U.S. Special Forces fighting Salafists in southern Algeria
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM Monday, March 8, 2004
CAIRO – The United States has deployed Special Forces to the Sahara Desert battle a leading Islamic insurgency group with ties to Al Qaida.
U.S. officials said a Special Operations Forces (SOF) unit was operating with Algerian troops in the southern part of the country. They said the U.S. military also planned to expand operations to other parts of Algeria.
This is the first time a U.S. military force was sent to battle insurgents in Algeria. Officials said the focus was on the Salafist Brigade for Combat and Call, which has been referred to as a subcontractor for Al Qaida and which has a significant presence along the southern border with Mali.
"The United States is battling terrorist activities in Algeria and the Sahel," the U.S. embassy in Algiers said in a statement. The statement said U.S. forces would also continue to train Algerian military forces, Middle East Newsline reported. The statement did not elaborate.
The United States has been reviewing an Algerian request for a range of military aircraft, including a combat helicopter. So far, the United States has provided Algeria with non-lethal equipment.
In Sudan, Khartoum's military and rebels have intensified fighting in the Western Darfour region. Rebel spokesmen said their forces, including the Sudanese Liberation Army/Movement killed more than 400 soldiers and militiamen in battles over the weekend.
The rebels were said to have halted a Sudanese military drive near the Darfour capital of Fasher. A second battle took place near Nyala in the southern part of Darfour.
08/03/2004
URGENT STATEMENT: RUSSIANS KIDNAPPED 16 RELATIVES OF CHECHEN MINISTER OF HEALTH DR. OUMAR KHANBIEV. THE WORLD MUST TELL PUTIN TO FREE THEM.
Last week Russian security services and the Kremlin-backed Kadyrov’s criminal administration, in a series of separate operations in Benoi, Grozny and elsewhere in Chechnya, selectively kidnapped 16 relatives of Chechen Minister of Health Dr. Oumar Khanbiev. The Russian authorities then announced to the locals that the detainees would “be tortured to death” if Oumar Khanbiev and his brother Magomed Khanbiev do not “surrender” to Russians.
This mass and politically motivated kidnapping is a barbaric act of a state sponsored terrorism aimed to silence Chechen legitimate political leadership, which the world must immediately condemn in the strongest possible terms and take urgent actions to guarantee safe and speedy release of the all 16 kidnapped civilians.
In February 2000, Oumar Khanbiev, together with 18 members of his medical staff and 75 wounded patients, was illegally detained and subjected to torture in Russian concentration camps. He was freed weeks latter only as a combined result of an international pressure and ransom.
Since then Oumar Khanbiev has become Chechen key political representative in Europe and has done a tremendous job in increasing European and international public and political awareness about the situation in Chechnya and searching for a peaceful resolution of the Russian-Chechen conflict. In December 2000, European Parliamentarians, in recognition of his important work on behalf of the innocent victims of the Russian war in Chechnya, awarded Dr. Khanbiev with “Passport for Freedom”.
On 4 September 2002, apparently in an attempt to silence Dr. Khanbiev, Russian security services kidnapped his younger brother – civilian doctor Ali Khanbiev, whose fate, despite of the concerns raised by members of the European Parliament and the European Commission, is still unknown. Now, the masters of Kremlin and their local puppets kidnapped almost every relative of Oumar Khanbiev.
This crime comes only two weeks after Russian agents committed a terrorist attack in Qatar that killed former acting Chechen President Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev and severely injured his 13-year-old son. Now we have another crime of an open terror. It must not be allowed to succeed.
The United States of America, the states of the free Europe, the European Union, the United Nations, the OSCE, the Council of Europe and all human rights organizations must do no less than to demand from President Putin today to release the kidnapped civilians, to release them immediately.
Ilyas Akhmadov Foreign Minister