 |
Thursday,
April 11, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
|
‘Over
100’ Palestinians die in Israeli attack on Jenin US spy
ring in Russia ‘uncovered’ US jury
indicts 4 for supporting terror New
anti-terror convention comes into force |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
UK soldier
in Kabul shot accidentally London, April 10 A British peacekeeper was accidentally shot and killed while serving for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, the British Ministry of Defence (MOD) has said.
|
|
‘Over 100’ Palestinians die in Israeli attack on Jenin
Jenin (West Bank), April 10 Meanwhile, Israel reaffirmed its decision to pursue the military offensive in the West Bank following a suicide bombing today that killed eight Israelis on a bus. The security cabinet reiterated that troops would pull out of Palestinian-ruled areas once they completed their missions, but a political source said there were no immediate plans for further withdrawals beyond the two towns the army left yesterday. “The operation continues,” the source said, signalling further Israeli defiance of US and international demands for immediate withdrawal. Yesterday’s attack in the Jenin camp — the deadliest strike against the Israeli troops in 18 months of conflict — unfolded with split-second precision as a booby trap exploded, a suicide bomber blew himself up and gunmen opened fire from rooftops. Witnesses said many corpses lay unretrieved in the streets after days of fighting and Israeli bombardment. Palestinian officials have estimated more than 100 persons killed. Israel disclosed the deaths just hours after withdrawing its troops from two Palestinian-ruled cities in response to US pressure. The Palestinian death toll from fierce battles in the narrow alleyways of the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank was expected to be high. Palestinian officials said today that Israeli forces had blown up buildings in the occupied compound of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. “The Israeli army set off explosions near the office of President Arafat inside his headquarters compound and destroyed official buildings, including the office of the West Bank public security service of General Ismail Jaber, which was completely destroyed,” said the official, who asked not to be named. An Armenian priest in Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity was shot and seriously wounded on Wednesday, Israeli and Palestinian officials said. Palestinians in the church, who declined to identify themselves, accused Israeli troops of firing into the Armenian part of the church and wounding Father Mahir Arman. In the West Bank’s largest city Nablus, six Palestinians — one policeman and five civilians — died in fighting yesterday, Palestinian medics said. The army said a soldier was also killed. US President George W. Bush responded to the withdrawal from Tulkarm and Qalqilya by demanding Israeli troops leave all other West Bank cities they have invaded since a suicide bomber killed 27 persons at an Israeli hotel on March 27. Major-General Yitzhak Eitan, head of Israel’s central command, said: "We will continue to fight as long as necessary, despite the loss.” Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said the army was attacking the camp with helicopters and knocking down buildings with bulldozers to "finish this camp by tonight". The deaths of so many soldiers on one day was a shock to Israelis already in a sombre mood for Holocaust Remembrance Day, honouring the six million Jews killed by Nazis. The Jenin refugee camp has been the site of the fiercest fighting in the Israeli offensive, which the government says is rooting out suicide bombers. Mr Powell said he hoped the withdrawal from Qalqilya and Tulkarm was the start of a wider disengagement. "Let us hope that this is not a little bit of this and a little bit of that, but the beginning of a pullback," he said. Pope John Paul made a fresh appeal for peace in the Holy Land on Wednesday as Israel’s President said in a letter to the Pontiff that Israel would not allow Palestinian gunmen to escape from a Bethlehem church. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Wednesday called for an end to Hizbollah guerilla attacks across the Lebanon border on Israel, warning “no one wants to open a second front” in the Middle East conflict.
Reuters, AFP |
|
US spy ring in Russia ‘uncovered’
Moscow, April 10 The Interfax news agency quoted an official of the FSB domestic security service as saying it had uncovered a US spy ring. CIA officials posing as US diplomats had tried to recruit an expert in a secret Defence Ministry plant before the FSB, the successor to the KGB, intervened. “The FSB has irrefutable evidence of the CIA’s spying activities in Russia,” an FSB official was quoted as saying. “The timely intervention of the Russian security service stopped the US plans at an early stage, taking control of their action and preventing a serious threat to the security of the Russian Federation.” The FSB charges add to a growing list of woes likely to crop up at the May 23-25 summit in Moscow and St Petersburg. The unnamed FSB official, speaking to Interfax, named a junior diplomat in the US embassy in Moscow as leading the operation, adding the diplomat had already left Russia. “The work was carried out by CIA officers, working under the cover of American diplomats in Moscow and in one of the CIS states,” the official said. In March last year, 50 Russian diplomats were expelled from the USA, prompting a tit-for-tat response from the Kremlin in the worst spy scandal to shake Moscow and Washington since the cold war.
Reuters |
|
US jury indicts 4 for supporting terror Washington, April 10 US Attorney-General John Ashcroft, who made this announcement at a press conference in New York yesterday, said: “The Islamic Group is a global terrorist organisation that has forged alliances with other terrorist groups.” He said the Islamic Group, linked to blind terrorist Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, had an active membership in the USA, concentrated in the New York City metropolitan area. The four indicted include New York City attorney Lynne Stewart, one of Rahman’s lawyers; Ahmed Abdel Sattar, described as a Staten Island resident and a “surrogate” for Rahman; Yassir Al-Sirri, the former head of the London-based Islamic Observation Centre and currently in custody in Britain; and Mohammed Yousry, identified as an Arabic language translator. Mr Ashcroft said the four persons helped the 62-year-old Rahman “direct” terrorist activity from his prison cell. Sheik Rahman is in prison in Rochester, Minnesota, after being convicted in 1995 along with nine others of joining in the plot that resulted in the 1993 WTC bombing. Mr Ashcroft said the indictment charged that the four defendants worked in concert with Rahman in violation of special administrative measures restricting Rahman’s communications with the outside world to provide material support and resources to the Islamic Group. “The indictment charges that Rahman used communications with Stewart, translated by Yousry, to pass messages to and receive messages from Sattar, Al-Sirri and other Islamic Group members,” Mr Ashcroft said. He said the federal officials learned of the activity between the four and Rahman by, in part, monitoring conversations the Muslim cleric had with his lawyer and associates.
IANS |
|
New anti-terror convention comes into force AMID heightened global concern and commitment to combat terrorism, especially in the aftermath of the tragic events of September 11, 2001, a new international convention for the suppression of the financing of terrorism came into force today with the required ratifications by 22 countries. The convention, which was adopted by the UN General Assembly in December, 1999, has already been signed by 132 countries and ratified by 26 member states. Twentytwo of the 26 ratifications came after the terrorist attacks on the USA. UN officials say the Security Council resolution on terrorism adopted on September 21, 2001, had a catalytic effect and contributed to the speed of the ratifications. The new convention, which recognises that financing is at the heart of terrorist activity, is expected to pave the way for concerted action and close cooperation among law enforcement agencies, financial authorities and states. It calls for efforts to identify, detect and freeze or seize any funds used or allocated for the purpose of committing a terrorist act. It is intended that by impeding the flow of cash to terrorists and by prosecuting and punishing the perpetrators, the convention will help to suppress future acts of terrorism. For example, they must ensure that criminal acts covered by the convention will, under no circumstances, be considered justifiable—for example, due to any political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic or religious considerations. The convention obliges the states to prosecute offenders or to extradite them to the parties that suffered from their illegal acts. With the entry into force of the new convention, the governments are strengthening the international legal framework and thereby advancing the rule of law in international relations. |
|
UK soldier in Kabul shot accidentally
London, April 10 "It occurred during a foot patrol in Kabul. The casualty was taken to the French hospital facility at the military side of Kabul airport. He has since died," an MOD spokeswoman said. "The matter is under full investigation by the Royal Military Police,” she added. Bagram Airbase: Al-Qaida or Taliban extremists have killed two coalition Afghan soldiers and injured 13 others as more British troops joined the war in Afghanistan, coalition officers have said. US Major Bryan Hilferty said the casualties occurred in two incidents, one in the former Taliban bastion of Kandahar on Tuesday and another in the eastern town of Khost on Monday.
AFP |
 |
| 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 | |
Palestinians ambushed an Israeli
military patrol at a West Bank refugee camp, killing 13 soldiers and
dealing the army a blow that could undermine US Secretary of State Colin
Powell’s peace mission.
A US grand jury has indicted four
persons for supporting and providing resources to a convicted blind
terrorist and the Islamic Group linked to the Al-Qaida.
