Student activists, demanding justice for the fatal August 9 shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown, take part in the nationwide "Hands up, walk out" protest at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri December 1, 2014. REUTERS/Adrees Latif

By Sharon Bernstein

(Reuters) - High school and college students ditched classes on Monday in several U.S. cities to protest against a decision not to indict a Missouri police officer who fatally shot an unarmed black teen in August.

Anger has continued to swell over the long Thanksgiving holiday weekend over the decision of a St. Louis County grand jury last week not to indict Darren Wilson for the death of Michael Brown.

"Michael Brown's death was a catalyst for a lot of issues in this country," said Karisa Tavassoli, a 20-year-old student at Washington University in St. Louis, where about 300 students braved freezing temperatures to stage a walkout on the first day of class after the holiday. "We are fighting for the oppressed."

Protesters including students in Northern California shut down two busy intersections near Stanford University. Several hundred more near Boston blocked the street in front of Harvard University and students also walked out in New York, Los Angeles and Baltimore.

Protesters took to the streets near the nation's capital to block a major commuter route, snarling the morning rush hour.

In Los Angeles, about 30 protesters carrying signs saying "Ferguson is everywhere" and "Black lives matter" marched from a police station in the South-Central neighborhood to an intersection where an unarmed 25-year-old black man, Ezell Ford, was shot to death by police two days after Brown's slaying.

In downtown Seattle, where the police department is under federal monitoring over allegations of excessive force, some 200 people called for an ongoing dialog about race relations and police tactics in a largely peaceful demonstration and march that saw tense moments with riot gear-clad police.

Brown's death drew worldwide attention to the predominantly black St. Louis suburb where most of the police officers are white.

Lawyers for Brown's family said the teen had his hands up and was trying to surrender. Wilson, who resigned last week, said he was acting in self-defense.

On Monday, President Barack Obama asked Congress for $263 million to pay for body cameras for police officers to wear and other responses to the Ferguson events.

The groups involved in Monday's demonstrations had also urged supporters to refrain from shopping on the Friday after Thanksgiving, the kickoff to the U.S. holiday shopping season.

(Reporting by Edward McAllister in St. Louis, Daina Beth Solomon in Los Angeles, Scott Malone in Boston, Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, California, and Victoria Cavaliere in Seattle; Writing by Sharon Bernstein; Editing by Gareth Jones)

BY LAILA BASSAM AND SYLVIA WESTALL

BEIRUT Tue Dec 2, 2014 6:26am EST

The woman was identified as Saja al-Dulaimi, an Iraqi, by a Lebanese security official and a senior political source.

The Lebanese newspaper As-Safir reported she had been detained in coordination with "foreign intelligence".

The arrest is a blow to Baghdadi and could be used as a bargaining chip against his group, which has captured many foreign, Iraqi and Syrian prisoners and declared a caliphate in territory it has seized in Syria and Iraq.

A senior Lebanese security official said Baghdadi's wife had been traveling with one of their daughters, contradicting earlier reports that it was his son. DNA tests were conducted to verify it was Baghdadi's child, the official said.

They were detained in northern Lebanon. Investigators were questioning her at the Lebanese defense ministry. There was no immediate reaction from Islamic State websites.

Dulaimi was one of 150 women released from a Syrian government jail in March as part of a prisoner swap that led to the release of 13 nuns taken captive by al Qaeda-linked militants in Syria, according to media reports at the time.

A source with contacts with Iraqi intelligence said the captured woman was an Iraqi wife of Baghdadi’s, but could not confirm the name. There was cooperation between Iraqi and Lebanese authorities leading up to her capture, the source said.

Baghdadi has three wives, two Iraqis and one Syrian, according to tribal sources in Iraq.

Islamic State has seized wide areas of Iraq and Syria, Lebanon's neighbor to the east.

The Lebanese security forces have cracked down on the group's sympathizers and the intelligence services have been extra vigilant on the borders with Syria.

They have arrested over the past few months dozens of Islamic militants suspected of staging attacks to expand Islamic State influence in Lebanon.

A U.S.-led alliance is seeking to roll back Islamic State's territorial gains in Iraq and Syria. U.S. President Barack Obama has vowed to "degrade and ultimately destroy" Baghdadi's group, which is seeking to reshape the Middle East according to its radical vision of Islam.

U.S. OFFERS BOUNTY FOR BAGHDADI

Spillover from the Syrian conflict has repeatedly jolted neighboring Lebanon. Militants affiliated to the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front and Islamic State are demanding the release of Islamists held by the Lebanese authorities in exchange for 27 members of the Lebanese security forces taken captive in August.

Islamic State, which U.S-led forces are bombing in Iraq and Syria, includes thousands of foreign fighters and its leadership draws from militants with combat experience in Iraq.

The United States is offering $10 million for information leading to the location, arrest, or conviction of Baghdadi, an Iraqi, whose real name is Ibrahim Awwad Ibrahim Ali al-Badri al-Samarai.

Baghdadi called for attacks against the rulers of Saudi Arabia in a speech purported to be in his name last month.

He said his self-declared caliphate was expanding in Saudi Arabia and four other Arab countries and called for "volcanoes of jihad" the world over in the speech released on Nov. 13.

A CV of Baghdadi published on social media in July by Islamic State sympathizers described him as married but gave no further details.

Born in 1971, Baghdadi comes from an Iraqi family of preachers and Arabic teachers, according to a biography distributed on Islamist forums that says he studied at the Islamic University in Baghdad.

According to U.S. media reports, Baghdadi was detained for several years at Camp Bucca, a U.S.-run prison in southern Iraq, before becoming head of the Islamic State of Iraq in 2010, a predecessor to Islamic State, which expanded into Syria in 2013.

In June this year, his group named him "caliph for the Muslims everywhere", and called on all Muslims to pledge allegiance. Although he is rarely pictured, a video released in July showed him preaching in a mosque in the Iraqi city of Mosul, dressed in a black robe and turban.

He has proven ruthless in eliminating opponents and showed no hesitation in turning against former allies: he launched a war against al Qaeda's Syria wing Nusra Front, leading to a split with al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri, earlier this year.

The Lebanese authorities have also detained the wife of Anas Shirkas, senior Nusra Front leader from Syria, security officials said on Tuesday. They did not identify her.

(Additional reporting by Saif Hameed in Iraq; Writing by Sylvia Westall and Tom Perry; Editing by Samia Nakhoul, Janet McBride and Giles Elgood)

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Protesters demand more security in Kenya after bus attack

By Edmund Blair and Edith Honan

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Somali al Shabaab Islamist militants killed 36 non-Muslim workers at a quarry in northeast Kenya on Tuesday, prompting the president to change his top security officials to tackle a relentless wave of violence.

Kenyans have grown increasingly critical of President Uhuru Kenyatta and his government for failing to do more to defend the nation from the incessant militant attacks, which have killed well over 200 people since 2013.

Al Shabaab has claimed responsibility for much of the bloodshed and says it will keep up the violence in an effort to persuade Kenya to pull its troops out of neighboring Somalia.

In Tuesday's attack, gunmen crept up on dozens of workers sleeping in tents at about 1 a.m. (2200 GMT), a resident said, in the same area near the Somali border where a bus was hijacked just over a week ago and 28 passengers killed.

"The militia separated the Muslims, then ordered the non-Muslims to lie down where they shot them on the head at close range," Hassan Duba, an elder at a nearby village, said.

A witness said at least two of the victims were beheaded.

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Kenyan military personnel and Red Cross volunteers carry bodies of people killed at a quarry in a vi …

Public pressure has been mounting on Kenyatta to sack police chief David Kimaiyo and Interior Minister Joseph ole Lenku since al Shabaab's attack on Nairobi's Westgate shopping mall last year that killed 67 people and the subsequent violence.

Addressing the nation, Kenyatta said he had accepted Kimaiyo's resignation and nominated a new interior minister, Joseph Nkaissery, a retired Major General, urging parliament to speedily approve his choice.

He called on opponents, who have criticized his handling of security policy, to unite in fighting the militants. "Our bickering only emboldens the enemy," the president said.

UNCOMPROMISING

As with past attacks, al Shabaab militants said they were punishing Kenya for sending troops to join African peacekeepers battling the Islamists in Somalia. In a statement, it put the death toll at 40 and called the victims "Kenyan crusaders".

"We are uncompromising in our beliefs, relentless in our pursuit, ruthless against the disbelievers and we will do whatever necessary to defend our Muslim brethren suffering from Kenya’s aggression," spokesman Ali Mohamud Rage said.

Kenya's government and a witness said 36 people were killed. The government cited survivors saying about 20 fighters attacked the quarry, about 15 km (10 miles) from the town of Mandera. One person died in another attack on the northern town of Wajir late on Monday.

Western diplomats say Kenya's security services, which receive support from Britain, the United States and others, are hobbled by poor coordination.

Government opponents say the troops in Somalia have not protected Kenya and should be withdrawn. The government has repeatedly said it would not pull the troops out.

"They were supposed to create a buffer between our countries and the chaos on the other side. But it has not done that. So we are saying leave," Dennis Onyango, a spokesman for opposition politician and former prime minister Raila Odinga, said.

Al Shabaab have been driven out of several strongholds in Somalia by an offensive by African Union and Somali troops this year, but analysts said it would not prevent the group from carrying out guerrilla-style attacks or striking abroad.

"This (latest attack) seems very much in line with al Shabaab strategy," said Cedric Barnes of the Crisis Group in Nairobi of the latest attack. "It's partly a result of al Shabaab being squeezed in Somalia."

(Additional reporting by Joseph Akwiri in Mombasa, Duncan Miriri, Edith Honan, James Macharia and Drazen Jorbic in Nairobi and Feisal Omar in Mogadishu; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by James Macharia)