Connect to share and comment

French family head for home after hostage ordeal

Agence France-PresseApril 19, 2013 22:45
French President Francois Hollande will be waiting to welcome a family of seven released after being held by an Islamist group in Nigeria for two months, when they fly into to Paris early Saturday. The Moulin-Fournier family took off from Cameroon late on Friday accompanied by French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, who flew out to meet them in Yaounde earlier in the day. The family also met Cameroon President Paul Biya on Friday. Hollande was to meet the freed hostages at Paris's Orly airport when they arrive in the early hours, his office said.

Door open for negotiations with France on hostages

Agence France-PresseApril 19, 2013 08:46
French hostages being held by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb are alive and the door is open "to find a solution", AQIM's media chief said in answers to questions posed via Twitter and published late Thursday. The comments by Abu Abdulilah Ahmed, head of AQIM's media arm Al-Andalus Media Foundation, were made on April 1, according the US-based Site Intelligence Group, which released an English-language transcript of the open interview.

At least seven French hostages held abroad, in Africa

Agence France-PresseApril 19, 2013 06:45
At least seven French citizens are still held hostage abroad -- all in Africa -- after the release on Friday of seven members of a French family who were kidnapped in Cameroon in February. The abductions are all claimed by Islamist groups, with among their number, at least six by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in the Sahel, the semi-arid belt south of the Sahara desert that stretches across a swathe of western Africa. An eighth hostage was reported executed last March in Mali by AQIM, but his death has not been confirmed. - NIGER

One dead, 20 injured in NW Pakistan clash

Agence France-PresseApril 17, 2013 14:16
At least one person was killed and 20 others wounded on Wednesday when the Pakistani army and Taliban militants exchanged fire near the Afghan border, an official said. The clash erupted in Miranshah, the main town in Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal district which borders Afghanistan and is infiltrated by Taliban and Al-Qaeda led militants. "Twenty people were injured and one was killed during the clash between the army and militants," Dr Niaz Ahmed, from the main Miranshah hospital, told AFP.

Defeated in Mali, Islamists begin to reorganise

April 16, 2013 23:45
Ousted from their major northern strongholds by a French-led military intervention and all but defeated in their mountain hideouts, Mali's Islamist militants are beginning to regroup at home and abroad. French and African soldiers have inflicted heavy losses since launching a military operation on January 11 to block the advance of Al Qaeda-linked insurgents on the capital Bamako, with Paris claiming to have killed 400 rebels.

Chad says Islamist leader Belmokhtar 'blew himself up'

April 14, 2013 16:46
Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a one-eyed Islamist militant leader who Chad claimed was killed in Mali last month, died by setting off explosives in despair over the death of another militant, Chad's President Idriss Deby said in an interview broadcast on Sunday.

Chad says Islamist leader Belmokhtar 'blew himself up'

April 14, 2013 16:18
Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a one-eyed Islamist militant leader who Chad claimed was killed in Mali last month, died by setting off explosives in despair over the death of another militant, Chad's President Idriss Deby said in an interview broadcast on Sunday.

US drones kill four in NW Pakistan

April 14, 2013 11:45
At least four militants have been killed by a US drone strike on Sunday in Pakistan's northwestern tribal belt, security officials said. The attack took place in Datta Khel town, 35 kilometres (22 miles) west of Miranshah, the main town in the lawless North Waziristan region which borders Afghanistan. The area is a stronghold of Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked militants. Six US drones flew over the area when one of them fired two missiles at a compound in the Manzarkhel area of the town.

Bomb blast on bus kills nine in northwest Pakistan

April 13, 2013 08:01
A bomb exploded on a bus in Pakistan's northwestern city of Peshawar on Saturday, killing at least nine people and wounding seven others, officials said. "At least nine passengers have been killed and seven injured. Bomb disposal officials told me that it was a timed device," Fazal Wahid, a senior police official told AFP. Shafi Ullah Khan, another police official, confirmed the attack which occurred as the was bus passing through the city's Matani suburb.

EU mission trains troops in Mali

April 12, 2013 14:17
In preparation for a drawdown of French troops from Mali, a European Union team started training Malian soldiers for battle against jihadists who overran much of this West African country before they were pushed back by a French military intervention. On a recent day, small groups of Malians stood in the burning heat and orange sands in the town of Koulikoro, 60 kilometers (37 miles) west of the capital Bamako, learning to hold weapons.
Syndicate content