Taliban declares 'defeat' of Nato

Taliban fighters in Afghanistan have declared the "defeat" of the US and its allies, a day after the coalition officially ended its combat mission.

A Taliban statement said the US-led force had "rolled up its flag" without having achieved "anything substantial".
Nato formally ended its 13-year mission on Sunday, but about 13,000 troops will stay to train the Afghan army.
Meanwhile, officials said four Afghan soldiers were killed in a Taliban attack in Helmand province on Monday.
Three other soldiers were injured during the attack on an army checkpoint in Sangin district. Eight insurgents were said to have been killed.
The US-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) marked the end of its mission by lowering its flag at a ceremony in Kabul on Sunday.
Mission commander Gen John Campbell said the Nato force had "lifted the Afghan people out of the darkness of despair and given them hope for the future".
'Demoralised' But in a statement on Monday, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the Nato ceremony was "a clear indication of their defeat and disappointment".
He said the Taliban would establish "a pure Islamic system by expelling the remaining invading forces," adding that Western troops were "demoralised".
Nato's Afghan deployment began after the 9/11 attacks against the US.
At its peak, the US-led Isaf deployment involved more than 130,000 personnel from 50 countries.
But from 1 January, the force will consist of about 13,000 mostly-American troops and will shift to a training and support mission for the Afghan army.
The US will also have an additional force of a few thousand troops whose focus will be counter-terrorism operations.
While the US and its allies say the Afghan security forces have been able to prevent a Taliban offensive, violence has increased in recent months.
This year has been the bloodiest in Afghanistan since 2001, with at least 4,600 members of the Afghan security forces having been killed.
Nearly 3,500 foreign troops have been killed since the beginning of the Nato mission in 2001, including about 2,200 American troops.

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Nato marks Afghan mission change

Nato has formally ended its 13-year combat mission in Afghanistan - heralding the start of a new phase of support for local Afghan troops.

Commanders lowered the flag during a ceremony in Kabul - raising the flag of the new mission named Resolute Support.
"We have lifted the Afghan people out of the darkness of despair and given them hope for the future," mission commander Gen John Campbell said.
Nato's Afghan deployment began after the 9/11 attacks against the US.
From 1 January the alliance's role will shift to a mainly training and support mission for the Afghan army.
Sunday's ceremony was low-key - held inside a gymnasium at the alliance headquarters away from the public.
A military band played as the flag of the International Security and Assistance Force (Isaf) was lowered in the presence of senior military personnel from both sides.
Unfurling the new flag, Gen Campbell said the mission "will serve as the bedrock of an enduring partnership" between Nato and Afghanistan.
"We honour coalition and Afghan fallen in this mighty struggle, those who paid the price for Afghanistan's freedom," he said, adding: "The road before us remains challenging but we will triumph."
At its peak, the US-led Isaf deployment involved more than 130,000 personnel from 50 countries.
But from 1 January, it will bring together around 12,000 men and women from Nato allies and 14 partner nations.
"The security of Afghanistan will be fully in the hands of the country's 350,000 Afghan soldiers and police. But Nato allies, together with many partner nations, will remain to train, advise and assist them," said Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in a statement.
More than a decade after this long and expensive mission began, the Taliban are still active and gaining in strength, launching a number of attacks in recent months, says the BBC's Sanjoy Majumder in Kabul.
This year has been the bloodiest in Afghanistan since 2001, with at least 4,600 members of the Afghan security forces dying in the fight against the Taliban.
It underscores the challenges that lie ahead of the Afghan security forces, our correspondent says.
Nearly 3,500 foreign troops have been killed since the beginning of the Nato mission.

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Cameroon air strikes on Boko Haram

Cameroon has carried out its first air strikes against militant Islamist group Boko Haram after it over-ran a military base and attacked five villages, an army spokesman has said.

The military repelled the attacks and regained control of the base, he added.
The spokesman did not confirm local media reports that the militants had killed at least 30 people.
The Nigeria-based group is increasingly carrying out cross-border raids, threatening Cameroon's security.
'Training camp dismantled' The latest fighting was the most intense, lasting for three days along several fronts, reports the BBC's Jean-David Mihamle from Cameroon's capital Yaounde.
About 1,000 militants attacked five villages, including Amchide, and seized the nearby Achigachia military base.
"After that, the head of state ordered the air force to carry out strikes. With the bombardment, the fighters were forced to decamp from Achigachia," army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Didier Badjeck is quoted by Reuters news agency as saying.
Last week, Cameroon said it had dismantled a Boko Haram training camp on its territory, and had seized 84 children who were being trained there.
More than 40 of its soldiers have been killed in fighting with Boko Haram this year, according to Reuters.
Boko Hara

m launched its insurgency in north-eastern Nigeria in 2009, saying it wanted to overthrow the government and create an Islamic state.
It recruits mainly unemployed youth and has seized large swathes of territory in Borno state, raising fears that it could launch an assault on its main city, Maiduguri.
At least 2,000 civilians have been killed by the group in Nigeria this year.
The kidnapping of more than 200 schoolgirls by Boko Haram in April from the town of Chibok in Borno state sparked international outrage.

• Founded in 2002
• Initially focused on opposing Western education - Boko Haram means "Western education is forbidden" in the Hausa language
• Launched military operations in 2009 to create Islamic state
• Thousands killed, mostly in north-eastern Nigeria - also attacked police and UN headquarters in capital, Abuja
• Some three million people affected
• Declared terrorist group by US in 2013

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Al-Shabab militant Zakariya Ahmed Ismail Hersi 'surrenders'

A top al-Shabab militant, Zakariya Ahmed Ismail Hersi, has given himself up, Somali officials say.

Mr Hersi, a leading figure in the militant group's intelligence wing, surrendered to police in the Gedo region, they add.
In June 2012, the US state department offered $3m (£1.9m, 2.5m euros) for information leading to his capture.
It comes three months after al-Shabab leader Ahmed Abdi Godane was killed in a US air strike.
A Somali intelligence officer, quoted by the Associated Press news agency, suggested Mr Hersi may have surrendered because of a dispute with al-Shabab members loyal to the former leader.
Mr Hersi fell out with Godane last year and has been on the run ever since but he is still a powerful figure, says BBC Africa editor Mary Harper.
'No fight' Police stormed a house Mr Hersi had been hiding in for six days, close to the border with Kenya, after receiving a tip off, the district commissioner of the town of El Wag told the BBC.
He said that although Mr Hersi had a pistol, he did not put up a fight.
"Al-Shabab leader Zakariya Ismail surrendered to government forces in El Wag, Gedo region. He is expected to be flown to Mogadishu tomorrow," an unnamed official told Reuters news agency.
There has been no immediate comment from al-Shabab.
Ahmad Umar was named the new leader of al-Shabab, days after Godane's killing last September.
The US has supported the African Union (AU) force that has driven al-Shabab out of the capital Mogadishu and other towns since 2011.
The al-Qaeda-linked fighters want to overthrow the UN-backed Somali government and frequently attack government targets as well as neighbouring countries that provide troops to the AU force.
Three members of the AU force and a civilian contractor were killed in an al-Shabab attack on its headquarters in the capital Mogadishu on Thursday.

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Pakistan judge issues arrest warrant for Abdul Aziz

A judge in Pakistan has issued an arrest warrant for a cleric at a radical mosque in Islamabad who has refused to condemn the massacre of children at an army-run school.

Imam Abdul Aziz has been accused of threatening protesters outside the Red Mosque.
The cleric said the charge against him was insignificant.
Last week, Taliban fighters attacked the school in Peshawar, killing 152 people, including 133 children.
Mr Aziz said that the authorities should focus on arresting people accused of more serious crimes.
"My case is very small and even a sub-inspector can grant me bail," he said.
 Mr Aziz is well known for his pro-Taliban views.
Earlier this year, a school run by the cleric renamed its library in honour of the former al-Qaeda leader, Osama Bin Laden.
A spokesman for the Red Mosque said they would resist the arrest of Mr Aziz.
Civil society activists had lodged the complaint against Mr Aziz, saying that they had been threatened by mosque employees during a protest about his refusal to condemn the school massacre.
The demonstrators are also being investigated for holding an unlawful protest.
Pakistan has stepped up its anti-terror operations since the attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar on 16 December.
Earlier this week, the government announced new measures to tackle terrorism, including the establishment of military courts to hear terrorism-related cases.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said on Wednesday that there was a "changed Pakistan" since the tragedy and that there would be "no place for terrorism, extremism, sectarianism and intolerance."

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Pope condemns Taliban attack on Pak students

Pope Francis issued a strident call in his Christmas day message to safeguard children who are victims “under our very eyes” of violence and trafficking, while also demanding an end to “brutal persecution” worldwide.
Killings and hostage-takings from the Middle East

to Nigeria and elsewhere must stop, he said in his annual Christmas “urbi et orbi” (to the city and the world) message.
Denouncing conflicts in Ukraine and Libya, and noting last week’s deadly attack against a school in Pakistan, the pontiff also lamented the thousands of victims of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa.
“Truly there are so many tears this Christmas,” he said.
Delivering his second Christmas blessing, the popular Argentine pontiff, visibly moved and departing from his text, noted “the children massacred by bombardments, including where the son of God was born” and their “powerless silence that cries under the sword.”
Denouncing “indifference”, he explicitly condemned abortion, deploring the children “killed before seeing the light”.
“May Jesus save the vast numbers of children who are victims of violence, made objects of trade and trafficking, or forced to become soldiers.” “May he give comfort to the families of the children killed in Pakistan last week” referring to the 150 people, including 134 school-children, killed in Peshawar by the Taliban.
Speaking to a large crowd massed outside Saint Peter’s Basilica, the pope urged Ukrainians to “overcome tensions, conquer hatred and violence and set out on a new journey of fraternity and reconciliation”. He turned too to the violence wrought by Islamic State fundamentalists this year in Syria and Iraq.
“I ask him, the saviour of the world, to look upon our brothers and sisters in Iraq and Syria, who for too long now have suffered the effects of ongoing conflict, and who, together with those belonging to other ethnic and religious groups, are suffering a brutal persecution.”
There were “too many displaced persons, exiles and refugees, adults and elderly, from this region and the whole world,” he said.
He called for peace in “the whole Middle East” and continued efforts towards “dialogue” between Israelis and Palestinians.
The pope too urged peace in Nigeria “where more blood is being shed”, as well as in Libya, South Sudan, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He noted the victims of Ebola in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea and thanked those who were “courageously” assisting the sick.
The Pope urged people not to be indifferent to the suffering of so many around the world. Pope Francis also appealed for an end to conflicts in African countries and urged dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians.
The 78-year-old pope spoke from the same balcony of St Peter’s Basilica where he first appeared as pontiff on the night of his election on March 13, 2013.
“May indifference be changed into closeness and rejection into hospitality, so that all who now are suffering may receive the necessary humanitarian help to overcome the rigours of winter, return to their countries and live with dignity,” he said, speaking in Italian.
On Christmas eve, Francis made a surprise telephone call to comfort Christian refugees in a camp in Ankawa, Iraq. “You are like Jesus on Christmas night. There was no room for him either ...” he told them.
The pope has a busy year ahead of him, with trips planned to Asia, Africa, Latin American and the United States.
Another key project for 2015 is the reform of the Curia, the Vatican’s central administration. In Christmas greetings on Monday to the Vatican’s top administrators, Pope Francis delivered a stinging critique of Vatican bureaucracy.
In his Christmas message, which was fairly brief, the pope traditionally calls for remedies to the world’s woes.
Francis however has put an end to a longstanding tradition of popes wishing a happy Christmas in dozens of languages.
At a Christmas Eve mass, he urged Roman Catholics to have greater empathy towards family and friends, saying the world needs “tenderness” and “warmth”.
Francis sent a video message to South Koreans recalling his trip to the country in August in which he said: “The great celebration in honour of the (Catholic) martyrs (in the 18th and 19th centuries in Korea), and the encounters with young people remain fresh in my memory.”
In Bethlehem on Christmas Eve hectic preparations preceded celebrations on the West Bank town’s biggest night of the year, culminating in midnight mass at the Church of the Nativity built over the spot where Christians believe the Virgin Mary gave birth to Jesus.
Scouts playing bagpipes and drums marched to the church in a procession led by Jerusalem’s Latin Patriarch Fouad Twal, the top Catholic cleric in the Holy Land.
In his homily, Twal called for “peace in Jerusalem”, where violent clashes between Israelis and Palestinians rocked the city for months, and “equality and mutual respect” among all faiths.
He also asked for the rebuilding of Gaza, which was ravaged this summer during a 50-day war between Hamas and Israel in which more than 2,200 people died.

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Pope Francis makes Christmas call to Iraqi refugees

Pope Francis has spoken by telephone to Iraqi refugees in a camp near Irbil before celebrating Christmas Eve Mass.

The Pope urged the refugees - forced to flee their homes by the militant group Islamic State - to "persevere", and said he was close to them in his heart.
At a Christmas Eve midnight Mass at St Peter's Basilica, the Pope called on believers to show more empathy towards family and friends.
On Christmas Day, the Pope will deliver his "Urbi et Orbi" Christmas address.
The call to refugees at a camp in Ankawa was made by satellite phone and broadcast live on Italian TV.
"Dear brothers, I am close to you, very close to you in my heart," he told them, saying he was thinking particularly of children and the elderly.
"Innocent children, children who have died, exploited children... I am thinking, too, about grandparents, about the older people who have lived their lives, and who must now bear this cross."
He told them they were like Jesus, forced to flee because there was no room for them. "I embrace you all and wish for you a holy Christmas," he said.
Advances in Iraq by Islamic State have forced tens of thousands of Christians and people from other religious minorities to flee to Kurdish controlled areas.
Later in his homily during Christmas Eve Mass, the Pope said the world needed more tenderness and warmth.
"The question put to us simply by the infant's presence is: 'Do I allow God to love me?'" he said.
"Do we have the courage to welcome with tenderness the difficulties and problems of those who are near to us?"

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Father urges IS to show mercy for captured Jordan pilot

The father of a Jordanian pilot seized by Islamic State militants in Syria

has renewed a plea for his release.
Describing his son as "a guest among brothers of ours in Syria Islamic State", Youssef al-Kasaesbeh urged his "hosts" to "treat him well".
Lt Moaz al-Kasaesbeh was captured after his jet crashed in north-eastern Syria on Wednesday during a bombing mission.
Jordan is one of four Arab states in a US-led coalition that has launched air strikes on IS in Syria.
So far, the militants have not commented on the fate of the 26-year-old pilot.
'Hospitality' It is still unclear what caused his plane to crash near the IS stronghold of Raqqa.
IS said it shot it down with a heat-seeking missile. However, the US says "evidence clearly indicates" that this is not true.
On Thursday Moaz al-Kasaesbeh's father said: "I direct a message to our generous brothers of the Islamic State in Syria to host my son... with generous hospitality."
In a statement issued on Wednesday, the Jordanian military said it held IS and its supporters "responsible for the safety of the pilot and his life".
The air forces of Jordan, the US, UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain have carried out hundreds of air strikes on IS in Syria in the past three months.
Many of the targets have been in and around Raqqa, which is the de facto capital of the "caliphate" whose creation IS proclaimed in June.
Correspondents say that IS is assumed to have a limited air defence capability.
However, IS fighters have downed Iraqi and Syrian government planes in the past, and the group's full capabilities are not known.

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