Page 304 - War Conflict

Houthi rebels violated Sweden talks by blocking UN delegation: Yemen

The Yemen government on Monday said that the Houthi rebels' action of blocking a United Nations (UN) delegation from entering the Taiz province was a clear violation of the Sweden talks.The rebels prevented the UN World Food Program (WFP) delegation from visiting the province of Taiz and blocked several vehicles carrying aid from entering the province through the eastern port of Al-Houban, said Yemeni Minister of Local Administration and chairman of the Higher Committee for Relief in Yemen, Abdul Raqeeb Fateh.According to Al Arabiya, the Yemeni officials also claimed that, from the last three years, the rebels have sieged most of the entrance of the Taiz province.Yesterday, the Arab coalition-led by Saudi Arabia also accused the Houthi rebels of violating the Sweden agreement on a ceasefire in the strategic port city of Hodeidah.In the past 72 hours, the ceasefire has been breached 62 times.On Sunday, Patrick Cammaert, the UN representative tasked with monitoring a ceasefire in the Al

PM releases stamp, coin to commemorate Odisha's Paika rebellion

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday released a stamp and a coin to commemorate the Paika rebellion of 1817 in Odisha. He also inaugurated the new campus of IIT-Bhubaneswar, built at a cost of Rs 1,660 crore, and launched a slew of projects worth Rs 14,523 crore for the state. The Paika Rebellion, many claim, was the first war of Independence against the British. Odisha Governor Ganeshi Lal, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan among others were present on the occasion. In the early 1800s, the farming community of Odisha had risen in rebellion when the British started tinkering with the revenue system. Bakshi Jagabandhu Bidyadhar, the military chief of the King of Khurda, had led his army of Paikas forcing the British East India Company forces to retreat. The rebellion of 1817 came to be known as Paika Bidroh (Paika rebellion. Paiks were traditional landed militia under the state's Gajapati rulers.

7 killed in Afghan explosion

Seven civilians have been killed in an explosion in Afghanistan's Ghazni province, officials said on Monday.

Sabarimala protesters win again, police take back women devotees

After waiting for hours barely one kilometre from the Sabarimala temple, two Kerala women devotees were escorted down the hill, as thousands of Ayyappa devotees on Monday put up a massive protest causing one of the woman to faint.

Trump says Erdogan assures 'will eradicate' any IS left in Syria

US President Donald Trump late Sunday said his Turkish counterpart assured him that any remaining Islamic State group fighters in Syria will be eliminated, after Trump abruptly ordered US troops in Syria to leave. "President @RT_Erdogan of Turkey has very strongly informed me that he will eradicate whatever is left of ISIS in Syria," Trump said in a Tweet around midnight Sunday, using another acronym for the jihadist group. Repeating a pattern of admiring comments towards global strongmen, Trump added that Erdogan "is a man who can do it." Trump appeared to be elaborating on a phone call he had earlier on Sunday with Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. They discussed Trump's withdrawal of the US troops which were assisting in the multinational fight against IS, and whose departure has shocked global partners and American politicians alike. "Our troops are coming home!" Trump said in his late-Sunday tweet.

Pak troops target forward posts, villages in Rajouri

Pakistani troops Monday opened fire and shelled forward posts and villages along the LoC in Rajouri district of Jammu and Kashmir, police said. The firing and shelling from across the border started in Keri, Lam, Pukharni and Peer Badaser areas of Noushera sector around 9.30 am, a police officer said. Army personnel guarding the LoC retaliated and the cross-border firing between the two sides was going on when last reports came in. There was no immediate report of any casualty, the officer said.

2 women stopped 1km from Sabarimala, police lathi-charge protesters

Two Kerala women devotees from the the hitherto banned age group were stopped barely one kilometre from the Sabarimala temple on Monday by thousands of protesters, who had to be lathi-charged by the police as tension broke out here.

Gunmen kill 17 in Nigeria

Seventeen people have been killed following an attack by unidentified gunmen in Nigeria's Zamfara state, police said.

Four IEDs recovered

Four improvised explosive devices (IEDs) were recovered from a hilly area between Sonehara and Baliya villages of Garwah district on Sunday, police said. A police team rushed to the spot based on reports by locals and seized the IEDs, they said. A bomb disposal squad was called in to defuse the explosives, but it could not arrive at the spot till late evening, a police officer said. The bombs seemed to have been kept by miscreants to create a reign of terror in the area, Dandai Police Station SP (Ops) Sadan Kumar said. An investigation is underway to nab the culprits, he said.

Burundi military opposes Somali withdrawal plan

The Burundi army on Sunday said it opposed a request by the African Union that it withdraw 1,000 soldiers serving in an African peacekeeping force in Somalia by February 28. Burundi army spokesman Colonel Floribert Biyereke said in a statement that the military would ask the government to argue for a proportionate number of troops be withdrawn from each AU member country, rather than solely Burundian soldiers. Burundi is the second biggest contributor to the 21,500-strong peacekeeping force with 5,400 soldiers, behind Uganda with 6,200 but ahead of Djibouti, Kenya and Ethiopia. The African Union is gradually scaling back its AMISOM force as Somalia's nascent armed forces are trained and deployed to replace them. AMISOM was first deployed in 2007 to support Somalia's fragile internationally-backed government and fight Al-Shabaab jihadists blamed for scores of bloody attacks. The African Union request, made through a diplomatic document called a note verbale, came amid recent tension ...

Al-Qaeda getting ready to attack passenger planes: British Security Minister

British Security Minister Ben Wallace said that the al-Qaeda terror group is developing technologies to shoot down passenger planes."The aviation threat is real . Al-Qaeda are resurgent. They have reorganized. They are pushing more and more plots towards Europe and have become familiar with new methods and still aspire to aviation attacks," Wallace told The Sunday Times.He added that according to intelligence, al-Qaeda may be working on such technology as miniature bombs and drones stuffed with explosives.Militants may also be infiltrating airport personnel with sleeper agents, Wallace added.Flights at London Gatwick were suspended between late Wednesday and early Friday amid reports that two drones were flying over the airfield. The flights were temporarily shut down again in the afternoon on Friday over reports of drone sighting and were subsequently resumed.

Fresh bread price protests hit Sudan

Fresh protests against bread price hikes in Sudan hit two cities Sunday, as riot police ensured an uneasy calm in the capital Khartoum five days into demonstrations that have claimed at least eight lives. Residents in Um Rawaba, 200 kilometres southwest of Khartoum, told AFP that some 600 people gathered in the market chanting the slogan "the people want the fall of the regime". Protesters burnt tyres and branches in the streets and attempted to storm a government building before being rebuffed by security officials, witnesses said. In Atabara, 300 kilometres northeast of the capital, riot police and plain-clothed operatives deployed tear gas against hundreds of protesters, a witness said. A wave of unrest has rocked Sudan since Wednesday after the government hiked the price of a loaf of bread from one Sudanese pound to three (from about two to six US cents). Clashes with riot police killed at least eight people -- two in Atbara and six in Al-Qadarif to the southeast of the capital, ..

Yemen: UN Representative to hold talks with Houthis

The head of a United Nations mission tasked with monitoring a ceasefire in the Yemeni port city of Al Hodeidah arrived in Sanaa on Sunday to hold talks with the leaders of Houthi militia.Anadolu reported that the UN representative, Patrick Cammaert, arrived in the Yemeni capital after attending a meeting with the representatives of Yemen's Saudi-backed government on Saturday.On November 21, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution sponsored by the British government, aiming to appoint a UN team to observe a ceasefire over the Houthi dominated port city of Al Hodeidah.The Houthis had agreed to remove troops and cease fighting in the port city of Hodeidah on December 13, after consultations in Sweden between the rebels and the Yemeni government took place.However, the Houthis have reportedly violated the ceasefire in Yemen 14 times since Friday (December 21).UN-backed peace talks between the two warring sides (government and Houthi rebels) in Yemen took off in Sweden, ...

Insurgent leader brought to Manipur from Delhi

Leader of Manipur's insurgent group, the Kangleipak Communist Party (People's War Group), Oinam Ibochouba, was brought by air from Delhi to Imphal on Sunday, police sources said.

Afghan president appoints Pakistan critics to 2 top posts

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani appointed hard-line opponents of neighbouring Pakistan to two top security posts on Sunday, potentially complicating US efforts to revive peace talks with the Taliban ahead of next summer's withdrawal of 7,000 American troops. Ghani announced that Amrullah Saleh will be the next interior minister and Asadullah Khaleed will be defence minister. Both are former intelligence chiefs who have blamed Pakistan for the Taliban's resurgence in recent years and have even called for it to be declared a state sponsor of terror. Afghanistan's parliament will have to approve the appointments. Pakistan, which has influence over the Taliban, is taking part in the latest US effort to revive the peace process. It was Pakistan that helped orchestrate last week's talks in the United Arab Emirates. Representatives of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Pakistan and the United States attended those talks with the Taliban. In a significant development, Afghanistan's national Security ...

Egypt security forces kill 14 militants in Sinai

Egyptian security forces have killed 14 Islamist militants in an exchange of fire in the country's turbulent northern Sinai region, the interior ministry said Sunday. The militants were under surveillance ahead of security forces raiding their hideout in the town of El-Arish, the ministry said in a statement. An exchange of fire lasting several hours killed eight militants, the ministry said without detailing when the raid took place. The other six attempted to flee but were killed in a police chase. The militants were suspected of planning attacks on "important and vital facilities", armed forces and police personnel, the interior ministry said. Egypt has for years been battling an insurgency in North Sinai, which upsurged following the 2013 military ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi. Hundreds of police and soldiers have since been killed in militant attacks. Security forces have since February been conducting a major operation focused on the Sinai Peninsula, aimed at wiping

Macron calls for order after 'yellow vest' attack on police

French President Emmanuel Macron called for "order" on Sunday after a sixth weekend of "yellow vest" anti-government protests marked by dwindling participation and a violent attack on police in Paris. Speaking during a visit to the central African state of Chad where he was visiting French troops serving in a counter-terrorism force Macron said: "There must be order now, calm and harmony. Our country needs it." "It needs harmony, unity, sincere commitment to strong collective causes and we must heal the divisions," said the 41-year-old centrist, who has struggled to tamp down the anger of the working poor in smalltown and rural France over falling spending power and policies seen as tilted towards the rich. A total of 38,600 people took part in a sixth round of nationwide protests on Saturday, according to the interior ministry -- around half the number that demonstrated a week earlier. In Paris, the scene of fierce clashes and widespread destruction in previous weeks, the protests ...

PM Modi announces new award for National Unity

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced the institution of a new national honour for National Unity on the pattern of Padma Awards, an official statement said Sunday. The annual award would be given to any Indian who has contributed to national unity in any manner, it said, adding that the prime minister drew inspiration from Sardar Patel's contribution towards unification of the country. The announcement was made at the just concluded annual conference of Director Generals of Police and Inspector Generals of Police held at Kevadiya in Narmada district of Gujarat, near the statue of Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel, country's first home minister. Modi also released a commemorative postal stamp on the National Police Memorial and a special issue of Indian Police Journal on police martyrdom, published by the Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPR&D), it said. The prime minister also suggested that a national level parade may be organised by police forces of about three to four ..

Afghan leader replaces top security chiefs in major shake-up

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Sunday replaced two of the country's top security chiefs with staunch anti-Taliban officials, in a major shake-up days after US President Donald Trump's decision to slash troop numbers in the country. Amrullah Saleh and Assadullah Khaled, both former heads of the Afghan intelligence agency, have been appointed to the critical posts of interior minister and defence minister, respectively, a presidential decree said. There was no official explanation for the sudden reshuffle. But it comes four months after Ghani rejected the resignations of former interior minister Wais Ahmad Barmak and defence minister Tariq Shah Bahrami following criticism over an increasingly deadly insurgency. The move caps a tumultuous few days for Afghanistan after an American official told AFP late last week that Trump had decided to pull out "roughly half" of the 14,000 US forces in the country. The unexpected move stunned and dismayed foreign diplomats and Afghan officials in ...

Head of UN monitors arrives in Yemen's rebel-held Sanaa

The head of the UN team tasked with monitoring a fragile ceasefire in Yemen's port city of Hodeida arrived in the rebel-held capital of Sanaa on Sunday, an AFP photographer said. Retired Dutch general Patrick Cammaert is heading a joint committee including members of the government and the Huthi rebels, in charge of monitoring a truce in the Red Sea city and its surroundings. Cammaert was greeted by head of the Huthi delegation, Ali al-Mushki, and a number of other members of the UN team at Sanaa international airport. He did not comment upon arrival. He is making a stop in Sanaa before heading to Hodeida, a lifeline port city that serves as the entry point for the majority of imports to war-torn Yemen, a UN official said, after holding talks Saturday with Yemen government officials in Aden. On Saturday, Cammaert urged the government and the Saudi-led coalition backing the loyalists to uphold the ceasefire that came into effect last week, said UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric. He also ..