Watch Drone killed 'British Taliban' plotter, reports say

Drone killed 'British Taliban' plotter, reports say
Abdul Jabbar, a UK citizen who lived in Pakistan, had links to Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad, according to analysts


In this file photograph, a Pakistani soldier patrols the border with Afghanistan in North Waziristan, where Abdul Jabbar is said to have met with Taliban and al-Qaida militants Photograph: Declan Walsh for the Guardian
A British militant killed in a recent American drone strike had ties to the failed Times Square bomber and was planning to set up a British chapter of the Taliban, according to reports.

Abdul Jabbar, a British citizen living in Pakistan, had "some links" to Faisal Shahzad, who has been jailed for life, but the nature of those ties was not clear, a Pakistani intelligence official told Reuters.

Jabbar was planning to lead a new group calling itself the Islamic Army of Great Britain, the BBC said, quoting a senior security sources overseas.

Three months ago Jabbar reportedly attended a meeting of 300 Taliban and al-Qaida militants in North Waziristan, the main hub of militant activity in Pakistan. At the meeting he was allegedly tasked with organising Mumbai-style attacks on targets in Britain, France and the UK. Jabbar received militant training in North Waziristan and survived a US drone strike targeting the network of Hafiz Gul Bahadur, a major militant leader. Jabbar was killed in a second drone attack in September.

The emergence of Jabbar adds to a flurry of reports linking European militants based in Pakistan's tribal belt, and particularly North Waziristan, with plots against European cities.

After a drone strike that killed five German nationals in North Waziristan, German media carried details of alleged plots against prominent Berlin landmarks including a television tower. The US, UK, Japan and Sweden have warned their citizens to be vigilant against possible attacks while travelling in Europe. France has warned its citizens that a terror attack in the UK is "highly likely."

Jabbar reportedly arrived in Pakistan in May 2009. He was not a previously well-known jihadist leader but western intelligence agencies are worried about European militant wannabes streaming into the tribal belt.
Coppied by http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/06/british-taliban-linked-faisal-shahzad

Reports of mass rape by DRC rebels

Enjoy Reports of mass rape by DRC rebels

The UN says at least 5,400 women in the DRC are believed to have been raped in 2009 alone [
Almost 200 women have been raped by rebels in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), during a four-day seizure of a town, aid groups have said.

A US aid worker and a Congolese doctor told the Associated Press on Monday that the attacks occurred within miles of a UN peacekeepers' base

Will Cragin of the International Medical Corps (IMC) said that aid and UN workers knew fighters from Rwandan rebel FDLR group and Congolese Mai-Mai rebels had occupied Luvungi town and surrounding villages the day after the attack began on July 30.

Three weeks later, the UN peacekeeping mission in Congo issued no statement about the attacks and said on Monday that it was still investigating.

Cragin also told the Associated Press that his organisation was only able to get into the town, which he said is about 16km from a UN military camp, after rebels withdrew on their own on August 4.

Systematic rape

"There was no fighting and no deaths, Cragin said, just "lots of pillaging and the systematic raping of women".

Luvungi is a farming centre on the main road between Goma, the eastern
provincial capital, and the major mining town of Walikale.

MONUC was based in the DRC since 1999 to help the government gain control of the east
Four young boys were also raped, according to Kasimbo Charles Kacha, the district medical chief.

UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said the peacekeeping mission has a military operating base in Kibua, about 30km east of the village, but villagers were prevented from reaching the nearest communication point as FDLR fighters blocked the road.

Civil society leader Charles Masudi Kisa said there were only about 25 peacekeepers and that they did what they could against some 200 to 400 rebels who occupied the town of about 2,200 people and five nearby villages.

"When the peacekeepers approached a village, the rebels would run into the forest, but then the Blue Helmets had to move on to another area, and the rebels would just return," Masudi said.

"During the attack [the rebels] looted [the] population's houses and raped several women in Luvungi and surrounding areas," Stefania Trassari, spokesperson for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said
on Monday.

"International Medical Corps (IMC) reported that FDLR systematically raped the population during its four-day stay in Luvungi and surrounding areas. A total of 179 cases of sexual violence were reported," Trassari said, adding all of the cases
were of rape against women.

Harrowing accounts

The IMC said it was treating the victims.

"Nearly all reported rapes were described as having been perpetrated by two-to-six armed men, often taking place in front of the women's children and husbands," it said in a statement.

The United Nations has withdrawn 1,700 peacekeepers in recent months in response to demands from DRC government to end the mission next year, but still supports operations against several armed groups in the country's east.

Roger Meece, the new head of the UN mission called MONUSCO - which replaced predecessor MONUC - said last week that the rebels were still a huge threat to the population and the UN would keep trying to wipe them out.

Margot Wallstrom, the UN special representative on sexual violence in conflict, said in April the withdrawal of UN peacekeepers from the country would make the struggle against endemic rape "a lot more difficult".

Accurate figures for sexual violence are hard to come by as many rapes are unreported but according to the UN, at least 5,400 women reported being raped in neighbouring South Kivu province in the first nine months of 2009 alone.

MONUC had been in the former Belgian colony since 1999 to help the government of the DRC as it struggles to re-establish state control over the vast central African nation.

A war from 1998-2003 and the ensuing humanitarian disaster have killed an estimated 5.4 million people in the country.
Coppied by http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2010/08/201082402724259229.html