2012-05-04 12:44:49 – Terror Attack – Nigeria

Gunmen set off explosives and fired on a cattle market in remote northeastern Nigeria overnight, killing at least 56 people, a nurse who received bodies in the local hospital said on Thursday.The police commissioner put the number of dead at 34.It was not clear who was behind the attack on Wednesday night in the town of Potiskum, in Yobe state, which has been an occasional target for militant Islamist sect Boko Haram.”I have counted 56 bodies at the morgue and I am sure that the death toll could rise in view of the serious nature of injuries sustained,” the nurse at Potiskum hospital, who gave his name as Babangida, said.”The Potiskum mortuary is made up of a room and a parlor and I counted the 56 in the parlor only. I didn’t go into the inner room.”Police Commissioner Moses Namiri said security forces had confirmed 34 killed and that Islamist sect Boko Haram was suspected to be behind the attack.”Everybody knows the modus operandi of BH (Boko Haram): they threw explosives and used guns,” he said. “The gunfire lasted for almost an hour.”Witness Mama Yusuf, a retired civil servant, said there were dead bodies on the ground, though he could not say how many.”I saw dead bodies all around the place and the emergency services taking people to hospitals,” he said.Boko Haram has been fighting a low-level insurgency for more than two years and has become the main security threat facing Africa’s top oil producer, although it is far from any oil producing facilities.It usually targets police or authority figures, and although civilians have increasingly borne the brunt of its attacks, they are normally targeted for being a perceived enemy of the group, such as Christians, rather than being randomly killed.Sometimes violence in Nigeria, especially in parts of the north or the volatile Middle Belt – where the largely Christian south and Muslim north meet – is driven by ethnic rivalry over land and resources that has little to do with the Boko Haram attacks.Boko Haram, which wants to impose an Islamic state on Nigeria’s mixed population of Muslims and Christians, has been blamed for hundreds of killings since its uprising against the government began in 2009.A spate of attacks in the past few days, including one against Christians in the north that killed 19 people on Sunday, have dampened hopes that tighter security had significantly reduced the sect’s capability.Nigerian forces killed the suspected mastermind of Sunday’s attack on Christian worshippers, in a raid in the main northern city of Kano on Tuesday that resulted in a gun battle lasting several hours.rn

Posted:2012-05-04 12:44:49 [UTC]

2012-05-04 18:49:55 – Vehicle Incident – United Kingdom

A plane was forced to make an emergency landing at Norwich International Airport this morning after one of its engines failed.The KLM flight from Teeside to Amsterdam was diverted to Norwich after an emergency was declared at 10.50am.rnThe plane, a Fokker 70, landed safely at 11.05am with 49 passengers and crew uninjured.The plane taxied to an empty runway and the fire and police services completed an inspection.The passengers are now waiting to be put on to a different connecting flight to Amsterdam.

Posted:2012-05-04 18:49:55 [UTC]

2012-05-04 05:19:06 – Hailstorm – USA

Tennis-ball-size hail that pelted central Stearns County on Tuesday evening damaged vehicles and hundreds of homes in the area, authorities said Wednesday.At least 100 homes received hail damage in the city of Albany, said the city’s fire chief, Dean Mitchell. Mitchell said the city sustained four rounds of hail starting after 5 p.m. Tuesday.Freeport Fire Chief Noah Van Beck on Wednesday reported similarly widespread damage in that city. Van Beck estimated that almost every home in Freeport had storm damage, mostly to roofs, siding and windows.Mitchell said Stearns County Road 157 between Albany and Freeport was flooded and closed for a period of time during the storms.Insurance agencies in the area also were deluged. The Dina Pierskalla State Farm Insurance Agency in Albany received “hundreds” of home and automobile claims Wednesday morning, agent Lynn Pennie said.”It’s definitely a different town today,” Pennie said. “There are contractors everywhere. The town is hopping.”Mitchell said contractors soliciting repair business door-to-door in Albany are required to obtain solicitors’ permits from City Hall.Church of Seven Dolors was one of many spots in Albany that looked disheveled after the storms.The church’s maintenance employee, Kevin Shay, said 17 windows at the parish rectory were damaged in the storm, as well as several windows on the parish school and streetlights surrounding the church. Shay couldn’t estimate the cost of damage done to church facilities, but predicted it would be sizable.”It’s going to be pretty costly,” Shay said.

Posted:2012-05-04 05:19:06 [UTC]

2012-05-04 05:42:45 – Terror Attack – Russia [Asia]

Two car bomb attacks hit a police post in the North Caucasus republic of Dagestan on late Thursday evening, killing at least twelve people and injuring more than 25 others, local media reported.The first attack happened at around 10:10 p.m. local time when a suspected suicide bomber blew up his explosives-laden vehicle at a police field post on the outskirts of Makhachkala, the capital of Russia’s Dagestan.As emergency teams arrived at the scene to attend to the victims, about ten minutes after the initial attack, a second blast followed. Police said the second blast was likely caused by an explosive device planted in a van near the police post, according to the Itar-Tass news agency.A spokesman for the republic’s interior ministry told the RIA Novosti news agency that at least twelve people, including three civilians, three rescue workers and six police officers, were confirmed dead as a result of the two blasts. Medical officials said the number of injured was believed to be between 25 and 30.It is feared the death toll will rise, as some unconfirmed reports put the death toll as high as 20.Militants in the region continue to carry out attacks against security forces, police, and civilians, more than a decade after a separatist war ended in Chechnya. The volatile region of Dagestan neighbors Chechnya where about 50 percent of all militant attacks in Russia took place in 2010.

Posted:2012-05-04 05:42:45 [UTC]