More than 700 people were arrested across the European Union for terrorism-related offenses in 2006, and half of those arrests involved threats from Islamic extremists, a European-wide law enforcement organization said Tuesday. Almost 500 terrorist-related offenses were carried out in the 27-nation EU in 2006, most of them by separatists or nationalists on the French island of Corsica and in the Spanish Basque region, the report said. No successful Islamic terrorist attacks were carried out in the EU in 2006, the report said.
Somalia: 1,000 dead in clashes
Recent fighting between Ethiopian-backed government troops and Islamic insurgents in Somalia’s capital killed more than 1,000 civilians and wounded 4,300, according to a report by the largest clan in the battle-scarred city. The estimate was an escalation in the death toll from four days of bloodshed that started in late March – the country’s worst violence in more than 15 years. An earlier estimate by a Somali human rights group said more than 1,000 civilians had been killed or wounded.
Serbia: 4 convicted of war crimes
Four members of a notorious Serb paramilitary unit who were videotaped gunning down Bosnians near Srebrenica were convicted of war crimes Tuesday, two years after the footage forced Serbia to admit its role in the 1995 slaughter of nearly 8,000 Muslim men and boys. The four received sentences of between five and 20 years in prison. It was the first ruling by a Serbian court related to the systematic killings in the final months of the 1992-95 war in Bosnia – Europe’s worst atrocity since World War II.
Greece: Crews race to limit oil spill
Cleanup crews struggled to avert a major oil spill Tuesday on one of the Mediterranean Sea’s most picturesque destinations after a sunken cruise ship leaked dozens of tons of oil off the resort island of Santorini. Greek engineers expressed hope they could prevent an environmental disaster as crews fought to siphon up fuel from the Sea Diamond, which went down Friday after hitting a submerged reef. A French passenger and his daughter were feared drowned and nearly 1,600 people – mostly U.S. citizens – were safely evacuated.
From Herald news services
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