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UNITED NATIONS -- Somalia's U.N. Mission said Friday that pirates hijacked a yacht carrying four U.S. citizens in the Indian Ocean off the Somali coast.

NAIROBI (KTLA) -- U.S. military officials say they're prepared to rescue four Americans who are reportedly aboard a yacht that was hijacked by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean. On Friday, a distress signal was sent by the boat from the middle of the Indian Ocean, according to the French news agency AFP. The hijacking was first reported by Ecoterra International, which monitors regional maritime activity. Ecoterra said the S/V Quest was seized 240 nautical miles (275 miles) off the coast of Oman. Two of the four U.S. citizens being held captive aboard the S/V Quest have been identified as...

Gina DeJesus, 23, Michelle Knight, 30, and Amanda Berry, 26 , and her six-year-old daughter fled the house in Cleveland, Ohio. Ariel Castro, 52, and his two brothers have been arrested. Frantic Amanda choked back tears as she told police “I’m free” after she escaped the dungeon. Amanda fled the hell-hole thanks to a hero neighbour before her dramatic 911 call ended the victims’ ordeal . It had been feared that Amanda and the other captives – Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight – had been murdered. After escaping the house on Monday just three miles from where they each went...

(CNN) -- Britain, Italy and Greece on Sunday confirmed that hostages from their countries were among seven construction workers reported killed in Nigeria over the weekend. "This was an act of cold-blooded murder, which I condemn in the strongest terms," British Foreign Secretary William Hague said in a statement announcing that a British construction worker was among the dead. Nigerian militant group Ansar al-Muslimeen claimed responsibility for the February kidnappings of the seven construction workers from an office in northeastern Nigeria. The group, widely known as Ansaru, released images of some of the bodies Saturday.

Most of the weapons used by al Qaeda-linked militants to storm a gas facility in southeastern Algeria came from Libya, the Daily Telegraph has learned. Many of the Islamist terrorists shot their way into the In Amenas compound on Thursday using the AK104 model of Kalashnikov, which was typically used by Libyan rebels in the war against Muammar Gaddafi. They brought F5 rockets that also surfaced in the Libyan war, said the security source. The Islamists wore the same type of outfits that Qatar provided to Libyan National Transitional Council rebels by Qatar – yellow flak jackets with brown patches,...

Many of the Islamist terrorists shot their way into the In Amenas compound on Thursday using the AK104 model of Kalashnikov, which was typically used by Libyan rebels in the war against Muammar Gaddafi. They brought F5 rockets that also surfaced in the Libyan war, said the security source. The Islamists wore the same type of outfits that Qatar provided to Libyan National Transitional Council rebels by Qatar – yellow flak jackets with brown patches, known as "chocolate chip" camouflage. The garments are copies of ones worn by Americans in the Gulf war. The terrorists also employed 60mm gun-mortars used...

- FrontPage Magazine - http://frontpagemag.com - Algerian Killers: “We’ve Come In the Name of Islam, To Teach the Americans What Islam Is”Posted By Daniel Greenfield On January 20, 2013 @ 8:52 pm In The Point | 13 Comments But the trouble is that no one seems to learn the lesson no matter how often it’s taught. The 9/11 attackers came in the name of Islam to teach Americans what Islam is. The Benghazi attackers came in the in the name of Islam to teach Americans what Islam is.  And the lesson is still unlearned. The four-day hostage crisis in the...

The 'final assault' by Algerian troops on a gas plant seized by militants has resulted in the deaths of seven hostages and 11 kidnappers. The militants reportedly summarily executed their captives as troops tried to free them. "It is over now, the assault is over, and the military are inside the plant clearing it of mines," Reuters quoted a local source as saying. Earlier, the militants reportedly made demands and threatened to kill the captives if their ultimatum was not met. The militant group behind the attack, ‘The Battalion of Blood,’ initially said that the hostages were nationals of Great...

Algerian bomb squads scouring a gas plant where Islamist militants took dozens of foreign workers hostage found "numerous" new bodies on Sunday as they searched for explosive traps left behind by the attackers, a security official said, a day after a bloody raid ended the four-day siege of the remote desert refinery. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation, said the bodies were badly disfigured and difficult to identify.

President Barack Obama offered on Saturday to provide any assistance the Algerian government needs after a deadly hostage siege at a desert gas plant and said the United States was seeking a "fuller understanding" from Algerian authorities of what took place there.

Islamofascism: The terrorist attack on a vast Algerian gas plant Wednesday shows a resurgent al-Qaida that puts the lie to the Obama administration's claim that the war on terror is all but over. It may in fact be just beginning. Everything about the al-Qaida "Blood Brigade" attack on the Al Amenas natural gas plant 800 miles east of Algiers — where hundreds of workers, including Americans, were taken hostage in a bloody standoff — suggests an organization growing in strength with a bigger game than just retaliating for the French invasion of Mali. You'd never know that from our silent...

This is from the Spanish press. It says that AQ is demanding the release of two US prisoners, one of them being the blind sheik, Abdul Rahmann, and the other being a Pakistani named Afiya Sadiqi or something to that effect. I'd trust any foreign press more than ours at this point, unfortunately.

(Reuters) - Thirty hostages and at least 11 Islamist militants were killed on Thursday when Algerian forces stormed a desert gas plant in a bid to free many dozens of Western and local captives, an Algerian security source said. Two Japanese, two Britons and a French national were among at least seven foreigners killed, the source told Reuters. Eight of the dead hostages were Algerian. The nationalities of the rest, as well as of perhaps dozens more who escaped, were unclear. Americans, Norwegians, Romanians and an Austrian have also been mentioned by their governments as having been captured. Underlining the...

BAMAKO, Mali — Kidnappers and at least some of their hostages were killed on Thursday as Algerian forces raided a gas facility where a heavily armed group of Islamist extremists was holding dozens of captives, including Americans and other foreigners, the Algerian government announced. In a statement on national radio, the communications minister, Mohand Saïd Oublaïd, said that many of the hostages had been freed, but he warned that the military assault was not yet complete and that some captives remained trapped inside the remote facility in the Algerian desert. “The operation resulted in the neutralization of a large number...

NOUAKCHOTT — Thirty-four hostages and 15 of their al-Qaida-linked kidnappers were killed Thursday in an air strike by the Algerian armed forces, Mauritania's ANI news agency reported, citing one of the kidnappers holding captives at a desert gas field. It was not immediately possible to independently verify the information from the agency, which has close contact with the group that has claimed responsibility for the mass kidnapping, reportedly in retaliation for France's military intervention in neighboring Mali. ANI reported that the spokesman for the kidnappers said they would kill the rest of their captives if the army approached. A local...

BREAKING: 34 HOSTAGES AND 15 KIDNAPPERS KILLED BY AIR STRIKES BY ALGERIAN ARMY - ANI NEWS AGENCY SNIP (Previous) UPDATE - Twenty-five hostages escape Algeria siege - source ALGIERS - Twenty-five foreign hostages, including two Japanese, escaped from the siege of a gas plant deep in the Algerian desert on Thursday, an Algerian security source said.

Al Qaeda terrorists have seized a gas field in Algeria and have taken 40 Western hostages. 3 have been executed. The terrorists successfully thwarted a military raid Wednesday night. The hostage nationalities are US, Britain, Norway, France and Japan. 150 Algerian hostages were released...

The Obama administration is condemning an Islamist attack on a natural gas field in southern Algeria and confirming that Americans are among those being held hostage. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told reporters in Italy that Americans were among the hostages and called the incident a "terrorist attack."

(Reuters) - Islamist fighters seized dozens of Western and Algerian hostages in a dawn raid on a natural gas facility deep in the Sahara on Wednesday and demanded France halt a new offensive against rebels in neighboring Mali. Three people, among them one British and one French, were reported killed, but details were sketchy and numbers of those held at Tigantourine ranged from 41 foreigners - including perhaps seven Americans as well as Japanese and Europeans - to over 100 local staff, held separately and less closely watched.   What is clear is that with a dramatic counterpunch to this...

Thursday was inauguration day in Venezuela. Hugo Chavez — who has dominated Venezuelan politics one way or another for 14 years — was again sworn in as President. Only this time, the authoritarian populist could not take the oath in person. He departed for cancer surgery in Cuba on Dec. 10, 2012, and has not been seen in public since. This latest surgery is his fourth round of treatment in Cuba. Few expect Chavez to serve out this next six-year presidential term.