French priest kidnapped in Cameroon

A French priest has been kidnapped in northern Cameroon close to the border with Nigeria, the French foreign ministry says.

Georges Vandenbeusch was seized in the early hours of Thursday near Koza, about 30km (19 miles) from the border.

Around 15 gunmen burst into the compound in Nguetchewe where the priest worked, according to his bishop.

The Nigerian Islamist militant group, Boko Haram, is known to operate in the area.

"We are working with Cameroonian authorities to secure his release," French officials said in a statement.

'Danger'

France says it warned people that the area was dangerous but that the 42-year-old "chose to remain in his parish to carry out his work".

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The Paris-based bishop responsible for Mr Vandenbeusch, Monseigneur Gerard Daucourt, said the priest's suitcase was found on the road to Nigeria with only a chequebook in it, according to Reuters news agency.

A nun who worked with Mr Vandenbeusch at the compound told Agence France-Presse news agency that the gunmen were English speakers who arrived on foot.

A Cameroon government spokesman, Issa Tchiroma Bakary, told the agency that officials feared the priest had already been taken out of the country.

Cameroonian officials said he may have been targeted by Boko Haram.

French President Francois Hollande said "everything will be done" to secure the priest's release.

Speaking on a trip to Monaco, he urged French citizens not to put themselves in harm's way, according to AFP.

Boko Haram at a glance

• Founded in 2002
• Official Arabic name, Jama'atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda'awati wal-Jihad, means "People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet's Teachings and Jihad"
• Initially focused on opposing Western education
• Nicknamed Boko Haram, a phrase in the local Hausa language meaning, "Western education is forbidden"
• Launched military operations in 2009 to create an Islamic state across Nigeria
• Founding leader Mohammed Yusuf killed in same year in police custody
• Succeeded by Abubakar Shekau, who the military wrongly claimed in 2009 had been killed
• Suspected to have split into rival factions in 2012
• Military claims in August 2013 that Mr Shekau and his second-in-command Momodu Bama have been killed in separate attacks; no independent confirmation of claim

'Ransom'

Earlier this year, seven members of a French family - four of them children - were abducted by Islamist militants and held hostage for two months.

The kidnapped Moulin-Fournier family were welcomed back to France by President Hollande in April

The Moulin-Fournier family was first abducted near Cameroon's northern Waza National Park, which lies just a few kilometres from the Nigerian border, in February.

They were taken over the border to neighbouring Nigeria.

Boko Haram was paid more than $3m (£2m) before releasing the family, according to a confidential Nigerian government report.

The report, seen by Reuters news agency, did not say who paid the money.

Both France and Cameroon denied paying a ransom while Nigeria has not commented on the issue.

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-24936965]

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Iraqi bombs hit Shia religious processions near Baghdad

Among the bombings on Thursday was a blast in the northern city of Kirkuk

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Attacks targeting Shia Muslims on the festival of Ashura have killed at least 41 people across Iraq.

In Diyala province at least 32 people were killed, while in Wasit province at least nine died when two bomb blasts hit a religious procession.

Up to two million Shia will make an Ashura pilgrimage to the Iraqi city of Karbala, where the Prophet Muhammad's grandson Hussein was killed in 680AD.

Shia religious events are frequently targeted by Sunni militants.

A double blast in the northern, ethnically mixed city of Kirkuk also wounded five people, officials said.

On Wednesday, a string of bomb attacks in Iraq targeting Shia pilgrims and police left at least 20 people dead, officials said.

Sectarian violence in Iraq has reached its highest level since 2008.

The UN says 979 people - including 158 police and 127 military personnel - were killed in violent attacks in October. More than 6,500 civilians have died this year.

Iraq has also seen a spill-over of violence from the conflict in Syria, where jihadist rebels linked to the Islamic State of Iraq, a Sunni militant umbrella group that includes al-Qaeda, have risen to prominence.

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-24936961]

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'Block-Buster' Truck Bomb One of the Biggest Ever

Security forces in Afghanistan released a short video of what American experts and analysts say is one of the biggest truck bombs ever discovered.

YouTube, Afghan Security Forces

Afghan national security forces near the border with Pakistan recently intercepted one of the largest truck bombs ever built, a massive "vehicle-borne improvised explosive device," or VBIED, packed with some 61,500 pounds of explosives.

By comparison, the truck bomb that all but leveled the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995, killing 168 people, was comprised of almost 5,000 lbs. of ammonium nitrate fertilizer mixed with fuel oil. The same recipe is commonly used in Afghanistan to make a variety of IEDs that have killed hundreds of ISAF troops in small numbers since 2001 -- but typically using dozens of pounds, not thousands.

"We're talking something with the power to raze whole blocks in an American city," Andrew Gumbel, author of last year's "Oklahoma City: What the Investigation Missed -- And Why It Still Matters," told ABC News.

Army Col. Christopher Garver, a spokesperson for the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force's Joint Command in Kabul, told ABC News the massive bomb was discovered Oct. 14 when the truck was stopped in Gardez, Afghanistan. The bomb, he said was, in the military's estimation, "larger in comparison to some others we have seen." Another Defense Department source said that it was one of the largest truck bombs ever known to have been built.

"Vehicle-borne IEDs are one of the most significant threats to everyone in Afghanistan, as we have seen over the summer fighting season," Garver said.

As another point of reference, the TNT truck bomb that destroyed the U.S. Marine compound in Beirut 30 years ago, killing 241 American troops, was about one quarter the size of the Gardez VBIED.

Afghan and U.S. sources linked the recent Hino "jingle" truck, a local variety of cargo truck, piled with TNT to the al Qaeda-aligned Haqqani network, which allegedly has been responsible for almost all major truck bombings in Kabul and in Afghanistan's eastern tribal areas near Pakistan, from which the insurgents originate. A likely target was the U.S. military's Forward Operating Base Goode near Gardez City, the sources told ABC News.

Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security (NDS) said the explosives were "placed professionally under firewood" in the Hino truck.

Garver said the truck bomb, which an NDS video showed stopped on a desolate road and loaded with white bags, was intercepted by Afghan security forces. According to Afghan sources, the driver was a Pakistani who set off a grenade in the cab of the truck. He was taken to a nearby hospital where he detonated a suicide vest and killed himself, officials said.

The Haqqani network was designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department in September 2012, a move that was "welcomed" by the U.S. military.

An ABC News investigation, which aired on "World News with Diane Sawyer" this week, showed that lawmakers have tried to stop the U.S. Army from giving logistics contracts to companies linked to Afghan insurgents including the deadly network run by Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son Siraj.

The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, John Sopko, has called for cancelling the contracts because classified intelligence links the contractors to the Haqqani insurgents, who are responsible for killing hundreds of American G.I.s.

On Monday, Siraj's brother Nasiruddin was reported to have been assassinated in Islamabad, Pakistan.

[http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/afghanistan-block-buster-truck-bomb-biggest/story?id=20863072]

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Iraqi bombs hit Shia religious processions near Baghdad

Shia pilgrims were the target of an attack on Wednesday in Tikrit

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Two near-simultaneous bomb attacks targeting a Shia religious procession south of Baghdad have left at least eight people dead and dozens wounded.

The attack happened in Wasit province, on the Shia festival of Ashura, which commemorates the martyrdom of Prophet Muhammad's grandson, Hussein, in 680AD.

At least 15 Shia pilgrims were killed and 65 injured in a suicide bomb attack in Diyala province, officials said.

Shia religious events are frequently targeted by Sunni militants.

Thursday's twin attack took place in the town of Hafriyah, about 50km (32 miles) from the capital, police said.

The suicide bombing happened in the city of al-Sadiya in the restive Diyala province.

On Wednesday, a string of bomb attacks in Iraq targeting Shia pilgrims and police left at least 20 people dead, officials said.

Up to two million Shia are expected to make the pilgrimage to the Iraqi city of Karbala, where there is a shrine to Hussein's martyrdom.

Sectarian violence in Iraq has reached its highest level since 2008.

The UN says 979 people - including 158 police and 127 military personnel - were killed in violent attacks in October. More than 6,500 civilians have died this year.

Iraq has also seen a spill-over of violence from the conflict in Syria, where jihadist rebels linked to the Islamic State of Iraq, a Sunni militant umbrella group that includes al-Qaeda, have risen to prominence.

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-24936961#TWEET954492]

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The return of Palestinian terror?

The Israeli press reacts to the stabbing death of a soldier; the battle over an Iran deal continues?

Police investigate the bus where Israeli soldier Eden Atias was stabbed to death on November 13

Shock and outrage are splashed across the front pages of Israel’s dailies Wednesday as they react to the stabbing death of an Israeli soldier, Eden Atias from Upper Nazareth.

Yedioth Ahronoth starts its coverage with a blow-by-blow account of the attack through the eyes of two men who witnessed it. It profiles a security guard and an IDF officer who acted quickly to subdue the stabber, a 16-year-old from outside Jenin who was in Israel illegally. Second Lieutenant Yitzhak Mimon was outside the bus when he saw the youth attack the solider. He immediately ran onto the bus and pulled his weapon on the stabber, “but he wasn’t out of control; in fact, he just froze in place.”

The paper also carries an article that looks back over the past two months and reminds its readers that eight attacks against Israelis have occurred since mid-September. However, despite the apparent uptick, the IDF denies that there is a new wave of incidents. “This is just a single attack,” and IDF source tells the paper.

Writing about the attack in Haaretz, Amos Harel says the IDF knows it has a problem with lone, spur-of-the-moment attackers. Since they’re not affiliated to any organization, the IDF doesn’t receive any intelligence about the attack, thus making it hard to prevent. Police sources tell Harel that the 16-year-old stabber told investigators that he snuck into Israel to find a job and decided that if he wasn’t successful he’d kill a Jew.

Over in Israel Hayom, the front-page headline editorializes: “Incitement = murder.” In an op-ed, Haim Shine openly places the blame for the attack on the Palestinian Authority for, he says, creating an atmosphere of violence. “A Palestinian boy who knows the will of his leaders doesn’t need to get instructions. The message is clear and sharp as a knife: The only way to force the Israelis to make concessions on Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] is through acts of violence.”

Maariv also waxes political in its coverage, with Elkana Shor penning an odd piece about prisoner releases titled “Rewards without punishment.” Instead of staying in the present, Shor goes 14 years into the future and imagines what the now 30-year-old stabber will be feeling as he is about to be released due to American pressure on Israel. In the story he has changed, no longer an angry teen but rather remorseful and cognizant of the fat that violence didn’t achieve anything for the Palestinian people, and all he wants is a family. In the end of the piece he is excited for his release, while Shor noticeably leaves out any mention of the victim, Atias.

Fighting for sanctions

Not far from the media spotlight is the still-simmering fight over a possible deal on Iran’s nuclear program. “The war over sanctions,” is how Yedioth characterizes recent discussions. The Obama administration reportedly told Congressional leaders, “Don’t add any more sanctions” while negotiations with Iran are ongoing, saying that additional measures could spoil the negotiations.

Meanwhile, back in Israel, the French ambassador to Israel is crediting his foreign minister for standing up to the Iranians. Maariv quotes Patrick Maisonnave as saying that it was only after Paris raised objections to a proposed nuclear deal with Iran that the rest of the world powers fell in line, including the US.

In Israel Hayom, Boaz Bismuth reacts to Thomas Friedman’s column in The New York Times, in which Friedman argues that the US is worried about its interests and not Israel’s. Bismuth goes on to praise the French for worrying about interests other than their own, while quoting Ambassador Maisonnave: “The US secretary of state took France’s objections, and they became American objections and then the position of the six world powers.” In another nod to France, Bismuth cheekily closes his column with a quote attributed to Thomas Jefferson: “Every man has two countries – his own and France.”

[http://www.timesofisrael.com/the-return-of-palestinian-terror/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter]

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U.S. blacklists two Nigerian organizations as terror groups

WASHINGTON: The United States on Wednesday named Nigeria’s Boko Haram and Ansaru as foreign terrorist organizations and slapped sanctions on them.

“Today, the United States designated Nigeria-based groups Boko Haram and Ansaru as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists,” said Lisa Monaco, President Barack Obama’s top advisor on homeland security and counterterrorism, in a statement.

The move entailed immediate sanctions against the two groups, including denied access to U.S. financial institutions, a freezing on their assets in U.S. banks and a ban on doing business with or providing support to them.

“These designations demonstrate our strong support for Nigeria’ s fight against terrorism and its efforts to address security challenges in the north,” Monaco said.

Founded in 2001, Boko Haram, a nickname meaning “Western education is forbidden,” is an Islamic militant organization operating in northeastern Nigeria, north of Cameroon and Niger, with links to al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, as the U.S. State Department put it.

Ansaru is a splinter group of Boko Haram.

Monaco said Boko Haram and Ansaru have been responsible for thousands of deaths in northeast and central Nigeria in the past few years, including dozens of attacks on churches and mosques, targeted killings of civilians, and the 2011 suicide bombing of the United Nations building in Abuja that killed 21 people and injured dozens more.

The Nigerian government has declared a state of emergency in northeastern states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe.

In his meeting with Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan in September, Obama encouraged Nigeria to pursue a “comprehensive” counterterrorism approach that combines effective law enforcement, economic opportunity and protection of human rights.

“The United States stands firmly with the people of Nigeria in their efforts to bring the terrorist violence perpetrated by these groups to an end,” Monaco said.

[http://www.mizonews.net/world/u-s-blacklists-two-nigerian-organizations-terror-groups/]

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NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly heads to Abu Dhabi to sign anti-terror deal

The agreement with the United Arab Emirates promotes the sharing of information and helps to fight terrorism. The NYPD has a detective posted in the city — one of 11 city cops working abroad.

New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly is heading to the Middle East to sign a deal to improve anti-terror cooperation with the United Arab Emirates. “The sharing of information is crucial to the security of New York City,” said Deputy Commissioner John McCarthy, the NYPD’s top spokesman.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly is winging his way to the Middle East to sign a deal to make it easier to exchange information and fight terrorism, the NYPD said.

Kelly and his security detail left Wednesday for Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates.

The NYPD has had a detective posted in the Persian Gulf city since 2009, one of 11 of city cops working abroad.

“The sharing of information is crucial to the security of New York City,” said Deputy Commissioner John McCarthy, the NYPD’s top spokesman. “Knowing what’s happening in other places around the world and getting that information quickly is important.”

GOOGLE

Top cop Raymond Kelly is on the way to Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates.

McCarthy also said the memorandum of understanding allows for the exchange of ideas and training methods.

He said, for instance, that the NYPD has advised Abu Dhabi's Critical Infrastructure & Coastal Protection Authority (CICPA) about how to protect its assets.

Kelly has praised the briefings he has received from NYPD detectives who have responded to various acts of terror around the world in recent years.

McCarthy said most agreements were formalized at Police Headquarters but that Abu Dhabi officials made a request for Kelly to visit them.

Kelly is expected to sign a document formalizing the arrangement on Thursday and return to New York on Friday.

The NYPD has similar arrangements with the police departments in Tel Aviv, Toronto, Montreal, Paris, Madrid, London, Singapore, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Amman, Jordan, and Lyon, France.

[http://www.nydailynews.com/nypd-top-ray-kelly-abu-dhabi-sign-anti-terror-deal-article-1.1515704]

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