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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
1/18/2013 4:25:55 PM

Muslims, Christians clash in southern Egypt

LUXOR, Egypt (AP) — Police fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of Muslim protesters outside a church in southern Egypt Friday. The demonstrators were demanding an investigation into allegations that a Christian man sexually assaulted a 6-year-old girl.

Residents in the province of Qena said four shops owned by Coptic Christians were torched overnight after villagers accused one of the store owners of molesting the young girl.

The clashes took place in the village of Marashda in Qena province.

Residents said protesters threw stones at the local church after midday Friday Islamic prayers. Police fired tear gas to scatter the crowd, which is in one of Egypt's poorest areas.

Qena security director Gen. Salah Mazid was quoted in state media saying that police are investigating the accusations against the merchant.

Flare-ups of violence between Egypt's Christians and Muslims have become more frequent in the past two years in the wake of the country's uprising that ousted longtime President Hosni Mubarak but also weakened security across the nation.

Egyptian Christians fear that the power vacuum that has followed Mubarak's overthrow is giving ultraconservatives and extremist Muslims a freer hand to attack churches and Coptic property, especially in poor areas of the nation.

Egypt's Coptic Christians, who make up about 10 percent of the country's 85 million people, have long complained of discrimination by the state. They are the largest Christian community in the Middle East.

Clashes between Copts and Muslims are usually sparked by church construction, land disputes or Muslim-Christian love affairs.


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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
1/18/2013 4:27:21 PM

First batch of Nigerian troops off to Mali


Associated Press - Nigeria battalion 1, troops for African led international support mission to Mali are seen before their departure at the peace keeping centre in Jaji, Kaduna, Nigeria, Thursday, Jan. 17, 2012. (AP Photo/) l

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — A top Nigerian military officer says thatMali's Islamist extremist rebels trained Nigeria's Boko Haramterrorists.

Lt. Gen. Onyeabo Azubike Ihejerika, speaking at the departure ofNigerian troops for Mali, said that Nigeria is sending troops as part of its efforts to stabilize and bring peace to the region.

About 100 Nigerian soldiers left Thursday from Kaduna airport, the first contingent of the 900 troops that Nigeria has pledged to Mali.

Ihejerika said Nigeria's mission to Mali will complement the efforts to bring about peace in Nigeria. Ihejerika said Nigeria has "evidence that some of the terrorists operating in Nigeria today were trained in Mali." Nigeria's Boko Haram Islamist extremists are blamed for attacks that killed more than 780 people last year.


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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
1/18/2013 4:32:46 PM

60 hostages dead, missing in Algeria standoff


Associated Press/DigitalGlobe - This Oct. 8, 2012 satellite image provided by DigitalGlobe shows the Amenas Gas Field in Algeria, which is jointly operated by BP and Norway's Statoil and Algeria's Sonatrach. Algerian special forces launched a rescue operation Thursday at the plant in the Sahara Desert and freed foreign hostages held by al-Qaida-linked militants, but estimates for the number of dead varied wildly from four to dozens. (AP Photo/DigitalGlobe)

Statoil's CEO Helge Lund, arrives to meet at the centre for relatives to the hostages in Algeria, which has been established near the airport, in Bergen, Norway, Thursday, Jan. 17, 2013. Algerian forces launched a military assault Thursday at a natural gas plant in the Sahara Desert, trying to free dozens of foreign hostages held by militants who have ties to Mali's rebel Islamists, diplomats and an Algerian security official said. Yet information on the Algerian operation varied wildly and the conflicting reports that emerged from the remote area were impossible to verify independently (AP Photo/Hakon Mosvold /NTB Scanpix) NORWAY OUT
A man reads a newspaper headlining "Terrorist attack and kidnapping in In Amenas", at a news stand in Algiers, Thursday, Jan. 17, 2013. Algerian forces raided a remote Sahara gas plant on Thursday in an attempt to free dozens of foreign hostages held by militants with ties to Mali’s rebel Islamists, diplomats and an Algerian security official said. Information on the Algerian assault in the remote area was wildly varying _ Islamic militants claimed that 35 hostages and 15 militants died in a strafing by Algerian helicopters, while Algeria’s official news service claimed hundreds of local workers and half the foreigners were rescued. (AP Photo/Ouahab Hebbat)
ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) — About 60 foreign hostages are still unaccounted for three days into a bloody siege with Islamic militants at a gas plant deep in the Sahara, Algeria's state news service said Friday.

The militants, meanwhile, offered to trade two American hostagesfor terror figures jailed in the United States, according to a statement received by a Mauritanian news site that often reports news from North African extremists.

It was the latest surprising development in a hostage drama that began Wednesday when militants seized hundreds of workers from 10 nations at Algeria's remote Ain Amenas natural gas plant.Algerian forces retaliated Thursday by storming the plant in an attempted rescue operation that killed at least four hostages and left leaders around the world expressing strong concerns about the hostages' safety.

Algerian special forces resumed negotiating Friday with the militants holed up in the refinery, according to the Algerian newsservice, which cited a security source.

The report said "more than half of the 132 hostages" had been freed in the first two days, but it could not account for the remainder, saying some could be hidden throughout the sprawling desert site.

Militants on Friday offered to trade two American hostages for two prominent terror figures jailed in the United States: the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and a Pakistani scientist convicted of shooting at two U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.

The offer, according to a Mauritanian news site that frequently broadcasts dispatches from groups linked to al-Qaida, came from Moktar Belmoktar, an extremist commander based in Mali who apparently masterminded the operation.

Algeria's government has kept a tight grip on information, but it was clear that the militant assault that began Wednesday with an attempted bus hijacking has killed at least six people from the plant — and perhaps many more.

Workers kidnapped by the militants came from around the world — Americans, Britons, French, Norwegians, Romanians, Malaysians, Japanese, Algerians. Leaders on Friday expressed strong concerns about how Algeria was handing the situation and its apparent reluctance to communicate.

British Prime Minister David Cameron went before the House of Commons on Friday to provide an update, seeming frustrated that Britain was not told about the military operation despite having "urged we be consulted."

Terrorized hostages from Ireland and Norway trickled out of the Ain Amenas plant, 800 miles (1,300 kilometers) south of Algiers, the capital. BP, which jointly operates the plant, said it had begun to evacuate employees from Algeria.

"This is a large and complex site and they are still pursuing terrorists and possibly some of the hostages," Cameron said. He told lawmakers the situation remained fluid and dangerous, saying "part of the threat has been eliminated in one part of the site, a threat still remains in another part."

Algeria's army-dominated government, hardened by decades of fighting Islamist militants, shrugged aside foreign offers of help and drove ahead alone.

The U.S. government sent an unarmed surveillance drone to the BP-operated site, near the border with Libya, but it could do little more than watch Thursday's military intervention. British intelligence and security officials were on the ground in Algeria's capital but were not at the installation, said a British official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters.

A U.S. official said while some Americans escaped, other Americans were either still held or unaccounted for.

El Mokhtar Ould Sidi, editor of the Mauritanian news site ANI, said several calls on Thursday came from the kidnappers themselves giving their demands and describing the situation.

"They were clearly in a situation of war, the spokesman who contacted us was giving orders to his colleagues and you could hear the sounds of war in the background.... He threatened to kill all the hostages if the Algerian forces tried to liberate them," he said.

With the hostage drama entering its second day Thursday, Algerian security forces moved in, first with helicopter fire and then special forces, according to diplomats, a website close to the militants, and an Algerian security official. The government said it was forced to intervene because the militants were being stubborn and wanted to flee with the hostages.

Militants claimed 35 hostages died when the military helicopters opened fire as they were transporting hostages from the living quarters to the main factory area where other workers were being held.

The group — led by a Mali-based al-Qaida offshoot known as the Masked Brigade — suffered losses in Thursday's military assault — but garnered a global audience.

The militants made it clear that their attack was in revenge for the French intervention against Islamists who have taken over large parts of neighboring Mali. France has encountered fierce resistance from the extremist groups in Mali and failed to persuade many Western allies to join in the actual combat.

Even violence-scarred Algerians were stunned by the brazen hostage-taking Wednesday, the biggest in northern Africa in years and the first to include Americans as targets. Mass fighting in the 1990s had largely spared the lucrative oil and gas industry that gives Algeria its economic independence and regional weight.

The official Algerian news agency said four hostages were killed in Thursday's operation, two Britons and two Filipinos. Two others, a Briton and an Algerian, died Wednesday in the initial militant ambush on a bus ferrying foreign workers to an airport. Citing hospital officials, it said six Algerians and seven foreigners were injured.

APS said some 600 local workers were safely freed in the raid — but many of those were reportedly released the day before by the militants themselves.

One Irish hostage managed to escape: electrician Stephen McFaul, who'd worked in North Africa's oil and natural gas fields off and on for 15 years. His family said the militants let hostages call their families to press the kidnappers' demands.

"He phoned me at 9 o'clock to say al-Qaida were holding him, kidnapped, and to contact the Irish government, for they wanted publicity. Nightmare, so it was. Never want to do it again. He'll not be back! He'll take a job here in Belfast like the rest of us," said his mother, Marie.

Dylan, McFaul's 13-year-old son, started crying as he talked to Ulster Television. "I feel over the moon, just really excited. I just can't wait for him to get home," he said.

____

Schemm reported from Rabat, Morocco. Associated Press writers Bradley Klapper, Lolita Baldor and Robert Burns in Washington, Lori Hinnant in Paris, Shawn Pogatchnik in Dublin, Bjoern H. Amland in Oslo, Norway, Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo and Cassandra Vinograd, Paisley Dodds and Jill Lawless in London contributed to this report.


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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
1/18/2013 4:37:02 PM

Mali Islamists tougher than France anticipated: envoys


Reuters/REUTERS - French military pass the town of Konobougou on their way to Segou, Mali January 17, 2013. European Union states will send more than 200 military personnel to train Mali government forces in the fight against Islamist rebels. Western stakes in the crisis were underlined when Islamist gunmen took dozens of foreign and local workers hostage at an Algerian desert gas facility on Wednesday, demanding that France pull its troops out of Mali. REUTERS/Joe Penney (MALI - Tags: CIVIL UNREST CONFLICT MILITARY)

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - French troops' initial clashes with Islamist militants in Mali have shown that the desert fighters are better trained and equipped than France had anticipated before last week's military intervention, French and other U.N. diplomats said.

The realization that the fighting could be bloodier than anticipated in the weeks -- or months -- ahead might make Western countries even more reluctant to get involved alongside France. French officials, however, hope it will rally their allies behind them, diplomats say.

"The cost of failure in Mali would be high for everyone, not just the people of Mali," an African diplomat said on Thursday. Like the other diplomats, he spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military and diplomatic issues.

The seizure of dozens of hostages in neighboring Algeria, where Algerian troops launched a military operation to rescue the captives from "diehard" Islamist militants at a desert gas plant, also raises the possibility that Islamist violence could snowball beyond Mali's borders.

The diplomats were speaking after French forces had their first encounters with Islamist fighters in recent days. The ground war appeared headed for escalation on Thursday as French troops surrounded the town of Diabaly, trapping rebels who had seized it three days ago.

"Our enemies were well-armed, well-equipped, well-trained and determined," a senior French diplomat said.

"The first surprise was that some of them are holding the ground," he said, adding that others had fled during six days of French air strikes aimed at halting the militants' offensive and preventing the fall of Mali's capital, Bamako.

French, Malian and African forces are facing off against an Islamist coalition that includes al Qaeda's North African wing, AQIM, and the homegrown Ansar Dine and MUJWA militants. The motley mix of Tuareg rebels, Islamists and foreign jihadists has been united by the threat of foreign military intervention, which the Security Council called for last month.

Some of the militants are believed to have been trained and armed by the government of late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who was ousted and killed by rebels in a 2011 civil war.

FOG OF WAR

A number of diplomats said it was clear that the initial French assessments of the militants had underestimated their strength. It is a view that French officials do not dispute.

"They are better trained, I think, than the French had anticipated at the beginning and are fighting harder than had been anticipated," a senior Western diplomat said.

Other envoys noted that the 2,000 promised Chadian troops, who are known for their desert-fighting expertise, have yet to arrive and it remains to be seen how they will perform.

Diplomats said that the overly optimistic assessments of the Islamists were understandable in what several envoys described as "the fog of war," where clarity is rare and precise information and accurate intelligence are often hard to come.

The senior Western diplomat said there was nothing to suggest the French were being overwhelmed on the ground and pointed to the achievement of Paris' initial objective, which was halting the militants' offensive.

"They feel that they took the decisions that they had to take in the short term," he said.

"But inevitably in these situations you never quite know what the outcome's going to be, or what the consequences are going to be, or what the exit strategy is. But they have been successful in protecting Bamako, which could have fallen."

Nicolas van de Walle, a professor at Cornell University, said the rebels have demonstrated "superior knowledge of this very difficult terrain, their ability to slip across foreign borders and their impressive mobility."

French forces total 1,400 troops, Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Thursday, and their numbers are expected to rise to 2,500. Foreign African troops have also begun arriving.

INCORRECT ALGERIAN INTELLIGENCE?

Northern Mali fell under Islamist control after a March 2012 military coup in Bamako triggered a Tuareg-led rebel offensive that seized the north and split the West African nation in two.

Last month, the U.N. Security Council approved an African-led force to help Mali's government reclaim the north. That force is to be comprised of up to 3,300 troops, but is not expected to be deployed in the north before September.

The French and others have called for an acceleration of the force's deployment in light of the emergency Mali is facing.

So far the entire Security Council - including the typically skeptical Russians - are supporting the French, diplomats say.

Despite that diplomatic backing, envoys say that Western nations have offered France little of the logistical support it has requested. The United States agreed to France's request for airlift capacity for troops, and U.N. diplomats said Paris was still hoping Washington can provide drones and aerial refueling capacity.

The surprises about the Mali conflict have not been limited to the militants' behavior on the battlefield, diplomats say.

Before the Islamists launched their offensive earlier this month and threatened to take Bamako, Algerian intelligence had concluded that elements of Ansar Dine would be open to negotiations and would not fight alongside AQIM and others.

That assessment proved incorrect.

"It was believed that there were links between Ansar Dine elements and elements of Algerian intelligence," a diplomat told Reuters. "But those links appear to have vanished."

Algeria's U.N. mission did not respond to a request for comment.

The Algerians are allowing their former colonial masters, the French, to use their airspace, which U.N. diplomats say is no small matter and shows Algeria's commitment to supporting France's efforts in Mali.

Algeria has much at stake, given that it does not want the Islamists in Mali to retreat to its territory, where they could carry out operations like the one on Wednesday in which militants seized dozens of hostages. (Editing by Warren Strobel and Doina Chiacu)


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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
1/18/2013 4:39:09 PM

Syria: Twin suicide blasts hit south of Damascus

By BARBARA SURK | Associated Press56 mins ago

Associated Press/SANA - This photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, shows damage after a rocket slammed into a building, killing at least 12 people, in Aleppo, Syria, Friday, Jan. 18, 2013. In a spike in civil war violence that Syrian state media blamed on rebel fighters a rocket attack in the northern city of Aleppo occurred during a particularly bloody week nearly two years after an uprising began against Assad's regime. (AP Photo/SANA)


BEIRUT (AP) — Two car bombs exploded in southern Syria and a rocket slammed into a building in the north, killing at least 12 people in a spike in civil war violence Friday that Syrian state media blamed on rebel fighters trying to topple President Bashar Assad.

The rocket attack in the northern city of Aleppo and the suicide car bombings in Daraa, south ofDamascus, occurred during a particularly bloody week nearly two years after an uprising began against Assad's regime. On Thursday, opposition activists said pro-government militia swept through a town in central Syria, torching houses and killing more than 100 people.

Both sides have been blaming each other for the recent attacks, and it was the second time in a week that the government accused rebels of firing rockets.

The state-run SANA news agency said the morning attack in Aleppo was carried out by terrorists, a term the regime uses for rebels. But the Local Coordination Committees of Syria, an activist group, and the Aleppo Media Center, a network of anti-regime activists, accused the government of launching an airstrike.

On Tuesday, 87 people were killed in twin blasts at Aleppo University. The regime said rebels hit the university with rockets. Rebels said the deaths resulted from regime airstrikes.

Syria's state-run TV claimed that shortly after the rocket hit the building in Aleppo, militants linked to an al-Qaida group detonated cars filled with explosives near a mosque in Daraa as worshippers were leaving following Friday prayers.

Video broadcast on Syrian state TV showed several floors of the targeted building collapsed in a government-controlled area of Aleppo, Syria's largest urban center and main commercial hub. The video showed a man carrying a baby out of the damaged building and another man was seen clutching his head as blood ran down his forehead. Residents were also seen looking for people buried in the rubble. At least one injured person on a stretcher was seen being carried away in a Red Crescent ambulance.

State TV reports said both attacks caused many casualties, but it was not immediately known how many people were killed or wounded in the two cities — both major fronts in the civil war.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 12 people were killed in the Aleppo attack and dozens were wounded. The group relies on reports from activists on the ground.

Government troops and rebels have been locked in a deadly stalemate in Aleppo and other areas in the north since last summer. Six months later, the rebels hold large parts of the city. Still, they have been unable to overcome the regime's far superior firepower.

With the two sides deadlocked on the northern front, rebels have increasingly targeted state security facilities and government institutions in other parts of the country, including in the capital, Damascus. Suicide attacks have been a hallmark of the Islamic rebel units that have been fighting alongside other opposition fighters.

State TV said fighters with Jabhat al-Nusra, a group the U.S. has declared a terrorist organization, were behind the twin blasts in Daraa.

Daraa is the birthplace of the revolt that erupted in March 2011. It began as peaceful protests against Assad's rule but quickly turned into a civil war after a brutal government crackdown on dissent More than 60,000 people have been killed in the violence, according to a recent United Nation's estimate.

Also on Friday, fighting between Syrian rebels and Assad's loyalists flared in a Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus, killing 12 people and wounding at least 20 others, a U.N. refugee agency said. Children were among the casualties, according to a statement issued by the U.N. Relief and Works Agency. The agency called on both sides to "pull back from civilian areas, including refugee camps."

The Palestinian camp called Yarmouk has been the scene of heavy clashes between rebels and regime loyalists since mid-December, when opposition fighters moved into the camp during an attempt to storm the capital.

About half of Yarmouk's 150,000 residents have fled since fighting erupted in mid-December, according to UNRWA, which administers Palestinian camps in the Middle East. Some sought refuge in neighboring Lebanon, and others found shelter in UNRWA schools in Damascus and other Syrian cities.

Dozens have been killed in the fighting, although the United Nations did not provide an exact figure of casualties in Yarmouk violence, which has included airstrikes and artillery shelling from the Syrian military.

On Syria's northern border with Turkey, regime fighter jets pounded villages in rebel-held areas in Latakia province, dropping makeshift bombs made from hundreds of pounds (kilograms) of explosives stuffed into barrels, Turkey's state-run Anadolu agency said. The so-called barrel bombs were used in strikes on targets in Latakia Friday, the agency said, adding the regime's assault included military helicopters.

The shelling of Latakia could be heard across the border in the Turkish province of Hatay, according to the news report, which also reported heavy clashes between government troops and rebels in Syria's northern Idlib province, also along the border with Turkey.

There were no reports of any deaths in the fighting. Ambulances were sent to the border region to bring wounded Syrians to hospitals in Turkey, the agency said.

____

Associated Press writer Zeina Karam in Beirut and Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, contributed to this report.

"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

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