Two brown bears have been released into a special sanctuary after being held in a 20-square-meter cage almost their entire lives to amuse visitors at a Kosovo restaurant.

Ari and Arina, both 10 years old, were taken to their new, much larger home, by the international animal charity group Four Paws, which helped sedate and transport them.

Kosovo does not allow private ownership of wild animals, a measure it hasn't always enforced. Police on Wednesday held back the restaurant's angry owners as the bears were taken away.

An Environment Ministry statement said the bears were happy with their new home, which lies outside the capital, Pristina.

It says authorities expect to rescue another 15 bears in illegal captivity — at restaurants, private zoos and other places — by year's end.

Suicide bombers in Niger detonated two car bombs simultaneously on Thursday, one inside a military camp in the city of Agadez and another in the remote town of Arlit at a French-operated uranium mine, killing a total of 26 people and injuring 30, according to officials in Niger and France.

A surviving attacker took a group of soldiers hostage, and authorities were attempting to negotiate their release.

The timing of the attacks, which occurred at the same moment more than 100 miles apart, and the fact that the bombers were able to penetrate both a well-guarded military installation and a sensitive, foreign-operated uranium mine, highlight the growing reach and sophistication of the Islamic extremists based in neighboring Mali. The Mali jihadists have vowed to avenge a French-led military intervention that ousted them from Mali's northern cities.

Both attacks were claimed by a spinoff of Al Qaeda's local chapter, the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa, or MUJAO, said French radio RFI.

The highest toll was in the desert city of Agadez, located almost 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) northeast of the capital, where the attackers punched their explosive-laden car past the defenses at a military garrison and detonated inside the base, killing 20 soldiers and 16 others, said Niger's Minister of Defense Mahamadou Karidjo at a hastily assembled press conference in the capital, Niamey, on Thursday. Three suicide bombers also died, but a fourth escaped and grabbed a group of military cadets, said Interior Minister Abdou Labo.

The attacker was draped in an explosive belt and was threatening to blow himself up along with his hostages. Labo said by telephone that the military was engaging in negotiations with the jihadist. He did not say how many hostages were taken.

Over 240 kilometers (150 miles) northeast of Agadez, a different group of two suicide bombers slipped past a truck to enter a uranium mine operated by French nuclear giant Areva, injuring 14 employees of the French company, one of whom died later. Both suicide bombers were also killed, according to a company statement, the ministry of defense and witnesses.

When France scrambled war planes over Mali and sent in ground troops to try to take back the country's Al Qaeda-held north, the extremists vowed to hit back not just at French interests all over the world, but also at the African governments that helped them. The bomb blasts on Thursday are the most damaging attacks by the Mali-based jihadists to date and succeeded in hitting both an important French asset and the military of Niger, which sent 650 troops to help France combat the Islamists in Mali.

Up until Thursday's twin attacks, some military analysts had begun to doubt the strength of groups like MUJAO, which has carried out repeated suicide attacks in Mali since January with varying degrees of success. Several of the kamikaze operations succeeded in killing only the bombers themselves. Shaken, the government of Niger has decreed a 72-hour period of national mourning following the heavy toll from Thursday's attack.

Residents in the two towns immediately remarked on how closely coordinated the attacks appear to have been, taking place just moments apart at 5:30 a.m., a time when many in this majority Muslim nation are prostrating themselves in the first prayer of the day.

Alhousseiny Moussa, a resident of Agadez, was walking to the mosque to pray when he heard the boom coming from the city's military camp. "I heard the explosion and immediately after, I heard a volley of gunfire. The area where it happened was inside the military camp and it's now been roped off so we cannot go in. It was right at 5:30 a.m.," he said.

Another resident of Agadez, a city situated on the sandy fringe of the Sahara desert, said the car bomb awoke anyone who was still sleeping.  "We heard a strong detonation that woke the whole neighborhood, it was so powerful," explained Abdoulaye Harouna. "The whole town is now surrounded by soldiers looking for the attackers."

Al Qaeda's affiliate in Africa and groups allied with them seized the northern half of Mali in April of last year. They pushed into the major towns, setting up their own administration. But for nearly a decade before that, they had already made themselves at home in Mali, using its remote, and lawless northern reaches to train fighters and to hold the European hostages they kidnapped -- including many from Niger. In 2008, they grabbed two Canadians on the outskirts of Niger's capital, including United Nations special envoy Robert Fowler, who was held for 130 days before a ransom was negotiated. Two years later, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb infiltrated the mining town of Arlit, which was the scene of Thursday's car bombing, grabbing seven employees of French company Areva, and one of its contractors, SATOM, as well as the wife of one of the workers.

Four of them -- all French nationals -- are still being held by the terror cell and their whereabouts are unknown. The terror group has repeatedly threatened to execute them in retaliation for the French-led intervention in Mali.

On Thursday at 5:30 a.m., an all-terrain Toyota sports-utility vehicle penetrated the SOMAIR mine, where Areva is extracting uranium in Arlit, located 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) to the north of the capital, Niamey, according to residents. The car exploded not far from the machinery used at the mine.

"We saw a car enter the factory and immediately it exploded," said Agoumou Idi, a worker inside the factory who was reached by telephone. "The terrorists, probably from MUJAO, took advantage of the fact that the entrance gate was open in order to let in a truck carrying the next shift of workers. They used that opening to enter the heart of our factory and explode their vehicle."

In Agadez, the sand-enveloped streets were barricaded, as was the entrance to the hospital, where the dead and injured soldiers were presumably taken. No one could approach the military base where the standoff with the suicide bomber holding the hostages was ongoing on Thursday afternoon.

The two suspected Muslim terrorists involved in the savage daylight murder of a British soldier near a London barracks on Wednesday had been previously investigated by UK security sources for possible terrorist links, it is being reported.

The information was provided by a British government official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the investigation.

Few details are known about the suspects but, according to the BBC, one of them is believed to be a 28-year-old Muslim convert, Michael Adebolajo. Reuters reported that the two men were British citizens of Nigerian descent. Meanwhile, police in the county of Lincolnshire in eastern England said a property was being searched in connection to the attack. Police said a search warrant had been obtained but would not provide details about the search. Police were also scouring the attack site for further clues.

In a statement made outside his Downing Street office after having chaired a meeting of the British government's COBRA (Cabinet Office Briefing Room A) emergency committee, British Prime Minister David Cameron refused to comment about whether security forces had prior knowledge of the suspects. However, he firmly condemned the attacks in Churchillian terms, stating: "We will never give in to terror, or terrorism, in any of its forms."

Additionally, the Conservative Prime Minister emphasized that "there is nothing in Islam that justifies this truly dreadful act," and that the fault lied solely with the "sickening individuals" who perpetrated the attack. He also noted that more Muslim lives have been lost in terrorist acts than any other religion.

Cameron also praised the bravery of Ingrid Loyau-Kennett, a cub scout leader and mother of two, who got off a bus and tried to reason with the attackers after she tried to help the victim lying on the street.

The 48-year-old tried to keep talking to the two attackers before police arrived at the scene near the Royal Artillery Barracks in the neighborhood of Woolwich.

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Loyau-Kennett said that when one of the attackers told her that they wanted to start a war in London, she responded: "It is only you versus many people. You are going to lose."

Saying she wanted to stop one of the suspects from attacking anyone else, she asked him if he "did it" and what he wanted.

Loyau-Kennett said she saw a crashed car and the victim lying on the street and tried to help him since she had been trained in first aid. She had determined the man was dead by the time the attackers confronted her.

She said "a black guy with a black hat and a revolver in one hand and a cleaver in the other came over" and excitedly warned her to stay away from the body.

"I asked him why he had done what had had done," The Guardian quoted her as saying. "He said he had killed the man because he [the victim] was a British soldier who killed Muslim women and children in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was furious about the British Army being over there."

She told The Daily Telegraph that the suspected terrorist was "in full control of his decisions" and did not appear to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

When the man told him he was going to kill police when they arrived, she asked him if that was reasonable and tried to keep him engaged.

Then she spoke to the other attacker, who she described as quiet and shy.

"I asked him if he wanted to give me what he was holding in his hand, which was a knife, but I didn't want to say that," she said. "He didn't agree and I asked him: `Do you want to carry on?' He said: `No, no, no.' I didn't want to upset him," she is quoted as saying in The Guardian.

Loyau-Kennett said she was not scared and that the armed men did not seem to be drunk or on drugs. She said she was trying to keep them occupied so they didn't get more agitated.

She re-boarded her bus shortly before police arrived, watching from the vehicle as police shot and wounded the two unidentified suspects, who are both receiving treatment in the hospital.

"The officers shot them in the legs, I think" she told The Guardian.

The British government's COBRA emergency committee met Thursday after Prime Minister David Cameron said there were "strong indications" it was an act of terrorism, and two other officials said there were signs the attack was motivated by radical Islam.

One of the attackers went on video to explain the crime -- shouting political statements, gesturing with bloodied hands and waving a meat cleaver.

Images from the scene showed a blue car that appeared to have been used in the attack, its hood crushed and rammed into a signpost on a sidewalk that was smeared with blood. A number of weapons -- including butchers' knives, a machete and a meat cleaver -- were strewn on the street.

Footage -- obtained by ITV news and The Sun newspaper -- showed a man in a dark jacket and knit cap walking toward a camera, clutching a meat cleaver and a knife. Speaking in English with a British accent, he apologized that female passers-by "have had to witness this" barbarity, saying that "in our land our women have to see the same."

He gave no indication what that land was as he urged people to tell the government to "bring our troops back." British troops are deployed in Afghanistan and recently supported the French-led intervention in Mali.

"We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you," the man declared. "We must fight them as they fight us." The camera then panned away to show a body lying on the ground.

Scotland Yard confirmed that counterterrorism officers were leading an investigation into the attack. Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe said the two men had been arrested and urged Londoners to remain calm. Both men were hospitalized, one in serious condition.

Late Wednesday, riot police fanned out in Woolwich as about 50 men waving the flag of the far-right English Defense League gathered, singing nationalistic songs and shouting obscenities about the Quran.

Meanwhile, Muslim groups quickly condemned the attack, calling for the police to calm tensions. The Muslim Council of Britain called it a "barbaric act that has no basis in Islam," adding that "no cause justifies this murder."

Britain has been at the heart of several terror attacks or plots in recent years, the most deadly being the 2005 rush-hour suicide bombings when 52 commuters were killed. More recently, Parviz Khan was convicted in 2008 of plotting to kidnap and behead a British Muslim soldier in Birmingham.

Some extremists have lashed out at Britain's involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq. Recently, groups have also criticized Britain's assistance in the French-led mission to Mali to root out Islamic extremists in the north.

Click here for more from The Daily Telegraph.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Syria's fighting has uprooted more than half of the country's 530,000 Palestinians — descendants of refugees from a Mideast conflict half a century ago — and their situation is becoming increasingly desperate, the head of a U.N. aid agency said Thursday.

The Palestinians in Syria are particularly vulnerable because of their refugee status, Filippo Grandi, head of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, told The Associated Press in an interview.

He said most of the 12 Palestinian camps have been affected by the fighting.

"Armed groups and the government are confronting each other near the camps, inside the camps, and most or a large portion of the Palestinian population has had to leave those camps," he said after a two-day visit to Syria.

He estimated that 70 percent to 80 percent of the Palestinians have been affected by Syria's civil war. "Many of them, maybe more than half ... are displaced from their homes," he said.

He said about 54,000 have fled to Lebanon and several thousand to Jordan and Egypt, while others have sought shelter elsewhere in Syria. "These are refugees that became refugees a second time," he said. "It's really a very tragic situation."

Grandi's agency provides support for some 5 million Palestinians in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza. They are descendants of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled or were driven out of their homes during the fighting over Israel's 1948 creation.

When the Syria conflict erupted in March 2011, most Palestinians initially remained on the sidelines, though some joined protests against Syrian President Bashar Assad.

As a popular uprising escalated into an armed insurgency and then a civil war, some Palestinians joined the fight — some siding with the rebels and others with the regime.

The Yarmouk refugee camp, a sprawling neighborhood of 150,000 Palestinians on the outskirts of the capital Damascus, has been the scene of heavy clashes in recent months. Palestinian officials have said more than 700 camp residents have been killed in fighting, and that many of the others have left.

"The Yarmouk area is controlled by a variety of groups," Grandi said Thursday. "There are continued tensions and clashes with government forces, so it's a difficult situation for people to come back to."

He said he visited another Damascus area camp on Thursday and encountered many displaced Yarmouk residents there. "They are really in a very desperate situation because they even have no news about their houses, which may be destroyed, and their relatives (who) remained inside," he said.

Grandi appealed to the Syrian government and rebel fighters to allow the U.N. to deliver aid to the Palestinian camps. "We cannot do that and many people are at risk of their lives if we cannot resume the delivery of assistance," he said.

Overall, the Syria fighting has displaced several million people, including hundreds of thousands who fled to neighboring countries. More than 70,000 people have been killed, according to U.N. estimates.

An Iranian semi-official news agency reports the country is denying that an unmanned drone violated the airspace of Bahrain, the strategic Gulf kingdom that hosts the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet.

The Thursday report by ISNA quotes an unnamed official in Iran's Foreign Ministry. The statement did not elaborate, instead urging Bahrain's rulers to pay attention to their people's demands.

On Wednesday, Bahrain said an Iranian drone has been found in the tiny island kingdom across the Persian Gulf from Iran.

Bahrain has repeatedly accused Shiite Iran of encouraging the more than two-year-long uprising in Bahrain by its majority Shiites. Iran denies it has any direct role.

Iran has recently claimed advances in its technology in unmanned aircraft.