Tag Archives: Death

Egypt says attackers had Islamic State flag as mosque death toll rises

Egypt says attackers had Islamic State flag as mosque death toll rises

By Omar Fahmy

CAIRO (Reuters) – Gunmen who attacked a mosque in North Sinai were carrying an Islamic State flag, Egyptian officials said on Saturday as the state news agency reported the death toll had risen to 305, including 27 children.

Egypt’s military said they had carried out air strikes and raids overnight against militants held responsible for the killings, the bloodiest attack in Egypt’s modern history.

The attack also left 128 people injured, the MENA state news agency reported, while Egypt’s public prosecutor’s office linked it to Islamic State militants, also known as Daesh.

“They numbered between 25 and 30, carrying the Daesh flag and took up positions in front of the mosque door and its 12 windows with automatic rifles,” the prosecutor said in a statement.

The gunmen, some wearing masks and military-style uniforms, surrounded the mosque blocking windows and a doorway and opened fire inside with automatic rifles, the statement said, citing their investigation and interviews with wounded survivors.

No group has claimed responsibility, but Egyptian forces are battling a stubborn Islamic State affiliate in the region, one of the surviving branches of the militant group after it suffered defeats by U.S.-backed forces in Iraq and Syria.

“The air force has over the past few hours eliminated a number of outposts used by terrorist elements,” the army said.

Witnesses say gunmen set off a bomb at the end of Friday prayers at the Al Rawdah mosque in Bir al-Abed, west of El-Arish city, and then opened fire as worshippers tried to flee, shooting at ambulances and setting fire to cars to block roads.

Images on state media showed bloodied victims and bodies covered in blankets inside the mosque.

Striking a mosque would be a shift in tactics for the Sinai militants, who have previously attacked troops and police and more recently tried to spread their insurgency to the mainland by hitting Christian churches and pilgrims.

The massive casualties in the Sinai attack and the targeting of a mosque stunned Egyptians who have struggled through instability after the 2011 uprising ousted long-standing leader Hosni Mubarak, and the years of protests that followed.

UTMOST FORCE

Local sources said some of the worshippers were Sufis, whom groups such as Islamic State consider targets because they revere saints and shrines, which for Islamists is tantamount to idolatry. Islamic State has targeted Sufi and Shi’ite Muslims in other countries like Iraq.

The jihadists in Egypt’s Sinai have also attacked local tribes and their militias for working with the army and police.

Sisi, a former armed forces commander who supporters see as a bulwark against Islamist militants, promised the “utmost force” against those responsible for Friday’s attack. Security has been a key reason for his supporters to back him, and he is expected to run for re-election next year.

“What is happening is an attempt to stop us from our efforts in the fight against terrorism,” he said on Friday.

North Sinai, a mostly desert area which stretches from the Suez Canal eastwards to the Gaza Strip and Israel, has long been a security headache for Egypt and is a strategic region for Cairo because of its sensitive borders.

Local militant group Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, once allied to al Qaeda, split from it and declared allegiance to Islamic State in 2014. But attacks in the Sinai worsened after 2013 when Sisi led the overthrow of President Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood after mass protests against his rule.

(Writing by Patrick Markey; editing by Alexander Smith and Jeremy Gaunt)

Man charged with murder in fatal shooting of Texas trooper

Man charged with murder in fatal shooting of Texas trooper

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) – A man accused of shooting and killing a Texas state trooper during a traffic stop on Thanksgiving was charged with capital murder, which can bring the death penalty, jail records posted on Friday showed.

Dabrett Black, 32, is suspected of killing Trooper Damon Allen on Thursday in Fairfield, about 90 miles (145 km) south of Dallas, Lieutenant Lonny Haschel, a Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) spokesman, said in a statement.

Allen had stopped the suspect for a traffic violation and when he returned to his patrol car, the suspect fired multiple times with a rifle at Allen, who died at the scene, Haschel said.

“The tragic death of Trooper Damon Allen is a sad and sobering reminder of the risks our men and women in uniform take every day,” Texas Governor Greg Abbott said in a statement on Friday as he ordered Texas flags at DPS facilities to be lowered to half-staff.

Allen, 41, was a husband and father of three who joined the department in 2002, the department said.

Black, 32, was arrested in Waller County, about 50 miles northwest of Houston, after a brief shootout, local law enforcement said.

He is being held in a county jail and there was no lawyer listed for him on booking records. Police have not released a motive for the killing.

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Leslie Adler)

Militants kill more than 230 at mosque in Egypt’s North Sinai

Militants kill more than 230 at mosque in Egypt's North Sinai

By Ahmed Tolba and Patrick Markey

CAIRO (Reuters) – Militants killed more than 230 people at a mosque in North Sinai on Friday, detonating a bomb and gunning down worshippers in the deadliest such attack of Egypt’s modern history, state media and witnesses said.

No group immediately claimed responsibility, but since 2013 Egyptian security forces have battled a stubborn Islamic State affiliate in the mainly desert region, and militants have killed hundreds of police and soldiers.

State media showed images of bloodied victims and bodies covered in blankets inside the Al Rawdah mosque in Bir al-Abed, west of El Arish, the main city in North Sinai.

Worshippers were finishing Friday prayers at the mosque when a bomb exploded, witnesses said. Around 40 gunmen set up positions outside the mosque with jeeps and opened fire from different directions as people tried to escape.

“Four groups of armed men attacked the worshippers inside the mosque after Friday noon prayers. Two groups were firing at ambulances to deter them, said Mohamed, a witness.

The public prosecutors’ office said in a statement 235 people had been killed and 109 more wounded.

Hours after the attack, Egypt’s military launched air strikes on targets in mountainous areas around Bir al-Abed, security sources and witnesses said.

“The armed forces and the police will avenge our martyrs and restore security and stability with the utmost force,” Sisi said in a televised address.

“What is happening is an attempt to stop us from our efforts in the fight against terrorism, to destroy our efforts to stop the terrible criminal plan that aims to destroy what is left of our region.”

Striking at a mosque would be a change in tactics for the Sinai militants, who have usually attacked troops and police and Christian churches.

SUFI MUSLIMS

Arabiya news channel and some local sources said some of the worshippers were Sufis, whom groups such as Islamic State consider targets because they revere saints and shrines, which for Islamists is tantamount to idolatry.

The jihadists have also attacked local tribes and their militias for working with the army and police, branding them traitors.

The Sinai branch is one of Islamic State’s surviving branches following the collapse of its self-declared caliphate in Syria and Iraq after military defeats by U.S.-backed forces.

Sisi, a former armed forces commander who presents himself as a bulwark against Islamist militancy, convened an emergency meeting with his defence and interior ministers and intelligence chief soon after the attack.

Security has long been one of the key sources of public support for the former general, who is expected to run for re-election early next year for another four-year term.

U.S. President Donald Trump, in a post on Twitter on Friday, called the assault a “horrible and cowardly terrorist attack”.

“The world cannot tolerate terrorism, we must defeat them militarily and discredit the extremist ideology that forms the basis of their existence,” he added.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian also condemned the attack and said Paris stood with its ally.

SINAI STRUGGLE

North Sinai, which stretches from the Suez Canal eastwards to the Gaza Strip and Israel, has long been a security headache for Egyptian security forces because of smuggling.

Sisi has support from some Bedouin tribal leaders, who have helped the army locate weapon-smuggling routes used by jihadi groups, security officials said.

Local militant group Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, once allied to al Qaeda, split from it and declared allegiance to Islamic State in 2014.

Bloodshed in the Sinai worsened after 2013 when Sisi led the overthrow of President Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Islamic State earlier this year posted a video of the beheading of two Sufis in northern Sinai, accusing them of practicing “sorcery”.

In July this year, at least 23 soldiers were killed when suicide car bombs hit two military checkpoints in the Sinai, in an attack claimed by Islamic State.

Militants have tried to expand their operations into Egypt’s heavily populated mainland, hitting Coptic Christian churches and pilgrims. In May, gunmen attacked a Coptic group travelling to a monastery in southern Egypt, killing 29.

(Additional reporting by Mohamed Abdellah in Cairo and Yousri Mohamed in Ismalia; Editing by Andrew Roche)

Texas state trooper shot dead, suspect arrested after manhunt

By Daniel Trotta

(Reuters) – A Texas state trooper was shot and killed during a traffic stop on Thanksgiving Day, leading to a manhunt and further gunfire some 125 miles (200 km) away, where the suspect was arrested.

The fatal shooting took place on Thursday in Fairfield, about 90 miles (145 km) south of Dallas, where highway patrol trooper Damon Allen had stopped the suspect for a traffic violation and made contact with the driver, a Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) spokesman said.

When Allen returned to his patrol car, the suspect fired multiple times with a rifle, killing the trooper at the scene, Lieutenant Lonny Haschel said in a statement.

Allen, 41, was a husband and father of three who joined the department in 2002, the department said.

“Our DPS family is heartbroken tonight after one of Texas’ finest law enforcement officers was killed in the line of duty,” DPS Director Steven McCraw said in a statement.

“Trooper Allen’s dedication to duty, and his bravery and selfless sacrifice on this Thanksgiving Day, will never be forgotten,” McCraw said.

The suspect, identified as Dabrett Black, 32, was arrested in Waller County, about 50 miles northwest of Houston, after unspecified shots had been fired, the Waller County Sheriff’s Office said on Facebook.

DPS officials said they would file capital murder charges against Black, meaning prosecutors could potentially seek the death penalty in a state that has executed 518 people in the past 38 years.

In Waller County, sheriff’s deputies and a Texas DPS helicopter pursued the suspect, the sheriff’s office said.

At one point the suspect abandoned his car and deputies surrounded him near the town of Prairie View, according to a live police radio dispatch carried on broadcastify.com.

Deputies described their pursuit using night-vision goggles and lasers to pinpoint his position.

“He’s moving between the hay bails. He has good cover. He has good concealment,” one officer said.

They were uncertain whether he was still armed with a rifle and maintained a perimeter until a special weapons and tactics (SWAT) team could arrive, according to the police radio.

“We got this guy. We’ve got eyeballs on him. Let’s take our time and get him on our terms, not on his terms,” another officer said.

Deputies then went to radio silence as they moved in for the arrest, a silence that was broken by, “Can we confirm one in custody?”

“One in custody,” came the reply.

(Reporting by Daniel Trotta in New York; Editing by Peter Cooney and Richard Borsuk)

Militants kill 184 in attack on mosque in Egypt’s north Sinai: state media

By Ahmed Tolba and Patrick Markey

CAIRO (Reuters) – Militants killed 184 people at a mosque in Egypt’s north Sinai region on Friday, detonating a bomb and shooting at fleeing worshippers and ambulances, state media and witnesses said.

It was one of the deadliest attacks in the region’s Islamist insurgency. No group claimed immediate responsibility, but since 2014 Egyptian security forces have battled a stubborn Islamic State affiliate in the north of the mainly desert Sinai, where militants have killed hundreds of police and soldiers.

State media showed images of bloodied victims and bodies covered in blankets inside the Al Rawdah mosque in Bir al-Abed, west of the city of El Arish.

State television and the official news agency MENA reported that 184 people had been killed. Another 125 were wounded, according to state media.

“They were shooting at people as they left the mosque,” a local resident whose relatives were at the scene told Reuters. “They were shooting at the ambulances too.”

Arabiya news channel and some local sources said some of the worshippers were sufis who hardliners such as Islamic State regard as apostates because they revere saints and shrines, which for Islamists is tantamount to idolatry.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a former armed forces commander who presents himself as a bulwark against Islamist militants, convened an emergency meeting with his defence and interior ministers and intelligence chief soon after the attack, the presidency’s Facebook page and state television said.

The government also declared three days of mourning.

Militants have mostly targeted security forces in their attacks since bloodshed in the Sinai worsened after 2013 when Sisi, then an armed forces commander, led the overthrow of President Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood.

But jihadists have also targeted local Sinai tribes that are working with the armed forces, branding them traitors for cooperating with the army and police.

In July this year, at least 23 soldiers were killed when suicide car bombs hit two military checkpoints in the Sinai, an attack claimed by Islamic State.

Militants have tried to expand beyond the largely barren, Sinai Peninsula into Egypt’s heavily populated mainland, hitting Coptic Christian churches and pilgrims.

In May, gunmen attacked a Coptic group travelling to a monastery in southern Egypt, killing 29.

(Additional reporting by Mohamed Abdellah; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Suicide bomber kills 50 in Nigeria in deadliest attack this year

By Percy Dabang and Ardo Hazzad

YOLA, Nigeria (Reuters) – A suicide bomber killed at least 50 people at a mosque in northeastern Nigeria on Tuesday, the biggest mass killing this year in a region facing an insurgency by Islamist militant group Boko Haram.

“Some of the dead were in pieces beyond recognition,” said Bayi Muhammad, a worshipper at the mosque in Mubi who said he only escaped the blast because he was late for early morning prayers.

The government and military have said numerous times since 2015 that Boko Haram’s eight-year insurgency is almost defeated but the group continues to attack civilian and military targets.

Tuesday’s bombing brings the number killed in 2017 to at least 278, according to calculations by Reuters. There was no claim of responsibility for the attack.

Abubakar Othman, a police spokesman in Adamawa state, said the death toll is at least 50 but “there could be more as those seriously injured could add to the figure.”

Mubi is in Adamawa state where Boko Haram held territory in 2014. Troops pushed them out in early 2015. The group mounts suicide attacks in public places such as mosques and markets.

Tuesday’s attack was the biggest in Nigeria’s northeast since two schoolgirl suicide bombers killed 56 people and wounded dozens more at a market in Adamawa last December.

It is also the first attack on Mubi since armed forces recaptured the town from Boko Haram in 2014.

The blast bears the hallmarks of a faction led by Abubakar Shekau, which forces women and girls to carry out suicide bombings. The attacks often leave only the bomber dead.

Boko Haram has waged an insurgency in northeastern Nigeria since 2009 in its attempt to create an Islamic state in the region. It has killed more than 20,000 and forced around 2 million people to flee their homes.

The group split in 2016 and the faction under Shekau is based in the Sambisa forest on the border with Cameroon and Chad and mainly targets civilians with suicide bombers.

The other faction is based in the Lake Chad region and led by Abu Musab al-Barnawi. It mainly attacks military forces after quietly building up its strength over the past year.

Most attacks focus on Borno state, the birthplace of the insurgency. The group held land around the size of Belgium in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states until early 2015 but was forced out by Nigeria’s army and troops from neighbouring countries.

(Reporting by Percy Dabang in Yola and Ardo Hazzad in Bauchi; Writing by Alexis Akwagyiram and Paul Carsten; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg)

Famine survey warns of thousands dying daily in Yemen if ports stay closed

More than 8 million Yemenis 'a step away from famine': U.N.

By Tom Miles

GENEVA (Reuters) – A U.S.-funded famine survey said on Tuesday that thousands of Yemenis could die daily if a Saudi-led military coalition does not lift its blockade on the country’s key ports.

The warning came a day after the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said 2.5 million people in Yemen’s crowded cities had no access to clean water, raising the risk that a cholera epidemic will spread.

Using the internationally recognized IPC 5-point scale for classifying food security, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) said that even before the current blockade, 15 million people were in “crisis” (IPC Phase 3) or worse.

“Therefore, a prolonged closure of key ports risks an unprecedented deterioration in food security to Famine (IPC Phase 5) across large areas of the country,” it said.

It said famine is likely in many areas within three or four months if ports remain closed, with some less accessible areas at even greater risk. In such a scenario, shortages of food and fuel would drive up prices, and a lack of medical supplies would exacerbate life-threatening diseases.

“Thousands of deaths would occur each day due to the lack of food and disease outbreaks,” said FEWS NET, which is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Famine remained likely even if the southern port of Aden is open, its report said, adding that all Yemeni ports should be reopened to essential imports.

The United Nations has said the Saudi-led coalition must allow aid in through Hodeidah port, controlled by the Houthis, the Saudis’ enemies in the war in Yemen.

U.N. humanitarian agencies have issued dire warnings about the impact of the blockade, although U.N. officials have declined to directly criticize Saudi Arabia.

Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council and a former U.N. aid chief, was blunt in his criticism, however.

“US, UK & other allies of Saudi has only weeks to avoid being complicit in a famine of Biblical proportions. Lift the blockade now,” he wrote in a tweet.

Last year Saudi Arabia was accused by then U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon of exerting “unacceptable” undue pressure to keep itself off a blacklist of countries that kill children in conflict, after sources told Reuters that Riyadh had threatened to cut some U.N. funding. Saudi Arabia denied this.

(Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Catherine Evans)

Fifteen dead in food aid stampede in Morocco: ministry

People gather at the place where 15 people were killed when a stampede broke out in the southwestern Moroccan town of Sidi Boulaalam as food aid was being distributed in a market, in Sidi Boullaalam, Morocco November 20, 2017.

By Zakia Abdennebi

RABAT (Reuters) – Fifteen people were killed and five more injured when a stampede broke out in a southwestern Moroccan town on Sunday as food aid was being distributed in a market, the Interior Ministry said.

A hospital source put the death toll at 18, adding that most victims were women who had been scrambling for food handed out by a rich man in the small coastal town of Sidi Boulaalam.

A local journalist said the donor had organised similar handouts before, but this year some 1,000 people arrived, storming an iron barrier under which several women were crushed.

King Mohammed ordered that the victims’ families be given any assistance they needed and the wounded treated at his cost, the ministry said in a statement, adding that a criminal investigation had been opened.

Last month, the king dismissed the ministers of education, planning and housing and health after an economic agency found “imbalances” in implementing a development plan to fight poverty in the northern Rif region.

The Rif saw numerous protests after a fishmonger was accidentally crushed to death in a garbage truck in October 2016 after a confrontation with police, and he became a symbol of the effects of corruption and official abuse.

In July, the king pardoned dozens of people arrested in the protests and accused local officials of stoking public anger by being too slow to implement development projects.

 

(Writing by Ulf Laessing; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Cynthia Osterman)

 

Suicide bomb attack near Afghan political gathering kills nine

Suicide bomb attack near Afghan political gathering kills nine

KABUL (Reuters) – A suicide bomb attack in the Afghan capital on Thursday near a gathering of supporters of an influential regional leader killed at least nine people and wounded many, the interior ministry said.

It was not clear if the politician, Atta Mohammad Noor, governor of the northern province of Balkh and a leader of the mainly ethnic Tajik Jamiat-i-Islami party, was at the meeting at the time of the attack.

Islamic State claimed responsibility, according to Amaq, its official news agency. The Taliban denied involvement.

“We are proud to be martyred because of our country and our rights. This gathering was for the sake of our country to raise our voice,” said witness Jan Mohammad.

The explosion was the latest in a wave of violence that has killed and wounded thousands of civilians in Afghanistan this year.

Political tensions are up as politicians have begun jockeying for position ahead of presidential elections expected in 2019.

A spokesman for the interior ministry said the bomber approached the hotel hosting the gathering in the Khair Khana district of Kabul, on foot. The dead included seven policemen and two civilians.

Media showed photographs, apparently from witnesses, which appeared to show about a dozen bodies. Reuters was unable to verify the photos.

The northern-based Jamiat-i-Islami was for years the main opponent of the Taliban, who draw their support largely from the southern-based ethnic Pashtun community.

In June, a suicide bomber attacked a meeting of Jamiat-i-Islami leaders, including Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah.

Abdullah, who is backed by Noor, and other ethnic minority leaders, formed a coalition government with President Ashraf Ghani after a disputed 2014 presidential election.

Ghani on Wednesday sacked the chairman of the Independent Election Commission, raising doubts over whether parliamentary and council ballots scheduled for next year will take place as planned.

(Reporting by Hamid Shalizi, Mirwais Harooni, Mohammad Aziz and Abdul Aziz Ibrahimi; Writing by Girish Gupta; Editing by Nick Macfie, Robert Birsel)

Northern California shooting death toll reaches five after wife’s body found

police sirens

By Alex Dobuzinskis

(Reuters) – The death toll in a shooting spree in rural Northern California rose to five after police discovered the body of the gunman’s wife hidden in the couple’s house, an assistant sheriff said on Wednesday.

The body of the wife of the gunman, Kevin Neal, was discovered late on Tuesday, hidden under a hole in the floor, Tehama County Assistant Sheriff Phil Johnston said.

Authorities believe Neal, 44, killed his wife on Monday, the day before he went on a rampage at multiple sites around the small community of Rancho Tehama, about 120 miles (193 km) north of Sacramento, killing four other people. Neal also opened fire at an elementary school before he was slain by police.

Johnston said many more people might have been killed if staff at the Rancho Tehama School had not locked Neal out. One child there was shot but survived, and others were hurt by flying glass and other debris from the hail of bullets.

“I really, truly believe that we would have had a horrific bloodbath in that school if that school hadn’t taken the action when they did,” Johnston told a news conference.

School employees locked the doors when they heard gunfire in the distance.

The employees ushered children inside from the playground, according to Sacramento television station KCRA, which cited details from the school district superintendent.

Neal, who was driving a pickup truck, rammed open a school gate, before a custodian leaned out from behind a building and distracted him, according to KCRA. Employees finished locking the doors seconds before Neal walked up and opened fire, the station reported.

Neal, frustrated at not being able to enter the school, drove off and was shot to death on the road by police, Johnston said.

Neal was armed with two rifles he illegally manufactured and two handguns registered to someone else, Johnston said, noting that he was prohibited from having firearms under a court-issued restraining order.

Authorities did not discover Neal’s wife had been killed until Tuesday, after Neal shot his neighbors and drove around Rancho Tehama, killing four adults during a 25-minute shooting spree, Johnston said.

Authorities did not provide a possible motive for the rampage and did not identify those killed, citing the need to notify relatives.

On Wednesday, one adult injured in the shooting was hospitalized in critical condition, and a child and three other adults were in stable condition, Johnston said.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; Editing by Leslie Adler)