Senior al-Qaeda commander killed in northern Pakistan

Number of al-Qaeda leaders detained in northern Iraq

Different political parties condemn attacks on Lebanese military posts

Al-Qaeda armed groups receive jail sentences in several countries

A top Al-Qaeda commander who led Osama bin Laden's terror network in Afghanistan was believed to have been killed when a missile fired by a US drone hit his Pakistani hideout, officials said.

Abu Laith al-Libi is said to be one of bin Laden's top five lieutenants and allegedly masterminded a deadly bombing at a US military base in Afghanistan during a visit by US Vice-President Dick Cheney last year.

Pakistani security officials said the Libyan was one of 13 Al-Qaeda militants staying at a compound in the country's North Waziristan tribal region when it was destroyed in the air raid early on Tuesday.

"Al-Libi was there at the time of the strike. No one survived, we believe he was killed," one intelligence official based in Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan, said.

"The missile attack was carried out by a US Predator," the official said, quoting residents who witnessed a pilotless drone circling in the area for at least two days before the attack.

The US military chief hailed in Washington "the elimination" of the top operative and said the United States would work with Pakistan to go after others hiding in tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.

"I think the strike was a very important one, a very lethal one," said Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Mullen, who said he will travel soon to Islamabad to meet Pakistani leaders, would not comment on the specifics of the operation that killed al-Libi.

But he said "the elimination of someone like that is a very important outcome in terms of this long war".

He said the United States remained concerned about safe havens that Al-Qaeda has managed to establish in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.

"Being able to have an impact in the safe havens I think is important. We're very committed to working with the Pakistanis on this.

In an apparent revenge attack, seven Pakistani soldiers were killed and 15 injured on Friday when a suicide bomber rammed his car into a checkpoint a few kilometers from the scene of the air strike, the army said.

"It appears to be a revenge attack," an unnamed security official said.

Al-Libi was number five on a classified US Central Intelligence Agency wanted list seen by AFP, with a five-million-dollar bounty on his head. The top two spots are occupied by bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

He had appeared in several Al-Qaeda propaganda videos, but security officials and militant sources said he was also a key field commander who linked up with Afghanistan's Taliban movement.

"It will dent Osama bin Laden's close network," a top Pakistani militant source told AFP. "He was one of the few among the close circles of bin Laden who would come and fight on the front."

Islamist websites first announced the death of al-Libi, who is said to be in his 40s. "We announce the good news to the Islamic world: Sheikh Abu Laith al-Qassimi al-Libi fell a martyr on the soil of Muslim Pakistan," said an announcement on the Al-Fajr Information Centre site. "The sheikh's martyrdom will only strengthen our fire and burn the enemies of our people," it said.

Al-Libi was at a guesthouse attached to the home of a local Taliban commander three kilometers (two miles) from Mir Ali, the second biggest town in North Waziristan, when the missile hit, Pakistani officials said. Armed militants had prevented local tribesmen from attending the funerals of those killed, and were still blocking off the thickly forested blast site in a sign that a high-profile target was among the dead, they said.

The Taliban commander who owned the compound, 45-year-old Abdus Sattar, was loyal to one of Pakistan's most wanted men, Islamist tribal warlord Baitullah Mehsud, the sources said.

Pakistani and US officials have blamed Mehsud for orchestrating the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto in December. Pakistani military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said earlier Friday he could not confirm al-Libi's death.

Asked about the reports of his death, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said: "I don't have anything definitive for you on that."

Previous US missile attacks have claimed the lives of several militants in Pakistan but are an embarrassment for Islamabad, which says it does not allow foreign military operations on its soil.

A US Predator targeted al-Qaeda's deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in January 2006, killing several rebels and civilians but missing him. A long-time jihadist, al-Libi was a leader of the now-defunct Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, opposed to Colonel Moamer Kadhafi.

Al-Libi was accused of involvement in a suicide bombing that killed 23 people outside Bagram air base in Afghanistan during a visit by Cheney in February 2007.

Following are five key facts about Libi:

- A Libyan Islamist linked to the Fighting Islamic Group in Libya (FIGL), an organisation which announced its existence in 1995 vowing to overthrow Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

- In November 2007, al Qaeda's second in command, Ayman al-Zawahri, appeared in a video recording with a man he presented as Abu al-Laith who resembled Libi, announcing the merger of his group, the FIGL, into al Qaeda.

- In 2002, Libi was the first spokesman on behalf of al Qaeda to announce that Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar were alive after the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan.

- U.S. media have said Libi was believed to be behind a suicide bombing in February 2007 that killed 23 people outside the main U.S. base in Afghanistan during a visit by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney.

- In October 2007, American media announced the U.S. military in Afghanistan had named Libi as one of several "mid-level" al Qaeda and Taliban leaders being sought and said it was offering a $200,000 (100,600 pound) bounty for each.

Meanwhile, Nouman Bin Othman, a former leader in the Libyan Islamic group, said that a non Libyan person will succeed al-Libi in leading the Libyan group of al-Qaeda.

Meanwhile, Iraqi interior ministry said the chief of the Iraqi federal police was assassinated after unidentified gunmen planted a bomb inside his vehicle in western Baghdad.

"Unidentified gunmen planted a bomb inside the vehicle of Lt. Colonel Ahmed Ibrahim, the chief of the ministry's federal police affairs. The bomb blew up while the vehicle was going in the Ramadan 14th intersection in al-Mansour neighborhood, western Baghdad, killing him instantly," Maj. General Abdul-Kareem Khalaf, the director of the ministry's national command center said.

In Diala, Four Popular Committee fighters were killed in an armed attack by al-Qaeda gunmen in the city of Baaquba, the capital of Diala. Iraqi security source said that the military official of the Islamic State of Iraq was detained during an airdrop north of Baghdad.

Meanwhile, police sources said that police forces killed four gunmen of Arab nationalities and arrested a senior al-Qaeda leader during clashes in northeastern Samarra.

"Four gunmen of Arab nationalities were killed and a key leader in al-Qaeda organization called Safaa Muhammad Abdullah al-Khadawi, nicknamed Abu Yasser, who is accused of killing dozens of local residents, was arrested in Samarra," the source, who requested anonymity, said.

"At an early hour on Saturday morning, an emergency force from Samarra police raided an al-Qaeda hideout in al-Jalam area and engaged in violent clashes with the gunmen there," the source explained.

A large amount of arms and several vehicles were seized during the raid, the source added.

The source neither indicated whether any casualties were reported on the security forces' side nor revealed the nationalities of those arrested. Samarra, a city affiliated with Salah al-Din province, lies 100 km north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad.

In Yemen, at least two people were killed and over 25 injured when a man threw a hand grenade at a crowd of university students in the Yemeni capital Sana'a, police said.

Police officials said the attacker threw the grenade at a group of students gathered at a bus stop outside the university's main gate during the morning rush hour.

They said the assailant had been arrested on the spot, and initial investigations had shown a personal motive. One student died at the scene while the other died of his injuries in hospital, medical sources said.

Three of the injured were in critical conditions, they said.

Algerian troops killed five Al Qaeda fighters, including the organization's chief in Mali, during a hunt for men who shot at army helicopters in Algeria's desert south, the top-selling daily El Khabar said.

The five were killed on Friday in the Rhourd Ennous area 1,700km south of Algiers, El Khabar, which has good security sources, quoted a military source as saying. A sixth guerrilla was arrested in the operation, the newspaper said.

The hunt, led by a major-general, began when a group of armed men in all-terrain vehicles opened fire at army reconnaissance helicopters flying over the desert in the Rhourd Ennous region on January 29 and then fled.

The hunt was still in progress, the paper said. It quoted hospital sources as saying the dead men included people of African nationalities.

"It is probable that they are from Chad, Mali, Niger and Mauritania," one of the sources was quoted as saying.

An army spokesman could not immediately be reached. The newspaper said the men had links to an Al Qaeda group operated by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, an Algerian veteran of the Afghan war against Soviet occupation who is believed to be hiding in the border areas between Algeria, Mali and Niger.

Algeria's main Islamist militant group are usually holed up in remote mountains east of Algiers and the southern desert, and is involved in drug trafficking, kidnapping and extortion.

El Khabar and Echorouk newspapers both reported that security forces had arrested dozens of suspected smugglers in Algeria's southern desert in the past few weeks.

In January 2007 the group changed its name to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb from the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) and is trying to topple Algeria's secular government and set up purist Islamic rule.

Algeria is slowly recovering from more than a decade of violence that began in 1992 when the then army-backed government scrapped legislative elections that a radical Islamic party was poised to win.

Violence has fallen since the 1990s, but a spate of urban suicide bombings in and around Algiers has killed scores in the past 18 months, a change of tactics by the rebels who formerly preferred ambushes on remote rural army and police posts.

Meanwhile, Commander of the Lebanese Armed Forces General Michel Suleiman received the results of the military investigation on the riots that flared up in the southern suburbs of Beirut, where seven were killed and 30 were injured.

A prosecutor issued arrest warrants for 11 soldiers and six civilians in connection with clashes between troops and Shiite Muslim protesters that left seven people dead.

The rioting last weekend was the worst in the Lebanese capital in a year. What started as protests against electricity rationing degenerated into clashes with troops in mostly Shiite areas of the south Beirut suburb of Shiyah.

Military court magistrate Jean Fahd issued the arrest warrants after questioning 120 soldiers and 85 civilians, said the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

Those ordered arrested included five officers, the official said, adding that the civilians were suspected of taking part in the riots or carrying unlicensed weapons.

Electricity cutoffs in recent months were extended for the first time to Beirut, where more than 1 million Lebanese live. More than 15 years after Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war, the country's power grid still has not been fully restored, and such protests have been common in opposition strongholds.

Lebanon is mired in its worst political crisis since the end of the civil war. Parliament has been deadlocked for months over the election of a new president, divided between the U.S.-backed majority and the opposition, led by the Shiite militant Hezbollah.

On Friday, an attack on an army post left two soldiers wounded a few hundred yards from where the riots occurred. The government and army said the attack was likely aimed at misleading the investigation into the rioting.

The army said it was one of several attacks against army posts in Beirut and its suburbs in the past days, but did not say where the other attacks occurred or whether any troops were hurt.

On the other hand, a Lebanese military spokesman said that two soldiers were injured when an unidentified gunmen opened fire against them on Friday night in Beirut.

The Lebanese army has been attacked at least three times in the past 48 hours in and around Beirut that saw clashes between pro-Syrian protestors and Lebanese soldiers last week, an army source said. "The army checkpoint near the Mar Mikhail district in Beirut's southern suburbs was targeted by gunshots at dawn Saturday, wounding two soldiers," the source said.

"This is not the first attack - the same point was targeted by unidentified assailants with two sonic bombs the night before, but no casualties were reported," the source said.

Tension rose between the army and followers of Lebanon's two main Shiite Muslim groups, Hezbollah and Amal, after a protest over power cuts last Sunday led to the shooting deaths of nine people and the wounding of others, mostly protestors.

Both Amal and Hezbollah have called on the Lebanese army command to open an official investigation into the shootings after accusing the residents of the Christian neighborhood of Ain Roumaneh of firing automatic weapons on the protestors.

A Lebanese security source said a report was handed to Lebanese army commander Michel Suleiman on Saturday with the results of the investigation on who started the shooting.

According to the source, Suleiman has handed the report to Lebanon's State Prosecutor Said Mirza.

The source said the investigations have "all but ruled out" the presence of snipers in the Mar Mikhail area. "Neither military nor civilian" snipers were likely involved, as some parties have speculated, the source added. The source said investigators have concluded that it was "far- fetched" that any gunfire emanated from Ain Roumaneh, a Christian area, adding that the shooting was in fact confined to Mar Mikhail, an area controlled by Hezbollah.

"Investigations have shown that the army did not fire first at protestors, but that soldiers responded to shots fired at them by unknown gunmen from the direction where the protestors were standing," the source said.

Lebanese Army chief General Michel Suleiman said that the unity of the country's army was the only guarantee of its unity, security and stability. Such unity has become more solid and concrete, he said.

Suleiman held meetings with senior military officers over the last few days to discuss the latest developments in the country, Lebanese sources said.

Suleiman, tipped to be Lebanon's next president, said that the army has succeeded in dealing with last month's riots in Beirut.

The army chief also praised the relations between the army and the Lebanese people, saying that such relation should be away from any political complications.

In Indonesia, Six activists will serve between 8-10 years in jail as they found guilty of terrorist charges.

The main suspect was Mawlana Youssef Wpesono, 36, known as "Khloas" was found guilty of terrorist charges as well as leading the Jamaa al-Islamiya in Indonesia.

Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for a shooting attack on the Israeli Embassy in Mauritania's capital, saying it was retaliating against Israeli policies in the Gaza Strip.

At least one gunman opened fire on the Israeli Embassy in Mauritania, setting off a gun battle with guards that wounded three bystanders, including three French citizens. Guards at the embassy returned fire, but no embassy staff were wounded.

Al-Qaeda in Islamic North Africa, formerly known as the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, is based in Algeria and has claimed responsibility for near-simultaneous bombings at U.N. offices in Algiers and a government building on Dec. 11 that killed at least 37 people. The same group also purportedly said in an audiotape that it carried out the killing of several soldiers in Mauritania in December.

The Mauritanian government denounced an attack carried out earlier in the day against the Israeli embassy in Nouakchott.

An official statement said the government is determined to hunt down the perpetrators to bring them to justice.

The statement said at 0200 (GMT) on Friday unidentified gunmen opened their machine guns at the embassy.

The group came under immediate return fire from the embassy's guards, the statement said.

Meanwhile, imams of different mosques across Nouakchott denounced in their Friday prayer sermons the attack but demanded anew that the Mauritanian government sever ties with Israel.

Two suspects and three alleged accomplices arrested in Guinea-Bissau for the December murders of four French tourists were extradited Saturday to Mauritania, police and airport sources said.

"The two suspects, accompanied by nine Mauritanian officers, left on an airplane at 6.45pm (1845 GMT)," a Bissau airport spokesman said. "Three Mauritanian accomplices have also been extradited on the same airplane," he added.

"We have extradited them. It was just a question of respecting procedure and getting the paperwork signed," said police chief Lucinda Barboza Ahukarie.

"Guinea-Bissau will pay dearly for having mistreated God's fighters," one of the murder suspects, Sidi Ould Sidna, told journalists just before boarding the military flight.

Investigators said the two men confessed to having fired on the French adventure tourists, and expressed "no remorse" at having killed "infidels and American allies."

The five Mauritanians will be met in Nouakchott by local security forces, with a special police commission set up to probe Al-Qaeda links as the murder investigation kicks in, a Mauritanian security official said.

The two suspected killers will go immediately before a judge and behind bars, according to police.

Both murder suspects had previously been arrested in connection with the extremist Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), which in January 2007 affiliated itself with al-Qaeda.

Ould Sidna, born in 1987 in Nouakchott, was acquitted in July 2007 of charges relating to the recruitment of young Mauritanians to fight in Al-Qaeda's name in Somalia, police said.

Ould Sidi Chabarnou, born in 1981 also in Nouakchott, has been arrested several times without ever standing trial.

A third suspected killer is still on the loose.

The three alleged accomplices, meanwhile, were arrested on Friday evening in Bissau as they "filmed French (security) officers," deputy director of Guinea-Bissau police, Edmundo Mendes said.

United States President George W Bush has issued a new policy on defence exports that will ensure faster supply of military equipments to "friends, allies and coalition partners".

The new Export Control Directive will ensure that US defence trade policies and practices better support the national security strategy of the United States.

The generalized directive does not mention any country specifically other than saying that the package of reforms will improve the manner in which the US Department of State licenses the export of defence equipment, services and technical data to friends, allies and particularly coalition partners.

The directive mandates the commitment of additional financial and other resources, as well as procedural reforms that will expedite the processing of export license applications for items controlled by the US Munitions List.

"Although license processing times will be reduced as a result of this directive, the Administration is committed to ensuring that existing measures to prevent the diversion of such items to unauthorized recipients remain strong and effective," the State Department said.

The specific actions directed by Bush include a more effective American export licensing system that will among other things see additional financial resources and intelligence support will be made available for the timely adjudication of defense trade licenses.

Guidelines will be issued that require a decision by the US Government on defence trade export license applications within 60 days, absent a strong reason for additional time, such as a requirement for Congressional notification.