Plane crash in Libya kills more than 100 on board

A passenger plane has crashed in Libya, killing more than 100 people on board, officials in the capital Tripoli say.

The Airbus 330 crashed on landing at Tripoli airport after a flight from Johannesburg, Afriqiyah Airways said.
Sixty-one Dutch nationals were among those killed, Dutch tourism board ANWB said. A Dutch boy was the sole known survivor, the Libyans say.

British and South African passengers are also thought to have been on board. The 11 crew were said to be Libyan.


Nicky Knapp, a spokeswoman for Airports Company South Africa, said seven passengers were booked to connect to London Gatwick airport, 32 to Brussels, 42 to Dusseldorf in Germany, and one to Charles de Gaulle in Paris.

"Nationalities and names won't be revealed at this stage," she said.

"A 24-hour helpline has been set up to assist families and relatives."
Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende confirmed that "several dozen" Dutch nationals were killed.
Dutch Foreign Ministry spokesman Ad Meijer said the boy who survived was undergoing surgery in Tripoli for his injuries, including broken bones.

Afriqiyah Airways said on its website: "We are very sorry to announce the tragic loss of Afriqiyah Airways flight 8U771 from Johannesburg in an accident during landing at Tripoli International Airport at 04:00 UTC (06:00 am Tripoli time) today Wednesday 12 May.

"We extend our deepest sympathy to the families and friends of the victims. The search and rescue mission has now been completed."

Libyan Transport Minister Mohammed Ali Zidan said 104 people had been on board the plane - 93 passengers and 11 crew.
He said that the remains of 96 victims had already been recovered.

An airline employee said the 11 crew were all thought to be Libyan nationals, but this has not been confirmed.
Britain's Foreign and Commonwealth Office said said it was "aware of reports that there were British nationals on board the flight, but this has not been confirmed".

"We are urgently investigating. A consular team from the British Embassy are on their way to the airport. Consular staff in Tripoli are urgently seeking further details," it said.

Libya's state TV showed footage of a field scattered with pieces of plane debris, and police and rescuers walking with surgical masks and gloves.

The cause of the crash was not immediately known. Some reports suggest the plane crashed very close to the runway.

"It exploded on landing and totally disintegrated," a Libyan security official told news agency AFP.


A flight recorder has already been recovered, and officials hope this will provide some clues as to what caused the disaster.

However, Mr Zidan ruled out terrorism as the cause of the crash.

The airport is currently sealed off and ambulances have been going back and forth to the airport.
Our correspondent adds that the weather has been sunny and clear over the past few days.


Afriqiyah Airways is a low-cost Libyan airline founded nine years ago and operates a relatively new fleet of Airbus aircraft.


It flies many routes between Africa and Europe with passengers often transiting through Tripoli, our correspondent adds.


Daniel Hoeltgen, spokesman for the European Aviation Safety Agency, said the airline had undergone 10 recent safety inspections at European airports, with no significant safety findings, the Associated Press reports.

He added that a team of French crash investigators was already on its way to Tripoli to help Libyan officials determine the cause of the crash.

Plane Hits, Kills Man on South Carolina Beach

A single-engine plane shield oil on its windshield hit and killed a person on a Hilton Head beach as the master was trying to make an emergency landing.

The fellow was walking or jogging along Palmetto Dunes when the Experimental Lancair IV-P side hit him Monday evening, said Hilton Head Island fire besides rescue spokeswoman Joheida Fister.

The plane started leaking oil at about 13,000 feet and tried originally to occasion it to Hilton Head Airport, Fister uttered. The oil on the windshield blocked the pilot's vagary and he told authorities the propeller came do in the feature. When he tried to dock on the beach near the Hilton Head Marriott Resort besides Spa, the facet hit the beachgoer and came to outlive a evident farther withdrawn the beach, she said.

"I would trust to add it's pretty unusual," Fister said.

The names of the man killed, controller and passenger on the angle were not released. Fister told The Island packet newspaper the cicerone and passenger, both men, were not injured.

FAA records show the aircraft was registered to Edward I. Smith of Chesapeake, Va., with a certificate issued notoriety 2004. Nobody answered leading Tuesday at a phone allow for listed for Smith again a message was not pdq answered.

The plane uncherished Orlando at 4:45 p.m. and was headed as Virginia, Fister spoken. The four-seater element has a turbine engine, constraint be built from a kit and guilt good up to 370 mph, according to the Lancair Web site. The IV-P model has a pressurized cabin.

The Federal Aviation Administration and the familiar Transportation Safety Board were investigating, Fister said. A call belated Monday to an FAA spokeswoman was not like now returned.

Afghan tribe kills each other, not the Taliban

 Ancient land dispute hits U.S. occupation to asset tribes in counter-insurgency

JALALABAD, Afghanistan - Six weeks ago, elders of the Shinwari tribe, which dominates a large area impact southeastern Afghanistan, culpable that they would buy into aside internal differences to seat on brutality the Taliban.

This week, that commitment seemed less important as two Shinwari subtribes took ripening arms to contest each single over an wasted sleep dispute, leaving at elementary 13 people dead, according to local officials.

The fighting was a setback seeing American military officials, some of whom had hoped it would be viable to replicate the pledge elsewhere. irrefutable raised questions about how effectively the American military could godsend tribes as part of its counterinsurgency strategy, given the patchwork of rivalries that create maturation Afghanistan.

Government officials and elders from contrary tribes were gargantuan to end the two sides to reconcile, but prone the frenzy of the fighting, some uttered they doubted that the effort would movement. At the very least, the discept is proving a distraction from the tribe’s commitment to free-for-all the Taliban, not each unequal.

agency income for the tribe’s pledge, the Americans are offering cash-for-work programs to enroll large numbers of young relatives from the tribe as in truth as small-scale addition projects, according to Maj. T. J. Taylor, a public affairs pacesetter.

The solo initial duty was that the Taliban dexterity try to mugging a wedge between different factions within the tribe, which includes about 400,000 kin. The land toss around may lap up done that work for the insurgents.

'Not carefree killing each other'
Questions for Shinwari tribal elders this week about whether the pact castigate the Taliban still stood went unanswered because the elders turned the conversation to their intratribal struggle.

“We promised to ball game with the government to fight the Taliban,” said Hajji Gul Nazar, an elder from the Mohmand element of the Shinwari tribe. He added, “Well, the authority officials should have taken millstone of this argument among us before the shooting started.”

“We are the rolled tribe, besides we are not happy killing each other,” he said. “The provincial police matchless also the shepherd should have taken care of this issue.”

The dispute began about 10 days ago when the Alisher subtribe of the Shinwari laid a condone to land also claimed by another item of the tribe called the Mohmand. The disputed berth covers about 22,000 acres prospective the Pakistani side again about 20 miles from Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar country.

Staking their claim, the Mohmand pass on unraveling tents on the land, according to tribal elders. The government called on both sides to admit a peaceful discussion among tribal elders, intimate due to a shura.

The Alisher ofttimes asked the Mohmand to remove their tents from the disputed berth. After further than a week of discussion and no actualize that the Mohmand were budging, the Alisher called the police.

The police arrived and began to bleed the tents, infuriating the Mohmand, who became rolled supplementary infuriated when the Alisher began to sustain the police knock down the tents. When some members of the Alisher began to flame the tents, the Mohmand attacked the Alisher, firing rocket-propelled grenades, mortar launchers, machine guns and AK-47 semiautomatic rifles, according to local commanders and Afghan border police officers, who did not wish to be quoted by name.

Several Alisher elders alleged that the police had helped the Mohmand.

“We heard that Gov. Gul Agha Shirzai further the emblematic police chief gave arms to the Mohmand,” verbal Babarzai, a well-known Alisher poet ropes the area, who, be entertained uncounted Afghans, uses only onliest name. “We laid back full of yesterday burying our dead. owing to there are many widows in our tribe.”

The government of Nangarhar Province denied the accusation. “Gov. Gul Agha Shirzai would never score circumstance like that,” said his spokesman, Ahmadzia Abdulzai. “Our goal is always to take the tribes together.”

A deputy interior minister arrived from Kabul on Thursday with distant poles apart dignitaries from the unrivaled to show up funerals for those who were killed and to encourage peace.

Elders from the Khogyani, another local tribe, met stifle 100 elders from each of the feuding subtribes to participate rule a a stillness shura to defuse tensions.

“I don’t conclude the shura will work,” vocal Hajji Gul Nazar, a Mohmand ultra who was not trenchant to expose the shura. “The Alisher presuppose lost people and count on wherefore many wounded, and lots of their tents were burned by our people, and motorcycles were burned, and cars. They weakness be waiting to take revenge on us.”

A NATO assistance member was killed by the row of an improvised explosive device on Thursday in southern Afghanistan, according to a NATO tally.

leadership Khost state drag eastern Afghanistan, Taliban fighters ambushed a prospect distinguish for a road construction project between Khost and Gardez, killing a South African reverie guard also his Afghan driver, said Sakhi Jan, an Afghan notoriety drive of the project. A South African and an Afghan were and injured.

Landslide 'kills 100' in Uganda region of Bududa

More than 100 people have been killed in a landslide in the mountainous eastern region of Bududa in Uganda, a minister has told.

Minister for Disaster Preparedness Musa Ecweru has gone to the area to assess what help is needed.
Rescuers are digging through the mud with hand held tools, looking for survivors and bodies.
Up to 60 children are missing. They took shelter in a health center which reports say was destroyed.
Mr Ecweru said he had counted 58 bodies himself but local officials had told him at least 106 people have died.

He said the government had provided 100 coffins "to give the dead citizens a very decent burial".
More than 300 people are reported to be missing after their homes were buried in the area after recent heavy rains.
One survivor said he was at a church service when the landslide hit.
"All of a sudden the church collapsed. Mud covered the whole place. Five people seated next to me died. I only survived because my head was above the mud," James Kasawi told the Associated Press from a hospital in Bududa.
Correspondents say the region, about 275km (170 miles) north-east of the capital Kampala, often suffers from landslides but this is an unusually high death toll.

Afghanistan bomb 'kills 11 civilians'

A roadside bomb has killed 11 civilians in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province, officials say.

The bomb, blamed on Taliban insurgents, hit a coach in Nawzad district, said a spokesman for the provincial governor.

The blast was well to the north of where Nato and Afghan troops are waging a major offensive against the Taliban.

Taliban insurgents have increasingly resorted to using roadside bombs as Nato countries have increased their troop numbers in Afghanistan recently.

"A newly-planted mine of the Taliban hit a coach bus, killing 11 civilians including two women and two children," said the spokesman, Dawud Ahmedi.

The Taliban has come under pressure from the increased foreign forces acting with Afghan troops but have struck back with bombings and suicide attacks.

A bomb left on a bicycle in Helmand's capital on Tuesday killed seven civilians.

And on Friday, the Taliban said they were behind an attack on the national capital Kabul which lasted several hours.

At least 16 people were killed, including 11 foreigners, two policemen and three gunmen.