Militants storm Somalia presidential palace

(GNN) - MOGADISHU: Shebab rebels carried out a major bomb and armed attack on Somalia´s presidential palace late Tuesday, penetrating the heavily fortified complex in the capital Mogadishu before blowing themselves up.

Somalia´s internationally backed President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and Prime Minister Abdiweli Sheikh Ahmed were not inside at the time and were "both safe", officials said, just five months after a similar attack by the Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab.

Security sources said the two men were with guards from the African Union´s 22,000-strong AMISOM force and authorities gave no immediate details of casualties from the latest attack.

"There were at least nine attackers, all have been killed, and the situation is under control, the attack is over," security official Abdi Ahmed said.

"There were eight blasts towards the end of the fighting, believed to have been suicide vests. They detonated themselves."

A Shebab spokesman confirmed that the group was behind the attack, and claimed their commandos had managed to seize the president´s office inside the presidential compound known as the Villa Somalia.

"Our commandos are inside the so-called presidential office," Shebab spokesman Abdulaziz Abu Musab told AFP. "We are in control of the headquarters of the apostate regime." The enemy suffered high casualties during the operation, which is ongoing. The assault is a victory for us since the foreign installed government said that security was beefed up."

The attackers launched a two-pronged attack on the presidential complex, police said, setting off a large bomb at the rear of the compound and then storming in via another entrance.

The attack came shortly after the start of Iftar, when Muslims end the day´s Ramadan fast.

It was not immediately possible to confirm reports that the embassy of Djibouti, which has troops in Somalia and whose mission is close to the presidential palace, had also come under direct attack. (GNN)(AFP)(AIP)

ISIL militants declare Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as the caliph

BAGHDAD: The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – Sunni militants fighting across Syria and Iraq – have proclaimed the establishment of a “caliphate” in a move that experts say could signal the birth of a new era of transnational jihadism.

Now calling itself the Islamic State, the group has called on all other related Sunni factions, including al-Qaeda, to pledge their allegiance to the new state, which it says stretches from Aleppo in Syria to Diyala in Iraq. Put simply, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has declared war on Al-Qaeda.

In a statement distributed online on Sunday – the newly-minted Islamic State declared its chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as "the caliph" and "leader for Muslims everywhere". Baghdadi is thought to be the leader and strategic thinker behind ISIL.

Its announcement that it has restored the Caliphate “is likely the most significant development in international jihadism since 9/11,” said Charles Lister, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Centre who studies jihadist groups.

The impact of this announcement will be global as al-Qaeda affiliates and independent jihadist groups must now definitively choose to support and join the Islamic State or to oppose it.”

The group’s statement – translated from Arabic into English, French, Russian and German – made it clear it would perceive any group that failed to pledge allegiance an enemy of Islam,” Mr Lister said.

Already, this new Islamic State has received statements of support and opposition from jihadist factions in Syria, he confirmed.

Released on the first day of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, the statement establishing a caliphate, a system of rule that ended nearly 100 years ago with the fall of the Ottoman Empire, reads: “Here the flag of the Islamic State … rises and flutters. Its shade covers land from Aleppo [Syria] and Diyala [Iraq].

“The infidels are disgraced. The Sunnis are masters and are esteemed. The people of heresy are humiliated. The Sharia penalties are implemented, all of them.

“The front lines are defended, crosses and graves demolished. Governors and judges have been appointed, a tax has been enforced and courts will resolve disputes and complaints.”

ISIL, also known as ISIS, already controls large swathes of northern Iraq after a sustained assault which began with the overthrow of Iraqi control of the country’s second largest city of Mosul, near the Syrian border, on June 9.

Over the last two years it has established a strong presence in parts of Syria, controlling key oil fields in eastern Syria in the area bordering Iraq, levying taxes and other penalties and implementing strict Sharia law on besieged communities.

“Geographically, ISIS is already fully operational in Iraq and Syria; it has a covert presence in southern Turkey, appears to be establishing a small presence in Lebanon; and has supporters in Jordan, Gaza, the Sinai, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere,” Mr Lister said. “This could well be the birth of a totally new era of transnational jihadism.”

The announcement was also interpreted as a threat to al-Qaeda and its long-held position of leadership of the international jihadist cause.

“Put simply, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has declared war on al-Qaeda.”

Baghdadi took over the group in 2010. Back then ISI, as it was known, was aligned to al-Qaeda and in a weakened state following a surge of US forces deployed to Iraq and the coalition of Sunni tribal groups that fought against al-Qaeda’s presence in the country. But under his leadership the group thrived and is now believed to be the wealthiest militant organisation in the world with assets in the billions, “simultaneously implementing harsh mediaeval justice and a whole range of modern social services”, Mr Lister said.

Relations between between ISIL and its prior incarnations and al-Qaeda have been fraught with distrust, open competition, and outright hostility, said Aaron Zelin, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, describing the two groups as “now in an open war for supremacy of the global jihadist movement”.

ISIL “holds an advantage but the battle is not over yet,” he wrote in the institute’s journal.

Meanwhile, a fierce battle raged in the northern Iraqi city of Tikrit after the Iraqi military, backed by Shiite militia, launched an offensive to try to take back Tikrit from Sunni insurgents after they lost control of the area on June 11.

And while the military and Iraqi state television claimed security forces had cleared the centre of the city of militants, it appeared the army had been pushed back 15 kilometres from the city as the insurgents fought back, Tikrit residents said. (GNN) (Thenews)

NWA family recounts drone terror in visit to US

WASHINGTON: Nabila Rehman was picking okra in her family garden last year when missiles from a drone rained down from the sky, killing her grandmother and injuring her and seven other children. The nine-year-old girl from North Waziristan Agency (NWA) now has a question for the US government: "What did my grandmother do wrong?"

Rehman's father has traveled with her from Pakistan's North Waziristan

region to Washington, along with her 13-year-old brother, who was also wounded by shrapnel, to put a human face on America's drone campaign.

Their account was cited last week in an Amnesty International report that demanded an end to secrecy around the drone attacks and questioned US claims the missile strikes in Pakistan's tribal belt are carried out only against imminent threats with minimal civilian casualties.

Nabila's father, Rafiq Rehman, said he accepted an invitation from a

documentary production company to come to the United States because "as a teacher, I wanted to educate Americans and let them know my children have been injured."

"My daughter does not have the face of a terrorist and neither did my

mother. It just doesn't make sense to me, why this happened," he told AFP in an interview.

The Rehmans said they have no connection to any anti-US extremists or

Al-Qaeda militants, and as they mourned their grandmother, they were confounded by inaccurate accounts of the October 2012 bombing raid.

Media reports afterward confirmed a drone strike took place, but said

missiles hit a house, with one version alleging a car was struck and several militants killed.

But the Rehmans said no building or car was directly hit in the attack, and that paved roads are some distance away. They say missiles landed in the field where their grandmother was teaching Nabila how to recognize when okra are ripe enough to pick.

After a loud boom, "where my grandmother was standing, I saw these two

bright lights come down and hit her," said Nabila. "And everything became dark at that point."

She noticed blood on her hand and tried to wipe it away with her shawl.

"But the blood just kept coming," she said. Shrapnel lodged in her right hand and she was treated at a local hospital. Her brother, Zubair, suffered shrapnel wounds to his left leg, which required two operations.

His family had to take out a loan to pay for the surgery.

Since the attack, Zubair said he has trouble sleeping and no longer goes

outside to play cricket. "I don't feel like going outside and playing with my friends. I don't feel like going to school. It's really destroyed my life," he said.

His sister said the US government's explanation for drone strikes did not apply to her family. "When I hear that they are going after people who have done wrong to America, then what have I done wrong to them? What did my grandmother do wrong to them? "I didn't do anything wrong," she said.

The Rehman family's experience features in a new documentary, "Unmanned:

America's Drone Wars," which takes a critical view of the air strikes.

On Tuesday, the Rehmans will appear at a press conference in Washington

with a member of Congress, Alan Grayson, a Democrat from Florida.

"When it comes to national security matters like drone strikes, it's

important that we hear not only from the proponents of these attacks, but also from the victims," Grayson said in a statement.

In their village in North Waziristan, there is the constant buzz of drones overhead and even small children learn to identify the sound, the father said. Rehman said all he wanted was "peace" and to end the violence that claimed his 63-year-old mother.

"I believe there are better ways to go about it than these drones, perhaps through discussions and negotiations with whoever they are targeting."

The US government insists the drone strikes are a legal means of

"self-defense" and an effective tool in the fight against Al-Qaeda, arguing other methods would put more lives at risk.

Rehman's Pakistani lawyer, Shahzad Akbar, who represents others who say

they are victims of drone strikes, had planned to accompany the Rehmans but the State Department denied him a travel visa for the trip, according to Jennifer Gibson, a lawyer with Reprieve, which works with Akbar.

The Rehmans "are not asking for money. They want answers," she said.

"They hope that by coming here and saying we're the faceless people who you keep counting as numbers, somebody is going to start listening and questioning if this is really a smart policy."