al-Qaeda?
Veracruz state prosecutors have concluded that 73-year-old grandmother Ernestina Ascencio* wasn’t raped or beaten by Mexican federal army soldiers but died of natural causes, spokesmen said at a news conference in the state capital, Xalapa. Juan Alatriste Gómez, a special… Read moreVeracruz: rape-murder case against soldiers dropped —as victims’ children “disappear”
