World Briefs: Soldiers kill two top terrorists

KANO — Soldiers manning a checkpoint in northern Nigeria fatally shot two ranking members of a radical Islamist sect responsible for hundreds of killings this year alone, a military official said Monday.

The dead included the spokesman for the sect known as Boko Haram, as well as a commander who operates in Kogi state south of Nigeria’s capital, the official said. The killings could prove to be a boon to Nigeria’s security forces, which remain largely unable to stop guerrilla attacks and bombings by the sect, which killed another 13 people over the weekend, authorities said.

The shooting occurred Monday morning in Mariri, a town to the southeast of Kano, the largest city in Nigeria’s Muslim north. Soldiers stopped a vehicle with the sect spokesman, the commander, the spokesman’s wife and their children, the official said. It is unclear what happened next, though the official said soldiers fatally shot both the commander and the spokesman. The wife and children remain in military custody, the official said.

KENYA

Man pleads guilty to possessing bombs

NAIROBI — A Kenyan man pleaded guilty Monday to possessing six bombs and four suicide vests and belonging to al Shabab, the Somali Islamist extremist group allied to al Qaeda that has threatened terrorist attacks in Kenya.

Abdi Majid Yassin Mohammed, 26, also known as Ali Hussein, had no defense attorney with him as he entered a guilty plea before magistrate Lucy Nyambura on charges that he was caught engaging in an organized criminal activity by being a member of al Shabab, which has been outlawed in Kenya. The United States designated it as a foreign terrorist organization in 2008.

Mohammed also admitted that he was in possession of the explosives, 12 grenades and 481 bullets but denied that he was in possession of four AK-47 rifles. Omar Abdi Ada, 24, also known as Salman Abdi, denied 10 charges against him including the weapons charges. The two suspects were not represented in court.

The judge ordered Mohammed be taken for a psychiatric examination and be arraigned in court Tuesday so that charges can be read to him again.

The suspects were arrested Friday in a raid on a house in a residential area that police said disrupted the final stages of planning of a major terrorist attack.

GERMANY

Lawmakers suspect neo-Nazi cover-up

BERLIN — German legislators Monday accused law enforcement officials of withholding information about a series of neo-Nazi murders that took place from 2000 to 2007.

The head of a parliamentary committee into the killings said Berlin police failed for months to tell lawmakers that they had an informer who was close to the group suspected of carrying out the murders.

Sebastian Edathy said Monday that officials appeared to have intentionally withheld the information, and he called it “the most serious failure yet by the authorities.”

Story Continues →