Several thousand soldiers have spread across three northeastern states where President Goodluck Jonathan imposed a state of emergency, saying Boko Haram had seized territory and declared war on the government.

Forces have also been deployed to seal some of the region's porous borders and block the insurgents from fleeing.

"There have been air strikes since Wednesday," defence spokesman Brigadier General Chris Olukolade told AFP, specifying that they were continuing Friday.

Troops "have destroyed some terrorist camp sites.... Heavy weapons including anti-aircraft and anti-tank guns were also destroyed," he said in a separate statement.

"Dozens of the insurgents have likely been killed," he told AFP, without offering a precise figure.

The offensive is under way in all three states put under emergency decree, including Adamawa and Yobe, but the extremists' traditional base of Borno state is expected to see the most intense fighting.

Many have warned that there is a risk of high civilian deaths and Nigeria's military has been accused of massive rights violations in the past, including indiscriminate attacks on civilians.

The operation is the largest against Boko Haram since 2009, when soldiers flooded Borno's capital Maiduguri, killing more than 800 people and forcing the insurgents underground for a year.

In the town of Gamburu Ngala on the border with Cameroon in northern Borno, residents said that heavily armed troops and tanks arrived on Wednesday, sealing off previously unmanned border posts.

Northeast Nigeria, the epicentre of the Boko Haram insurgency, has porous borders with Cameroon, Chad and Niger, with criminal groups and militants flowing freely between the countries.

"Since January the border posts have been abandoned... but now these posts have been taken over by soldiers," said resident Haruna Garba.

Olukolade confirmed that forces had been sent to the region, but would not say whether the borders had been sealed.

Reports of Boko Haram's presence in Cameroon first emerged in February, following the kidnap there of a French family visiting a game park near the Nigerian border.

The abduction was claimed by Boko Haram and the family was released in April.

-- 'I was so scared for my life' --

Soldiers have surrounded the town of Krenuwa in Marte district, also in northern Borno, one of the areas where Boko Haram took power, chased away all government officials and removed Nigerian flags, residents said.

Abur Kullima told AFP Friday that he fled his home in Krenuwa in fear of the coming assault.

He said that after the state of emergency was declared in a national broadcast late Tuesday, Islamist gunmen began moving through the district trying to mobilise people "in preparation to face Nigerian troops."

"I was so scared for my life and my family's, which led me to decide to leave," he told AFP from Gamburu Ngala, where he is staying with a friend.

Anyone who tries to leave Krenuwa is screened by the soldiers who have encircled the town, he said.

Boko Haram has become notorious for blending in with the local population, both in towns and major cities across the wider north, where they have carried out suicide bombings as well as gun and bomb assaults

Fresh fighting in northern Katsina state, an area not affected by the emergency decree, broke out early Friday, where gunmen attacked police stations and a bank, a police statement said.

Five of the attackers were killed "after a long gun battle," the statement said, not implicating Boko Haram.

The group has largely spared Katinsa, but has carried out scores of attacks in neighbouring states.

Boko Haram says it is fighting to create an Islamic state in Nigeria's mainly Muslim north, but its demands have repeatedly shifted.

Some believe it has sought closer ties to foreign extremist groups like Al-Qaeda's North Africa affiliate, but most analysts believe its agenda is primarily domestic.

Nigeria is Africa's top oil producer but the population remains extremely poor and many of Boko Haram's fighters are believed to be youths radicalised out of frustration with government corruption.

In fighting the Islamists, the United Nations warned Nigeria against using excessive force, which could further "feed local resentment."

The conflict is estimated to have cost 3,600 lives since 2009, including killings by the security forces.

]]> Mon, 20 MAY 2013 12:44:06 AEST Washington (AFP) May 17, 2013 - Activists demanding the closure of Guantanamo prison marked the 100th day of a hunger strike there Friday by submitting a petition to the White House containing some 370,000 signatures.

A group of activists wearing orange jumpsuits and black hoods like those used on detainees at Guantanamo Bay gathered outside the White House to call for the immediate closure of the controversial jail.

"Immoral, illegal, ineffective," a banner read.

Richard Killmer, executive director of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, said that "years of detention without charge or trial have created a sense of desperation and hopelessness among the men at Guantanamo, which has led over 100 of them to join a hunger strike."

Colonel Morris Davis, a former military prosecutor at Guantanamo, handed over the petition to the White House.

Activists also brandished a dummy of President Barack Obama, referencing his past vow to close the US military prison.

Out of 166 inmates, 102 are on hunger strike at Guantanamo with 30 being fed through tubes. One inmate continued to be hospitalized but prison officials said his life was not in danger.

]]> Mon, 20 MAY 2013 12:44:06 AEST Kano, Nigeria (AFP) May 16, 2013 - Nigeria's military said Thursday that it was ready to launch air strikes against Boko Haram Islamists as several thousand troops moved to the remote northeast to retake territory seized by the insurgents.

"The entire Nigerian military is involved in this operation, including the air force," defence spokesman Brigadier General Chris Olukolade told AFP.

"Definitely, air strikes will be used when necessary," he said.

A force of "several thousand" soldiers along with fighter jets and helicopter gunships have been deployed for the offensive in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa state, he added.

The operation follows President Goodluck Jonathan's decision to a impose a state of emergency in all three areas as he admitted that Boko Haram had "taken over" territory in the northeast and declared war against the government.

The Islamists, who have said they are fighting to create an Islamic state in Nigeria's mainly Muslim north, have become emboldened and better armed in recent months.

The military spokesman said operations had begun in all three states, but declined to provide specifics.

The operation is the largest against Boko Haram since 2009, when soldiers flooded Borno's capital Maiduguri, killing more than 800 people and forcing the insurgents underground for a year.

A military source who requested anonymity told AFP that Nigerian forces "raided some terrorist camps in the Sambisa Game Reserve," in northern Borno, early on Wednesday.

Zangina Kyarimi, who lives in the remote town of Marti in northern Borno towards the border with Chad, said that "large military teams" arrived late Wednesday.

"I saw dozens of military vans and trucks accompanied by tanks," he said by phone from the town, which is considered a Boko Haram stronghold.

"We are afraid of what might happen in the coming days. We are thinking of leaving," he said.

In Adamawa, a dusk-to-dawn curfew has been imposed, with all residents forced to stay indoors after sundown, the area's military spokesman Lieutenant Ja-afar Mohammed Nuhu told AFP.

In Yobe state in the town of Gashua, scene of a deadly Boko Haram attack on April 26, a convoy of military personnel rolled through heading north to the Niger border, resident Musa Saminu said.

"Some of them went to the banks and asked them to close down as a precaution," he told AFP.

While the military has vowed that the operation will "rid the nation's border territories of terrorist bases," there are doubts as to whether the security forces have the capacity to end the insurgency.

"The military is already overstretched," former US ambassador to Nigeria John Campbell said Wednesday in an article for the Council on Foreign Relations.

The northeastern borders with Cameroon, Chad and Niger are porous, with criminal groups and weapons moving freely between countries.

Analysts warn that despite the military buildup, Boko Haram could scatter and find new safe havens.

Many have urged Nigeria to address the social causes fuelling the insurgency, including acute poverty and frustration over excessive government corruption.

Nigeria is Africa's top oil producer, but most of its estimated 160 million people still live on less than two dollars a day.

Nigeria's security forces have been accused of massive rights abuses in campaigns against Boko Haram, which may have amounted to crimes against humanity, according to Human Rights Watch.

The US State Department on Wednesday warned that any "heavy-handed" tactics or disregard for human rights during the emergency operations could damage bilateral relations.

Boko Haram is believed to be led by Abubakar Shekau, declared a global terrorist by the United States, but the extent of his control is unclear.

Shekau has rejected any form of negotiation with Nigeria's government.

The Boko Haram conflict is estimated to have cost 3,600 lives since 2010, including killings by the security forces.

]]> Mon, 20 MAY 2013 12:44:06 AEST Abuja, Nigeria (UPI) May 15, 2013 - Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has declared war on Muslim militants seeking to establish an Islamic state in northern Nigeria, acknowledging after months of worsening bloodshed that the troubled oil-rich African state is battling a full-blown insurgency.

Jonathan on Tuesday imposed a state of emergency on three northeastern states that are in the eye of the storm -- Borno, Yobe and Adamawa -- to counter what he termed "a rebellion and insurgency by terrorist groups which pose a very serious threat to national unity and territorial integrity."

For the first time, Jonathan, a Christian from southern Nigeria, acknowledged that parts of Borno, the heart of the Islamist insurgency, have been "taken over by groups whose allegiance are to different flags than Nigeria's."

These actions, he said, "amount to a declaration of war and a deliberate attempt to undermine the authority of the Nigerian state."

It was the bleakest assessment of the state's battle with Islamists of the Boko Haram group, which was formed in 2006 and unleashed a campaign of violence in 2009.

Some 1,600 people have been killed in the violence but government officials have generally gone out of their way to downplay the scale of the security threat for political reasons.

Jonathan is already wrestling with tribal militants in the oil-rich Niger Delta in the south and oil theft on an industrial scale that costs the state around $2 billion a year in lost revenue. He was clearly spelling out the danger that Boko Haram, which means "Western education is sacrilege" in the northern Hausa dialect, poses to the country.

This group first made its mark in July 2009, when it engaged in a five-day battle with police in and around the city of Maiduguri, the epicenter of the insurgency. More than 800 people were killed in the violence in which the Islamists wielded machetes, bows and poisoned arrows and a few old rifles.

Despite a military crackdown and the death of its leader, Boko Haram survived and has grown into a well-armed rebel force that since 2010 has been trained by al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb.

Al-Qaida's North African branch, led by veterans of the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Algeria, is extending its operations across the region and, as the Nigerian bloodletting shows, into sub-Saharan Africa.

In a series of recent attacks involving up to 200 fighters armed with rocket-propelled grenade launchers, tuck-mounted anti-aircraft guns, the Islamists demonstrated firepower and military skills not seen previously, and this has clearly shaken Jonathan's generals.

Jonathan's reference to Boko Haram seizing territory in the north underlines the gravity of the situation because until recently the Islamists hadn't done that. They concealed themselves among the Muslim population of the north.

Nigeria, plagued by official corruption and politicians with their own private militias, has been troubled for years. The country, Africa's most populous nation with 160 million people, is divided more or less equally between Muslims in the north and Christian in the south.

Nigeria's also one of the continent's top oil producers. In recent years much of West Africa has become a major oil-producing zone, which gives the region a strategic importance it didn't have previously have.

Jonathan said he was sending military reinforcements into the three states where the emergency was declared.

He gave no details. But the crackdowns by the military and the security services have been marked by their brutality, and this has driven many Muslims into the arms of Boko Haram.

There also seems to be a growing risk of a religious civil war emerging if Boko Haram isn't crushed.

In April, Christian militants threatened to unleash a "crusade" against the Islamists "in defense of Christianity."

The threat came from the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, a coalition of armed groups that's waged an insurgency in the region, the center of Nigeria's oil production, since 2005.

Christians have been a major target of Boko Haram. Scores of churches have been bombed or torched since 2009 and hundreds of Christians killed.

"The bombing of mosques ... Islamic institutions, large congregations of Islamic events and the assassination of clerics that propagate doctrines of hate will form the core mission of this crusade," MEND spokesman Jomo Gbomo declared.

]]> Mon, 20 MAY 2013 12:44:06 AEST Herndon, Va. (UPI) May 14, 2013 - In the aftermath of the April 15 Boston Marathon bombing, efforts have been made to understand the Tsarnaev brothers' mindset and what motivated them to allegedly carry out a terrorist attack killing three and injuring more than 260 innocent civilians.

Despite the subsequent analyses conducted after the brothers were identified, the most accurate were those first offered by their uncle and Russia's intelligence agency.

Their uncle, Ruslan Tsarni, described both young men as "losers." Russian intelligence described the older brother, Tamerlan, as a suspected Islamist extremist.

The descriptions these two sources gave, appearing dissimilar, really are not.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev was 26 when he drew his last breath -- a result of police gunfire and younger brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev running him over in a car while attempting to escape.

Other than a failed boxing career, there was nothing of note Tamerlan accomplished in his brief life. His inability to support himself, let alone a wife and child, was a major concern his future father-in-law had upon first learning his daughter, Katherine Russell, was engaged to Tsarnaev.

As an immigrant, Tsarnaev and his family took advantage of various entitlements totaling tens of thousands of dollars. While such funds theoretically were to help build a better life, the financial gravy train apparently deadened Tsarnaev's drive to work hard to do so.

Despite this, he was able to purchase a car, a gun, explosive material and pressure cookers. Whether the funds he used came from such entitlements or elsewhere remains to be determined.

Also telling about Tsarnaev was his willingness to build the explosive devices inside his own apartment, where his baby daughter was close by. The "stay-at-home" dad apparently lacked any sense of responsibility to protect his child from danger.

Lacking such sense makes it easier to understand his lack of compassion for all human life -- although, as a Muslim, unbelievers didn't qualify.

Questions arise as to whether his wife Katherine Russell had any knowledge about the bombing plot. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev says no.

As a convert to Islam accepting a subservient role to her Muslim husband, Russell may well have learned not to make inquiries of Tamerlan.

A friend reported her to be an "all-American girl who was brainwashed by her super-religious husband." If so, one wonders how she now feels about a husband preferring death, with its supposed afterlife of 72 virgins, to life with her.

A pre-Boston bombing New York Police Department report assessed the type of person most susceptible to radicalization. It is one who is "unremarkable" and knows it. Consequently, neither his family nor friends think of him as being radical. He is someone who is malleable and thus easily influenced by a "spiritual sanctioner" or mentor showing him how to emerge from the shadows of mediocrity by taking action.

Usually, he is someone who has never received formal training in Islam. He easily identifies with radical Islam, which romanticizes the warrior role.

The brothers were known to read al-Qaida's Inspire magazine. One article described "exceptional" Chechen warriors who had performed "military miracles" against the Russians. Now indoctrinated in violent jihad, the brothers were inspired to emerge from the shadows of oblivion by delivering it to America again.

One can assume Tamerlan Tsarnaev's radicalization was complete three months prior to the bombing. Attending a mosque in Cambridge, Mass., he was forced to leave after interrupting a prayer service to criticize the imam for mentioning Martin Luther King, Jr. Tamerlan reportedly shouted, "You cannot mention this guy because he's not a Muslim!"

But there is another angle emerging that also may cast some light on why the brothers decided to bomb the Boston Marathon.

In September 2011, three young men were found killed -- their throats slashed -- in Waltham, Mass., just two towns over from Cambridge where the Tsarnaevs lived. One, Brandon Mess, was a friend and former roommate of Tamerlan Tsarnaev. The killings went unsolved.

Revisiting the case recently and awaiting DNA results, authorities have found forensic evidence and cellphone records linking the Tsarnaev brothers to the grisly crime.

Could it be, seeking to justify the murder of kafirs (infidels or unbelievers), they turned to the Koran -- a holy book promising eternal life for killing infidels?

Believing they had gotten away with murder perhaps the killers were imbued with a sense of infallibility. Left unaffected by personally killing three victims in such a gruesome manner, Tamerlan Tsarnaev undoubtedly would have had no problem committing the more detached crime of killing countless others with bombs.

It was only four months after these killings Tsarnaev returned to his ancestral home in southern Russia. With no specific purpose for the trip, was this simply an effort to avoid arrest should the murder investigation get around to focusing on him?

During his six months there, his father says he slept a great deal and studied the Koran. Russian officials monitored a phone call he had with his mother discussing jihad.

It may be Tamerlan Tsarnaev, after gaining confidence he wasn't a suspect in the murder investigation, decided it was safe to return to the United States. Was this the point in time he came to realize the Koran sanctioned his actions in targeting kafirs? An unsuccessful boxing career, an inability to support his family and a future murder arrest possibly lurking over his head, this loser had little left to lose.

It is a lack of self-worth that leaves one susceptible to radicalization, whether at home or abroad. Radical spiritual sanctioners sense this weakness and pounce on it, severing one's reason and independent thinking process. Whether this is what happened to Tamerlan Tsarnaev or whether he simply was a loser who became his own spiritual sanctioner remains to be seen.

Some people believe there is a little bit of good in everyone's life -- one need only look for it. If one looks for it in Tamerlan Tsarnaev's life, it came in his last dying moments, serving as a speed bump for his brother's getaway vehicle.

(Lt. Col. James G. Zumwalt, a retired Marine infantry officer, served in the Vietnam war, the U.S. invasion of Panama and the first Gulf War. He is the author of "Bare Feet, Iron Will--Stories from the Other Side of Vietnam's Battlefields," "Living the Juche Lie: North Korea's Kim Dynasty" and "Doomsday: Iran--The Clock is Ticking." He frequently writes on foreign policy and defense issues.)

(United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.)

]]> Mon, 20 MAY 2013 12:44:06 AEST Tunis (AFP) May 10, 2013 - Hundreds of Tunisians, including police, human rights activists and political party representatives, protested on Friday against "terrorism" after the government said two wanted jihadist groups had ties with Al-Qaeda.

Several hundred protesters gathered outside the national assembly shouting "Tunisia is free, terrorism out!" and waving placards with slogans including: "We support the security forces and the army in the war against terrorism."

A delegation of unionists representing the armed forces was received in parliament, where they demanded that a special compensation fund be set up for members wounded or killed in the line of duty, an AFP journalist reported.

The army intensified its search last week for two groups of jihadists hiding in the remote Kef and Mount Chaambi regions along the Algerian border, who the authorities say have Al-Qaeda links and are veterans of the Islamist rebellion in northern Mali.

Landmines planted by the Islamists to protect their Mount Chaambi base have so far wounded 16 members of the security forces, some of whom have lost legs.

That group has been wanted by the authorities since December when it carried out an attack on a border post in which a member of the national guard was killed.

Since the revolution that ousted Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011, Tunisia has seen a proliferation of hardline Salafist groups suppressed under the former dictator, who have been blamed for a wave of attacks, notably on the US embassy last September.

]]> Mon, 20 MAY 2013 12:44:06 AEST Washington DC (SPX) May 10, 2013 - For more than fifty years, researchers have been studying exactly how aspirin affects the human body. Despite thousands of publications on the topic, our understanding is still incomplete.

Meanwhile, novel chemical and biological weapons have historically been mass produced within a year of discovery. Using current methods and technologies, researchers would require decades of study to gain a robust understanding of how new threat agents exert effects on human biological systems.

That capability gap leaves U.S. forces vulnerable, so DARPA's new five-year program, Rapid Threat Assessment (RTA), sets an aggressive new goal for researchers: develop methods and technologies that can, within 30 days of exposure, map the complete molecular mechanism through which a threat agent alters biochemical processes in human cells.

The developed technologies must identify the cellular components and mechanistic events that take place over a range of times, from the milliseconds immediately following exposure to the threat agent, to the days over which alterations in gene and protein expression might occur. The molecular mechanism must also account for molecular translocations and interactions that cross the cell membrane, cytoplasm and nucleus.

Details of the program are available here. DARPA will host a Proposers' Day on May 21; registration information is available here.

"Understanding the molecular mechanism of a given threat agent would provide researchers the framework with which to develop medical countermeasures and mitigate threats," said Barry Pallotta, DARPA program manager.

"If the RTA program is successful, potential adversaries would have to reassess the cost-benefit analysis of using chemical or biological weapons against U.S. forces that have credible medical defenses."

Threat agents, drugs, chemicals and biologics interfere with normal cell function by interacting with one or more molecules associated with the cell membrane, cytoplasm or nucleus.

Since a human cell may contain up to 30,000 different molecules functioning together in complex, dynamic networks, the molecular mechanism of a given threat agent might involve hundreds of molecules and interactions. The technologies sought by RTA would identify the molecular targets of threat agents and the complex interactions that follow.

"Introducing a threat agent into a cell sets off a chain of interactions that propagate throughout the cell much like the pattern of ripples that result from throwing a pebble into a pond," said Pallotta.

"Unfortunately, current research tends to be highly specialized, examining effects on very specific proteins or lipids and so on, which is why a drug like morphine is still being studied almost 200 years after its introduction. For this reason, DARPA is demanding a comprehensive approach that identifies all of the affected components and interactions at once against a background of inherent complexity."

To help navigate this complexity, program performers will have to discover the series of events in the molecular mechanism at time intervals from initial introduction of a threat agent to a period of several days of exposure.

This could be accomplished by freezing cells at various points in time to capture interactions as they unfold. This approach will help researchers discover the actual sequence of molecular events initiated by the threat agent.

While providing a framework for the development of medical countermeasures to chemical and biological weapons, successful RTA technologies would also be readily applicable to drug development and treatments for disease.

In both cases, detailed knowledge of molecular mechanism is one of the ingredients that enable new drugs to win approval or diseases to be treated.

DARPA hopes to pair technologies developed during the RTA program with its Microphysiological Systems program, which is building "human-on-a-chip" technology.

By introducing threat agents or proposed countermeasures to the human-on-a-chip system, researchers could observe which human cell types are affected, and use RTA technologies to elucidate the specific molecular mechanisms in the affected cells.

]]> Mon, 20 MAY 2013 12:44:06 AEST Tunis (AFP) May 09, 2013 - Press reports warned Thursday that Tunisia was "at war with international terrorism" after the government revealed that jihadists being pursued by the army have ties to Al-Qaeda and the Islamist rebellion in Mali.

French-language daily Le Temps raised fears of "a spiral of deadly violence similar to the one that ravaged Algeria" during its so-called black decade of civil war in the 1990s.

"It is a nightmare scenario that haunts Tunisians," said the newspaper, which is strongly critical of the ruling Islamist party Ennahda.

Le Temps blamed the "policy of impunity and the complacency of the authorities, who encouraged the terrorists to continue," accusing the government of doing nothing to curb the rise of Salafist groups since the revolution in January 2011.

Le Quotidien called on Tunisia's leaders to "take the bull by the horns," saying "the moment is very grave, and the fight against terrorism has inevitably become a collective responsibility."

The daily also criticised Ennahda, saying that "the proliferation of jihadist clans across the country... was able to take place under the complacent and complicit eye" of the government.

"Tunisia is now at war with international terrorism," announced Le Presse, which urged the media, political opposition and government to work together "to not help the enemy or undermine the morale of the soldiers fighting them."

"It is no longer appropriate to wash one's dirty linen in public, even less so to continue mud slinging in the sight of all," said the paper, referring to the negative climate and accusations that have hampered political progress in Tunisia.

The army last week intensified the hunt for two groups of jihadists on the Algerian border, who the interior ministry said this week were veterans of the Islamist rebellion in Mali with links to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

So far, 16 soldiers and national guards have been wounded, some seriously, by home-made bombs planted by one of the groups in the remote Mount Chaambi region.

]]> Mon, 20 MAY 2013 12:44:06 AEST Tunis (AFP) May 08, 2013 - Prime Minister Ali Larayedh insisted on Wednesday that Tunisia's security situation was improving and that fugitive jihadist groups with links to Al-Qaeda would be defeated.

"The establishment of security in the country is progressing... But there are some small groups that continue to aggravate the situation," Larayedh told the national assembly.

"We will pursue our confrontation with the violent terrorist groups... dismantle their structures and bring them to justice," said the former interior minister and stalwart of the ruling Islamist party Ennahda.

He said the days were numbered of the jihadist group being hunted since last week in the Mount Chaambi region, close to the border with Algeria.

"The Chaambi group is surrounded, and despite their losses the security units will thwart the group's goals."

The army intensified its sweep a week ago for the militants hiding out in the remote border region. Officials have said the militants, blamed for a deadly attack on a frontier post in December, number around 20.

No direct clashes with the group have been reported, but hand-made bombs planted in the rugged mountainous area have so far wounded at least 16 members of the security forces, five of whom lost legs.

The interior ministry admitted on Tuesday that the Chaambi group, and another being pursued in the Kef region around 100 kilometres (60 miles) to the north, have links to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

Opposition MPs strongly criticised Larayedh on Wednesday for failing to clamp down on radical Islamist groups when he was interior minister between December 2011 and March 2013, a period that saw a sharp rise in their activity.

"We are heading towards civil war," said Hichem Hosni, an independent MP.

Samir Bettaieb, a lawmaker from the centrist Democratic Group, slammed the authorities' inability to take control of mosques that had fallen under the sway of the hardline Salafist movement.

"There is a lack of policy for controlling mosques... The Chaambi terrorists can take refuge there," he said, while demanding that the army deploy along the Algerian and Libyan borders where there has been a surge in smuggling and arms trafficking.

Larayedh insisted "the majority of arms caches" belonging to Tunisia's jihadist groups had been seized and that there were "no arms trafficking networks" in the country, only "isolated individuals" who supply them with weapons.

Since the revolution in January 2011 that ousted Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisia has seen a proliferation of militant Islamist groups that were suppressed under the former dictator.

Those groups have been blamed for a wave of violence, notably an attack on the US embassy last September and the assassination of leftist opposition leader Chokri Belaid in February.

]]> Mon, 20 MAY 2013 12:44:06 AEST Aden (AFP) May 08, 2013 - Al-Qaeda-linked suspects on Wednesday shot dead three air force generals from the strategic Al-Anad air base in the southern province of Lahij, the army said.

"Three pilot officers were martyred this morning by unknown gunmen... as they were heading to work in Al-Anad air base," said the defence ministry on its website 26sep.net.

The ministry said that the officers were met "by a barrage of gunfire from two men on a motorbike".

It identified them as three of the "most qualified pilots" -- General Mohsen al-Meqdad, General Nasser al-Ban, and General Talal Shehab.

A military official at the base had told AFP that "gunmen shot dead three pilots ... north of Huta (the provincial capital) as they were heading towards Al-Anad air base," adding that the killers were "suspected of belonging to Al-Qaeda."

The victims were earlier reported to be colonels.

The military official said that two gunmen carried out the attack using Kalashnikov assault rifles.

Officials said last year that Al-Anad air base was being used by US soldiers to train local forces in combating terrorism.

Al-Qaeda was driven out of most of its strongholds across Yemen's south in an army offensive backed by US drone strikes last year.

At the peak of the offensive in May and June 2012, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula -- classified by Washington as the global network's deadliest branch -- published a list of names of Yemeni pilots based at Al-Anad which it vowed to target for conducting air strikes against extremists' hideouts.

Many officials named have since been killed. The names of the three officers killed on Wednesday did not feature on the list, however.

In October 2012, the Yemeni army foiled a car bomb attack on Al-Anad targeting American soldiers there, military officials said.

Police and army officers come under frequent attack, with authorities blaming Al-Qaeda for the assaults which are usually carried out by gunmen on unregistered motorbikes.

In a bid to clamp down on the increasing number of such attacks, authorities earlier this year launched a campaign ordering unlicensed bikes off the streets.

]]> Mon, 20 MAY 2013 12:44:06 AEST Subscribe to our daily selection of space, military, environment and energy newsletters responseText http://visitor.constantcontact.com/manage/optin/ea?v=0016gbbKsaiGSpQFojVO8ZoHw%3D%3D