3 UN peacekeepers wounded in north Mali
BAMAKO, Mali – A spokesman for the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Mali says three peacekeepers have been wounded while pursuing suspects in an attack near a military camp in the country’s north.
Olivier Salgado said Saturday a rocket attack took place Friday evening in Aguel’hoc, and a battalion of Chadian peacekeepers with the mission known as MINUSMA were out on patrol searching for the assailants.
Around noon, the peacekeepers exchanged fire with gunmen, and three of the Chadians were wounded and taken to Gao for treatment.
Security remains tenuous in the region, as al-Qaida-linked militants remain active even after a French-led military operation to oust them from power last year.
Secular Tuareg rebels from the National Movement for the Liberation of the Azawad are also present in the area.
At least 60 killed in 2 weeks in Anbar
BAGHDAD – Fighting between security forces and al-Qaida-linked militants in Iraq’s Sunni-dominated Anbar province has killed at least 60 people over the past two weeks, an official said Saturday.
The head of Anbar’s Health Directorate, Khudeir Shalal, said that 43 people were killed in the city of Ramadi and other 17 were killed in Fallujah since violence erupted in the western province after the Dec. 28 arrest of a Sunni lawmaker sought on terrorism charges and the dismantling of an anti-government Sunni protest camp in Ramadi.
Shalal said a total of 297 people were wounded in both cities. He was unable to provide a breakdown of how many of the dead were combatants and how many might have been civilians caught in the fighting. He said Iraqi military casualties were not included.
At least 50 civilians and militants were killed during the military operations in Anbar during the past two weeks, according to an Associated Press count.
Kenya mall attackers believed to be dead
NAIROBI, Kenya – The gunmen who attacked an upscale mall in Kenya’s capital, killing at least 67 people, likely died in the attack, an FBI official has said.
Al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab militants claimed responsibility for the Sept. 21 attack on Nairobi’s Westgate Mall. Al-Shabab said the attack was in retaliation of Kenya sending its troops to Somalia to fight the militants.
Dennis Brady, the FBI Legal Attache in Nairobi, said in an interview posted Friday on the bureau’s website: “We believe, as do the Kenyan authorities, that the four gunmen inside the mall were killed.”
Obasanjo threatens withdraw from own party
LAGOS, Nigeria – Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo says he will “consider withdrawing” from the country’s governing party until it gets rid of a top financier wanted in the U.S. for alleged drug trafficking.
The political bombshell in the run up to 2015 presidential elections comes in a letter dated Jan. 7 and leaked to reporters Saturday.
Obasanjo cites the elevation to regional party chief of Buruji Kashamu, “a wanted habitual criminal” whose extradition has been requested by the U.S.
Kashamu has said the 2009 indictment is a case of mistaken identity and refers to his deceased brother.
President Goodluck Jonathan’s People’s Democratic Party has fractured over his perceived desire to run for re-election. It recently lost its majority in the House of Representatives when dozens of legislators defected to an opposition coalition.
Abbas: will not give up Jerusalem as capital
RAMALLAH, West Bank – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas sent a defiant message to Israel’s leadership and U.S. mediators Saturday, telling cheering supporters that the Palestinians “won’t kneel” and won’t drop demands for a capital in east Jerusalem.
Abbas’ unusually fiery speech highlighted the wide gaps between him and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the outlines of a peace deal. It also raised new doubts about the chances of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to bridge those gaps in coming weeks and come up with a framework for an agreement.
Abbas adopted tough positions in the wide-ranging speech, saying “there will be no peace” without a Palestinian capital in east Jerusalem, and he would not recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
He also suggested he would not continue negotiations beyond a U.S.-set target date of the end of April and instead will resume his quest for broader international recognition of a state of Palestine by the United Nations and its various agencies.
Associated Press
