Hundreds of thousands of mourners have gathered at the holy city of Touba to pay last respects to Senegal's late spiritual leader, Serigne Saliou Mbacke, who died at the age of 92 on Dec. 28. Saliou was the last surviving son of Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba, 19th-century founder of the Mouride sufi order, and had been "caliph" since 1990. About a tenth of Senegal's 11 million citizens are said to be Mourides, including President Abdoulaye Wade, who declared three days of national mourning. Mouhamadou Lamine Bara Mbacke, a grandson of Ahmadou Bamba, is to become the sixth caliph. (Press Association, Dec. 31; Reuters, Dec. 30; BBC, Dec. 29) Gambian President Yahya Jammeh also expressed sadness at the passing of the caliph, calling it a "great loss" for both Senegal and Gambia. (Afriquenligne, Dec. 31) However, Gambia is being accused in the assassination a week earlier of another prominent Senegalese marabout, or holy man, with intrigues over armed separatist movements in the background...

Two suicide attacks in Iraq killed at least 56 and wounded at least 42 this week—days after the US military delivered an upbeat report on security in the country, boasting that levels of violence had dropped over the past year. A female suicide bomber attacked a checkpoint of US-backed anti-al-Qaeda neighborhood patrol volunteers Jan. 2 in Baquba, the capital of Diyala province. The attack killed 10 and wounded eight. On Jan. 3, a suicide bombing killed 36 and wounded at least 35 in Baghdad's Zayouna neighborhood—the deadliest in the capital since August. The target was a crowd that had gathered to mourn a teacher killed with six others in a car bombing four days earlier in the crowded intersection at Tayaran Square (CSM, Jan. 2)

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has claimed responsibility for the Jan. 2 suicide bombing in Algeria that killed five and injured 20. At 6:45 AM, a small truck laden with explosives drove at high speed towards a police station in Naciria, east of Algiers in the wilaya of Boumerdès. The driver reportedly detonated the Toyota Hilux after he was ordered to stop by police. In a statement aired by Al Arabiya TV, al-Qaeda franchise spokesman Salah Abou Mohammad said the truck carried at least 500 kilogrmas of explosives. A 10-year-old girl on her way to buy milk was among those killed by the blast. Algerian army forces immediately sealed off Naciria and began conducting "military operations" in nearby Sid Ali Bounab, a reported al-Qaeda stronghold. (Magharebia, Jan. 3)

President Mwai Kibaki's government accused rival Raila Odinga's ODM party of unleashing "genocide" in Kenya Jan. 2, as the death toll from violence since the disputed Dec. 27 election passed 300. "It is becoming clear that these well-organized acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing were well-planned, financed and rehearsed by Orange Democratic Movement leaders prior to the general elections," read the statement from Lands Minister Kivutha Kibwana.

As part of a new partnership with Nicaragua's Sandinista President Daniel Ortega, Iran and Venezuela have announced a plan to help finance a $350 million deep-water port at Monkey Point on the country's remote Miskito Coast—envisioned as the first step towards a "Dry Canal" corridor of pipelines, rails and highways across the country to the Pacific port of Corinto. Iran recently established an embassy in Managua, and is boasting new cultural exchange programs in Nicaragua to encourage trade and investment. A Dec. 17 account from Iran's official news agency IRNA noted a visit to Managua by Ezzatollah Zarghami, president of Iranian state radio and television, who pledged to make programming available for local broadcast. However, the Iranian presence is being met with suspicion by the indigenous inhabitants of the Miskito Coast, who have always jealously guarded their local autonomy. From a Dec. 18 San Antonio Express-News account of a recent visit by an Iranian team to Monkey Point, arriving in Nicaraguan army helicopters:

At least four people are dead following sectarian clashes that broke out over Christmas celebrations in Kandhamal district of the eastern Indian state of Orissa. Hindu and Christian residents put each other's homes to the torch in the Christian-dominated village of Brahmanigaon. When Hindu residents took refuge in the police station, a group of some 500 besieged the station house—some reportedly firing on it. When police returned fire, four residents were killed. Three police were also reported injured. More may have been killed in clashes, but all communication to the village has been cut.

Pakistan's biggest city of Karachi is completely shut down after rioters burned dozens of cars and set fire to stores in outrage at the killing of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. All the city's petrol stations are sealed off and street lights were turned off. Protestors exchanged fire with the police in some parts of the city. Bhutto was killed along with at least 20 others in a suicide blast on an election rally in Rawalpindi. More than 60 were also injured in the attack. (Bloomberg, Dec. 27) At least five are reported dead in the Karachi violence. A passenger train was set on fire at Hyderabad, in Bhutto's stronghold of Sindh province. At Bhutto's home town of Larkana, Sindh, crowds set two banks on fire. In Multan some protesters fired shots into the air, and police fired teargas into crowds in Peshawar. When the hundreds of Bhutto supporters outside the hospital in Rawalpindi got word of her death, some smashed the glass door of the emergency unit, threw stones at cars and clashed with police, shouting: "Killer, killer, Musharraf!" (London Times)

Rodrigo Lara Restrepo, chief of the Colombian presidency's anti-corruption program, resigned Dec. 12—days after Miami's El Nuevo Herald reported documents showing his father, Justice Minister Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, had warned before his 1984 assassination that relatives of current President Alvaro Uribe might try to kill him.