In addition to the dead, Health Ministry officials said more than 1,000 people were injured, some from a stampede in the stadium. Locker rooms were turned into makeshift field hospitals, and by around 10 p.m. armored state security vehicles had arrived to transport the visiting team and its fans — from Cairo’s Ahly club — safely out of Port Said.

The newly seated Egyptian Parliament, which had adjourned until Monday, called a special session Thursday to discuss a response to the episode, and several other planned matches were immediately postponed.

The mayhem also focused renewed attention on the potential savagery of organized groups of die-hard fans, known here as ultras, who have emerged as a volatile component of Egyptian politics in the year of turmoil since Mr. Mubarak left power.

Previously apolitical, the ultras were known for their rowdy behavior, obscene chants and apparently endless enthusiasm for clashes with the often-brutal Egyptian police. “ACAB,” one group of Cairo ultras likes to spray-paint on city walls, standing for “All Cops are Bastards.”

The ultras joined the revolt against Mr. Mubarak on the first day of protests, taunting and harassing the police as they tried to crack down on thousands of other marchers heading for Cairo’s Tahrir Square. Protest organizers said they played a more central role in the so-called battle of the camels, helping beat back mobs of Mubarak supporters, some of them riding camels, in a daylong battle of rocks and Molotov cocktails.

Since then, however, the ultras have injected an unpredictable element of chaos into the frequent demonstrations over the course of the political transition here. They drove an assault on the Israeli Embassy that triggered a crisis in relations between the two countries last fall. They joined a weeklong battle with security forces near Tahrir Square that left more than 40 dead in November, and another outburst of street fighting near the cabinet building in which more than 15 people died in December.

NYT

Much of the violence was focused in Homs, where heavy gunfire hammered the city Friday in a second day of chaos. A day earlier, the city saw a flare-up of sectarian kidnappings and slayings, and pro-regime forces blasted residential buildings with mortars and gunfire, according to activists who said an entire family was killed.

Video posted online by activists showed the bodies of five small children, five women of varying ages and a man, all bloodied and piled on beds in what appeared to be an apartment after a building was hit in the Karm el-Zaytoun neighbourhood of the city. A narrator said an entire family had been “slaughtered.”

Agencies

It was the group’s most deadly strike, far exceeding previous death tolls.

Boko Haram, which wants to impose sharia, or Islamic law, on Nigeria’s 160 million people, killed more than 500 people in almost daily attacks last year. Before Friday’s violence, it had killed more than 70 people this month.

U.S. officials have expressed fear that the group, whose name means “Western education is sacrilege,” may be getting support and training from Al Qaeda affiliates on the continent, given the increasing sophistication of its attacks and growing use of suicide bombers.

Nigeria is divided between the mainly Muslim north and the oil-rich, mainly Christian south. It has been plagued by terrorist attacks in the north as well as by sectarian killings, particularly in central Nigeria, and violent insurgencies, oil theft and piracy in the southern Niger Delta.

President Goodluck Jonathan’s response to Friday’s attacks fueled criticism, with many accusing him of failing to act decisively to prevent such violence.

In a statement Saturday, the president condemned the attacks and promised to find and prosecute the insurgents.

“These are honest and patriotic Nigerians who were brutally and recklessly cut down by agents of terror. As a responsible government, we will not fold our hands and watch enemies of democracy, for that is what these mindless killers are, perpetrate unprecedented evil in our land,” the statement said. “I want to reassure Nigerians … that all those involved in that dastardly act will be made to face the full wrath of the law.”

Kano, Nigeria’s second-largest city, is honeycombed with narrow alleys with open gutters. The unemployment rate is high, particularly among youths, and the northern region has long felt alienated and marginalized by southern politicians.

Witnesses described scenes of mayhem Friday night as battles raged in various parts of the city.

An immigration official, who declined to be named, said he was wounded when Boko Haram gunmen attacked, killing two of his colleagues. He survived by pretending to be dead.

“They shot me on the right shin, shattering my bone and another bullet pierced my shoulder,” he said. “I remained motionless and they left me for dead.”

In hospital morgues, bodies were piled up, and throngs of relatives of those missing waited fearfully.

“We now have 162 bodies deposited here by relief workers,” an attendant said an attendant in a morgue, where corpses were piled on the blood-splattered floor nearby. “The figure is bound to increase, as the rescue teams keep recovering bodies from different parts of the city.”

The attacks increase pressure on the president for a resolution of the crisis. Jonathan, a southern Christian whose election last year triggered violent protests in the north, had declared a state of emergency in four northern states.

The president faced a barrage of criticism on social networks of his handling of the crisis, a week after he faced furious mass protests over his attempt to ditch a fuel subsidy that sets prices below the market rate.

“Dear Nigerians, I am more than convinced that President Goodluck is not only clueless but the entire Cabinet is,” one message on Twitter said.

Human rights lawyer Shehu Sani said in a phone interview that Nigerians were fed up with Jonathan’s failure to prevent the bombings and shootings.

“He has proven incapable of protecting the lives of our people,” Sani said. “Right now there’s a lot of anger not just against the sect but against the government, which is incapable of discharging its duties.”

LAT

Fierce clashes in the south between government troops and military defectors killed 11 soldiers dead, activists said. The Arab League also called on other armed parties to halt all bloodshed, an apparent reference to the defectors.

The ministerial committee called on “the Syrian government and various armed groups to immediately halt all forms of violence and to return to protesting peacefully for the success of the Arab League observers’ mission in Syria.”

Qatari Foreign Minister Sheik Hamad Bin Jassem Bin Jabr Al Thani said the ministers did not agree to call for U.N. experts to join the observers’ mission in Syria. But they will ask U.N. experts train the monitors before going in. Even had they called for the U.N. experts to go in, Syria’s regime may well have blocked them.

Five foreign ministers from the 22-member Arab League, who met in Cairo, also said the 165 Arab League monitors already on the ground in Syria need greater independence from the regime.

The monitors are supposed to be ensuring Syrian compliance with a plan to end the government’s crackdown on dissent. The Arab League plan calls on Syria to remove heavy weaponry, such as tanks, from all cities, free all political prisoners and allow in human rights organizations and foreign journalists. Syria agreed to the plan on Dec. 19.

But opposition activists say around 450 people have been killed by President Bashar Assad’s regime since observers began work in Syria nearly two weeks ago. The opposition charges that the regime is misleading the 165 observers and that the mission had done nothing to resolve the crisis.

Arab League Secretary General Nabil Elaraby said observers will continue their monthlong mission in Syria, despite claims by activists that the mission is giving cover to Assad’s crackdown on protesters and delaying further action from being taken.

The Qatari foreign minister told reporters after the meeting that the League is aware that the mission has not fulfilled its goal of stopping the bloodshed.

“Is what happened, ideal? We want to do more,” he said. “We know that the Syrian people have made a decision, but what we want is to lessen the losses, human losses.”

According to the U.N., more than 5,000 people have been killed since March when mostly peaceful anti-government protests began and drew a harsh military response from the government.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 11 soldiers died in intense fighting in the town of Basr al-Harir in southern Daraa province. More than 20 troops were wounded.

In Homs, seven civilians were killed by troops raiding houses and pro-government snipers on rooftops. A 15-year-old boy was among seven civilians killed, the Observatory said.

The Local Coordination Committees activist network and other activists confirmed the killings of civilians. In the Damascus suburb of Zabadani, two people were killed during raids that followed clashes with defectors, and in the eastern Deir el-Zour province, a 19-year-old was also killed during raids in pursuit of activists, the activists said.

The reports could not be independently confirmed as Syria has barred most foreign journalists from the country and tightly restricts the local media.

At the meeting, the head of the observers issued his first report on the mission, sharing photos, maps and initial findings.

While many of the anti-government protests sweeping the country since March remain peaceful, the Syrian uprising as a whole has become more violent in recent months as frustrated demonstrators take up arms to protect themselves from the steady military assault. An increasing number of army defectors also have launched attacks, killing soldiers and security forces.

The regime’s crackdown has led to broad worldwide condemnation and sanctions, weakened the economy and left President Bashar Assad an international pariah just as he was trying to open up his country and modernize the economy.

The government says that the turmoil in Syria is not an uprising but the work of terrorists and foreign-backed armed gangs.

The Arab League said it needs more monitors in Syria, but did not name an exact number. Initially, the League had requested to send 500 monitors, but so far Syria has allowed in just 165.

timesunion

The blast followed Thursday’s wave of explosions that killed at least 72 people in Baghdad in the first such attacks since a crisis erupted between Iraq’s Shi’ite-led government and Sunni rivals just days after the last U.S. troops withdrew.

The bomber drove his vehicle into a security cordon outside the ministry on Monday, detonating an explosion that left dead and wounded on the ground and set fire to nearby vehicles in central Baghdad, police said.

“When I went outside I found my colleagues, some of them were killed, others were on the ground, many cars were burned, the policeman on the watchtower looked like he was killed when he was hit in the head,” Zaid Raheem, a police guard, said.

Six people, including four policeman, were killed and 34 others were wounded, police said.

Shi’ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki a week ago sought the arrest of Sunni Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi and asked parliament to fire his Sunni deputy Saleh al-Mutlaq, triggering turmoil that threatens Iraq with a new wave of sectarian strife.

A senior police source said authorities believed insurgents were targeting the ministry because of the announcement of the arrest warrant for Hashemi.

He has left Baghdad for semi-autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan, where he is unlikely to be handed over to central government officials immediately.

Thursday’s explosions across the Iraqi capital targeted mainly Shi’ite areas and included at least one suicide car bomb and multiple roadside bombs.

Just a week after the last U.S. troops left, the crisis threatens to scuttle an uneasy power-sharing government that splits posts among the Shi’ite National Alliance coalition, the mostly Sunni-backed Iraqiya bloc and the Kurdish political movement.

U.S. officials, diplomats and Iraqi politicians have been in talks to end the dispute that threatens to push Iraq back into the kind of sectarian violence that took the OPEC member to the edge of civil war a few years ago.

Reuters

Previous media reports said that Tleiss died in a car accident.

He was due to be married this weekend, a source close to Tleiss said.

Christians protesting about an attack on a church set cars on fire, burned army vehicles and hurled rocks at military police who they said used heavy-handed tactics against them. It was some of the worst violence since the February uprising.

The violence casts a shadow over the imminent parliamentary election. Voting starts on November 28 with candidates due to begin registering during the week starting Wednesday.

The clashes also added to growing frustration among activists with the army who many Egyptians suspect wants to keep hold of the reins of power from behind the scenes even as it hands over day-to-day government. The army denies this.

“This is a dark day in the military’s history. This is betrayal, a conspiracy, murder,” Magdy el-Serafy wrote on Twitter where he and other Egyptians voiced frustration at the army’s handling of the protest.

The Health Ministry said the death toll had reached 24 with 213 injured, the official MENA news agency reported. It did not identify the dead but state television had earlier reported three soldiers were killed.

Prime Minister Essam Sharaf toured the area near the state television building where clashes erupted, MENA said, adding he spoke to those in the area to hear their accounts of events.

“What happened in front of the state TV building is exactly what happened on January 25,” wrote Muslim activist Asmaa Mahfouz, referring to the start of the anti-Mubarak uprising.

Christians, who make up 10 percent of Egypt’s roughly 80 million people, took to the streets after blaming Muslim radicals for partially demolishing a church in Aswan province last week. They also demanded the sacking of the province’s governor for failing to protect the building.

Tensions between Christians and Muslims have increased since the uprising. But Muslim and Christian activists said the violence Sunday was not due to sectarian differences but was directed at the army’s handling of the protest.

‘MALICIOUS CONSPIRACIES’

“Instead of advancing to build a modern state of democratic principles, we are back searching for security and stability, worrying that there are hidden hands, both domestic and foreign, seeking to obstruct the will of Egyptians in establishing a democracy,” Sharaf said on state television.

“We will not surrender to these malicious conspiracies and we will not accept reverting back,” he said in his address.

The cabinet said in a statement that it would “not let any group manipulate the issue of national unity in Egypt or delay the process of democratic transformation” which it said would begin with opening the doors to candidate nominations.

Cabinet spokesman Mohamed Hegazy told Reuters the cabinet would hold a special session Monday to discuss the events.

“The most important thing is to contain the situation, see the way forward and the necessary measures to avoid any ramifications,” Hegazy said, adding a committee of prominent figures from the church and Al-Azhar mosque would also meet.

Presidential candidate Amr Moussa and political groups said they would hold an emergency meeting Monday about the violence.

The army imposed a curfew on Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the focus for protests that brought down Mubarak, and the downtown area. It was set from 2 a.m. to 7 a.m., (0000-0500 GMT).

Pictures of smashed faces and dead bodies of what activists said were bodies run over by military vehicles circulated online, with angry comments comparing the violence used by the military to that of Mubarak’s hated police in the uprising.

“What happened today is unprecedented in Egypt. 17 corpses crushed by military tanks,” Hossam Bahgat, human rights activist tweeted from hospital. “I saw bodies missing hands and legs, heads twisted away or plastered to the ground.”

Protesters also took to the streets in Alexandria, Egypt’s second city.

The government appealed for calm. In comments published on his Facebook page, Sharaf said he had contacted security and church authorities about the situation, saying the one ones to benefit were the “enemies of the January revolution.”

Reuters

As more bloodletting gripped the country on Sunday, Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi said Syria has agreed to host him for a visit, to help push for a peaceful outcome to the crisis.

But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned that the five-nation BRICS group – Brazil, Russia,India, China and South Africa – are determined not to allow a Libyan-style solution in that country.

Activists said security forces cracking down on democracy protesters killed 12 people on Sunday during operations in northwestern and central Syria, including a woman.

The state news agency SANA also gave a toll of 12 dead – including six troops – when an “armed terrorist group” ambushed a bus in central Syria.

The unrest came as International Committee of the Red Cross chief Jakob Kellenberger met Foreign Minister Walid Muallem for a briefing on Syria’s efforts to “restore order” and introduce reforms, blaming “armed groups” for the unrest, SANA said.

Kellenberger’s office had said he was expected to meet President Bashar al-Assad to discuss access to prisoners and areas of unrest. The ICRC chief arrived on Saturday and was due to leave on Monday afternoon.

His office said that during a previous visit in June “an understanding was reached” for “enhanced access to areas of unrest, and negotiations would take place concerning ICRC visits to detainees”.

More than 2200 people have been killed in Syria since almost daily protests began on March 15, according to the United Nations, while human rights groups say more than 10,000 people are behind bars. AFP

smh

Rights activists said 80 civilians were killed in Sunday’s tank-backed assault in Hama , scene of a 1982 massacre. It was one of the bloodiest days of a five-month-old uprising against President Bashar Assad.

Tanks shelled a northeastern district of Hama on Monday, killing at least four civilians, two residents said.

“Moscow is seriously concerned by information about numerous casualties,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said. “The use of force against civilians and representatives of state structures is unacceptable and must cease.”

A U.S. official gave a blunt assessment.

“The authorities think that somehow they can prolong their existence by engaging in full armed warfare on their own citizens,” U.S. Press Attache J.J. Harder told Reuters

German Chancellor Angela Merkel joined a growing international outcry over the violence.

“Chancellor Merkel condemns in the strongest of terms the Syrian government’s action against its own civilian population,” government spokesman Christoph Steegmans said.

“(She) explicitly urges President Assad to halt the violence against his own people immediately,” he added.

Security forces, dominated by Assad’s minority Alawite sect, had besieged the Sunni Muslim city of 700,000 for nearly a month before Sunday’s crackdown on the eve of Ramadan, a holy month when Muslims fast in daylight hours.

Many people flock to mosque prayers at night, occasions which protesters may use to launch more frequent protests.

Foreign conspiracy?
In a letter to the military, Assad reiterated that Syria was facing a foreign conspiracy to sow sectarian strife designed to “tear Syria into small statelets that compete to satisfy those who worked to slice them up.”

“All of Syria’s honorable people are sure that we will emerge stronger from the crisis,” Assad said. “They wanted to wreak sectarian strife that destroys everything. We managed to prevent sectarian strife and examine ourselves to find out the errors and treat them.”

The 1982 Hama massacre instilled such fear that few Syrians were ready to challenge Assad family rule openly until this year, when many were inspired by the largely peaceful popular uprisings that toppled Arab autocrats in Egypt and Tunisia.

The Muslim Brotherhood accused the Alawite elite of waging sectarian warfare on Sunnis by attacking Hama.

“Syria is witnessing a war of sectarian cleansing. The regime has linked its open annihilation with the crescent of Ramadan. It is a war on the identity and beliefs of the Syrian nation … on Arab Muslim Syria,” it said in a statement.

The Syrian leadership blames “armed terrorist groups” for most killings during the revolt, saying that more than 500 soldiers and security personnel have been killed.

The Syrian state news agency said the military entered Hama to purge armed groups that were terrorizing citizens, an account dismissed as “nonsense” by a U.S. diplomat in Damascus.

The agency said eight police personnel were killed while “confronting armed terrorist groups” in Hama.

Residents said tanks began pounding neighborhoods of the city after attacking from several directions in a dawn assault.

Footage posted on social media showed large parts of the city covered in smoke, and panic-stricken groups around dead or wounded people in the streets as gunfire rang out. Reuters could not independently verify the content of the videos.

Other footage purporting to be from the city of Homs showed crowds chanting: “Hama, we are with you until death, Deir al-Zor, we are with you until death.”

Residents said at least 11 civilians had been killed in a weekend crackdown in the eastern province of Deir al-Zor.

U.K. rules out military intervention
President Barack Obama said he was appalled by the Syrian government’s “horrifying” violence against its people in Hama and promised to work with others to isolate Assad.

“Syria will be a better place when a democratic transition goes forward,” Obama said in a statement.

Reuters.

The boy, identified as W.H., confessed to murdering the 77-year-old woman after she resisted his assault, the National News Agency reported on Friday.

“He said he tried to rape her… She resisted and asked him to leave her apartment, but he hit her on the face, after which she lost consciousness,” the report said.

It further added that the perpetrator “dragged the unconscious victim to her bedroom and decided to kill her, because he feared she might report him to the authorities.”

“W.H. brought a kitchen knife, slit the woman’s throat and then wiped his fingerprints off the knife.”

According to the NNA, the Internal Security Forces Information Branch and the Broumana police department uncovered the identity of the assailant after launching extensive investigations. The crime was re-enacted on Friday, the report added.

It also said that the assailant lived in the same building as the victim, who was only identified as G.S.

NOW Lebanon