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Gunmen kill nearly 200 in Nigeria’s Kwara and Katsina attacks

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By TUNDE OMOLEHIN and DYEPKAZAH SHIBAYAN, Associated Press Armed extremists killed at least 162 people during attacks on two villages in western Nigeria, a lawmaker said Wednesday, in one of the deadliest assaults in recent months. One rights group estimated the death toll could be higher. The attacks targeted the villages of Woro and Nuku, in the state of Kwara, on Tuesday evening, Mohammed Omar Bio, a member of parliament representing the area, told The Associated Press. He said the attacks were carried out by the Lakurawa, an armed group affiliated with the Islamic State group. No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks. Ayodeji Emmanuel Babaomo, the Red Cross secretary in Kwara state, said the organization has been unable to reach the communities where “scores of people were killed” because they are in a remote area — about eight hours from the state capital and near Nigeria’s border with Benin. Footage from the scene on local television show bodies lying in blood on th...
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Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, son of ex-Libyan leader, reportedly shot dead

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Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the son of late Libyan dictator Moamer Gaddafi, was killed on Tuesday, his political office has said. Saif al-Islam was killed in a “treacherous and cowardly” act, in which four masked men stormed his residence in the western Libyan city of Zintan, the office said. His lawyer Khaled al-Zaidi confirmed to dpa that Saif al-Islam Gaddafi was “assassinated at his home.” The al-Arabiya news channel reported that the 53-year-old was shot dead in the garden of his residence in Zintan, citing sources close to the Gaddafi family. Saif al-Islam was the second-eldest son of the long-time Libyan leader, who ruled the North African country for more than four decades. Before his father’s overthrow and death in 2011, al-Islam led a reform project aimed at modernizing the country politically and bringing it closer to the West. Many of these efforts were soon reversed in order not to upset the balance of power in his father’s government. Gaddafi’s death followed months of m...
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Syrian state forces deploy in Kurdish-run city under ceasefire deal

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By Khalil Ashawi and Firas Makdesi Reuters Syrian government security forces deployed in a Kurdish-controlled city in the northeast on Monday, a first step towards implementing a U.S.-backed ceasefire deal that foresees the Kurdish-run regions being merged with Damascus. The deal, declared on ​Friday, staved off the prospect of further confrontation between President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s government and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, which lost swathes of ‌eastern and northern Syria to government troops in January. Reuters journalists saw a convoy of more than 30 interior ministry vehicles begin moving towards the ethnically-mixed city of Hasakah from its outskirts in the ‌early afternoon. Sources in the city said they entered shortly afterwards. Members of the Kurdish Asayish security force observed as the convoy entered the city. Government forces are expected to be stationed in Syrian state buildings in Hasakah’s so-called “security zone”, a Syrian official and a Kurdish...
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Russian drone strike kills 12 miners as Kyiv announces new talks

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By Dan Peleschuk Reuters A Russian drone strike on a bus carrying miners killed at least 12 people, Ukrainian officials said on Sunday, hours after President Volodymyr Zelenskiy announced new peace talks amid uncertainty over a Russian suspension of attacks on energy ​infrastructure. First Deputy Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said the strike in the southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region was a “cynical and targeted” attack on energy workers. Their ‌employer DTEK said the victims were finishing a shift. Kyiv is under U.S. pressure to agree a peace deal in the nearly four-year war while grappling with a Russian campaign of airstrikes that ‌has ravaged its energy system during one of the coldest winters in years. UKRAINE READY FOR ‘SUBSTANTIVE TALKS’ The first round of U.S.-backed trilateral talks between Ukraine and Russia took place in late January, but led to no movement on the vital question of territory, with Moscow still demanding Kyiv cede more land in its war-torn east, which it re...
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Pakistan says 92 militants killed after attacks in Balochistan

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Separatists launched “coordinated” attacks across Pakistan’s Balochistan province on Saturday, killing at least 15 security personnel and 18 civilians, the military said — the latest violence in the insurgency-hit southwestern region. Officials said 92 militants including “three suicide bombers” were also killed. Pakistan has been battling a separatist insurgency in Balochistan for decades, with frequent attacks on security forces, foreign nationals and non-locals in the mineral-rich province bordering Afghanistan and Iran. The military’s media wing said in a statement that attacks had taken place in multiple locations including the provincial capital Quetta and Gwadar. “Eighteen innocent civilians” and 15 security personnel were killed, the military’s media wing (ISPR) said in a statement, putting the death toll among the militants at 92. The circumstances surrounding the deaths of the civilians were not immediately clear. Baloch separatists have previously targeted civilians be...
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Over 200 feared killed in coltan mine collapse in eastern DR Congo

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More than 200 people have been reported killed in a collapse at the Rubaya coltan mine in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Lumumba Kambere Muyisa, spokesperson for the rebel-appointed governor of the province where the mine is located, told the Reuters news agency. The mine, located some 60km (37 miles) northwest of Goma city, the provincial capital of North Kivu province, collapsed on Wednesday, and the precise number of casualties was still unclear as of Friday evening, Reuters reports. “More than 200 people were victims of this landslide, including miners, children and market women. Some people were rescued just in time and have serious injuries,” Muyisa told Reuters, adding that about 20 injured people were being treated in health facilities. “We are in the rainy season. The ground is fragile. It was the ground that gave way while the victims were in the hole,” he said. Eraston Bahati Musanga, the governor of North Kivu province appointed by the M23 rebel group, ...
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Moscow records heaviest snowfall in over 200 years

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Russia’s capital Moscow has this month seen the largest snowfall in more than 200 years, Moscow State University meteorologists said on Thursday. AFP images from the city of around 13 million people showed residents struggling to make their way through heavy piles of snow on the streets in its central district. Commuter trains in the Moscow area were delayed, AFP reporters witnessed, and cars were stuck in long traffic jams on Thursday evening. “January was a cold and unusually snowy month in Moscow,” the university said on social media. “By January 29, the Moscow State University Meteorological Observatory had recorded almost 92 mm of precipitation, which is already the highest value in the last 203 years,” it added. Snow piles on the ground reached as high as 60 centimetres (24 inches) in some parts of the capital on Thursday. Snow is mostly air, meaning the level of settled snow far surpasses scientific measurements of precipitation — which measures the amount of water that ha...
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