Dozens escape in deadly raid on Iraqi prison

Dozens of prisoners were on the loose today after militants attacked a prison in the Iraqi city of Tikrit, leaving at least 13 policemen dead, officials said.

The violence at the prison comes after Al-Qaeda's Iraqi front group announced a campaign to regain territory and said it aimed to help its jailed members escape.

Salaheddin provincial deputy governor Ahmed Abdul Jabbar told AFP by telephone that the Tikrit prison had been retaken from militants who seized it on Thursday night, but that 83 prisoners escaped.

A hospital official in Tikrit, the ancestral home of now-executed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, said 13 police were killed and 34 wounded in the violence.

A source in the Salaheddin police command said, meanwhile, that 15 policemen and seven prisoners were killed, and put the number of escaped prisoners at about 100.

"We took control of the prison, and the gunmen handed over their weapons," the official said.

Accounts differed on the specifics of the unrest, but it appears militants attacked from outside the prison, while inmates may have seized weapons from guards inside.

A police lieutenant colonel said Thursday that a suicide bomber detonated a car bomb at the gate of the prison, after which it was assaulted by gunmen.

And a traffic police lieutenant colonel who was near the scene of the attack said militants blew up part of the prison fence, and between 30 and 40 inmates were able to escape.

A police colonel said riots broke out in the prison, while witnesses said inmates seized the guards' weapons, and that more than 100 of them escaped and fought security forces in the surrounding area.

The tactics reportedly employed in the assault were reminiscent of those used in attacks in July and August.

Gunmen attempted to use bombs to breach a prison gate in Taji, north of Baghdad, on August 1, after using similar tactics on the anti-terrorism directorate in the capital the day before in an attack the interior ministry said was an attempt to free inmates.

Al-Qaeda front group the Islamic State of Iraq said in July that it was launching a "new military campaign aimed at recovering territory." An earlier message posted on jihadist forums said the ISI would begin targeting judges and prosecutors, and try to help its prisoners break out of jails.

While insurgents opposed to the Baghdad government are regarded as weaker than in past years, they have shown they can strike at even the most highly secure sites in Iraq.

In addition to the prisons in Tikrit and Taji and the anti-terrorism directorate, targets in recent months have included a police station, a military base and an entrance to Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, where the government is headquartered.

Libya shuts Benghazi air space, Turkish plane returns home

A Libyan security men keep watch at a checkpoint outside the Tibesti Hotel.

A Turkish Airlines flight to Benghazi had to return to Turkey after air traffic was suspended for security reasons to Libya's second city, where the American ambassador was killed when the U.S. consulate came under attack this week, an airport source said today.

"We received orders on Thursday evening to immediately suspend all flights for security reasons," the source told Agence France-Presse.

She said the immediate effect had been the grounding of a Tunisair flight which had been due to take off on Thursday evening.

The eastern city has been tense since Tuesday, when the U.S. consulate was attacked, looted and set on fire and four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, killed.

The airport source said no official reason had been given for the closure of Benghazi's Benina airport, but speculated: "The threat of the possible presence of surface-to-air missiles could be behind the decision." At the end of the conflict that toppled strongman Moammar Gadhafi, Western nations involved in a NATO enforcement of a no-fly zone over Libya reported the disappearance of thousands of surface-to-air missiles capable of being fired from portable launchers.

Libyan airliner Afriqiyah announced in a Twitter message meanwhile that all "flights to/from Benina airport have been cancelled due to [the] security situation." A military source would only say unspecified "threats" were behind the suspension of flights.

According to witnesses, unmanned drone aircraft overflew Benghazi during the night and early Friday.

It was initially believed that the four Americans were killed by a mob outside the consulate as they tried to flee an angry protest against a US-produced movie deemed offensive to Islam.

But it is now believed Stevens died from smoke inhalation after becoming trapped in the compound when suspected Islamic militants fired on the building with rocket-propelled grenades and set it ablaze.

U.S. officials identified two of the four Americans killed in Tuesday's attack as former members of the elite Navy SEALs, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, while the other victim was named as Sean Smith, an information management officer.

U.S. officials are investigating the possibility that the assault was a plot by al-Qaeda affiliates or sympathizers, using the protest against the film as a cover to carry out a coordinated revenge attack on Tuesday's anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.

Prime Minister Mustafa Abu Shagur told AFP on Thursday that a"big advance" had been made in the probe into the deadly attack.

In his first interview since his election as premier on Wednesday night, Abu Shagur said that arrests had already been made and that more were under way.

"We have made a big advance. We have some names and some photographs," he said.

The Tribal Curse And Islamic Radicalism

September 8, 2012: Much of the current Islamic radicalism and terrorism has its origins in tribalism, a curse that has largely disappeared in the West. A few thousand years ago nearly everyone lived in a tribal (a collection of families and clans related by blood) culture. But since then, the tribal social relationships have faded, superseded by kingdoms and then nations. But there are still several large tribes left in Eurasia and they are at the center of much of the unrest on the planet these days.

First, there are the Pushtuns. This is a collection of dozens of tribes sharing language and customs. There are over 40 million Pushtuns and their range is from eastern Iran to western Pakistan. They are a minority in every country they live in, although they are the dominant minority (40 percent of the population) in Afghanistan. Then there are the 24 million Kurds, who live as minorities in Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria. There are also fifteen million Baluchis, living as minorities in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran.

What these three tribes have in common is that they have never been able to form their own nation. The Italic tribes did this in Italy over 2,000 years ago, the Germans did it later in Germany (and Austria and Switzerland), the Greek tribes in Greece eventually formed a nation (after first creating city states), the Turkish tribes in Turkey (and other Turkic tribes like the Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Azeris, and Kirgiz in Central Asia) all eventually coalesced into nations in the last few centuries. The Mongol tribes have had their own nation for centuries. The Tajiks, who are like the Pushtuns, Baluchis, and Kurds an Indo-European people, have their own country (although most Tajiks live in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Uzbekistan).

When a large tribal population does not, in this day and age, have its own nation, there tends to be a strong desire to form one. The Tajiks got lucky, having been conquered by the Russians in the 19th century and then able to set themselves up as an independent nation when the Soviet (Russian) empire fell apart in 1991. That independence may not last but, for the moment, the Tajiks have a place they can call their own.

The Baluchis are also unique in that they have not really caught the nationalist fever. They want more autonomy in Pakistan and Afghanistan. And they are fighting for that. But calls for forming a Baluchistan have, so far, been muted.

It's different with the Kurds and Pushtuns. Both are cursed with the desire for nationhood and the inability to get along with each other. Both tribes have been sitting where they are for over a thousand years, uniting temporarily only to fight outsiders. The other mega-tribes of Eurasia eventually found a string of strong and resourceful leaders who united the tribes and formed nations.

The Kurds are blocked from statehood by the more powerful nations they inhabit. The Turks, Iraqis, and Iranians are particularly resistant to giving up real estate and population to form a Kurdistan. Fortunately, the Kurds never embraced Islam in a big way and their separatist groups tend to be socialist, or simply nationalist. Thus the Kurds are allies of the West in the war on terror, not an enemy.

The Pushtuns are another matter. While the Pushtuns basically control Afghanistan, that's not saying much. Afghanistan is little more than a tribal coalition, with tribal politics more important than national level stuff. Most Pushtuns live in Pakistan, where they are a small (less than ten percent) minority. The Pushtuns are less educated (or even literate) than the non-Pushtun majority. And now the lowlanders of Punjab and Sind are using their numbers, and more powerful weapons, to crush a religion based (Taliban) tribal uprising.

The Pakistani Pushtun tribes are also going through their own civil war and revolution. New technologies and new ideas are upsetting the ancient traditions. The Pushtun tribal leadership is being threatened from several directions. Young men, made wealthy and well-armed by the drug trade, refuse to obey their tribal elders. Other tribesmen, hearing a call from God (to join the Taliban or al Qaeda) have also ignored their tribal leaders. The government has backed the tribal leaders, creating a bloody generational conflict. Tribal politics is a dirty business and always has been. The violence in the tribal areas of Pakistan, just from battles with the army and police, has been escalating over the last decade. Now it is war and the Pushtuns are facing yet another defeat.

While the Kurds are embracing education and modern life, the Pushtuns, at least the most violent ones, are embracing an Islamic past. Thus do the lost tribes of Eurasia stay lost.

More Pakistan protests over NATO supply lines

A mortar round hit a house belonging to a paramilitary soldier Sunday in northwestern Pakistan, killing his wife and three of his children, police said, not far from the newly reopened NATO supply crossing to Afghanistan.

The soldier in the Frontier Corps, Dolat Mir, was wounded in the explosion in Mera Sheikhan village near the Khyber tribal area, said police official Inayatullah Khan.

The Khyber tribal region is one of the two land routes for ferrying the supplies to U.S. and its allied NATO forces across border in Afghanistan. Chaman border in southwest Pakistan is the other land crossing.

It was unclear who fired the mortar, Khan said, or whether the house was intentionally targeted. The 27-year-old soldier has been serving in the North Waziristan tribal region, said police official Behram Khan.

The military has been conducting operations against Islamist militants in Khyber.

Pakistan reopened both routes for NATO supplies on July 4 after a seven-month suspension. This came after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton apologized for the deaths of 24 Pakistani soldiers in an allied forces raid on a border military post. Pakistan blocked the routes after the border incident, demanding an apology.

Opponents of reopening the route demonstrated at the Chaman crossing on Sunday.

Around 4,000 Islamists travelled hundreds of kilometers to the border from Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province where Chaman is located, and held a sit-in protest, said police official Agha Mohammad. A banner in the rally read, “Say no to NATO supplies,” and the protesters chanted, “Long live Mullah Omar,” a founder of the Taliban.

The demonstrators dispersed peacefully.

Another 1,000 Islamists marched to the seaport in the southern city of Karachi, where NATO supplies are received before being transported to Afghanistan.

Thousands of Islamists under the banner of the Difa-e-Pakistan Council, or council for defending Pakistan, a group of several Islamic political parties and militant groups, thronged the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, on July 9 to protest the supply resumption. At the time, the group pledged to organize more protests.

Islam - The peaceful religion ! - Mali Islamists destroy tombs at ancient Timbuktu mosque

The Islamists controlling northern Mali destroyed two tombs at the ancient Djingareyber mud mosque today in Timbuktu, an endangered World Heritage site.

"Currently the Islamists are busy destroying two tombs of Timbuktu's great Djingareyber mosque. They are shooting in the air to chase away the crowd, to scare them," one witness said.

"The two mausolea are adjacent to the western wall of the great mosque and the Islamists have hoes, chisels, they are hitting the mausolea which are made out of packed earth," said a source close to the mosque's imam.

"They say they will destroy everything." Another witness reported that the Islamists had cried "Allahu Akbar" (God Is Great) as they hammered away at the mosque, one of the most important in Timbuktu.

He added that the Islamists had blocked off two main roads leading to the mosque, which was one of the fabled city's main tourist attractions before the region became a no-go area for Westerners.

The same witness reported that the Islamists had asked a television crew from the Qatar-based news channel Al-Jazeera to film their actions.

The fighters from the Islamist group Ansar Dine (Defenders of Faith) began their destruction of the city's cultural treasures on July 1, shortly after UNESCO placed them on a list of endangered World Heritage sites.

Declaring the ancient Muslim shrines "haram", or forbidden in Islam, Ansar Dine set about destroying seven of Timbuktu's 16 mausolea of ancient Muslim saints.

They also destroyed the sacred door of the 15th-century Sidi Yahya mosque.

Along with Sidi Yahya, Djingareyber and the Sankore mosque bear witness to Timbuktu's golden age as an intellectual and spiritual capital which was crucial in the spread of Islam throughout Africa.

According to the UNESCO website, the Djingareyber mosque -- the oldest of the three -- was built by the sultan Kankan Moussa after his return in 1325 from a pilgrimage to Mecca. All have been restored several times.

Ansar Dine had paused their campaign of destruction for about a week, but said they would continue destroying all the shrines "without exception" amid an outpouring of grief and outrage both at home and abroad.

On Tuesday a source in Ansar Dine told AFP that "from now on, as soon as foreigners speak of Timbuktu" they would attack anything referred to as a World Heritage site.

"There is no world heritage, it doesn't exist. The infidels must not get involved in our business," said a Tunisian jihadist who gave his name only as Ahmed and said he was part of Ansar Dine's "media committee." "We will destroy everything, even if the mausolea are inside the mosques, and afterwards we will destroy the mausolea in the region of Timbuktu," he said.

More ancient tombs are situated in the towns of Araouane and Gassra-Cheick in the greater Timbuktu region.

A March 22 coup in Mali eased the way for Tuareg separatist rebels to seize a vast area in the north that they consider their homeland.

However, the previously unknown Ansar Dine group seized the upper hand while fighting on their flanks. Openly allied with the north African group Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, they have since pushed the Tuareg rebels from all positions of power.

The international community fears the desert region, which is larger than France, will become a new haven for terrorist activity, and the Islamists have threatened any country that joins a possible military intervention force in Mali.

West African mediators have ordered Mali's embattled interim government to form a unity government by July 31 that will be better able to deal with the northern occupation.

Islam - The peaceful religion !

Taliban  publicly execute woman accused of adultery

A man Afghan officials say is a member of the Taliban shot dead a woman accused of adultery in front of a crowd near Kabul, a video obtained by Reuters showed, a sign that the austere Islamist group dictates law even near the Afghan capital.

In the three-minute video, a turban-clad man approaches a woman kneeling in the dirt and shoots her five times at close range with an automatic rifle, to cheers of jubilation from the 150 or so men watching in a village in Parwan province.

"Allah warns us not to get close to adultery because it's the wrong way," another man says as the shooter gets closer to the woman. "It is the order of Allah that she be executed".

Provincial Governor Basir Salangi said the video, obtained on Saturday, was shot a week ago in the village of Qimchok in Shinwari district, about an hour's drive from Kabul.

Such rare public punishment was a painful reminder to Afghan authorities of the Taliban's 1996-2001 period in power, and it raised concern about the treatment of Afghan women 11 years into the NATO-led war against Taliban insurgents.

"When I saw this video, I closed my eyes ... The woman was not guilty; the Taliban are guilty," Salangi told Reuters.

When the unnamed woman, most of her body tightly wrapped in a shawl, fell sideways after being shot several times in the head, the spectators chanted: "Long live the Afghan mujahideen! (Islamist fighters)", a name the Taliban use for themselves.

The Taliban could not be reached for comment.

Despite the presence of over 130,000 foreign troops and 300,000 Afghan soldiers and police, the Taliban have managed to resurge beyond their traditional bastions of the south and east, extending their reach into once more peaceful areas like Parwan.

Hard-won  women's rights in jeopardy?

Afghan women have won back basic rights in education, voting and work since the Taliban, who deemed them un-Islamic for women, were toppled by U.S.-backed Afghan forces in late 2001.

But fears are rising among Afghan women, some lawmakers and rights activists that such freedoms could be traded away as the Afghan government and the United States pursue talks with the Taliban to secure a peaceful end to the war.

Violence against women has increased sharply in the past year, according to Afghanistan's independent human rights commission. Activists say there is waning interest in women's rights on the part of President Hamid Karzai's government.

"After 10 years (of foreign intervention), and only a few kilometres from Kabul... how could this happen in front of all these people?" female lawmaker Fawzia Koofi said of the public execution in Parwan.

"This is happening under a government that claims to have made so much progress in women's rights, claims to have changed women's lives, and this is unacceptable. It is a huge step backwards," said Koofi, a campaigner for girls' education who wants to run in the 2014 presidential election.

Salangi said two Taliban commanders were sexually involved with the woman in Parwan, either through rape or romantically, and decided to torture her and then kill her to settle a dispute between the two of them.

"They are outlaws, murderers, and like savages they killed the woman," he said, adding that the Taliban exerted considerable sway in his province.

Earlier this week a 30-year-old woman and two of her children were beheaded in eastern Afghanistan by a man police said was her divorced husband, the latest of a string of so-called "honour killings".

Some Afghans still refer to Taliban courts for settling disputes, viewing government bodies as corrupt or unreliable. The courts use sharia (Islamic law), which prescribes punishment.