Iraq violence: Baghdad hit by series of deadly blasts.

Iraq violence: Baghdad hit by series of deadly blasts.

BBC News | 07 Oct 2013 :: At least 22 people have been killed and dozens hurt in a series of explosions across the Iraqi capital, police say.

There are reports of at least six apparently co-ordinated bomb attacks in mainly commercial areas of Baghdad.

The majority were reported in mainly Shia districts, but a predominantly Sunni Muslim neighbourhood was also hit, according to Reuters news agency.

Iraq has seen a sharp rise in sectarian violence in recent months. Nearly 6,000 people have been killed this year.

Two of the explosions were reported in Doura and in the Husseiniya district, where a parked car was reportedly blown up in a busy street during the evening rush hour.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.The rate of attacks has quadrupled since the relative calm in the months before US forces pulled out in 2011.

Almost 1,000 were killed in Iraq during the past month alone, the UN has said, amid fears of a return to the sectarian conflict that peaked in 2008.

Most of the violence has been blamed on Sunni Islamist militants linked to al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), which belongs to the over-arching Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS).

Iraq has also seen a spill-over of violence from the conflict in Syria, where jihadist rebels linked to the Islamic State of Iraq, a Sunni militant umbrella group that includes al-Qaeda, have risen to prominence.

In the past two months, Iraqi security forces have reportedly arrested hundreds of alleged al-Qaeda members in and around Baghdad as part of a campaign the government is calling "Revenge for the Martyrs".

But the operations, which have taken place mostly in Sunni districts, have angered the Sunni community and failed to halt the violence.(Courtesy:BBC News)

Somalia’s al-Shabaab says British, Turkish forces attacked its base.

Somalia’s al-Shabaab says British, Turkish forces attacked its base.

Al Arabiya | 05 Oct 2013 :: Somalia’s Islamist militia al-Shabaab said on Saturday that a dawn raid at its strongholds in the small town of Barawe in the south of the country was carried out by British and Turkish special forces.

The commander of the British force, it said, was killed during the attack and four other SAS operatives were critically wounded. One Turkish soldier was also wounded, according to a statement by Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, al-Shabaab’s military operation spokesman.

The statement by the militia could not immediately be independently verified and Turkish special forces said they did not take any part in the attack, according to a foreign ministry official.

A resident of Barawe - a seaside town 240 kilometers south of Mogadishu – told Agence France-Presse by telephone that heavy gunfire woke up residents before dawn prayers. An al-Shabaab fighter who gave his name as Abu Mohamed said “foreign” soldiers attacked a house, prompting militants to rush to the scene to capture a soldier. Mohamed said that effort was not successful.

The international troops attacked a two-story beachside house in Barawe where foreign fighters lived, battling their way inside, said Mohamed, who said he had visited the scene. Al-Shabaab has a formal alliance with al-Qaeda, and hundreds of foreign fighters from the U.S., Britain and Middle Eastern countries fight alongside Somali members of al-Shabaab.(Courtesy:Al Arabiya)

Kenya mall hostage crisis continues, toll 59 .

Kenya mall hostage crisis continues, toll 59 .

New Delhi | Nairobi | 22 Sep 2013 :: Kenyan troops were locked in a fierce gunfight with Somali militants inside an upmarket Nairobi shopping mall on Sunday, in a final push to end a siege that has left 59 killed and 200 wounded with an unknown number of hostages still being held. Israeli forces joined Kenyan efforts to end adeadly siege by Somali militants at the mall, a security source told AFP.

"The Israelis have just entered and they are rescuing the hostages and the injured," the source said on condition he not be named.

The intervention came 26 hours after gunmen walked into the complex, tossing grenades and spraying gunfire at shoppers and staff.

Fifty-nine people are confirmed dead in an attack by Somali Islamist militants on a Nairobi shopping mall, Kenya's interior minister Joseph Ole Lenku said on Sunday.

Some 10 to 15 gunmen are still battling security forces inside Nairobi's Westgate shopping mall, he said.

"A number of attackers are still in the building, and range between ten to fifteen gunmen," he said.

"We believe there are some innocent people in the building, that is why the operation is delicate."

Somalia's Al Qaeda-inspired Shebab rebels said the carnage at the part Israeli-owned complex mall was in retaliation for Kenya's military intervention in Somalia, where African Union troops are battling the Islamists. Timeline: al Shabab attacks in Somalia, other nations

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta said in a televised address to the nation late Saturday that he had "personally lost family members in the Westgate attack".(Courtesy:Hindustan times)

Egypt military helicopters hit Sinai militants: Security.

Egypt military helicopters hit Sinai militants: Security.

The wreckage of a burnt car is seen after assaults on militant
 targets by the Egyptian Army, in a village on the outskirts of
 Sheikh Zuweid, near the city of el-Arish in Egypt's Sinai peninsula
 September 10, 2013. (Reuters)

Cairo | AFP | 13 Sep 2013 :: Egyptian military helicopters on Friday carried out air strikes on Islamist militant positions in Sinai, two days after suicide bombers killed six soldiers in the restive peninsula, security sources said.

Apache helicopters targeted hideouts and vehicles used by the militants near the town of Sheikh Zuwayid in northern Sinai, the sources said.

On Wednesday, two car bombs targeting the military intelligence headquarters in the town of Rafah and a nearby checkpoint killed six soldiers and the two militants who drove the vehicles.

A little known jihadist group in Sinai claimed responsibility for the attacks in the town bordering the Gaza Strip.

Jund al-Islam, or Islam’s Soldiers in English, made the claim in a statement posted on militant Islamist forums.

The group accused the Egyptian military of targeting “unarmed Muslims” in its campaign to quell an Islamist militant insurgency in north Sinai.

The military has poured troops and armour into Sinai to crush the insurgency which surged after the army overthrew Egypt’s Islamist president Mohammad Mursi on July 3.

A subsequent crackdown on Islamists left hundreds killed and more than 2,000 arrested across the country.(Courtesy:Al Arabiya)

Bomb wounds 11 at Pakistan girls school.

Bomb wounds 11 at Pakistan girls school.

School attack: A bomb wounded 11 people,
mostly children, when it exploded outside a
 Pakistani girls' school, a doctor said. Photo:
AFP

AFP | 06 Sep 2013 :: A bomb has gone off outside a Pakistani girls' school, wounding 11 people, mostly children, a doctor says.

The bomb exploded at the end of the school day on Thursday as pupils walked into a street lined with fabric shops in the north-western town of Bannu, which has been a flashpoint for Islamist militancy.

Doctor Omar Zeb said that 11 people had been brought to the local hospital – seven primary schoolgirls and four other people who had been in the street.

Police official Azad Khan said at least four girls, two boys and a man had been wounded. Three of them are seriously hurt.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility but Islamist militants often attack girls' schools, usually when the buildings are empty in the evening or during the holidays.

Last October the Taliban shot schoolgirl activist Malala Yousafzai in the head in the

north-western Swat valley.

She has largely recovered and now lives in England, where she is enrolled at a private school and has become a global icon for children campaigning for the right to an education.

In a separate incident, unidentified gunmen on a motorbike fired at a NATO supply truck on Thursday in the north-western city of Peshawar and wounded two people, police said.

The attack took place near Karkhano market on the edge of Peshawar and close to the Khyber tribal district where Islamist militants are active.

"Two people were wounded in firing on a NATO truck which was carrying military vehicles from Afghanistan to the Pakistani port city of Karachi," local police official Daud Khan said.

The Khyber district straddles the NATO supply line used by US-led troops to evacuate military equipment ahead of their 2014 withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Pakistani troops have been fighting for years against homegrown insurgents in the tribal belt, which Washington considers the main hub of Taliban and al-Qaeda militants plotting attacks on the West and in Afghanistan.(Courtesy:The Age)