Rebels stormed a Chinese-run oil field at dawn in eastern Ethiopia yesterday, killing 74 workers and destroying the facility, a guerrilla group and government officials said.
The Ogaden National Liberation Front, an ethnic Somali group that has fought alongside insurgents in Somalia, also kidnapped seven Chinese workers, senior Ethiopian government official Bereket Simon said.
"This was a cold-blooded killing," Bereket, a special adviser to Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, said. "This was organized."
The rebel group claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement sent to the Associated Press, saying it had launched "military operations against units of the Ethiopian armed forces guarding an oil exploration site" in the east of the country. It also warned all international oil companies not to operate in the region. It did not give any details of casualties, but said they had "wiped out" three Ethiopian military units.
China's official Xinhua news agency identified the Chinese workers and Ethiopian guards as employees of the Zhongyuan Petroleum Exploration Bureau, a division of China Petroleum & Chemical Corp, a huge state-run oil company better known as Sinopec.
Xu Shuang, the general manager of Zhongyuan Petroleum Exploration Bureau, based in Addis Ababa, said nine of its Chinese oil workers were killed, seven Chinese workers were kidnapped and 65 Ethiopians were killed in the fighting.
The Zhongyuan official, whose company began working in Ethiopia's volatile Somali Regional State last year, declined to give further details of the attack.
The attack took place early yesterday morning in Abole, a small town 120km away from the state's capital Jijiga, close to the Somali border. Bereket said several Ethiopian troops were wounded in the gunbattle.
"The army is pursuing them. We will track them down dead or alive. We will make sure these people will be hunted and be brought to justice," he said.
He said the group was also linked to the Eritrean government, which Ethiopia has repeatedly accused of waging terror attacks. Eritrea denies the claims.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not