NEWS OF THE DAY
From Around the World
Afghan strategy: CIA is expanding its covert operations in Afghanistan, sending small teams of highly experienced officers and contractors alongside Afghan forces to hunt and kill Taliban militants across the country, according to two senior U.S. officials, the latest sign of the agency’s increasingly integral role in President Trump’s counterterrorism strategy. The assignment marks a shift for the CIA in the country, where it had primarily been focused on defeating al Qaeda and helping the Afghan intelligence service.
‘State of war’: A Somali police officer said a roadside bomb has killed six people and injured three others. Col. Ahmed Nur said the bomb struck a minibus carrying farmers Sunday near Bal’ad town just north of the capital, Mogadishu. There is no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing in an area that has seen clashes between government forces and fighters with the al Qaeda-linked al-Shabab extremist group. The roadside bombing comes a little over a week after a huge truck bombing in Mogadishu killed at least 358 people in the country’s worst attack. Somali President Mohamed Abudllahi Mohamed has told troops to prepare for a “state of war” and new offensive against al-Shabab.
Restive region: Eleven people have been killed in clashes in Ethiopia’s restive Oromia region as the country continues to experience anti-government demonstrations that at times lead to ethnic violence, regional officials said Sunday. In recent weeks, continuing conflict between ethnic Oromos and Somalis led to the killing of several dozen people and the displacement of tens of thousands of Oromo people. Oromia is the largest of Ethiopia’s federal states and has been experiencing antigovernment protests since November 2015.
Appointment revoked: The World Health Organization has rescinded its appointment of Robert Mugabe, the longtime president of Zimbabwe, to a “goodwill ambassador” role. WHO Director General Tedros Ghebreyesus said in a statement Sunday that he had “listened carefully to all who have expressed their concerns.” The appointment had provoked outrage because of Mugabe’s track record of human-rights abuses, including violent crackdowns on political dissent, which had earned Zimbabwe international sanctions.
Slain reporter: Several thousand Maltese citizens rallied Sunday to honor an investigative journalist killed by a car bomb, but the prime minister and opposition leader who were chief targets of Daphne Caruana Galizia’s reporting stayed away from the gathering. Participants at the rally in Malta’s capital, Valletta, placed flowers at the foot of a memorial to the 53-year-old reporter that sprang up opposite the law court building after her Oct. 16 slaying. Caruana Galizia devoted her career to exposing wrong-doing in Malta. Titanic letter: A letter written by one of the Titanic’s passengers a day before the ocean liner sank has sold for $166,000 at an auction house in Devizes, England. The handwritten note, on embossed Titanic stationery, was penned by first-class passenger Alexander Oskar Holverson on April 13, 1912 — the day before the ship hit an iceberg and sank in the North Atlantic, killing more than 1,500 on board. The letter, one of the last known to have been written on board by the disaster’s victims, was found in Holverson’s pocket notebook when his body was recovered. His wife, Mary, survived the disaster.