US air strike kills al-Qaeda boss in Somalia
Mail & Guardian

A United States air strike killed an Islamist commander thought to be al-Qaeda's leader in Somalia and at least a dozen other people on Thursday, the insurgents and witnesses said.

Aden Hashi Ayro, who led al Shabaab militants blamed for near daily attacks on government troops and their Ethiopian allies, died in the latest of several US bombings in recent months to have targeted Somali rebel leaders.

"Infidel planes bombed Dusamareb," Shabaab spokesperson Mukhtar Ali Robow told Reuters by telephone, referring to a small town in central Somalia. "Two of our important people, including Ayro, were killed."

Islamists Ambush Attack Algerian Soldiers
Mail & Guardian (ZE)
Suspected Islamist rebels killed five soldiers in an ambush on a military convoy east of Algiers on Wednesday, a security source said. The attack occurred near the town of Tizi Ouzou, 120km east of the capital, the source said, without giving further details. The town is at the centre of the forested mountain region of Kabylie, where authorities say many Islamist rebels are based. The attack was the worst such incident in the North African country since suspected al-Qaeda militants rammed a bomb-laden car into a police station on January 2, killing four police officers and injuring 20 other people in Naciria, also east of Algiers. A total of at least 37 people, including 17 United Nations staff, were killed in a double suicide bombing in Algiers on December 11, the government said. Hospital sources said the death toll was more than 60.

Fighting Erupts Near Key Sudan Oil Areas
News.com.au/AFP
Fresh fighting erupted between southern Sudanese forces and Khartoum-backed Arab tribesmen near key oil areas of the country on Friday, former southern rebels said, further denting hopes of an end to north-south hostilities. Dozens of people have been reported killed since fighting first erupted late last month near the disputed Abyei oil areas between Arab tribesman and ex-rebel south Sudanese army units...Clashes had first erupted in December when tribesman, backed by militiamen, attacked a southern army garrison, the former rebels said, although the tribesmen say they were bombarded first. Major General Mai Hoth, deputy chief of the southern former rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army, said that Khartoum had missed a new deadline to withdraw its troops from south Sudan, breaching a deal that saw the former rebels rejoin the national government last week after a two-month boycott. The violence has erupted shortly before the third anniversary of the signing of a Comprehensive Peace Agreement on January 9, 2005 that ended 21 years of north-south conflict in Sudan, Africa's longest-running civil war. An estimated two million people were killed and another six million displaced in the two-decade-long conflict.

Little Hope for New Darfur Peace Force
MyWay News/AP
The African Union transferred authority Monday to a new joint peacekeeping force with the United Nations in Darfur that the international community hopes will stem the violence in Sudan's war-torn western region. But the new mission is staffed far below its authorized level - at only 9,000 of a planned 26,000 - and many fear it will be as incapable of protecting civilians as the AU force it replaced...The Sudanese president has thrown up bureaucratic obstructions to the force's full deployment, including blocking Swedish and Thai troops, and it is unclear when further deployments will come. Western countries have also been slow to provide military helicopters, considered vital to making the force effective. As a result, many experts inside and outside the U.N. believe the mission will have little immediate effect on security in Darfur, where 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million been driven from their homes in 4 1/2 years of violence. Ethnic African rebels have been battling the Arab-dominated government's troops and the Arab militias known as Janjaweed, which are accused of committing widespread atrocities against civilians.

More Headlines:
Jihadists in Jails Win Leverage With Protests The New York Times
Al-Qaeda Link in Tourist Killings Probed News.com.au/Reuters
Khan 'Offered Nukes to Syrians' The Australian
Terrorist Group Targets Nigeria's Oil Industry Yahoo! News/AP
Muslim Brotherhood Leaders Cleared of Terrorism Charges Monsters & Critics
13 Somalis Killed in Islamist Mortar Attacks News.com.au/AFP
Algiers Bombers Were Freed In Amnesty The Australian
Bomb Blasts Rock Algerian Capital Mail & Guardian (ZE)
Suspected al-Qaeda Terrorists Face Trial in Nigeria Voice of America
Algeria 'Kills Senior Member of Al-Qaeda' The Daily Star (LE)/AFP
Nigerian Police Detain al-Qaeda Suspects Mail & Guardian (So. Africa)