B'Haram Kills 20 Again

At least 20 people were killed when Islamist group Boko Haram attacked a town in northeast Nigeria, triggering clashes with troops stationed there, the military said on Sunday.

Reuters reported that a spokesman for Nigerian forces in northeastern Borno State, which lies at the heart of a four-year-old Islamist insurgency, said the Islamists crept into the town of Damboa in the early hours of Saturday.

They killed five worshippers at a mosque as they said their morning prayers, he said.

“While they were unleashing their mayhem, troops … engaged the terrorists, killing 15 in the process while others fled,” the military spokesman, Captain Aliyu Danja, said in a statement obtained by Reuters.

The military often gives significantly higher casualty figures for insurgents than for its own men, and it is usually not possible to verify them independently.

Despite a concerted military offensive meant to crush Boko Haram since May, it remains the biggest security threat to Africa’s top energy producer.

Its targets have traditionally been security forces, Christians or Muslim clerics who speak out against it, but its fighters have increasingly turned their sights on civilians in the past few months – massacring hundreds in roadside attacks or assaults on Western-style schools they consider sacrilegious.

Nigerian fighter jets last week bombed camps belonging to suspected Islamist militants in northeast Nigeria in response to a massacre of students at an agricultural college that killed at least 41.

Brave Four-Year-Old British Boy Confronts KIller

Can you believe that a four-year-old British boy caught up in the Kenya mall massacre showed astonishing bravery by confronting a marauding gunman who ended up begging for his forgiveness.

Elliot Prior, from Windsor, Berkshire, told one of the terrorists that he was a ‘very bad man’ as he protected his mother, Amber, who had been shot in the leg, and six-year-old sister Amelie.

Incredibly, the attacker took pity on the family and bizarrely

Empty F-16 jet tested by Boeing and US Air Force

Boeing has revealed that it has retrofitted retired fighter jets to turn them into drones.

It said that one of the Lockheed Martin F-16 made a first flight with an empty cockpit last week.

Two US Air Force pilots controlled the plane from the ground as it flew from a Florida base to the Gulf of Mexico.

Boeing suggested that the innovation could ultimately be used to help train pilots, providing an adversary they could practise firing on.

The jet - which had previously sat mothballed at an Arizona site for 15 years - flew at an altitude of 40,000ft (12.2km) and a speed of Mach 1.47 (1,119mph/1,800km/h).

It carried out a series of manoeuvres including a barrel roll and a "split S" - a move in which the aircraft turns upside down before making a half loop so that it flies the right-way-up in the opposite direction. This can be used in combat to evade missile lock-ons.

Boeing said the unmanned F16 was followed by two chase planes

Ex-Pope Benedict denies abuse concealment

The former Pope, Benedict XVI, has denied any role in covering up child sex abuse by priests, in his first public comments since retirement.

The emeritus Pope, as he is now known, addressed the issue in a detailed letter to a prominent atheist, which also covered many other matters.

It is thought to be the first time that Benedict has publicly rejected personal responsibility for covering up abuse.

Some critics say he must have known of efforts to protect abusive priests.

Benedict's letter, to the professor of mathematics Piergiorgio Odifreddi, was published in La Repubblica newspaper after the professor sought the former Pope's permission.

His comments are the first to be released publicly since he left office, saying he would retreat to a life of prayer. He was apparently concerned not to have a public role that might impinge on his successor, Pope Francis.

'Source of suffering'

Regarding the repeated allegations of abuse which arose during his pontificate, Benedict denied he had suppressed investigation of paedophile priests.

And, while admitting the horror of abuse, he insisted priests had no greater tendency to paedophilia than anyone else.

He wrote: