22 dead in Va. Tech shooting rampage

Associated Press

A gunman opened fire in a dorm and classroom at Virginia Tech on Monday, killing 21 people in the deadliest campus shooting in U.S. history. The gunman also was killed.

“Today the university was struck with a tragedy that we consider of monumental proportions,” said Virginia Tech president Charles Steger. “The university is shocked and indeed horrified.”

The university reported shootings at opposite sides of the 2,600-acre campus, beginning at about 7:15 a.m. at West Ambler Johnston, a co-ed residence hall that houses 895 people, and continuing about two hours later at Norris Hall, an engineering building.

Some but not all the dead were students. One student was killed in a dorm and the others were killed in the classroom, said Virginia Tech Police Chief W.R. Flinchum.

The name of the gunman was not released. It was not known if he was a student.

NBC's Pete Williams said two law enforcement officials told him the gunman killed himself. They also said the gunman used two 9-mm handguns during the rampage, Williams reported. He said the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms was trying to track the weapons.

Up until Monday, the deadliest campus shooting in U.S. history took place in 1966 at the University of Texas, where Charles Whitman climbed to the 28th-floor observation deck of a clock tower and opened fire. He killed 16 people before he was gunned down by police. In the Columbine High bloodbath near Littleton, Colo., in 1999, two teenagers killed 12 fellow students and a teacher before taking their own lives.

After Monday’s shootings at Virginia Tech, all entrances to the campus were closed.

The university set up a meeting place for families to reunite with their children at the Inn at Virginia Tech. It also made counselors available and planned a convocation for Tuesday at the Cassell Coliseum basketball arena.

After the shootings, students were told to stay inside away from the windows.

“There’s just a lot of commotion. It’s hard to tell exactly what’s going on,” said Jason Anthony Smith, 19, who lives in the dorm where shooting took place.

Aimee Kanode, a freshman from Martinsville, said the shooting happened on the 4th floor of West Ambler Johnston dormitory, one floor above her room. Kanode’s resident assistant knocked on her door about 8 a.m. to notify students to stay put.

“They had us under lockdown,” Kanode said. “They temporarily lifted the lockdown, the gunman shot again.”

“We’re all locked in our dorms surfing the Internet trying to figure out what’s going on,” Kanode said.

Madison Van Duyne, a student who was interviewed by telephone on CNN, said, “We are all in lockdown. Most of the students are sitting on the floors away from the windows just trying to be as safe as possible.”

Police said there had been bomb threats on campus over the past two weeks but they had not determined a link to the shootings.

It was second time in less than a year that the campus was closed because of a shooting.

In August 2006, the opening day of classes was canceled and the campus closed when an escaped jail inmate allegedly killed a hospital guard off campus and fled to the Tech area. A sheriff’s deputy involved in the manhunt was killed on a trail just off campus.

The accused gunman, William Morva, faces capital murder charges.

Violence as Nigerians go to Polls

By Leattle Pablo (Paul Abojeh)

The first phase of the Nigerian polls – for Governorship and House of Representatives – has been conducted successfully, but not without some outbreaks of violence and demonstration in some states.

So far, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has emerged winner in most of the states whose results have been released. Other winners are the All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP) and the Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA) in Zamfara and Abia states, respectively.

These results seem to be the element that sparked off the demonstrations and violence, as many party supporters, protested on the streets citing rigging and electoral misconduct. There were protests in Osun, Ondo and Oyo states of Nigeria, with cases of journalists being attacked and women going almost half naked in protest.

There were more serious cases of violence in some states during the polling process.

Benin City, Edo State - There was vandalization of police vehicles with cases of violence. Three people were reported dead. The Labour Congress Party gubernatorial candidate Comrade Adams Oshiomole also reported in an interview with AIT journalists, that thugs working for the PDP stormed the polling stations brandishing sophisticated automatic weapons and escorted by policemen. Television reports also showed demolitions in some places.

Warri, Delta State - Violence was reported here; a policeman was shot and pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. The shooting occurred during the polling process. Two police stations were burnt down.

Port Harcourt, Rivers State - Six policemen were shot dead in a violent attack during the polling exercise. The thugs are yet to be identified.

Kaduna, Kaduna State - I visited a number of polling units and observed that on a large proportion, the exercise was conducted amicably. There was however unpleasant occurrences at some polling units. There was the case of someone showing up at a polling unit and smearing indelible ink on already used ballot papers. These ballot papers were consequently cancelled.

Abuja, FCT - There was a case of an attempt to steal a ballot box, but the police intervened and the intruder was arrested. It was not stated who the individual was working for.

There were other cases of violence in some other states that were not covered in this report. The death toll nationwide is estimated at 40 persons. Besides these unpleasant occurrences, the exercise was successful.

Visiting some polling units in Kaduna, at night, I found party agents at the units up till 10:00PM Saturday night, making sure that the counting of votes was fair and transparent. It is encouraging to note that Nigerians are now taking national issues, seriously.

Keep your eyes glued to the news; I hope to keep you posted as events unfold.

*I regret the absence of photos and (or) videos. I couldn’t get any of these as I had no available camera or cam coder. Some of the information here was gotten from the African Independent Television (AIT) reports.

Virginia Tech reports shooting, 1 killed

Associated Press

A shooting at a Virginia Tech dorm Monday left one person dead and one wounded, a state government official with knowledge of the case told The Associated Press.

A gunman was "loose on the campus" the state university said on its Web site. The advisory said a shooting had occurred at a residence hall and that students should stay in their homes away from windows.

"There's just a lot of commotion. It's hard to tell exactly what's going on," said student Jason Anthony Smith, 19, who lives in the building where shooting took place.

The shooting was reported at West Ambler Johnston Hall.

Officials ordered the campus closed, the second time in less than a year the 26,000-student campus was shut because of a shooting.

In August 2006, the opening day of classes was canceled and the campus closed when an escaped jail inmate allegedly killed a hospital guard off campus and fled to the Tech area. A sheriff's deputy involved in the manhunt was killed on a trail just off campus.

The accused gunman, William Morva, faces capital murder charges.

Suicide truck bomb collapses Baghdad bridge

10 people reported killed as explosion sends cars crashing into Tigris river

Associated Press

A suicide truck bomb exploded on a major bridge in Baghdad early Thursday, collapsing the steel structure and sending cars toppling into the Tigris River below, police and witnesses said. At least 10 people were killed.

Hospital officials said another 26 were injured, and police were trying to rescue as many as 20 people whose cars plummeted off the al-Sarafiya bridge.

Waves lapped up against twisted girders sinking into the water, as police patrol boats searched for survivors. Scuba divers donned flippers and waded in from the banks of the Tigris, as U.S. helicopters whirred overhead.

Farhan al-Sudani, a 34-year-old Shiite businessman who lives near the bridge, said the blast woke him at dawn.

“A huge explosion shook our house and I thought it would demolish our house. Me and my wife jumped immediately from our bed, grabbed our three kids and took them outside,” he said.

The al-Sarafiya bridge connected two northern Baghdad neighborhoods — Waziriyah, a mostly Sunni enclave, and Utafiyah, a Shiite area.

Police said the attack was by a suicide truck bomber, but Associated Press Television News footage showed the bridge broken apart in two places — perhaps the result of two blasts.

'One of Baghdad’s monuments'
Cement pilings that support the bridge’s steel structure were left crumbling. At the base of one of them laid a charred vehicle engine, believed to be that of the truck bomb.

“We were astonished more when we saw the extent of damage,” said Ahmed Abdul-Karim, 45, who also lives near the bridge. “I was standing in my garden and I saw the smoke and flying debris.”

Locals said the al-Sarafiya bridge is believed to be at least 75 years old, built by the British in the early part of the 20th century.

“It is one of Baghdad’s monuments. This is really damaging for Iraq. We are losing a lot of our history every day,” Abdul-Karim said.

Deadly blast rocks Iraqi parliament, at least 8 dead

In stunning security breach, bomber detonates explosives inside cafeteria

Associated Press

A suspected suicide bomber blew himself up in the Iraqi parliament cafeteria in a stunning assault in the heart of the heavily fortified, U.S.-protected Green Zone on Thursday, killing at least eight people, the American military said. At least two lawmakers, and at least 10 other people were wounded.

Thursday's attack came hours after a suicide truck bomb exploded on a major bridge in Baghdad, collapsing the steel structure and sending cars tumbling into the Tigris River below, police and witnesses said. At least 10 people were killed in that attack.

Iraqi officials said the bomber struck the cafeteria while several lawmakers were eating lunch.

After the blast, security guards sealed the building and no one — including lawmakers — was allowed to enter or leave.

A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad said no Americans were hurt in the blast.

The bombing came amid the two-month-old security crackdown in Baghdad, which has sought to restore stability in the capital so that the government of Iraq can take key political steps by June 30 or face a withdrawal of American support.

U.S. officials react
Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said witness accounts indicated a suicide attack. “We don’t know at this point who it was. We do know in the past that suicide vests have been used predominantly by al-Qaida,” the U.S. military spokesman said in an Associated Press broadcast interview.

At White House, National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe condemned the attack by “terrorists and extremists.”

“We’ve known there’s a security problem in Baghdad, which is why the president has structured a new strategy and why Gen. (David) Petraeus and his commanders are carrying it out,” added Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. “But this is still early in the process and I don’t think anybody expected there would not be counterefforts by terrorists to undermine the security progress we’re trying to make.”

Sunni, Shiite are fatalities
One of the dead lawmakers was Mohammed Awad, a member of the Sunni National Dialogue Front, said Saleh al-Mutlaq, the leader of the party, which holds 11 seats in Iraq’s legislature. A female Sunni lawmaker from the same list was wounded, he said.

A security official at the building said a second lawmaker, a Shiite member, also was killed. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

But Mukhlis al-Zamili of the Shiite Fadhila party said the second dead lawmaker was a Kurd, adding that six of those wounded were members of the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s bloc.

Al-Zamili also said he believed a suicide bomber wearing an explosive vest was behind the attack.

Another member of the National Dialogue Front, Mohammed al-Dayni, also suggested a suicide bomber was behind it.

“I am standing now at the site of the explosion and looking at the severed legs of the person who carried out the operation. If this tells us anything, it tells us that security is lax,” al-Dayni told Iraq’s Sharqiya television.

Earlier in the day, security officials used dogs to check people entering the building in a rare precaution — apparently concerned that an attack might take place.

Green Zone penetrable
The brazen bombing was the clearest evidence yet that militants can penetrate even the most secure locations. Masses of U.S. and Iraqi soldiers are on the streets in the ninth week of a security crackdown in the capital and security measures inside the Green Zone have been significantly hardened.

The U.S. military reported April 1 that two suicide vests were found in the heavily fortified region that also houses the U.S. Embassy and offices of the Iraqi government. A militant rocket attack last month killed two Americans, a soldier and a contractor. A few days earlier, a rocket landed within 100 yards of a building where U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was holding a news conference. No one was hurt.

Khalaf al-Ilyan, one of the three leaders of the Iraqi Accordance Front, which holds 44 seats, said the attack was “aimed at everyone — all parties — our parliament in general being a symbol and a representative of all segments of Iraqi society.”

Al-Ilyan, who is in Jordan recovering from knee surgery, said the blast also “underlines the failure of the government’s security plan.”

“The plan is 100 percent a failure. It’s a complete flop. The explosion means that instability and lack of security has reached the Green Zone, which the government boasts is heavily fortified,” he said.

U.S. Embassy spokesman Lou Fintor said its officials were “investigating the nature and source of the explosion. No embassy employees or U.S. citizens were affected.”

Attacks in the Green Zone are rare.

The worst known attack inside the enclave occurred Oct. 14, 2004, when insurgents detonated explosives at a market and a popular cafe, killing six people. That was the first bombing in the sprawling region.

On Nov. 25, 2004, a mortar attack inside the zone killed four employees of a British security firm and wounded at least 12.

On Jan. 29, 2005, insurgents hit the U.S. Embassy compound with a rocket, killing two Americans — a civilian and a Navy sailor — on the eve of landmark elections. Four other Americans were wounded.

Bridge rescue attempts
In addition to killing 10 people, Thursday’s bombing of the al-Sarafiya bridge wounded 26, hospital officials said, and police were trying to rescue as many as 20 people whose cars plummeted off the span.

The al-Sarafiya bridge connected two northern Baghdad neighborhoods — Waziriyah, a mostly Sunni enclave, and Utafiyah, a Shiite area.

Police blamed the attack on a suicide truck bomber, but AP Television News video showed the bridge broken in two places — perhaps the result of two blasts.

Cement pilings that support the steel structure were left crumbling. At the base of one lay a charred vehicle engine, believed to be that of the truck bomb.

“We were astonished more when we saw the extent of damage,” said Ahmed Abdul-Karim, 45, who also lives near the bridge. “I was standing in my garden and I saw the smoke and flying debris.”

23 dead in 2 bombings in Algeria

By AOMAR OUALI, Associated Press Writer

Bombs heavily damaged the prime minister's office and a police station Wednesday, killing at least 23 people and wounding about 160, the country's official news agency said. Al-Qaida's wing in North Africa claimed responsibility.

Prime Minister Abdelaziz Belkhadem, who was unhurt, called the attack a "cowardly, criminal terrorist act" as he spoke to reporters outside his wrecked offices.

The attacks were a devastating setback for the North African nation's efforts to close the chapter on its Islamic insurgency that has killed 200,000 people. After years of relative calm, the al-Qaida affiliate recently has recently waged several smaller attacks in the oil- and gas-rich nation.

According to Arab broadcaster Al-Jazeera, a spokesman for al-Qaida in Islamic North Africa claimed responsibility for the attacks, saying they were carried out by three suicide bombers in trucks packed with explosives. The spokesman said the bombers targeted three sites: the government headquarters in Algiers and the Interpol offices and a special police forces building in the suburb of Bab Ezzouar.

Belkhadem declined to say how many had been killed or wounded. The official APS agency said at least 23 people were killed and 160 wounded in the two attacks, but gave no breakdown. The other bombing targeted the police station of Bab Ezzouar, east of the capital, Algiers, on the road to its airport.

Witnesses said at least one of the attacks appeared to have been a car bomb.

A charred, wrecked car lay on the pavement about 98 feet from the gates of the government building — a modern white, block-like high-rise that also houses the Interior Ministry.

On Tuesday in neighboring Morocco, police surrounded a building in Casablanca where four terrorism suspects were holed up, causing three to flee and blow themselves up with explosives. The fourth was shot to death by a police sharpshooter as he apparently tried to detonate his bomb. A police officer was killed and 10 people, including a young child and a policeman, suffered injuries.

Since five suicide bombings that killed 45 people in Morocco in May 2003, police have pursued an unprecedented crackdown on suspected militants, arresting thousands of people, including some accused of working with al-Qaida and its affiliates to plot attacks in Morocco and abroad.

Algeria's insurgency broke out in 1992, after the army canceled legislative elections that an Islamic party appeared set to win.

Since then, violence related to the insurgency has left an estimated 200,000 dead — civilians, soldiers and Islamic fighters — according to the government.

Military crackdowns and amnesty offers had turned them into a ragtag assembly of fighters in rural hideouts, and for several years, the government appeared to have them basically under control.

Algeria's main militant group recently changed its name to Al-Qaida in Islamic North Africa and began targeting foreigners — signs that the country's dwindling ranks of Islamic fighters were regrouping.

The latest attacks, especially on Belkhadem's office, showed that the militants are far from beaten, even though experts say that they number perhaps no more than several hundred people.

Belkhadem expressed bitterness at insurgents who refused the amnesty offers.

"The Algerian people stretched out a hand to them, and they respond with a terrorist act," he said.

Al-Jazeera said its office in Rabat, Morocco, received a telephone call from a spokesman for al-Qaida in Islamic North Africa, identified as Abu Mohammed Salah, who claimed responsibility for the attacks.

The caller said that the explosions were carried out by three al-Qaeda members in trucks "filled" with explosives. His claims could not be independently confirmed.

"We won't rest until every inch of Islamic land is liberated from foreign forces," the spokesman said in a recording of the phone call played on Al-Jazeera.

On an Islamic militant Web site, the group showed pictures of the three suicide bombers who allegedly carried out the attack, codenamed the "Badr Raid," after a famed 7th century battle by the Prophet Muhammad and the first Muslims against his opponents, according to Al-Jazeera and the SITE Institute, a U.S. group that monitors militants' messages.

In the photos, provided by the SITE Institute, each bomber — identified as Muadh bin Jabal, al-Zubair Abu Sajda and Abu Dajjana — was shown sitting with automatic rifles propped on the wall on either side of him. Abu Sajda and Abu Dajjana had green scarves covering their faces, showing only their eyes. Abu Sajda and bin Jabal were wearing suicide vests.

Fayza Kebdi, a lawyer who works in an office opposite the government building, said the blast, about 10:45 a.m. local time, shattered her windows and blew her husband clear across the room.

"We thought the years of terrorism were over," she said. "We thought that everything was back to normal. But now, the fear is coming back."

The attacks were the deadliest to hit the Algiers region since 2002, when a bomb in a market in a suburb killed 38 people and injured 80.

Police cordoned off stairs leading up to the government building with orange police tape, and paramedics raced up the steps with stretchers. Paramedics escorted a man with blood on his head into an ambulance. Another woman, looking dazed and in tears, was checked for head injuries.

A March 3 bombing of a bus carrying workers for a Russian company killed a Russian engineer and three Algerians. A December attack near Algiers and targeting a bus carrying foreign employees of an affiliate of Halliburton killed an Algerian and a Lebanese citizen.

Al-Qaida in Islamic North Africa — the new name for the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, known by its French abbreviation GSPC — claimed responsibility for both attacks.

Taliban nets millions from poppy harvests

By JASON STRAZIUSO, Associated Press Writer

When the Taliban ordered Afghanistan's fields cleared of opium poppies seven years ago because of Islam's ban on drugs, fearful farmers complied en masse.

Today, officials say the militia nets tens of millions by forcing farmers to plant poppies and taxing the harvest, driving the country's skyrocketing opium production to fund the fight against what they consider an even greater evil — U.S. and NATO troops.

"Drugs are bad. The Quran is very clear about it," said Gafus Scheltem, NATO's political adviser in southern Afghanistan. But to fight the enemy, he said, "all things are allowed. They need money and the only way they can get money is from Arabs that support them in the (Persian) Gulf, or poppies."

Corrupt government officials, both low-level police and high-level leaders, also protect the drug trade in exchange for bribes, a recent U.N. report found. Warlords and major landowners welcome the instability the Taliban brings to the country's southern regions, causing poppy eradication efforts to fail.

The Taliban denies it supports poppies. Mullah Abdul Qassim, a top commander in Helmand province, told The Associated Press last month that the militia's goal is to defeat foreign troops and it doesn't have time to regulate poppies. He noted that the militia virtually eliminated poppies after leader Mullah Omar banned them in July 2000.

Diplomats at the time believed the Taliban, pariahs because of their violations of human rights standards, was seeking international respectability and financial aid. Washington sent $43 million in emergency funds to Afghanistan after poppy growing was banned.

But Western officials say it appears the ban was meant at least in part to increase the price of opium stockpiles.

"Originally they said 'It's bad for you, it's against Islam,' but when they realized how much money they could make off of it they said it was OK to grow but not consume it. That's the hypocrisy of it," said Spc. Zach Khan, a cultural adviser in the U.S. Army who was born in Pakistan and lives in Nashville, Tenn.

The Taliban is also telling farmers in the south they must grow poppies but if the militia returns to power, the plants will once again be outlawed, said a Western official familiar with Afghanistan's drug trade who asked not to be identified because of the nature of his job.

Afghanistan's opium crop grew 59 percent in 2006 to 407,000 acres, yielding a record crop of 6,100 tons, enough to make 610 tons of heroin — 90 percent of the world's supply, according to the U.N. Western and Afghan officials say they expect a similar crop this year.

The street value of the heroin was estimated at $3.5 billion, said Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime. Of that, Afghan farmers earned an estimated $700 million last year, while the bulk of the rest went to traffickers who smuggled the drugs to the Middle East and Europe.

No one knows the Taliban's exact take from poppy cultivation, and guesses range from the low tens of millions of dollars to an estimate of $140 million by Gen. Khodaidad, Afghanistan's deputy minister for counter-narcotics. His figure was based on various Taliban taxes that could add up to 20 percent of the farmers' $700 million.

The Taliban uses the money to buy weapons and pay soldiers, and as one Western official put it: "You can buy quite a bit of insurgency for $10 million."

In Helmand province — the Taliban's main stronghold — poppy farmer Karimullah Khan said the traditional religious tax, called an oshar, used to be paid to religious leaders. Now, he said, "If the government is weak in some districts, and the Taliban is stronger, we give the oshar to the Taliban."

For farmers, poppies pay up to 10 times as much as wheat. Militants protect the poppy fields, and corrupt government officials are paid to turn a blind eye.

"The Taliban need the money and the narco-traffickers need the instability. In chaos, there's profit," U.S. Army Lt. Col. Brian Mennes said during a recent mission in southern Afghanistan.

The Taliban takes a cut all along the way — a percentage at harvest, at heroin labs, and to ensure the crop's passage through dangerous lands, said Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime.

"Now if you put all these percentages together, out of an opium economy of about $3.5 billion, you get a significant amount of money which could be potentially seen as the funding of terrorism," Costa said last month.

Of five poppy farmers in southern Afghanistan that spoke to The Associated Press, three paid bribes to the Taliban and to local police, who work for the Afghan Interior Ministry, which a U.N. report said has many officials involved in the drug trade.

Some farmers paid in opium, others in cash. Two farmers who live in more secure areas paid local clerics a 10 percent religious tax.

The mountain town of Chinar straddles the Kandahar-Helmand border and is anchored by a large, mud-brick compound housing district police headquarters. Twenty yards away sits a large field of flourishing poppies, with other fields all around. Khan said most farmers are forced to grow the crop by the Taliban — but the police are also implicated.

Capt. Said Farad, an Afghan army commander based just outside the town on a recent NATO operation, said the district chief in the region has to cooperate with the Taliban or face death. The last three chiefs sent here by the governor were killed, he said.

"The police definitely have a hand in the poppies. Those two police vehicles near the compound help with the drug smuggling and run supplies for the Taliban," Farad said. "Nobody will kill the current chief because he has a deal with the Taliban."

At a recent council of elders put together by U.S. forces operating around Chinar, a man with a black turban and gray beard defended the residents.

"The only problem with these people is poverty. Whatever they're doing they're doing out of poverty," he said.

Farid Jan, a poppy farmer in the Panjwayi district of Kandahar, said he pays 10 percent of his crop to the Taliban and negotiates a separate percentage for police.

Last year, a pound of opium fetched up to $100 in the province, though less in other areas, the U.N. said. This year, Jan expects to earn $130,000 — before "taxes" — on his land, 10 times what he would make from wheat.

"Now you tell me what's the best crop for us?" he said.