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At least 10 dead as fire rages on Black Sea ships
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MOSCOW - Ten crew died and another 10 were missing presumed dead in a fire that broke out on two ships while they were transferring fuel in the Black Sea, Russia’s Transport Ministry said on Tuesday.
The vessels which caught fire on Monday have the same names as two Tanzania-flagged ships, the Maestro and Venice, which last year were included on a U.S. sanctions advisory as delivering fuel to Syria.
Twelve people were rescued from the burning vessels but there was little hope of finding any more survivors, a spokesman for the Transport Ministry’s maritime unit said. The focus had switched from a rescue operation to a search for bodies, he added.
The spokesman said the vessels, which had a combined crew of 32, were still on fire and rough no attempts were being made to put out the blaze because of rough sea conditions.
Russian maritime officials said on Monday that the vessels were carrying out a ship-to-ship transfer of fuel in the Kerch Strait, which separates Crimea from Russia.
On Nov. 20 last year, the U.S. Treasury Department added nine Russian and Iranian individuals and companies on its sanctions list for participating in the shipment of petroleum to Syria.
It also issued an advisory note warning of the potential sanctions risk for any entities involved in such shipments which listed 35 ships, including the Maestro and Venice, as having delivered oil to Syria between 2016 and 2018.
Reuters reported in December that both the Maestro and Venice continued operations after the Treasury announcement, and regularly entered Temryuk port, in Russia’s Krasnodar region, according to Refinitiv data.
In the port, liquefied petroleum gas of Russian and Kazakh origin is transferred onto tankers for export, via the Kerch Strait.
The strait, between Russian-annexed Crimea and southern Russia, connects both Russian and Ukrainian ports in the Azov Sea to the Black Sea.
In November, Russia detained three Ukrainian navy vessels and their crews in the vicinity of the strait, fuelling tensions between the two countries. Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.
Kenyan authorities investigate local role in Nairobi attack
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By Humphrey Malalo and Duncan Miriri
NAIROBI - Investigators in Kenya are exploring the possibility that some of the militants who attacked a Nairobi hotel and office complex may not have been ethnic Somalis, stoking fears that militants are deepening their pools of recruitment in the region.
Officials have released few details about the five-man assault team that carried out Tuesday’s siege at the dusitD2 hotel complex, an attack that killed 21 people and was claimed by al Shabaab, a Somalia-based al Qaeda affiliate.
But police, private security sources and local media reports have highlighted the involvement of a 26-year-old suspect identified in court documents as Ali Salim Gichunge, who was born and raised in central Kenya, as evidence of the group’s lure to some people outside its traditional strongholds.
“The government needs to look at (Gichunge’s) profile. How did he get to where he is?” said a private security official in Kenya, who asked not to be identified for operational reasons.
“If al Shabaab can replicate this model, then there is a fundamental problem.”
All five assailants were killed in Tuesday’s attack, the country’s president said in a televised address the next morning. Police said on Friday they had detained nine other suspects in connection with the incident.
Five of the suspects, one of them listed as a Canadian citizen, were taken to a magistrate’s court and ordered detained for 30 days. Two were taxi drivers and one was a mobile phone financial services agent, court documents said.
The others have not appeared yet. They could have been released or they may be brought before a magistrate on Saturday. Police can hold suspects for 24 hours and need a court order to extend this.
An officer who was not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly also told Reuters police were pursuing a woman suspected of ferrying weapons to Nairobi from Kiunga, near the border with Somalia, via the port city of Mombasa.
There are multiple programmes aimed at preventing radicalisation in Kenya, but analysts say the efforts appear to be falling short. Those close to Gichunge said they were stunned when he appeared in CCTV footage of the attack toting an assault rifle and firing at a white car.
“I have a lot of questions that need answers just like everyone else,” said Gichunge’s sister, who was reached by phone in Mombasa. “I also saw him on TV, and we didn’t expect him to be there.”
The pair’s father is an officer in the Kenyan military, she told Reuters.
“It is inconceivable how the son of a military man can turn out to be a member of al Shabaab,” she said.
Although raised Muslim, Gichunge began his education at a Catholic mission school in his eastern home town of Isiolo before moving to the central region of Meru for high school, where he was bullied and beaten severely, she said.
Gichunge, who also used the alias Faruk, later secured work at an internet cafe in Isiolo.
“It all started there,” his sister said. “He was able to access new materials online, go to Facebook, he started studying Arabic language and all sorts of things.”
She said she lost contact with her brother when he moved to Lamu, on the Kenyan coast near the border with Somalia, in 2015.
“He was a very quiet guy,” a friend of Gichunge’s told Reuters, asking not to be named. “You would never have expected him to turn out like that.”
A police official and a private security professional who took part in rescue efforts at the complex said a man who blew himself up outside a restaurant was also believed to be a non-Somali.
A passerby heard him repeating “where are you?” in flawless Swahili, presumably into a phone, the security professional told Reuters. The language is used throughout Kenya but not in Somalia where most people speak Somali.
Al Shabaab, which is fighting to impose strict Islamic law, has in the past recruited some East Africans, including four Kenyans and three Ugandans who were charged in connection with a bombing in Uganda in 2010.
Rashid Abdi, Horn of Africa Project Director at the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank, said the group has been actively recruiting in the region.
“Al Shabaab remains an organization with its roots in Somalia but has evolved into a transnational, regional jihadi organisation,” he said.
Al Shabaab has launched several large-scale attacks on Kenya in recent years, including a 2013 assault on a shopping mall in the same neighbourhood as Tuesday’s attack. Kenya angered the group in 2011 by sending in forces to create a buffer zone along the countries’ shared border.
Al Shabaab said it carried out Tuesaday’s assault over U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Sixteen Kenyans, including a policeman, an American survivor of the Sept. 11, 2001, al Qaeda attacks on the United States, and a British development worker were among the dead at the 14 Riverside Drive complex.
Obama personally oversees Al-Qaeda 'kill list', media report
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Nigeria poll halted in last-minute drama
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The Independent National Electoral Commission (Inec) made the announcement just five hours before the polls were due to open on Saturday.
"Proceeding with the election as scheduled is no longer feasible," commission chairman Mahmood Yakubu said, citing logistical issues.
He said the difficult decision was needed to ensure a free and fair vote.
The presidential and parliamentary votes have been rescheduled for Saturday 23 February.
Governorship, state assembly and federal area council elections have been rescheduled until Saturday 9 March.
The announcement came after an emergency meeting at the Inec headquarters in the capital, Abuja.
Nigeria's two main political parties, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the People's Democratic Party (PDP), swiftly condemned the move and accused each other of trying to manipulate the vote.
President Muhammadu Buhari, of the APC party, urged calm and appealed to Nigerians to "refrain from civil disorder and remain peaceful, patriotic and united to ensure that no force or conspiracy derail our democratic development".
Voters have reacted with a mixture of anger, frustration and resignation.(FA)
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