Entries tagged with “al Qaeda” from Kathryn Elliott's News Blog

      A veiled man disguised in woman's clothing and shoes released a bomb on Thursday at the Shamo Hotel in Mogadishu, Somalia that killed 15 people and wounded many others.

      The Minister of Somali Information called the attack "a national disaster" and confirmed that the ministers for health, education, and higher education were killed, USA Today said.

      Government officials and many of Somalia's brightest minds were gathered for a graduation ceremony for 43 medical students of Benadir University, USA Today said. Until last year's Class of 2008, nearly two decades had passed without a single person in Somalia obtaining a medical degree.

      A Wall Street Journal reporter who witnessed the event described a gruesome scene in which black smoke filled the hall where the ceremony was being held and body parts littered the floor, trampled by people fleeing.

      This attack is the second in several months to target top figures in the Somali government, adding to a trend of suicide bombings that is relatively recent in the country.  No one has taken responsibility for the attack but officials suspect a militant group called al Shabaab that may have connections to al Qaeda, the Wall Street Journal said.   

     To view a BBC slideshow of the Mogadishu bombing, click here.

     Coordinated attacks on three law enforcement agencies in Lahore and a separate act of terrorism in the northeast of Pakistan on Thursday continued a series of guerrilla strikes initiated by the Taliban over the past 10 days, The New York Times said.
    
     The militants targeted an anti-terrorist training center, a police academy and a facility of the Federal Investigation Agency and killed 35 people, including 10 of the insurgents, the Wall Street Journal said.
    
     The combination of Thursday's attacks plus an insurgent standoff last week and a car bombing on Monday brings the death toll of the past week to approximately 150 people, the Wall Street Journal said.
    
     One retired army brigadier, Javaid Hussein, told The New York Times that the style of the Taliban's assaults shows its intention to inject distrust of the military and law enforcement into Pakistan civilians.
    
     Hussain believed that the new Taliban leader, Hakimullah Mehsud, maintained a close relationship with al Qaeda and was gaining their training, strategy and support.
    

     Federal investigators have hard evidence: surveillance tapes, laptop records and phone conversations-- not to mention traces of the chemicals used in the 2005 London subway bombings, according to federal court papers filed in New York City last Thursday.
     The main character in this drama is an Afghan man with permanent U.S. residency who happened to train with al-Qaeda in Pakistan in 2008, The Washington Post said.
     That was how Najibullah Zazi learned how to make explosives using acetone and hydrogen peroxide, chemicals he easily purchased at a beauty supply store near Denver last month, The New York Times said.
     The Post points out that such an internal threat has been a long-time concern of intelligence agencies.

     The Times spends the first few grafs of its article giving the unembellished case facts, waiting until graf 12 to reconstruct the compelling storyline leading up to Zazi's Saturday arrest. The rest of the article, however, reads like a crime novel. The Post sprinkles colorful bits of the story throughout its article so it is less organized overall but an interesting read throughout.