| Horror on the sand in Tunisian hotel massacre Posted: 27 Jun 2015 04:20 PM PDT By Tarek Amara SOUSSE, Tunisia (Reuters) - Casually dressed in dark shorts, a necklace and T-shirt, he would have looked like any other young Tunisian among the German, British and Irish sunbathers soaking up the Mediterranean heat on one of Tunisia's long, yellow beaches. In just five minutes, armed with the black Kalashnikov he had hidden in his beach umbrella, Saif Rezgui unleashed horror across the Imperial Marhaba resort, leaving 39 victims dead among the deck chairs and pool loungers. It was the worst attack of its kind in Tunisia's modern history. |
| European tour operators evacuate thousands from Tunisia after attack Posted: 27 Jun 2015 04:20 PM PDT  By Tarek Amara SOUSSE, Tunisia (Reuters) - Tour companies were evacuating thousands of foreign holidaymakers from Tunisia on Saturday, a day after a gunman killed 39 people at a beach hotel in an attack claimed by Islamic State. Tunisia's Prime Minister Habib Essid said most of the dead were British, and Britain's foreign office said 15 Britons had been confirmed killed in the attack in the resort town of Sousse, 140 km (90 miles) south of the capital Tunis. It was the second major attack in the North African country this year, following an Islamist militant assault on the Bardo Museum in Tunis in March when gunmen killed a group of foreign visitors as they arrived by bus.
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| Shaken tourists flee Tunisia after seaside massacre Posted: 27 Jun 2015 03:27 PM PDT  Planeloads of shocked foreign tourists flew home from Tunisia Saturday after a beachside massacre claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group killed 38 people and prompted a major security clampdown. Britain said that at least 15 of its citizens were killed in Friday's gun assault in the popular resort of Port el Kantaoui and that the number "may well rise". The attack represents Britain's worst loss of life in a terror incident since the 2005 London bombings.
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| French attack suspect grilled as gruesome 'selfie' emerges Posted: 27 Jun 2015 02:12 PM PDT  Sources close to the investigation said the suspect, Yassin Salhi, a 35-year-old married father-of-three sent a picture of him with the severed head via the WhatsApp messaging service. Earlier this week, France passed a controversial new spying law granting sweeping powers to snoop on citizens.
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| Activists: IS fighters kill 200 civilians in Syrian town Posted: 27 Jun 2015 12:47 PM PDT  BEIRUT (AP) — Islamic State fighters who launched a surprise attack on a Syrian border town massacred more than 200 civilians, including women and children, before they were killed or driven out by Kurdish forces, activists said on Saturday.
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| At least 15 Britons killed in Tunisia attack: minister Posted: 27 Jun 2015 12:46 PM PDT  Britain said Saturday that at least 15 of its citizens were killed in the attack on a Tunisian beach resort, its worst loss of life in a terror incident since the 2005 London bombings. Announcing the toll, Foreign Office minister Tobias Ellwood warned the numbers killed in Friday's shooting "may well rise, as several more have been seriously injured in this horrific attack". Prime Minister David Cameron had earlier warned that Britain needed to prepare "for the fact that many of those killed in the attack were British".
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| Kuwait buries IS attack victims as security boosted Posted: 27 Jun 2015 12:30 PM PDT  Thousands of Kuwaitis braved scorching summer heat on Saturday to attend the funerals of 18 out of 26 victims of a Shiite mosque bombing claimed by the Islamic State group. The bodies of the remaining eight victims were flown to Iraq's Shiite holy city of Najaf for burial, State Minister for Cabinet Affairs Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah Al-Sabah said.
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| Thousands mourn in Kuwait's mass funeral after Shiite attack Posted: 27 Jun 2015 12:08 PM PDT  KUWAIT CITY (AP) — Thousands of people in Kuwait took part in a mass funeral procession on Saturday for 27 people killed in an attack against a Shiite mosque in the capital a day earlier.
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| Tunisia faces tough task facing up to extremist threat Posted: 27 Jun 2015 12:05 PM PDT  Friday's assault by a Tunisian student at a popular resort at Port El Kantaoui that killed 38 people illustrates the complexity of the challenges ahead for Tunisia four years after its revolution. After Friday's attack, Prime Minister Habib Essid announced an "exceptional plan to better secure tourist and archaeological sites". The authorities announced a crackdown on such mosques in March 2014, and in July last year officials vowed to close mosques where the killing of 15 Tunisian soldiers had been celebrated.
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| Alamo, French champagne vineyards vie for World Heritage status Posted: 27 Jun 2015 11:48 AM PDT  The legendary Alamo battleground and the vineyards that produce France's beloved champagne are among the sites likely to get World Heritage status at a UNESCO meeting starting Sunday. At least 36 natural and cultural sites, including a disputed bid from Japan, are vying to get the United Nations cultural body's prestigious distinction and add their names to the more than 1,000-strong list. The 39th committee session of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) will take place in the western German city of Bonn from June 28-July 8.
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| Kuwait's Shi'ites mourn blast victims and lament sectarianism Posted: 27 Jun 2015 10:55 AM PDT By Angus McDowall KUWAIT (Reuters) - As a body passed, shrouded in Kuwait's flag, dozens of hands were raised from the crowd to support the bier and help carry it toward the Shi'ite Muslim cemetery where most victims of Friday's Islamic State mosque attack were buried on Saturday. Among the thousands of Shi'ite mourners at the Jaafari cemetery in the Sulaibkhat district of Kuwait City, shock and grief were tempered by a grim sense of resignation that a long-feared attack on their community had finally taken place. Relations between Islam's main sects have traditionally been less fraught in Kuwait than in other Gulf Arab states. |
| U.S., allies target Islamic State in Syria with 14 air strikes Posted: 27 Jun 2015 10:48 AM PDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. and coalition forces launched 14 air strikes against Islamic State targets in Syria and seven in Iraq on Friday, the U.S. military said, amid reports the militant group killed 145 civilians in the town of Kobani. Four air strikes near Kobani, on the border with Turkey, hit three Islamic State tactical units and destroyed two boats, a fighting position and a vehicle, the Combined Joint Task Force said on Saturday. Five air strikes near the militant stronghold of Raqqa destroyed five excavators, a vehicle and a remotely piloted aircraft. ... |
| Once unheard of, US-Iran talks become the new normal Posted: 27 Jun 2015 08:52 AM PDT  VIENNA (AP) — The top American and Iranian diplomats faced each other across a square table in a 19th century Viennese palace, the room austerely decorated and the atmosphere calm as they started the final push for a generation-defining nuclear agreement on Saturday.
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| Kuwait arrests suspects in mosque attack, mourns dead Posted: 27 Jun 2015 08:23 AM PDT  By Ahmed Hagagy and Angus McDowall KUWAIT (Reuters) - Kuwait detained the owner of a car that took a bomber to a Shi'ite mosque to carry out the country's worst ever militant attack, officials said on Saturday, as thousands calling for national unity turned out to bury some of the 27 killed. Militant group Islamic State claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing against 2,000 worshippers praying at the Imam al-Sadeq mosque on Friday, one of three attacks on three continents that day apparently linked to hardline Islamists. Officials said the bombing was clearly meant to stir enmity between majority Sunnis and minority Shi'ites and harm the comparatively harmonious ties between the sects in Kuwait.
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| Bomb blasts in Iraqi capital leave 12 dead, dozens wounded Posted: 27 Jun 2015 07:25 AM PDT BAGHDAD (AP) — A series of attacks targeting public places killed 12 people in Baghdad on Saturday, said Iraqi authorities, as the prime minister announced the arrest of an aide to Saddam Hussein. |
| Turkey will 'never allow' Kurdish state in Syria warns Erdogan Posted: 27 Jun 2015 06:36 AM PDT  Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Turkey will never allow the establishment of a Kurdish state in Syria after major gains by Kurdish fighters. In a strong-worded warning late on Friday, Erdogan accused the Kurds of ethnically cleaning other communities from land they have taken after pushing back Islamic State forces from the Turkish border. "I say to the international community that whatever price must be paid, we will never allow the establishment of a new state on our southern frontier in the north of Syria," Erdogan was quoted by Turkish media as telling guests at a dinner to break the Ramadan fast.
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| Kurds secure Syria's Kobani as Islamic State targets northeast Posted: 27 Jun 2015 06:30 AM PDT  By Sylvia Westall BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian Kurdish fighters said they had fully secured the town of Kobani near the Turkish border on Saturday and killed more than 60 Islamic State militants, two days after the hardline group launched an incursion with suicide bombers. Further east, Islamic State pressed another assault on government-held areas of Hasaka city, clashing with the Syrian army after blowing up a security building late on Friday and triggering a government appeal for residents to take up arms. "The people of the governorate and its surroundings continue to sign up with the Syrian Arab Army in its fight against terror," state television said in a news flash on Saturday and played archive footage of soldiers set to rousing music.
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| Iraq forces made 'unauthorised' withdrawal from Ramadi: PM Posted: 27 Jun 2015 06:21 AM PDT  Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said Saturday that Iraqi forces made an "unauthorised" withdrawal from Ramadi last month, leading to the Islamic State group's takeover of the Anbar provincial capital. "The withdrawal of the forces from Ramadi was unauthorised -- the orders were the opposite. The forces had to resist, and if they had resisted, we would not have lost Ramadi," Abadi said in televised remarks.
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| Big business on winning side in U.S. top court's major rulings Posted: 27 Jun 2015 06:14 AM PDT  By Lawrence Hurley WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Big business was on the winning side in the U.S. Supreme Court's two major cases of the year, with hundreds of employers pushing hard in favor of gay marriage and the healthcare industry backing the insurance subsidies available under Obamacare. The court on Thursday rejected a conservative challenge to President Barack Obama's healthcare law on a 6-3 vote and, a day later, ruled 5-4 that gay marriage should be legal nationwide. Both cases were largely seen through the lens of national ideological wars, with liberals backing gay marriage and Obamacare and conservatives opposing them.
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| Bomb attacks kill four people at Baghdad street markets Posted: 27 Jun 2015 05:56 AM PDT  Four people were killed in separate bomb attacks in Baghdad on Saturday, police and medics said. Another bomb went of near a crowded grocery market in the Doura district of southern Baghdad, the police and medics said. Iraq faces multiple security challenges, including Islamic State insurgents who control a third of the country and a sectarian civil war.
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| Gunman kills 39 at Tunisian beachside hotel, Islamic State claims attack Posted: 26 Jun 2015 11:42 PM PDT  By Tarek Amara SOUSSE, Tunisia (Reuters) - A gunman disguised as a tourist opened fire at a Tunisian hotel on Friday with a rifle he had hidden in an umbrella, killing 39 people including Britons, Germans and Belgians as they lounged at the beach in an attack claimed by Islamic State. Terrified tourists ran for cover after the gunfire and an explosion erupted at the Imperial Marhaba in Sousse, 140 km (90 miles) south of the capital Tunis, before police shot the gunman dead, witnesses and security officials said. "He started on the beach and went to the lobby, killing in cold blood." The attack took place during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, on a day in which a decapitated body daubed with Arabic writing was found in France, a suicide bomber killed two dozen people at a mosque in Kuwait and at least 145 civilians were reported killed by Islamic State militants in northern Syria.
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| Iraq announces arrest of senior Saddam-era official Posted: 26 Jun 2015 05:37 PM PDT  Iraqi forces have arrested Abd al-Baqi al-Saadun, one of the most senior officials from Saddam Hussein's regime still at large, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Saturday. "The intelligence service was able to arrest the wanted man Abd al-Baqi al-Saadun," Abadi announced in a televised speech. A senior intelligence officer said Saadun was arrested on Thursday "without resistance" in the northern province of Kirkuk following an operation that lasted more than a year.
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