Suicide bombing kills at least 60 killed in Yemen

SANAA, Yemen (AP) — A suicide bomber blew himself up at a military parade rehearsal Monday in Yemen's capital, killing at least 60 soldiers in one of the deadliest attacks in the city in years, according to the ministry of defense, officials and witnesses.

A policeman collects evidence at the site of a suicide bomb attack at a parade square in Sanaa, Yemen, Monday, May 21, 2012. Officials say Monday's bombing near Sanaa's presidential palace is one of the deadliest attacks in the city in months. (AP Photo/Hani Mohammed)

The bombing appeared to be a failed assassination attempt against the Minister of Defense, Maj. Gen. Mohammed Nasser Ahmed, who arrived at the city square for the parade just minutes before the blast ripped through the area.

Nobody claimed responsibility for the attack, but it came as the country's new political leadership has been stepping up the fight against al-Qaida militants holding large swaths of land in the nation's south.

While fighting al-Qaida militants, Yemen's new president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, has been embroiled in a power struggle with loyalists of ousted leader Ali Abdullah Saleh. He has sacked several of them along with family members from top positions in the armed forces, including the air force.

Military officials said the suicide bomber was a soldier taking part in the drill, lining up with fellow troops at a main square in the capital, not far from the presidential palace. He belonged to the Central Security, a paramilitary force led by Saleh's nephew Yahia, they said.

Witnesses at the scene repeated the same claim, but nobody produced any concrete evidence to support it.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Monday's bombing left a scene of carnage, with scores of bleeding soldiers lying on the ground as ambulances rushed to the scene. Several severed heads were on the pavement amid large pools of blood and human remains.

"This is a real massacre," said Ahmed Sobhi, one of the soldiers who witnessed the explosion. "There are piles of torn body parts, limbs, and heads. This is unbelievable. I am still shaking. The place turned into hell. I thought this only happens in movies."

The bomber detonated his explosives minutes before the arrival of the defense minister and the chief of staff, who were expected to greet the troops, the officials said. The drill was a rehearsal for a parade for the celebration of Yemen's National Day on Tuesday.

Soldiers hand-picked by their commanders from different branches of the military have been practicing together for the parade for a week, Sobhi said, citing that as evidence that the attacker was a soldier and not an infiltrator.

The site of the attack has been sealed off by Republican Guard forces for the past 24 hours in preparation for the National Day celebrations. No cars or pedestrians were allowed to enter. The Republican Guard is led by Saleh's son and one-time heir apparent, Ahmed.

Khaled Ali, another soldier, told The Associated Press over the phone from the site of the attack that the explosion was followed by heavy gunfire.

"In the mayhem, we were all running in all directions. I saw the guards of the minister surrounding him and forming a human cordon. They were firing in the air," he said.

Source: The Associated Press

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Social networking pioneer who took on Facebook commits suicide at age 22

• One of four friends from NYU who launched Diaspora* site, meant to protect users' privacy
• Group raised more than $200,000 in donations
• Mark Zuckerberg praised his project

A 22-year-old social networking pioneer and Internet privacy advocate who dared to challenge Facebook and Google is dead.

Ilya Zhitomirskiy died Saturday after San Francisco police were summoned for a reported suicide, police spokesman Officer Albie Esparza said. 

Mr Zhitomirskiy was one of the founders Diaspora*, a new social networking service meant to give users more control of their information online, and sought to lure people away from bigger sites like Facebook, Google and Twitter.

Police would not release other details of his death and a medical examiner's report could take weeks before it becomes public.

Mr Zhitomirskiy and three friends, Daniel Grippi, Maxwell Salzberg, and Raphael Sofaer, launched a trial run of Diaspora* last year that attracted the attention of The New York Times and National Public Radio and left the tech world buzzing.

They were all students at New York University's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences and Mr Zhitomirskiy described himself on his Twitter account as a ‘free culture and open web enthusiast. Now one of the four Diaspora* bros.’

Despite their desire to compete with Facebook, the company's founder Mark Zuckerberg praised the group, telling Wired last year: 'I think it is cool people are trying to do it.

'I see a little of myself in them. It’s just their approach that the world could be better and saying, "We should try to do it."'

Friends and fans of Mr Zhitomirskiy have written tributes on Twitter after hearing of his death, with one posting: 'Death of a young entrepreneur is a great loss to the community.'

The four students announced their software programme in April 2010 and raised more than $200,000 for the project through the online fundraising system Kickstarter.

The project even inspired Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg to donate money to the project.

In November 2010 the foursome released a consumer alpha version of the programme, while still making further developments.

Diaspora* is based around privacy concerns related to centralised social networks by allowing users to set up their own servers to host content and then interact with others by sharing status updates, photographs and other data – much like Facebook.

But Diaspora* is different because sites like Facebook and Google store user data within their own networks and own whatever data users upload.

Mr Zhitomirskiy was a hardcore computer programmer, obsessed with Internet security and maintaining privacy online.

But since he began working on Diaspora*, he began focusing on user interfaces and started thinking about how to lure 'normal' users away from Facebook.

'We want to move people from websites that are not healthy to websites that are more healthy, because they’re transparent,' Mr Zhitomirskiy told New York magazine last year.

'Even though a nontechnical person may not understand it, they’ll know there’s a community that has said, this is okay.'

Co-founder Raphael Sofaer told the New York Times last year: ‘In our real lives, we talk to each other.

'We don’t need to hand our messages to a hub. What Facebook gives you as a user isn’t that hard to do.

'All the little games, the little walls, the little chat, aren’t really rare things. The technology already exists.'

Source: Daily Mail

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