QUOTE OF THE DAY “The withdrawal from Gaza wasn’t to buy peace, but to resolve a security situation. Someone had to say,‘the buck stops here.’ This was Sharon.” Dov Weissglas, former chief of staff for Ariel Sharon, who died Saturday at 85, on the former prime minister’s 2005 decision to evacuate the Gaza Strip and hand it over to Palestinian rule Article, 1ARussians detain 5 terrorism suspects
MOSCOW - Five terrorism suspects were detained Saturday in one of Russia’s North Caucasus provinces as the country’s security agencies were scrambling to uproot any potential threat to the Sochi Games.
The bust in the city of Nalchik, about 185 miles east of Sochi, comes less than a month before the start of the 2014 Winter Olympics.
The National Anti-Terrorism Committee said the suspects belonged to an international terror group and were in possession of grenades, ammunition and a self-made explosive device. The agency provided no further details.
The arrests follow a pair of suicide bombings in the city of Volgograd in southern Russia on Dec. 29-30 that killed 34 and wounded 100 others.
No one has claimed responsibility for the Volgograd attacks.
FBI: Gunmen died in Kenya mall attack
NAIROBI, Kenya - The gunmen who attacked an upscale mall in September in Kenya’s capital, killing at least 67 people, likely died in the attack, an FBI official said.
Al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab militants claimed responsibility for the Sept. 21 attack on Nairobi’s Westgate Mall. Al-Shabab said the attack was in retaliation for Kenya sending its troops to Somalia to fight the militants.
Dennis Brady, the FBI legal attache in Nairobi, said in an interview posted Friday on the bureau’s website: “We believe, as do the Kenyan authorities, that the four gunmen inside the mall were killed.”
“Our ERT [Evidence Response Team] made significant finds, and there is no evidence that any of the attackers escaped from the area where they made their last stand,” he said.
Kenyan authorities say they have recovered the charred remains of bodies believed to be those of the attackers from the debris in the mall.
A New York Police Department report on the attack raised the possibility the gunmen might have escaped.
Death toll in Iraq violence rises to 60
BAGHDAD - Fighting between security forces and al-Qaida-linked militants in Iraq’s Sunni-dominated Anbar province has killed at least 60 people over the past two weeks, an official said Saturday.
The head of Anbar’s Health Directorate, Khudeir Shalal, said that 43 people were killed in the city of Ramadi and other 17 have died in Fallujah since violence broke out in the western province after the Dec. 28 arrest of a Sunni lawmaker sought on terrorism charges and the earlier dismantling of an anti-government Sunni protest camp in Ramadi.
Shalal said a total of 297 people were wounded in both cities. He was unable to provide a breakdown of how many of the dead were combatants and how many might have been civilians caught in the fighting. He said Iraqi military casualties were not included.
At least 50 civilians and militants were killed during the military operations in Anbar during the past two weeks, according to an Associated Press count.
C. African Republic ex-chief seeks exile
COTONOU, Benin - The man who ruled Central African Republic as the country disintegrated into near-anarchy sought exile Saturday in the tiny nation of Benin, as violence overnight in the capital of Bangui left at least four people dead, officials and residents said.
Michel Djotodia, a rebel leader who hails from his country’s north, had seized power of Central African Republic in March with the help of thousands of armed fighters. In response to mounting international pressure, he agreed Friday to step aside along with his prime minister.
More than 1,000 people were killed in December as violence broke out along religious fault lines, prompting nearly 1 million people to flee their homes. Djotodia’s fighters were predominantly Muslim, and their attacks on the majority Christian civilian population during their rule had led to Christian militias attacking mosques and killing Muslim civilians accused of supporting Djotodia and his rebel movement that was known as Seleka.
Front Section, Pages 6 on 01/12/2014