6, January 2017
Ivory Coast: Demobilized soldiers have taken control of the city of Bouake 0
Former soldiers in the Ivory Coast have taken control of the city of Bouake, causing a shutdown in the West African country’s second-largest metropolitan city. “The city is under the control of former soldiers,” said an unidentified army officer, media reported on Friday.
The demobilized soldiers, who had seized weapons from at least two police stations, took up positions at entry points into the city, according to reports. “It’s a mutiny by former fighters integrated into the army, who are demanding bonuses of five million CFA francs (8,000 dollars) each plus a house,” a soldier who asked to remain anonymous told media.
Residents reported heavy shooting at around 2 am (0200 GMT). Sporadic gunfire continued later into the morning. “There are many of them at the north and south entrances to the city. We are on alert and await instructions from the hierarchy,” said another source from Bouake.
Residents stayed inside and businesses in the city remained closed on Friday morning. “The city is deserted. Men in balaclavas are patrolling the city on motorcycles or in cars. They aren’t attacking residents… They told us to stay at home,” said Ami Soro, a teacher living in Bouake.
An officer speaking from the commercial capital, Abidjan, said reinforcements had been sent to Bouake. The city was the seat of a rebellion that resulted in the seizure of the northern half of the world’s top cocoa grower from 2002 until Ivory Coast was reunited following a civil war in 2011.
Meanwhile, gunfire was heard at a military camp in Daloa, another town in Ivory Coast, on Friday. “There is gunfire at the Second Battalion in Daloa. It’s young demobilized soldiers,” said a resident, speaking by telephone from a cocoa processing factory near the army camp.
Presstv
7, January 2017
Florida airport shooting: FBI not ruling out terrorism as motive 0
Federal investigators have not ruled out terrorism as a possible motive in a shooting rampage that killed five people and wounded eight others at an airport in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Esteban Santiago, a 26 year-old resident of Anchorage, Alaska, was taken into custody immediately following the shooting on Friday and questioned at length, according to officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
FBI agent George L. Piro, who is in charge of the Miami field office, said Santiago would be facing federal charges and will appear in federal court in Broward County on Monday.
Authorities said Santiago, an Iraq war veteran, suffered from psychological problems and had complained that the US government was controlling his mind. Santiago retrieved a semi-automatic handgun from his checked luggage and began firing indiscriminately after arriving in Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood International Airport from Alaska.
“After he claimed his bag, he went into the bathroom and loaded the gun and started shooting,” Broward County Commissioner Chip LaMarca said.
One witness said the attacker kept shooting until he ran out of ammunition for his handgun. The airport remains closed and planes scheduled to land there have been diverted to other airports in Florida.
“This is a senseless act of evil,” Florida Governor Rick Scott told reporters. A White House spokesman said President Barack Obama had spoken to Scott and other state officials. Obama said such tragedies had happened too often during his eight-year-term in office.
Incoming President Donald Trump said that it is a “disgraceful situation that’s happening in our country and throughout the world” and that it was too soon to say whether it was a terrorist attack. Santiago was sent to Iraq in 2010 and spent a year there as a combat engineer while serving the Puerto Rico National Guard. He later joined the Alaska National Guard.
His family members said he had been receiving treatment for mental problems which began after he returned from Iraq. Maria Luisa Ruiz, Santiago’s aunt from Union City, New Jersey, said, “He lost his mind. He said he saw things.”
A federal law enforcement official said Santiago had entered into an FBI office in Anchorage in November and was behaving erratically and was turned over to local police, who took him to a mental facility for evaluation.
During that visit, he told FBI agents that his mind was being controlled by a US intelligence agency, which was ordering him to watch videos by the Daesh (ISIL) terrorist group.
Presstv