 |
Wednesday,
March
20, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
|
Banned outfits’ drive to rock Pervez boat US forces kill 16 Qaida fighters 12 copters shot,
say Taliban Islamic terrorist network uncovered Israelis start W. Bank pullout
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
C’wealth leaders mull Zimbabwe Shia maulvi, 2 others shot $3m looted at
Heathrow
|
|
Banned outfits’ drive to rock Pervez boat Islamabad, March 19 The News, quoting unnamed senior government officials, said indications of such a campaign emerged after the interrogation of scores of suspected religious individuals who were arrested after the ban. On January 12, President Pervez Musharraf had proscribed the Lashker-e-Toiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Sipah-e-Sahaba, Tehrik-e-Jafferiah and Tehrik Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Muhammadi. He had earlier banned the Harkat-ul Mujahideen and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. “At the top level Jaish, Lashkar, Harkat, Sipah-e-Sahaba and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi may be distinct organisations but at the ground level their elements are now sharing knowledge and expertise to destabilise the government,” a police official was quoted as saying. The paper said those interrogated thereafter disclosed that underground factions of their groups were working “together and separately” to destabilise the “pro-American government” in Pakistan. The paper said for the first time in several decades fissures have emerged in relationship between religious groups and the military authorities, which are struggling to adjust to the paradigm shift in Pakistan’s national security policies after September 11. Pakistan’s Interior Ministry had estimated that at least 5,000 religiously motivated Pakistanis, trained in guerrilla warfare, were registered with the five core Sunni militant groups in Pakistan. All the five groups share strong, anti-America, anti-Musharraf and pro-Taliban views. In a reconciliatory signal to the religio-political forces in the country, the Musharraf administration allowed the release of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman on Sunday. Jamaat-e-Islami chief Qazi Hussain Ahmed was released last month. Rehman and Qazi, the leaders of two largest religio-political parties, had led anti-government agitations against Musharraf’s pro-US policies before their arrest in October last year. While waving a white flag to the religio-political groups, it seemed, the government has also extended an olive branch to “jehadi” organisations, with the government giving amnesty to the religious activists arrested in January. According to the daily News, the March 17 attack on a church here, in which five persons, including two Americans were killed, was seen as a move by banned militant groups to strike back at the Musharraf government for the crackdown against militants. “While waving a white flag to the religio-political groups, it seemed that the government has also extended an olive branch to the Jehadi organisations”, the daily said, adding that a senior police official said the leader of the Jaish-e-Mohammad, Maulana Masood Azhar, and a former leader of the Lashkar-e-Toiba, Hafiz Muhamad Saeed, or any other top leader of the five banned militant groups could be released as no criminal charges were levelled against them. “In the absence of any serious charges, Maulana Masood and Hafi Saeed can be released any day,” it quoted the police official as saying. Meanwhile, discounting recent reports that the ISI was dismantling its Kashmir and Afghan detachments, its former chief Javed Ashraf Qazi said the two controversial cells would continue to function within Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency as it needed to keep itself informed about the situation on the borders. “The Kashmir and Afghan cells will not be dismantled. They will remain working to keep the organisation abreast with the situation at the borders”, Mr Qazi, who is the Federal Minister for Railways, told state-run Pakistan Television last night. This is the first time that Pakistan has publicly acknowledged the existence of the Kashmir cell in the ISI.
IANS, PTI |
|
US forces kill 16 Qaida fighters Washington, March 19 US forces also raided a compound west of Kandahar at about the same time, detaining 31 persons and seizing weapons and ammunition, said Air Force Brig-Gen John Rosa, Deputy Director of the Current Operations of the Joint Staff. News of the raids came as the Pentagon declared the end of Operation Anaconda after 17 days. The US-led offensive cleared the Shahi Kot valley of Taliban and al-Qaida fighters, but left eight US soldiers dead and nearly 50 wounded, the highest US casualty toll of the war. “Operation Anaconda is complete, but Operation Enduring Freedom and operations in Afghanistan still continue,” said General Rosa yesterday. “We still have teams operating in the area, looking for any remaining Taliban and al-Qaida, searching caves and in other positions they may have occupied”, General Rosa added. Meanwhile, President George W. Bush said the fighting in that country was not over. “There are more al-Qaida killers in Afghanistan and perhaps in Pakistan willing to come back into Afghanistan,” Mr Bush told reporters in St Louis, noting that even during the fierce fighting in the Shah-e-Kot mountain region, “they were trying to reinforce.” “If they’re willing to reinforce in the midst of the Shah-e-Kot mountain range where they were getting wiped out, they’re willing to come back into Afghanistan to continue to try to hurt us,” he said. TORONTO: The Canadian forces have completed a joint mission called Operation Harpoon with US forces, destroying 30 caves and a remarkable cache of weapons with no major injuries sustained, a Canadian military commander said. Commodore Jean-Pierre Thiffault of the Canada’s Joint Task Force South West Asia said Canadian forces engaged with the enemy and met their objectives in Operation Harpoon, which he said ended on Sunday. But he refused to detail the number of al-Qaida or Taliban killed by Canadian forces — other than the three reported last week — or to estimate the number of fighters which might have escaped.
AFP, DPA
Moscow, March 19 Taliban guerrillas claim they have taken 20 Western soldiers as captives in the course of the latest fights in southeastern Afghanistan, said Interfax news agency quoting the Qatari television channel Al Jazeera. The captives are American and Canadian citizens, including two women, according to Taliban guerrillas who were interviewed. A Taliban leader, who was reportedly interviewed on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, said his forces had shot down 16 US helicopters and other apparatus during the battle.
IANS |
|
Islamic terrorist network uncovered London, March 19 On a visit to Singapore on Friday, FBI Director Robert Miller said Al-Qaida was looking for a new base in South-East Asia or the Middle East now that it had been driven out of Afghanistan. But he emphasised that too little was known about radical Islamic networks in the Pacific Rim. Earlier, in the week, five men suspected of being members of a group linked to Al-Qaida were arrested at Manila’s international airport for possessing components for explosive devices. Indonesian Agus Dwi Karna was deported, along with two Britons travelling with him, Udin Ali and Shah Vinit. Also deported were a Japanese and Indonesian. Karna, later identified as a member of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), is suspected of a series of bombings in the Philippines that killed 22. Anti-terrorist officers from Indonesia’s National Police travelled to Singapore 10 days ago to begin debriefing the 13 militants who were arrested in December. Indonesian authorities confirmed they were working with their counterparts in Malaysia and Singapore to investigate links between the 13 and an Indonesian cleric, Ridwan Isamuddin alias Hambali, believed to be leader of the regional council or ‘shura’ and currently on the run. The arrests came as a deep shock to Singapore, which prides itself as a model of religious tolerance. The Singapore Intelligence Service Department believes Himbali, acted as Al-Qaida’s senior agent in South-East Asia. Its Malaysian colleagues believe he also instructed a JI member to provide accommodation and a letter of recommendation for Zacarias Maussaoui.
The Observer, London |
|
Israelis start W. Bank pullout
Jerusalem, March 19 The withdrawal was part of an agreement to hand back the control of Palestinian autonomous areas seized by Israel in a major push in early March. The troops started to move out of a hotel on the northern edge of Bethlehem that they used as a makeshift headquarters during an arrest campaign of suspected Palestinian militants. Israeli tanks then withdrew from the nearby self-rule area of Beit
Jala, as Palestinian policemen moved in, the security sources said. Beit Jala has been a flashpoint in the 18-month-conflict. Under pressure from Washington, Israel cleared the way for a US peace mission on Friday by pulling out of West Bank and Gaza Strip town it had seized in its biggest push into the Palestinian territory since the 1967 Middle East War. But Israeli military officials said apart from Bethlehem, which troops re-entered late Sunday, the army still had forces in the self-rule towns of Jenin and
Nablus. The first steps back from weeks of spiralling bloodshed came as US Vice President Dick Cheney arrived for his own talks, pointedly urging Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to “renounce violence as a political weapon.” Meanwhile in a pre-dawn today, two Palestinian gunmen infiltrated an army training area near the West bank town of Nablus, killing an army officer and wounding three soldiers before they were shot dead, the army said. The gunmen, armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles, opened fire at short range on a group of soldiers conducting exercises, the army said. No Palestinian militant group has taken responsibility for the raid.
AFP, AP |
|
C’wealth leaders mull Zimbabwe London, March 19 Presidents Thabo Mbeki of South Africa and Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria met Australian Prime Minister John Howard at the London headquarters of the Commonwealth, which groups 54 countries, mainly former British colonies. The re-election last week of Mugabe, condemned by Western nations as blatantly fraudulent but largely approved by Zimbabwe’s African neighbours, has split the Commonwealth along racial lines and been seen as a test of the group’s viability. The three leaders’ options are limited — ranging from protesting at the conduct of the elections, which were marred by violence, to suspension of Zimbabwe from the group. Howard has called for immediate suspension but Mbeki and Obasanjo, who are trying to broker a power-sharing compromise between Mugabe and Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, are believed to be against any precipitate action.
Reuters |
|
Shia maulvi, 2 others shot Lahore, March 19 The incident took place at 7.30 a.m. at an auditorium where a Koranic lecture was due to be delivered by a professor, Attaur Rahman
Saqib. Sources said Saqib’s car, driven by a chauffeur, was followed by two armed men on a motorbike to the gates of the office where he descended from the vehicle. The gunmen fired a volley of shots killing both men on the spot. The motorcyclists then tried to escape through another gate where they hit a college girl. The girl’s father, whose house was just across the road from the office, rushed to her rescue but the gunmen shot him dead. The victim was the head of the second largest Shia mosque in the city. |
|
$3m looted at
Heathrow London, March 19 When the cash was transferred to the van, it was stopped by two men who forced the driver at knifepoint to drive out of the airport, the sources said. The two men then abandoned the van, switched vehicles and disappeared.
Reuters |
 |
| Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir | Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs | Nation | Editorial | | Business | Sport | World | Mailbag | In Spotlight | Chandigarh Tribune | Ludhiana Tribune 50 years of Independence | Tercentenary Celebrations | | 122 Years of Trust | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
Videos
