Kuwaiti woman goes missing in India, found in Bangladesh: Police
Kolkat (PTI): A 31-year-old woman from Kuwait who had arrived in India for treatment and went missing from Kolkata last month has been spotted in neighbouring Bangladesh this week, a police officer said here on Thursday.
After a thorough investigation, the Kolkata Police informed the Kuwaiti Embassy that the woman, along with a man, has crossed the international border to enter Bangladesh.
"It was then the Kuwaiti Embassy sought the help of Bangladesh and the woman was found from a house in that country on Monday. The police there have handed her over to the Kuwaiti authorities," the police officer said.
The woman came to Kolkata with her younger brother on January 20 and put up at a five-star hotel in East Kolkata. She was getting treatment for some skin-related problems in a private hospital.
After a tour of other tourist attractions of Kolkata, she along with her younger brother had gone to Alipore zoo on January 27 from where she went "missing", the officer said.
Her brother then went to Alipore police station and informed the officer "in broken English" about what had happened.
As her mobile phone containing a Kuwaiti sim could not be tracked, the police started examining CCTV footage.
"CCTV footage showed that she got into a yellow taxi with a man wearing a suit, a cap and a mask. So, identifying him was tough. We spotted the taxi driver and got to know that they got down near Marquis Street (in central Kolkata)," the senior police officer said.
From there, they took another taxi and reached the Bangladesh border near Bangaon in the neighbouring North 24 Parganas district.
"Then they could not be spotted anywhere inside the Indian territory. Based on the description and after scanning hundreds of CCTV footage, we got a photograph of the man who is probably a Bangladeshi national," he said.
A red alert was issued against the man. The staff of the Alipore Police Station and Anti-Rowdy Section of Kolkata Police talked to their sources and after it was clear that they have crossed the international border, they informed the Kuwaiti Embassy in New Delhi.
The embassy has sent an appreciation letter to the Kolkata Police lauding the role of its officers in helping them rescue the woman, the officer added.
No details on what happened to the man who apparently is her beau, nor the location in Bangladesh from where the Kuwaiti citizen was found were shared with the media.
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Malian defence minister killed in attack that saw jihadis and rebels seize towns, military bases
Dakar (AP): Malian Minister of Defence Gen. Sadio Camara was killed in an attack as jihadi and rebel forces seized towns and military bases across the country, according to a military officer and two other sources on Sunday.
There was no immediate comment from the Malian government.
“Unfortunately, the Ministry of Defence, Gen. Sadio Camara, has been killed during the attack which targeted his house yesterday,” said a military official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he did not have permission to speak to the media.
Two other people, a civil society leader and a security member, confirmed the information.
Separatist fighters on Saturday joined Islamic militants in launching one of the biggest coordinated attacks on the Malian army in the capital and several other cities that left at least 16 wounded.
The separatists have been fighting for years to create an independent state in northern Mali, while al-Qaida and Islamic State group-aligned militants have been fighting the government for over a decade.
Malian troops and Russian mercenaries withdrew from the northern city of Kidal after the attacks, the rebels said Sunday.
A spokesperson for the Tuareg-led Azawad Liberation Front, or FLA, a separatist group, said the Russian Africa Corps troops and the Malian military withdrew from the city after an agreement was reached for their peaceful exit.
“Kidal is declared free,” said FLA spokesperson Mohamed El Maouloud Ramadan.
The Malian army did not respond to requests for comment but in an earlier statement said they were “tracking down terrorist armed groups in Kidal.”
The separatists have been fighting for years to create an independent state in northern Mali. Kidal had long served as a stronghold of the rebellion before being taken by Malian government forces and Russian mercenaries in 2023. Its capture marked a significant symbolic victory for the junta and its Russian allies.
It was the first time the separatists worked alongside the al-Qaida-linked militant group JNIM, which also claimed responsibility for Saturday's attacks on Bamako's international airport and four other cities, including Kidal, in central and northern Mali.
“This operation is being carried out in partnership with the JNIM, which is also committed to defending the people against the military regime in Bamako,” Ramadan said.
Wassim Nasr, a Sahel specialist and senior research fellow at the Soufan Center security think tank, said that the coordination between the two groups, as well as the explicit call for the Russian military to leave, is new.
“The coordination, conducting attacks all over the country at the same time, real coordination on the military level but also on the political level because both claims of both groups they acknowledged that they worked together, this is a first,” said Nasr.
Mali government spokesperson Gen. Issa Ousmane Coulibaly said on state television late Saturday that 16 people were wounded, including civilians and military personnel, and that several militants were killed. He did not provide a death toll.
The governor of Bamako's district, Abdoulaye Coulibaly, announced a three-day overnight curfew, from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m.
The Economic Community of West African States has condemned the attacks and called on “all states, security forces, regional mechanisms and populations of West Africa to unite and mobilize in a coordinated effort to combat this scourge.”
The separatists called on Russia to “reconsider its support for the military junta in Bamako, whose actions have contributed to the suffering of the civilian population.”
Following military coups, the juntas in Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso turned from Western allies to Russia for help in combating Islamic militants. But the security situation has worsened in recent times, with a record number of attacks by militants. Government forces have also been accused of killing civilians they suspect of collaborating with militants.
In 2024, an al-Qaida-linked group claimed an attack on Bamako's airport and a military training camp in the capital, killing scores of people.
Ulf Laessing, head of the Sahel program at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, said that while the attacks were a major blow to the credibility of Mali's Russian partners, JNIM is unlikely to take control of Bamako in the near term due to opposition from the local population.
“The attacks are a major blow to Russia as the mercenaries had no intelligence about the attacks and were unable to protect major cities. They have unnecessarily worsened the conflict by not distinguishing between civilians and combatants,” Laessing said.
