IO N IPT SC R SU B
SATURDAY, APRIL 23, 2011
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150 Fils
8
No: 15067
JAMADA ALAWWAL 20, 1432 AH
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48
Syrian forces kill 50 at ‘Good Friday’ protests Bloodiest single day since uprising erupted
Max 32 Min 21
‘Saudi Qaeda leader’ killed in Chechnya MOSCOW: Russia yesterday announced the killing of AlQaeda’s top militant in the Caucasus in an operation analysts said marked one of the biggest successes by security forces in the region in years. Security officials identified the Saudi-born militant - known by the nom-de-guerre of Moganned - as a “religious authority” and top field commander responsible for the most recent bombings on Russian soil. “Almost all acts of terror using suicide bombers in the last years were prepared with his involvement,” a spokesman for the National AntiTerror Committee said in a televised statement. The rebel-linked kavkazcenter.com website confirmed that the militant was killed on Thursday in a clash with security forces in Chechnya that also claimed the lives of at least two other militants. “The rats have started coming out of the woodwork,” the war-torn republic’s Kremlin-appointed leader Ramzan Kadyrov told news agencies after the death was confirmed. “Each one of them will be either arrested or destroyed.” Russian officials said Moganned had been operating in the Northern Caucasus since 1999 and by 2005 had emerged as the main “coordinator” for handling money that was coming in from abroad to support the militant underground. He had also served under the notorious fellow Arab-born militant Khattab until his death in a clash with security forces in 2002. This “marks a tremendous success in the fight against the terrorist underground,” Alexander Cherkasov of the Memorial rights group told Moscow Echo radio. “He has been the head of the Chechen Arab (militants) since 2006.” — AFP
This undated screen grab taken from the website kavkazcenter.com shows a photo of the man reportedly identified as a Saudi militant known by the nom-deguerre of Moganned, who was the top envoy of AlQaeda in the Northern Caucasus. — AFP
BANIAS: Syrian anti-government protesters carry a banner that reads “London doctor, Syria butcher”, referring to Syrian President Bashar AlAssad, who is a British-trained eye doctor, as they gather in the coastal city of Banias yesterday. (Inset) People gather around the bodies of protesters killed in clashes with police in Zamalka near Damascus yesterday. — AP DAMASCUS: Syrian forces shot dead nearly 50 people when they moved in to disperse thousands who took to the streets for “Good Friday” protests to test long sought-after freedoms, sources said. A day after President Bashar AlAssad scrapped decades of emergency rule, his forces fired live rounds at demonstrators in several towns and cities nationwide, witnesses and activists told AFP by telephone. The official SANA news agency said security forces intervened using only tear gas and water cannon to “prevent clashes” between protesters and passers-by. A coalition of protesters from across Syria meanwhile issued a list of demands in a statement blasting “attempts by the Syrian tyrannical machine to thwart and circumvent the acquisition of our basic rights and needs”. Yesterday’s death toll was the bloodiest since protests for democratic change the first since emergency rule was imposed by the ruling Baath Party when it seized power in 1963 - erupted in mid-March. “At least 49 people were killed. There are a lot of wound-
ed and many people are missing. We believe there are at least 20 people missing, some believe they are dead,” activist Ammar Qurabi said. He said most of the dead had been shot, and a few died after inhaling teargas. The toll rose steadily throughout the day, according to the sources reached by AFP in Nicosia. Dozens of people were also wounded when security forces opened fire with live rounds to disperse protesters, the sources said. At least 14 people were reported killed in the town of Ezreh, in the southern province of Daraa, epicentre of pro-reform and antiregime protests that erupted in midMarch, the sources said. One person was killed in Hirak, also in the Daraa region. Nine people died in the northern Damascus suburb of Douma, the sources added. And six people were also killed in the Damascus neighbourhoods of Barzeh, Harasta and Al-Maadamiyah. Two people were also killed in the northern city of Hama, site of a government-sponsored massacre of Islamists in 1982, and two others perished in the
main Syrian port city of Latakia, while four died in central Homs. SANA, which said security forces “intervened” using tear gas and water cannon “to prevent clashes between protesters and citizens and protect public property,” also reported confrontations in Hajar Asswad near Damascus. Thousands of protesters swarmed the mainly Kurdish city of Qamishli in northeastern Syria and Banias in the north and the protest hub of Daraa, in the south, with demonstrators calling for the fall of the regime. Protesters in Zabadani, northwest of Damascus, called for Assad’s regime to stand down and also chanted slogans hostile to key regional Syria allies Iran and the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah, witnesses said. About 200 people chanting “freedom, freedom” marched in central Damascus but were quickly dispersed by police, said an activist, while 100 who protested in the central city of Raqqa were scattered by baton-wielding proregime supporters, lawyer Abdullah Khalil said. — Agencies