Oslo (AFP) - A radical Islamic preacher has been arrested in Norway after praising last month's deadly attack on the Charlie Hebdo satirical weekly in Paris, police said Friday.

The Iraqi Kurd preacher known as Mullah Krekar said in a television interview broadcast on Wednesday that "those who draw caricatures of Mohammed must die".

Krekar, who was only freed from prison late last month, was arrested Thursday night on accusations of inciting crime, police said.

"I am obviously happy with what happened in Paris," the 58-year-old said in the interview with Norwegian channel NRK.

Krekar also responded "yes" when asked if he believed those who carried out the attack were heroes.

When a cartoonist "tramples on our dignity, our principles and our faith, he must die," he said.

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Iraqi-born cleric Mullah Krekar, kneels to pray, after being released from Kongsvinger prison, in Ko …

"Those who do not respect 30 percent of the Earth's population do not deserve to live."

Jihadist gunmen killed 12 people, including some of France's best-known cartoonists, in the January 7 attack on Charlie Hebdo's Paris office.

Another five people were killed in the three-day spree, including four Jews gunned down at a kosher supermarket and a policewoman.

Krekar was released from prison at the end of January after serving a two-year, 10-month sentence for making threats against Prime Minister Erna Solberg before she came to office and three Kurds.

Krekar, whose real name is Najmeddine Faraj Ahmad, has been living in Norway since 1991.

He has been at risk of deportation since 2003 after Norwegian authorities ordered him to be expelled as a threat to national security.

While courts have upheld the ruling, Norwegian law bars him from being deported to Iraq, where he risks the death penalty.

Krekar also founded the radical Islamist group Ansar al-Islam, but insists he has not led it since 2002.

The preacher and Ansar al-Islam figure on UN and US lists of terrorist groups or individuals.

Kano (Nigeria) (AFP) - Boko Haram fighters have raided villages in northeast Nigeria on the border with Cameroon, apparently in reprisal for a Chadian offensive against its hideouts, residents told AFP on Friday.

Scores of heavily armed militants on Wednesday rampaged through more than a dozen villages in the Kala-Balge district in Borno state, shooting, hacking residents to death and razing homes.

Hundreds of residents fled across the border into Cameroon, prompting Chad -- part of a regional coalition against the Islamists -- to respond by bombarding rebel positions, they said.

"They targeted mainly Shuwa tribesmen, who are from the same ethnic group as a large number of the Chadian troops," said Adum Walfannea, himself a Shuwa Arab, from Anguduram village.

Kurso Khala, who fled one of the worst-affected villages, Mudu, said the militants besieged a local market and blocked all but one entrance.

"They would ask if a person is Kanuri or Shuwa before asking him to go," said Khala by telephone from Fotokol, across the border from the Nigerian town of Gamboru in the far north of Cameroon.

"Once a person was identified as Shuwa‎ he would be shot in the back as soon as he stepped out of the market entrance to leave."

Walfannea and Imar Koshnana, from Musiye village, both said the death toll from the attacks could be high but there was no official confirmation of numbers.

News of the raids come as Nigeria's military trumpets its success in recapturing several towns from Boko Haram and after President Goodluck Jonathan said the "tide had turned" against the militants.

Details were slow to emerge because the insurgents have destroyed telecom masts since the insurgency began in 2009.

The attacks follow a Chadian ground and aerial offensive against Boko Haram enclaves in the Kala-Balge district that began on February 17 after troops seized the strategic town of Dikwa.

Residents said Boko Haram suffered heavy casualties in the Chadian attacks, which were near the group's Sambisa Forest stronghold, where they have long had camps.

One resident from the herding village of Gonori near Gamboru, Umar Sanda, said troops fought back after Boko Haram stole more than 400 cattle and killed four residents in a pre-dawn raid on Tuesday.

"For more than two hours we kept hearing sounds of gunfire and explosions," he added. "The Chadian troops killed scores of the Boko Haram gunmen and recovered our cattle."

An armed man with the separatist self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic army salutes from the top of a mobile artillery cannon as his convoy starts pulling back from Donetsk February 28, 2015. REUTERS/Baz Ratner

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Armed men of the separatist self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic army sit on top of their m …

KIEV(Reuters) - Ukraine's military said on Saturday there had been a significant decrease in attacks by pro-Russian separatists in the east overnight, but said rebels had fired GRAD missiles at the town of Avdiivka despite a two-week-old ceasefire deal.

On Friday, Ukraine reported the first deaths among its servicemen in three days, underscoring the fragility of the truce meant to have taken effect on Feb. 15, as government troops and rebels pulled back heavy weapons from the frontline.

Overnight there was a "significant decrease in attacks in general and a full ceasefire in certain parts of the conflict zone," the military said on its Facebook page.

It said the truce had been most fully observed around the rebel-controlled city of Luhansk and near government-held Mariupol on the Sea of Azov.

Kiev feared the port city and industrial hub could become the next rebel target after they humiliated government troops by seizing the strategic town of Debaltseve after the truce was meant to have come into force.

The Ukrainian military reported isolated attacks by rebels on government positions, including strikes from GRAD missiles around government-held Avdiivka, north of rebel-held Donetsk and home to one of Europe's largest coke plants.

Fighting in Ukraine's industrialized east has devastated the steel sector, which before the conflict erupted last April accounted for 15 percent of the economy.

Both government troops and separatists said they continued withdrawing heavy weapons from the front line, "point two" of the peace agreement aimed at ending the conflict which has killed more than 5,600.

(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk; Writing by Alessandra Prentice; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Iraqi security forces guard during the building of a new road between Diyala province and Samarra December 21, 2014. REUTERS/Stringer

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Islamic State suicide bombers and fighters struck targets on Saturday in the northern Iraqi city of Samarra, where security forces and their Shi'ite militia allies have been gathering for an offensive against the radical Sunni militants.

Security sources and residents said the attack on Samarra was launched at 5.30 am (0230 GMT) when two Islamic State suicide bombers blew up their cars in the northern area of Sur Shnas.

At the same time a man drove a Humvee rigged with explosives into the south of the city and detonated it, while Islamic State fighters attacked security forces to the west with sniper fire, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades.

Medical sources said Samarra hospital received the bodies of 14 Shi'ite militia fighters and policemen.

Residents reported seeing black smoke over parts of the city and hearing powerful explosions. After heavy clashes in the morning, the fighting appeared to have subsided by the afternoon.

Thousands of troops and fighters from Shi'ite militias known as Hashid Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation) have gathered around Samarra for a campaign to drive Islamic State out of nearby strongholds on the Tigris River, including the city of Tikrit 50 km (30 miles) to the north.

The army shelled northern and western districts of Tikrit on Saturday, but did not send troops into the city, security sources said. Army helicopters had also fired rockets at Islamic State militants around Sur Shnas, they said.

In the town of Ishaaqi, about 20 km (10 miles) southeast of Samarra, snipers shot dead two Hashid Shaabi men as they tried to set up a sand barrier on the main highway linking Samarra to the capital Baghdad.

Further east in Diyala province, 11 people were killed in a twin car bombing in the town of Balad Roz on Saturday. One of those killed was a judge, security and medical sources said.

The army and Shi'ite militias have driven Islamic State out of nearly all of Diyala province, which lies to the north-east of Baghdad, on the border with Iran. But Saturday's blasts showed that militants could still launch attacks there, just as they regularly do in the Iraqi capital itself.

(Reporting by Ahmed Rasheed; Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Pravin Char)