Kano (Nigeria) (AFP) - Protesters will hold a "million-woman march" in the Nigerian capital Wednesday over the government's failure to rescue scores of schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram Islamists two weeks ago.

Angry Nigerian parents lashed out at the government Tuesday as a local leader claimed the hostages had been sold as wives abroad.

"May God curse every one of those who has failed to free our girls," said Enoch Mark, whose daughter and two nieces were among the more than 100 students abducted from the Government Girls Secondary School in the Chibok area of the northeastern state of Borno.

The attack was one of the most shocking in Boko Haram's five-year uprising, which has claimed thousands of lives across northern and central Nigeria.

The outrage that followed the mass abduction has been compounded by disputes over how many girls were seized and criticism of the military's search-and-rescue effort.

Borno officials have said 129 girls were kidnapped when gunmen stormed the school after sundown on April 14 and forced the students -- who are between 12 and 17 years old -- onto a convoy of trucks. Officials said 52 have since escaped.

Locals, including the school's principal, have rejected those numbers, insisting that 230 students were snatched and that 187 are still being held hostage.

Mark told AFP that his wife has hardly slept since the attack, lying awake at night "thinking about our daughter".

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Map locating Chibok in Nigeria's Borno State, site of the abductions (AFP Photo/)

An organisation called Women for Peace and Justice has called for a "million-woman protest march" in the capital Abuja on Wednesday to demand that more resources be committed to securing the girls' release.

While the group is unlikely to rally a crowd of that size, support for the movement has been growing on Twitter under #BringBackOurGirls.

- Sold as brides? -

Pogo Bitrus, leader of a Chibok elders group, told AFP that locals had been tracking the movements of the hostages with the help of "various sources" across the northeast.

"From the information we received yesterday from Cameroonian border towns our abducted girls were taken... into Chad and Cameroon," he said.

The girls were then sold as brides to Islamist fighters for 2,000 naira ($12) each, Bitrus added.

There was however no independent confirmation of his report and the defence ministry did not immediately answer calls seeking comment.

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Residents look at the burnt-out remains of houses after an attack by armed Islamist group Boko Haram …

Some of the girls who escaped have said the hostages were taken to Borno's Sambisa Forest area, where Boko Haram has well-fortified camps.

Boko Haram's name translates as "Western education is forbidden", and it has repeatedly attacked schools during an insurgency aimed at creating a strict Islamic state in mainly Muslim northern Nigeria.

The Islamists have set schools on fire, massacred students in their sleep and detonated bombs at university campus churches.

President Goodluck Jonathan has faced scathing criticism over the attacks and the pressure has mounted since the Chibok kidnappings.

Locals have scoured the bushlands of the remote region, pooling money to buy fuel for motorcycles and cars to conduct their own rescue effort, saying they have no confidence in the military's search.

"The free movement of the kidnappers in huge convoys with their captives for two weeks without being traced by the military which claims to be working diligently to free the girls is unbelievable," Bitrus told AFP.

Nigeria deployed thousands of additional troops to the northeast last year as part of an offensive aimed at crushing Boko Haram, but security experts say the military lacks the troops needed to fully cover the region.

- 'Rescue our daughters' -

Dozens of Borno women clad in black staged a protest Tuesday in front of Nigeria's parliament.

The placard-carrying women rolled on the ground wailing and crying for help to rescue their daughters.

"Free the abducted children," "Chibok is crying," and "Mr President, rescue our daughters," read some of the placards.

Protest leader Naomi Mutah told three senators who received the group that they did not know the whereabouts of the girls, saying some might have crossed over to Chad.

"Our grievance is this: For the past two weeks and this is the third week, we have not heard anybody talking to us," said Mutah.

"They are suffering in the bush. Let them (authorities) help us to free them," another protester said.

In a motion Tuesday, the senate urged the government and security agencies to seek the cooperation of other countries and the UN Security Council in the rescue effort.

Outrage over kidnapping of Nigeria schoolgirls

Anger grows over the government's failure to rescue scores of girls kidnapped by militants two weeks ago.
Sold as brides?

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GeoffPyatt/Twitter

U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt held a press conference in Kiev on Tuesday, saying that Russian troop movements into Ukraine would constitute a serious escalation and, even further, the U.S. would respond immediately, UPI reports.

He continued, as the Kyiv Post reported, saying that "such a scenario would lead to tragic consequences."

At first glance, this sounds like tough talk. In essence, Pyatt seems to be telling Moscow, "if you invade, U.S. troops will stop you."

And certainly, with 600 U.S. troops already moved into Poland and the Baltic states, things could get ugly.

But the statement was rather cryptic. How would the U.S. respond? With military force, more diplomatic maneuvers, or more sanctions? And invasion would lead to tragic consequences for whom?

Further, it doesn't make much sense. Ukraine has already been invaded. Crimea — if we can shift the clock back a few months — was very much a part of Ukraine. It was invaded and taken over by Russian forces, held a sham referendum, then annexed.

So what of eastern Ukraine? It could be reasonably argued that it too has been invaded as well. Throughout the country, armed militias have seized government buildings and terrorized the local populace, with all signs pointing to their origination being from Russia.

"What is happening in eastern Ukraine is a military operation that is well-planned and organized," Gen. Philip Breedlove, commander of NATO, wrote on the unit's website, "and we assess that it is being carried out at the direction of Russia."

And just today, AP reported on a shadowy militia commander named Igor Strelkov, who has been identified as a Russian security services operative.

"This is terrorism, pure and simple," the U.S. Embassy in Kiev wrote on its website of a recent attack on pro-unity demonstrators. "We support the Ukrainian Government’s efforts to contain this threat and defend the lives and safety of its citizens."

So are these empty threats at Moscow or the new "red line" in Ukraine? It's hard to say.

But it seems this time, the U.S. is trying not to make that same mistake twice.

By Ned Parker and Ahmed Rasheed

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqis headed to the polls on Wednesday in their first national election since U.S. forces withdrew from Iraq in 2011, with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki seeking a third term amid rising violence.

Iraq's western province of Anbar is torn by fighting as Sunni Muslim militants battle the Iraqi military. Its economy is struggling and Maliki faces criticism that he is aggravating sectarian splits and trying to consolidate power.

Polls opened at 7 a.m. (12.00 a.m. EDT), with a vehicle curfew imposed on the streets of Baghdad. Voters will choose from among 9,012 candidates and the parliamentary election will effectively serve as a referendum on Maliki, a Shi'ite Muslim who has governed for eight years.

Maliki was among the first to cast a vote at a hotel next to the heavily fortified Green Zone enclave where the government is based. He urged people to follow suit despite security threats.

"I call upon the Iraqi people to head in large numbers to the ballot boxes to send a message of deterrence and a slap to the face of terrorism," Maliki told reporters.

Political analysts say no party is likely to win a majority in the 328-seat parliament. Forming a government may be hard even if Maliki's State of Law alliance wins the most seats as expected, although he was confident of another victory.

"Definitely our expectations are high," he said.

"Our victory is confirmed but we are still talking about how big this victory will be," Maliki said. Polls close at 6 p.m. (11 a.m. EDT).

Maliki faces challenges from Shi'ite and Sunni rivals and has portrayed himself as his majority Shi'ite community's defender against the Sunni, al Qaeda-inspired Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

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Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki shows his ink marked finger as he votes during parliamentar …

"Is ISIL and al Qaeda capable of reaching the target for (which) they were established ... bringing down Baghdad and the other provinces and destroying the holy shrines? ... I say no," Maliki said earlier this week.

"ISIL is over, but its pockets still exist and we will keep chasing them and the coming few days will witness major developments," he said.

STREET BATTLES, SUICIDE BOMBERS

Iraqi forces are locked in a four-month fight for the Anbar cities of Ramadi and Fallujah. Troops surround Fallujah and are waging street battles in Ramadi.

The war has displaced an estimated 420,000 people. The Iraqi electoral commission acknowledges it can only hold the election in 70 percent of Anbar, not counting Fallujah. Fighting has also erupted in rural areas around Baghdad, where Iraqi troops, in tandem with Shi'ite militia volunteers, are battling ISIL.

On Monday, 50 people were killed in attacks around Iraq, with some suicide bombers dressed in police and army uniforms. The burden falls particularly hard on Iraq's Sunni population, who are viewed with suspicion by the mostly Shi'ite Iraqi security forces and terrorized by the ISIL.

Iraq's Sunni political leaders paint Maliki as an authoritarian ruler who wants to destroy their community. His main Sunni rival, parliamentary speaker Usama al-Nujaifi, said Sunnis had suffered from "terrorism and militias" under Maliki.

"Our people haven't harvested the national partnership, only the rattle of weapons, the language of blood, the education of revenge, the sectarian inciting, the displaced people," Nujaifi told supporters recently.

He worried that a third term for Maliki would lead to "massacres committed against innocent people".

The period ahead will be a test of Iraq's democracy. It took nine months to seat a government after the last national election in 2010, a vote that took place with tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers still in Iraq.

Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish parties are outspoken about their wish for Maliki to go, but he is still expected to win more votes than them.

Some warn that forming a new government could take a year. Negotiations will take place while intense fighting rages in Anbar and around the edges of Baghdad, adding more instability to the process.

In contrast to earlier national unity governments, Maliki is expected to seek a stronger coalition built around a majority government.

Some voters still love Maliki and see him as their savior.

"He's the man for tough jobs," said Safadin Murib, a government employee from Hilla, south of Baghdad.

Others have lost faith in the whole political process.

"I haven't benefited from the previous elections and am not expecting to benefit now," said Thamir Muhammad Jassim, a shopkeeper in Hilla.

(Additional reporting by Raheem Salman; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Paul Tait)

Latest weather wallop: Florida, Alabama flooding

PENSACOLA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — In the latest blow from a dayslong chain of severe weather across the South and Midwest, the Florida Panhandle and Alabama Gulf Coast were hit with widespread flooding early Wednesday, with people stranded in cars and homes waiting for rescuers to find a way around impassable roads and others abandoning vehicles to walk to safety.

Crews weren't able to respond to some calls for help because of flooding in and around Pensacola, and one woman died when she drove her car into high water, officials said. Boats and jet skis were moved from the beaches to the streets, authorities planned aerial rescues, and the National Guard sent high-wheeled vehicles.

Officials received about 300 calls for evacuation in the Pensacola area and had completed about 210, Gov. Rick Scott said at a news conference in Tallahassee. About 30,000 were without power.

Some people left their flooded cars and walked to find help on their own. "We have people at the police department," Officer Justin Cooper said in Pensacola. "They walked up here and are hanging out until things get better."

About 22 inches of rain had fallen by midmorning in Pensacola, with 4 more expected Wednesday. Average annual rainfall for Pensacola is 65 inches, meaning much of that area was seeing about a third of that amount in just one day.

In some neighborhood, streets flowed like rivers as water reached mailboxes. Cars were submerged in driveways, and residents paddled by on kayaks.

Raw: Early Report Shows EF-4 Tornado in Miss.Play Video

"We've seen pictures that people are posting with water halfway up their doors, front doors," Grigsby said. "It's going to be a big cleanup, looks like."

The widespread flooding is the latest wallop of a storm system that still packed considerable punch days after the violent outbreak began in Arkansas and Oklahoma. More than 30 people have been killed, including the 67-year-old driver in Pensacola.

In Pensacola Beach, people woke to violent storms, heavy rain and lightning. Standing water could be seen on many parts of the beach, and a military vehicle made its way through one heavily flooded neighborhood. Pensacola Naval Air Station's hospital was closed, as was the Air Force Special Operations center at Hurlburt Field.

Paul Schuster made an emergency run about 4 a.m. from Pensacola Beach to his mother's flooded home in nearby Gulf Breeze. The woman, 82, had to be rescued from by an emergency official in a boat, he said.

"The water was waist high," he said.

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Damage at Kimberly Church of God in Kimberly, Ala., which was hit by a tornado Monday, April 28. (Ho …

Ron Hruska's neighborhood was flooded, but his home, more elevated than others nearby, was safe. Hruska said there were flash flooding warnings on television throughout the night but that the water came up faster than expected.

"I've never seen it this bad in 12 years here," he said. "It wasn't even this bad after hurricanes."

In Gulf Shores, Ala., where nearly 21 inches of rain fell in a day's time, the scene resembled the aftermath of a hurricane early Wednesday. The intracoastal waterway rose, reaching the canal road linking the town with neighboring Orange Beach.

There, at Sportsman Marina, employee J.J. Andrews couldn't believe what she saw out the window.

"We've got water up in our parking lots," she said. "Our docks are under water. It's worse than during Hurricane Ivan, is what they're saying. It's crazy."

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Jerri Weaver and her daughter Liz, in front of their underground house in Vilonia, Ark. (Jason Sickl …

Shelters opened for evacuees, but some people had difficulty traversing roads. Water covered parts of Alabama 59, the main road for beach-bound tourists.

In Mobile, a few dozen rescues were conducted, mostly on roads, the emergency management agency estimated.

"We do have a lot of roads that are still underwater," the agency's Glen Brannan said but noted improvements, with the worst weather to the east.

That included Baldwin County, where crews started rescues before midnight, said Mitchell Sims, emergency management director.

"As soon as we get a water rescue team in here, they're sent back out," he said. "We're rescuing people from cars, from rooftops, from all over the place.

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Vilonia, Arkansas, resident Jim Purvis survives the damage after a deadly tornado that devastated th …

"I think we're going to be dealing with this for days. I don't know where the water's going to go. Everything is saturated."

Over the past four days, storms hit especially hard in places such as Arkansas' northern Little Rock suburbs and the Mississippi cities of Louisville and Tupelo. Arkansas, with 15 deaths after a tornado blasted through Sunday, and Mississippi, with 12 deaths from Monday's storms, accounted for the brunt of the death toll.

Authorities in Louisville searched until dark Tuesday for an 8-year-old boy missing since Monday's large tornado that killed his parents and destroyed the home where they lived. Though searchers didn't rule out finding the boy alive, officials were describing the process as one of recovery.

On Wednesday, Louisville officials said they were shifting priorities from response to cleanup. They expected volunteers to stream into the town to lend a hand.

"Today is the day we start putting Louisville back together," said Buddy King, county emergency management director.

___

Associated Press writers Freida Frisaro in Miami; Steve Miller in Tallahassee, Fla.; Jeff Amy and Adrian Sainz in Louisville, Miss.; Russ Bynum in Savannah, Ga.; and Jay Reeves in Birmingham, Ala.; contributed to this report. Michael Hempen of AP Radio in Washington also contributed.

Keith Carson ✔ @KeithCarson

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Florida Panhandle, Gulf Coast hit by flooding

Aerial rescues were planned in Pensacola, Fla., as up to 20 inches of rain fell in 24 hours.
'Going to be a big cleanup'

HORLIVKA, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine's police and security forces are "helpless" to quell unrest in two eastern regions bordering Russia, and in some cases are cooperating with pro-Russian gunmen who have seized scores of government buildings and taken people hostage, the country's acting president said Wednesday.

Oleksandr Turchynov said the goal now was to prevent the agitation from spreading to other territories.

"I will be frank: Today, security forces are unable to quickly take the situation in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions under control," Turchynov said at a meeting with regional governors.

"The security bodies ... are unable to carry out their duties of protecting citizens. They are helpless in those matters. Moreover, some of those units are either helping or cooperating with terrorist organizations."

Turchynov instructed the governors to try to prevent the threat from overtaking more central and southern regions.

"Mercenaries and special units that are active on Ukrainian territory have been tasked with attacking those regions. That is why I am stressing: our task is to stop the spread of the terrorist threat first of all in the Kharkiv and Odessa regions," Turchynov was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.

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A pro-Russian gunman prepares his weapon as his comrades are about to storm a regional police statio …

Kiev city authorities, meanwhile, announced unexpected middle-of-the night military drills starting Wednesday night to Thursday morning which will involve military equipment, further stoking tensions.

Russia has placed tens of thousands of troops near the border with Ukraine and Turchynov said the threat of a Russian invasion was real. He called on creating regional self-defense units throughout the country, according to Interfax.

Some Ukrainians were appalled by the loss of control over eastern regions and accused the central government of inaction.

"In a normal society when Oleksandr Turchynov admits the fact that the authorities do not control the situation in the east of the country is ground for resignation. And not just of him, but all the security forces," Valeriy Kalnysh, former editor of the Kommersant daily, wrote on Facebook. "But can we afford this now? .... And is it the right move in the conditions of an undeclared war with Russia?"

Turchynov spoke hours after pro-Russian gunmen seized more administrative buildings in eastern Ukraine. Insurgents wielding automatic weapons took control and hoisted an insurgent flag on top of the city council building Wednesday morning in the city of Horlivka in the Donetsk region. They also took control of a police station in the city, adding to another police building which they had controlled for several weeks.

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A masked pro-Russian protester sits beside a dog as he poses for a picture inside a regional governm …

An Associated Press reporter saw armed men standing guard outside the building and checking the documents of those entering. One of the men said that foreign reporters will not be allowed in and threatened to arrest those who don't obey orders. Similar guards were also seen outside the police station in the city.

The insurgents now control buildings in about a dozen cities in eastern Ukraine, demanding broader regional rights as well as greater ties or outright annexation by Russia. The militiamen are holding some activists and journalists hostage, including a group of observers from a European security organization.

In Luhansk, one of the largest cities in eastern Ukraine, gunmen in camouflage uniforms maintained control of several government offices they seized Tuesday.

Eastern Ukraine, which has a large Russian-speaking population, was the heartland of support for Viktor Yanukovych, the ousted president who fled to Russia in February. The government that replaced him in Kiev has resisted the insurgents' demands, fearing they could lead to a breakup of the country or mean that more regions could join Russia, as Crimea did.

Kiev and Western governments accuse Moscow of orchestrating the protests in eastern Ukraine. The United States and the European Union rolled out a fresh set of economic sanctions against Russia this week, but Moscow has remained unbowed, denying its role in the unrest and saying the actions were Kiev's fault.