Minister says cannot rule out terrorism in Air France plane crash

www.chinaview.cn 2009-06-06 00:46:57          

    PARIS, June 5 (Xinhua) -- French Defence Minister Herve Morin said Friday that the possibility of a terrorist attack on Air France Flight 447 cannot be ruled out.

    "We have no right to exclude terrorism," he told journalists, but adding that he had not heard of any threats to the flight or of any group or individual claiming responsibility for bringing down the aircraft.

    The Airbus A330-200 airliner with 228 people aboard went missing over the Atlantic Sunday night after leaving Rio de Janeiro to Paris. According to Air France earlier this week, the plane sent out a series of messages showing "multiple technical failure" just before it disappeared.

ISI continues to maintain links with LeT, JuD: CIA

7 Jun 2009, 1216 hrs IST, PTI

WASHINGTON: Observing that the ISI continues to maintain links with terror outfits like the LeT and JuD, a former top CIA official says the US
needs to be tough with the Pakistani establishment and send a clear message to it that it cannot pursue a policy of "selective counter-terrorism."

Pointing out that the ISI today is in a "mortal battle" with the Pakistani Taliban in the restive Swat valley, Bruce Riedel, who co-chaired the inter-agency committee of the Obama administration which formulated the Af-Pak policy, said Islamabad has been pursuing "selective counter-terrorism" measures.

"In the Swat Valley, the Pakistani army and the ISI are fighting a very serious struggle against a part of the jihadist infrastructure. ISI has also been helpful in fighting part of the al-Qaida infrastructure.

"But the complexity, the problem is that ISI continues to have relations with groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba, with whatever its new name is and with the Afghan Taliban. It is a very complex picture. It's selective counter-terrorism. What we need is uniform counter-terrorism," Riedel said.

On the release of JuD chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed from the house arrest in Pakistan, he said the Obama administration should take "a very hard line" about the release of the mastermind of the Mumbai massacre."

Madani's arrest may help crack Lashkar's financial code Vicky Nanjappa

June 05, 2009 16:16 IST

The arrest of Abdullah Omar Madani in New Delhi [Images] will help the police crack the financial code of the Lashkar-e-Tayiba [Images], according sources in the Intelligence Bureau.
Madani is reportedly a close aide of the LeT Hafiz Saeed [Images] and apart from handling recruitments in Nepal, Madani was also in charge of financial transactions in India.
Off late, Madani had been raising funds and handling the same for India-based operations, say IB officials. When Madani was picked up, he had fake currency worth Rs 50,000 on him and this according to investigating officers was to be handed over to some of the sleeper cells set up in north India.
Madani has slipped into Delhi after traveling through Uttar Pradesh [Images] for at least 15 days. The Lashkar was looking to rebuild its cells in the country and since Madani was Saeed's trusted aide, he was handpicked for the job. His role was to ensure that the cells in north India, especially Uttar Pradesh, were reactivated. Madani traveled only by train and was distributing money to the LeT cadres, who were given the responsibility of starting up the cells again.
Investigating officials are trying to ascertain whether Madani had any direct link with the three suspected LeT men who had slipped into South India for a terror mission. There appears to be a strong link between these men and Madani, according to IB sources. 
They say both Madani and the three men, Abdul, Shabir and Nasir Ahmed were in Uttar Pradesh for at least 15 days before embarking upon their respective missions. While Madani came into India from Nepal, the three persons slipped in from the Poonch sector.
They were specifically directed to carry out strikes in south India. The three managed to slip in Hyderabad and may target Tirupati and Warangal. The IB however alerted the Andhra Pradesh police following which a massive manhunt has been launched. Hyderabad Police Commissioner Prasad Rao said that these men were around 30 and did not know the local language. They may be conversing either in Punjabi or Urdu.
However following the manhunt, they could have slipped into neighbouring Karnataka. State Home Minister Dr V S Acharya said that the state had been placed under high alert.

Soldier dies in bomb blast as Taleban leader Mullah Mansur is killed

June 3, 2009

Deborah Haynes, Defence Correspondent

A bomb blast killed another British soldier in Afghanistan yesterday as the Ministry of Defence announced that attack helicopters in the south of the country had eliminated a prominent Taleban leader.
The serviceman from 2nd Battalion The Rifles died during a morning patrol in Gereshk in Helmand province. His next of kin have been informed.
In a rare piece of good news from the front line, however, the MoD said that Mullah Mansur, the Taleban commander killed in the helicopter strike, was connected to a suicide bomb attack that killed two other British soldiers last month. He is also accused of masterminding other bombings against British and Afghan forces in and around Lashkar Gah in Helmand province.
Apache helicopters carried out the attack in the early hours of Monday in an isolated area northeast of Lashkar Gah. Several other insurgent leaders and accomplices were killed or injured.

The operation was the culmination of months of effort.
John Hutton, the Defence Secretary, said: “Mullah Mansur was at the heart of the insurgents’ attempts to kill and injure British and Nato troops in Afghanistan and his presence brought misery to innocent Afghan civilians.
“This is a significant blow to the Taleban. British forces will continue to work with international partners to improve security across Helmand to prevent the export of terror from Afghanistan to the UK.”
Twelve British servicemen were killed in May, making it one of the bloodiest months for the British military since operations began in the country.
Among the deaths, Sergeant Ben Ross, 34, from 173 Provost Company, 3rd Regiment Royal Military Police, and Corporal Kumar Pun, 31, from the 1st Battalion The Royal Gurkha Rifles, were killed in a suicide motorbike bombing on May 7. The British military believe that the attack was one of those orchestrated by Mansur.
A total of 166 British servicemen have been killed in Afghanistan since the start of operations in October 2001.

Pakistani leaders condemn mosque blast in northwest

www.chinaview.cn 2009-06-05 19:41:51  
ISLAMABAD, June 5 (Xinhua) -- Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani Friday strongly condemned the blast at a mosque in the country's northwest.
    In their messages, Zardari and Gilani said that the government would fight extremists, militants and terrorists and would take all necessary measures to establish the writ of the government.
    Zardari said that terrorists committed a horrendous act by carrying out the suicide attack when people were praying in the mosque.
    He said that such acts of violence, bomb blasts and terrorism were a serious threat to the country.
    Gilani said that the government was committed to bringing peace across the country and addressing the issue of militancy by establishing its writ.
    He asked the provincial government to submit a report at the earliest and take measures to nab the perpetrators.
    The two leaders in their separate messages to the families of the deceased prayed to Almighty Allah to shower his blessings on the departed souls and grant courage to the bereaved families to bear this irreparable loss.
    They also directed the provincial authorities to provide best possible medical care to the injured.
    At least 15 persons were killed in a blast at a mosque during prayer time Friday in Upper Dir of Pakistan's northwest, according to local TV reports.
    Over 40 people were injured in the blast at the mosque in Hayagai Sharqi in Upper Dir of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP).
    Police have been dispatched towards the blast site.
    Witnesses were quoted as saying that a suicide bomber tried to enter the mosque but the people on suspicion stopped him and he blew himself up on the lawn of the mosque at Hayagai Sharqi, a small village in the mountain some 30 kilometers from the Dir city.
    Locals people shifted the injured to hospitals in their private cars and on foot as roads to the blast site is in poor condition and narrow for ambulances to reach.
    Hayagai Sharqi is stated to be peaceful but the army fighter planes bombed positions of suspected militants at Dug Darra, an area a few kilometers away. Two women were killed in the bombing.
    No group claimed responsibility for the blast.

'Bomb blast' downed Air France plane

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Brazilian military search for debris from the Air France jet over the Atlantic Ocean.

A terrorist attack was 'highly likely' to be behind the Air France plane crash in the Atlantic, a pilot claimed.

The unnamed flyer said a bomb explosion on board was the probable cause, he told a French newspaper.

'I have flown these jets for Air France for more than ten years and the chances of an electrical fault seem unfeasible to me,' he added.

 A bomb threat was made against an Air France plane flying from Buenos Aires days earlier, it has emerged.

A warning phone call came in ahead of take-off on Wednesday last week but a search revealed nothing.

An attack could not be ruled out bec­ause it is 'the main threat for all Western democracies' but no one had claimed responsibility, said French defence minister Hervé Morin.

It came as the first photo emerged of 11-year-old British victim Alexander Bjoroy, who was on his way back to school in Bristol after half-term.

His Brazil-based parents, Robin and Jane, said yesterday: 'We are deeply upset about the loss of our son under such tragic circumstances.

Our thoughts are also with the families and friends of all those on board.'

Flight 447 left Rio for Paris on Sunday with 228 people on board, inc­luding five Britons, but disappeared.

A 7m (23ft) piece of wreckage and a 20km (12 mile) oil slick were found yesterday – but no signs of life.

Automatic messages sent by the Airbus A330 warned of the plane's 'cabin vertical speed' as it dropped.

The vital black box recorders may never be found deep beneath the sea as they only emit signals for 30 days.

MNA, 4 family members injured in parcel blast

By Faraz Khan

KARACHI: Yaqoob Bizenjo, MNA and a leader of the Balochistan National Party-Awami (BNP-A), and four of his family members were injured in a bomb attack on Friday afternoon.
Bizenjo and four of his family members were injured when a low-intensity bomb, concealed in a parcel sent to him, exploded at his residence at Khayaban-e-Ittehad, DHA Phase-VI in the limits of Darakhshan police station.
Investigators have said that the possibility that a terrorist organisation could be behind this act could not be ruled out as such outfits were planning to spread a wave of terror among government officials.
A homemade device with approximately 200 grams of explosive material was used to prepare the parcel bomb, which exploded as soon the parcel was opened.
Besides the MNA, his brother Sanaullah Bizenjo, his mother, his wife and his daughter Naz Bibi were also injured in the attack.
Family members and the area people immediately called in the police after the attack and the injured male members of the family were taken to Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, while female injured were shifted to Aga Khan Hospital.
The investigators have included five people including three servants of the MNA in the investigation for questioning, and claimed that they could obtain valuable information from them about the perpetuators of the crime.
Station Investigation Officer (SIO) Sarwar Commando, who is also an investigation officer of the case, told Daily Times that soon after the incident, he carried out a raided at the City Bus Stand in Yousuf Goth, Hub following a tip off, and included two transporters named Zafar and Yousuf in the investigation as well whose transport vehicle was used to shift the parcel to Karachi from Turbat.
“We have included five people in the investigation and are questioning them. They have also provided valuable information,” said the SIO.
The SIO also disclosed that according to the initial investigation, a high intensity bomb could also be used in the incident, but using a low intensity bomb suggests that the culprits just wanted to spread fear among government officials.
The officer further said that the parcel contained books and was addressed to Bizenjo that suggested that he was their target. Sources have said that the police have started tracing mobile phone calls of some of the servants of Bizenjo.
The parcel was delivered at the MNA’s residence in Turbat to his guard by an unknown postman some two days back, from where it was sent to Karachi through a coach and brought to the MNA’s residence 93/1, Lane 30, Khayaban-e-Ittehad by his servant named Arif.
It should be noted here that Bizenjo was elected as member of the National Assembly from NA-272 Mand, Balochistan from the platform of (BNP-Awami), defeating the former federal minister Zubaida Jalal.
Bizenjo while speaking to the reporters in an injured state said that when the parcel was opened, it suddenly exploded, causing injuries to him and other members of his family, however no one was seriously hurt in the blast.
Following the incident, heavy contingents of law enforcement agencies have cordoned off the area and the house of the MNA.
Hospital sources have said that Bizenjo and his family members have not sustained any serious injury and received minor burns due to the explosion.
Brother of the MNA, Sanaullah was more injured as compared to other family members, but was now in a stable condition and recovering.
Bomb Disposal Squad officials said that a homemade explosive device with approximately 200 grams of local explosives along with cells and a detonator was used to prepare the parcel bomb, which exploded as soon the parcel was opened and damaged the windows and other material in the house.

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BNP, MNA, Khayaban e ittehad,

"Terrorists" blow up Georgia rail line, official says

TBILISI, June 2 (Reuters) - A bomb damaged a railway line connecting east and west Georgia on Tuesday in a "terrorist" attack, a local railway official said.

The blast on the Tbilisi-to-Zugdidi line occurred at around 3:30 a.m. (2230 GMT Monday), two hours before a passenger train was due to travel the route.No one was hurt.

The explosion was close to the de facto border with the Georgian breakaway region of Abkhazia but there was no immediate evidence of any separatist involvement.

"I think it's a pure terrorist attack because some explosives and a clock mechanism were used," Zurab Gogokhia, the chief of Georgian Railways for the west of the country, said.

"Thank God it happened before the passenger train appeared," he told Reuters.

The line was repaired within hours.

"The railway is now working as repair works are completed," Irma Stepnadze, the Georgian Railways spokeswoman, told Reuters, adding that 12 metres of track had to be repaired.

"According to preliminary information, it was sabotage," Stepnadze said.

An interior ministry official said the route is not one of those used to ship Caspian oil from Azerbaijan to Georgia's Black Sea coast.

The explosion took place near the village of Ingiri, around 300 km (180 miles) from the capital Tbilisi on one of the main routes for passenger and cargo trains.

Georgia fought a five-day war with Russia last year after it attempted to retake the breakaway region of South Ossetia. Moscow subsequently recognised both South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent countries. (Reporting by Margarita Antidze; Editing by Charles Dick)

Al-Qaida criticizes Obama's upcoming Cairo speech

By MAAMOUN YOUSSEF – 1 hour ago

CAIRO (AP) — Al-Qaida's deputy leader criticized President Barack Obama's upcoming speech to the Islamic world in Cairo, saying it will not change the "bloody messages" the U.S. military is sending Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Al-Qaida has repeatedly lashed out at Obama since he was elected, a move some analysts believe indicates the terrorist organization is worried he will be effective in improving the U.S. image in the Muslim world. Obama has pitched his speech at Cairo University on Thursday as a key part of that process.
"His bloody messages were received and are still being received by Muslims, and they will not be concealed by public relations campaigns or by farcical visits or elegant words," said Ayman al-Zawahri, al-Qaida's No. 2, in a new audio message posted Tuesday on militant Web sites.
Al-Zawahri said the Egyptian officials who will welcome Obama are U.S. "slaves" and have turned the country into an "international station of torture in America's war on Islam." He was likely referring to suspected Islamic militants who have been captured by the U.S. and sent to Egypt for interrogation, a process known as rendition.
Al-Zawahri urged Egyptians to reject Obama when he makes his speech, calling him "that criminal who came seeking, with deception, to obtain what he failed to achieve in the field after the mujahideen ruined the project of the crusader America in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia."
He said Obama's decision to come to Cairo showed the U.S. had not given up its alliances with dictatorial and corrupt Mideast governments.
"It is a clear message that America does not stand with reform and change and other lying American propaganda, but it stands with the continuation of the existing tyrannical, rotten regimes," said al-Zawahri.
The authenticity of the almost 12-minute audio message titled "The Torturers of Egypt and the Agents of America Welcome Obama" could not be confirmed. But it was posted on militant Web sites that have been used by al-Qaida in the past and carried the logo of As-Sahab, the terrorist organization's media wing.
Al-Zawahri criticized Obama's trip to Israel before he was elected president and his visit to the Western Wall — Judaism's holiest site, also known as the Wailing Wall — where he wore a yarmulke.
"The White House said that Obama will send a message from Egypt to the Islamic world, but they forgot that his messages have already been received by the Islamic world when he visited the Wailing Wall, put on his head the Jew's cap and prayed their prayers, though he claims to be Christian," said al-Zawahri.
The audio message was accompanied by a picture of al-Zawahri wearing a white robe and white turban. It also included videos of Obama visiting the Western Wall in Jerusalem and speaking at AIPAC, a pro-Israel lobbying organization in the United States.
Shortly after Obama was elected last November, al-Zawahri issued a Web message in which he slurred Obama with a demeaning racial term for a black American who does the bidding of whites, calling him and former secretaries of state Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice "house Negroes."

486 dead, 1,573 injured in suicide attacks since 2007

Sunday, May 31, 2009 By Salman Aslam LAHORE AT least 486 people, including army, navy and police officials, had lost their lives and 1,573 injured in suicide attacks in Punjab since 2007 to date. The data collected by The News reveals that around 108 people were killed and 584 injured during suicide attacks across Punjab in 2009, while 274 people were killed and 722 injured in 2008. No less than 107 people were killed and 279 injured in suicide attacks in 2007. On February 5, 2009, 32 people were killed and 48 others injured when a suspected suicide bomber blew himself amidst a crowd of worshippers outside a mosque in Dera Ghazi Khan. Police said the blast targeted dozens of people converging on the Al Hussainia Mosque after dark, shortly before a religious gathering. Police blamed sectarian extremists for the incident. The explosion occurred just 50 feet short of the mosque. On March 16, 2009, around 15 people were killed and 25 injured when a suicide bomber blew himself up near a busy bus stand at Pirwadhai in Rawalpindi. It was believed that the original target of the bomber could have been the participants of the ‘long march’. The suicide bomber riding a on a motorbike blew himself up outside a restaurant, which was set up close to a cab stand. On March 23, 2009, a suicide bomber blew himself up at the entrance of the headquarters of the Special Branch (SB), an intelligence agency of the Federal Capital Police, in Sitara Market, killing himself and a policeman. Two police officials were wounded in the attack. Over 120 personnel of the Special Branch lived on the premises of the SB headquarters and most of them were present in their barracks at that time. Police Constable Faisal Khan, deployed at the main gate of the headquarters, reportedly got hold of the suicide bomber when he was advancing towards the barracks. The bomber detonated the bomb, killing both of them. On April 04, 2009, eight Frontier Constabulary (FC) personnel were killed, and seven others injured, when a suicide bomber blew himself up at an FC check post on the Margalla Road in Islamabad. The blast, which took place at 7:35pm, was followed by an exchange of fire between FC personnel and unidentified accomplices of the suicide attacker. The crossfire continued for around 20 minutes. On April 5, 2009, a suicide bomber blew himself up at the entrance of an imambargah in Chakwal, killing 24 people, including three children, and injuring 140 others, at a religious gathering. The target was the gathering of around 800 people in an imambargah in Muhallah Sarpak. The majlis ended at 12:15pm and people were preparing to leave the imambargah when a 15-year old boy, who looked like an Afghan, stormed into the crowd and blew himself up. On May 27, 2009, no less than 27 people, including ISI and police officials wee killed while over 362 injured when an explosive laden vehicle was detonated amidst ISI and Rescue 15 buildings at Fatima Jinnah Road. As per data of suicide attacks carried out during 2008, on January 10, at least 24 people, including 17 policemen, were killed and 80 others injured in a suicide bomb blast outside the Lahore High Court, minutes before the arrival of an anti-government lawyers’ procession. The blast ripped through GPO Chowk in front of the Lahore High Court as the suicide bomber walked up to around 60 riot police - who had gathered there ahead of a demonstration against President General Pervez Musharraf’s government - and blew himself up. Around 200 lawyers were inside the High Court at the time of the blast, and others were marching from a nearby district court. On February 4, at least ten people were killed and around 10 others wounded when a suicide bomber crashed his bike into an armed forces bus carrying students and officials of Army Medical College, near the General Headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi. An eyewitness said the suicide bomber hit the 30-seater bus in front of National Logistic Cell offices close to the GHQ, blowing away the roof, windows and doors of the bus. Several other vehicles were also damaged. A van carrying schoolchildren was also partially damaged, but the children remained unhurt. On February 25, a suicide bomber killed eight people, including the Pakistan Army’s surgeon general, in Rawalpindi - the highest-ranking military official killed since the country joined the US-led war on terror. Lieutenant General Mushtaq Baig, surgeon general and director general of army’s medical services, died after a teenage suicide bomber blew himself up next to a military convoy on a busy road in Rawalpindi. Five civilians were also killed, while 25 others were injured, an army statement said. On March 4, eight people were killed and 24 others injured when two suicide bombers blew themselves up in the parking area of the Pakistan Navy War College in Lahore. The incident occurred at around 1:10pm when classes in the Pakistan Navy War College were in progress. Five Navy officials and two suicide bombers died on the spot while one Navy official succumbed to injuries at a hospital. On March 11, at least 30 people were killed and more than 200 injured in suicide blasts at the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) headquarters and an advertising agency office in Lahore. The first attack was carried out at the FIA regional headquarters on Temple Road, severely damaging the eight-storey establishment and adjacent buildings. The building also housed the offices of a special US-trained unit created to counter terrorism. The second attack was carried out on Bungalow No 83/F in Model Town - the office of an advertising agency. Two children and a gardener died in the bombing and about 12 people were injured. On June 2, a suspected suicide bomber blew up his car outside the Danish embassy in Islamabad, killing at least eight persons and injuring 30 others. The Danish foreign minister said a Pakistani cleaner employed at the embassy and a Danish citizen of Pakistani origin had died and three other local employees were hurt, but the embassy’s four Danish staffers were unharmed. On July 6, 20 people, including 15 policemen, were killed and more than 40 people injured in a suicide attack near Melody Market area of Islamabad. The suicide bomber targeted policemen deployed at a rally observing the first anniversary of an army raid on the Lal Masjid in Islamabad. On August 13, a suicide blast in Lahore killed at least nine persons and injured more than 35, targeting policemen standing guard on the eve of the Independence Day. The attack took place at the busy Dubai Chowk in the Allama Iqbal Town area at around 11:34pm, as citizens poured into streets before midnight to celebrate the 61st anniversary of Pakistan’s independence, which falls on August 14. Among the dead were two policemen and a woman. On August 21, two suicide bombers blew themselves up at the gates of the Pakistan Ordnance Factories (POF) in the high security cantonment town of Wah, around 30 kilometres from Islamabad, killing at least 70 persons in what was described as the deadliest attack on a military installation in the country’s history. The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan claimed responsibility for the attack. The POF at Wah is a cluster of around 20 industrial units producing artillery, tank and anti-aircraft ammunition for the Pakistani armed forces. It employs around 25,000 to 30,000 workers. On September 20, a suicide bomber detonated a truck packed with explosives at the Marriott Hotel in capital Islamabad, killing at least 60 people. At least 200 people, including a Pakistan People’s Party legislator, were injured in the explosion, which ruptured a gas pipeline and triggered a huge blaze. A US national was killed and several foreigners were injured. A group calling itself Fedayeen-i-Islam claimed responsibility for the suicide attack. On October 6, a suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowd of people at the house of Rashid Akbar Niwani, a Shia Member of National Assembly from the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), in Bhakkar, 260 kilometres southwest of Islamabad, killing 25 people and wounding 60 others, including Niwani. On October 9, a suspected suicide car bombing destroyed part of an Anti-Terror Squad building and wounded at least six policemen in the heavily guarded Police Lines area in Islamabad. In 2007, no less than six incidents of suicide attacks were reported in Punjab. On September 4, at least 30 people were killed and 70 others wounded in two suicide attacks at Qasim Market and RA Bazaar in the garrison city of Rawalpindi. The first suicide bomber targeted a bus that was carrying around 35 employees of a defence agency to their office near the Qasim Market, killing at least 20 people. Soon after, another blast occurred near the RA Bazaar police station, killing 10 more people. On October 30, a suicide bomber killed eight people, including three police personnel, and injured at least 18 others, including 14 police personnel, when he blew himself up at a police picket near district courts in the cantonment area of Rawalpindi. President Pervez Musharraf had reportedly been meeting governors and chief ministers at Camp Office less than a kilometre away from the site. The fortified army posts at the checkpoint and the nearby gate to the residence of Joint Chief of Army Staff Chairman General Tariq Majid were reportedly scarred with shrapnel and spattered with blood. On November 1, a suicide bomber rammed his motorcycle into a Pakistan Air Force (PAF) bus, killing seven officers of the PAF and three civilians on the Faisalabad Road in Sargodha. At least 28 people were wounded in the attack. The bus was reportedly carrying PAF staff from the Mushaf Mir Airbase to Kirana Ammunition Depot when the bomber targeted the bus at approximately 6.45am. On November 24, two suicide bombers simultaneously targeted military personnel and installations at two different places in Rawalpindi, claiming over 32 lives and wounding 55 others. In the first attack that occurred at 7:55am, the suicide bomber while trying to enter the Hamza Camp, the main office of the ISI, hit the staff bus of the agency. The blast, which occurred 200 metres from Faizabad at the Murree Road, killed over 30 personnel in the bus and guards standing at the main gate. At the same time near the GHQ, another suicide bomber blew up his car after hitting an Army check-post when he was intercepted while trying to infiltrate into the high security zone. Two Army personnel were killed while one was injured in the second attack. On December 10, eight people, including five schoolchildren, were injured when a suicide bomber exploded his car targeting a Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC) bus carrying air force employees’ children at a military base at Kamra around 50 kilometres northwest of Islamabad. A suicide bomber exploded his car on the outskirts of the PAC factories on the Qutba-Attock Road on Monday at 7.30am near a PAC school bus carrying children to schools in Attock City. On December 27, Benazir Bhutto, the chairperson of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), was assassinated in a gun and suicide attack as she drove away from a campaign rally just minutes after addressing thousands of supporters at Liaquat Bagh in Rawalpindi. At least 30 more people were killed and over 100 others wounded in the attack.

Chinese authorities say peace restored in restive region after deadly attack

KASHGAR, China - Blood was washed off the road. Debris was cleared away. And authorities said peace had been restored Tuesday in China's restive Muslim region where 16 police were killed in an attack that may have been timed to overshadow Olympic celebrations.
But there were plenty of other signs suggesting all was not well in Kashgar, this ancient Silk Road city near the border with Afghanistan and Pakistan at the opposite end of China from Beijing.
Townspeople were reluctant to talk about Monday's brazen assault. Police stepped up security checks and put schools, hospitals and government offices on heightened alert, state-run media and locals said. Slogans on billboards, walls and buildings urged people to create a more secure and harmonious society.
The precautions underscored the Chinese government's sensitivity to anything that could sour its plans for the Beijing Games to be a pivotal moment of national glory and global acceptance, despite continuing criticism of its record on human rights.
Kashgar is about 3,500 kilometres west of Beijing, in the far western region of Xinjiang - a vast, rugged territory home to a Muslim minority called the Uighurs (WEE'-gurs). They have a long history of pushing for independence, and Chinese authorities have blamed a series of sporadic bombings, shootings and riots in recent years on Uighur extremist groups.
One such group, believed to be based in the remote tribal regions of Pakistan, released a video tape last month threatening to target the Olympics.
But many Uighur activists accuse Chinese officials of exaggerating the terrorism threat to justify a crackdown on the ethnic minority. They claim the clampdown has greatly intensified during the run-up to the Olympics, which start Friday.
Monday's attack was one of the most audacious in years.
Two men - a taxi driver and a vegetable seller - drove a truck into a group of 70 border police during their routine morning jog in a northwestern neighbourhood, where several popular tourist hotels are located, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.
The attackers, ages 28 and 33, tossed homemade bombs at the officers and stabbed them with knives, killing 16 and wounding another 16 before being captured, the report said.
One of the attackers lost a hand when the homemade explosives blew up, about 100 metres from the border police base. Police later recovered additional explosives, a homemade gun and "propaganda materials about a holy war," state media said.
Kashgar's Communist party secretary, Shi Dagang, called the assault an act of premeditated terrorism and told reporters the two attackers prepared written statements beforehand saying that "they had to wage 'holy war,"' Xinhua said.
The weapons police recovered at the scene were similar to weapons found last year in raids on a training base of the East Turkistan Islamic Movement, Shi was quoted as saying. The group is reportedly based along China's borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan and linked to al-Qaida and to Hizb ut-Tahrir, an extremist group that originated in the Middle East in the 1950s.
By Tuesday, authorities had meticulously cleaned up the attack scene on a six-lane, tree-lined street in front of the low-budget Yiquan Hotel, a low-rise building covered in dusty white, yellow and maroon tiles.
Blood stains and debris from the truck crash and bomb blasts couldn't be seen on the pavement. Three or four trees that apparently were knocked over by the truck had been neatly uprooted and taken away.
Foreign reporters have rushed to Kashgar to report on the attack, adding an unusual level of scrutiny in a normally isolated region even as attention on China intensifies because of the Olympics.
Police beat two Japanese reporters who were among those sent to cover the story, while detaining them about two hours at a police station late Monday. Chinese officials apologized Tuesday, but Japan's government said it would lodge a formal protest.
The jitters filtered down to locals. One Chinese merchant who owns a small liquor store near the attack site dodged questions from a large group of foreign reporters.
"I'm just a small citizen of this country. I'm just a businessman. I don't remember hearing or seeing anything. I just run my business. Leave me alone," said the man, who declined to provide his name.
A couple blocks away, a waitress at a snack shop said the bombs must have been crudely made because they weren't loud. She said they sounded like a car tire bursting.
"We're not really worried about these things," said the waitress, who would only give her surname, Chen. "It happens in other parts of the world, too."
Across the street from the attack site, a plainclothes officer with a video camera taped reporters as they tried to interview people. Four soldiers in green camouflage uniforms and matching helmets patrolled gripping clubs. A uniformed officer leaned against his motorcycle and watched.
"I'm not sure what happened yesterday," the officer told an Associated Press reporter. "But I can tell you that this area is safe. You can cover the news here without worrying about it."
At the border police base, only two guards stood lazily at the front gate. When a taxi pulled up in front and dropped off two elderly Uighur women, the guards snapped to attention and barked at the driver: "You can't stop here! Move on!"
In Kashgar's old section, with winding alleys and crowded shops where men bake wheels of golden flat bread and grill lamb kebabs, most merchants and shoppers avoided expressing opinions.
But one carpet dealer, who would only identify himself as Samet: said, "I don't know who these attackers are. I think they come from the countryside. But all I know is that it's bad for me. It scares away the foreign tourists."

Roadside Bomb Kills 10 In Somali Capital

The Media Line Staff

At least six Somali government soldiers and four civilians were killed by a roadside bomb in southern Mogadishu Monday.
The bomb exploded next to a police pick-up truck as it was driving to police headquarters on KM4 street, a thoroughfare frequented by the government officials,
"I am here where the bomb blast took place," eyewitness Mohamed Abdullahi told The Media Line. "We are carrying out the bodies now; I can see five dead soldiers and four civilians."
Eight soldiers were also injured in the blast, according to Somali police official Mohamed Madobe. They have all been hospitalized.
There were no claims of responsibility at the time of printing.
Roadside bombs have increasingly been used against Somali government troops and AU peacekeepers in the country.
Witnesses said pro-government forces have regained control of a police station in the Yaqshid area Mogadishu, which was seized by Islamist insurgents a month ago.
Somalia has seen some of the worst fighting in years since President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, whose government only controls parts of Mogadishu, ordered a new offensive against Al-Shabab guerrillas earlier this month.
At least 200 people have been killed and 60,000 have fled the violence in Mogadishu.
The battles pit moderate Islamists and soldiers of the shaky, Western-supported transitional government against militants from Al Shabaab.
Originally the militant wing of the Islamic Courts Union, a group that controlled Mogadishu prior to the invasion by Ethiopian forces, Al Shabaab has made significant gains in the Horn of Africa nation and now controls much of Southern Somalia.
Al Shabaab captured Jowhar, the administrative capital of Somalia's fragile central government and seat of its parliament, less than two weeks ago.
Western government's fear that Somalia's instability may provide a safe haven for terrorist groups, and some foreign militants are believed to have entered Somalia to join Al Shabaab's ranks.
Al Shabab members have cited links with Al Qaeda although most analysts believe the affiliation to be minimal. The group has several thousand fighters divided into regional units which are thought to operate somewhat independently of one another.
The US has launched selected air strikes against Al Shabab leaders thought to have ties to Al Qaeda, but analysts say this has only increased their support among Somalis.
Somalia has not had a functioning government since the 1991 ouster of Mohamed Siad Barre. The ensuing years have seen a chaotic system of rival clans controlling various parts of the capital.
There are over two million internally displaced people in Somalia, and UN officials say there are over 1.3 million Somalis in need of emergency food aid with up to a fifth of the population is suffering from malnutrition.
Al Shabaab began an insurgency in late 2006 with assassinations and suicide bombings against the transitional government and aid workers, particularly in Mogadishu.
The Western-backed Ethiopian military invaded the country in 2007, but many analysts believe this augmented Al Shabaab's insurgency campaign, and battles between Al Shabaab and Ethiopian forces caused roughly 400,000 people to flee the capital in August, 2007.
The Ethiopians withdrew in January of this year after over 16 months of Al Shabaab attacks on its forces.
African Union (AU) peacekeepers have also been in the country since 2007, but have made little impact with just over 3,000 troops from Uganda and Burundi. 11 Burundian soldiers will killed by Al Shabaab in February of this year, the deadliest attack on AU peacekeepers since their deployment.
Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, the new President of Somalia's battered government, is an Islamist supportive of sharia law. He seeks to integrate Al Shabaab fighters into the transitional government's forces.

Read more: "Roadside Bomb Kills 10 In Somali Capital | AHN | June 2, 2009" - http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7015342819#ixzz0HG1KZBMH&A

Aussie police on inside with agents from Indonesia

 

The wreckage outside the Sari nightclub after the Bali bombing in 2002. Picture AFP

Keith Moor

June 02, 2009 12:00am

ELITE counter-terrorism teams in Indonesia have foiled several planned terrorist attacks since the last successful attack in 2005.

Weapons and explosives were seized in some of the raids by Indonesia's Satgas and Special Detachment 88 units.
Indonesian-based Australian Federal Police agents helped by providing intelligence, analysis and technical expertise during the successful operations.
The Herald Sun recently received briefings in Indonesia on the covert work of Satgas and Detachment 88.
It included details of foiled attacks planned by the Jemaah Islamiah and its splinter groups. Some of the raids received publicity, but others were kept secret.
The targets in most cases were not known, but intelligence suggests Western interests would probably have been included.
Smashing JI - the group responsible for a spate of terrorism attacks in Indonesia in recent years -- has been a priority for the Indonesian National Police, and it has been very successful at it.

About 500 JI operatives have been arrested since the first Bali bombings in 2002 and there hasn't been a successful JI attack in Indonesia since the second Bali bombings in October 2005.
The Australian Government has recognised the importance of the AFP working closely with the INP, and in 2004 it committed almost $37 million to establishing the Jakarta Centre for Law Enforcement Co-operation and continues to finance its operations.
The centre stands alongside the INP's training academy and last year conducted courses in counter-terrorism, disaster victim identification, intelligence analysis and various transnational crimes for more than 1000 police officers from 12 countries.
The Australian Government also finances the joint AFP-INP-led Multi-National Operational Support Team, a Jakarta-based counter-terrorism unit.
It is staffed by police from Australia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia. MNOST officers have access to terrorism intelligence from each of the participating countries.
It was established because terrorists move freely between countries whereas police activity generally stops at borders.
MNOST allows interested countries to have access to intelligence across borders.
While it doesn't broadcast its achievements, MNOST members have had some stunning successes in helping various police forces in the region to capture terrorists, prevent terrorist attacks and identify new JI splinter groups.
Even more secretive than MNOST is the AFP's elite Jakarta Regional Co-operation Team.
AFP agents work mainly with the INP's Satgas and Detachment 88 specialist units.
Satgas members operate almost exclusively under cover and some have spent years infiltrating and working in terrorist groups.
They, like the AFP's JRCT members, are based in secret locations known only to a handful of senior INP officers.
"You wouldn't think the Satgas members were police because of the way they dress, act and blend into society," a source in Jakarta told the Herald Sun.
"All of Satgas's work is covert and they are incredibly good at it.
"They are so well respected that the INP chiefs rely on intelligence from the Satgas field operatives to guide them in which groups and individuals should be targeted.
"Indonesians and Australians owe the Satgas team - and Special Detachment 88 - a huge debt of gratitude for the terrorism attacks they have prevented and the massive dent they have put in JI by identifying and arresting hundreds of its operatives since the first Bali bombing in 2002."

The terrorism threat to Australia would be far worse without the excellent relationship between the AFP and the INP.

That relationship was forged through personal friendships between AFP chief Mick Keelty and senior Indonesian officers Da'i Bachtiar and I Made Mangu Pastika.

Quality time

MR Keelty and General Bachtiar used quality time on a golf course in 2002 to discuss ways they could help each other, particularly in relation to terrorism.

That discussion resulted in the AFP agreeing to conduct a training course in bomb-blast analysis for Indonesian police.

It was only four months after the golf course chat that the first Bali bombings happened. The AFP bomb-blast trainers were on their way to Indonesia at the time and were quickly on the scene.

Mr Keelty and General Bachtiar, who was Indonesian police chief at the time, spoke within hours of the Bali bombings and Mr Keelty offered whatever help was needed.

He was pleased to be told that General Pastika was to head up the Bali bombing investigation.

General Pastika and Mr Keelty became firm friends after doing the AFP's management of serious crime course together in Canberra in 1993.

The relationship helped in establishing the Bali bombing probe as a joint operation between the INP and the AFP.

The INP-AFP taskforce formed then still exists and has seriously disrupted JI, which was responsible for the 2002 bombings and several terrorist attacks since then.

Most of the JI operatives for the Bali bombing were picked up within weeks. Since then INP, assisted by the Jakarta-based AFP counter-terrorism team, has arrested almost 500 JI members.

The determination shown by the INP to crack down on terrorism has drastically reduced the threat in Indonesia.

While JI leaders and Bali bombing-linked terrorists Noordin Top, Dulmatin, Umar Patek and Zulkarnaen are still on the run, they are thought to have lost support and their activities have been significantly disrupted. JI splinter groups still exist, and are still a threat to Western interests in Indonesia.

Some JI leaders, including Top, Dulmatin, Patek and Zulkarnaen, are believed to have fled to the southern Philippines where they are being sheltered in remote areas by fellow terrorists.

Capturing Bali-bombing financier Top is the INP and AFP's No. 1 priority.

The AFP, which is non-operational in all its overseas bureaus, is often invited by the INP to attend raids on suspected terrorists and people smugglers.

AFP agents were on hand to provide analysis and support when JI bomb-maker Azahari Husin died in a shootout with Indonesian police in 2005.

Azahari helped mastermind the 2002 and 2005 Bali bombings, which killed 225 people, and it was AFP intelligence that helped the INP track Azahari down to a JI safe house in East Java.

Handwritten notes and other documents found in Azahari's hideaway provided the INP and AFP with incredibly valuable intelligence on how JI operates and a who's who in the organisation.

The AFP has 23 agents based in Indonesia, making it easily its biggest overseas bureau.

Extraordinary access

AS a result of the trust built up by having a presence in Jakarta for 20 years, the AFP enjoys extraordinary access to the INP.

That access enables the AFP to counter threats directly affecting Australia, such as people smuggling and terrorism.

While Indonesia's vast shoreline and thousands of islands mean it is impossible to stop every refugee boat leaving - 20 have made it to Australia since September - the INP, assisted by the AFP, still stop more boats leaving than manage to arrive.

Iranian Media: 19 Killed in Blast at Shi'ite Mosque in Iran

By VOA News 29 May 2009

Iranians inside mosque in Zahedan after explosion, 28 May 2009

Iran's official news agency says a suicide attack killed 19 people and wounded 125 others at a Shi'ite mosque in Zahedan, the capital of Sistan-Baluchistan province near Iran's border with Pakistan.

Provincial governor Ali-Mohammed Azad told the IRNA news agency the bombing Thursday was a terrorist act, and that the government has already arrested the perpetrators.

Azad said the bombers had been planning additional attacks. He said the attacks were meant to destabilize the province as it prepares for June 12 presidential elections.

There has been no immediate claim of responsibility.

Zahedan, a mainly Sunni city in mainly Shi'ite Iran, has seen sectarian violence before. In 2007, a bomb attack in Zahedan killed at least 11 members of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards. The Sunni militant group Jundallah claimed responsibility for the attack.

Security forces and drug smugglers also have clashed in the area.

Azad said Thursday's bomb exploded during evening prayers, when worshippers were inside the mosque.

Campaigning has been under way in Iran in preparation for the upcoming presidential election. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is seeking a second term and faces three challengers.

Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.

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iran blasts, IRNA, zahedan, jundallah, sunni, shia,

Pakistan vows to wipe out Jundullah terror group

TEHRAN (FNA) - Pakistani interior ministry aims to wipe out Jundullah terrorist group after the terror cell claimed responsibility for a recent terrorist attack that killed at least 25 people in a mosque in southeastern Iran, informed sources said on Sunday.

The interior ministry of Pakistan has presented all its information about Jundullah to the country’s intelligence services, including ISI and MI and FIA, and urged for the rapid identification of the group members and the immediate arrest of its notorious ringleader Abdulmalek Rigi, an informed source told FNA on Sunday, reiterating that Islamabad has ordered that the group be disbanded and wiped out.

The group’s spokesman Abdolrauf Rigi contacted the Pakistan-based office of the al-Arabiya television network to report a bombing in a mosque in the Sistan-Balouchestan province last Thursday. The group reportedly claimed responsibility for the attack.

The bomb blast rocked a mosque in the city of Zahedan as mourners participated in a ceremony marking the death of the daughter of the prophet of Islam, Hazrat Zahra (PBUH).

Following the incident, Iran summoned Pakistan’s Ambassador Mohammad Bakhsh Abbasi over the deadly bombing after the rebels reportedly claimed responsibility.

According to media reports, the chief of the Iranian armed forces, General Hassan Firouzabadi, said on Saturday that Iran “has located the base of the group’s head and informed Pakistan’s government of his arrest”.

The Iranian authorities said they immediately arrested three men involved in the bombing. The trio were executed on Saturday morning near the mosque in Zahedan city, the capital of Sistan-Balouchestan province.

Jundullah has claimed responsibility for a dozen terrorist operations inside Iran. So far the gang leader has escaped punishment as the group crosses the border and runs away into Pakistan after staging terrorist attacks inside Iran.

Tehran has repeatedly warned Islamabad that if it cannot handle the situation at and inside its shared borders with the Islamic Republic, Iran has the required power and military capabilities to trace and haunt down such terrorist groups inside Pakistan in a bid to put an end to serial terror attacks on its nationals.

Four killed, 13 injured in a bomb blast at bus stop

Islamabad, June 1 (PTI) Four persons were killed and 13 others injured today when a bomb exploded at a crowded bus stand in Kohat town of Pakistan's troubled North West Frontier Province.
The blast which took place at the Teera bazar area in the town was the latest in a series of terror attacks across the NWFP since the Pakistan army intensified military offensive in the region.

Taliban which suffered reverses in the battle against the army have vowed to carry out attacks in Pakistani cities in retaliation against the operations.

Authorities declared an emergency at local hospitals as the wounded were rushed there. Officials of the bomb disposal squad and security agencies inspected the site of the blast. No group claimed responsibility for the attack.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani condemned the blast, saying those involved in such attacks were enemies of the state and would be brought to justice. He said the government would eradicate terrorism from the country at all costs. PTI

Taliban strikes back, blasts two Pak cities IANS

Islamabad: Suspected Taliban militants unleashed further terror in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP) on Thursday, killing 15 people, including six security personnel, and wounding more than 100 in three bomb attacks, officials said.

Two back-to-back blasts ripped through a busy street in Peshawar, the capital of NWFP, followed by a shoot-out with police.

The Peshawar explosions came a day after a suicide attack on police and intelligence agency offices in the eastern city of Lahore killed 24 people and wounded more than 250.

Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, terming it a response to the ongoing military operation in northwestern Swat district, where an offensive was launched early this month when the Taliban failed to abide by the terms of a peace deal.

The bombs in Thursday's carnage were planted in a car and a motorbike parked in the Qissa Khwani Bazaar, located in the old city. Several vehicles and dozens of shops caught fire.

"Six people have been confirmed dead and more than 70 others are injured in the deadly blasts," the city's top civil administrator Sahibzada Mohammad Anees said.

He said the death toll might rise as at least five of the wounded were in critical condition.

"Thank God, two terrorists have been killed and two are arrested," city police chief Sifwat Ghyyur informed the reporters. He was seen as leading the operation and carrying an AK-47 assault rifle.

The NWFP police chief, Malik Naveed, said, the operation was carried out after a traffic constable reported that two suspects were seen fleeing immediately after the blast. "The two arrested terrorists are injured," he added.

Express television quoted police sources as saying the attackers had held a teenager hostage, using him as a human shield.

The teenager was shot in the chest during the exchange of fire between the suspects and police. Naveed, however, denied the report.

Television footage showed flames and black smoke rising from the scene and firefighters trying to put out the fire.

Around 20 km west of the city, a suburb neighbourhood called Matni, two suicide bombers rammed a four-wheel drive vehicle into a police van near a security check post.

Two paramilitary soldiers were killed and 10 people, including some policemen were injured. The charred bodies of the suspected suicide bombers were also found on the scene, Anees said.

An intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said a major terrorist action was averted because the terrorists, who had been heading towards Peshawar city, happened to have been challenged by the security personnel at the post.

"Had they entered with 140 kilograms explosives that we estimate they had in their vehicle, it could have been a major destruction," added the official.

Separately, in Dera Ismail Khan, another district of the NWFP, which is located some 300 km south of Peshawar, five people, including three policemen, died and eight were wounded when a bomb planted in a three wheeler rickshaw parked near a police cordon.

Pakistan court frees JuD chief Hafiz Saeed

Hafiz Mohammed Saeed,Jamaat-ud-Dawa cheif, has been released by the Lahore High Court on Tuesday. (AP Photo)

2 Jun 2009, 1102 hrs IST, IANS
ISLAMABAD: Chief of the banned Islamist organisation Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) and founder of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) Hafiz Saeed, 
Hafiz Mohammed Saeed,Jamaat-ud-Dawa cheif, has been released by the Lahore High Court on Tuesday.

A JuD spokesperson told reporters at Lahore that Saeed, who was under house arrest since December 12 last year, had been set free.

"Saeed is not a terrorist," the spokesperson held, adding that JuD was not a terror organisation either.

A K Dogar, Saeed's lawyer, said that the high court described the detention of Saeed as illegal and hence Saeed was set free.

"The court has ordered that the detention of Hafiz Saeed was a violation of the constitution and the law of this country," the lawyer said.

On May 30, the Pakistani government presented evidence to the Lahore High Court linking the JuD chief and terror mastermind Hafiz Saeed to al-Qaida.

Saeed is the founder of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terror group that India blames for the Nov 26-29, 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai. The LeT had morphed into the JuD after the Pakistani government banned it under international pressure in the wake of the Dec 13, 2001 attack on Parliament that New Delhi blamed on the terror group.

Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone gunman captured alive during the Mumbai mayhem, has admitted to being a Pakistani national and to being trained by the LeT for the Mumbai attacks.

Saeed was detained last December after the United Nations declared Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), a frontal organisation of the LeT, as a terrorist group.

He was originally detained for one month and this has been successively extended. On May 5, his detention was extended by 60 days.

After the UN action, the authorities arrested some 40 JuD members and closed dozens of its offices and relief units in the country.

India had in January handed over a dossier to Pakistan linking the LeT and some Pakistani nationals to the Mumbai carnage that claimed the lives of over 170 people, including 26 foreigners.

In February, Pakistan admitted that part of the Mumbai conspiracy was planned in this country and also submitted a list of 30 questions on the Indian dossier of the evidence on Mumbai attack.

India replied to this in March. Pakistan then sought another set of clarifications that India has provided.

Also in December 2008, Pakistani authorities arrested LeT commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi after India handed over to the FBI intercepts of telephone conversations between him and the Mumbai attackers.

The FBI concluded that the intercepts were genuine and that Lakhvi was the handler of the Mumbai attackers.

Pakistani army rescues kidnapped students

By Sheree Sardar
ISLAMABAD, June 2 (Reuters) - Scores of kidnapped Pakistani students and staff from a military-run college who were abducted by Taliban militants in the northwest of the country were rescued on Tuesday, a military spokesman said.
The abduction took place on Monday as the Pakistani army pressed on with an offensive against the Taliban in the Swat valley, in another part of the northwest.
Separately, a high court ordered the release of Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, the founder of an outlawed militant group which was accused of organising an assault on the Indian city of Mumbai in November, his lawyer said.
Saeed's release is likely to dismay India, which has demanded that Pakistan "dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism" since the Mumbai attacks, in which 166 people were killed, and which strained ties between the nuclear-armed rivals.
Military spokesman Major-General Athar Abbas said the Taliban were taking the kidnapped students to the South Waziristan region, a militant stronghold on the Afghan border, when soldiers challenged them on a road and a clash erupted.
"Under cover of the firing the militants escaped and we have recovered them all," Abbas said, adding 71 students and nine members of staff had been rescued.
Taliban fighters with hand grenades seized the students' convoy heading home for the summer holiday from the North Waziristan ethnic Pashtun region, on the Afghan border, to the town of Bannu, 240 km (150 miles) southwest of Islamabad.
Bannu police chief Iqbal Marwat said on Monday that Taliban had seized up to 400 people in 28 vehicles but scores escaped. The vice principal of the college, Javed Alam, later told Reuters about 200 had managed to slip away.
The surge of militant violence in Pakistan has alarmed the United States, which needs Pakistani action to help defeat al Qaeda and get to grips with the Taliban insurgency in neighbouring Afghanistan.
There are several Taliban- and al-Qaeda-linked groups based in North and South Waziristan in a loose alliance with the Taliban in Swat. South Waziristan is also the base of Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud.
While the military has not announced any plans for an offensive after Swat is secured, officials have said a South Waziristan operation looked inevitable.
IMMENSE SUFFERING
Pakistan launched an offensive against a growing Taliban insurgency in the Swat valley, 120 km (80 miles) northwest of Islamabad, a month ago, sparking a flood of fleeing civilians.
Officials say an estimated 2.4 million people have been displaced by the conflict in Swat and adjoining areas, prompting U.N. warnings of a humanitarian crisis.
The United Nations launched an appeal for $543 million last week but just over a fifth has been funded.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged countries to scale up their response, warning that the suffering was immense.
"If we do not get the rest of the funds, we will have to start cutting services," Ban told a briefing in New York, adding there was a risk of a destabilising secondary crisis.
U.S. envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke said on Monday he would visit Pakistan this week to assess relief efforts to help the displaced. [ID:nND01405033]
The United States has welcomed the offensive in Swat but a protracted humanitarian crisis could undermine Pakistani public support for the fight against the Islamist militants. The United States has offered $110 million in aid for the displaced.
Saeed, the Islamist ordered released in Lahore, was put under house arrest in early December after a U.N. Security Council committee added him and an Islamist charity he heads to a list of people and organisations linked to al Qaeda or the Taliban.
"The court has ordered that the detention of Hafiz Saeed was a violation of the constitution and the law of this country," lawyer A.K. Dogar told reporters outside the Lahore High Court when announcing the release order.
Saeed founded the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militant group in 1990 and for years it battled Indian forces in the disputed Kashmir region. The group was banned in Pakistan in 2002.
Saeed is also head of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa charity, which the United Nations said in December was a front for the LeT.
India says the Mumbai assault was carried out by LeT militants who must have had backing from some Pakistani agencies.
Pakistan has acknowledged the attacks in India's financial capital were launched and partly planned from Pakistan's soil, and that the sole surviving attacker was Pakistani.
Pakistan has lodged police complaints against eight suspects but Saeed was not among them. (Additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed in Washington, Zeeshan Haider, Augustine Anthony; Writing by Robert Birsel; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

'Pak is told to target the Muslim bomb against India'

June 02, 2009 09:51 IST
Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi believes that the United States and Israel are creating sharp differences between India and Pakistan, so that the latter could not target its 'Muslim bomb' against the West.
"The Pakistanis are told that their enemy is the Hindu, not the Jew or Christian, and therefore their bomb should be directed towards them, the Pakistanis' immediate enemy, and not anyone else," he wrote in The Washington Times.
Similarly, the Indians are led to believe their real enemy is Pakistan and that the Pakistani bomb was directed toward them rather than the Israelis or Americans, Gadhafi said in an opinion piece published last week.
"This policy aims to preoccupy Pakistan with India and India with Pakistan. Perhaps this is why America has not been willing to contribute to solving the Kashmiri problem, whereas the Israelis will try to always keep it flammable," he said.
Gadhafi pointed out that if Islamic extremists affiliated to al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden [Images] took over the government in Pakistan, "the key to the nuclear bomb would be in their hands. This has created the Pakistani quagmire for the Americans and Israelis."
To address this potentially dangerous situation, they have attempted to further drive a wedge of hostility between Pakistan and neighbouring India," Gadhafi said. "Truly, the Pakistani nuclear bomb is a Muslim bomb," he wrote in his piece.
"On the other hand, if political parties such as the Pakistan People's Party or even the army ruled, things would be relatively safe because they presumably constitute responsible institutions. Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that they can form sustainable governments," he said.
Observing that there can be no Pakistan without Islam, as Islam was the basis for its separation from India, he said, "Islam for the Pakistanis is not a question of faith only but also a question of identity."
Pakistan, he argued, is witnessing dramatic changes because of its complex demographic structure. Socially, it is composed of various ethnicities and fierce tribes -- bordering Afghanistan -- that have no loyalty to either Pakistan or to Afghanistan, Gadhafi observed
"Pakistan faces challenges even within its region. It is threatened by the Shiaite Muslim state of Iran and the Hindu India. This is the reason behind the formation of violent Muslim groups affiliated with the fierce tribes in Afghanistan as well as with the al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden," he said.

Lashkar's Oman connection Vicky Nanjappa

June 01, 2009 17:29 IST
Ali Abdul Azeez, a Lashkar-e-Tayiba [Images] operative arrested in Oman, is suspected of involvement in the 26/11 attacks.

Suspected of part financing Lashkar activities in India, Azeez, who has been sentenced to life by an Omani court for plotting terror strikes in Muscat, will be an important source of information for Indian investigators.

Azeez was in Mumbai [Images] a week before November 26, 2008. He left for Muscat just before the attacks took place. Before he was arrested by the Omani police he ran an automobile components store and Internet cafes.

His mother hailed from Maharashtra which is why he frequently visited India. During his visits, he heard accounts of atrocities against Muslims and this apparently led him to walk down the path of jihad.

He was introduced to Lashkar activists and later visited the terror camps in Pakistan. Thereafter, the Lashkar assigned him a key role in Oman.

Azeez's key aides are said to be Sarfaraz Nawaz and Mohammad Jaseem. Sarfaraz hails from Kerala [Images] and became a part of Lashkar's terror network when he was just 18. He was sent to Muscat, where he met Azeez.

Through Azeez, Sarfaraz sent $5,000 (about Rs 200,000) for the serial blasts that rocked the country last year. The money for the attacks, sources claim, was raised in Muscat and sent to a hawala operator in Kerala.

Mohammad Jaseem is believed to be the link between Azeez and Fahim Ansari, who is currently being tried for his role in the Mumbai attacks. Indian investigators are confident of establishing links between Ansari and Azeez through Jaseem.

Investigators claim Azeez kept in constant touch with Lashkar operatives in Pakistan before the Mumbai attacks.