Middle East Brutality

OUR DAILY MIDDLE EAST VIOLENCE 25.2.2014…….

arab man crying

1 Egyptian killed, 66 detained for illegal fishing in Saudi Arabia

Daily News Egypt  /   

Egyptian Consulate-General in Saudi Arabia reports 205 fishing violations in two years

By Aya Nader

One Egyptian fisherman is dead, one is injured and 65 are in detention after a Saudi Arabian border guard Saturday fired shots at two Egyptian fishing boats that entered territorial waters without permits.

The Jazan border guard fired warning shots toward the boats after they refused to stop, Saudi authorities told state-owned Al-Ahram.

Egyptian fishermen are frequently found fishing illegally in territorial waters. The Egyptian Consulate-General in Saudi Arabia reported 205 violations in the past two years.

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MIDDLE EAST

Senior al-Qaeda commander killed in Syria

Rebels say Abu Khaled al-Suri, a close aide to al-Qaeda leader Zawahiri, was killed in a suicide bomb attack in Aleppo.

Last updated: 24 Feb 2014 04:23

Man thought to be Suri seen here in Syria in picture provided by SITE Intelligence Group [AFP]

A Syrian rebel commander, who fought alongside al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden and was close to its current chief Ayman al-Zawahiri, was killed by a suicide attack in Aleppo, intensifying in-fighting between rival armed groups.

The killing of Abu Khaled al-Suri on Sunday in a suicide bombing in the al-Halq area of Aleppo was confirmed by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said he died along with six others when a fighter from the rival Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group blew himself up at an Ahrar al-Sham post in al-Halq.

Al-Suri’s death occurred against the backdrop of bloody rebel infighting between an al-Qaeda-breakaway ISIL and an array of armed opposition groups.

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Air raids in central Syria kill 26: activists

BY KHALED YACOUB OWEIS

AMMAN Mon Feb 24, 2014 12:48pm EST

Damaged buildings are pictured in the besieged area of Homs February 22, 2014. REUTERS/Thaer Al Khalidiya

Damaged buildings are pictured in the besieged area of Homs February 22, 2014.

CREDIT: REUTERS/THAER AL KHALIDIYA

(Reuters) – Air raids on rebel-held towns across Syria killed 26 people on Monday, activists said, two days after the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution demanding an end to indiscriminate shelling and aerial attacks.

Syria’s almost three-year-old conflict has raged on despite peace talks that began in Geneva last month and the passage of the U.N. resolution, a rare moment of unity between the West and Russia, President Bashar al-Assad’s strongest backer.

Two women and 10 children were among the dead in government air raids on the town of al-Neshabieh, in the eastern outskirts of Damascus, near a railway marking the frontline between Islamist fighters and Assad’s forces backed by Lebanese Hezbollah militants, and in the province of Homs to the north.

“Two simultaneous raids hit Neshabieh first. People were pulling the bodies of a women and her two children from one house when the planes came back and hit the crowed, killing another nine,” activist Abu Sakr told Reuters from the area.

He said artillery fire from a battalion based at Damascus airport and the nearby town of Mleiha then hit the town. Fifty people were wounded in the combined bombardment, he said.

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Seventeen dead in bombings and shootings in Iraq

BY GHAZWAN HASSAN AND KAREEM RAHEEM

TIKRIT, Iraq Sun Feb 23, 2014 12:44pm EST

A member of the Iraqi security forces patrols with his weapon in Sulaiman Pek, 160 km (99 miles) north of Baghdad, February 21, 2014. REUTERS/Mohammed Adnan

A member of the Iraqi security forces patrols with his weapon in Sulaiman Pek, 160 km (99 miles) north of Baghdad, February 21, 2014.

CREDIT: REUTERS/MOHAMMED ADNAN

(Reuters) – At least 17 people were killed and dozens wounded in bombings and shootings in northern Iraq and Baghdad on Sunday, police and medical sources said.

In the deadliest attack, gunmen killed three policemen and four detainees traveling in a police convoy near the northern city of Baiji.

The police had carried out 65 arrests in the town of Siniya, near Baiji, and was returning south to its base in Tikrit when gunmen ambushed them with a roadside bomb and sprayed gunfire, police said.

In Baghdad, a bomb exploded in a second-hand market for bicycles and motorcycles in the Shi’ite neighborhood of Sadr City, killing five people and wounding 22, police and medical sources said.

In the eastern Baghdad neighborhood of Waziriyah, at least four people were killed and 18 wounded when a bomb exploded on a busy street, police said.

Gunmen attacked a police checkpoint and killed one policeman near the mainly Sunni town of Tarmiya, north of Baghdad, police sources said.

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Taliban kill 21 Afghan soldiers in night raid on Pakistan border

Five other soldiers taken prisoner in show of strength against Afghan army just weeks ahead of critical election
  • Emma Graham-Harrison in Kabul
  • theguardian.com, 

Nineteen Afghan soldiers killed, seven kidnapped by Taliban

Afghan army soldiers on guard duty at a beefed-up checkpoint following the Taliban attack. Photograph: Jalil Rezayee/EPA

The Taliban killed 21 Afghan soldiers on Sunday at a remote outpost near the border with Pakistan, and took at least five others prisoner, in a show of military strength just weeks before a critical election.

The night raid was one of the deadliest single attacks in recent years on the Afghan military, who are stronger and more disciplined than the police and less often targeted directly by insurgents.

President Hamid Karzai cancelled a planned trip to Sri Lanka to deal with the fallout from the deaths, and in a swipe at his neighbour condemned Islamabad for tolerating havens for the insurgents just inside its border.

The fighting came less than two months before a presidential election that, if it goes ahead smoothly, would give Afghanistan a first peaceful and democratic transfer of power.

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Suicide bombing in Lebanon; 3 killed

By Mohammed Tawfeeq, CNN
February 22, 2014 — Updated 1934 GMT (0334 HKT)

(CNN) — A suicide car bomb in Lebanon killed at least three people and wounded 15 others on Saturday, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported.

The bomb exploded at a military checkpoint at Al-Assi Bridge in Hermel, the agency reported.

Two of those killed were soldiers and the other was a civilian. At least five of those wounded were soldiers.

The location is in northeastern Lebanon near the Syrian border.

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S. Sudan army says killed 200 rebels amidst denial

February 24, 2014 (JUBA) – South Sudan army spokesperson claimed on Monday that their forces killed nearly 200 rebels who launched attacks on government positions in Gadiang, about 90km north of Jonglei state capital, Bor on Sunday.

South Sudan army spokesperson Phillip Aguer (AP/Getty)

“Forces of Riek Machar were repulsed leaving behind them 173 [rebels] killed,” Philip JPEG - 30.1 kbAguer toldSudan Tribune by phone, adding that the army lost 10 soldiers while 16 were wounded.

Lul Ruai Koang, a spokesperson for the rebels has, however, disputed the army’s account of events, claiming figures released by their opponents were exaggerated.

“We did not lose that number of servicemen in our side,” he said, but added that government forces had launched the attack without providing casualty in details.

Also earlier claims by the rebels they were in control of Gadiang could not independently be verified by Sudan Tribune due to the remoteness of the area.

Philip Thon Leek, a lawmaker representing Duk County in South Sudan assembly, blamed the rebels for “turning their anger on villagers after being defeated by government forces” on Sunday.

“They are destroying buildings, schools and [Duk] county headquarters,” Leek said in an interview on Monday, adding that two civilians were killed during Sunday’s attack.

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Pakistan Taliban commander killed by gunmen

Asmatullah Shaheen, wanted by the government for ordering suicide bombings, is killed in attack on his car.

Asmatullah Shaheen, a Pakistan Taliban commander wanted by the government for ordering suicide bombings, has been shot dead in an attack which also killed three associates.

Shaheen, of the armed group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan [TTP], was ambushed on Monday in Dargah Mandi village near Miransha, which is in North Waziristan.

“Unknown attackers opened fire on Asmatullah Shaheen’s car. He along with three associates died on the spot,” a security official in Miranshah told news agency AFP.

No group has yet claimed they carried out the attack. The Pakistan government had a 10m rupee – $95,000 – bounty on his head.

More here.

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