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Showing posts from October 11, 2009

Child killed, nine injured in blast in Peshawar

 Source: rediff.com October 15, 2009 17:40 IST A child was killed and nine persons injured on Thursday in a bomb blast on a residential area in northwest Pakistani city of Peshawar, hours after terrorists struck in Lahore and Kohat leaving 41 people dead. The blast occurred in the Gulshan-e-Rehman colony on Kohat Road in Peshawar, the capital of North West Frontier Province. A large number of employees of the NWFP government live in the colony. Officials at the Lady Reading Hospital said they had received the body of a child and added that nine persons were also injured in the blast. An emergency was declared in all hospitals in the city. TV new channels beamed footage of a building whose walls were blown out by the powerful explosion, which was heard from several kilometres away. No group claimed responsibility for the attack. The exact nature of the blast could not immediately be ascertained. The blast in Peshawar occurred hours after a suicide bomber targeted a police st

India, US armies 'fight' urban terror

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Source: Rediff.com Image: Indian Army soldiers and the American 14th Cavalry Regiment share information about vehicles and weapons systems Photographs: Sgt. 1st Class Rodney Jackson, 18th Medical Command  I ndia and the US are engaged in a three-week joint army exercise, the largest ever, focussing on counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations in a semi-urban setting using tactical armoured vehicles, at Babina in Uttar Pradesh. Yudh Abhyas-09, as the exercise is called, is the first time that the US has taken its potent Stryker infantry armoured vehicles outside of its operational area to a foreign land. The training exercise will go on till 29 October under the aegis of the army's Southern Command.       Next I ndia and the US are engaged in a three-week joint army exercise, the largest ever, focussing on counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations in a semi-urban setting using tactical armoured vehicles, at Babina in Uttar Pradesh.

Taliban chief threatens to fight India from 'Islamic Pakistan'

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Source: Rediff October 15, 2009 17:51 IST As his militants triggered a series of attacks and suicide blasts across Pakistan on Thursday, Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud threatened to dispatch terrorists to fight India, once an Islamic state had been created in Pakistan. "We want an Islamic state. If we get that, then we will go to the borders and help fight the Indians," Hakimullah said in footage aired by Britain's Sky News channel. The channel said it recently acquired the footage of Hakimullah, who has claimed responsibility for several attacks across Pakistan over the past week, including a terrorist assault on the Pakistan army's general headquarters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi over the weekend. "We are fighting the (Pakistan) military, police and militia because they are following American orders. If they stop following the orders, we will stop fighting them," said Hakimullah, in what was seen as a desperate last-minute effort to stop

Somali pirates demand ransom for trawler

Source: nine msn Somali pirates holding a Spanish tuna trawler for the past 12 days on Wednesday are demanding $US4 million ($A4.4 million) for the release of the ship and its 36-member crew, one of the pirates told AFP. Pirates are also demanding as a pre-condition of any deal the release of two colleagues who are in Spanish custody, Abdi Yare, a 30-year-old pirate told AFP. "We also demand $US4 million ($A4.4 million) as a payment for illegally fishing in Somalia. After that we will release the fishing boat. Unless those conditions are met we will not make any deal," he said. "The amount of fish they have stolen from Somalia is more than the amount of the ransom we have demanded," he added. Two pirates held in Spanish custody were captured by the Spanish navy after they left the vessel Alakrana on a smaller boat. They arrived Monday in Spain where prosecutors want to try them for their role in the October 2 hijacking. The Alakrana's 36 crew members co

Eight killed in Iraq suicide attack

 Source: ninemsn Eight people were killed, including the leader of a Sunni Arab militia allied with the United States, in a suicide attack in a town northeast of Baghdad on Tuesday, security and medical officials said. Ten others were wounded in the attack on a coffee shop in Buhruz, 15 kilometres south of Baquba in Diyala province, according to Dr Ahmed Alwan from Baquba General Hospital and a Baquba security official who declined to be identified. "We received eight bodies, and 10 other people were wounded," Dr Alwan said, adding that all of the dead and wounded were men. Among the dead was Laith Mishaan, leader of one of many Sunni militias that turned against al-Qaeda and allied with the United States, a switch seen as critical to ending the sectarian bloodshed that engulfed Iraq in 2007 and 2008. One of his bodyguards was also killed in the attack, while another was wounded. The attack in Buhruz follows violence there a day earlier that left two sons of the mu

Pakistan - Foreign Minister condemns suicide bomb blast in Shangla

Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi has strongly condemned the suicide bomb blast in Shangla. He expressed sorrow and grief at the casualties. The Foreign Minister said that killing innocent people has no justification whatsoever. He said that such barbaric, inhuman and un-Islamic terrorist acts only strengthen our resolve to fight terrorism with more vigour. He expressed sympathy with the members of the bereaved families and prayed for early recovery of those who were injured in the blast.

GHQ attack a ‘wake up call’ from Pak’s Punjab terror network

Source: Trak Karachi, Oct. 13 (ANI): The revelation that five of the ten assailants of the GHQ attack were Punjabi jihadists has exposed the deadly nexus between the Pak-Taliban and Punjabi extremists. Now the danger for Pakistan also comes from extremists from its heartland Punjab province, who have forged a network with the Taliban in north-west fringe, The Telegraph reports. It means Pakistan is threatened by a network of extremism that has cells throughout the country. According to the Pakistan Army, the ringleader of the attack, Aqeel alias Dr Usman, was from a Punjabi extremist outfit, but the training for the operation was carried out in Waziristan. The commando training, experts fear, may enable these militants to mount both suicide attacks and sophisticated “fidayeen” assaults. he report quoted Shaun Gregory, an expert on Pakistan’s nuclear programme , as saying that “fidayeen” tactics could even be used against Pakistan’s nuclear sites. “The only thing that stands be

Pakistan: Messages of Restless Militancy

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Dubious Army Operations Backfiring? By  Aamir Latif Journalist and Writer - Pakistan

Letter: Law enforcement better at fighting terrorism

 Source: Mlive By Muskegon Chronicle October 14, 2009, 6:23AM As the political debate about a strategy in Afghanistan rages, we continue to discuss the issue in the wrong framework — that of a “war” on terrorism. As President George W. Bush and his neoconservative advisers failed to understand, no war on terrorism can ever truly succeed anywhere in the world. Terrorism is hydra-headed evil spawned among those either in. or perceiving themselves to be in, desperate circumstances and wanting to strike at whatever they see as the cause of their distress. There will always be desperate people falling into this category in all cultures, including our own. Terrorist acts (at least those Americans are most concerned about) are acts committed by small, loosely organized groups not by governments. Terrorism is criminal activity, and criminal activity is best suppressed and contained by national and international intelligence networks and law enforcement action not military action. Think

Terrorism vs license to kill

Source: Jakarta post Noor Huda Ismail , Jakarta | Wed, 10/14/2009 1:35 PM | Opinion In the investigation following the July 17 hotel bombings in Jakarta, at least six suspected terrorists, including Syaifudin Zuhri and Syahrir, were killed during raids by the police's elite counterterrorism squad, Detachment 88. This squad is highly trained and has a license to kill. As a result, they managed to dramatically weaken this terrorist group's ability to mount major attacks in Indonesia. The squad's daring efforts clearly deserve credit and public appreciation because its members have demonstrated their tireless commitment to the task, risking their own lives in doing so. However, does the killing of suspected terrorists not also mean that the police will lose the opportunity to glean valuable information from them, thereby further restricting their movements, curbing potential future operations, gaining knowledge of their sources of funding and other intelligence be

How a French Physicist Became a Terrorism Suspect

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 Source: Time magazine By Bruce Crumley / Paris Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2009 Inside view of a facility in the CERN laboratories where a nuclear physicist was arrested. French security officials have long regarded the Algerian jihadist movement al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) as the most immediate terrorism threat to Europe. Those fears appeared to be substantiated last week with the arrest of a French physicist suspected of plotting terrorist attacks in Europe on AQIM's behalf. However, in an indication of the many options now open to aspiring radicals wanting to put their extremism into action, investigators say the scientist linked up with AQIM only after police had cracked down on another terrorist group he had been in contact with first. Revelations in the case have slowly emerged following the Oct. 8 arrest of 32-year-old French-Algerian Adlène Hicheur, who holds a doctorate in particle physics. Hicheur was nabbed after intelligence officials intercepted encoded e-mails

The United Colours of Terror

 Source : IBN LIVE It's Pakistan's Fatal Attraction, rapidly reaching that awful scene of the Michael Douglas-Glenn Close film. The thrill of Jihad and the cause of Freedom has worn away like the autumn of an extra-marital affair; the stability of the world's war on terror, a commitment to ending terror camps just seems more like the sensible thing to do but the spurned mistress: aka all the Jehadi groups are now turning on Pakistan with a ferocity that goes far beyond boiled rabbits. More than ever before, Pakistan is coming to grips with the beast it helped create - as every day brings a fresh attack, a bomb blast, a fidayeen attack in which innocent civilians and army personnel are killed. And amongst people I met this weekend during a conference in Lahore, there's growing realisation that the terror that keeps neighbours India and Afghanistan in its cross-hairs is also today the biggest threat to Pakistan. "Just as there is no good Taliban or bad Taliban i