| French journalists free after 10-month Syria hostage ordeal Posted: 19 Apr 2014 03:13 PM PDT  Four French journalists taken hostage in Syria last year were freed on Saturday after a 10-month ordeal in the world's most dangerous country for the media. French President Francois Hollande announced the release of Edouard Elias, Didier Francois, Nicolas Henin and Pierre Torres, saying they were "in good health despite the very challenging conditions of their captivity". Turkish soldiers found the four men abandoned in no-man's land on the border with Syria overnight, wearing blindfolds and with their hands bound, the Turkish news agency Dogan reported. They had been captured in two separate incidents in June last year while covering the conflict in Syria.
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| San Francisco probe leading to entrapment claims Posted: 19 Apr 2014 02:52 PM PDT  SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The FBI used millions of dollars, liquor and cigarettes seized in other cases and more than a dozen undercover operatives in an elaborate, seven-year sting operation targeting a San Francisco Chinatown association thought to be a front for a notorious organized crime syndicate.
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| Bombs targeting soldiers, shoppers kill 16 in Iraq Posted: 19 Apr 2014 11:43 AM PDT  BAGHDAD (AP) — Attacks across Iraq, including a series of bombings targeting shoppers in a Sunni neighborhood in the country's capital, killed at least 16 people Saturday, authorities said.
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| 4 French journalists abducted in Syria freed, safe Posted: 19 Apr 2014 11:37 AM PDT  PARIS (AP) — Ten months after their capture in Syria, four French journalists crossed the border into neighboring Turkey and reached freedom Saturday, though dozens more remain held in the country's chaotic civil war.
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| Violence kills 29 as Iraqi forces hit militants Posted: 19 Apr 2014 11:01 AM PDT  Ramadi (Iraq) (AFP) - Violence in Iraq killed 29 people Saturday, most of them militants who died in a security forces assault that pushed them out of an area west of Baghdad, officials said. Anti-government fighters have held shifting parts of Anbar provincial capital Ramadi and all of the city of Fallujah, both west of Baghdad, for more than three months, with security forces still struggling to bring parts of the province back under government control.
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| Bombs targeting soldiers, shoppers kill 11 in Iraq Posted: 19 Apr 2014 10:41 AM PDT BAGHDAD (AP) — A suicide bomber has attacked an army checkpoint north of Iraq's capital, part of a day of violence that's killed 11 people across the country. |
| Syria rivalry sharply splits jihadist ranks Posted: 19 Apr 2014 10:11 AM PDT  Rivalry between jihadist groups fighting in Syria has sharply divided global militant ranks once loosely allied under Al-Qaeda, sparking infighting which experts say has hampered efforts to topple President Bashar al-Assad. And while senior leaders of Al-Qaeda were all but above question under revered founder Osama bin Laden, the conflict has gone so far that even his replacement Ayman al-Zawahiri has come in for fierce criticism on jihadist forums online. Powerful rebel groups in Syria, including Al-Qaeda's designated local affiliate Al-Nusra Front, have been locked in fierce fighting with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), with thousands of people killed since January. In a sign of how sharp the divisions have become, ISIL spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani has accused Al-Qaeda leaders of betraying the jihadist cause.
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| Special Report: How the U.S. made its Putin problem worse Posted: 19 Apr 2014 04:07 AM PDT  By David Rohde and Arshad Mohammed WASHINGTON AND NEW YORK (Reuters) - In September 2001, as the U.S. reeled from the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Vladimir Putin supported Washington's imminent invasion of Afghanistan in ways that would have been inconceivable during the Cold War. He agreed that U.S. planes carrying humanitarian aid could fly through Russian air space. He said the U.S. military could use airbases in former Soviet republics in Central Asia. And he ordered his generals to brief their U.S. counterparts on their own ill-fated 1980s occupation of Afghanistan.
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| Iran general urges Tehran to make new UN pick Posted: 19 Apr 2014 03:21 AM PDT TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — A senior Iranian military official has urged the foreign ministry to name a new envoy to the U.N. after the U.S. blocked its chosen ambassador over alleged ties to the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. |
| Kidnapped French journalists found on Turkey's Syrian border Posted: 19 Apr 2014 02:38 AM PDT  Four French journalists held hostage in Syria since June were found by Turkish soldiers on its border with Syria on Saturday, Turkish media reported, and French President Francois Hollande said the four were in good health. Nicolas Henin, Pierre Torres, Edouard Elias and Didier Francois were found in Sanliurfa province blindfolded with their hands bound, Dogan News Agency said. Dogan said the journalists had been kidnapped by the rebel group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) but that an unknown group brought the journalists to the Turkish border on Friday night.
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| Touring royals meet Australian military families Posted: 19 Apr 2014 12:57 AM PDT  Brisbane (Australia) (AFP) - Britain's Prince William and his wife Kate met with the families of Australian soldiers killed in recent conflicts Saturday and took a front-row fighter jet seat as their tour headed north. The royal couple were presented with a boomerang for their infant son, George, and delighted Olympians and ordinary folk alike during a whistlestop tour of Brisbane, Australia's third-largest city. Huge crowds turned out to greet the imperial pair, who began their day at the Amberley Air Force base with military formalities including a guard of honour and flyover by two F/A-18 Super Hornets. William, who trained with Britain's Royal Air Force and whose grandmother Queen Elizabeth II is Australia's head of state, was first to inspect the next-generation Boeing fighter jet, offering his wife a tongue-in-cheek invitation as he climbed aboard.
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| Qaeda chief calls for unity as jihadist schism deepens Posted: 18 Apr 2014 11:12 PM PDT  Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has called for unity in a new interview amid widening divisions with a rival jihadist organisation rooted in the Syrian civil war. The interview, which the SITE monitoring service dated to between February and April, was released after the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) accused Al-Qaeda of having "deviated from the correct path." "They have divided the ranks of the mujahideen (holy warriors) in every place," ISIL spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani said in a statement posted on jihadi forums. Zawahiri rejected the allegations, suggesting that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime may have penetrated jihadist groups in order to sow sedition, according to SITE, which translated his interview with a Qaeda-run media outlet.
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