16, June 2019
Ten killed as roadside bomb hits Kenyan police vehicle 0
At least 10 Kenyan police officers have been killed after an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) planted by militants struck their vehicle near the Somali border.
Local Kenyan officials said those killed Saturday in Wajir County along the porous Kenya-Somali border were among 13 officers who were pursuing militants for an earlier assault in the troubled region.
This came a day after Somalia-based Takfiri al-Shabab terrorists claimed responsibility for kidnapping three Kenyan police reservists from Wajir in northeast Kenya.
“Last night, we captured a village called Konton in Wajir county. We left the village and took three Kenyan policemen with us,” Abdiasis Abu Musab, al-Shabaab’s spokesman for military operations, said on Friday.
Al-Qaeda affiliated al-Shabab militants have long carried out similar attacks on Kenya soil targeting security officers and the Nairobi government installations.
Al-Shabab has become one of Africa’s deadliest terrorist groups in recent years through its use of IEDs. In 2018 more than 100 Kenyan police forces were killed in a series of IED attacks along the extensive border.
In the latest attack in mid January, an apparent terrorist attack on an upscale hotel in the Kenyan capital Nairobi killed several people and sent shockwaves across the country.
Kenya is part of a regional peacekeeping operation that supports the Somali government in its battle against the militants.
The al-Shabab militant group, which once had control over many parts of Somalia, including the capital city Mogadishu, aims to topple the weak central government and push out the African Union (AU) peacekeeping forces, which are made up of soldiers from Kenya, Djibouti, Uganda, Ethiopia, and other African countries.
In 2011, the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) and Somali troops drove al-Shabab out of all major urban strongholds and ports, but the group still stages attacks on targets in smaller, more remote areas, posing a threat to peace.
The Somalia-based al-Shabab armed group often targets Kenyan security forces, vowing retribution after Kenya deployed troops to Somalia in 2011 to combat the fighters.
The Kenyans, along with allied Somali forces, wrested back control of the territory from al-Shabab after a spate of kidnappings on Kenyan soil.
Source: Presstv
16, June 2019
US: Bernie Sanders warns against Trump’s ‘pretext for war’ with Iran 0
US Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders has slammed Washington’s attempt to blame Iran for purported attacks on oil tanker vessels in the Sea of Oman, warning that the move is aimed at generating a “pretext for war.”
“The Gulf of Oman incident must not be used as a pretext for war with Iran,” said Sanders on Twitter, insisting that any military action on Iran would not only be illegal, but “an unmitigated disaster for the United States, Iran, the region, and the world.”
The development came as officials from multiple countries, the United Nations as well as one of the owners of the ships struck in the recent incidents have discounted or contradicted Washington’s claim accusing Iran of staging the attacks.
While it remained unclear what exactly happened to the ships, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo insisted on Thursday that Iran had carried out the attacks on the two tanker vessels without offering any evidence. US client states in the Persian Gulf as well as the UK also followed suit the next day.
Moreover, the US military further published a blurry video clip on Friday with Pentagon officials claiming that it proves commandos of the Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) had planted explosives on one of the ships. The footage, however, proved not very convincing to authorities of other countries and organizations.
Japanese ship owner contradicts US version of attack
Yutaka Katada, the owner of the Japanese tanker attacked near the Strait of Hormuz, however, offered a different account of the attack on Friday, saying that the Filipino crew of the Kokuka Courageous believed that their vessel had been hit by flying objects rather than a mine.
“The crew are saying it was hit with a flying object. They say something came flying towards them, then there was an explosion, then there was a hole in the vessel,” he told reporters. “Then some crew witnessed a second shot.”
“Not enough” to prove Iran’s guilt.
On Thursday, company officials said the vessel had first been hit by what appeared to be an artillery shell toward the stern, causing a fire in the engine room that was extinguished.
Three hours later, the ship was again attacked on the same side in the center of the hull, at which point the captain felt it was no longer safe and ordered the crew to take to the life boats, officials said.
“When the shell hit, it was above the water surface by quite a lot,” Katada further underlined on Friday. “Because of that there is no doubt that it wasn’t a torpedo.”
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, who recently visited Tehran to meet with his Iranian counterpart, Javad Zarif, emphasized that the video was “not enough” to prove Iran’s guilt.
Tehran, meanwhile, categorically denied any involvement in the suspicious incidents, with Zarif pointing to the odd timing of the alleged attacks and accusing Washington of moving to “Plan B: Sabotage diplomacy” in a bid to “cover up its economic terrorism” against the Islamic Republic.