04-14-2007, 06:32 PM
Religion of Peace reaffirms Peace and Love.
Posting all three news reports in full, since Yahoo Aus keeps changing the news each day, so links become obsolete real fast.
Islamic fire trail has spread to Berber Nation <b>Morocco</b>. Now it's starting to catch fire? Whole islamic world is destabilising fast.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/070414/19/p/133u9.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Saturday April 14, 10:12 PM
<b>Two suicide bombers target US cultural centre in Morocco</b>
Photo : AFPÂ
CASABLANCA, Morocco (AFP) - Two suicide bombers blew themselves up outside a US cultural centre in Casablanca on Saturday, just days after similar attacks in the Moroccan port city.
The blasts came at the end of a week that suicide bombers also targeted neighbouring Algeria, including one attack on the prime minister's office in Algiers that had experts warning of a resurgence in militant activity in the region.
Saturday's attacks also coincided with a warning from the US embassy in Algiers that militants were planning further explosions at key locations including Algerian state television and the capital's central post office.
Moroccan security forces said Saturday's blasts occurred shortly after two men approached a policeman manning a checkpoint 100 meters (yards) from the Dar America cultural centre in Casablanca.
One asked for access to the building, but when asked for a reason, he and the other bomber set off their explosives, security officials said.
A woman passer-by was also injured in the blasts.
Other witnesses said that one of the men approached the US consulate, the other the cultural centre and blew themselves up one minute apart. Police are reportedly seeking a third man who was with the two suicide bombers.
On Wednesday, Moroccan police said they were hunting for some 10 possible suicide bombers, a day after three blew themselves up in Casablanca as they were pursued by police.
A police official said Saturday's incident was "a desperate act in response to the successful crackdown in recent weeks by the police and security services to dismantle terrorist cells".
One of the trio who killed themselves on Tuesday was the brother of a man who died in a March 11 explosion at a Casablanca Internet cafe that sparked the latest police operation.
<b>Saturday's blasts follow suicide bomb attacks at two locations in the capital of Algeria on Wednesday, killing 33 people and injuring more than 220. </b>
The attacks were claimed by a group calling itself Al-Qaeda's North Africa branch. One of the blasts tore the facade off the prime ministers' office in the city centre in what was seen as a defiant message to the government.
International terrorist expert Magnus Ranstorp, at the Swedish National Defence College, said earlier this week that the attacks in Algeria and Morocco were likely a backlash against a crackdown in the two countries on militants.
He said that after the authorities in Morocco and Algeria seemed to have "broken the back of the Islamist terrorist networks" these "two fronts have been re-energised, revitalised."
Part of the explanation could be, he said, "the severity of the crackdowns. That is what we are seeing today essentially: a sort of reaction to these offensives."
The US embassy warning on Saturday said that militants may be planning more attacks in the centre of Algiers.
"According to unconfirmed information, there may be attacks in Algiers planned for April 14, 2007 in areas that may include the Algiers Central Post Office ... and Algerian State Television Headquarters, ENTV.., among others," an embassy statement said.
<b>Casablanca was hit by suicide attacks in May 2003, which killed 45 people including the 12 bombers.</b>
In the 1990s Algeria was torn apart by violence as a result of a vicious civil conflit between Islamic militants and the military that was sparked after the authorities annulled an election that won by an Islamist group.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
http://au.news.yahoo.com/070414/19/133up.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Saturday April 14, 10:16 PM
<b>France analysing video of Taliban hostages</b>
Photo : AFPÂ
PARIS (AFP) - French authorities were on Saturday analysing a video obtained by a Canadian television network showing two French nationals taken hostage in Afghanistan, France's foreign minister said.
"We remain completely mobilised in Paris and in Afghanistan to obtain the release of the members of the group," minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said in a statement. "More than ever, our objective is to bring them back safe and sound."
Douste-Blazy confirmed the two kidnapped French nationals appear in the video, as well as three Afghans who were abducted with them. Paris says it has not received any demands from the kidnappers.
CBC public television reported late Friday that it had obtained a video of two French aid workers taken hostage in Afghanistan, in which they say they fear their lives may soon end.
It did not explain how it obtained the video, which gives the first glimpse of the kidnap victims since their abduction more than a week ago.
According to the network, the pictures show a young woman saying in a weak voice that she was a French volunteer worker kidnapped by the Taliban 10 days ago. The images then show a man who says his name is Eric.
Both the man and the woman make appeals for saving their lives, the report said.
The video also shows three Afghan men, blindfolded and shackled, who were the translators and driver with the French pair when they were taken.
At the end of the video, a glimpse can be seen of the heavily armed Taliban kidnappers.
The French aid workers, from the non-governmental organisation Terre d'Enfance (A World for Our Children), went missing on April 3 in the southwestern province of Nimroz.
(Truly secular, or missionary?)
The Islamist Taliban militia say they are holding the pair, along with three of their Afghan colleagues.
Concerns over the safety of the hostages mounted since the Taliban said on Sunday that they had beheaded an Afghan reporter whom they kidnapped with an Italian journalist a month ago in the southern province of Helmand.
The Taliban said it executed Ajmal Naqshbandi because the government failed to meet their demand to free rebel prisoners. However, Italian reporter Daniele Mastrogiacomo was freed in a hostage deal that saw five militants released from Afghan jails.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai was criticised both within and outside Afghanistan for his controversial deal and has said that his government will not repeat the hostage trade with the Taliban.
French President Jacques Chirac has called Karzai to demand his support for efforts to free the French aid workers.
The rebels have also been holding five Afghan medics since kidnapping them in southern Kandahar province on March 27. The rebels on Monday threatened to kill at least one of the doctors unless the government enters talks.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
http://au.news.yahoo.com/070414/15/133um.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--> Saturday April 14, 09:47 PM
<b>Suicide bomber kills 8 in eastern Afghanistan</b>
KABUL (Reuters) - A suicide bomber blew himself up outside an Afghan police headquarters in the east of the country on Saturday, killing at least eight people, officials said.
Seven of those killed in the attack in Khost were border police and the eighth was a civilian, the Interior Ministry said in a statement. Six police officers were also wounded.
<b>Taliban commander Mullah Hayatullah Khan told Reuters by phone</b> his insurgents had carried out the attack.
The Taliban have vowed to step up suicide bombings as fighting against U.S-led forces intensifies after the traditional winter lull.
Last year was the bloodiest since the Taliban were ousted in 2001 and many expect this year to be even more violent.
Several hundred civilians, scores of Taliban, dozens of Afghan forces, some aid workers and more than 30 U.S.-led troops have died so far this year.
The Taliban have also kidnapped three foreigners and several Afghans this year in a bid to press the government to release comrades from jail and to begin peace talks.
Taliban guerrillas said they had issued a video of two kidnapped French aid workers -- a man and a woman -- appealing to the Paris authorities to heed their captors' demands. They were abducted in an area of southwestern Nimroz province.
Civilian casualties are also mounting, some of them victims of NATO and U.S.-led fighting as well as of the Taliban and other insurgents through suicide bombings and executions.
On Saturday, the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission issued a report saying U.S. marines who killed several civilians in apparently indiscriminate shooting after a bomb blast had acted illegally.
U.S. military authorities are still investigating, but the unit involved was called home early soon after the incident.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Posting all three news reports in full, since Yahoo Aus keeps changing the news each day, so links become obsolete real fast.
Islamic fire trail has spread to Berber Nation <b>Morocco</b>. Now it's starting to catch fire? Whole islamic world is destabilising fast.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/070414/19/p/133u9.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Saturday April 14, 10:12 PM
<b>Two suicide bombers target US cultural centre in Morocco</b>
Photo : AFPÂ
CASABLANCA, Morocco (AFP) - Two suicide bombers blew themselves up outside a US cultural centre in Casablanca on Saturday, just days after similar attacks in the Moroccan port city.
The blasts came at the end of a week that suicide bombers also targeted neighbouring Algeria, including one attack on the prime minister's office in Algiers that had experts warning of a resurgence in militant activity in the region.
Saturday's attacks also coincided with a warning from the US embassy in Algiers that militants were planning further explosions at key locations including Algerian state television and the capital's central post office.
Moroccan security forces said Saturday's blasts occurred shortly after two men approached a policeman manning a checkpoint 100 meters (yards) from the Dar America cultural centre in Casablanca.
One asked for access to the building, but when asked for a reason, he and the other bomber set off their explosives, security officials said.
A woman passer-by was also injured in the blasts.
Other witnesses said that one of the men approached the US consulate, the other the cultural centre and blew themselves up one minute apart. Police are reportedly seeking a third man who was with the two suicide bombers.
On Wednesday, Moroccan police said they were hunting for some 10 possible suicide bombers, a day after three blew themselves up in Casablanca as they were pursued by police.
A police official said Saturday's incident was "a desperate act in response to the successful crackdown in recent weeks by the police and security services to dismantle terrorist cells".
One of the trio who killed themselves on Tuesday was the brother of a man who died in a March 11 explosion at a Casablanca Internet cafe that sparked the latest police operation.
<b>Saturday's blasts follow suicide bomb attacks at two locations in the capital of Algeria on Wednesday, killing 33 people and injuring more than 220. </b>
The attacks were claimed by a group calling itself Al-Qaeda's North Africa branch. One of the blasts tore the facade off the prime ministers' office in the city centre in what was seen as a defiant message to the government.
International terrorist expert Magnus Ranstorp, at the Swedish National Defence College, said earlier this week that the attacks in Algeria and Morocco were likely a backlash against a crackdown in the two countries on militants.
He said that after the authorities in Morocco and Algeria seemed to have "broken the back of the Islamist terrorist networks" these "two fronts have been re-energised, revitalised."
Part of the explanation could be, he said, "the severity of the crackdowns. That is what we are seeing today essentially: a sort of reaction to these offensives."
The US embassy warning on Saturday said that militants may be planning more attacks in the centre of Algiers.
"According to unconfirmed information, there may be attacks in Algiers planned for April 14, 2007 in areas that may include the Algiers Central Post Office ... and Algerian State Television Headquarters, ENTV.., among others," an embassy statement said.
<b>Casablanca was hit by suicide attacks in May 2003, which killed 45 people including the 12 bombers.</b>
In the 1990s Algeria was torn apart by violence as a result of a vicious civil conflit between Islamic militants and the military that was sparked after the authorities annulled an election that won by an Islamist group.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
http://au.news.yahoo.com/070414/19/133up.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Saturday April 14, 10:16 PM
<b>France analysing video of Taliban hostages</b>
Photo : AFPÂ
PARIS (AFP) - French authorities were on Saturday analysing a video obtained by a Canadian television network showing two French nationals taken hostage in Afghanistan, France's foreign minister said.
"We remain completely mobilised in Paris and in Afghanistan to obtain the release of the members of the group," minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said in a statement. "More than ever, our objective is to bring them back safe and sound."
Douste-Blazy confirmed the two kidnapped French nationals appear in the video, as well as three Afghans who were abducted with them. Paris says it has not received any demands from the kidnappers.
CBC public television reported late Friday that it had obtained a video of two French aid workers taken hostage in Afghanistan, in which they say they fear their lives may soon end.
It did not explain how it obtained the video, which gives the first glimpse of the kidnap victims since their abduction more than a week ago.
According to the network, the pictures show a young woman saying in a weak voice that she was a French volunteer worker kidnapped by the Taliban 10 days ago. The images then show a man who says his name is Eric.
Both the man and the woman make appeals for saving their lives, the report said.
The video also shows three Afghan men, blindfolded and shackled, who were the translators and driver with the French pair when they were taken.
At the end of the video, a glimpse can be seen of the heavily armed Taliban kidnappers.
The French aid workers, from the non-governmental organisation Terre d'Enfance (A World for Our Children), went missing on April 3 in the southwestern province of Nimroz.
(Truly secular, or missionary?)
The Islamist Taliban militia say they are holding the pair, along with three of their Afghan colleagues.
Concerns over the safety of the hostages mounted since the Taliban said on Sunday that they had beheaded an Afghan reporter whom they kidnapped with an Italian journalist a month ago in the southern province of Helmand.
The Taliban said it executed Ajmal Naqshbandi because the government failed to meet their demand to free rebel prisoners. However, Italian reporter Daniele Mastrogiacomo was freed in a hostage deal that saw five militants released from Afghan jails.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai was criticised both within and outside Afghanistan for his controversial deal and has said that his government will not repeat the hostage trade with the Taliban.
French President Jacques Chirac has called Karzai to demand his support for efforts to free the French aid workers.
The rebels have also been holding five Afghan medics since kidnapping them in southern Kandahar province on March 27. The rebels on Monday threatened to kill at least one of the doctors unless the government enters talks.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
http://au.news.yahoo.com/070414/15/133um.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--> Saturday April 14, 09:47 PM
<b>Suicide bomber kills 8 in eastern Afghanistan</b>
KABUL (Reuters) - A suicide bomber blew himself up outside an Afghan police headquarters in the east of the country on Saturday, killing at least eight people, officials said.
Seven of those killed in the attack in Khost were border police and the eighth was a civilian, the Interior Ministry said in a statement. Six police officers were also wounded.
<b>Taliban commander Mullah Hayatullah Khan told Reuters by phone</b> his insurgents had carried out the attack.
The Taliban have vowed to step up suicide bombings as fighting against U.S-led forces intensifies after the traditional winter lull.
Last year was the bloodiest since the Taliban were ousted in 2001 and many expect this year to be even more violent.
Several hundred civilians, scores of Taliban, dozens of Afghan forces, some aid workers and more than 30 U.S.-led troops have died so far this year.
The Taliban have also kidnapped three foreigners and several Afghans this year in a bid to press the government to release comrades from jail and to begin peace talks.
Taliban guerrillas said they had issued a video of two kidnapped French aid workers -- a man and a woman -- appealing to the Paris authorities to heed their captors' demands. They were abducted in an area of southwestern Nimroz province.
Civilian casualties are also mounting, some of them victims of NATO and U.S.-led fighting as well as of the Taliban and other insurgents through suicide bombings and executions.
On Saturday, the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission issued a report saying U.S. marines who killed several civilians in apparently indiscriminate shooting after a bomb blast had acted illegally.
U.S. military authorities are still investigating, but the unit involved was called home early soon after the incident.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->