State Security Service News

Lebanese security officials warned the prime minister and president last month that 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate stored in Beirut’s port posed a security risk and could destroy the capital if it exploded, according to documents seen by Reuters and senior security sources.Just over two weeks later, the industrial chemicals exploded in a massive blast that obliterated most of the port, killed at least 163 people, injured 6,000 more and destroyed some 6,000 buildings, according…

Some Russian ships have stopped transporting cargo to Ukraine, deeming it risky after a Russian tanker was detained in a Ukrainian port as Kiev made good on sanctions against Moscow, two sources at shipowners said.It is the latest fallout from Russia's annexation of the Crimea peninsula in 2014 and the emergence of a pro-Moscow insurgency in eastern Ukraine.The Mekhanik Pogodin oil tanker, under the Russian flag, has been moored in the port of Kherson since Aug. 10, Reuters ship tracking data shows.A spokeswoman for a regional unit of the Ukrainian state security service (SBU) said the tanker had been detained in the port and prevented from offloading because its owner is on a list of sanctions imposed by Kiev."We are just following the law…

A mediator from Europe's OSCE security body headed to eastern Ukraine on Saturday seeking the surrender of pro-Russian separatists as the Kiev government declared an Easter truce following a peace accord with Moscow. Gunmen occupying public buildings in Donetsk and other Russian-speaking border towns refuse to recognise an accord in Geneva on Thursday by which Russia, Ukraine and Kiev's U.S. and EU allies agreed that the OSCE should oversee the disarmament of militants and the evacuation of occupied facilities and streets. The coming days may determine whether unrest following the overthrow ofUkraine's pro-Moscow president can be contained. Russia, which annexed Crimea last month in the worst East-West crisis since the Cold War, denies running the separatists or planning to invade.

The Ukrainian government said it will not attack pro-Russian separatists over the Easter weekend as its U.S. ally threatened Moscow with new sanctions if it fails to persuade the militants to surrender. The Kremlin denies having control over gunmen who want their eastern regions to follow Crimea in being annexed by Russia. Moscow scolded Washington for treating Russia like a "guilty schoolboy" following their agreement in Geneva on Thursday that Ukrainian militants should disarm and vacate occupied buildings. Ukraine's government, short of effective forces, has shown little sign of trying to recapture the dozen or so town halls, police stations and other sites seized over the past two weeks, despite proclaiming the launch of an "anti-terrorist operation".

Ukrainian forces launched a "special operation" on Tuesday against separatist militia in the Russian-speaking East, authorities said, although aside from a landing by airborne troops the action was limited. Soldiers disembarked from two helicopters at an airfield at Kramatorsk, where reporters earlier heard gunfire that seemed to prevent an air force plane from landing. The troops withdrew into barracks after local civilians manning a barricade gave them a hostile reception when they tried to leave the compound. In Kiev, acting President Oleksander Turchinov declared a much-needed victory over pro-Russian rebels by saying the air base had been "liberated." But there was no sign of militants.

Moscow. weapons. forces of Ukraine," Turchinov said in an address to the nation. months of pro-Western protests, for being behind the rash of rebellions across Russian-speaking towns in eastern Ukraine. "We will not allow Russia to repeat the Crimean scenario in the eastern regions of Ukraine," Turchinov said. in Ukraine's government under control. "It is now the West's responsibility to prevent civil war in Ukraine," the ministry said in a statement. A United Nations Security Council diplomat told Reuters on condition of anonymity that the council would meet at 8 p.m. GMT) in New York at Russia's request. Another diplomat said negotiations were under way on Ukraine's participation. bore "the telltale signs of Moscow's involvement". the table, and there's a lot in between," she added.

Two children, Fransisca Ehileme, age six, and her five-year-old brother, Francis, both children of an oil worker, were abducted by gunmen on their way to school around Rumuigbo junction in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital. Security sources informed the Nigerian Tribune in Port Harcourt that the father of the children, Mr. Maximus Ehileme, a production superintendent with Elf Petroleum, was taking them to school in his car at about 6:50 a.m. when the armed hoodlums blocked his car near Obi Wali Road junction by Rumu-Echieolu Street. A source from the State Security Service (SSS) told the Nigerian Tribune that no contact had been established with the kidnappers yet, but added that the SSS had already taken up the case and would be handling the negotiations for their release.