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Ali Youssef Ahmed Moghrabi

Ali Youssef Ahmed Moghrabi

al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades

Isreal-Palestine

20020527

Africa Horn

Kidnappers free Darfur aid workers: Official

2009-03-15

Four aid workers with the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) who were kidnapped in Sudan's Darfur region were released and are safe, a Sudanese government official said on Saturday. "It is confirmed," Ali Youssef Ahmed, head of protocol at the foreign ministry, told Reuters. "They have been released. They are safe. They are all right. They are still in Darfur but will be transferred to Khartoum." The workers -- an Italian doctor, a Canadian nurse, French administrator and a Sudanese staffer -- were kidnapped on Wednesday in Saraf Umra, in North Darfur. Armed men seized the staff from the Belgian arm of MSF from their base in north Darfur on Wednesday, sending shockwaves through the region's humanitarian community. According to a source close to the dealings with the kidnappers, the freed aid workers have reached the main Darfur city of El-Fasher. "They will be taken to Khartoum later in the day or on Sunday," Yussef said. The abductions came at a time of rising tension in Sudan, following the International Criminal Court's decision to issue an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir to face charges of orchestrating war crimes in Darfur. Sudan expelled 13 international aid groups from the north of the country after the warrant was issued, accusing them of passing information to the court, an accusation the groups deny. MSF's Dutch and French arms were ordered to leave but its Belgian operation was not expelled. Aid groups have said they have faced growing antagonism in Darfur since the arrest warrant was issued.

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Africa North

Bandits transfer Egypt tourist hostages to Libya

2008-09-26

The group of 19 hostages including 11 European tourists were transferred to Libya and the Sahara kidnappers holding them may be from one of the many rebel groups in Sudan's war-torn Darfur area, a Sudanese government spokesman said on Thursday. "There are indications that they may have been one of the rebel factions from Darfur," said Ali Youssef Ahmed, head of protocol in the Sudanese Foreign Ministry. The bandits have asked for Germany to be responsible for paying a ransom of six million euros, an Egyptian security official said on Thursday. "There are negotiations ongoing with the kidnappers now. The Egyptian negotiating team is working to get the hostages released in coordination with its Sudanese and German counterparts," the source told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press. "The kidnappers and the tourists have moved to Libya, about 13 to 15 kilometres (eight to nine miles) across the border," Yousuf told AFP. "All hostages are well, according to our information, and we are monitoring the situation." An Egyptian security official confirmed the group had moved. "They've been moved to Libya. Whether this is a release or a deepening of the crisis we don't know," he told AFP, asking not to be named. The group of five Germans, five Italians and a Romanian, as well as eight Egyptian drivers and guides, was snatched by masked bandits while on a desert safari from the Egyptian oasis of Dakhla to the Gilf al-Kabir plateau in the desert on Friday. The kidnapping, in a remote and thinly policed area near Egypt's borders with Sudan and Libya, is the first of its kind from Egyptian territory but has features in common with other kidnappings at the western end of the vast north African desert. The kidnappers have threatened to kill the hostages if authorities try to find them by plane, an Egyptian official said earlier the week, although the country's tourism minister was quoted on state media denying there was any such threat. There has been contradictory information about the identity of the kidnappers. Egyptian officials have said the kidnappers could be Sudanese or Chadian, while Sudanese officials have said they believed the hostage takers were Egyptian. Through phone calls between the owner of the adventure tour company, who is held captive with the tourists, and his German-born wife in Cairo, the kidnappers have asked for the ransom. Analysts say the kidnappers do not appear to have political or ideological motives, unlike the militant Islamists who attacked tourist targets in the Nile Valley and the Sinai Peninsula in the 1990s. But the incident is an embarrassment to the Egyptian government, which counts preserving law and order in a troubled region as one of its major achievements. Tourism accounts for over 6 percent of Egypt's gross domestic product.

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Middle East

Mall boomer injures at least 20...

2002-05-27

A suspected Palestinian suicide bomber killed himself and injured up to 50 people when he blew himself up in a shopping parade in a Tel Aviv suburb, after the army stormed the West Bank town of Bethlehem in search of militants. At least 20 people were wounded, including a baby, when the bomber detonated his explosive device in the open mall, according to initial estimates by medical rescue teams. Either Yasser can't control it or he won't control it... Israeli media said as many as 50 were hurt in the first such attack on the town, just northwest of Tel Aviv. The radio said police were searching for a second suspected suicide bomber in the area. The attack came just hours after Israeli forces stormed Bethlehem in search of militants and netted one of the most wanted Palestinian suspects. Another two wanted Al-Aqsa men were also seized, including Ali Youssef Ahmed Moghrabi, 16, Ahmed's brother. The men are accused by Israel of organizing the suicide attack by a 16-year-old -- the youngest suicide bomber ever -- that killed two Israelis last Wednesday in a Tel Aviv suburb. Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said Arafat feared a renewed Israeli occupation of Ramallah, the scene of heavy clashes in last month's invasion which left the Palestinian leader under siege for a month. Has Yasser had a shower yet? Maybe he should bring some deodorant this time. An Israeli military source said another incursion into Qalqilya in the north of the West Bank was continuing and two suspects had been held. The army still encircled Tulkarem, north of Qalqilya, which it had occupied on Sunday while Palestinians also reported raids in Hebron and four nearby villages, where dozens were taken prisoner. The Israeli army had already moved in to Bethlehem twice over the weekend and trashed the home of Mohammad Shehadeh, local head of the Palestinian movement Islamic Jihad, who narrowly escaped capture. Golly. That's too bad about the house. Too bad there's not another line of work Mohammad could take up... Defence Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer said security forces were "preventing 90 percent of planned attacks, capturing two suicide bombers every day before they can strike. We hope now that 10 percent of cases where we have not succeeded will drop after the operations we have launched" in Tulkarem, Qalqilya and Bethlehem, he said. Yeah, well if they do, it won't be for long. Far be it from me to tell the IDF how to do their jobs, but unless they kill the Bigs, the attacks are going to continue. The lemmings Palestinians simply don't know how to do anything else. UPDATE: Two people are reported dead.

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