Free Republic

THE vicious jihadist terrorist organisation, Islamic State’s West Africa Province, ISWAP, also known as Boko Haram sect has beheaded abducted Chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, in Michika Local Government Area of Adamawa State, Rev. Lawan Andimi.

In January 2012, Bono arrived in Timbuktu on a private jet with “ONE” emblazoned on the side, accompanied by his wife, daughters, the designer Renzo Rossi and several others. He had come to the historic city in Mali for a festival celebrating the music of the famous Tuareg tribe. On the night of the event, Bono and his entourage were placed on a small bleacher surrounded by, yet separated from, the thousands of local people via metal traffic barricades and a dozen heavily armed men. Toward the end of the evening, a woman announced that “BONE-no from Youtube” was in...

Serving and retired officers say soldiers also tried to convince French jets to engage in incident in which four Green Berets died The US special forces detachment ambushed in the Niger last month fought alone for hours after the local Nigerien forces they were accompanying fled in the first minutes of the engagement, retired and serving special forces officers with knowledge of events have said. The trapped soldiers also made repeated efforts to convince French warplanes sent from neighbouring Mali to engage the enemy, attempting to “talk in” the pilots who refused to attack due to poor weather, rough terrain...

The skies above the U.S. military's counterterrorism hub on the Horn of Africa have become chronically dangerous, with pilots forced to rely on local air-traffic controllers who fall asleep on the job, commit errors at astronomical rates and are hostile to Americans, documents show. Conditions at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti, the base for U.S. pilots flying sensitive missions over Yemen and Somalia, have become so dire that American warplanes and civilian airliners alike are routinely placed in jeopardy, according to federal aviation experts and documents obtained by The Washington Post under the Freedom of Information Act. Unlike other major U.S....

10 January 2015 Nigeria: 'Girl Bomber' Kills 19 People In Maiduguri Market At least 19 people have been killed and several injured by a bomb strapped to a girl reported to be aged about 10 in north-eastern Nigeria, police say. The bomb exploded in a market in the city of Maiduguri, in Borno state. "The explosive devices were wrapped around her body," a police source told Reuters. No group has said it carried out the attack. The market is reported to have been targeted twice in a week by female bombers late last year. Correspondents say that all the signs...

Boko Haram militants opened fire on northern Nigerian villages, leaving bodies scattered everywhere and as many as 2,000 people feared dead, officials said.

YOLA, Nigeria, Jan 27 (Reuters) - Suspected insurgents armed with guns and explosives killed at least 62 people in northeast Nigeria, including at a church service, in a region where Islamist sect Boko Haram is resisting a military crackdown, witnesses said on Monday.

Imagine a small country, the size of Massachusetts, with no arable land, irrigation, or permanent crops, nor any forests. The rocky desert is everywhere, falling all the way to the sea. To ‘cheer one up’, there is the lowest point on land, in Africa (and the third lowest on earth); an eerie crater lake called ‘Lac Assal’ (−155 m). And there are countless rock formations, bare, hostile, and frightening. This tiny country has one of the most strategic locations on earth, at least from the West’s geopolitical interest’s point of view. It lies between Somalia, Ethiopia and what is often...

NAIROBI, Kenya The attack by al Qaeda-linked militants at an upscale mall in Nairobi killed at least 59 people and wounded 175, Kenya's interior Cabinet secretary said Sunday. Multiple barrages of gunfire erupted Sunday morning from inside the building where there is a hostage standoff with Islamic extremists nearly 24 hours after they attacked using grenades and assault rifles. "The priority is to save as many lives as possible," Joseph Lenku said, reassuring the families of the hostages in the upscale Westgate mall. Kenyan forces have already rescued about 1,000 people, he said. Lenku said that there are 10 to...

Hundreds of British troops are being prepared to deploy to North Africa to tackle al Qaeda-inspired extremists. Under secret plans being drawn up urgently by top brass, UK soldiers would be sent ‘within months’ to the region to help train the Libyan army. Political and military chiefs have acted amid mounting fears that Libya is rapidly becoming a safe haven for Islamist fanatics after Coloner Gadaffi was toppled in October 2011. But critics have raised concerns that Britain could suffer ‘mission creep’ and be sucked into another bloody war just as fighting in Afghanistan - which has cost 444 UK...

MOGADISHU, Somalia – Seven Al Qaeda-linked militants on a suicide mission attacked the U.N. compound Wednesday with a truck bomb and then poured inside, killing at least 13 people before dying in the assault. At least three foreigners were slain during the raid in the Somali capital of Mogadishu, where the United Nations expanded its presence this year, about 18 months after Islamic insurgents were pushed from the seaside city. The militant group al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the attack, calling the U.N. "a merchant of death."

Like Watergate, Benghazi has several layers. But the most revealing one is the active collusion between this administration and Al Qaida. Al Qaida is a Saudi-inspired and Saudi-funded terror gang. Almost all of the terrorists on 9/11 were Saudis. Those facts are always covered up, but they are crucial to understanding the Jihad War. In Benghazi we ran arms from Libya to Al Qaida rebels in Syria. The Saudis are funding that rebellion. There's that Saudi link again. In Egypt we backed the Muslim Brotherhood against Hosni Mubarak, who kept the peace treaty with Israel for 30 years. Thirty years...

Security in Benghazi, the eastern Libyan city where four Americans were killed Sept. 11 in a terrorist attack on the U.S. Consulate, has decayed to the point where Westerners are fleeing, assassinations and kidnappings are rife and residents worry that U.S. drone strikes on jihadist targets are imminent. ... In January, Britain, the Netherlands, Germany and Canada urged their citizens to leave Benghazi. The British Foreign Office said it was aware of “a specific and imminent threat to Westerners in Benghazi.” Several nongovernmental organizations already have left. ... Over the past year, militants in Benghazi have attacked the British envoy’s...

... The Star’s report Tuesday came from anonymous sources in the Defence Department. The CBC had to find out from French television that Canadian special forces are also operating in Niger, which borders on Mali. But then everything about Canada’s role in Mali is treated by Ottawa as a state secret. Canadians learned of the initial C-17 deployment only after Mali’s president tweeted the information on the internet. When that initial, one-week deployment was extended, we were first told not by our own government but by Mali’s ambassador to Canada. ... Meanwhile, who exactly are we fighting in Mali? The...

Hundreds of British troops will be deployed to Mali and West Africa, Number 10 has now confirmed. According to reports, approximately 350 personnel will be deployed. 200 British soldiers are expected to train soldiers in African countries outside of Mali, whilst 40 advisers are to be sent into the country to train troops. The UK would be "contributing to both Malian training and training forces that are involved in providing a regionally-led approach", a Number 10 spokesman was quoted as saying by the BBC. 70 Royal Air Force personnel are also to be used for the operation of Sentinel surveillance...

The United States has dispatched about 100 military trainers to six nations that will contribute troops to a pan-African force being prepared for deployment to Mali, the State Department said Friday. The initial U.S. trainers will “discuss training and equipping and deployment needs of those countries in the interest of getting them ready to go into Mali,” spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said. The training mission in Niger, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Togo and Ghana is the largest U.S. involvement to date in preparations for the African force, which is being assembled by the 15-nation Economic Community of West African States, or...

A U.S. Army brigade will begin sending small teams into as many as 35 African nations early next year, part of an intensifying Pentagon effort to train countries to battle extremists. The teams will be limited to training and equipping efforts, and won't be permitted to conduct military operations without specific, additional approval from the secretary of defense. The sharper focus on Africa by the U.S. comes against a backdrop of widespread insurgent violence across North Africa, and as the African Union and other nations discuss military intervention in northern Mali.

Nato today announced it was ending its bombing campaign which helped Libyan rebels overthrow Muammar Gaddafi's regime. Officials said all operations for the air and sea campaign will conclude at midnight on Monday, as the strikes were described as 'one of the most successful' operations in the history of the 62-year-old alliance. Nato stopped its bombing missions soon after Gaddafi's death earlier this month, but has maintained regular air patrols. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2055630/Nato-ends-Libya-mission-Al-Qaeda-flag-flies-Benghazi-bad-omen.html#ixzz1cOFYqq66

AFP - The presumed head of Al-Qaeda in east Africa, Fazul Abdullah Muhammad, was killed Wednesday in Mogadishu, Kenya's police chief said Saturday, confirming a report from Somali Islamist Shebab rebels. Fazul Abdullah, 38, is thought to have planned the massive US embassy truck bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in 1998 and had a $5 million bounty on his head. "We have received that communication from authorities in Somalia. We have been told that there were two terrorists who were killed in Somalia on Wednesday last week," Kenyan Police Commissioner Mathew Iteere told AFP. Iteere said the identity...

NEW YORK – A judge sentenced the first Guantanamo detainee to have a U.S. civilian trial to life in prison Tuesday, saying anything he suffered at the hands of the CIA and others "pales in comparison to the suffering and the horror" caused by the bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998. U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan sentenced Ahmed Ghailani to life, calling the attacks "horrific" and saying the deaths and damage they caused far outweighs "any and all considerations that have been advanced on behalf of the defedndant." He also ordered Ghailani to pay a $33...