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'Terrorist attack’ on bus in Syria between Deir ez-Zor and Palmyra kills at least 25
30 Dec 2020 17:50
FILE PHOTO. © REUTERS / Alaa Al-Faqir
A passenger bus on the road between Deir ez-Zor and Palmyra came under attack by terrorists, resulting in the death of at least 25 people on board, reported the Syrian state news agency SANA. Another 13 people were injured.
The attack took place on Wednesday afternoon local time, near the town of Kobajjep (Kabajeb), about 50 kilometers along the M20 road from Deir ez-Zor.
Though the terrorist group Islamic State officially holds no more territory, there have been reports of their presence in the desert between the Euphrates river and Palmyra, an ancient city that changed hands several times during the Syrian conflict.
So far, no one has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Earlier in the day, one person was killed and three more injured in a rocket attack on Nabi Habil, some 30 miles (50km) outside of Damascus, which the Syrian government blamed on Israel.
Explosion and gunfire shakes Aden Airport in Yemen
as plane carrying new government lands
30 Dec 2020 11:38
People react as dust rises after explosions hit Aden airport, upon the arrival of the newly-formed Yemeni government
in Aden, Yemen December 30, 2020. © Reuters / Fawaz Salman
A loud explosion was followed by gunfire as Yemen’s new government landed at Aden International Airport. Local footage shows the chaotic scenes that resulted.
The blast reportedly killed at least five people and left dozens more injured. Footage from the Dubai-based Al-Hadath TV channel captured the incident as it was occurring. As people were peacefully leaving the plane via an airstair, a crowd gathered below it. Then suddenly a loud blast can be heard, causing the cameraman and other people at the airport to struggle to stay on their feet.
When the camera turns left towards the source of the sound, total chaos can be seen, with crowds of people running away through dark smoke, apparently left by the blast. Then, automatic gunshots are heard. At one point, Yemeni soldiers shoot their rifles up in the air to direct people away from the blast area.
An AFP correspondent on the scene said that “at least two explosions were heard as the cabinet members were leaving the aircraft.”
Graphic photos taken after the blast show the injured with blood all over their faces.
The cabinet members, including Prime Minister Maeen Abdulmalik, were not harmed and were transferred to the city’s presidential palace, according to Reuters.
Yemen’s new government was sworn in just last Saturday. Led by Abdulmalik, it includes members of opposing factions in Yemeni politics, and is supposed to represent a national push for unity in the war-torn country. The creation of the new unity government was backed by Saudi Arabia, to the point that the cabinet members were sworn in in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, instead of Aden, Yemen’s temporary capital amid the ongoing civil war.
The new government was the result of a political alliance between the Saudi-aligned Cabinet of Yemen, ultimately headed by President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, and the Southern Transitional Council, a UAE-supported faction. In the ongoing civil war, both groups stand against the Iranian-backed rebel Houthi movement, which controls the north of the country.
The hostilities, together with the Saudi-led coalition bombings launched against the Houthis since 2015, have resulted in the region having the “largest humanitarian crisis in the world,” according to the UN.
UPDATE: 30 Dec 2020 15:22
Second explosion heard near presidential palace in Yemen’s Aden
Local news have reported yet another explosion in Yemen, this time near the presidential palace, to which the new cabinet fled following the blast at Aden airport.
Yemen’s new government was transferred to the palace right after an explosion disrupted their arrival to Aden airport earlier today. It occurred as the officials were arriving to Aden from Riyadh, where cabinet members had a swearing-in ceremony that followed prolonged coalition talks brokered by the Saudis.
The destructive explosion at the airport resulted in more than 20 people being killed, and at least 60 injured, according to Salem Al-Shabhi, a senior health official who spoke to the Independent.
Mob led by Islamists demolishes Hindu temple in NW Pakistan
by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Posted Dec 30, 2020, at 2:42 pm EST
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — A mob led by members of Pakistan’s radical Islamist party demolished a Hindu temple Wednesday after setting it on fire in a deeply conservative northwestern town, a senior police official said.
The incident in the town of Karak drew condemnation from human rights activists and Pakistan’s minister for human rights, Shireen Mazari. Mazari took to Twitter to condemn the burning of the temple and urged law enforcement officials to ensure the arrest of those involved.
District police chief Irfan Ullah said police detained several people over their involvement in the attack on the temple.
Witnesses said the mob, led by activists and local leaders of the radical Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam party, attacked the temple after local Hindus received permission from authorities to renovate it.
The incident comes weeks after the government allowed minority Hindus to build a new temple in Islamabad on the recommendation of a council of clerics. Although Muslims and Hindus generally live peacefully together in Pakistan, there have been other attacks on Hindu temples in recent years.
Most of Pakistan’s minority Hindus migrated to India in 1947 when India was divided by Britain’s government.
The rest of them should have! Muslims are known, even very recently, to kidnap Hindu or Christian girls and forcibly convert them to Islam and then marry them against their will.
Karak, PK
Indonesia bans influential radical Islamist group
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Group's spiritual leader investigated for sexting
Online News Editor
December 30, 2020
Jakarta, (efe-epa).- Indonesia has banned the controversial but popular radical group the Islamic Defender’s Front that in recent years staged several anti-government protests in the country, officials said Wednesday.
The government order to force the group, known by its acronym FPI, to stop carrying out any type of activities came into force from Wednesday, said Mahfud MD, the coordinating political, legal, and security affairs minister.
The government disbanded the group in June 2019, but it continued to carry out activities unlawfully, said the minister. The registration of the group expired on June 20, 2019, and the license was never extended after that.
The authorities also point out that at least 29 members of the FPI, founded in 1998, were convicted in various terror cases, and at least another six have been accused of related crimes.
The ban came after Indonesia’s radical Muslim cleric Rizieq Shihab returned home in November from Saudi Arabia. He was in exile from 2017 after being accused of pornography charges that were later dropped.
Rizieq, 55, is the group’s spiritual figurehead and its co-founder.
Mahfud made the announcement in a press conference also attended by six senior government officials, including the home minister, the attorney general, intelligence head, police chief, and the head of counter-terror agency.
The government also screened some “disturbing” videos, which linked the radical group to violent practices. A clip, recorded in the Indonesian region of Pamekasan, showed followers of the group simulating acts of beheading.
Another showed Rizieq expressing his support for the global terror network Islamic State in a 2017 speech. The authorities also cite it as one of the reasons to ban the PFI.
More than 100 followers of the FPI have been convicted of other criminal offenses, the authorities said, accusing the extremist group of carrying out illegal raids against the so-called anti-Islam practices.
Rizieq was detained on Dec.13 for allegedly breaching Covid-19 health protocols by holding mass gatherings in November, days after he returned home.
A defender of Islamic Sharia law and opposed to secularization, Rizieq was jailed for seven months in 2003 for encouraging his supporters to attack nightlife venues in Jakarta.
In 2008, he was sentenced to a year and a half in prison for inciting his supporters to attack another group calling for freedom of belief in Indonesia.
Rizieq was also one of the ringleaders of protests by Islamic radicals in 2016 and 2017 against the then governor of Jakarta, the Christian Basuki Tjahaja Purnama before he was sentenced to two years in prison for blasphemy.
He left for Saudi Arabia in April 2017 when Indonesian police were investigating explicitly sexual messages the cleric had allegedly exchanged with a follower on WhatsApp.
After his exile and failing to appear before authorities, police filed formal charges for violating pornography law and for violating the founding ideology of the Indonesian state Pancasila that promotes national unity.
However, the charges were dropped in mid-2018, allowing the preacher to return.
Hmmmm! Why?
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