Category: #zapost

The Nigerian army will begin a two-month national exercise, it said on Saturday, while denying the move was part of any security response to recent widespread demonstrations against alleged police brutality.

Operation Crocodile Smile would run across the country from October 20 to December 31, the first time the annual exercise, typically concentrated in the Delta region, will be nationwide, Musa said.

The move comes just days after the army said it was ready to step in and restore order, but Musa said in a statement that the exercise “has no relationship with any lawful protest under any guise whatsoever”.

Nigerians demanding an end to the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) police unit and pressing for reforms and accountability have been rallying across the country.

The army had on Wednesday issued a statement warning what it termed “subversive elements and trouble makers” that it was “ready to fully support the civil authority in whatever capacity to maintain law and order and deal with any situation decisively”.

Protesters have been using Twitter and the #EndSars hashtag to spread photos and videos showing alleged police brutality. Social media is also a hub for organising demonstrations and Nigerians are using it to collect money and food to feed protesters and support those who are arrested.

Additionally, a group calling itself Anonymous has claimed to have hacked various government websites in recent days, and warned it will continue to hack government websites and Twitter accounts in order to aid the #EndSars movement.

“The army hereby enjoins all law abiding Nigerians to go about their lawful activities unhindered as the exercise has nothing to do with ENDSARS protest, but a yearly event set out by the (army) in its efforts to ensuring safety and security of Nigeria and her citizens,” Musa said in a statement.

Government officials have not responded to requests for comment on whether any websites were hacked, and Reuters could not independently confirm the claims. However Musa said the exercise would for the first time include cyber warfare training.

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Libya’s internationally recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) has detained Abdalrahman al-Milad, a coast guard commander sanctioned by the United Nations for alleged human trafficking and migrant smuggling, its interior ministry said on Wednesday.

The ministry said it had detained Milad at the request of the UN Security Council and that it had referred the case to the public prosecutor to take legal measures against him.

Milad heads a coastguard unit in Zawiya, just west of Tripoli, and was one of six people sanctioned by the U.N. for involvement in people trafficking or smuggling in Libya two years ago.

Migrants had testified that they had been taken to a detention centre on one of the ships used by Milad and were then held in brutal conditions and beaten. He denied any wrongdoing or involvement in smuggling in a phone call to Reuters in 2018.

Smugglers have been able to make vast profits by exploiting a security vacuum in Libya since the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi and left many state institutions under the control of armed groups.

Libya has been divided since 2014 between the GNA in Tripoli and the eastern-based Libyan National Army (LNA) of Khalifa Haftar.

There are more than half a million migrants in Libya, a major launching point for journeys across the Mediterranean to Europe, according to the UN, which says it is not a safe port for migrants to be returned to.

On Saturday, the medical charity Doctors Without Borders said 60 migrants were being held in captivity by an armed group in Sabratah in western Libya.

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The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday it would assess monoclonal antibodies and other antiviral drugs in its trial of potential COVID-19 treatments, after the trial found Gilead Science’s remdesivir had no impact on survival rates.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said its Solidarity Trial would continue after it was launched in March in 500 hospitals in 30 countries to assess the efficacy of remdesivir and several other drugs in patients with COVID-19.

“The Solidarity Trial is still recruiting about 2,000 patients every month and will assess other treatments, including monoclonal antibodies and new antivirals,” Tedros told a news conference.

The Solidarity Trial was at the centre of a dispute on Friday between the WHO and Gilead, the U.S. company that developed remdesivir, which said the WHO trial’s findings appeared inconsistent with evidence from other studies.

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Armed men attacked a military base in western Guinea overnight, killing the camp’s commander, the defence minister said on Friday, two days before the West African country votes in a bitterly-disputed presidential election.

Defence Minister Mohamed Diané provided few details about the attack in the city of Kindia, about 85 kilometres outside the capital Conakry, but said in a statement that the situation was now under control.

The timing of the incident is likely to raise alarm. Voters head to the polls on Sunday to decide whether to award President Alpha Conde a third term in office, following a campaign marred by violence and divisive appeals to ethnic identities.

Diané identified the commander who was killed as Mamady Condé, who led a battalion of commandos at the Somoreyah base.

A security source, who asked not to be named, said the assailants were dressed in military attire and seized arms and vehicles before fleeing the scene.

Kindia residents said a prison in the city was also attacked, wounding an official there and allowing several inmates to escape.

Conde’s candidacy for a third term after 10 years in power has drawn fierce criticism from his opponents, who say it violates the constitution.

Conde, 82, says he has the right to run again under a new constitution approved by referendum in March, arguing that it resets the clock on the two-term limit.

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