TERROR CASTS SHADOW ACROSS THE WORLD, LEAVES TRAIL OF DESTRUCTION
110 Cops Surrender, Hand Over Arms After 3 Days Of Fighting
The Taliban took control of a large police base in a remote part of northeastern Afghanistan after some 100 police and border guards surrendered and joined the insurgents following three days of fighting, security officials said on Sunday .
The loss of the Tirgaran base in Badakhshan province late Saturday marked the largest mass surrender since US and Nato forces concluded their combat mission at the end of last year. It highlighted the challenges facing Afghan security forces, which have seen their casualties soar in the face of stepped-up insurgent attacks.
The police base, in the province's Wardoj district, had been cut off as heavy rains swamped roads into the area, said general Baba Jan, Badakhshan province's police chief. It wasn't clear why reinforcements hadn't been flown into the area, though the province's steep valleys make landings difficult. “No reinforcements were sent to help the police at the base for the past three days when they were under the attack and finally they had no option: They had to join the Taliban,“ said Abdullah Naji Nazari, the head of Badakhshan's provincial council.
Jan said the local police commander also joined the Taliban and handed over the base's weapons and ammunition. The Taliban issued a statement saying they captured the base along with 110 police officers, their local commander and the head of the local border police. It did not say whether the captives joined their ranks.
Jan later said the Taliban had released all the policemen and allowed them to return to their homes. He said it was unclear why the forces surrendered, insisting they had enough ammunition and supplies to hold out for weeks.
Last month hundreds of insurgents attacked security checkpoints in the province's Yamgan district, forcing police to abandon them.
Elsewhere in Badakhshan, the heavy rains have left at least six people, including women and children, dead in Kofab district, said Nawid Frotan, the spokesman for the provincial governor. Some 130 houses had been damaged or destroyed, and authorities are trying to send food and other relief to those stranded by rising waters, he said.
In northern Baghlan province, 11 people were kidnapped on Saturday after gunmen stopped their vehicle in Dahna-i Ghori district, said general Abdul Jabar Perdili, the provincial police chief. AP
A blast set off by a female suicide bomber tore through a crowded market in the northeastern Nigerian city of Damaturu on Sunday , killing at least 15 people, a police spokesman said.
No one has claimed responsibility for the explosion, which witnesses said occurred at around 9.30am (0830 GMT), but it is the latest in a series of attacks in the last few weeks that bear the hallmarks of militant Islamist group Boko Haram. “Fifteen people have been confirmed dead so far and more bodies are being brought,“ said spokesman Toyin Gbadegasin. Around 50 people were injured.
A car bomb struck a military vehicle in southeast Turkey , killing two soldiers and wounding four others in an attack blamed on Kurdish rebels, officials said on Sunday, a day after Turkey launched airstrikes against Kurdish insurgents in Iraq.
The Kurdish rebel group, the Kurdistan Workers' Party , or PKK, has said the airstrikes likely spelled the end of a cease-fire announced in 2013.Turkey has simultaneously bombed Islamic State positions near the Turkish border in Syria and carried out widespread police operations against suspected Kurdish and IS militants.
At least 20 people were killed in a suspected suicide bomb attack carried out by a child on a bar in Maroua in the far north of Cameroon, just days after 13 died in twin bombings in the city , state TV said on Sunday .
State television reported that a 12-year-old girl suicide bomber blew herself up in the bar, killing 20 people and injuring at least 79 in the blast. An earlier toll put the number of dead at 14. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, but the north of the country has been repeatedly targeted by Nigeria-based Boko Haram extremists. Several arrests were made.
Israeli police entered Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque, one of Islam's holiest sites, as clashes erupted on Sunday over Jews' access to the compound on an annual day of Jewish mourning.
Palestinians threw stones and fireworks while police fired stun grenades after security forces entered the alAqsa compound before briefly going inside the mosque itself. Police said they went a few metres into the mosque to shut the doors in a bid to restore calm and lock in rioters who were inside. About 300 security personnel had entered the compound when the clashes began with a couple of hundred Palestinians, a photojournalist reported.
The Palestinian foreign ministry condemned Israeli authorities for allowing what they described as “provoca tive“ visits by hardline Jews.
It was the first time Israel security forces had entered the mosque since November when clashes with worship pers also erupted. There were multiple casualties and ar rests surrounding the clash es, which came as Jews sought to access the mosque compound on Tisha B'av, a day commemorating the de struction in ancient times o the first and second temples.
Jewish visitors are al lowed, but Jewish prayer a the site is prohibited. Ten sions were already high after a Jewish woman publicly made insulting comments about the Prophet Muham mad last week.
The hilltop compound in Jerusalem's Old City is the most sacred site in Judaism and Islam's third holiest, after Mecca and Medina.
Former Saudi foreign minister Prince Saud al-Faisal once compared the bond with the US to a “Muslim marriage,“ or one that wasn't necessarily monogamous.
The kingdom's recent over tures to other partners suggest the relationship is going through another reappraisal because of the landmark accord with regional rival Iran.After visiting Russia and France last month, deputy crown prince Mohammed bin Salman returned home with $23 billion of aircraft and energy contracts. “Trust between Saudi Arabia and the US has been damaged by the Iran nuclear deal,“ said Paul Sullivan, a Middle East specialist at Ge orgetown University in Washington. “Many in Saudi Arabia feel abandoned by the US.“
They have hit the rocks before, most notably in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks mainly by Saudi citizens. Yet the US-led rapprochement with Iran raises the prospect of a tectonic shift in the Middle East that the Saudis haven't had to contend with since the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Tehran. For the Saudis, business with Russia can dilute dependence on the US, while for the isolated Russians it's all about winning friends and getting investment.
“Historically , the relationship between Russia and Saudi Arabia is one of mistrust,“ said Hani Sabra, head analyst for the Middle East at Eurasia Group. “However, as a result of changing regional and global geopolitics, the opportunity for both sides to consider closer ties in the future is ripe.“
Changes made to the Saudi royal court by King Salman marked a shift toward a younger generation and underscored its more assertive role as the Middle East endures one of its most violent periods. Mohammed bin Salman, 29, was made deputy crown prince after leading the Yemen offensive against Houthi rebels as defence minister in January .In Riyadh, Saudi officials tell diplomats they worry Iran will use the nuclear agreement to deepen its involvement in Arab affairs as sanctions are lifted and its economy and rev enue expand. Former Saudi ambassador to the US, Bandar bin Sultan, wrote this month in a newspaper editorial that the Iran deal would “wreak havoc“ on the Middle East.
“Considering the unprecedented turmoil in the region, the Saudis are trying to keep all their options open,“ said Fahad Nazer, a political analyst at consulting firm in Virginia who has worked for the Saudi embassy in US. Like Iran, Russian President Vladimir Putin is an ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whose opponents in a four-year civil war are backed by the Saudis.
Putin's support, though, is seen in Riyadh as wavering, said Nazer.
The United tates and other stakehold rs in Afghanistan are scram ling to organize a response o the sudden disclosure that aliban chief Mullah Omar as been dead for sometime nd a council of the rebel Islamist seminary has appointed is deputy Mullah Akhtar Mansour as his successor.
Confirmation of Mullah Omar's death and the succes ion has been officially con eyed through the Afghan overnment by a Taliban facion that is in favour of talks with Kabul. But some Tali an leaders are said to be op osed to the talks, and they re the ones who have appar ntly kept Mullah Omar alive“ to serve their ends.
The peace process sufered a blow earlier on Thurs ay , first when the Afghan Taiban indicated they were ulling out of the negotiaions with the Kabul government, and later, when the Pa istan foreign ministry onfirmed the talks hosted by slamabad were postponed.
The one-eyed bandit, a emiliterate peasant who di ected Afghanistan back to he stone age during the time e was the “Emir“ under Pa istan's patronage, is said to ave died of tuberculosis at east two years ago in Kara hi. The news was kept secret s Pakistan continued to ma ipulate various Taliban facions in an effort to maintain ts leverage in Afghanistan.
Some Pakistani accounts, n order to avoid implicating slamabad from charges that t was hiding him, maintain hat he died in Afghanistan.
In either event, the Obama White House said reports f Mullah Omar's death are redible. “The intelligence ommunity is looking at hese reports and continues o assess the circumstances around his death,“ spokesman Eric Schultz said. But, US continued to keep the fugitive who sheltered Osama bin Laden on its Rewards for Justice page, where there is a bounty up to $10 million for information that brings him to justice. Eventually though, illness is reported to have done to him what American justice could not.
Following Mansour's election, the Taliban also chose Sirajuddin Haqqani as its new deputy leader, a report said. Haqqani has a US government bounty of $10 million on his head as a leader of the extremist Haqqani network, which has carried numerous attacks on Afghanistan from their base in Pakistan's North Waziristan.
Meanwhile, Pakistan, which is said to have sheltered the terrorist, once again escaped unscathed. No one in the US administration or its roster of regional experts and analysts have really questioned the serial transgression of a terrorist-supporting and terrorism-patronizing state that has hosted the world's most wanted men -from Osama bin Laden to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to Dawood Ibrahim, among dozens of other terrorists. Instead, there are now romanticized commentaries how US may actually miss Mullah Omar because he was the unifying factor in the Taliban.
Backed by Pakistan's military and its intelligence agency ISI, Omar and his band of extremist yahoos wrecked Afghanistan while hosting and supporting fellow terrorists like Osama bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed who would eventually plan 911. All Pakistan got out of the whole fiasco was more misery for its people, but its army fattened itself on the billions of dollars the west poured into the region as it fought al-Qaida and Taliban.
