Biafra:Nigerian Separatists Hijack Ship and Demand Release of Detained Leader

Nigerian separatists have hijacked a merchant ship and threatened to blow it up with its foreign crew if authorities do not release a detained leader agitating for a breakaway state of Biafra, military officers said Tuesday.

Maj. Gen. Rabe Abubakar, the Defense Ministry spokesman, confirmed the hijacking occurred on Friday and called it "an act of sabotage." He did not tell reporters the name of the ship.
Abubakar spoke on Monday. Other officers on Tuesday told The Associated Press that the navy is in pursuit of the captured vessel. The officers, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the press, said the hijackers have given the government 31 days to free Kanu or say they will blow up the ship along with its crew.
Maritime industry reports indicated the vessel was an oil tanker seized about 100 miles (160 kilometers) off Nigeria's Bakassi Peninsula, along Nigeria's southeastern Atlantic Ocean coastline, near the border with Cameroon.

"The group boarded the tanker from two fast boats and took control over the vessel and locked the crew in the mess room" before heading for the Niger Delta, the Bulgarian-based Maritime News reported.

The ultimatum from the separatists was given at the weekend by "General Ben." Ben is not a separatist but "some Niger Delta militants have shown interest in working with us," said Uchena Madu, a leader of the Movement for the Actualization of a Sovereign State of Biafra.

The hijacking — the first such act claimed by the separatists — indicates they could be working with some Niger Delta oil militants blamed for recent bombings of pipelines in the oil-rich south, escalating conflict in a country already burdened by Boko Haram's deadly Islamic uprising in the northeast and violent ethno-religious confrontations between farmers and herders in central Nigeria. Africa's biggest economy and oil producer also is battered by slashed petroleum prices.

Secret police on Oct. 17 detained Nnamdi Kanu, director of banned Radio Biafra, and since have accused him of terrorism, sparking protests in which police are accused of killing several demonstrators.

Nigeria's Igbo people prosecuted a civil war to create a separate state of Biafra in the southeast that killed a million people in the 1960s. Many Igbos charge they still suffer discrimination.

In an apparently unrelated development, pirates seized the Greek-owned chemical tanker MV Leon Dias off Nigeria's coast, according to an official of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency who insisted on anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to reporters. He said it was hijacked on Friday, other reports said Sunday, and diverted to an oil terminal off Cotonou, capital of neighboring Benin. Maritime News said the chief officer was seriously injured and is being held hostage with four other seamen.

Yewande fatoki stabed her husband: Can This Be True?

Yewande Fatoki stabbed her husband. On Monday night all because she heard he had a son outside wedlock. This generated a heated argument between the couple which she stabbed him on the shoulder in the night he went to the hospital to received treatment. Early hours on Tuesday she slaughtered him while he was sleeping.Friends and family and fans please News reaching us now from Ibadan is that the Family of honorable fatoki is presently using all their influence in trying to cover the story of our murdered friend. And presently the story has changed the girl ,Yewande is saying she is innocent. The Husband family needs a lawyer who is skilled at such cases. This can not be covered. We must get justice even if they have the judiciary in their pockets is the sayings of the deceased . I cry out Hear my cry oh Nigerians this is cold blood murder help us.

Saudi police arrest 9 American 'terror' suspects

Saudi authorities have arrested nine American citizens among 33 "terror" suspects rounded up over the past days, the Saudi Gazette newspaper reported on Sunday.

Four Americans were arrested on Monday and five others over the past four days, the paper reported citing an unidentified source.

The arrests also included 14 Saudis, three Yemenis, two Syrians, an Indonesian, a Filipino, an Emirati, a Kazakhstan national and a Palestinian, the paper said.

It did not say if any of the "terror suspects" was linked to the Islamic State group, which has claimed several deadly attacks against security forces and Shiites in the kingdom in recent months.

On Friday, a suicide bomber attacked a Shiite mosque in Eastern Province killing four people before worshippers disarmed and tied up his accomplice who had fired on them.
IS, a radical Sunni group that considers Shiites heretics, did not claim that attack.
The Saudi Gazette said some 532 IS suspects accused of plotting attacks in the kingdom are being questioned ahead of their trial at the criminal court in Riyadh.
They are members of six cells arrested in "pre-emptive" raids across the kingdom and include a Saudi woman and a Filipina, the paper said.
Also on Sunday, the Saudi interior ministry said they were searching for nine suspects allegedly involved in an August suicide bombing that targeted a mosque inside a police headquarters, killing 15 people.
IS had claimed the attack in the southern city of Abha.
The ministry said in a statement that three other suspects, including a member of the kingdom's special forces, had been arrested in connection with the Abha mosque bombing.

The oil-rich kingdom offered rewards between one million riyals ($276,000) and seven million riyals ($1.87 million) for anyone who helps in the arrest of a suspect or thwarts an attack.

Boko Haram burns kids alive in Nigeria, 86 dead

A survivor hidden in a tree says he watched Boko Haram extremists firebomb huts and heard the screams of children burning to death, among 86 people officials say died in the latest attack by Nigeria's homegrown Islamic extremists.
Scores of charred corpses and bodies with bullet wounds littered the streets from Saturday night's attack on Dalori village and two nearby camps housing 25,000 refugees, according to survivors and soldiers at the scene just 5 kilometers (3 miles) from Maiduguri, the birthplace of Boko Haram and the biggest city in Nigeria's northeast.
The shooting, burning and explosions from three suicide bombers continued for nearly four hours in the unprotected area, survivor Alamin Bakura said, weeping on a telephone call to The Associated Press. He said several of his family members were killed or wounded.
The violence continued as three female suicide bombers blew up among people who managed to flee to neighboring Gamori village, killing many people, according to a soldier at the scene who insisted on anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to journalists.
Troops arrived at Dalori around 8:40 p.m. Saturday but were unable to overcome the attackers, who were better armed, said soldiers who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press. The Boko Haram fighters only retreated after reinforcements arrived with heavier weapons, they said.
Journalists visited the carnage Sunday and spoke to survivors who complained it had taken too long for help to arrive from nearby Maiduguri, the military headquarters of the fight to curb Boko Haram. They said they fear another attack.

Eighty-six bodies were collected by Sunday afternoon, according to Mohammed Kanar, area coordinator of the National Emergency Management Agency. Another 62 people are being treated for burns, said Abba Musa of the State Specialist Hospital in Maiduguri.

Boko Haram has been attacking soft targets, increasingly with suicide bombers, since the military last year drove them out of towns and villages in northeastern Nigeria.

The 6-year Islamic uprising has killed about 20,000 people and driven 2.5 million from their homes.

Israel reluctant to accuse Islamic State over bar shootings despite hallmarks

It appeared to have hallmarks of the first Islamic State attack in Israel: A Muslim citizen opened fire on a Tel Aviv bar days after the militant group threatened the country, and left behind a black ISIS banner.

But security officials, given pause by the erratic conduct of the slain gunman and wary of aggravating strains with Israel's largely quiescent Arab minority, are steering clear of definitively linking him with Islamic State.

"This really was not a classic ISIS terrorist attack," a security official told Reuters on Thursday after the Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency and Justice Ministry issued their findings on the Jan. 1 shooting rampage by Nashat Melhem that killed three people.
The 31-year-old died a week later in a gunfight with police. The attack fell six weeks after 130 were killed in militant attacks on bars, cafes and a concert hall in Paris.
An Israeli indictment against three Arab citizens for abetting Melhem's escape said he had "sought to help the enemy, including the ISIS group, fight Israel". He left a black banner in Tel Aviv with the group's name in handwritten Arabic and Hebrew as well as a flag with Koranic text, the indictment says.

In selfie recordings released by the authorities, Melhem is seen holding a bullet and vowing to hit "the Jews" again in Tel Aviv, cursing Shia Islam and telling U.S. President Barack Obama: "Become a Muslim, you Crusader, if you want to be saved."

He also uses foul language and is seen drinking from a beer bottle, smoking and bragging about taking drugs. Relatives said Melhem, previously jailed for assaulting an Israeli soldier, had psychiatric problems.

The security official described Melhem's behavior as inconsistent with Islamist piety and a reason the Shin Bet believed he acted alone. Another was the absence of any evidence he received direct instruction from Islamic State.

By contrast, the Shin Bet last year arrested several Israeli Arabs it said were trying to form an armed cell under orders from two fellow citizens fighting with Islamic State in Iraq.

Israel faces more active threats from armed Palestinian factions like Hamas, as well as from Hezbollah guerrillas in neighboring Lebanon, though officials point to Islamic State affiliates in the Egyptian Sinai as having the potential to launch cross-border attacks too.

What constitutes genuine Islamic State action outside its Middle East fiefdoms is a question bedevilling security agencies worldwide. They must weigh media outreach, which is designed to inspire "lone wolf" strikes, but are reluctant to exaggerate the scope of the threat.

Yoram Schweitzer, a terrorism expert with Tel Aviv University's Institute for National Security Studies, said Israel was especially mindful of the impact of Melhem's actions on fellow Arabs citizens, who make up a fifth of its population.
While often sympathetic to the Palestinians, Israeli Arabs seldom resort to political violence - a fact often noted by the Shin Bet. But with dozens of Israeli Arabs having left to join Islamic State, authorities worry the domestic danger is growing.

"I think that while the ISIS menace cannot be ignored, what is more important is not to inflate it," Schweitzer said.

"Israeli authorities have an interest in this regard, as no one wants to see Melhem copycats - not least because he managed to kill three people and get away, in what made them look like a bit of a circus."

Syrian Kurds plan big attack to seal Turkish border: source

The powerful Syrian Kurdish YPG militia and its local allies have drawn up plans for a major attack to seize the final stretch of the Syrian-Turkish border held by Islamic State fighters, a YPG source familiar with the plan said on Thursday.
Such an offensive could deprive Islamic State fighters of a logistical route that has been used by the group to bring in supplies and foreign recruits.
But it could lead to confrontation with Turkey, which is fighting against its own Kurdish insurgents and sees the Syrian Kurds as an enemy.
After a year of military gains aided by U.S.-led air strikes, the Kurds and their allies already control the entire length of Syria's northeastern Turkish frontier from Iraq to the banks of the Euphrates river, which crosses the border west of the town of Kobani.
Other Syrian insurgent groups control the frontier further west, leaving only around 100 km (60 miles) of border in the hands of Islamic State fighters, running from the town of Jarablus on the bank of the Euphrates west to near the town of Azaz.
But Turkey says it will not allow the Syrian Kurds to move west of the Euphrates.
The source confirmed a report on Kurdish news website Xeber24 which cited a senior YPG leader saying the plan includes crossing the Euphrates to attack the Islamic State-held towns of Jarablus and Manbij, in addition to Azaz, which is held by other insurgent groups.
The source did not give a planned date, but said a Jan. 29 date mentioned in the Xeber24 report might not be accurate.
The YPG has been the most important partner on the ground of a U.S.-led air campaign against Islamic State, and is a major component of an alliance formed last year called the Syria Democratic Forces, which also includes Arab and other armed groups. The alliance is quietly backed by Washington, even as its NATO ally in the region, Turkey, is hostile.
The political party affiliated with the YPG, the PYD, has been excluded from Syria peace talks the United Nations plans to hold in Geneva on Friday. The PYD and its allies say their exclusion undermines the process and have blamed Turkey.
Ankara fears further expansion by the YPG will fuel separatist sentiment among its own Kurdish minority. It views the Syrian Kurdish PYD as a terrorist group because of its affiliation to Turkish Kurdish militants.
The United States and Turkey have for months been discussing a joint military plan to drive Islamic State from the border, but there has been little sign of it on the ground.
The border area is being fought over by several sides in the complex, multi-sided civil war that has killed more than 250,000 people and driven more than 10 million from their homes.
At the western end of the Islamic State-held stretch of frontier, Syrian insurgents backed by Turkey have been fighting Islamic State near Azaz in a to-and-fro battle that has not yielded major shifts, said Rami Abdulrahman, director of the Syrian Observatory Human Rights.
Tensions between the YPG and its allies on one hand and other insurgent groups backed by Turkey on the other have spilled into conflict near Azaz in the last three months.
Separately, the Syrian army and allied militia, supported by Russian air strikes, are meanwhile edging closer to the Islamic State-held town of al-Bab, some 50 km (30 miles) southwest of Manbij in the Aleppo area.

Nigeria suicide blasts 'kill 13' in Chibok

At least 13 people were killed on Wednesday when three suicide bombers blew themselves up in the northeast Nigerian town of Chibok, where Boko Haram kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls.
"Ten died on the spot and another one died on the way to hospital," said health worker Dazzban Buba, who volunteered to treat the injured at hospital.
"A woman and a child died as they were being admitted (to hospital), so now the death toll stands at 13. Thirty others were injured, 21 critically."
The blasts bore the hallmarks of Boko Haram, which has repeatedly hit "soft" civilian targets such as markets, mosques and bus stations as well as military and civilian vigilante checkpoints.
Chibok came to prominence in April 2014 when Islamist fighters stormed a boarding school and kidnapped 276 girls, causing global outrage.
Fifty-seven girls managed to escape in the immediate aftermath but 219 are still being held and have not been seen since they appeared in a Boko Haram video in May that year.
Chibok was briefly overrun by the Islamic State group-allied rebels in November 2014 but recaptured by the military after several days.
Ayuba Chibok and Buba both said Wednesday's blasts were suicide attacks and had prompted terrified residents to lock themselves inside their homes or flee in fear of repeat attacks.
Buba said the first explosion, at a checkpoint where people coming into the town were being searched, was thought to have been carried out by a young boy.
But identifying the attacker's age was difficult, as only his legs were recovered.
The second, at the market, and a third nearby were carried out by women, he added.
- Lull in attacks -

Buba said he rushed to help his brother who was injured in the first blast in the Bamzir Road area of the town.

The second blast happened shortly afterwards, fitting a pattern of Boko Haram suicide attacks with multiple bombers setting off their devices almost simultaneously.

But Buba said it was still unclear whether the third bomber deliberately detonated her explosives or whether the device was triggered when troops opened fire as he fled.

The 30 injured were mostly suffering from burns and fractures, and that nine had been discharged, he added.

President Muhammadu Buhari, in Kenya on a three-day state visit, made no direct mention of the Chibok attack at a memorial service to commemorate Kenyan soldiers killed by Shebab militants.

But he told the congregation: "Terrorists should not have a place in our communities, villages, towns, cities and countries.

"We must all rise against the culture of intolerance, hatred and extremist ideologies, which drive terrorism."
Recent weeks have seen a lull in Boko Haram attacks, with only three recorded in Nigeria this month but those that have occurred underline the difficulty in protecting hard-to-reach rural areas.
The insurgents raided a village in Yobe state on Sunday, killing one man, while on January 11, another raid in the Adamawa state town of Madagali left seven dead.
Seven people were killed in a raid and suicide bomb attack in Izgeki village on January 5. Gunmen also looted food and burnt a large part of Nchiha village near Chibok earlier the same day.
On December 6, there was a similar attack in Takulashi village, also near Chibok, which again saw fighters raid food and steal more than 200 cattle.
Buhari on December 24 declared the rebels were "technically" defeated but at least 66 people were then killed in raids and suicide bombings in the days following.
According to an AFP tally, more than 1,650 people have been killed since Buhari came to power in May last year, vowing to crush the insurgency, which has left at least 17,000 dead since 2009.

On Monday, 32 people were killed when at least three suicide bombers blew themselves up at a market in Bodo village in northern Cameroon.

A Muslim and a Christian in a taxi

A Christian Science perspective: No points of contention. Only love.

My taxi driver at busy Heathrow Airport met me with a friendly greeting followed by an announcement that he was Muslim. At first, I was unsure why he would feel the need to share his religion with me. But then, sensitive to the fact that there are those who might feel fear and hate toward those of his faith in a climate of heightened security in Britain (and elsewhere), I reciprocated his handshake with a sincerely warm and friendly greeting.

This simple meeting between me and this driver – a Christian and a Muslim – was more than a symbolic gesture of human unity amid the confrontational mood and events in the world. To me, it went beyond even social courtesy. I felt a genuine desire to bring every moment under the direction of God, whom I have come to know from the Bible as Love, and that this meeting was an expression of that Love.

At his prompting, we spoke of the urgent need to demonstrate the brotherhood of man. Together we acknowledged God as the Father of all – making us all brothers and sisters. We spoke freely of our love for God, our children, and our mutual desire to treat everyone as we would want to be treated.
Our conversation was evidence to me that despite the hatred and violence so often depicted between those of differing beliefs, there is a spiritual impetus that operates universally, ready and willing to impel every receptive heart to love. As a Christian Scientist, I have come to identify this animating power as the kingdom of God within us. Christ Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is not a place but the goodness of God being expressed in our true nature as children of God, divine Love.
Though my Muslim acquaintance would not have defined His relationship to God in this way, the spirit to love one another was genuinely agreed on as drawn from God. We both shared experiences of learning how to love in the face of hate and prejudice. We agreed that anything less than love is not God’s will for humanity.
This hourlong taxi drive had a deep impact on me. It was a small but significant answer to my daily prayers to see the kingdom of God as “on earth peace, good will toward men” (Luke 2:14). As I continue to pray, I carefully consider a prayer given by the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, to the members of her Church: “ ‘Thy kingdom come;’ let the reign of divine Truth, Life, and Love be established in me, and rule out of me all sin; and may Thy Word enrich the affections of all mankind, and govern them!” (“Manual of The Mother Church,” p. 41).
I see that acknowledging God’s presence – His authority to govern us, purify us, and enrich our affections – dissolves fear and hate. In praying to divine Love as the power that enriches our affections, we naturally find limitless opportunities to treat others as our brothers and sisters under the guidance of one universal Father-Mother God. With this as my daily prayer, it seemed divinely native to have this opportunity to recognize man’s spiritual nature as a child of God, of divine Love – and to express this love in our inspiring conversation.
By our deep recognition of the true brotherhood of man I felt we were tangibly counteracting the current of world thought that people should fear and hate one another – whether because of religion, sect, dogma, or culture. We were proving the spirit of love is all that is acceptable.

I believe our time together was a living prayer – the action of love fulfilling the law, as quoted in Romans 13:10: “Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.” Understanding that love is the law of God, I could see that this same spirit of love is, in fact, present everywhere; that within every man, woman, and child there is the potential to recognize that we exist to share in the mutual blessing of divine Love, who enriches our affections.

 

Nigeria Violates Rights, Ignores Military Violations: HRW

Human Rights Watch says Nigeria's new government is violating rights on many fronts in its fight against Boko Haram's Islamic uprising and in bringing corrupt politicians to book.

The allegations in the New York-based organization's global report published Wednesday offers fuel to opponents who accuse President Muhammadu Buhari of acting as he did as a former military dictator.

The report says Buhari's inauguration in May "has not diminished the potency of the country's serious human rights challenges."

Buhari has not acted on promises to investigate allegations that the military is committing extrajudicial killings and illegally detaining people suspected of being Boko Haram fighters or supporters.

Human Rights Watch said the worst atrocity of 2015 in Nigeria was Boko Haram's slaughter of 2,000 civilians in Baga, a northeastern fishing settlement.

Boy, 4, Saves His Mom's Life's Using FaceTime on His iPad

A little boy in New York is being credited with saving his mom's life with the help of his iPad.

Chadwick DePew was with his mother, who is diabetic, last week and playing on the tablet while she chatted on the phone to her mother.

While she talked, Alice DePew began to experience complications from the illness and eventually lost consciousness.'

"I was talking to my mom on the cell phone and she heard me starting to slur my speech and I started feeling a little sleepy," Alice told WBNG.

DePew's mother recognized something was wrong after her daughter began to slur her words. After her daughter passed out, her mother called DePew's husband, Stanley.

Stanley DePew immediately called the house. When he received no answer, he tried calling Chadwick's iPad.

To his shock, the little boy answered. “When I saw that green button I pushed it,” Chadwick said.

DePew was able to instruct his son to unlock the door when paramedics arrived, which he was apparently able to do.

The family believes he helped save his mom's life.

"This is a scary situation in general and it just puts me a little bit more at ease, to know that if something were to happen, at least I can rely on my son,” Stanley said.