Nigerian troops battle Islamic militants in north

By BASHIR ADIGUN, Associated Press Writer

ABUJA, Nigeria – Troops exchanged fire with Islamic militants in northern Nigeria on Wednesday, fighting that prompted many people to flee their homes, a witness said.

The report came a day after President Umaru Yar'Adua insisted the military had the situation under control.

Olugbenga Akinbule, a local journalist, said he saw fighting Wednesday morning outside the suspected hideout of a radical Muslim leader accused of orchestrating three days of violence in Africa's most populous nation. He also said more people in the city of Maiduguri were fleeing, in addition to 3,000 people he said Tuesday had been displaced.

The military had surrounded the Islamic camp on Tuesday. Government officials did not answer calls seeking information on Wednesday.

Islamic militants attacked a police station in northern Nigeria on Sunday, sparking the worst violence Nigeria has seen in months and leaving at least 55 people dead over the next few days, according to police.

Maiduguri, capital of Borno state, has been the epicenter of the dayslong violence. Authorities imposed curfews Tuesday night and security forces poured onto the streets to quell a wave of militant attacks against police.

"This situation is being brought under control," Yar'Adua told reporters Tuesday as he appealed for calm.

Nigeria's 140 million people are nearly evenly divided between Christians, who predominate in the south, and primarily northern-based Muslims. Shariah was implemented in 12 northern states after Nigeria returned to civilian rule in 1999 following years of oppressive military regimes. More than 10,000 Nigerians have died in sectarian violence since then.

The militants oppose western education and seek a harsh interpretation of Islamic Shariah law in northern Nigeria.

Late Tuesday, the army sent armored vehicles to a residential district in Maiduguri that is believed to be a stronghold of an Islamic sect behind the violence. Officers said militant leader Ustaz Mohammed Yusuf was thought to be holed up in one of the houses.

As army vehicles approached and opened fire, sect members fired back, soldiers said. An Associated Press reporter in the area saw smoke billowing above the homes.

The radical sect behind the latest violence is known by several different names, including Al-Sunna wal Jamma, or "Followers of Mohammed's Teachings" in Arabic, and "Boko Haram," which means "Western education is sin" in the local Hausa dialect.

Some Nigerian officials have referred to the militants as Taliban, although the group has no known affiliation with Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.

Taliban's Constitution

KABUL — Laying down a code of conduct for its fighters, the Afghan Taliban has issued a book restricting the use of suicide bombings and guiding fighters on how to act on hostages and win hearts and minds of the Afghan people.

"A brave son of Islam should not be used for lower and useless targets," says the book obtained by the Doha-based Aljazeera television on Monday, July 27.

The book, "The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan Rules for Mujahideen", says that Taliban fighters should avoid civilian casualties while launching attacks.

"The utmost effort should be made to avoid civilian casualties."

The suicide bombings are one of the most effective means the Taliban fighters are using against the US-led foreign troops.

On Saturday, seven suicide bombers tried to storm the eastern city of Khost, killing one civilian and wounding several others.

"Governors, district chiefs and line commanders and every member of the Mujahideen must do their best to avoid civilian deaths, civilian injuries and damage to civilian property," says the book.

"Great care must be taken."

The Taliban was ousted by the US following the 9/11 attacks to topple the group and its ally Al-Qaeda.

Since then, Taliban has been engaged in a protracted guerilla war against the US-led foreign troops, which left thousands of people dead.

Captives

The 13-chapter book also sets rules for Taliban fighters on how to deal with the West-backed Afghan government.

"Every Muslim can invite anyone working for the slave government in Kabul to leave their job, and cut their relationship with this corrupt administration," it says.

"If the person accepts, then with the permission of the provincial and district leadership, a guarantee of safety can be given."

The guideline gives Taliban leader Mullah Omar the full authority to decide on the fate of its captives.

"Whenever any official, soldier, contractor or worker of the slave government is captured, these prisoners cannot be attacked or harmed," says the book.

"The decision on whether to seek a prisoner exchange, or to release the prisoner, with a strong guarantee, will be made by the provincial leader.

"Releasing prisoners in exchange for money is strictly prohibited.

"If the prisoner is a director, commander or district chief or higher, the decision on whether to harm, kill, release or forgive them is only made by the Imam or deputy Imam."

On captured foreign troops, the book says the Taliban leader or his deputy has the full authority to decide on his fate.

"If a military infidel is captured, the decision on whether to kill, release or exchange the hostage is only to be made by the Imam or deputy Imam."

Taliban is holding hostage a US soldier, who was captured earlier this month.

Unity

The Taliban book also bans the formation of new armed groups in the central Asian Muslim country.

"Creating a new mujahideen group or battalion is forbidden," says the book.

"If unofficial groups or irregular battalions refuse to join the formal structure they should be disbanded.

"If a governor or leader has in the past had a unit or active group in another province, they should bring it to the attention of the leader of that province. That leader should then take over command of the group."

Taliban commanders have so far had a fair degree of autonomy, often deciding what operations to conduct and how to run the territory that they control.

The book also urges Taliban fighters to seek to win the hearts and minds of the local Afghan population.

"The Mujahideen have to behave well and show proper treatment to the nation, in order to bring the hearts of civilian Muslims closer to them.

"The mujahideen must avoid discrimination based on tribal roots, language or their geographic background."

Israel stopped NC jihad suspect's family in 2007

By MIKE BAKER, Associated Press Writer

RALEIGH, N.C. – Israel denied entry two years ago to members of a North Carolina family that includes three men accused of plotting to execute terror attacks in foreign countries, an official said Wednesday.

Daniel Boyd, 39, spent three years traveling to the Middle East, secretly buying guns, and leading a group of men planning to kidnap, kill and maim people abroad, according to charges in an indictment released Monday. His family's travels caught the attention of authorities in Israel two years ago, when they denied members of his family entry to the country, an Israeli security official told The Associated Press.

Boyd was arrested Monday along with six others — including two sons — accused of being the ringleader of the group involved in three years of nefarious international travel, gun buys and military-style training trips. Authorities claim the group, including an eighth suspect believed to be in Pakistan, were gearing up for a "violent jihad," though prosecutors haven't detailed any specific targets or timeframe. If convicted, the men could face life in prison.

Boyd's wife, Sabrina, told a Raleigh newspaper that he and one of his sons, who is also charged in the North Carolina indictment, were denied entry to Israel in 2007 and detained for two days, but she denied a malevolent motive for their trip.

An Israeli security official confirmed that members of the Boyd family were denied entry to Israel in 2007. He declined to say why they were stopped or provide further details. He spoke on condition of anonymity because the information was not officially made public.

Israeli police and the Interior Ministry, the office in charge of immigration, would not comment.

The U.S. indictment said Boyd and the two sons who were charged — Zakariya, 20, and Dylan, 22 — traveled to Israel in July 2007 to meet with two of the other defendants but returned home "having failed in their attempt at violent jihad."

Sabrina Boyd urged the public not to rush to judgment.

"We have the right to justice, and we believe that justice will prevail," she said in a statement. "We are decent people who care about other human beings."

In an interview with the News & Observer of Raleigh, Boyd said her husband and sons' trips abroad were pilgrimages, also denying allegations that a 2006 trip was for nefarious purposes. She told the newspaper on Tuesday that her husband took another son named Noah, who's not named in the indictment, to see Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem that year.

"The point of a pilgrimage is to see the Al-Aksa mosque, the Dome of the Rock, to hear the call to prayer and to make a prayer," she said.

In 2007, Daniel and Zakariya Boyd were denied entry to Israel at the airport in Tel Aviv, detained for two days, then flown to France, she said. The newspaper didn't say whether Israeli authorities gave the men a reason for denying them entry.

Prosecutors said Boyd received terrorist training years ago in Pakistan and brought the teachings back to North Carolina, recruiting followers willing to die as martyrs waging jihad — the Arabic word for holy war.

Frustrated by Raleigh-area mosques that he saw as too moderate, Boyd started breaking away this year to hold prayers in his home, prosecutors said. In the last two months, he took two group members to private property in north-central North Carolina to practice military tactics and use weapons.

"It's clear from the indictment that the overt acts in the conspiracy were escalating," U.S. Attorney George E.B. Holding said.

Boyd's wife told the newspaper she knew nothing about the training site cited by prosecutors, and she said the family had firearms because they enjoyed hunting and shooting.

Boyd's neighbors also defended the drywall contractor.

"If he's a terrorist, he's the nicest terrorist I ever met in my life. I don't think he is," said Charles Casale, 46, a neighbor in Willow Spring.

Twenty-year-old Jeremy Kuhn, said the family seemed closer and more loving than any of the other nearby households.

"If it turns out they were terrorists, I will be the most shocked person in the world," he said.

The other four men arrested range in age from 21 to 33. Only one is not a U.S. citizen, but he is a legal resident.

An attorney who met with one of the defendants, Ziyad Yaghi, 21, said Yaghi was disappointed.

"Our concern is that people are rushing to a judgment and there's no evidence that anyone's been shown," attorney Robert Nunley said.

Public defenders assigned to Boyd did not return messages seeking comment, and there were no attorneys for the other men listed in court records. They are expected to appear in court Thursday for a detention hearing, facing charges of providing material support to terrorism; conspiracy to murder, kidnap, maim and injure persons abroad, and firearms counts.

Authorities believe the eighth suspect is in Pakistan, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity. A second law enforcement official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said the suspect was Jude Kenan Mohammad, 20. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about the investigation.

Authorities believe Boyd's roots in terrorism run deep. When he was in Pakistan and Afghanistan from 1989 through 1992, he had military-style training in terrorist camps and fought the Soviets, who were ending their occupation of Afghanistan, according to the indictment.

Car bomb explodes in Spain, dozens injured

By ISRAEL LOPEZ, Associated Press Writer

BURGOS, Spain – A powerful car bomb exploded early Wednesday outside a barracks housing police officers and their families in this northern Spanish city, slightly injuring 46 people and causing major damage in the area. The attack was blamed on Basque separatist group ETA.

Most of the injuries from the blast were from flying glass, and 38 of the wounded were treated in hospitals, regional ministry representative Miguel Alejo said. Many of the injured were Civil Guard police officers and family members.

The bomb detonated around 4:00 a.m. (0200 GMT, 10 p.m. EDT Tuesday) and left a crater that had filled with water from broken underground pipes, Alejo said.

"The car used to cause the explosion has been displaced some 70 meters (230 feet) so that gives you an idea of the power of the blast," he said.

Police and emergency services did not receive any warning that a bomb had been planted, but the explosion had the hallmarks of an ETA attack, Alejo said. It was not immediately clear how many people were in the building at the time.

Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba was rushing to the scene, his office said.

ETA, which has killed more than 825 people since it launched a campaign in 1968 for an independent homeland in Basque region of northern Spain, typically phones in warnings that a bomb is about to explode giving time to authorities to evacuate the area.

The last attack blamed on the group was July 10 when a bomb exploded outside an office of the Spanish prime minister's party in the Basque town of Durango, causing significant damage but no injuries.

The group's last fatal attack took place June 19, when a bomb attached to the underside of a car killed a Spanish police detective whose job was to investigate ETA.

Television images Wednesday showed considerable damage to a 14-story barracks building in Burgos and many residential dwellings around it with windows and some walls blown in by the power of the explosion.

It is common for members of the paramilitary Civil Guard police force to live in barracks with their spouses and children.

The force is chiefly in charge of policing rural areas and guarding official buildings.

In an attack on May 14, 2008, ETA killed a Civil Guard officer in a car bombing outside a barracks in the Basque town of Legutiano. There were 29 people in the building at the time.

Burgos is an important regional capital and contains a historic city center with important tourist attractions.

ETA, whose name is a Basque-language acronym for Basque Homeland and Freedom, had declared what it called a permanent cease-fire in 2006, but reverted to violence within months after peace talks with the Spanish government went nowhere.

Dozens of alleged members of the organization have been arrested in recent years in Spain and France including several of its supposed leaders.

Uighur leader says 10,000 went missing in one night

By Chisa Fujioka

TOKYO (Reuters) – Nearly 10,000 Uighurs involved in deadly riots in China's northwestern Xinjiang region went missing in one night, exiled Uighur activist Rebiya Kadeer said Wednesday, calling for an international investigation.

Kadeer's visit to Tokyo was condemned by China. The vice foreign minister summoned the Japanese ambassador in Beijing to express China "strong dissatisfaction" and to "demand the Japanese government take effective action to stop her anti-China, splittist activities in Japan," the Foreign Ministry said.

In Xinjiang's worst ethnic violence in decades, Uighurs on July 5 attacked Han Chinese in the regional capital of Urumqi after police tried to break up a protest against fatal attacks on Uighur workers at a factory in south China.

Han Chinese in Urumqi launched revenge attacks later that week.

"The nearly 10,000 (Uighur) people who were at the protest, they disappeared from Urumqi in one night," Kadeer told a news conference in Tokyo through an interpreter. "If they are dead, where are their bodies? If they are detained, where are they?"

She called on the international community to send an independent investigative team to Urumqi to uncover details of what had taken place.

The official death toll from the riots stands at 197, most of whom were Han Chinese who form the majority of China's 1.3 billion population. Almost all the others were Uighurs, a Muslim people native to Xinjiang and culturally tied to Central Asia and Turkey.

More than 1,000 people were detained in the immediate aftermath of the riots, and over 200 more in recent days, state media said. None has been publicly charged.

China has accused Kadeer, who lives in exile in Washington, of triggering the riots and of spreading misinformation. It took great glee in pointing out that pictures she said were taken in Urumqi actually came from an unrelated incident in another part of the country.

Kadeer, who rejects the Chinese accusations, said she thought the death toll was much higher after learning that there was random gunfire one night when electricity in the city was shut down.

In a measure of continued nervousness and lack of information in Urumqi, the city government was forced to deny rumors sweeping the Han population that Uighurs were kidnapping Han to exchange them for detained Uighurs, a Chinese newspaper said.

Beijing does not want to lose its grip on Xinjiang. The vast territory borders Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, has abundant oil reserves and is China's largest natural gas-producing region.

Water pollution sickens thousands in north China

BEIJING – Contaminated drinking water has sickened more than 2,600 people in northern China, including 59 who were hospitalized with fevers, diarrhea, stomach aches and vomiting, state media reported Wednesday.

Heavy rains caused contaminants to seep into a water supply in Chifeng city in Inner Mongolia, the official Xinhua News Agency reported, without saying what the contaminants were.

Residents began reporting diarrhea and vomiting over the weekend and were treated at the local hospital, Xinhua reported. The contaminated well provided water for 58,000 of the city's 4.5 million residents, it said.

Calls to the Chifeng city government office rang unanswered Wednesday.

Although the government has taken measures to control water pollution, problems such as acid rain — caused by industrial pollution in the atmosphere — remain prevalent in many Chinese cities. Raw tap water is unsafe to drink, and most Chinese have to boil it before drinking.

Despite the recent heavy rains in Chifeng, parts of China's wheat-growing northern regions are suffering their worst drought in five decades.

Xinhua also reported Wednesday that Beijing municipality will spend $22 million to plant 13,000 acres (5,260 hectares) of trees to protect two of its largest drinking water reservoirs.

Ireland to take 2 Guantanamo inmates

DUBLIN – Irish Justice Minister Dermot Ahern says his country will resettle two inmates being freed soon from the Guantanamo prison camp in Cuba.

Ahern's announcement came after a meeting Wednesday with new U.S. Ambassador Dan Rooney, and six months after President Barack Obama asked European countries to help find new homes for released inmates. So far, few countries have agreed to take ex-Guantanamo prisoners who cannot return safely to their homelands.

Ahern says Irish officials visited Washington and Guantanamo last week and identified two inmates who could be resettled in Ireland within the next two months. He says the men's identities, travel details and locations of new residences will be kept secret.