Jan. 29 Photo Brief: Trouble in Timbuktu, smog in China, Vikings, devils, big waves and bad hair
Malians loot shops in Timbuktu as French troops arrive, more smog problems in Beijing, Vikings in Scotland, devils in Spain, big waves, bad hair and more in today’s daily brief.
- A man hangs onto the railing of North Curl Curl ocean pool after winds and rain battered Sydney last night producing large swell in Sydney, Australia. Parts of Sydney are experienced record rainfall after ex-cyclone Oswald swept through the city last night. (Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
- A masked man holds a fox during the carnival of Zubieta, in the northern Spanish province of Navarra province. (Rafa Rivas/Getty Images)
- Masked men hold a cross during the carnival of Zubieta, in the northern Spanish province of Navarra province. (Rafa Rivas/Getty Images)
- Participants dressed as Vikings march past during the annual Up Helly Aa festival in Lerwick, Shetland Islands. Up Helly Aa celebrates the influence of the Scandinavian Vikings in the Shetland Islands and culminates with up to 1,000 ‘guizers’ (men in costume) throwing flaming torches into their Viking longboat and setting it alight later in the evening. (Andy Buchanan/Getty Images)
- Young Jarl Squad vikings shout as they march through the streets on the morning of the Up Helly Aa fire festival in Lerwick, Shetland Islands, Scotland. The Up Helly Aa festival, introduced by men returning from the Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century, takes place annually on the last Tuesday of January. (David Moir/Reuters)
- Guizer Jarl Stephen Grant raises his axe as he gestures to the the other Jarl Squad vikings to start their march around Lerwick on the morning of the Up Helly Aa fire festival in the Shetland Islands, Scotland. The Up Helly Aa festival, introduced by men returning from the Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century, takes place annually on the last Tuesday of January. (David Moir/Reuters)
- A woman admires an art installation by Carlos Cruz-Diez entitled ‘Chromosaturation’ which features in the Hayward Gallery’s exhibition ‘Light Show’ in London, England. ‘Light Show’ features 25 illuminated installations and sculptures by major international artists from the 1960s to the present day. The show opens to the general public on January 30, 2013 and runs until April 28, 2013. (Oli Scarff/Getty Images)
- Visitors wear protective coverings on their shoes as they walk through a light installation called “Chromosaturation” from 1965-2012 by Carlos Cruz-Diez at an exhibition entitled “Light Show” at the Hayward Gallery in London. (Suzanne Plunkett/Reuters)
- A performer dressed as robot stands at an escalator during the press preview of the international toy fair in Nuremberg, southern Germany. Around 2.700 exhibitors show more than 1 million products at the international toy fair which opens its doors from January 29 to February 4, 2013. (Christof Stache/Getty Images)
- Bodyguards carry the wounded Zlatomir Ivanov, nicknamed Zlatko “the Beret” right after he was shot in front of the Supreme Court of Appeal in capital Sofia. The notorious Bulgarian drug lord was injured in a spectacular shootout Tuesday outside Sofia’s main court palace, police said. Ivanov was shot at at the stately staircase of the building in downtown Sofia, while being brought by court police for the hearing of the appeal of his organized drug gang trial. (Getty Images)
- A man looks up as he walks along a street on a hazy day in Beijing. Beijing temporarily shut down 103 heavily polluting factories and took 30 percent of government vehicles off roads to combat dangerously high air pollution, state media reported on Tuesday, but the capital’s air remained hazardous despite the measures. (Petar Kujundzic/Reuters)
- Heavy smog hangs over a road in Qingdao, east China’s Shandong province. Residents across northern China battled through choking pollution on January 29, as air quality levels rose above index limits in Beijing amid warnings that the smog may not clear until January 31. (Getty Images)
- A combination photograph shows people wearing masks on a heavy haze day during winter in Beijing. Beijing’s air pollution returns to ‘hazardous’ levels, two weeks after record readings of small particles in the air sparked a public outcry. (Jason Lee/Reuters)
- A Malian tries to break the lock off a store front as looters and residents stand by in the streets of Timbuktu. Hundreds of Malians looted stores in Timbuktu on Tuesday, saying the shops belonged to “Arabs” and “terrorists” linked to the radical Islamists who occupied the desert town for 10 months. (Eric Feferberg/Getty Images)
- Looters crowd to get into a shop in the streets of Timbuktu. Hundreds of Malians looted stores in Timbuktu on Tuesday, saying the shops belonged to “Arabs” and “terrorists” linked to the radical Islamists who occupied the desert town for 10 months. (Eric Feferberg/Getty Images)
- French troops, seen through a night vision device, advance towards Timbuktu in this undated picture provided by the French Military audiovisual service (ECPAD). French and Malian troops retook control of Timbuktu, a UNESCO World Heritage site, after Islamist rebel occupiers fled the ancient Sahara trading town and torched several buildings, including a library holding priceless manuscripts. (Arnaud Roine//Reuters)
- French troops aboard a tank are greeted by the population as they arrive in Timbuktu. French and Malian troops retook control of Timbuktu, a UNESCO World Heritage site, after Islamist rebel occupiers fled the ancient Sahara trading town and torched several buildings, including a library holding priceless manuscripts. (Arnaud Roine/Reuters)
- Former Interior Ministry General Alexei Pukach reacts inside a defendant’s cage after the verdict was announced during a court session in Kiev. The court announced the verdict to Pukach, who had been charged with murder of opposition journalist Georgiy Gongadze, a well-known reporter who criticized top-level authorities for corruption and fraud, according to local media. Gongadze was kidnapped in central Kiev in 2000 and found dead in a forest outside the capital more than a month later. Pukach was sentenced to life imprisonment, according to local media. (Gleb Garanich/Reuters)
- Arcelor Mittal workers from several Liege steel plants clash with riot policemen during a demonstration outside the Walloon Region parliament in Namur. Arcelor Mittal, the world’s largest steel producer, plans to shut a coke plant and six finishing lines at its site in Liege, Belgium, affecting 1,300 employees, the group said last week. (Laurent Dubrule/Reuters)
- Nuns light candles at Shwe Dagon pagoda in Yangon. (Minzayar/Reuters)
- The Central Secretariat and Parliament buildings are illuminated during the Beating Retreat Ceremony at Vijay Chowk in New Delhi. The ceremony is a culmination of Republic Day celebrations and dates back to the days when troops disengaged themselves from battle at sunset. (Raveendran/Getty Images)
- A young newly initiated ‘Naga Sadhu’ sits after performing evening rituals at the Akhara camp during the Maha Kumbh festival in Allahabad. During every Kumbh Mela, the diksha – ritual of initiation by a guru – program for new members takes place. (Sanjay Kanojia/Getty Images)
- A pygmy elephant calf walks next to its dead mother in Gunung Rara Forest Reserve in the Malaysia’s state of Sabah on Borneo island. Ten endangered Borneo pygmy elephants have been found mysteriously dead in Malaysia’s state of Sabah on the Borneo island, as reported by Malaysia’s daily The Star. The elephants were believed to have died of poisoning over the last two weeks as puzzled wildlife officials tried to find the cause of their deaths. The first elephant died on December 29 and more continued to be found dead, with the last death on January 24. REUTERS/Sabah Wildlife Department//Reuters)
- Javed, a farmer, carries a bunch of flowers in the field to be sold in local markets in Lahore. (Mohsin Raza/Reuters)
- Anfisa, a 8-year-old female chimpanzee, looks at a magazine inside her enclosure where she lives with a male chimpanzee named Tikhon, at the Royev Ruchey zoo in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia. (Ilya Naymushin/Reuters)
- Anfisa, a 8-year-old female chimpanzee, washes a window of her enclosure where she lives with a male chimpanzee named Tikhon, at the Royev Ruchey zoo in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia. (Ilya Naymushin/Reuters)
- Sixth grade students from the Park Maitland School in Maitland, Florida, watch as Marine One carrying U.S. President Barack Obama takes off from the South Lawn at the White House in Washington as he departs for Las Vegas. (Larry Downing/Reuters)
- A man shelters from the rain under an umbrella in Munich, southern Germany. Raising temperatures brought rain to many parts of the country. (Andreas Gebert/Getty Images)
For Mali Islamist rebels, death came from the sky
Richard Valdmanis | Reuters
2:05 p.m. EST, January 29, 2013
DOUENTZA, Mali (Reuters) – The group of Islamist rebels occupying this dusty northern Malian town at the gateway to Timbuktu had been slaughtering a cow to eat at a small hotel.
The next instant, they were caught in an explosive blizzard of flying concrete and shrapnel.
“They ate no meat. Many were killed, maybe 40,” said Hamidou Dicko, a neighbor who had peered over his mud-brick wall at the hotel – used by the rebels as a base – after the French warplanes attacked late on January 12.
The French air strike against the Hotel N’douli, which once served tourists visiting the Dogon hills or the fabled desert trading town of Timbuktu some 200 km (125 miles) to the north, left scattered limbs and shattered bodies in the courtyard.
The attack was just one of hundreds of French strikes that have characterized the 18-day offensive; sudden, devastating fire-power rained down from the skies that left surviving rebels little option but to flee into the desert.
“The few survivors gathered the dead, put them in trucks and fled,” said Dicko.
The overwhelming French air power has facilitated rapid advances by French and Malian troops. Islamist militants who controlled Mali’s mostly desert northern half for 10 months have now vanished from the region’s towns and villages.
The French-led offensive that has retaken a string of insurgent-held towns, including Timbuktu and Gao, has cheered most Malians who have greeted the French and government soldiers as liberating heroes.
Under rebel occupation, many were forced to live under a strict form of sharia Islamic law that imposed whippings and beatings for offences such as smoking or listening to music.
But the hasty retreat by the insurgents into areas of bush and desert, and to the rugged mountains further to the northeast, has raised fears of a lingering guerrilla war.
FIGHTING OVER, FEARS LINGER
French-backed Malian troops conducted house-to-house searches in Gao and Timbuktu on Tuesday, uncovering arms and explosives abandoned by Islamist fighters that could have been used in their insurgency against the government.
But many locations in areas now controlled by the Malian army, including Douentza, remain near-deserted and edgy, devoid of electricity. Soldiers patrol on pickups mounted with guns.
“Today, all the rebels have gone. We don’t hear fighting,” said Pastor Philippe Sagara, one of the few Christians in the mainly Muslim town.
Sagara said he removed the cross and Bibles from his small church during the rebel occupation, and rarely went outside.
“I worry that maybe they will come back in the night. I don’t talk about it, but I feel it in my heart,” he said.
Residents said the French air strikes that forced the rebels to flee Douentza narrowly missed killing a top Islamist commander, Abu Dar Dar of the MUJWA group, who had left for Gao just days earlier.
MUJWA was part of the Islamist rebel alliance occupying the north that included al Qaeda’s North African wing, AQIM, and a Malian group, Ansar Dine.
Malian military sources said that, while most major towns in the northern region were now under the army’s control, pockets of fighters lurked in the countryside between them.
“We don’t know what will happen, but for the moment we are peaceful,” said Douentza resident Boulker Ould Bilal.
“The French have bombed, and Douentza is free. We can smoke. We can do what we want.”
(Editing by Pascal Fletcher)