Author: djadmin

France’s president announced the death of Islamic State in the Greater Sahara’s leader late Wednesday, calling Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi’s killing “a major success” for the French military after more than eight years fighting extremists in the Sahel.

French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted that al-Sahrawi “was neutralized by French forces” but gave no further details. It was not announced where al-Sahrawi was killed, though the Islamic State group is active along the border between Mali and Niger.

“The nation is thinking tonight of all its heroes who died for France in the Sahel in the Serval and Barkhane operations, of the bereaved families, of all of its wounded,” Macron tweeted. “Their sacrifice is not in vain.”

Rumors of the militant leader’s death had circulated for weeks in Mali, though authorities in the region had not confirmed it. It was not immediately possible to independently verify the claim or to know how the remains had been identified.

“This is a decisive blow against this terrorist group,” French Defense Minister Florence Parly tweeted. “Our fight continues.”

Al-Sahrawi had claimed responsibility for a 2017 attack in Niger that killed four U.S. military personnel and four people with Niger’s military. His group also has abducted foreigners in the Sahel and is believed to still be holding American Jeffrey Woodke, who was abducted from his home in Niger in 2016.

The extremist leader was born in the disputed territory of Western Sahara and later joined the Polisario Front. After spending time in Algeria, he made his way to northern Mali where he became an important figure in the group known as MUJAO that controlled the major northern town of Gao in 2012.

A French-led military operation the following year ousted Islamic extremists from power in Gao and other northern cities, though those elements later regrouped and again carried out attacks.

The Malian group MUJAO was loyal to the regional al-Qaida affiliate. But in 2015, al-Sahrawi released an audio message pledging allegiance to the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.

The French military has been fighting Islamic extremists in the Sahel region where France was once the colonial power since the 2013 intervention in northern Mali. It recently announced, though, that it would be reducing its military presence in the region, with plans to withdraw 2,000 troops by early next year.

News of al-Sahrawi’s death comes as France’s global fight against the Islamic State organization is making headlines in Paris. The key defendant in the 2015 Paris attacks trial said Wednesday that those coordinated killings were in retaliation for French airstrikes on the Islamic State group, calling the deaths of 130 innocent people “nothing personal” as he acknowledged his role for the first time.

Source: Voice of America

Authors of the Cluster Munition Monitor 2021 report say great progress toward the elimination of these lethal weapons has been made since the Cluster Ban Treaty came into force in 2010.

The Monitor finds there has been no new use of cluster munitions by any of the 110 states that has joined the treaty, nor by the 13 states that have signed but not yet ratified it.

The report says the remaining problems lie with countries that remain outside the convention.

The most notable use of cluster munitions last year was by non-member states Armenia and Azerbaijan during their war over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The Monitor records 107 casualties from cluster munition attacks in Azerbaijan, the most in any country last year.

Syria has continuously used cluster munitions since 2012.

Human Rights Watch arms advocacy director Mary Wareham says use of the weapons in 2020 was greatly reduced compared to previous years.

She says another visible example of the treaty’s success is in the destruction of stockpiles.

“We know that at least 1.5 million cluster munitions and more than 178 million submunitions have been destroyed from stocks today,” said Wareham. “That goes to show that this convention is truly lifesaving because every single one of those explosive submunitions could take a life or a limb.”

Globally, the monitor has recorded at least 360 new cluster munition casualties in 2020, caused either from attacks or explosive remnants. The editor of the Monitor, Loren Persi, says children are the main victims of these weapons, which kill and maim civilians indiscriminately.

“Almost half of all casualties, 44 percent are children. About a quarter of casualties were women and girls,” said Persi. “But what we found in 2020 was that women and girls were far less likely to survive their incident with cluster munitions. This is something of concern that we will have to look into as more data becomes available.”

The report says many of the 16 countries outside the convention reserve the right to keep making cluster munitions, even though they currently are not doing so.

Authors of the report say they are concerned that China and Russia are actively researching, testing, and developing new types of cluster munitions.

China, Russia and the United States have not joined the convention. The three countries are among the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.

Source: Voice of America

MOGADISHU— At least nine people have died in a suspected suicide bombing in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, police, and witnesses said.

The attack on Tuesday has killed and wounded civilians and members of the security forces.

Dadir Hassan, another police officer in Mogadishu, said the death toll stood at 11. He told Anadolu Agency over the phone that the suicide bomber targeted a busy tea shop near a main military base in Mogadishu.

“The preliminary investigations confirmed that the attack was a result of a lone suicide bomber who blew himself at a teashop where security forces and civilians frequented and we can confirm that at least 11 people, including soldiers, were killed and several others wounded,” Hassan said.

The bombing was claimed by the al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabab armed group, which has been fighting to overthrow Somalia’s federal government.

“I have passed by the area a few minutes after the blast, the whole area was in a mess with abandoned shoes belonging to the victims,” witness Kudow Yusuf said.

Another witness, Adan Hussein, said he had seen several bodies, some of them in uniform, carried into ambulances.

Somali Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble condemned the “indiscriminate” attack.

“This barbaric act shows how al-Shabaab terrorists are thirsty for the indiscriminate bloodshed of the Somali people, forcing us to cooperate in fighting terrorism,” Roble said.

Al-Shabaab controlled the capital until 2011 when it was pushed out by African Union troops, but it still holds territory in the countryside and launches frequent attacks against government and civilian targets in Mogadishu and elsewhere.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

TRIPOLI— The Libyan Interior Ministry said it detained 109 illegal immigrants bound for Europe in the western city Zliten, some 160 km east of the capital Tripoli.

The migrants include 16 women and two children, the ministry said, adding that they are of Eritrean and Sudanese origin.

The ministry said that legal measures were taken against the migrants.

Libya has been a preferred point of departure for illegal immigrants wanting to cross the Mediterranean towards European shores ever since the 2011 uprising toppled its leader Muammar Gaddafi and plunged the country into insecurity and chaos.

Migrants who are rescued at sea or detained by the Libyan authorities end up in overcrowded reception centers across the country.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

ABUJA— Nigeria is seeing one of its worst cholera outbreaks in years, with more than 2,300 people dying from suspected cases as the West African nation struggles to deal with its impact alongside the coronavirus pandemic.

A total of 69,925 suspected cholera infections had been recorded as of Sept 5 in 25 out of the country’s 36 states and the capital Abuja, according to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.

At least 2,323 people have died linked to the disease so far in 2021, the centre said, and there are concerns total figures may also be an undercount given that many affected communities are in hard to reach areas.

Children between the ages of 5 and 14 are also the most affected age group in this current health crisis, which has a case fatality ratio of 3.3%, more than double that of the coronavirus’ 1.3% in Nigeria.

Nigeria is still facing a third wave of the pandemic mainly driven by the delta variant, and authorities are intensifying efforts to vaccinate a population among whom less than 1% have received both doses of a COVID-19 shot.

States in Nigeria’s north where flooding and poor sanitation increase the risk of transmission are the hardest hit by the resurgence in cholera infections.

All the 19 states in the northern region account for 98% of the total suspected cases.

Cholera is endemic and seasonal in Africa’s most populous country, where only 14% of the 200 million population have access to safely managed drinking water supply services.

According to government data from 2020, open defecation is still practised by at least 30% of residents in 14 states.

The country continues to detect cases of yellow fever, lassa fever, measles and other infectious diseases, which have become annual outbreaks.

And officials say the experience from those health crises has helped Nigeria to prepare for the worst.

Engineer Michael Oludare, an Oyo-based water scientist, said it is “very important” for authorities to look into the causes of cholera and provide basic water and sanitation facilities.

According to Oludare, the poor, women, children and internally displaced persons are among “those that will have problems when it comes to cholera.”

The government data from a study supported by UNICEF found that 157 million Nigerians are of the SDG (Sustainable Development Goals) sanitation target as of December 2019, with access to safely managed sanitation services nationwide at only 21%.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK