MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

ANP/AFP – “A breakaway group of Muslim rebels armed with chainsaws and guns launched simultaneous attacks across 11 towns in the southern Philippines on Monday, leading to clashes with troops.

Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) attacked an army detachment, touching off gunbattles in the southern province of Maguindanao, the army and police said.

At least one soldier was wounded as sporadic fighting raged into daybreak, said provincial police chief Senior Superintendent Marcelo Pintac.

The rebels had cut down electrical relay posts before dawn, plunging several towns into darkness.

The fighting raised fears it could lead to large displacements of villagers, said regional military spokesman Colonel Prudencio Asto, and forced schools to suspend classes for the day.

‘We are on defensive posture now and we will take care of the communities and the people,’ he said, adding that commuters were also advised to avoid passing along highways where fighting could spill over.

The BIFF is headed by Ameril Umbrakato, a Saudi Arabian-educated guerrilla who splintered from the 12,000-strong Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which had entered into peace talks with Manila.

Umbrakato had boasted of having about 5,000 armed fighters, though military officials believe he only has a few hundred under his command.

Umbrakato is known to be a Muslim hardliner and he has accused his former comrades of betraying the rebellion’s ultimate goal of an independent Islamic state in the troubled south.

The government has said it hopes to sign a peace deal with the MILF by the end of the year, but had asked the MILF leadership to help contain Umbrakato’s forces.

The Muslim insurgency began in the early 1970s and the fighting has killed some 150,000 people as well as plunged large parts of the south into deep poverty.” Source – Radio Netherlands Worldwide.

By YAAKOV KATZ – “Global jihad terrorists infiltrated into Israel on Sunday night after breaking into an Egyptian military base and stealing two armored jeeps.

One of the vehicles exploded as it rammed through the Kerem Shalom Crossing into Israel and another crossed through, after which it was targeted by an Israel Air Force strike. Simultaneously, dozens of mortar shells rained down on nearby communities.

Al Arabiya reported that 15 Egyptian soldiers were killed in the attack on their base and several more were wounded.

The attack began at around 8 PM, likely in retaliation to an Israeli airstrike earlier in the day against a global jihad terror cell which the IDF said was in the final stages of launching an attack against Israel along the Egyptian border. One terrorist was killed in the strike and another was seriously injured.

The IDF ordered residents of communities in the Eshkol Region to remain inside their homes and shut down Road 232, which runs along the border.

Palestinians reported that the IDF was firing tank shells into southern Gaza, likely part of an effort to suppress the mortar fire. In addition, the Israel Air Force struck back at targets in southern Gaza.

IDF Spokesman Brig.-Gen. Yoav Mordechai told reporters that the IDF was still searching the area to rule out the possibility that additional terrorists remained in Israel.” Read more.

Reuters – “A suicide bomber struck at a wake in Yemen’s southern city of Jaar overnight, killing at least 45 people and wounding dozens more, the defense ministry said, in the deadliest attack since the army declared victory over Islamist militants in June.

The bomber appeared to have been targeting the head of a group of tribal fighters that sided with the Yemeni army during an offensive that drove Al Qaeda-linked militants from their strongholds in the southern province of Abyan.

‘This is a cowardly, criminal, terrorist attack,’ said Abyan governor Jamal al-Aqel, adding that an investigation was underway to determine the bomber’s identity.

The attack highlighted the enduring threat of Islamist militancy in Yemen and may alarm the United States and Saudi Arabia, which increasingly view the impoverished state as a front line in their war on Al Qaeda and its affiliates.

Further east in the province of Hadramout, a US drone fired on a vehicle ferrying suspected militants, killing its three passengers, a local official said.

Ansar al-Sharia (Partisans of Islamic Law) seized several towns in Abyan last year, establishing a foothold there while then-President Ali Abdullah Saleh was grappling with mass protests that eventually toppled him.

The United States supported the Yemeni military campaign through which the army regained control of territory it had lost, but residents and analysts say the militants are simply lying low and waiting for a chance to regroup.” Read more.

“MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (Reuters) – A suicide car bomber attacked a military checkpoint in Nigeria’s northeastern city of Damaturu on Sunday, killing six soldiers and two civilians, police said.

Suspicion is likely to fall on Islamist sect Boko Haram, which is waging a bloody insurgency against President Goodluck Jonathan’s government across the north.

The sect is seeking to carve out an Islamic state in Africa’s top energy producer and most populous country, which is split roughly evenly between Christians and Muslims.

‘The lone suicide bomber detonated the bomb before the car he was in could be stopped, killing the six soldiers and one civilian,’ Patrick Egbuniwe, the police commissioner for Yobe State, told Reuters by telephone.

‘Another civilian died of his wounds in hospital shortly after,’ he added, saying that nine soldiers were in hospital receiving treatment for their wounds.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack in Damaturu’s Shagari housing estate.

Labelled a foreign terrorist organisation by the United States, Boko Haram has been behind almost daily shootings and bombings in the volatile northeast.

Witness Abdullahi Sabo said the whole neighbourhood shook when the Damaturu bomb exploded.

‘The car blew up outside the front of my shop, the explosion was deadly,’ he said. ‘After the dust settled, many security operatives were rushed to the hospital.'” Read more.

Flashback: Damaturu, Nigeria: Deliberate Targeting of Christians in Islamist Attack that Killed 150 in Nigeria, ‘If You Said You Were a Christian, They Killed You’ – “International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that on November 4 members of a radical Islamic group, Boko Haram, killed more than 150 people and bombed 11 churches in the northern Nigerian city of Damaturu. While the press painted this as an attack targeting the police, Christian sources on the ground are reporting to ICC that the majority of the victims are Christians, who were deliberately targeted because of their faith.” Read more.