One of two French security advisers kidnapped by insurgents in Somalia last month escaped yesterday after killing three of his captors, then fled to the presidential palace in Mogadishu, police said.
Gunmen had seized the Frenchmen at a hotel in the capital on July 14 then handed one to the Hizbul Islam rebels and the other to fighters from the al Shabaab group, which Washington describes as al-Qaeda’s proxy in the Horn of Africa state.
Somali government officials at the city’s hilltop Villa Somalia palace said the man who escaped was in good health.
“We understand he killed three al Shabaab guys who were guarding him. I cannot understand how this good story happened but now he is in the hands of the government,” said Abdiqadir Odweyne, a senior police commander.
Somalia’s fragile UN-backed government faces a stubborn insurgency that includes foreign jihadists and militants who Western security agencies say are using the country as a safe haven to plot attacks in the region and beyond.
An al Shabaab source confirmed three of its members had been killed, but said it was not known by whom.
“Three of my friends died but who killed them is the question. We were expecting a ransom this morning,” the rebel source said.
One associate of the kidnappers said the Frenchman had been freed after talks with Somali elders. A French foreign ministry official could not immediately confirm news of the escape.
A Somali government official and some media said last month that the two Frenchmen had been posing as journalists. Paris has denied that, saying they were on official government business.
Mogadishu is one of the world’s most dangerous cities and has a history of kidnappings of foreigners, mainly aid workers and journalists. Hostages have normally been released for substantial ransom payments after days or weeks in captivity.
Earlier this month, Somali gunmen freed six foreigners — two Kenyans, two French, a Bulgarian and a Belgian — abducted in November.
Somalian President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed’s administration controls only small parts of the lawless country’s central region and a few districts of bomb-blasted Mogadishu.
Violence has killed more than 18,000 Somalis since the start of 2007 and driven another 1.4 million from their homes.
That has triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian emergencies, with the number of people needing support leaping 17.5 percent in a year to 3.76 million — half the population.
Three-quarters of those in the most need are concentrated in central and southern regions where the fighting is heaviest and aid workers have the least access.
Ahmed has called on the insurgents to observe a ceasefire during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which started last week. But the rebels have rejected that and accused the president of planning to use any truce to re-arm his forces.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
RSS