19 Killed in Failed French Raid to Free Somalia Hostage

Two French soldiers died and 17 “terrorists” were killed in a failed bid to free a French hostage in southern Somalia from Islamists holding him since 2009, the French defense minister said Saturday.
The overnight operation was launched by France’s elite
DGSE secret service, Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said in a statement, adding that the raid was sparked by the “intransigence of the terrorists who have refused to negotiate for three and a half years and were holding Denis Allex in inhuman conditions.”, AFP reported.
But the Shebab extremists denied Le Drian’s assertion that they had killed the hostage, a secret agent whose alias is Denis Allex, adding that they would decide his fate in two days and issuing a stern warning to Paris.
Two French soldiers “lost their lives (and) 17 terrorists were killed” in the battle, Le Drian said, offering the “most sincere condolences” to the dead soldiers’ families and praising the men for their “courage and remarkable work”.
He said the families of the dead soldiers had been informed.
A Shebab statement said “in the end, it will be the French citizens who will inevitably taste the bitter consequences of their government’s devil-may-care attitude towards hostages.”
Sheikh Mohamed Abdallah, a local Shebab military commander, told AFP, “Mujahedeen fighters defeated the so-called commandos of the French government who tried to rescue a hostage, and they (the commandos) left the bodies of several of their own at the site of the attack.”
Abdallah is the commander of Bulomarer, where the raid allegedly took place.
The Shebab statement said the French carried away “several” of their dead.
“The helicopters attacked a house ... upon the assumption that Denis Allex was being held at that location, but owing to a fatal intelligence blunder, the rescue mission turned disastrously wrong.
“Several French soldiers were killed in the battle and many more were injured before they fled from the scene of battle, leaving behind some military paraphernalia and even one of their comrades on the ground.
“The injured French soldier is now in the custody of the
mujahedeen and Allex still remains safe and far from the
location of the battle.”
A Bulomarer resident, Idris Youssouf, told AFP, “We don’t know exactly what happened because the attack took place at night, but this morning we saw several corpses including that of a white man.

Palestinian Activists Build E1 Tent Outpost

Palestinian activists have begun setting up an “outpost” in E1, a strip of occupied West Bank land east of Beit-ul-Moqaddas where Israel announced in November it would build thousands of new settler homes.
Friday’s move was welcomed by a senior Palestinian official who described the step as a “highly creative and legitimate non-violent” way of protecting Palestinian land from Israeli settlement activities., agencies reported.
“We have set up 20 tents, and have enough equipment to stay here for a long time,” said Abir Kopty, spokeswoman for the Popular Struggle Co-ordination Committee.
Kopty said more than 200 Palestinians had set up the new “village” called Bab al-Shams (Gate of the Sun) in a corridor of land between the edge of annexed East Beit-ul-Moqaddas and the Maaleh Adumim settlement.
“We are willing to stay here until we ensure the right of the owners of the land to build on their lands,” she said.
“This is a message that we will not remain silent anymore in the face of settlement expansion.”
E1 falls within Area C of the West Bank, which is under full Israeli civilian and security control and where Palestinians find it almost impossible to obtain building permits.
The move is a twist on a tactic used by Israeli settlers who have frequently established new settlement outposts overnight by setting up camp on hilltops across the West Bank.

Legitimate Non-Violent Tool
At the site, activists had set up around 25 large frame tents and many were cooking over camp fires as large Palestinian flags fluttered in the wind.
During the day, Israeli police visited the area and handed the activists an eviction order, declaring the area to be a closed military zone off-limits to civilians.
A spokesman for Israel’s Civil Administration, the defense ministry unit responsible for planning in Area C, confirmed the eviction order, but the activists quickly managed to obtain a high court injunction against it, Kopty said on Twitter.
The activists, who have set up Twitter and Facebook pages detailing the project, have connected part of their encampment to electricity but face exceptionally low winter temperatures at night.
Hanan Ashrawi, a senior member of the Palestine Liberation Organization executive committee, hailed it as a “great initiative” which had the full backing of the leadership.
“This initiative is a highly creative and legitimate non-violent tool to protect our land from Israeli colonial plans,” she said.
“We have the right to live anywhere in our state, and we call upon the international community to support such initiatives, as well as to protect those who are being threatened by Israeli occupation forces for exercising their right to peaceful resistance against the illegal Israeli occupation.”
Six weeks ago, Israel announced plans to build thousands of settler homes in the highly sensitive but as yet largely uninhabited E1 area, in a move that sparked a global outcry.
The Palestinians bitterly oppose the E1 project, which experts say could largely cut off the northern West Bank from the south and hamper access to Beit-ul-Moqaddas, making the creation of a viable Palestinian state highly problematic.
“What is happening at Bab al-Shams is reminder of the apartheid regime that Israel has imposed for the exclusive use of land for Jewish Israeli settlers all over Palestine,” Ashrawi said.
“Those who have challenged the occupation forces are being threatened simply for trying to peacefully make use of the land belonging to the occupied State of Palestine.”

New Clashes Erupt in Tunisia Town Near Libya

Clashes again broke out on Saturday between residents and police in Ben Guerdane near Tunisia’s border with Libya after nearly a week of demonstrations over poor living conditions.
Ben Guerdane, around 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the border, has witnessed sporadic unrest since Sunday, fuelled by Tripoli’s decision to close the Ras Jdir border crossing in early September for security reasons, AFP reported.
Dozens of youths, many of them masked, gathered outside the police station which was torched on Thursday and threw stones at police who responded with tear gas, an AFP journalist reported.
“Ben Guerdane is Free! (Prime Minister Hamadi) Jebali out!” the protesters chanted of the Islamist-led government in Tunis, two days ahead of the second anniversary of the revolution that sparked off the Arab Spring.
The latest demonstration came as representatives of the authorities, trade unions and local tribes met in Ben Guerdane in an attempt to thrash out a solution to the crisis.
“We don’t want Ras Jdir reopened -- we want development,” one protester told AFP on Saturday.
Despite the crossing being reopened on Thursday, the local branch of Tunisia’s main labor union went ahead with a general strike in the border town to demand investment and jobs, with only chemists, hospitals and bakeries remaining open.
There is ongoing social discontent in Tunisia two years after the uprising that overthrew ex-dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali on January 14, 2011, with strikes and protests often degenerating into violence.
Unemployment and tough living conditions were key factors behind the revolt that touched off the Arab Spring, whose second anniversary will be celebrated on Monday.
Violent attacks by Islamists and political deadlock over a new constitution also continue to threaten the country’s stability.

Saudi Female Protesters Call For Release of Jailed Women

Female activists have taken to the streets in Saudi Arabia to demand the release of women and children arrested in demonstrations against the ruling Al Saud regime.
The protesters staged the rally on Saturday in the city of Buraydah, calling for the release of their relatives who are in jail on political charges, Press TV reported.
According to the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association, more than 30 thousand dissidents have been jailed across the kingdom. Many detainees are in prisons without trial and large numbers of others have ended their jail terms, but are still in custody.
Since February 2011, protesters have held demonstrations on an almost regular basis in Saudi Arabia, mainly in the Qatif region and the town of Awamiyah in Eastern Province. They demand the release of all political prisoners, freedom of expression and assembly, and an end to widespread discrimination.
However, the demonstrations have turned into protests against the Al Saud regime, especially since November 2011, when security forces killed five protesters and injured many others in the province.
The country’s officials warned in October, 2012 that they would deal “firmly” with anti-regime demonstrations. Amnesty International slammed the warning, and urged authorities to “withdraw their threat.”
According to Human Rights Watch, the Saudi regime “routinely represses expression critical of the government

Sudan Army ‘Kills 50 Rebels’ in South

Sudan’s army has claimed to have killed more than 50 rebels in clashes in Southern Kordofan state, the official Sudanese news agency, SUNA, has reported.
Government troops had pushed back an attack by rebels in the region, killing more than 50 and suffering some dead and wounded themselves, SUNA reported late on Friday, citing an army statement.
The clashes took place about 15km from the state capital Kadugli, the army said, blaming the attack on fighters of the Revolutionary Front, an alliance of four rebel groups.
The groups that make up the Revolutionary Front are active in South Kordofan, in Blue Nile state to the east and in Darfur to the west.
The conflict in South Kordofan and the neighboring Blue Nile state has had a devastating effect on local people, a top United Nations official told the UN Security Council on Tuesday.
Hundreds of thousands of people there are surviving on roots and leaves, John Ging, UN humanitarian operations director, said. Both Sudan’s government and the rebels are blocking access to international aid workers, he added.
South Kordofan and Blue Nile border South Sudan, which separated from Sudan in July 2011 under a peace agreement that ended a 1983-2005 civil war.
Khartoum accuses South Sudan of supporting rebels operating in Sudan, including the 19-month rebellion in oil-producing South Kordofan. The South, in turn, has said Sudan backs insurgents on its territory.
The issue has been a major obstacle to implementing agreements between the two countries. Key unresolved issues between the two countries include the demarcation of border zones that cut through oil-rich regions.

Turkey Demands Clarification For Killing of Three Kurds

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on France on Saturday to “immediately” clarify the killing of three Kurdish activists who were shot dead in Paris, while asking French President Francois Hollande to explain why he was meeting with members of the outlawed PKK.
“France must immediately clarify this incident,” Erdogan said in televised remarks. “Also, the French head of state must explain immediately to the French, Turkish and world public why ... he is in communication with these terrorists,” he added, AFP reported.
Hollande had said the murder of Sakine Cansiz, Fidan Dogan and Leyla Soylemez was “terrible”, adding that he knew one of the Kurdish women and that she “regularly met us”.
The three were found dead on Thursday at the Kurdistan Information Centre in the French capital’s 10th district, after last being seen alive at the centre at midday on Wednesday.
Cansiz was a founding member of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which took up arms in 1984 for Kurdish self-rule in southeastern Turkey and is branded a terrorist organization by Ankara and much of the international community.
The separatist PKK warned that it would hold France responsible if the killers were not quickly found, as Ankara said the slayings bore the hallmarks of an internal feud, noting that the victims appeared to have given the killer or killers access to the centre.
The killings came days after Turkish media reported Turkey and the PKK leadership had agreed a roadmap to end the three- decade old Kurdish insurgency that has claimed more than 45,000 lives.

Fire Kills 13 in Bahrain

A fire in a three-story block housing Asian workers in the Bahraini capital killed at least 13 people, the state BNA news agency reported late on Friday.