Egypt's Morsi declares 'state of emergency'

In Port Said on Sunday, thousands attended the funeral for more than 30 people killed one day earlier [Reuters]

Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi has declared a 30-day state of emergency and a night-time curfew in three cities along the Suez Canal that have seen deadly clashes in recent days. In a televised address late on Sunday, Morsi said the emergency measures in Port Said, Ismailia and Suez would take effect on Monday from 9:00pm local time (19:00 GMT) to 6:00am (04:00 GMT), warning that more action would be taken to stem the latest eruption of violence across much of the country. "I have said I am against any emergency measures but I have said that if I must stop bloodshed and protect the people then I will act," Morsi said. He also called for dialogue with top politicians starting on Monday to resolve the situation. Deadly clashes across the country between protesters and police have killed at least 48 people since Friday, when Egyptians commemorated the two-year anniversary of the revolution that toppled former President Hosni Mubarak. Seven people were shot dead and hundreds were injured in Port Said on Sunday during the funerals of at least 30 people killed during clashes in the city on the previous day. "Down, down Morsi, down down the regime that killed and tortured us!" people in Port Said chanted as the coffins of those killed on Saturday were carried through the streets. In Port Said, Al Jazeera's Rawya Rageh said military helicopters that had been overhead during the funeral could also be heard during Morsi's speech. "I dont see how these decisions will instil any confidence in the people," Rageh said, referring to the president's decision to impose a state of emergency. She said that immediate reaction in Port Said was one of mockery and scepticism with many asking why the three canal cities had been singled out. "The people [in Port Said] feel that there was a complete state of collapse especially after riots today, particularly with tear gas being fired into the funerals," she said. Several hundred people protested in Ismailia, Suez and Port Said after the announcement. Activists in the three cities vowed to defy the curfew in protest at the decision. 'An expected move' On Sunday night, Morsi’s office issued a statement inviting political supporters and opponents for a national dialogue on Monday at 6:00pm (16:00 GMT) at the presidential palace in Cairo. The spokesman for Egypt's main opposition coalition said after Morsi's speech that the move was "expected" and said he wanted more details about an invitation for dialogue with top politicians. "Of course we feel the president is missing the real problem on the ground which is his own policies," Dawoud told the Reuters news agency. But he added: "His call to implement emergency law was an expected move given what is going on, namely thuggery and criminal actions." Heba Morayef of Human Rights Watch in Cairo said a state of emergency reintroduced laws that gave police sweeping powers of arrest "purely because [people] look suspicious". "It is a classic knee-jerk reaction to think the emergency law will help bring security," she said. "It gives so much discretion to the Ministry of Interior that it ends up causing more abuse which in turn causes more anger."

Report: Top al Qaeda leader killed

 

 

 

Sanaa, Yemen (CNN) -- The deputy leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and one of the most wanted men in Saudi Arabia has been killed, a prominent jihadist announced Tuesday, though officials in the group's home base of Yemen said they had no evidence of his death.

Abu Sufyan al-Azdi, also known as Saeed al-Shahri, died "after a long journey in fighting the Zio-Crusader campaign," jihadist Abdulla bin Muhammad said on his Twitter account. The tweet was reported by SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors global terrorism.

It was not clear how al-Azdi died. SITE said media reports indicated he died of injuries incurred in a December drone strike.

The Arabic news network Al-Arabiya reported al-Azdi's death, citing his relatives.

 

Three senior Yemeni Defense Ministry officials told CNN the country has no evidence proving his death.

"We have no evidence to prove his death and our government continues to hunt down the leaderships of the terror network," one of the officials told CNN on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to talk to media.

Read more: Amnesty details 'horrific abuses' in southern Yemen

He said more than 80 suspected al Qaeda militants have been killed since early December but that al-Azdi is still out there.

Al-Azdi has been reported dead in the past, the latest incident being in September when Yemen claimed he was killed in an air raid. An audio message released the next month supposedly featured al-Azdi saying he was still alive.

Al-Azdi spent six years in the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay before being released in 2007. A Saudi national, he escaped Saudi Arabia to Yemen in 2008.

U.S. drone activity increased in 2012 targeting senior leaders of AQAP. Monday, a U.S.-led drone strike in Marib, an oil-rich province of Yemen east of the capital, targeted a vehicle carrying alleged al Qaeda operatives. The strike killed two militants, identified by the defense ministry as Ali Saleh Toaiman and Qassim Nasser Toaiman, and wounded five others.

Saturday, two U.S drone strikes killed eight people in Marib and another province, al-Baitha.

Yemeni President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi announced in October that Yemen would step up its military operations with the United States against al Qaeda operatives. In response, al Qaeda carried out a number of attacks on military and security commanders, personnel, patrols and installations, killing more than 60 people, according to Yemen's Interior Ministry.

Syria’s food shortages worsening, U.N. says

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — Syrians face ever more acute food shortages and price increases as a spreading civil war sends agricultural production tumbling and threatens to damage crops such as wheat and barley, according to the United Nations.

Output of some foodstuffs plunged by as much as half last year in a farming sector now in “tatters,” the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned Wednesday. Analysts said the growing privations could hurt the rebels as much as, or more than, the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

The military conflict triggered by a government crackdown on a nearly two-year-long uprising has shattered Syria’s once-proud agricultural self-sufficiency, with bread lines growing in some areas and meat and vegetable prices soaring.

“I was very saddened by the situation,” said Dominique Burgeon, director of emergencies at the FAO, after returning from a mission to Syria that ended this week. “The mission was struck by the plight of the Syrian people.”

In the first detailed international account of the agricultural situation in wartime Syria, the FAO said annual wheat and barley output fell from normal levels of 4.4 million to 5.5 million tons to less than 2.2 million tons in 2011-12. Production of staple items such as poultry, fruit and cooking oil plunged by up to 60 percent in some conflict zones, such as the central cities of Hama and Homs, and Daraa in the south.

Jihad Yazigi, editor of the Syria Report business newsletter, said the FAO report echoed other disturbing provisional agricultural data for last year, such as a decline of almost a third in the cotton crop and a 50 percent drop in sales at the state fertilizer company. A surge in fighting in the northeast of the country threatened to cause more suffering by affecting the wheat and barley crops concentrated there, he added.
“It’s a big issue for the population,” Yazigi said. “You will have more women forced to go into prostitution — and more children forced to beg.”
Some of the heaviest fighting of the war has taken place in Syria’s agricultural belt, including around the northern cities of Aleppo and Idlib. Rebel fighters control large areas of the countryside, meaning that food supply routes into mainly government-controlled city centers have been severely squeezed.
Most of the 10 million Syrians who live in rural areas — almost half the country’s peacetime population — have livelihoods linked to agriculture. Many now face severe difficulties in getting fuel and equipment, as well as the risk to their lives of working in the fields.
Although some observers said one cause of the uprising against Assad was a severe 2008 drought that decimated rural communities and drove people to poor urban suburbs, analysts said the latest war-related food shortages would not necessarily harm the government.
“The regime probably still has the ability to secure what it needs for its own constituency from the diminished supplies,” said David Butter, a Middle East economic specialist at Chatham House, a think tank in London “The economic and physical [distribution] infrastructure is probably still more in regime hands than in rebel hands.”
The war has brought an abrupt end to Syria’s two decades of near self-sufficiency in wheat, the country’s main carbohydrate staple, even if it has in the past been forced to tap the international market during drought years.
Grain traders said Syria faces huge difficulties in buttressing its supplies with large-scale imports. Although sanctions imposed by the United States and European Union do not officially target food or agricultural commodities, restrictions imposed on Syrian banks and trading companies mean that international institutions are reluctant to finance grain imports. The grain that does make it through tends to come piecemeal directly from neighboring countries, including Turkey and Iraq.
(Chasity M.)

Israel removes new Palestinian protest camp

The Israeli army has removed a Palestinian protest encampment of four tents and a building under construction near a village in the occupied West Bank, military sources said.
In addition to demolishing the structures near Beit Iksa, on the northwestern outskirts of Jerusalem, early on Monday "20 Palestinians at the site were evicted without incident," the sources said.
On Sunday night, the army issued "invasion removal orders" to the encampment, saying three of the tents and the building were on land owned by Israel, and the fourth tent was on the route of a planned separation barrier.
Activists on Friday set up the encampment to protest against Israel's intention to confiscate at least 124 acres of land near the village, naming the camp Bab al-Karama, Arabic for Gate of Dignity.
Bab al-Karama was inspired by a separate Palestinian protest camp of 24 tents set up on a disputed piece of land on the eastern outskirts of Jerusalem that was dismantled by police last week.
Activists had established that camp, which they dubbed Bab al-Shams, or Gate of the Sun in Arabic, in a bid to draw attention to Israeli plans to build in the area, known as E1.
(Chasity M.)

 

Deadly blasts rock Iraqi capital

Three blasts, including a suicide attack, have killed at least 17 people in and around the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, officials say.

The most deadly of Tuesday's explosions took place in Taji, 20km north of Baghdad, where a suicide bomber driving a car packed with explosives detonated his bomb near an army base, killing at least seven people and wounding 24.

Nasseer Rahman, a teacher, said he was sitting in a minibus waiting to pass the checkpoint when the bomb exploded about 120 metres away. He said dozens of cars were waiting in lines when the blast went off.

"As soon as the blast struck, we got off the minibus and ran to the site of the explosion," he said. "We saw several cars on fire and pools of blood, and everybody was screaming for help.''

Another car bomb exploded in a crowded market in the Shia neighbourhood of Shula, in the northwest of the capital, killing five people and wounding 13, police and hospital sources said.

"We received a call for us to head to the blast site. It was a car bomb. A woman was laying dead with a sack of groceries still beside her, and the wounded were screaming," said policeman Ghalib Ameer, whose patrol was called to Shula.

In Mahmudiya, a town 30km south of Baghdad, a car bomb attack near an army checkpoint killed five people, including two soldiers, and wounded 14 more.

Violence in Iraq has eased since the widespread sectarian carnage of 2006-2007, but Sunni armed groups still launch frequent attacks to reignite confrontation among the Shia majority, Sunni Muslims and ethnic Kurds.

Sunni protests

The latest attacks come amid rising ethnic and sectarian tension following the arrest last month of bodyguards assigned to the Sunni finance minister Rafia al-Issawi.

Thousands of Sunni protesters are camped out in western Anbar province in what is developing into a major challenge to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose power-sharing government, split among Shias, Sunnis and Kurds, has been bogged down in infighting since the last US troops left a year ago.

The Shia prime minister is trying to ease protests that erupted a month ago after officials arrested members of the finance minister's security team on terrorism charges. Sunni leaders saw that move as a crackdown.
Since the fall of Saddam Hussein after the US-led invasion a decade ago, many Iraq Sunnis feel they have been marginalised by the Shia leadership and say Maliki is amassing power at their community's expense.
Maliki has appointed Shia Deputy Prime Minister Hussein al-Shahristani to investigate the protesters' demands.
Authorities said on Tuesday they had so far released more than 800 detainees unjustly held or whose sentences had ended.
But thousands of protesters, camped out on a highway in the Sunni heartland of Anbar, say they are determined to stay until their demands are met.
Sunni leaders want the modification of anti-terrorism laws and more control over a campaign against former members of Saddam's outlawed Baath party, both measures they believe unfairly target their minority community.
(Chasity M.)

Hillary Clinton to testify on Benghazi embassy attack

Mrs Clinton will be standing down in two weeks

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is due to testify to Congress over the deadly attack on a US mission in Benghazi, Libya, last year.

Mrs Clinton will face questions about security failures that led to the attack before the foreign relations committees of the Senate and the House.
She had been due to testify late last year but fell ill.
The US envoy to Libya Christopher Stevens and three other officials were killed in the attack on 11 September.
The ambassador died of smoke inhalation when he was trapped in the burning consulate building, after armed men had stormed the compound.
The assault triggered a major political row over who knew what and when. As a result, an independent panel - the Accountability Review Board - was charged with investigating the incident.
Democrats hold the majority in the Senate, where Mrs Clinton will be surrounded by former colleagues and the tone will likely be respectful, says the BBC's Washington correspondent, Kim Ghattas.
In the House, however, Mrs Clinton is expected to face much more heat.
The panel review did not blame her directly for any of the failures, but members of Congress will still want to know why she was not personally aware of requests for more security in a high-risk posting like Libya, our correspondent adds.
'Cover up'
On Tuesday, Republican Senator John McCain said he wanted to press Mrs Clinton on where she was on the night of the attack, and what warnings there had been about deteriorating security.
"It's been a cover up from the beginning," he told reporters.

 A scathing US inquiry blamed "grossly inadequate" security at the Benghazi mission

She will also face questions about how the administration of President Barack Obama handled the fallout.
Three State Department employees have been fired over the Benghazi attack, and recommendations the panel made in December are already being implemented.
Mrs Clinton, who is stepping down from her post in two weeks, has spent a month recuperating from a series of ailments in December.
She was treated in hospital for a blood clot near her brain, weeks after fainting and suffering a concussion in the subsequent fall.
Mr Obama appointed Mrs Clinton at the start of his first term in 2009. She is considered a strong candidate for the Democratic nomination for president should she run in 2016.
Outrage in Congress over the Benghazi incident and its aftermath has already led US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, to withdraw from the race to succeed Mrs Clinton.
Last November, Mrs Rice admitted releasing incorrect information after the Benghazi attack. She said there had been no attempt to mislead the public, but Republicans were unconvinced.
Mr Obama has since nominated Democratic Senator John Kerry - who is expected to be swiftly confirmed - as Mrs Clinton's replacement.
Mrs Clinton is due to testify for 90 minutes before the committees

Saudi activists say kingdom trying to silence them

By Ashley Fantz and Mohammed Jamjoom, CNN

updated 8:32 PM EST, Tue January 15, 2013

Saudi activist pushing limits for reform

(CNN) -- As he was falling asleep, the father of five turned to his wife and said he hopes it will all be worth it someday.

Maybe someday, Mohammed Al-Qahtani said, his daughter be able to walk somewhere without a male guardian. Maybe someday, she'll be able to drive a car without fear of arrest.

"Maybe I'm dreaming," Al-Qahtani said. "My newborn daughter, maybe one day she will vote for the prime minister in Saudi Arabia.

"Of course, there will be a price to be paid, and we are more than willing to pay that price."

The 46-year-old economics professor, who is also one of Saudi Arabia's most prominent human rights activists, has been on trial for several months in Riyadh. He faces nine charges, including breaking allegiance to the Saudi king, describing Saudi Arabia as a police state and turning people and international bodies against the kingdom.

His co-defendant, Abdullah Al-Hamid, faces similar charges, including spreading chaos, questioning the authority of official clerics and undermining public order. If convicted, both could go to prison for several years.

Al-Qahtani calls the accusations against them nonsense and says he knows why he and Al-Hamid were really put on trial. He said he and Al-Hamid have stoked the ire of the kingdom for running an activist group that is trying to expose human rights violations in the country.

Mohammed Al-Qahtani said he's on trial because his group is trying to expose human rights violations in Saudi Arabia.

"We have a number of cases where people are thrown in prison arbitrarily, torture, forced disappearances. ... Whatever rights abuses (you could think of), you could find in Saudi Arabia," Al-Qahtani said.

According to rights groups, Saudi authorities have been increasingly targeting activists through the courts and other arbitrary means such as travel bans.

"This has been a systematic approach by the authorities in Saudi Arabia -- namely, the targeting and harassing of activists across the country," said Tamara Al-Rifai, spokeswoman for Human Rights Watch's Middle East and North Africa division.

Al-Rifai told CNN that accusations against activists generally include "instigating chaos, gathering illegally, harming the reputation, talking to foreigners, talking to the media, etc."

She said there is no clear criminal law in Saudi Arabia and that people "are being arbitrarily arrested and detained for exercising rights that are stipulated by all international human rights laws, but also the Arab Charter of Human Rights to which Saudi Arabia has adhered."

In June, Amnesty International issued a statement calling Al-Qahtani's trial "just one of a troubling string of court cases aimed at silencing the kingdom's human rights activists."

"The case against him should be thrown out of court as it appears to be based solely on his legitimate work to defend human rights in Saudi Arabia and his sharp criticism of the authorities," said Philip Luther, director of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Program.

When asked about the case and about accusations that Saudi Arabia is cracking down on dissent, Saudi officials have been reluctant to comment.

"At the Interior Ministry, our area of responsibility is security," said Maj. Gen. Mansour Al-Turki, spokesman for the Saudi Interior Ministry. "My understanding is that these cases are being looked at by the courts now. Nobody will comment on cases being looked at by the courts."

In Saudi Arabia, a deeply conservative kingdom and an absolute monarchy, protests are prohibited. Still, activists say, small gatherings are becoming more frequent -- demonstrations by both men and women demanding the release of jailed relatives.

The latest high-profile incident happened early this month. According to rights groups, Saudi security forces arrested a group of women in the town of Buraida who were protesting over family members allegedly held for years as political prisoners. The women said the relatives had been detained without charges on suspicion of terrorism.

Aleppo airport closes due to 'rebel attacks'

The international airport in Syria’s commercial hub of Aleppo has been temporarily closed because of “attacks by rebel fighters,” an anonymous airport official said Tuesday. The official reason is "maintenance work."

The international airport in Syria's second city of Aleppo has been temporarily closed due to repeated attacks by rebel fighters, an airport official said on Tuesday.
"There have been continued attempts by opposition militants to target civilian aircraft, which could cause a humanitarian disaster," the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
The airport's authorities said the closure was due to maintenance work on the runway and other facilities on the ground.
The official said the critical transportation hub would be closed for a "very short period of time" while the army worked to regain control of surrounding areas where large numbers of rebels have set up base.
Fighting in Aleppo, located in the largely rebel-held north of Syria, has been at a stalemate for months since opposition fighters launched a massive assault on the former commercial hub in mid-July.

Defected Syrian journalists tell of regime pressure

Three Syrian journalists from media controlled by Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Damascus have defected to France. They told FRANCE 24 of the pressures they had been under and the feeling that they had been “accomplices to the regime.”

An editor at Syrian state broadcaster Radio Damascus has told FRANCE 24 how he fled the country with two colleagues because of the huge pressure he was under to “distort the truth.”
In a rare interview with a defected Syrian journalist, Kamal Jamal Bik explained how the Damascus regime and his managers suspected anyone who looked at external sources as being an opponent of the regime.
He also said that the atmosphere of suspicion was compounded by a total lack of balance in the way he and his colleagues were allowed to report the news.

“We were only allowed to use the official SANA news agency, and what reporters we had in the field were only with the state army,” he said. “We on the news desks were told to deform the news, to clean it up. There was constant pressure and censorship.”
Bik said that continuing to work at Radio Damascus had made him “an accomplice to the regime” and called on his colleagues he left behind not to believe claims by the regime that his defection was part of “a foreign agenda”.
"An ongoing revolution"

Attacks kill 16 across Iraq as sectarian tensions grow

Four Shia pilgrims were killed and six were injured when a car bomb exploded in Baghdad's Karrada district, Iraq's Interior Ministry said.

          At least 16 people were killed and dozens were injured in attacks across Iraq Monday amid an apparent uptick in sectarian tensions.

Most of the attacks targeted Shiites, including bomb blasts that injured pilgrims traveling to shrines just days before a religious celebration.

 

And four Shia pilgrims were injured when three car bombs exploded simultaneously in the town of Balad Rouz, said Muthana Altimimi, head of the security and defense committee in Diyala province.

Thursday will mark 40 days after Ashura, which commemorates the death of the Prophet Mohammed's grandson. Shiite pilgrims often mark the occasion by traveling to shrines.

Violence also erupted outside Baghdad. Seven people were killed and four were injured after their houses were bombed in the city of Mussyab, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of the Iraqi capital, the Interior Ministry said. It was unclear who was responsible for the blast or why the houses were targeted.

Monday's attacks come amid rising sectarian tensions, as tens of thousands of Sunni demonstrators nationwide protest what they say is second-class treatment by Iraq's Shiite-led government.

Sunnis largely boycotted Iraq's 2005 elections, leading to the emergence of a Shiite-led government. The move left the once-ruling minority disaffected, which contributed to years of bloody insurgency and sectarian warfare.

Car bomb claims 15 in Iraq

(CNN) -- A car bomb in the Iraqi city of Musayyib claimed at least 15 lives Thursday and injured dozens, a government official told CNN.

The bomb targeted Shiite pilgrims returning from Karbala, an Interior Ministry official said.

Musayyib is located 50 miles south of Baghdad.

The attack, which injured 37, comes amid rising sectarian tensions.

This week, tens of thousands of Sunnis participated in nationwide protests against what they say is second-class treatment by Iraq's Shiite-led government.

Sunnis largely boycotted Iraq's 2005 elections, leading to the emergence of a Shiite-led government. The move left the once-ruling minority disaffected, which contributed to years of bloody insurgency and sectarian warfare.

Several apparent sectarian attacks were reported Monday, leaving 16 dead.

Gunmen launch deadly attack on Syrian TV station

Three journalists and four security staff were killed early on Wednesday when gunmen stormed Syria's pro-government al-Ikhbariya TV channel, the station said. The channel's broadcasts were not affected.

AFP - An attack on a pro-government television near Damascus killed seven staff Wednesday, state media said, while 29 people died in other violence on the heels of the "bloodiest week" of the 15-month uprising, according to a watchdog.
Live footage broadcast by state television showed extensive damage to the studios of Al-Ikhbariya satellite channel outside the capital with several small fires still burning.
"The terrorist groups stormed the offices of Al-Ikhbariya, planted explosives in the studios and blew them up along with the equipment," Information Minister Omran al-Zohbi told state television in a live interview.
"They carried out the worst massacre against the media, executing journalists and security staff," Zohbi said, adding that a number of staff were kidnapped.
Those killed comprised three journalists and four security guards, state media said.
Press watchdog Reporters Without Borders called for members of a UN observer mission, which suspended its operations on June 16 in the face of worsening violence, to visit the scene to ascertain the facts.
"News organisations should not be used as targets by the parties to the conflict," the watchdog said.
"However, we deplore in the strongest possible terms the broadcast by the media of messages inciting hatred and violence against civilians."
In other violence on Wednesday, 10 soldiers were killed before dawn in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor, while 15 troops defected to the rebels, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Later Wednesday fierce clashes took place between regime troops and rebel fighters in Deir Ezzor city, where explosions were reported.
Five people were killed in shelling and shooting in the Damascus suburb of Douma and surrounding areas, while regime forces carried out raids and arrests elsewhere in the province.
The central city of Homs was exposed to heavy shelling by regime forces where "living conditions remain difficult because of the blockade and bombardment, which has continued for weeks", the Observatory said.
In the northwestern province of Idlib, clashes and shelling left six civilians and three rebels dead, in addition to five soldiers, among them a colonel of the elite Republican Guard.
More than 15,800 people have been killed since the outbreak of the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad's regime in March last year, the Observatory said, adding that the seven days to Tuesday were the bloodiest so far.
"The pace of the killings has escalated," the watchdog said.
"The last week was the bloodiest week of the Syrian Revolution," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP by telephone, adding that 916 people were killed from June 20 through 26.
Of the 15,804 people killed since March 2011, 4,681 had lost their lives since a UN-backed ceasefire was supposed to take effect on April 12, he said.
Of those, roughly a quarter -- 1,197 -- have been killed since the UN observer mission intended to oversee the peace plan suspended its operations in the face of the mounting violence.
"The last month, from May 26 to June 26, was the deadliest since the start of the protests. During this period, 3,426 people were killed," Abdel Rahman said.

Freelance US journalist held in Syria, family says

Freelance US journalist James Foley, 39, has been kidnapped and is being held in Syria, his family confirmed on Wednesday. Foley, who contributed videos to Agence France-Presse, was seized by gunmen in Idlib province on November 22, witnesses said.

A freelance American reporter who contributed videos to Agence France-Presse (AFP) in recent months was kidnapped in war-torn Syria six weeks ago and has been missing since, his family revealed Wednesday.
US journalist James Foley, 39, an experienced war reporter who has covered other conflicts, was seized by armed men in the northern province of Idlib on November 22, according to witnesses.
Foley, who last supplied AFP with video material the day before he disappeared, was picked up in the town of Taftanaz by four men who later released his driver and translator, the witnesses said.
No group has claimed responsibility for the abduction, in a country which has been racked by bitter civil war since the start of an uprising by rebels opposing President Bashar al-Assad's regime nearly two years ago.
Foley's family, which had earlier asked media groups not to report the abduction in the hope that a low profile would assist in efforts to free him, broke their silence Wednesday to reveal his plight.
"We want Jim to come safely home, or at least we need to speak with him to know he's okay," said John Foley, father of the missing reporter, who also contributes to the US-based international news website GlobalPost and to major US TV channels.
"Jim is an objective journalist and we appeal for the release of Jim unharmed. To the people who have Jim, please contact us so we can work together toward his release."
The family has launched a website (www.freejamesfoley.org) and Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/freejamesfoley) to highlight Foley's ordeal.
The website, which has several pictures of Foley while on reporting assignments in the Middle East, says he has been missing for 41 days. It also urges people to sign an appeal for his release.
Foley was previously kidnapped and held for six weeks by forces loyal to slain Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi while covering that civil war last year.
At the time, he was working for GlobalPost, which was involved in his rescue and which is standing by his family in the latest incident.
The reason for his abduction in Syria remains unclear. It is not known if his abductors are financially motivated or if they are linked to any Islamist groups, rebels or pro-regime forces or sympathisers.
State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Washington was aware of Foley's abduction, but she was unable to share any information about US efforts to help him.
In general in such cases, the United States has a "number of avenues that we try to pursue," Nuland told reporters.
"We make our own appeals through various channels and those with influence directly to the Syrian regime for information," she explained, adding Washington also uses its "contacts with the opposition as broadly as we can" to seek information.
"Sometimes there's a political motive, but sometimes it's a more mercenary, financial motive," she said.
Large parts of northern Syria are controlled by anti-Assad rebel groups that form part of the Free Syrian Army or are made up of jihadists, including foreign fighters.
Details of the kidnapping emerged weeks after high-profile US television reporter Richard Engel, who works for the NBC network, and his crew escaped after being held for five days by pro-regime militiamen in Syria's north.
Engel told his network that his team was seized while travelling with a group of Syrian rebels but that they managed to escape last month after two of their captors were killed in a firefight with the rebels.
AFP chairman Emmanuel Hoog said the organisation was doing its utmost to secure Foley's freedom.
"We are in constant touch with his family and loved ones, while reaching out to a range of contacts and doing everything we can to facilitate his release," he said.
"He is a professional journalist who is absolutely neutral in this conflict," Hoog said of Foley, who has contributed around 30 video stories to AFP since late March 2012.
"His kidnappers, whoever they may be, should free him immediately," he added.

One year after US withdrawal, uncertainty reigns in Iraq

One year after US forces completed their withdrawal from Iraq on December 18, 2011, Iraq continues to see regular outbreaks of sectarian violence and almost daily terrorist attacks, including a wave of bombings that killed 35 people on Monday.

A wave of attacks targeting both Iraqi security forces and civilians killed 35 people on Monday, in a second day of deadly violence ahead of the first anniversary of the withdrawal of US forces.
Monday was the deadliest day in Iraq since November 29, when 50 people were killed, and the latest violence comes after attacks killed 19 people and wounded 77 on Sunday.
US military forces completed their withdrawal from Iraq on December 18 last year, ending a nearly nine-year war that cost the lives of tens of thousands of Iraqis, thousands of Americans and hundreds of billions of dollars.
Violence in Iraq is down significantly from its peak in 2006 and 2007, but while Iraqi forces have held their own since the US departure, insurgent groups still pose a significant threat, and attacks occur almost daily.
On Monday, gunmen attacked a police checkpoint on the highway west of Tikrit, killing one policeman and wounding three, a senior police officer said.
A police patrol chased the gunmen, who abandoned their car and then detonated explosives in it, killing four more police and wounding two, the officer said. A doctor confirmed the toll.
In the village of Al-Buslaibi, north of Baghdad, a roadside bomb targeting an army patrol killed three soldiers, army and police officers said.
And gunmen attacked an army checkpoint in the north Iraqi city of Mosul, killing one soldier, an army officer and a doctor said.
A car bomb in Khaznah, a village near Mosul populated by the small Shabak minority, killed seven people and wounded 12, while two car bombs near a Shiite place of worship killed five and wounded 26 in the northern flashpoint town of Tuz Khurmatu, security and medical sources said.
Three roadside bombs exploded near Baquba, north of Baghdad, killing one person and wounding four others, while a magnetic "sticky bomb" and a shooting in the city killed two people and wounded six, police and medics said.
In other attacks in Diyala province, gunmen wounded three Kurds in Jalawla, while a sticky bomb killed two Kurds in Baladruz, according to the same sources.
Khaznah, Tuz Khurmatu and Jalawla are all part of areas Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region wants to incorporate, over Baghdad's strong objections.
A salvo of 10 mortar rounds slammed into the town of Rutba in Anbar province, killing two and wounding nine, officials said, and a car bomb near Dujail north of Baghdad killed one Iraqi and wounded at least 10 Iranian pilgrims.
In the Karada area in central Baghdad, a car bomb killed at least one person and wounded at least four, an interior ministry official and a medical source said.
The shredded remains of a car lay at the site of the blast, which shattered windows, damaged other vehicles and left debris strewn in the street, which was packed with Iraqi security forces after the attack.
"The security situation is worsening," said Duniyah, a 23-year-old employee of a hotel near the site of the explosion, who was watching the street from inside the hotel entrance, which was strewn with broken glass.
A roadside bomb against a police patrol in Madain, south of Baghdad, wounded three police and two civilians, while an attack by gunmen on a Sahwa anti-Qaeda militia checkpoint west of the north Iraq city of Kirkuk killed one militiaman, security and medical officials said.
And a car bomb in Khaldiyah, west of Baghdad, killed two civilians and two police, and wounded seven other people, police Captain Abdul Hafez al-Mahlawi said.
Iraqi security forces have been able to hold violence in check, with the number of people killed in the first 11 months of 2012 fewer than in the same period the year before, according to government figures.
"The withdrawal of US forces meant that training became reduced, intelligence gathering became limited and quick reaction forces were no longer as well resourced or able to reach flashpoints at short notice," said John Drake, an analyst with AKE group.
"However, counter-insurgency operations and arrests didn't decline," he said, though "the Iraqi military still has a long way to go in terms of building capabilities, and they remain under-resourced and regularly targeted."

More than 60,000 killed in Syria conflict, UN says

At least 60,000 people have died in Syria’s almost two-year-long conflict, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said Wednesday, citing an exhaustive study that compared death reports from seven different sources.

At least 60,000 people have been killed in Syria’s civil war, with monthly casualty figures steadily increasing since the conflict began almost two years ago, according to a new analysis released Wednesday by the United Nations.
The death toll is a third more than the figure of 45,000 given by activists opposed to the regime of President Bashar al-Assad -- the first time that the global body’s estimates are higher.

It comes as activists report that a Syrian warplane hit a gas station near Damascus on Wednesday, killing and wounding dozens of people and igniting a huge fire in what could be one of the bloodiest attacks in weeks during the 22-month conflict.
Independent experts compared 147,349 killings reported by seven different sources -- including the government -- for the study, which was commissioned by the U.N. human rights office.
By removing duplicates they arrived at a list of 59,648 individuals killed between the start of the uprising on March 15, 2011, and Nov. 30, 2012. In each case, the victim’s first and last name, the date and the location of his or her death were known.
"Given there has been no let-up in the conflict since the end of November, we can assume that more than 60,000 people have been killed by the beginning of 2013," U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said in a statement. "The number of casualties is much higher than we expected, and is truly shocking."

The real death toll is likely to be even greater because reports containing incomplete information were excluded and a significant number of killings may not have been documented at all by the sources available.
"There are many names not on the list for people who were quietly shot in in the woods," Pillay’s spokesman Rupert Colville told The Associated Press.
The data, which didn’t distinguish among soldiers, rebels and civilians, also show that the killing in Syria has accelerated.
During the summer of 2011, shortly after the uprising against Assad began, the monthly death toll stood at around 1,000. A year later, an average of 5,000 were killed each month, the U.N. said.
Most of the killings occurred in Homs, followed by rural Damascus, Idlib, Aleppo, Daraa and Hama. At least three quarters of the victims were male.
"The failure of the international community, in particular the Security Council, to take concrete actions to stop the blood-letting, shames us all," Pillay said. "Collectively, we have fiddled at the edges while Syria burns."
The U.N. rights chief warned that thousands more would die or suffer terrible injuries if the conflict continues, and repeated her call that those responsible for the killings - which in some cases could amount to war crimes - should be held accountable.
"We must not compound the existing disaster by failing to prepare for the inevitable - and very dangerous - instability that will occur when the conflict ends," she said.

"Serious planning needs to get under way immediately, not just to provide humanitarian aid to all those who need it, but to protect all Syrian citizens from extra-judicial reprisals and acts of revenge" like those seen in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and Congo, she said.
What began with peaceful protests has evolved into a full-scale civil war in Syria, with scores of armed groups fighting regime forces across the Arab country.
Anti-regime activists said Wednesday that a single Russian-built MiG fighter fired a missile that hit the gas station, setting off an inferno in the eastern suburb of Mleiha. Black smoke billowed from the site. An amateur video posted online showed charred bodies and gruesome carnage at the scene.