Deep inside caves, in remote desert bases, in the escarpments and cliff faces of northern Mali, Islamic fighters are burrowing into the earth, erecting a formidable set of defenses to protect what has essentially become al-Qaida’s new country. (from bigstory.ap.org)

They have used the bulldozers, earth movers and Caterpillar machines left behind by fleeing construction crews to dig what residents and local officials describe as an elaborate network of tunnels, trenches, shafts and ramparts. In just one case, inside a cave large enough to drive trucks into, they have stored up to 100 drums of gasoline, guaranteeing their fuel supply in the face of a foreign intervention, according to experts.

Northern Mali is now the biggest territory held by al-Qaida and its allies. And as the world hesitates, delaying a military intervention, the extremists who seized control of the area earlier this year are preparing for a war they boast will be worse than the decade-old struggle in Afghanistan.

Al-Qaida’s affiliate in Africa has been a shadowy presence for years in the forests and deserts of Mali, a country hobbled by poverty and a relentless cycle of hunger. In recent months, the terror syndicate and its allies have taken advantage of political instability within the country to push out of their hiding place and into the towns, taking over an enormous territory which they are using to stock arms, train forces and prepare for global jihad.

The catalyst for the Islamic fighters was a military coup nine months ago that transformed Mali from a once-stable nation to the failed state it is today. On March 21, disgruntled soldiers invaded the presidential palace. The fall of the nation’s democratically elected government at the hands of junior officers destroyed the military’s command-and-control structure, creating the vacuum which allowed a mix of rebel groups to move in.

With no clear instructions from their higher-ups, the humiliated soldiers left to defend those towns tore off their uniforms, piled into trucks and beat a retreat as far as Mopti, roughly in the center of Mali. They abandoned everything north of this town to the advancing rebels, handing them an area that stretches over more than 620,000 square kilometers (240,000 square miles).

Turbaned fighters now control all the major towns in the north, carrying out amputations in public squares like the Taliban did. Just as in Afghanistan, they are flogging women for not covering up. Since taking control of Timbuktu, they have destroyed seven of the 16 mausoleums listed as world heritage sites.

The area under their rule is mostly desert and sparsely populated, but analysts say that due to its size and the hostile nature of the terrain, rooting out the extremists here could prove even more difficult than it did in Afghanistan. Mali’s former president has acknowledged, diplomatic cables show, that the country cannot patrol a frontier twice the length of the border between the United States and Mexico.

Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, known as AQIM, operates not just in Mali, but in a corridor along much of the northern Sahel. This 7,000-kilometer (4,300-mile) long ribbon of land runs across the widest part of Africa, and includes sections of Mauritania, Niger, Algeria, Libya, Burkina Faso and Chad.

Earlier this year, the 15 nations in West Africa, including Mali, agreed on a proposal for the military to take back the north, and sought backing from the United Nations. Earlier this month, the Security Council authorized the intervention but imposed certain conditions, including training Mali’s military, which is accused of serious human rights abuses since the coup. Diplomats say the intervention will likely not happen before September of 2013.

In the meantime, the Islamists are getting ready, according to elected officials and residents in Kidal, Timbuktu and Gao, including a day laborer hired by al-Qaida’s local chapter to clear rocks and debris for one of their defenses. They spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear for their safety at the hands of the Islamists, who have previously accused those who speak to reporters of espionage.

The al-Qaida affiliate, which became part of the terror network in 2006, is one of three Islamist groups in northern Mali. The others are the Movement for the Unity and Jihad in West Africa, or MUJAO, based in Gao, and Ansar Dine, based in Kidal. Analysts agree that there is considerable overlap between the groups, and that all three can be considered sympathizers, even extensions, of al-Qaida.

The Islamic fighters have stolen equipment from construction companies, including more than $11 million worth from a French company called SOGEA-SATOM, according to Elie Arama, who works with the European Development Fund. The company had been contracted to build a European Union-financed highway in the north between Timbuktu and the village of Goma Coura. An employee of SOGEA-SATOM in Bamako declined to comment.

A German court has handed down a fine to a policeman found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the death of an asylum seeker. Oury Jalloh died of smoke inhalation in a prison cell after setting fire to his mattress. ( from dw.de )

Nearly eight years after the death of Oury Jalloh, the local policeman linked to his death received a verdict from a regional court in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt on Thursday. The judges fined the policeman, Andreas S., 10,800 euros ($14,114) for involuntary manslaughter of the asylum seeker from Sierra Leone.

On January 7, 2005, police in the Saxony-Anhalt city of Dessau took Jalloh into custody after he had allegedly harassed two women while under the influence of drugs and alcohol. Jalloh later died in a holding cell from smoke inhalation after he had set fire to his own mattress.

Andreas S. should have kept a closer watch over Jalloh considering his state, according to the regional court in Magdeburg. The police officer did not respond to the fire alarm, claiming he thought it was a false alarm.

However, “he couldn’t have rescued Jalloh,” said the presiding judge, Claudia Methling before the court on Thursday.

A federal appeals tribunal had overturned Andreas S. acquittal by a Dessau court in 2010 due to considerable gaps in the chain of evidence. However, the regional court in Magdeburg reviewed the evidence and concluded that although investigators had made errors in the case, nothing had been destroyed on purpose. It also concluded that a third party did not cause the fire.

The fine levied on Thursday exceeded the original plea by the Public Prosecutor’s Department, which had asked for 6,300 euros.

Jollah’s case has caused a controversy in both domestic and international media in the last eight years over the treatment of asylum seekers. Demonstrators gathered outside the Magdeburg court on Thursday to protest the verdict, insisting that Jalloh had been murdered.

Both parties, including Jolloh’s family who are co-plaintiffs, now have a week to file an appeal with the federal court.

Egypt reached a preliminary agreement with the IMF last week for the loan seen as vital to shoring up the nation’s finances. The IMF board is due to finalise the deal on Dec. 19.

“What is happening now will not have an effect on the talks or the agreement with the IMF,” Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr told a joint news conference in Berlin with his German counterpart Guido Westerwelle. “There is an Egyptian consensus that this agreement must be pushed through.”

A spokeswoman for the IMF said on Tuesday its board would require that there be no major change in Egypt’s economic outlook or economic policy when it considers approving the loan.

Egypt has said it plans to rein in its budget deficit from about 11 percent of gross domestic product in 2011/12 to 8.5 percent in the financial year that ends in June 2014 by better targeting subsidies and expanding the country’s tax base.

Two people have been killed and hundreds injured in countrywide protests ignited by the decree Mursi issued last Thursday, which gave him sweeping powers and placed them beyond legal challenge.

Westerwelle said Amr had indicated the Egyptian government’s willingness to find a solution.

“The independence of the justice system and the rule of law is an essential element for us. We welcome that our Egyptian colleague emphasized to us the spirit of consensus,” he said.

“The Cassation Court will suspend its work starting today,” the court’s vice chairman, Abdel Nasser Abu al-Wafa, said after a meeting of the court’s top officials.

Khaled Abdellah, a judge in the Cairo and Giza Appeals Court, said after a similar meeting that his court would also suspend its work “except in cases related to corruption and personal laws”.

There were chaotic scenes in both meetings as judges, divided over the Constitutional Court’s latest statement, argued over what to do.

A spokesman for the Supreme Constitutional Court, which declared the Islamist-led parliament void earlier this year, said on Wednesday that it felt under attack by the president.

“We did not find the Constitutional Court’s statement of simply condemning President Mursi’s decree enough,” Abu al-Wafa told Reuters after the meeting. “We are deciding on the next step after suspending work.”

An Egyptian court convicted in absentia Wednesday seven Egyptian Coptic Christians and a Florida-based American pastor, sentencing them to death on charges linked to an anti-Islam film that had sparked riots in parts of the Muslim world. (from yahoo.com)

The case was seen as largely symbolic because the defendants, most of whom live in the United States, are all outside Egypt and are thus unlikely to ever face the sentence. The charges were brought in September during a wave of public outrage in Egypt over the amateur film, which was produced by an Egyptian-American Copt. The low-budget “Innocence of Muslims,” parts of which were made available online, portrays the Prophet Muhammad as a fraud, womanizer and buffoon.

Egypt’s official news agency said the court found the defendants guilty of harming national unity, insulting and publicly attacking Islam and spreading false information — charges that carry the death sentence. Maximum sentences are common in cases tried in absentia in Egypt. Capital punishment decisions are reviewed by the country’s chief religious authority, who must approve or reject the sentence. A final verdict is scheduled on Jan. 29.

The man behind the film, Mark Basseley Youssef, was among those convicted. He was sentenced in a California court earlier this month to one year in federal prison for probation violations in an unrelated matter. Youssef, 55, admitted that he had used several false names in violation of his probation order and obtained a driver’s license under a false name. He was on probation for a bank fraud case. Multiple calls to Youssef’s attorney in Southern California, Steve Seiden, were not returned Wednesday.

Florida-based Terry Jones, another of those sentenced, is the pastor of Dove World Outreach, a church of less than 50 members in Gainesville, Fla., not far from the University of Florida. He has said he was contacted by the filmmaker to promote the film, as well as Morris Sadek, a conservative Coptic Christian in the U.S. who posted the video clips on his website. In a telephone interview Wednesday, Jones said the ruling “shows the true face of Islam” — one that he views as intolerant of dissent and opposed to basic freedoms of speech and religion. “We can speak out here in America,” Jones said. “That freedom means that we criticize government leadership, religion even at times. Islam is not a religion that tolerates any type of criticism.”

In a statement sent to The Associated Press Wednesday, Sadek, who fled Egypt 10 years ago and is now a Coptic activist living in Chantilly, Virginia., denied any role in the creation, production or financing of the film. He said the verdict “shows the world that the Muslim Brotherhood regime wants to shut up all the Coptic activists, so no one can demand Copts’ rights in Egypt.” Coptic Christians make up most of Egypt’s Christian minority, around 10 percent of the country’s 83 million. They complain of state discrimination. Violent clashes break out occasionally over land disputes, worshipping rights and love affairs between Muslims and Christians.

The connection to the film of the other five sentenced by the court was not immediately clear. They include two who work with Sadek at a radical Coptic group in the U.S. that has called for an independent Coptic state, a priest who hosts TV programs from the U.S. and a lawyer living in Canada who has previously sued the Egyptian state over riots in 2000 that left 21 Christians dead. In a phone interview, one of the men sentenced who works with Sadek, Fikry Zaklama, said he had nothing to do with the film and hadn’t even seen it. “When I went to look at it (on the Internet), they told me it had been taken down,” said Zaklama, 65, a Coptic activist and retired physician who practiced in Jersey City, N.J. “I’m not interested. I’m not a clergyman. I’m a political guy.”

Nader Fawzy, a 53-year old jewelry store manager (sic! 6/66) and president of an international Coptic rights organization from Toronto, Canada, said he planned to file a lawsuit against the Egyptian government in Canada for what he said was a wrongful prosecution. He said he’s terrified of being kidnapped and spirited to Egypt. Fawzy, who came to Canada in 2002 from Sweden and lost his Egyptian citizenship in 1992, denied any involvement in the film. He said the Egyptian government has long been out to get him because of his Coptic Christian activism. “Of course, I’m worried about this death penalty,” Fawzy said, adding that the verdict has limited his ability to travel freely. “Who will give me guarantees that the Egyptian government will not try to kidnap me, to take me to Egypt?”

The other person is a woman who converted to Christianity and is a staunch critic of Islam. The official news agency report said that during the trial, the court reviewed a video of some defendants calling for an independent Coptic state in Egypt, and another of Jones burning the Quran, Islam’s holy book. The prosecutor asked for the maximum sentence, accusing those charged of seeking to divide Egypt and incite sedition. All the defendants, except Jones, hold Egyptian nationality, the agency added. Some Christians and human rights groups worry that prosecutions for insulting religion, which existed to a degree under the secular-leaning regime of deposed President Hosni Mubarak, will increase with the ascent of Islamists to power in Egypt.

The rebel group M23 has entered the city of Goma in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, continuing their advance against government and United Nations troops. The rebels say they have taken the airport and witnesses say they are near the city center. (from voanews.com)

After days of fighting, M23 rebels have succeeded in their drive against the Congolese army and U.N. peacekeepers and advanced into the capital of North Kivu province.

While the exact situation in Goma is fluid, all accounts say that the rebels are gaining ground.

M23 making advances

Some residents and several journalists confirm M23’s claim to have taken the airport, on the eastern side of the town. Journalists say the rebels also have captured one of the two main border crossings from Goma to Rwanda, also on the eastern side of town.

Congo analyst Thierry Vircoulon of the International Crisis Group said the situation is taking a dire turn for the worse.

“My feeling is that the city is about to fall and we’ll know that during the course of the day, that’s for sure,” said Vircoulon. “And there have been exchanges of fire between Rwanda and the DRC, which means we may not be very far from an open conflict between the two countries.”