Blast, drones kill 16 al Qaeda-linked militants in Yemen

SANAA (Reuters) - More than 10 suspected al Qaeda operatives were killed by an explosion in a house in south Yemen where they were making bombs, and at least six others died in two strikes from U.S. drones, tribal and official sources said on Sunday.

A bomb ripped through a house in the province of al-Bayda on Saturday night, the state news agency Saba and a local official said.

Strikes by suspected U.S. drone aircraft killed three people on Saturday and another three on Sunday in two parts of central Maarib province, tribal and government sources said.

The Yemeni Defence Ministry said in an SMS text message that a number of militants were killed in two air strikes but gave no further details.

The United States never comments on strikes by its pilotless aircraft, which it has used to hunt militants in Yemen for years. The Yemeni government allows U.S. strikes but usually does not comment on the U.S. role in specific incidents.

Yemen's government has been fighting a powerful branch of al Qaeda that grew in power and influence amid chaos in the impoverished state two years ago during a popular uprising against former President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is considered by Western governments to be one of the most active and dangerous wings of the global network founded by Osama bin Laden and has attempted a number of attacks against U.S. targets.

The house destroyed in al Bayda had been used for making bombs, an official from the area told Reuters on Sunday.

"We heard a massive explosion that terrified people and when we went to the house it was destroyed and everyone there was dead," the official said.

In Maarib, a pilotless plane carried out two strikes against a car on Saturday, a witness said.

"One of the strikes missed the target and the other hit the car and left the bodies of the three people in it completely charred," the witness told Reuters by telephone from the area.

He said unidentified people evacuated the bodies while tribesmen blocked the main road linking the capital of Maarib province with Sanaa on Saturday after the strikes.

The strike on Sunday took place in the Al Shabwan region of the province, the tribal and government sources said.

Earlier this month, dozens of armed tribesmen took to the streets in southern Yemen to protest drones they said killed innocent civilians and fed anger against the United States.

President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi spoke openly in favor of the strikes during a trip to the United States in September.

Praised by the U.S. ambassador in Sanaa as being more effective against al Qaeda than his predecessor, Hadi was quoted as saying in September that he personally approved every attack.

AQAP offshoot, Ansar al-Sharia (Partisan of Islamic Law), seized a number of towns in the south in 2011. Yemeni government forces retook the areas in a U.S.-backed offensive in June.

(Reporting by Mohammed Ghobari; Writing by Mahmoud Habboush; Editing by Sami Aboudi, Alison Williams and Jason Webb)

Egypt: Ton of explosives seized on way to Sinai

CAIRO (AP) — A senior Egyptian security official says police have seized a ton of explosives headed to the Sinai Peninsula, which borders Israel and the Gaza Strip.

Adel Rifaat, security chief of Suez city at the southern end of the Suez Canal, said Sunday the explosives were discovered in a truck crossing into Sinai from mainland Egypt through a traffic tunnel under the canal.

The truck driver was arrested for questioning about the origin of his cargo and its final destination.

Lawlessness has been rife in Sinai since the ouster of longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak in February 2011. Weapons have flowed into the peninsula from Libya, where an eight-month civil war ended in late 2011. Many of these weapons are smuggled into Hamas-ruled Gaza. Sinai's Islamist militants have also grown in strength.

Five shot dead in Albuquerque, teen charged

SANTA FE, New Mexico (Reuters) - A teenage boy with several weapons including an assault rifle shot and killed five people, three of them children, at a house in Albuquerque, New Mexico, authorities said on Sunday.

The boy, whose exact age had yet to be determined, was arrested and charged with the killings which took place late Saturday night, said Aaron Williamson, a Bernalillo County Sheriff's Department deputy.

"The victims all had multiple gunshot wounds, and there appeared to be multiple weapons, including an assault type weapon," Williamson said.

The children appeared to be "elementary- to middle-school age," Williamson said. The boy was charged with two counts of murder and three counts of child abuse resulting in death, he said.

He said it had not been determined whether the weapons were from inside the house or brought from somewhere else.

It also was not yet clear whether the five people killed were related or what the relationship was between the teen and the victims.

The nation remains on edge about gun violence after a man killed 20 schoolchildren and six adults at a Connecticut elementary school in December using an assault rifle, sparking a renewed debate about gun control.

President Barack Obama has proposed a new assault weapons ban and mandatory background checks for all gun buyers, and New York on Tuesday broadened its assault weapons ban and restricted the allowed capacity for ammunition magazines.

Several other states also are considering whether to tighten gun controls.

The use of assault weapons is legal in New Mexico, although state lawmakers are considering bills that would tighten gun control laws and require background checks for nearly anyone buying a firearm.

(Reporting by Zelie Pollon; Editing by David Bailey, Ellen Wulfhorst and Cynthia Osterman)

Mayors focus on "local warming," urge Obama to act

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Reeling from an historic drought, the hottest year on record and more frequent wild weather, mayors from a number of U.S. cities urged the White House this week to take the lead on setting an agenda to address climate change.

City leaders said that only the federal government has the tools and clout to address greenhouse gases often blamed for warming the planet, while mayors focus on issues of "local warming" such as providing a reliable water supply or protecting citizens during dangerous weather events such as the 1995 Chicago heat wave that was blamed for over 700 deaths.

"We are fixing pot holes, dealing with transit issues," Seattle mayor Michael McGinn said while attending the U.S. Conference of Mayors' winter meeting. "But this can be a top tier issue for the president."

On the night of his reelection, Obama said fighting climate change would be a priority in his second term. He has since repeated the point, but without giving policy specifics.

And for now officials are doing their work quietly.

The White House asked that a discussion about climate change at the mayors' meeting on Thursday take place behind closed doors, frustrating some participants, even as hot button topics from immigration to gun control got public airings.

"This should be discussed openly," said Jim Brainard, the Republican mayor of Carmel, Indiana, who co-chaired the climate panel.

White House liaison for climate change Heather Zichal led the discussion, but declined to comment on why the meeting was closed.

"At the end of the day, it was a productive conversation," she said, noting that the White House was eager to hear from cities on reducing emissions of greenhouse gas.

Los Angeles, for example, plans to slash carbon emissions from government sources 35 percent below 1990 levels by 2030, a more ambitious target than even the state has set.

Among other measures, Chicago is spending billions of dollars to boost public transit and help public buildings save energy.

Mayors say they are proud of such steps and understand Obama's reluctance to take on a politically charged issue, but only Washington can achieve the overall greenhouse gas cuts that many say are needed.

"We are looking for leadership from the president in detailing to the American people the magnitude of this issue," McGinn said after the meeting with about two dozen peers.

DASHED CLIMATE HOPES

The Obama administration pinned its hopes on Congress to enact a comprehensive energy and climate bill that would have set a national price on carbon dioxide emissions during the president's first term.

That effort failed in bitter partisan wrangling, forcing the administration to rethink its strategy and reach for existing regulations as a way to mitigate climate warming emissions.

"I absolutely would anticipate that we will continue to use existing authority to make progress in this area," Zichal said after her meeting with mayors.

But efforts by states and cities will also be crucial to "move the needle" on reducing emissions, she said, noting that she heard new ideas about city climate initiatives that create jobs and reduce pollution.

Mayors contend that those efforts often need federal funding. They are counting on help from Washington to upgrade storm water systems, for example, and otherwise brace for the practical fallout from more extreme weather.

Although Greg Fischer, mayor of Louisville, Kentucky, said not all his constituents embrace the idea of man-made climate change, more frequent severe weather is "a far-reaching issue that touches almost every area of the city."

Scientists caution that no single weather event can be blamed on climate change. But the force of Hurricane Sandy, which devastated parts of New York and New Jersey in October, and a withering drought in the Midwest, are seen as harbingers.

"There is a lot of call for the president to use his 'bully pulpit' and explain the consequences here," said Brainard.

French airstrikes jolt Islamists in Malian town

Associated Press/Jerome Delay - A French soldier waits for a French Puma transport helicopter to land on the soccer stadium to test the field in the center of Niono, some 400 kms (300 miles) North of the capital Bamako Sunday Jan. 20, 2013. French troops encircled a key Malian town on Friday, trying to stop radical Islamists from striking against communities closer to the capital and cutting off their supply line, a French official said. The move around Diabaly came as French and Malian authorities said that the city whose capture prompted the French military intervention in the first place was no longer in the hands of the extremists.(AP Photo/Jerome Delay)

French foreign legionnaires check their equipment in Niono, some 400 kilometers (249 miles) north of the capital Bamako Sunday Jan. 20, 2013. The Malian military announced late Saturday that the government was now controlling Diabaly, marking an important accomplishment for the French-led offensive to oust the extremists from northern and central Mali. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)

BAMAKO, Mali (AP) — Backed by French air strikes, Malian forces appeared close to recapturing a key central town in Mali where bands of al-Qaida-linked fighters had holed up, France's defense minister said Sunday.

The French military has spent the last nine days helping the West African nation of Mali quash a jihadist rebellion in its vast northern desert. The comments Sunday from Jean-Yves Le Drian, however, appeared to cast some doubt on local military claims that the town of Diabaly had already been recaptured from the Islamists.

The town of 35,000, which hosts an important military camp, was taken over by al-Qaida-linked militants last week.

"Right now, the town of Diabaly is not retaken," Le Drian told France-5 TV. "(But) everything leads us to believe Diabaly is going to head in the positive direction in the coming hours."

The French military said its fighter planes and helicopter gunships had carried out a dozen operations in the previous 24 hours — half of them to strike "terrorist vehicles." The report came late Sunday in a statement on the military's Web site.

Previously, Mali's military had claimed the government was back in control of Diabaly — a potential breakthrough in the French-led campaign to oust extremists there.

The contrasting accounts were emblematic of the confusion in the embattled West African country, where French forces opened an air campaign on Jan. 11 and have been building up troop levels to help restore government control in central and northeast Mali.

The zone around Diabaly remains blocked off by a military cordon and it is not possible to independently verify the information.

Video obtained by The Associated Press from Diabaly on Saturday showed burned-out vehicles, scattered bullets and several armored vehicles belonging to the Malian army lying abandoned and damaged along roadsides. Displaced residents and Malian officials described how Islamists fled the town on foot after days of French airstrikes that destroyed their vehicles.

For government supporters, the incursion signaled an alarming drive by the jihadists into central Mali — and closer to the capital of Bamako — from the base they have established in the country's vast northeast. The Islamists captured the Texas-sized northeastern expanse nine months ago, exploiting a power vacuum after a military coup in the distant capital.

Also Sunday, French forces extended their deployment northward from the central town of Markala, reinforcing their presence in the towns of Niono and Mopti, said Col. Thierry Burkhard, a French military spokesman.

The French statement said some 400 troops from Nigeria, Togo and Benin had arrived Sunday in Bamako to help train an African force for Mali. Troops from Chad, who are considered hardened fighters familiar with the desert-like terrain of northern Mali, also arrived in Mali, Le Drian said.

Overall, Le Drian said the French-led campaign against the militants was making progress. He said he wasn't aware of any civilian casualties and said the air strikes had caused "significant" — though unspecified — losses among the jihadists, and only minor skirmishes involved French forces on the ground.

Still, as they work to root out the jihadists and secure local populations, French and Malian forces also have to contend with some villagers who are backing the rebels.

"The war against the Islamists is not at all easy and there's a very small part of the population which is helping their cause," said Col. Seydou Sogoba, the Malian force commander in the Niono region. "That is what is making the fight against them tough."

France, which has received logistical support from Western allies and intelligence from the United States, ultimately hopes that troops from West African regional bloc ECOWAS will take the lead alongside Malian troops in securing the country, a former French colony.

Neighboring African countries are expected to contribute around 3,000 troops but concerns about the French mission have delayed several nations from sending their promised troops.

A donors' conference for the U.N.-backed Mali mission is being held in Ethiopia's capital of Addis Ababa on Jan. 29.

___

Andy Drake in Niono, Robbie Corey-Boulet in Abidjan, Ivory Coast and Jamey Keaten in Dakar, Senegal contributed to this report.