British bombers strike Islamic State oil fields in Syria

British bombers made their first strikes on Islamic State in Syria on Thursday, hitting oil fields that Prime Minister David Cameron says are being used to fund attacks on the West.

Tornado bombers took off from the RAF Akrotiri air base in Cyprus just hours after British lawmakers voted 397-223 to support Cameron's plan for air strikes, a Reuters witness said. They returned to base safely several hours later.

California shooting: 14 dead, 17 wounding

Gunmen opened fire on a holiday party on Wednesday at a social services agency in San Bernardino, California, killing 14 people and wounding 17 others before fleeing, authorities said.

As an intense manhunt for up to three suspects ensued, San Bernardino police reported one "suspect down" in an exchange of gunfire with officers but did not immediately confirm whether the individual was connected to the shooting.

EU countries to increase identity checks following thwarted France train attack

By The Guardian

European countries will increase identity checks and baggage controls on trains after American passengers thwarted an attack on a high-speed train from Amsterdam to Paris, France’s interior minister has said.

Bernard Cazeneuve said the checks would be carried out “everywhere it is necessary” but did not give other details. He spoke after an emergency meeting in Paris with EU security and transport officials alongside representatives from nine countries, in the wake of last week’s attempted attack.

France train attack: investigators focus on extremist motive

By The Guardian

Police continue to question gunman after French interior minister says intelligence services had flagged up suspect’s links to radical Islam

Swedish Ikea knife attack in Vasteras leaves two dead

By BBC News

Two people have been killed and another seriously injured in a knife attack at an Ikea store in Vasteras in Sweden, according to police.

Boko Haram gives South Africa 24 hours to end xenophobic attacks or facing bombs

By Nigerian Watch

SOUTH Africa's ongoing xenophobic attacks against African migrants could take an ugly turn for the worse after Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram gave Pretoria 24 hours to halt the pogroms of face the consequences.

In a brief YouTube video message, the murderous terrorist sect responsible for about 13,000 deaths in Nigeria since 2009, threatened to export its terror to South Africa. Boko Haram warned that if the South African government does not contain the situation, it will execute all South Africans living in Nigeria, Chad, Niger and other surrounding countries.

It also threatened to attack South African embassies in the countries. It has not yet been ascertained if the message is genuine or not.

With South Africa's economy in a downward spiral, local people in major cities like Durban and Johannesburg have taken their frustration out on fellow Africans. Dozens of migrants have been murdered on the streets in cold blood but according to Nigeria's minister of state for foreign affairs Senator Musiliu Obanikoro, the country is yet to suffer any casualty yet.

Capitol briefly locked down after suicide at West Front

By Washington Post

The U.S. Capitol was on lockdown for several hours Saturday after a suicide at the West Front of the building, police said.

 

Lt. Kimberly Schneider, spokesman for the U.S. Capitol Police, said the individual died after a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The building and the visitor center were locked down as a precautionary measure. Just before 4 p.m. the East Front was opened but the West Front remained closed for further investigation of a suspicious package linked to the suicide.

Nimrud: Outcry as IS bulldozers attack ancient Iraq site

By BBC

Archaeologists and officials have expressed outrage about the bulldozing of the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud by Islamic State militants in Iraq.

IS began demolishing the site, which was founded in the 13th Century BC, on Thursday, according to Iraqi officials.

The head of the UN's cultural agency condemned the "systematic" destruction in Iraq as a "war crime".

IS, which controls large areas of Iraq and Syria, says shrines and statues are "false idols" that have to be smashed.

"They are erasing our history," said Iraqi archaeologist Lamia al-Gailani.

Nimrud lies on the Tigris river, about 30km (18 miles) south-east of Mosul, which IS controls.

Many of the artefacts found there have been moved to museums in Baghdad and overseas, but many remain on site.

BBC Middle East correspondent Jim Muir says the attempt to destroy Nimrud is already being compared with the Taliban's demolition of theBamiyan Buddha rock sculptures in Afghanistan in 2001.

As well as destroying artefacts, Islamic State also trades in them - and the trade is one of its key sources of revenue.

IS "assaulted the historic city of Nimrud and bulldozed it with heavy vehicles," the tourism and antiquities ministry said on Thursday.

It said the militants continued to "defy the will of the world and the feelings of humanity", calling for a UN Security Council meeting to discuss how to protect cultural heritage in Iraq.

Nimrud covers a large area, and it is not yet clear whether it has been totally destroyed, our correspondent says.

But a local tribal source told Reuters news agency: "Islamic State members came to the Nimrud archaeological city and looted the valuables in it and then they proceeded to level the site to the ground.

"There used to be statues and walls as well as a castle that Islamic State has destroyed completely."

Profile of Nimrud

• Ancient Assyrian city on the River Tigris
• Capital of Assyria for about 150 years
• First excavations in modern times undertaken by Europeans starting in the 1840s
• Treasures unearthed included sections of royal palaces, individual statues and smaller artefacts
• Investigations stopped for decades but in 1949 Sir Max Mallowan (husband of writer Agatha Christie) began fresh excavations
• Extensive photographic record of remaining treasures made in the 1970s

Irina Bokova, head of the UN cultural agency Unesco, condemned the assault.

"This is yet another attack against the Iraqi people, reminding us that nothing is safe from the cultural cleansing under way in the country," she said.

"The deliberate destruction of cultural heritage constitutes a war crime. There is absolutely no political or religious justification for the destruction of humanity's cultural heritage."

Dr Gailani told the BBC: "Nimrud for us in Iraq and for me as an archaeologist is one of the most important [sites]. There are still quite a lot of things that are standing - the reliefs and the statues, the famous winged bulls.

"They are erasing our history. I wish it was a nightmare and I could wake up."

It is a "horrific crime against the cultural heritage of the whole world", said the president of the British Institute for the Study of Iraq, John Curtis, calling Nimrud "the best preserved Assyrian site in Iraq".

Last week, IS released a video apparently showing militants with sledgehammers destroying historic artefacts in a museum in Mosul.

One militant was seen drilling through and pulling apart what appeared to be a stone winged bull.

In the video, the artefacts are described as "false idols" and their destruction justified in religious terms.

That attack was also condemned by the UN as a war crime.

IS has controlled Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, and nearby areas since June 2014 - a region with nearly 1,800 of the country's 12,000 registered archaeological sites.

Iraqi forces and Shia militia, have united to try to drive IS militants from the northern city of Tikrit, with the support of Iran.

The militants are also being targeted by a US-led coalition mounting air strikes.

The latest strikes came on Thursday, with the coalition targeting IS positions around Mosul and other Iraqi cities, as well as several locations across the border in Syria.

Boko Haram launches first attack in Niger

By BBC

The attack on the border town of Bosso was the group's second on a neighbouring country in as many days.

Its militants reportedly killed at least 70 people in an attack on the town of Fotokol in Cameroon on Wednesday. The Boko Haram insurgency has left thousands dead and displaced more than a million over the past six years. The militants control a large stretch of land in north-eastern Nigeria.

Its neighbours have promised to send troops to help it fight the militants, who are now attacking those countries.

Yacouba Soumana Gaoh, the governor of the Diffa region around Bosso, told the BBC that the Islamists had been successfully pushed back after clashing with Nigerian troops.

Mr Gaoh said the number of casualties was unknown but he believed no civilians were harmed during the fighting. A BBC reporter said that the Boko Haram militants had attacked Bosso early in the morning with heavy weapons, causing residents to flee and or hide indoors.

One resident told Agence France-Presse news agency: "We can hear the sound of weapons all around the town, often very near our windows."There is the noise of heavy weapons and of light arms, making our houses shake."

Bosso lies just across the border from Nigeria's Borno state, one of the areas worst affected by Islamist violence. The town is home to thousands of Nigerian refugees who have fled Boko Haram. The militant group, which has sworn allegiance to Islamic State and desires its own caliphate in Nigeria, has killed thousands and displaced millions in the country's north-east.

It is now threatening Chad, Niger and Cameroon, prompting Chad to deploy 2,500 troops to border areas including Bosso. Chad sent troops to Cameroon last month to join the offensive against Boko Haram, following widespread criticism of the Nigerian army's failure to curb the insurgency.

French soldiers wounded in Nice Jewish centre attack

By BBC

A man wielding a knife has attacked three soldiers patrolling outside a Jewish community centre in Nice, in the south of France.

The soldiers were wounded and police said the assailant was captured.

Nice Mayor Christian Estrosi told French TV that a second man had been arrested in connection with the stabbing.

The attacker was expelled from Turkey last week and questioned upon his return, French media reported.

France has been on high alert since last month's terror attacks in Paris by three Islamist gunmen, in which 17 people were killed.

After the attacks, 10,500 soldiers were deployed outside sensitive sites including Jewish and Muslim centres as well as media buildings.

The soldiers attacked in Nice were guarding a building in the city's Massena square which houses the Jewish community centre and a Jewish radio station.

The attacker had been travelling on the tram without a ticket, but left the tram when ticket collectors approached him and he then targeted the soldiers.

He slashed one soldier in the cheek, injured another in the leg and a third on the chin, reports said.

He tried to escape but was caught by a shop owner, tram workers and police patrolling nearby.

He has been named by the mayor as Moussa Coulibaly, aged 30 and of Malian origin, but there appears to be no link with the Paris gunman Amedy Coulibaly, who killed four people in a Jewish supermarket in January.

The suspect had been expelled from Turkey last week, having flown there from the Corsican city of Ajaccio on 28 January, a security source told AFP news agency.

He had raised suspicions among border officials when he bought a single fare to Turkey, and French intelligence asked the Turkish authorities to send him back, the source said.

Although he had been questioned, no judicial action had yet been taken.

Boko Haram attack on Maiduguri: hundreds of thousands of civilians at grave risk

Vía Amnesty International

A failure to protect hundreds of thousands of civilians could lead to a disastrous humanitarian crisis said Amnesty International with reports of two large scale attacks in Nigeria on the major north-eastern city of Maiduguri as well as the nearby town of Monguno.

“These ongoing attacks by Boko Haram are significant and grim news. We believe hundreds of thousands of civilians are now at grave risk,” said Netsanet Belay, Amnesty International’s Africa Director. 

“People in and around Maiduguri need immediate protection. If the military doesn't succeed in stopping Boko Haram's advance they may be trapped with nowhere else to turn.” 

Amnesty International has received reports that at 6am on Sunday, gunmen attacked the base of 33 Artillery brigade at Jintilo village, just 6km outside Maiduguri. There are reports of ongoing fighting at the air force base closer to Maiduguri. 

The Nigerian military has responded with air strikes and moved tanks and troops to the area. 

Civilians have reportedly fled the areas near to Jintilo towards central Maiduguri. However, not all civilians have been able to leave.

“One resident told us: ‘If Maiduguri is attacked, we have nowhere else to go. Kano Road was the only way out’”, said Netsanet Belay.

“All parties to the conflict urgently need to ensure that civilians who wish to evacuate Maiduguri are able to do so. In order to allow civilians to escape the fighting in Maiduguri, military operations should not be conducted along the main point of access: Kano Road.”

Amnesty International is also calling on all parties to the conflict to refrain from military operations in the vicinity of the hospitals in Maiduguri and any other medical facilities.

“The government must ensure the protection of its civilians is at the core of its operations at this very dangerous time. There are hundreds of thousands of people in Maiduguri. Tens of thousands of people had already fled to Maiduguri from several other villages and towns attacked and controlled by Boko Haram, and are now living in camps there. The government’s failure to protect residents of Maiduguri at this time could lead to a disastrous humanitarian crisis.”

The African Union’s Peace and Security Council is expected to discuss on 29 January a possible regional force against Boko Haram.