Free Republic

FBI terrorism experts are investigating whether the death of a Somali-born Canadian citizen — whose body was found Monday in a Denver hotel room with about a pound of extremely toxic sodium cyanide — is connected to the upcoming Democratic National Convention. An FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force has been sent to Denver, although Special Agent Kathy Wright said there's no information to conclude that Saleman Abdirahman Dirie had terrorist ties, the Rocky Mountain News reported. While local law enforcement officials tried to downplay the incident, stressing that there was no sign of foul play in the death of Dirie,...

DENVER (AP/CBS4) An advocacy group for Somali immigrants has cautioned against linking terrorism to a man found dead in a Denver hotel with a pound of highly toxic sodium cyanide in his room. U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey said Thursday terrorism couldn't be ruled out, but that it was not indicated in the investigation. Saleman Abdirahman Dirie, 29, of Ottawa was found dead Monday, and police say a powder found in his room was cyanide. The cause of death hasn't been established. Police say they don't suspect foul play and the FBI says there's no apparent connection to terrorism. The...

LGF reader “Shiplord Kirel� points out a blog post from July with a comment by a Somali with the same name as the man found dead in Denver with a large amount of possible cyanide: Somali Christian Blog Abandoned. « Zot Media Inc. Please don’t talk sh*t , that man deserves what happened to him , simply because having the bible in one hand , and a bread in the other hand , is not a correct thing ,! Kill Them , Kill them , Kill them , that is my massage,!Comment by Abdirahman Dirie — July 11, 2008 @...

It has the makings of international intrigue. Less than two weeks before the Democratic National Convention a man has been found dead in a Denver hotel room with a container of what authorities initially suspect to be the deadly poison cyanide. Adding to the intrigue is that the dead man, Saleman Abdirahman Dirie, 29, appears to be from outside the U.S. No passport was found on Dirie, who is believed to have entered the country from Canada. A large container of a white powdery substance was found in the man's room on the fourth floor of the Burnsley Hotel at...

Labor Day Reinstated as Paid Holiday at Shelbyville, TN, Plant Tyson Foods Requested Change from Union ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Springdale, Arkansas - August 8, 2008 - Tyson Foods, Inc. announced today it has reached a new agreement with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), an American union, reinstating Labor Day as one of the designated paid holidays under the contract for covered employees in the Shelbyville, Tennessee, plant. Tyson made this request on behalf of its Shelbyville plant employees, some of whom had expressed concern about the new contract provisions relative to paid holidays. In an effort to be responsive,...

Refugees from Somalia probably are the least welcome foreign "visitors" to Scandinavia. Personally, I don't consider acts of violence like this as a solution to the various problems connected to mass non-European immigration to Europe, but without a doubt there will be more attacks resembling this one if European politicians don't change their minds concerning policies in the area of (non-European) immigration issues. The article: "A 16 year-old asylum seeker from Somalia, was shot and critically injured while sleeping in his bed at reception centre outside Oslo. He was hit in the stomach by a rifle round fired through the...

Somali pirates took a 750,000 dollar ransom for the release of 15 crew and their German-owned ship after a 41-day hostage ordeal... "Tuesday morning, when pirates finally got the money they wanted, they counted it from seven in the morning until six in the evening and then they finally left," ... He did not say who paid the ransom or how it was delivered. Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet had earlier told the daily Eesti Paevaleht that the state was not involved in any ransom payment. "We don't make deals with terrorists," Paet said. The German-owner of the ship, the...

Greenlanders driven out of their homes due to racist assaults. Residents’ Board is powerless when it comes to young, violent Arabs assaulting tenants. Many Greenlanders living in Gjellerup Park ...are fed up. After several years of racist persecution and harassment by Arab and Somali tenants, they’ve now chosen to abandon the place. “I couldn’t stand being their target. It was a psychological stress. But I’m angry that we were the ones to leave. After all, they were the ones to attack us,” says Johanne Christiansen. Together with the others she got the municipality’s help to move out. Greenlanders in Gjellerup...

Clashes are increasing between Somali Muslims and Minnesota employers. Can the loose-fitting garb be a safety hazard? Is there a difference between a bathroom break and a prayer break? Fatuma Hassan has just enough rice in her near-empty cupboards to make it through the month. The anger she felt when she lost her job in May has given way to a dull, nagging hunger. Yet this soft-spoken 22-year-old became an unlikely hero within the Somali community when she and five of her Muslim co-workers were dismissed last month from the Mission Foods tortilla factory in New Brighton for refusing to...

A group of Muslim workers allege they were fired by a New Brighton tortilla factory for refusing to wear uniforms that they say were immodest by Islamic standards. Six Somali women claim they were ordered by a manager to wear pants and shirts to work instead of their traditional Islamic clothing of loose-fitting skirts and scarves, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a civil liberties group that is representing the women.

Each day millions of Americans head out to work, many of whom who wear uniforms in their profession and yet six Muslim Somali women working in a tortilla factory in Minnesota are not only refusing to wear their uniforms but have filed complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission claiming "religious discrimination". CAIR, or the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a civil liberties group, is demanding the company give the women back their jobs and let them wear the Muslim prescribed loose fitting skirts and scarves, which would be dangerous to the women in a workplace where there's mechanical equipment. "For...

Last year I wrote an article about how Swedish society is disintegrating and is in danger of collapsing, at least in certain areas and regions. The country that gave us Bergman, ABBA and Volvo could become known as the Bosnia of northern Europe. The “Swedish model” would no longer refer to a stable and peaceful state with an advanced economy, but to a Eurabian horror story of utopian multiculturalism, socialist mismanagement and runaway immigration. Some thought I was exaggerating, and that talk of the possibility of a future civil war in Sweden was pure paranoia. Was it? In a new...

Oslo police recently released its 2007 Rape Report. The report shows a marked increase in Somali rapists, generally on account of gang rapes. At least ten women were attacked and molested by a gang of Somali men at Sofienberg park in Oslo on Saturday evening. Last year a record-high 161 rapes and 35 rape attempts were reported in Oslo. Over 70% of the rapists were non-Norwegian [ed. ethnically, a majority had Norwegian citizenship]. Lawyer Abid Raja visited a cafe in Grønland in Oslo for Norwegian broadcaster P4. There he met three young men (ages 26, 30 and 35), from Somalia...

THE crew of a Spanish fishing boat seized by pirates off Somalia have been freed... The Playa de Bakio trawler has been taken to "safer waters", escorted by a Spanish warship, and the government is making plans to repatriate the 13 Spaniards and 13 Africans, she said. Speaking at a press conference, she did not indicate the circumstances in which the crew were released, or whether a ransom had been paid. Spanish news media said earlier a ransom of 1 million euros...had been demanded, and negotiations were taking place at a London hotel. The 76-metre trawler and its crew were...

Somali forces rescued a hijacked ship carrying food to this desperately poor African nation Tuesday, as a top security official accused U.S. troops stationed off the lawless coast of failing to combat growing piracy. Seven pirates were arrested and three were wounded in the raid on the Dubai-flagged al-Khaleej, said Abdullahi Said Samatar... "It is sad that the American forces off the coast of Somalia are here for fun and are not combatting the pirates," ... A spokesman for the transitional government, Abdi Hagi Gobdon, welcomed French and U.S. efforts to combat piracy and guard the country's coastline. The transitional...

Spain appealed to France, the United States and NATO on Monday for help in ending a crisis sparked when pirates seized 26 crew members of a Spanish fishing boat off the Somali coast. The defence ministry said a Spanish military frigate was heading to the area off east Africa, where the pirates have demanded money for the release of the crew, a day after storming the vessel armed with grenade launchers. The coastal waters off Somalia, which has not had an effective central government for more than 17 years and is plagued by insecurity, are considered to be among the...

Six Somali men involved in capturing a French yacht and holding its 30 crew hostage have said they were part of a maritime militia group with a written code of conduct... The men were captured in the Somali desert by French troops on Friday after holding the yacht and its crew off Somalia for a week and fleeing with part of the ransom, which was recovered. They were flown to France this week to face trial. The yacht's captain told investigators the ransom paid was $2 million (1 million pounds). But the half-dozen men are just part of a larger...

Mogadishu - Islamist rebels in Somalia have killed the head of a school and three teachers in an overnight raid in central Somalia. The victims are two ethnic Somalis holding British nationality and two Kenyans. Eyewitnesses say at least 15 heavily armed gunmen stormed the school and also attacked the homes of government officials in Baladwayne, a small town near the Ethiopian border. Al-Shabaab militants have claimed responsibility for the attack. The al-Shabaab movement is closely allied to the strict Islamic regime that had control of much of Somalia until the end of 2006. The Islamists were driven out by...

PARIS (AFP) - President Nicolas Sarkozy met Tuesday with the families of 22 French crew members held hostage on a luxury yacht for the last five days by pirates off the coast of Somalia, an Elysee official said. Some 40 members of the hostages' families arrived at the French presidential Elysee palace just after 3:00 pm (1300 GMT), leaving 90 minutes later without making any comment to an AFP reporter waiting at the scene. As the families were with Sarkozy, the 32-cabin yacht Ponant remained moored in waters near a village, Garaad, on the eastern Somali coast, north of Mogadishu...

U.S. forces found, targeted and killed in a Somali desert city the senior al Qaeda operative who masterminded the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa and had since spent a decade in hiding, The Washington Times has learned. Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, who is one of the FBI's most-wanted terrorists, was the target of a U.S. missile strike on a residence in Dobley, a small town in southern Somalia near the Kenyan border, according to a U.S. military official who spoke to The Times on the condition of anonymity because of the nature of the operation.

Hijacker 'wanted plane taken to Australia' Posted 10 hours 54 minutes ago Updated 7 hours 37 minutes ago The 33-year-old woman allegedly threatened to blow up the 19-seat plane and stabbed two pilots. (Reuters) Video: View video and pictures of the arrest (TVNZ) Video: Hijacker wanted plane taken to Australia: police (ABC News) Audio: Woman stabs pilots, attempts hijacking in NZ (PM) Related Story: NZ hijack attempt highlights security fears: Pyne Related Story: No bombs found after NZ hijack attempt Police say a Somali woman charged with trying to hijack an Air New Zealand flight this morning wanted the...

Lost "Mohammed" Dog Poster Left in Front of Muslim This happened in Lewiston, Maine, the same place where a ham steak left on a lunch bag was investigated as a hate crime. Check out the phone number on the poster, Tommy Tutone now wanted for questioning.... LEWISTON (NEWS CENTER) -- Members of the Somali community in Lewiston say a poster put up in front of a local Somali owned store is an insult to their religion The poster depicts a vicious "lost" dog named Mohammed. That's the name of the Muslim prophet. It says that the dog is not good...

Somali pirates threaten to kill tanker crew By Laura Clout and agencies Last Updated: 12:32pm GMT 11/12/2007 A tense standoff has developed off the Somali coast between US warships and pirates who have hijacked a tanker packed with explosive chemicals. Somali pirates are able to operate with relative impunity off the volatile Horn of Africa. Under seige from the US navy, the pirates have now threatened to kill all 22 crew members of the Japanese Golden Nori unless a $1 million ransom is paid. The tanker, carrying up to 40,000 tons of inflammable benzene, was captured as it was sailing...

COLUMBUS, Ohio - A judge on Tuesday sentenced a Somali immigrant to 10 years in prison for plotting to blow up an Ohio shopping mall with a man later convicted of being an al-Qaida terrorist. Nuradin Abdi, a cell phone salesman before his arrest, will be deported to Somalia after serving the sentence. U.S. District Judge Algenon Marbley imposed the sentence as part of a plea deal Abdi agreed to in July. In a 20-minute statement to the court, Abdi's attorney Mahir Sherif said his client apologized to the people of the United States, the people of Ohio and the...

Somali pirates left two boats they had hijacked in the waters off the Horn of Africa, and the newly liberated vessels — and their crew of 24 — were under U.S. Navy escort on Sunday. A U.S. Navy ship and helicopter were guiding the Tanzanian-flagged boats Mavuno 1 and 2 further out to sea, where naval personnel will later board the vessels and treat crew members, said Cmdr. Lydia Robertson of the U.S. Fifth Fleet in Bahrain. The Navy is in radio contact with pirates aboard three other ships in the region, encouraging them also to leave those ships and...

Japanese ship hijacked in Africa Pirates have hijacked a Japanese ship off the East African coast - the latest in a series of similar incidents near the war-torn country of Somalia. The vessel, thought to be a tanker with a crew of Burmese, Philippine and South Korean sailors, was seized in the Gulf of Aden early on Sunday. Officials say they are trying to find out what the pirates' demands are. The area is notorious for piracy - of 16 reported hijackings worldwide this year, 11 were off the Somali coast. Lawless waters The International Maritime Bureau (IMB) said they...

TORONTO - A Toronto mosque is telling Muslims not to say "Happy Thanksgiving" or invite friends into their homes for turkey dinner on the holiday weekend. The Khalid Bin Al-Walid Mosque says to "avoid participating" in dinners, parties or greetings on Thanksgiving because it is a kuffaar, or non-Muslim, celebration. A two-part article on the mosque Web site says Muslims should also "stay completely away" from "Halloween trick-and treat nonsense," Christmas, New Year's, anniversaries, birthdays and Earth Day. "How can we bring ourselves to congratulate or wish people well for their disobedience to Allah? Thus expressions such as:Happy Thanksgiving, Happy...

The police chief in the northwestern Wisconsin community of Frederic says he's arrested a man wanted on felony charges that include funding terrorism. Chief R.J. Severude says one of his officers stopped a van this morning about 11:30 a.m., and when the man's Minnesota driver's license was checked there were felony warrants for him. According to the chief, the man has fugitive warrants for money laundering, drug trafficking and financing terrorist attacks inside and outside the U.S. Frederic is a Polk County village of about 1,250 people.

Although police say as many as 10 people witnessed a sexual assault in a St. Paul hallway, the suspect said he has no memory of what happened. Rage Ibrahim, 25, said he blacked out from drinking too much alcohol. But he said he wouldn't have committed rape. "I'm so upset because of the situation I'm in," Ibrahim said, crying as he headed to the Ramsey County jail on Thursday to turn himself in. "I've got a mom, I've got a sister. I wouldn't rape anyone." Surveillance video from a Highwood-area apartment hallway makes it clear that a sexual assault happened...

(AP) -- St. Paul A 25-year-old man was charged Thursday for allegedly raping and beating a woman in an apartment hallway -- an incident apparently witnessed by as many as 10 people who did nothing. Rage Ibrahim was charged with several counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct for the attack early Tuesday. According to the criminal complaint, police responded to a call of drunken behavior in an apartment hallway, where they found both Ibrahim and a woman lying unconscious. The woman's clothing had been pulled up, she had fresh scratches on her face and blood on her thigh. Ibrahim says...

A Somali immigrant the government says plotted to blow up an Ohio shopping mall pleaded guilty Tuesday to conspiring to provide material support to terrorists. Nuradin Abdi, 35, entered his plea before U.S. District Judge Algenon Marbley a week before his trial had been expected to start Aug. 6. "In this climate an American jury, we felt, could potentially find him guilty because of all this negative stuff that's coming in, and if they found him guilty he was looking at spending the rest of his life in custody," said Abdi's attorney, Mahir Sherif. "The government came back with another...

ANAHEIM, Calif. — Maine's second-largest city has earned some new bragging rights. Lewiston was one of 10 municipalities designated this year as an All-America City. The selections were made Friday night during an award ceremony in Anaheim, Calif., in the competition sponsored by the National Civic League. "My head is just spinning right now," Dottie Perham-Whittier, Lewiston's community relations coordinator, told the (Lewiston) Sun Journal. "I think we pretty much just leaped up on that stage." During its presentation the day before, the delegation from Lewiston talked about various city initiatives, including the Lewiston Youth Advisory Council, the Lots to...

US Navy attacks Somali militant base. Written By:james Rono/bbc , Posted: Sat, Jun 02, 2007 Caption: US blames militants for the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. A US Navy warship has carried out a missile attack on a Somali village where Islamist militants are reported to have set up a base. Somali officials said a remote village in the Puntland region was bombarded, days after foreign militants arrived. US reports suggest the target was an al-Qaeda operative suspected of involvement in the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The strike would be at...

Ethiopian tanks pound Mogadishu More than 300,000 civilians have fled the violence in the capital Ethiopian tanks are pounding parts of the Somali capital, stepping up a week-long campaign against insurgents and fighters from the Hawiye clan. Heavy shelling is also taking place near the presidential palace - guarded by Ethiopian and African Union troops. And about five people were killed in a suspected suicide bomb attack near a hotel frequented by officials. Meanwhile, Ethiopia's prime minister has said the number of civilian casualties has been exaggerated. UN chief Ban Ki-moon has called for an end to clashes in which...

[...] Curiously, what seems to rankle Europeans most is the enthusiasm with which Hirsi Ali has adopted their own secularism and the fervor with which she has embraced their own Western values. Though this continent's intellectuals routinely disparage the pope as an irrelevant dinosaur, Hirsi Ali's rejection of religion in favor of reason, intellect and emancipation seems to make everyone nervous. Typical is the British feminist who complained that not only does Hirsi Ali paint "the whole of the Islamic world with one black brush," she also "paints the whole of the Western world with rosy tints," which is, of...

Heavy shelling in Somali capital Dozens have been killed or injured in similar attacks this year Somali government forces and Ethiopian troops have shelled areas of Somalia's capital Mogadishu after their positions came under fire from insurgents. At least 12 people, mostly civilians, were killed in the exchanges - the heaviest since the government took Mogadishu from Islamists last year. Unknown gunmen launch almost daily attacks in the city. Some Islamists, who last year were controlled much of southern Somalia, have vowed to start a guerrilla war. The government blames the attacks on Islamist fighters and on Monday set up...

Democrat senators Joseph Biden and Carl Levin appeared on "Fox News Sunday" to promote their toothless resolution against the president's troop "surge" in Iraq, but ended up unwittingly reinforcing their party's image as lacking the requisite seriousness to run the war. Levin said, "It is a political solution which is needed in Iraq. ... Recent events ... prove that you can make some political progress perhaps without deepening military involvement by the United States." While there's no doubt that Iraqi politics are quite relevant, Levin's formulation is precisely backward. Though we've been urging Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to quit...

MOGADISHU (AFP) - An Ethiopian military convoy was ambushed in a new round of deadly violence in the Somali capital Mogadishu, hours after the African Union agreed to send peacekeepers to the war-torn country. At least one person was killed in the ambush Saturday, which triggered a major gunbattle in the volatile south of Mogadishu. Coming in the wake of a brazen attack late on Friday on the residence of the interim president, the AU stabilisation force should be under no illusions about the scale of the task that awaits it. The interim administration and peacekeepers not only face having...

Islamists use raid to stir up UK Somalis By Adam Lusher, Sunday Telegraph Last Updated: 12:30am GMT 14/01/2007 Islamic extremists are exploiting American air strikes in Somalia to try to recruit British Somalis to their cause. Hizb ut-Tahrir, a global Islamic group whose activities are currently proscribed in Germany, Russia and Pakistan, was last week circulating leaflets in London, accusing the US of state-sponsored terrorism. The leaflets, some of which were discarded near the Finsbury Park mosque in north London, showed pictures of American soldiers seemingly abusing Iraqi civilians and declared: "The re-invasion of Iraq and the bombing of Somalia:...

Somali Islamists held UK meeting to raise funds Courts group targeted by US air strikes had meeting with Foreign Office officials Jeevan Vasagar Saturday January 13, 2007 The Guardian (UK) According to a community leader in London, representatives of the Union of Islamic Courts, the Islamist group accused by the US of sheltering al-Qaida, visited the Finsbury Park mosque (above) in London in November. Photograph: Martin Godwin Somalia's Islamist movement, whose leadership is accused by the US of sheltering some of al-Qaida's most wanted operatives, sent a delegation on a fundraising trip to Britain last year, the Guardian has learned....

Last Somali Islamist base 'falls' Ethiopia was at the forefront of the drive against Islamists Somali government troops backed by Ethiopian soldiers have captured the last stronghold of the Union of Islamic Courts, the defence minister says. Col Barre Aden Shire said the town of Ras Kamboni, in south-eastern Somalia, fell after several days of fighting. Remnants of the militia are now reported to be hiding in dense forest along Somalia's border with Kenya. Ethiopia has led a military campaign against the Islamists, who controlled much of Somalia for six months. The US this week launched air strikes against Islamists,...

MOGADISHU (AFP) - Key Somali warlords agreed to disarm their fighters and join the government, but the breakthrough was marred by a deadly gun battle during talks that brokered the accord. Seven warlords, who controlled most of Mogadishu before it fell to Islamist fighters in June, signed the pact, even as forces loyal to one of them engaged in a firefight with security forces outside the talks' venue. "The principal warlords who controlled parts of the Somali capital have decided to surrender their weapons to the transitional federal government," government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari told AFP. "They also agreed to instruct...

US denies southern Somali attacks UN officials fear the air strikes could lead to an escalation of hostilities US forces say they have carried out no fresh air strikes in southern Somalia against Islamist fighters since Monday. Residents in Afmadow town, north of Kismayo, have described two attacks, whilst another was reported by Somalis in the coastal area of Ras Kamboni. Reports suggest Ethiopian MiG fighters and helicopter gunships seen in the city of Kismayo may be involved. There has been considerable criticism of the US after its first overt military action in Somalia since 1994. The Pentagon confirmed that...

It's hard to win a war if you quit fighting in the middle of it. That's the lesson we should learn from Ethiopia's New Year's message to us. Six months ago, when the militia of the Islamic Courts Union seized the Somali capital of Mogadishu, it appeared that the al Qaeda-affiliated radicals were on the verge of a major triumph. The redoubtable StrategyPage declared them "unstoppable," and the usual hand wringers were urging us to negotiate with them. All Islamic extremists are unlovely, but the Islamic Courts Union are a particularly nasty bunch. They modeled themselves on the (now deposed)...

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) - 0105dv-somalia-rally Islamic fighters hiding in Mogadishu since their movement's main force was driven from the Somali capital say they will heed al-Qaida's call for guerrilla attacks and suicide bombings against Ethiopian troops whose intervention was key to the Islamists' defeat. "I am committed to die for the sake of my religion and the al-Qaida deputy's speech only encourages me to go ahead with my holy war," 18-year-old Sahal Abdi told The Associated Press, referring to an audio message posted on the Internet on Friday. Troops of Somalia's transitional government, backed by the Ethiopian military, routed the...

Somalia 'needs peace force soon' Islamist forces in Somalia have been routed by Ethiopian troops Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf has called for a "speedy deployment" of peacekeepers in his war-torn country.He said there was a rare chance for a real political breakthrough in Somalia, plagued by violence for 15 years. Ethiopian troops supporting the transitional government ousted Islamist forces less than a week ago. The US has agreed to provide $10m (£5.2m) towards the funding of a proposed 8,000-strong African Union peacekeeping force. So far, only Uganda has pledged to send troops, agreeing to provide 1,000. Nigeria, Rwanda and...

Somali militia group 'surrounded' Mogadishu is full of weapons and people are reluctant to disarm Somali troops backed by Ethiopian forces are fighting about 600 Islamist militiamen in the south of the country, says an interim government spokesman. Abdirahman Dinari told the BBC soldiers had surrounded the militia group near the Kenyan border - which has been reinforced to stop their escape. US naval forces are deployed off the Somali coast to prevent leaders of the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) escaping. The UIC controlled much of Somalia until retreating over the past 10 days. Kenya's government has shut its...

Net tightens on Somali Islamists Ethiopian aircraft and artillery are backing Somalia's government Kenya has beefed up its security and closed its border with Somalia to halt defeated Islamic militias driven from Kismayo in southern Somalia.The Islamists say their retreat from advancing Ethiopian and Somali forces is tactical and warns of an insurgency. A BBC reporter says helicopters and hundreds of army and police have deployed in the border town of Luboi. The BBC's Bashkas Jugsodaay says a lot of Somali refugees are stranded at the border and are in a bad way. Somalia's interim President Abdullahi Yusuf is...

DEBKAfile reports: Special US forces from Djibouti join the pursuit on the Somali-Kenyan border for three most wanted al Qaeda leaders in the Horn of Africa January 1, 2007, 11:56 AM (GMT+02:00) They fled south with the defeated Somali Islamist fighters. DEBKAfile’s counter-terror sources identify them as: Abdullah Fazul, from the Comoro Islands, Ali Saleh Nabhan, from Kenya, and Abu Taha al-Sudani, from Sudan. Fazul, the most senior, is wanted for lead roles in the 1998 US embassy bombings in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi, the 1996 Ethiopian Airline hijack in which four Israeli air industry directors and 3 Israeli...

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) - Fighters belonging to a militant Islamist movement fled into a rugged, forested corner of Somalia from rapidly advancing government forces Monday, and the prime minister offered amnesty if they surrendered. Regional diplomats worked to arrange the speedy deployment of African peacekeepers to help the interim government establish its authority in the country, which has known only anarchy for 15 years. As the last remaining stronghold of the Islamic group was overrun by government troops backed by Ethiopian tanks and MiG fighter jets, the net began closing on suspected al-Qaida militants believed to be sheltered by the...