Tag Archives: Suicide Bombers

Suicide bombers hit peacekeeping base in Somali capital, 13 dead: police

Suicide bombing in Somalia

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – Suicide bombers killed at least 13 people at the gates of the African Union’s main peacekeeping base in the Somali capital Mogadishu on Tuesday, police said, in an attack claimed by the Islamist militants of al Shabaab.

The force of the explosions shattered windows at the nearby airport, showered arriving passengers with glass and forced the suspension of flights, police and witnesses said.

Police said the first attacker detonated a car bomb and the second tried to storm the base on foot, but was shot and exploded at the gate.

“At least 13 people mostly security forces died in the two car bomb blasts,” and 12 others were wounded, Abdiqadir Omar, a police officer told Reuters.

The guards were caught in the blast as they escorted U.N. personnel into the base, which is known as Halane, he added.

Al Shabaab, an Islamist militant group linked to al Qaeda and fighting to topple Somalia’s Western-backed government, said it set off two car bombs.

The African Union’s AMISOM force said on Twitter it condemned the “senseless attacks that aim to disrupt and cripple the lives of ordinary Somalis”. There was no immediate comment from the United Nations.

People arriving on international flights said the blasts shattered windows in the airport buildings.

“We were greeted by two loud blasts. The glass of the airport building fell on us,” said Ali Nur, who had just got off a plane from Nairobi.

Al Shabaab regularly attacks AMISOM, which is made up of about 22,000 military personnel from Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia and other African countries helping to support Somalia’s government and army.

The country in the Horn of Africa was plunged into anarchy in the early 1990s following the toppling of military dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.

(Reporting by Abdi Sheikh and Feisal Omar; Writing by Duncan Miriri and Elias Biryabarema; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Turkey appears restricting social media after suicide bombing

A still image from CCTV camera shows the three men believed to be the attackers walking inside the terminal building at Istanbul airport, Turkey

By Yasmeen Abutaleb and Can Sezer

SAN FRANCISCO/ISTANBUL (Reuters) – After suicide bombers killed 45 people at Istanbul’s main airport last week, the Turkish government appeared to take a step that has become increasingly common around the world in moments of political uncertainty: restricting access to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Turkey denies that it blocks the internet, blaming outages last week and earlier this year on spikes in usage after major events. But technical experts at watchdog groups say the blackouts on social media are intentional, aimed in part at stopping the spread of militant images and propaganda.

Countries such as China and Iran have long kept tight control over online media, but human rights and internet activists say that many more democratic governments are now using internet cutoffs to stifle free speech under the guise of fighting terrorism.

Government-ordered internet restrictions can include outright blocking or ‘throttling’ that slows certain websites to the point where they are unusable.

“It’s becoming the go-to mechanism for governments trying to control the flow of information,” said Peter Micek, global policy and legal counsel for Access Now, a group that campaigns for digital rights and monitors shutdowns. “It is still the Wild West in terms of what’s acceptable behavior and what violates human rights online.”

While there were about 15 internet shutdowns around the world in 2015, there have been at least 21 instances so far this year, according to Access Now.

The trend helped prompt the United Nations Human Rights Council last week to renew what has become known as the ‘internet resolution,’ effectively defining internet shutdowns as a violation of human rights. The resolution, which has been adopted by the more than 40 member states since its introduction in 2012, is not legally binding, but is meant to set standards for state behavior.

TURKEY IN VANGUARD

Turkey has emerged as one of the countries using internet shutdowns most aggressively in response to political events, according to human rights advocates.

Turkey has shut down access entirely to certain sites, or throttled it, on seven occasions over the past year, according to Turkey Blocks, a group that monitors censorship in Turkey.

In such cases, including after the Istanbul attack last week, the Turkish government has invoked a national security law to publicly ban the broadcast of certain material. In the case of social media, that appears to have been effected by a throttling or shutdown of sites.

Speaking to Reuters, a senior Turkish government official denied that Turkey engages in internet throttling and said that the inability to access sites – including after last week’s attack – was due to heavier-than-average traffic.

“In the wake of major developments, including terror attacks, more users try to access social media platforms and the increased demand inevitably slows down the Internet,” said the official.

About three hours after the Istanbul airport attack, users across the country commented on social media that they were forced to use virtual private networks – which can access the internet via another country – to access Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, while many other sites were unaffected.

Around the same time, the Turkish prime minister’s office imposed a formal media restriction and banned sharing images of the blast or the scene. As on previous occasions, that appears to have been carried out by restricting access to social media.

“If we would like to contain graphic images, we impose a formal restriction,” said the Turkish official. “The formal restriction does not prevent the media from reporting the incident but limits the distribution of graphic and violent images such as body parts.”

Alp Toker, project coordinator at Turkey Blocks, said his group’s specialized software and statistical analysis gives him a “high degree of confidence” that social media sites were blocked in Turkey after the Istanbul attack, as they have been on other occasions this year, through throttling rather than an excess of traffic. Reuters was not able to verify his analysis.

Representatives of Facebook Inc, Twitter Inc and Alphabet Inc’s YouTube declined comment on the matter. But sources close to the companies said the sites did not experience technical problems on the day of the attack last week.

The massive server farms run by each of those companies are designed to handle spikes in traffic, and very rarely experience interruptions in service. When they do, the companies usually offer an explanation, even for very short outages, which did not happen last week.

Turkish internet service providers TTNET, a unit of fixed-line operator Turk Telekom, Uydunet and Turkcell did not respond to requests for comment.

BROADER FREEDOM ISSUES

The apparent restriction of access to social media at certain times is seen by some as part of a broader attack on the media by the Turkish government.

Under President Tayyip Erdogan, who has dominated domestic politics for a decade and a half, human rights groups decry what they call an unprecedented crackdown on opposition voices as the country faces multiple security threats.

Although he has an official Twitter account, Erdogan has said he doesn’t like the platform. “As you know, I am against this social media. There have been many attacks on me because of this,” he said when meeting taxi drivers last week.

In Turkey, a complete ban on internet services eventually requires a court decision, which site owners can appeal. Throttling – which is harder to detect – leaves uncertainty, meaning users or site owners cannot appeal the decision.

In more than 25 countries, laws could be interpreted in a way that allows governments to shut down the internet or take over telecom networks, said Micek at Access Now.

(Reporting By Yasmeen Abutaleb and Can Sezer; Additional reporting by Humeyra Pamuk and Daren Butler in Istanbul, Dustin Volz in Washington and Jeremy Wagstaff in Singapore; Editing by Jonathan Weber and Bill Rigby)

Saudi king vows to fight religious extremists after bombings

United Nations (U.N.) High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein

GENEVA/DUBAI (Reuters) – The king of Saudi Arabia warned his country would strike with an “iron hand” against people who preyed on youth vulnerable to religious extremism, a day after suicide bombers struck three cities in an apparently coordinated campaign of attacks.

In a speech marking Eid al-Fitr, the holiday that celebrates the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, King Salman said a major challenge facing Saudi Arabia was preserving hope for youth who faced the risk of radicalization.

“We will strike with an iron hand those who target the minds and thoughts… of our dear youth,” Salman, 80, said.

Four security officers were killed in Monday’s attacks that targeted U.S. diplomats, Shi’ite Muslim worshippers and a security headquarters at a mosque in the holy city of Medina. The attacks all seem to have been timed to coincide with the approach of the Islamic Eid holiday.

The U.N. human rights chief on Tuesday described the bombing outside the Prophet Mohammed’s Mosque in Medina as “an attack on Islam itself” and many Muslims expressed shock that their second-holiest site had been targeted.

No group has claimed responsibility but Islamic State militants have carried out similar bombings in the U.S.-allied, Sunni Muslim-ruled kingdom in the past year, targeting minority Shi’ites and Saudi security forces.

Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and a member of the Jordanian royal family, delivered his remarks via a spokesman in Geneva.

“This is one of the holiest sites in Islam, and for such an attack to take place there, during Ramadan, can be considered a direct attack on Muslims all across the world,” he said. “It is an attack on the religion itself.”

ATTACK UNNERVES SAUDIS

Militant attacks on Medina are unprecedented. The city is home to the second most sacred site in Islam, a mosque built in the 7th century by the Prophet Mohammed, the founder of Islam, which also houses his tomb.

Attacks on Mecca, the holiest place in Islam, have been extremely rare. The Al Saud ruling family considers itself the protectors of both sites. Islamic State says the Saudi rulers are apostates and has declared its intention to topple them.

Saudis were rattled by the rare, high-profile attack.

“I apologize to everyone if I don’t congratulate you this Eid,” Khaled bin Saleh al-Shathri, a Saudi businessman, wrote on Twitter. “I am shocked by the deaths of five of my brothers and the wounding of four others as they guarded the holiest places.”

Iran, the region’s major Shi’ite power, also condemned the attacks.

Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and anti-terror tsar, Mohammed bin Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz, sought on Tuesday to reassure Saudis of the country’s security.

“The security of the homeland is good, it is at its highest levels and thanks be to God it gets stronger every day,” the state news agency SPA quoted him as saying during a visit to some of the wounded in the Jeddah attack.

Prince Mohammed has been credited for ending a bombing campaign by al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia between 2003 and 2006.

Monday’s bombings happened days before the end of Ramadan, when Muslims fast from dawn until dusk.

Saudi security officials say Islamic State’s supporters inside the kingdom mainly act independently from the group in Iraq and Syria, its main areas of operations.

Salah al-Budair, the imam of the Prophet’s Mosque, warned young people about being lured by the “malignant” ideology of Islamic State. “(The bomber) is an infidel who has sold himself to the enemies of his religion and his country,” he said.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay, Sami Aboudi, Mostafa Hashem and Tom Finn; Writing by Noah Browning; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky/Mark Heinrich)

Two explosions hit Istanbul’s main Ataturk airport, at least 10 dead

Paramedics push a stretcher at Turkey's largest airport, Istanbul Ataturk

By Daren Butler and Ayla Jean Yackley

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Two suicide bombers opened fire before blowing themselves up at the entrance to the main international airport in Istanbul on Tuesday, killing at least 10 people and wounding many more, Turkish officials and witnesses said.

Police fired shots to try to stop the attackers just before they reached a security checkpoint at the arrivals hall of the Ataturk airport but they blew themselves up, one of the officials said.

Speaking in parliament, Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said that based on initial information he could only confirm there had been one attacker. He said 10 people were killed and around 20 wounded.

“According to information I have received, at the entrance to the Ataturk Airport international terminal a terrorist first opened fire with a Kalashnikov and then blew themself up,” he said in comments broadcast by CNN Turk.

The state-run Anadolu agency said around 60 people were wounded, six of them seriously.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.

Ataturk is Turkey’s largest airport and a major transport hub for international travelers. Pictures posted on social media from the site showed wounded people lying on the ground inside and outside one of the terminal buildings.

A witness told Reuters security officials prevented his taxi and other cars from entering the airport at around 9:50 pm (02:50 p.m. EDT). Drivers leaving the terminal shouted “Don’t enter! A bomb exploded!” from their windows to incoming traffic, he said.

Television footage showed ambulances rushing to the scene. One witness told CNN Turk that gunfire was heard from the car park at the airport. Taxis were ferrying wounded people from the airport, the witness said.

FLIGHTS HALTED

The head of Red Crescent, Kerem Kinik, said on CNN Turk that people should go to blood donation centres and not hospitals to give blood and called on people to avoid main roads to the airport to avoid blocking path of emergency vehicles.

Authorities halted the takeoff of scheduled flights from the airport and passengers were transferred to hotels, a Turkish Airlines official said. Earlier an airport official said some flights to the airport had been diverted.

Turkey has suffered a spate of bombings this year, including two suicide attacks in tourist areas of Istanbul blamed on Islamic State, and two car bombings in the capital, Ankara, which were claimed by a Kurdish militant group.

In the most recent attack, a car bomb ripped through a police bus in central Istanbul during the morning rush hour, killing 11 people and wounding 36 near the main tourist district, a major university and the mayor’s office.

Turkey, which is part of the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State, is also fighting Kurdish militants in its largely Kurdish southeast.

(Reporting by Istanbul bureau; Writing by David Dolan and Nick Tattesall; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Suicide bombers strike Lebanese village kills five

Lebanese army soldiers and policemen secure the area at the site where suicide bomb attacks took place in the Christian village of Qaa

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Four suicide bombers killed at least five people and wounded 19 more in a series of attacks in a Lebanese Christian village at the border with Syria on Monday, the latest violent spillover of the five-year-old Syrian war into Lebanon.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks after 4 a.m. (2100 EDT) in the village of Qaa. Security sources said they believed Islamic State was responsible.

Lebanon has been repeatedly jolted by militant attacks linked to the war in neighboring Syria, where the powerful Lebanese Shi’ite group Hezbollah is fighting in support of President Bashar al-Assad.

Witnesses said the first bomber blew himself up after being confronted by a resident, Lebanese media reported. The others blew themselves up one after the other as people arrived at the scene.

The fourth bomber detonated himself as the head of the town council opened fire on him. “We saw there was a fourth suicide bomber walking… the head of the municipality shot at him, I did too, and this is when he blew himself up,” Dany Awad, the deputy municipality head, told Reuters.

The Lebanese army said four soldiers were among the wounded. They were part of a patrol that headed to the location of the first blast. The first of the bombers had blown himself up outside a house, followed by the others in an adjoining street.

The army imposed a security cordon in the area and was searching the village and nearby areas for suspects.

Lebanese security services have been on heightened alert for militant attacks in recent weeks. Islamic State had urged its followers to launch attacks on “non-believers” during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which began in early June.

Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Friday warned of a threat posed by militants based in the border area between Syria and Lebanon, saying they were still preparing car bombs in the area.

(Additional reporting by Reuters TV; Writing by Tom Perry/Laila Bassam; Editing by Dominic Evans)

Belgian Police Seek “Man in Hat” suspect

CCTV image made available by Belgian Police shows details clothing worn by a man whom officials believe may be a suspect in the attack which took place at the Brussels international airport

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Belgian prosecutors appealed for help in finding a man suspected of leaving a bomb at Brussels Airport on March 22, saying they were eager to find a coat he had discarded and to speak to people who saw him on his hour-long walk back into the city.

Federal prosecutors released new pictures of the suspect, dubbed the “man in the hat”, who appeared to arrive at the airport with two suicide bombers and left along with passengers after the first two bombs exploded.

In a video to accompany their appeal, investigators indicate the route the man took, out of the airport, through the nearby town of Zaventem and along a main road into the city. His last appearance on security cameras was in the district of Schaerbeek almost an hour after the bombing.

Along the way, he took off his light-colored coat and was then seen in a light blue shirt with dark patches. He was wearing a dark hat throughout.

“It is especially the coat which interests us,” prosecutor Eric Van Der Sypt told a news conference, asking if anyone might have seen it along the suspect’s route.

Prosecutors also want to people to come forward who might have filmed or taken a photograph of the suspect or may be able to determine where he went.

Twin bombs at Brussels Airport and another on the city’s metro killed 32 people, excluding the suspected bombers. A controlled explosion destroyed a third bomb at the airport about six hours after the initial attack.

(Reporting by Robert-Jan Bartunek; editing by Philip Blenkinsop)

ISIS Kidnaps 500 Children

Islamic terrorist group ISIS has kidnapped 500 children and Iraqi officials are concerned they’re being trained to be suicide bombers.

Farhan Mohammed of Anbar’s Provincial Council told reporters that ISIS was able to kidnap over 400 children from their region in less than a week.

“Daesh [Arabic acronym for ISIS] has kidnapped at least 400 children in the western province of Anbar and taken them to their bases in Iraq and Syria,” Mohammed was quoted as saying by the Christian Post.

The terrorists also kidnapped 120 children from schools in the northern part of Nineveh province.

ISIS has been releasing videos to social media showing children who are being indoctrinated by the terrorists.  They call their camps training for “cubs of the caliphate.”   The Iraqi Human Rights Commission estimates that 1,000 children have been trained by the terrorist group.

“They use children because it is easy to brainwash them,” Rami Abdulrahman, the head of the Syrian Observatory, told Reuters. “They can build these children into what they want. They stop them from going to school and send them to IS schools instead.”