According to the Filipino government, the Abu Sayyaf militant group was responsible for a bomb attack in Davao, the home city of newly-elected President Rodrigo Duterte.
At least 14 people were killed and other 60 wounded in the bomb attack at a market in the southern city of Davao, the government has said.
Rodrigo Duterte – who was in Davao at the time of the attack but was not near the market – has declared a “state of lawlessness” following the explosion.
This allows troops to be based in cities to assist the police.
National Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said that Abu Sayyaf wanted to retaliate after suffering heavy casualties on its stronghold of Jolo island about 550 miles from Davao.
Photo EPA
“We have predicted this – and warned our troops accordingly,” Delfin Lorenzana said in a statement.
A presidential spokesman said investigators had found shrapnel from a mortar-based improvised explosive device (IED) at the scene.
The explosion took place in an area frequently visited by Rodrigo Duterte.
The president said the Philippines was going through “extraordinary times” which was why he had decided to allow the security forces to conduct searches previously done solely by the police.
In the aftermath of the explosion there were conflicting claims as to who may have carried it out.
Mindanao police director Manuel Gaerlan was reported by the Philippine Daily Inquirer as putting forward a theory that “disgruntled vendors” upset over the awarding of stalls in the market were responsible.
The government for their part initially said they were considering the possibility that drug syndicates were behind the blast before concluding that Abu Sayyaf were to blame.
A spokesman for the Abu Sayyaf was reported to have claimed responsibility soon after the attack.
However, the Inquirer quoted a senior Abu Sayyaf leader as saying it was in fact carried out by “an allied group”.
The region has been under a heightened security alert in recent weeks because of a military offensive against Abu Sayyaf.
Davao is the biggest city in the southern Philippines and has a population of about two million people. It is about 1,000 miles from the capital Manila.
Investigators of Boston Marathon bombings suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev case say that he travelled to the Russian republic of Dagestan in 2012 with the intent of joining a radical Islamist group, but he never followed through with his plan.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was shot dead during a police gun battle on April 19 after officials claim he and his 19-year-old brother, Dzhokahr, had set off two homemade bombs at the finish line of the Boston Marathon.
In 202, officials say Tamerlan Tsarnaev, whom they described as a “typical lone wolf”, went to Dagestan after becoming radicalized in the US.
While staying abroad, however, Tamerlan Tsarnaev did not join the ranks of an international terror group, and it appears that the two brothers were acting of their own accord when they set off the deadly explosions, officials close to the matter told ABC News.
Investigators also found no manifesto written by Tamerlan Tamerlan while he was staying in Dagestan, which would have provided a clear motive for the attacks.
Similarly, no evidence was found so far to suggest that Tamerlan Tsarnaev reached out to Islamist leaders on his earlier trips to Chechnya to visit his father’s relatives.
During his recent visit to Dagestan, where his parents currently reside, Tamerlan Tsarnaev did make contact with Mahmud Mansur Nidal, who has been suspected of having militant ties, according to officials.
The two were frequently seen at a Salafist mosque in the capital of Makhachkala, which is popular among insurgents.
However, while Mahmud Mansur Nidal eventually ended up joining a radical Islamist organization in the southern Russian region, Tamerlan Tsarnaev did not follow him and later returned to the U.S.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev travelled to Dagestan in 2012 with the intent of joining a radical Islamist group, but he never followed through with his plan
Mahmud Mansur Nidal, a man who was both Palestinian and Kumyk, was killed in May 2012 after refusing to give himself up to security forces that had surrounded a house in Makhachkala, according to official police records.
An FBI probe has revealed that Tamerlan Tsarnaev had social networking ties with Muslim convert William Plotnikov, a Russian national from Canada, which brought Tsarnaev to the attention of Russian security services for the first time in late 2010.
William Plotnikov had been detained in Dagestan in December 2010 on suspicion of having ties to the militants and during his interrogation was forced to hand over a list of social networking friends from the U.S. and Canada who like him had once lived in Russia, Novaya Gazeta reported.
William Plotnikov was among seven suspected militants killed on July 14 during a standoff with police in the Dagestani village of Utamysh, according to the official police record.
After William Plotnikov’s death, Russian security agents lost track of Tamerlan Tsarnaev and went to see his father in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, who told them that his son had returned to the U.S., Novaya Gazeta said.
The Russians later determined that Tamerlan Tsarnaev had flown to Moscow on July 16 and to the U.S. the following day, the newspaper said.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev arrived in New York on July 17.
Investigators also looked into Tamerlan Tsaranev’s relationship with a distant cousin with ties to extremists group, who is suspected of playing a role in the 26-year-old former boxer’s radicalization.
Magomed Kartashov is founder and leader of a group called The Union of the Just which reportedly promotes the application of Islamic Sharia law and has protested against the U.S.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev is said to have met Magomed Kartashov for the first time in Dagestan. Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, told TIME Magazine that the two kinsmen “became very close”.
The Union of the Just publicly renounces violence, but several of its members have ties to militants.
A lawyer for Magomed Kartashov confirmed to ABC News that Russian security agents recently interviewed her client about his links to Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
Magomed Kartashov admits that the two were close but insists that it was Tamerlan Tsarnaev who tried to “pull him into extremism”.
He is currently in jail on charges of resisting police after waving an Islamists flag during a wedding procession. His lawyer expects he will remain there for at least two more months.
Magomed Magomedov, another member of Union for the Just, told ABC News that he saw Tamerlan Tsarnaev on several occasions at the Makhachkala mosque, but the American transplant appeared out of place.
“He was sticking out, it was obvious he is not local. He liked to draw attention with his expensive and fancy clothes. His haircut was something no one has seen before,” he said.
According to some accounts, Tamerlan Tsarnaev would put on airs by claiming that he knew more about Islam than he actually did. In conversations with other congregants, he would often recite things he had picked up online in a bid to impress the locals, who grew annoyed with him.
But according to officials, Tamerlan Tsarnaev was not as strict a practitioner of Islam as he appeared to be.
According to one investigator, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, like his younger brother Dzhokhar, would often indulge in mar***ana while living in Massachusetts, spending hours high.
The FBI is to meet with nearly a dozen people who had known Tamerlan Tsarnaev, including relatives, childhood friends and acquaintances from the mosque, hoping to shed light on the events that led to the bombings.
Seven French tourists, including four children, have been kidnapped by gunmen in Cameroon, near the border with Nigeria, French President Francois Hollande has said.
Francois Hollande says they belong to the same family and were seized by a “known terrorist group based in Nigeria”.
The president added that the seven were probably taken to northern Nigeria.
He indicated that the Nigerian Islamist militant group Boko Haram may have been responsible.
“I see the hand of Boko Haram in that part of Cameroon, and that is worrying enough for us to mobilize,” Francois Hollande said.
He said everything possible was being done to rescue the family and warned other French nationals in northern Cameroon to avoid “exposing themselves”.
The family had been returning from a visit to Waza National Park when they were attacked by men on motorcycles, Cameroonian officials said.
The incidents come amid a French-led intervention against Islamist militants in Mali.
Seven French tourists, including four children, have been kidnapped by gunmen in Cameroon, near the border with Nigeria
At least eight French nationals were already being held by Islamist groups in Africa.
Boko Haram has staged many attacks across northern Nigeria in recent years, targeting churches, government buildings and the security forces.
Another Islamist group- Ansaru – is also active in the region.
On Sunday, Ansaru claimed the abduction of seven foreign workers in Nigeria.
Italian, British, Greek and Lebanese workers are thought to be among those held after an attack on a construction project in Bauchi state.
Ansaru also says it is holding a French national, Francis Colump, who was seized in the northern state of Katsina.
Five suspected members of the Islamist group which held foreign and local workers hostage at In Amenas gas plant in Algeria have been arrested, reports say.
The reports came a day after the Algerian authorities said all 32 hostage-takers had been killed at the In Amenas gas installation.
At least 25 bodies were found at the complex on Sunday, reports say.
It is unclear whether they were captors or captives. Officials say a definitive death toll will be released later.
On Saturday officials said least 23 staff at the facility had died during the four-day siege, with some Western workers still unaccounted for.
The siege was ended in a raid by troops on Saturday.
Officials said the army launched its assault after Islamist militants began killing foreign hostages.
UK Prime Minister David Cameron and US President Barack Obama have blamed “terrorists” for the hostages’ deaths.
Five suspected members of the Islamist group which held foreign and local workers hostage at In Amenas gas plant in Algeria have been arrested
And on Sunday French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian described the hostage-taking as an “act of war”.
“What strikes me the most is that we’re saying <<hostage-taking>> but when there are so many people concerned, I think this is an act of war,” he told French TV.
“Five terrorists were found still alive this morning,” said the private Ennahar TV channel, quoted by AFP news agency.
The agency said residents of the nearby town of In Amenas were staying indoors, amid rumors that the army operation to end the siege was not over.
Algerian Communications Minister Mohammed Said said earlier that the militants were from six different countries, “nationals of Arab and African countries, and of non-African countries”.
Mohammed Said added that a final death toll would be released in the coming hours.
Mauritanian website Sahara Media says Mokhtar Belmokhtar, the suspected organizer of the siege, has claimed responsibility for it in a video message.
The website said the video – recorded on January 17 while the siege was still going on but not posted on the website – showed the militant leader saying he was prepared to negotiate with Western and Algerian leaders if operations against Islamists in Mali were stopped.
Three Britons are confirmed dead, and a further three are missing, feared dead.
UK officials were “working hard” to locate the missing, said Foreign Secretary William Hague.
“Everything seems to indicate” that a Colombian citizen resident in the UK is among the dead, the Colombian president has said.
But he added that information about Carlos Estrada, who worked for BP, was “not 100%”.
Japanese officials said they had no confirmation of the fate of 10 nationals who remained unaccounted for, despite reports that nine had died.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Yoshihide Suga said a government aircraft would be sent to bring home seven others who had survived.
Two Malaysians are unaccounted for, as are five Norwegians.
State news agency APS said 685 Algerian workers and 107 out of 132 foreigners working at the plant had been freed, citing interior ministry figures.
The nationalities of some of the hostages killed are still not known.
The crisis began on Wednesday when militants attacked two buses carrying foreign workers to the remote site in south-eastern Algeria. A Briton and an Algerian reportedly died in the incident.
The militants then took Algerians and expatriates hostage at the complex, which was quickly surrounded by the Algerian army.
A statement from the kidnappers said the assault on the gas plant was launched in retaliation for French intervention against Islamist groups in neighboring Mali.
However, France only decided last week to intervene militarily in Mali. Analysts say the assault on the gas facility was well-planned and would have required advance research, as well as possibly inside help.
The leader of the hostage-takers was a veteran fighter from Niger, named as Abdul Rahman al-Nigeri by the Mauritanian news agency ANI, which had been in contact with the militants.
Islamists in Mali have begun destroying remaining mausoleums in the historic city of Timbuktu, an Islamist leader and a tourism official said.
“Not a single mausoleum will remain in Timbuktu,” Abou Dardar, a leader of the Islamist group Ansar Dine, told AFP news agency.
Islamists in control of northern Mali began earlier this year to pull down shrines that they consider idolatrous.
Tourist official Sane Chirfi said four mausoleums had been razed on Sunday.
One resident told AFP that the Islamists were destroying the shrines with pickaxes.
Timbuktu was a centre of Islamic learning from the 13th to the 17th centuries.
It is a UN World Heritage site with centuries-old shrines to Islamic saints that are revered by Sufi Muslims.
Islamists in Mali have begun destroying remaining mausoleums in the historic city of Timbuktu
The Salafists of Ansar Dine condemn the veneration of saints.
“Allah doesn’t like it,” said Abou Dardar.
“We are in the process of smashing all the hidden mausoleums in the area.”
Islamists seized control of Timbuktu in April, after a coup left Mali’s army in disarray.
The news that further monuments were being destroyed came one day after Islamists were reported to have cut the hands off two people.
The Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa, another Islamist group operating in the area, warned that there would be further amputations, AFP reported.
Last Thursday the UN Security Council gave its backing for an African-led military operation to help Mali’s government retake the north if no peaceful solution can be found in coming months.
A day later, Ansar Dine and the Azawad National Liberation Movement (MNLA), a Tuareg separatist group, said they were committed to finding a negotiated solution.
Tens of thousands of people have gathered to attend a rally in the Gaza Strip to mark the 25th anniversary of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.
Hamas exiled political leader Khaled Meshaal has arrived to address the crowd during his first ever visit to the territory.
Khaled Meshaal’s visit follows a ceasefire that ended days of violence between Israel and Hamas last month.
He is expected to unveil a future strategy for Hamas and talk of reconciliation with its rival, Fatah.
Hamas removed Fatah from Gaza by force in 2007 after winning elections there. Fatah governs parts of the West Bank.
The event is intended to send a message that, after 25 years, Hamas is a force to be reckoned with.
It enjoys support in Gaza and feels it is gaining regional political influence after the Arab uprisings brought new Islamist governments to power, she adds.
Tens of thousands of Gazans have made their way to the rally at the al-Qatiba complex west of Gaza City to hear the speech by Khaled Meshaal.
It is expected to focus on key issues such as the strategy with Israel, the future leadership of Hamas and reconciliation with Fatah.
Tens of thousands of people have gathered to attend a rally in the Gaza Strip to mark the 25th anniversary of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas
In 2011, Khaled Meshaal and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas – the Fatah leader – endorsed an Egyptian plan to reconcile the rival factions.
But it is unlikely such a rally will hear any signs of moderation in the strategy towards Israel.
The centrepiece of Saturday’s rally in Gaza City is a huge replica of a type of rocket Hamas militants fired at Jerusalem and Tel Aviv in the conflict with Israel last month. It has Made in Gaza written on it.
Some 170 Palestinians and six Israelis were killed in the eight-day engagement and Hamas has presented Saturday’s event as a victory rally.
Ahmed Shaheen, attending the rally with his children, told Reuters: “This is a day of victory. The presence of Khaled Meshaal is a sign of this victory.”
Israel says its operation killed Hamas’s military commander and significantly reduced the militants’ stockpile of rockets.
Israel, the US and the EU consider Hamas a terrorist organization.
In terms of the Hamas leadership, Khaled Meshaal said in January he did not wish to stand again as political chief and the future make-up at the top remains unclear.
Khaled Meshaal entered Gaza from Egypt at the Rafah border crossing on Friday, touching his head to the ground in celebration. The streets of Gaza City were decorated with Palestinian and Hamas flags.
Correspondents say he was clearly aware of the desire among Palestinians for an end to the divisions that have weakened their cause.
Standing in the ruins of a house destroyed in an Israeli air strike, he said: “With God’s will… reconciliation will be achieved. National unity is at hand.”
Apart from a brief visit to the West Bank in 1975, Khaled Meshaal had not visited the Palestinian territories since his family left in 1967.
He survived an Israeli assassination attempt in Jordan in 1997 only after King Hussein demanded an antidote to poison used by Israeli agents.
An Israeli official said that no guarantees for Khaled Meshaal’s safety in Gaza had been requested and none had been given.
Nigerian army has killed 20 suspected members of the militant Islamist group Boko Haram in the north-east of the country.
One government soldier also died in a shootout in the town of Maiduguri.
Boko Haram has recently carried out numerous raids on churches and other targets in Nigeria.
The group wants to establish Islamic law in the country, whose large Christian and animist population mainly lives in the south.
Nigerian army has killed 20 suspected members of the militant Islamist group Boko Haram in the north-east of the country
On Sunday, the army said it acted on intelligence that a number of Boko Haram members were holding a gathering at a location in Maiduguri.
“Our men mobilized, leading to a shootout. Twenty suspected terrorists were killed while a soldier died in the operation and two others sustained injuries,” army commander told the AFP news agency.
Boko Haram has not publicly commented on the army’s claim.
Most of Boko Haram attacks have been staged in the largely Muslim north, but the group has also targeted churches in central Nigeria.
Egypt’s Bedouin tribal leaders in Sinai peninsula have agreed to help restore security in the lawless border area with the Gaza Strip and Israel.
In talks with Interior Minister Ahmed Gamal al-Din, they also backed plans to destroy smuggling tunnels into Gaza.
The move comes as Egyptian troops mass in the area in an operation to contain Islamist militants who have built up a presence in the area.
The militants are suspected of killing 16 Egyptian border guards on Sunday.
Egypt has deployed extra troops, tanks and other armored vehicles.
Ahmed Gamal al-Din met the tribal leaders late on Thursday night at al-Arish, about 50 km (30 miles) west of the Gaza border, to ask for their support.
He later told reporters: “With the help of the people [of Sinai], the mission will succeed.”
Egypt's Bedouin tribal leaders in Sinai peninsula have agreed to help restore security in the lawless border area with the Gaza Strip and Israel
Sheikh Atef Zayed, a member of Al-Rishad tribe, said all present had pledged to support the military’s operation.
“Egypt’s security is a part of Sinai’s security,” Reuters news agency quoted him as saying.
Another tribal leader, Eid Abu Marzuka, said the tribes had also reached a consensus that the tunnels should be destroyed.
“Let Hamas be upset, we don’t care,” he said, of the Islamist group which control the Gaza Strip.
Eid Abu Marzuka said Israel’s contact with Palestinians in Gaza should be through the official Rafah border crossing.
There are more than 1,200 illegal tunnels along the Egypt-Gaza border. They are used to get basic goods past Israel’s blockade of the enclave but also smuggle in weapons and people.
The militants who launched Sunday’s attacks are believed to have used them as an escape route.
Egypt’s Mena news agency reports that the army has already begun sealing them off.
The latest violence in the Sinai region began on Sunday, when militants carried out the deadliest and most brazen attack against Egyptian troops in the Sinai region for decades, killing 16 border guards.
There were further attacks on checkpoints in al-Arish on Wednesday, which left a number of people wounded.
Egypt launched its military offensive hours later, carrying out missile strikes from helicopters.
According to military officials, 20 people were killed in the village of Touma, while the Sheikh Zuwaid area to the west was also hit.
Further armoured personnel carriers could be seen overnight on Thursday, heading eastwards towards the border region.
Egypt’s military presence in Sinai is limited and requires Israeli approval under the terms of the 1979 peace treaty which returned Sinai to Egyptian control.
Analysts say that the security situation in the area has deteriorated following the fall of Hosni Mubarak last year, and that Islamist extremists appear to have gained a foothold.
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