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Military coup d’etat in Niger. After a day of fights, the president Mamadou Tandja, together with all his memebers of Government, has finished in hands of soldiers and has been imprisoned in a barracks.
Army has declared suspended the Constitution and dissolved all state institutions.
Radio has interrupted programs and started to spread only military marches, at the end of a day with dead of four soldiers.
The president of the West African nation of Niger has been taken hostage after armed soldiers stormed the presidential palace in the capital, Niamey, witnesses said.
The attack on Thursday came after witnesses reported hearing machine gunfire near the palace where Mamadou Tandja, the country’s president, was believed to be holding a meeting.
A journalist in the capital, who asked to remain anonymous for safety reasons, said the president is currently being held by soldiers at a garrison in the city.
The News:
http://english.aljaz … 021812457200576.html
http://www.repubblic … stato_niger-2347841/
At least 6 people have been killed and more others wounded after heavy fighting between the Islamist fighters of Harakat al-Shabaab Mujihideen and other rival forces flared up at Dobley town near the Somali border, witnesses told Shabelle radio on Thursday.
Locals said that the fighting broke out on Thursday morning as two well armored unites had attacked and entered two streets in the west of the town which reportedly continued for a while adding that it caused casualties of deaths and injuries.
Residents said that the sound of gunfire could be heard all directions in the town.
The seizure of the Afghan Taliban’s top military leader in Pakistan represents a turning point in the U.S.-led war against the militants, U.S. officials and analysts said.
The arrest of mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar represents the most significant Taliban capture since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, a senior Obama administration official said Tuesday.
Baradar has been a close associate of Osama bin Laden’s and is seen as the No. 2 figure in the Afghan Taliban, behind Mullah Mohammed Omar.
Taliban fighters stepped up counterattacks Monday against Marines and Afghan soldiers in the militant stronghold of Marjah, slowing the allied advance to a crawl despite Afghan government claims that the insurgents are broken and on the run.
Taliban fighters appeared to be slipping under cover of darkness into compounds already deemed free of weapons and explosives, then opening fire on the Marines from behind U.S. lines.
Also on Monday, NATO said five civilians were accidentally killed and two wounded by an airstrike when they were mistakenly believed to have been planting roadside bombs in Kandahar province, east of the Marjah offensive.
The European Union (EU) will start the training of 2,000 Somali troops in Uganda in May, a senior French army official said here on Friday.
Brigadier General Thierry Caspar-Fille-Lambie, the commanding officer of the French Forces based in Djibouti said the Somali troops will be trained with the necessary military skills to help pacify and stabilize the volatile country.
The Somali troops will be trained for six months in Bihanga in western Uganda.
Helicopter-borne U.S. Marines and Afghan troops swooped down on the Taliban-held town of Marjah before dawn on Saturday, launching a long-expected attack to re-establish government control and undermine support for the militants in their southern heartland.
The attack on Marjah climaxed the biggest joint Afghan-international offensive of the war and is the largest combat operation since President Barack Obama ordered 30,000 U.S. reinforcements here last December to turn the tide of the war.
Marine commanders say they expect between 400 to 1,000 insurgents to be holed up inside this southern Afghan town of 80,000 people in Helmand province, including more than 100 foreign fighters. Marjah is the biggest southern town under Taliban control and the linchpin of the militants’ logistical and opium-smuggling network.