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Sunday,
June 29, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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USA
charges 11 with plotting jehad Israel to
vacate Gaza tomorrow |
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US soldier
dies in attack US
military halts civic poll in Iraq
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USA charges 11 with plotting jehad Washington, June 28 The indictment of the grand jury in Alexandria (Virginia) said the suspects had “an intent to serve in armed hostility against the USA” and that one of the men, Masoud Ahmad Khan, had a photograph downloaded from the Internet of the FBI headquarters building in Washington. Officials, however, did not elaborate on the allegations. Six of the men were arrested last morning in Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia. Two others were already in custody while three suspects, believed to be in Saudi Arabia, are being sought, official sources said. US Attorney Paul McNulty said “Right here, in this community, 10 miles from the Capitol Hill, in the streets of Northern Virginia, American citizens allegedly met and plotted and recruited for violent jehad.” The indictments alleged that the men were preparing to take part in military activities against a nation friendly to the USA. They purchased, transported and received firearms to be used in a felony, used and attempted to use false and altered passports and provided false statements to law enforcement investigators, McNulty said. To prepare for their missions in Kashmir, Chechnya and other places, the men trained in firearm ranges in Northern Virginia operated by the US military and private parties, the indictment said. The group of organisers and recruits allegedly met in secret in private homes in the Northern Virginia suburbs and in an Islamic centre in Falls Church, Virginia, “to hear, lecture and review tapes of Mujahideen engaged in violent jihad,” he said. The home of a Muslim scholar who in the past has lectured at the Falls Church mosque, Ali Timimi, was searched as part of the investigation, according to court records, but he is not charged in the indictment. The men are charged with violating the Neutrality Act, a Federal law that bans people from leaving the USA to go and attack other countries the USA is at peace with. They also face a variety of weapons charges. Yesterday’s arrests, said the Post, “culminate a Federal probe in which agents armed with search warrants have previously raided the homes of at least 12 persons in the Columbia districts suburbs and have seized rifles, other weapons, scopes, ammunition, terrorist literature and other documents.” US officials have made informal requests to the Saudi Government for access to Ahmed Abu-Ali of Falls Church, who has been taken into custody by the Saudi authorities investigating the May 12 terror bombing in Riyadh, but have not yet received any response. Three of the men, Donald Thomas Surratt, Hamad Abdur- Raheem and Seifullah Chapmen, are accused of instructing the conspirators in military tactics based on their own experience in the US military. Three of those arrested were planning a news conference last morning to complain of FBI harassment. Attorney Ashraf Nubani and two of the men’s fathers appeared before reporters instead, to insist that the men did nothing wrong and are being targeted because they are Muslims. Nubani characterised the men as “kids” and said they were involved in innocent “sports activities,” such as horseback riding and outdoor activities, including paintball.” He admitted that some of the men did go to Kashmir and perhaps other foreign countries. But FBI’s Acting Assistant Director in Charge, Michael Rolince, and Attorney Paul McNutty of the eastern district of Virginia and other members of the law enforcement community said at a press conference that according to indictments, five of the men named were found to be in possession of a variety of weapons, including AK-47s, telescopic lenses and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, including tracer bullets. In addition, the defendants had various documents, including a copy of the “terrorist handbook” featuring information regarding the manufacturing of explosives and related weaponry.
— PTI |
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USA has no roadmap for Kashmir: JKLF London, June 28 According to a four-member delegation of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, which has just concluded a visit to the USA at the invitation of the American Government, representatives of the US State Department conveyed that the dispute had to be “resolved through a process of dialogue.”
— PTI |
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Israel to vacate Gaza tomorrow
Jerusalem, June 28 The Israeli army will withdraw on Monday from parts of the Gaza Strip under a deal reached at with the Palestinian Authority, both public and army radio announced. Citing “senior officials,” the reports said Israeli forces will also pull out of the West Bank town of Bethlehem, but did not say when. The moves will come as part of a deal reached at yesterday under which Israel will leave certain autonomous areas re-occupied after the Palestinian uprising broke out 33 months ago, with the Palestinian Authority agreeing to police those areas and guarantee that no anti-Israeli attacks are carried out from them. The reports said Israeli officers would meet their Palestinian counterparts tomorrow to discuss the details of the withdrawal from parts of the northern Gaza Strip. Public radio added that “if the Palestinians do not honour their commitments and stop anti-Israeli attacks being organised from the sectors evacuated, the Israeli army will feel free to act against terrorist organisations.” The deal was reached at a meeting in Tel Aviv yesterday between Palestinian security chief Mohammed Dahlan and General Amos Gilad, coordinator for Israeli operations in the occupied Palestinian territories. The meeting was attended by US envoy John Wolf. And moves towards the implementation of the “roadmap” for peace were set for a further boost during the day as Ms Condoleezza Rice, US President George Bush’s national Security Adviser, was set to fly in for talks with both sides.
— AFP |
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Shahbaz’s wife, daughters told to leave Pak
Islamabad, June 28 “They will be sent today,” Pakistan Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat said while reacting to reports of the police laying siege to the residence of Mr Sharif’s relatives in Lahore to find Shahbaz’s wife Nusrat and two daughters Rabia and Jaweria. Mr Hayat told private Geo TV that Mr Sharif and his family had accepted a deal with the military regime in 2000 and left for Jeddah. They would not be allowed to return and take part in politics here. He said that Shahbaz’s wife and daughters were allowed to return as the family wanted the daughters to get married and asked for two months time to complete the marriage. “Now it is over three months and there is no sign of marriage,” he said The sudden government action against Shahbaz’s family was apparently the fallout of Sharif’s recent interview in which he castigated General Musharraf for scuttling the Lahore peace process and held him squarely responsible for the Kargil conflict. The “deportation” of the three was delayed after Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali “reversed” the order to send them yesterday, The Nation daily reported. Mr Jamali even phoned Shahbaz’s son Mian Hamza yesterday after negotiating with the top officials to assure him that his family members would not be forced to leave. But the Prime Minister’s orders were superseded following direct orders from Washington where President Musharraf is on a visit, the daily said. Last night, the government informed Hamza that three had to leave by the first available flight to Jeddah, the daily said, adding that following this, the police cordoned off the residences of Shahbaz and two of his uncles’ families. However, the police could not trace the whereabouts of the three. “I have no political agenda, but my mother and sisters are being illegally expelled from the country and as a brother and son, I will defend them till the very last, at whatever cost”. The general secretary of the Punjab unit of the PML (N), Mr Saad Rafique, termed the orders as the worst example of “state terrorism” adding that the expulsion was totally illegal and deprived the citizens of Pakistan of their right to live in their country. The action against Shahbaz’s family members also figured in the National Assembly today as the House met in a surcharged atmosphere to discuss opposition’s no-confidence motion against Speaker Amir Hussain for his recent ruling declaring President’s Musharraf’s constitutional amendment as legal.
— PTI |
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US soldier dies in attack
Baghdad, June 28 Attacks on the occupation forces have continued unabated in recent days. An interpreter working with the U.S. Army was also wounded in last night’s attack on a regiment of the First Armoured Division in a district in the north of Baghdad that until recently was known as Saddam City, a military spokeswoman said. One military officer said a U.S. convoy came under a grenade attack around 7 p.m. just when a U.S.-imposed curfew takes effect. Earlier yesterday, another U.S. soldier was shot in the head and critically wounded while shopping in Baghdad. American officials in Iraq have called the attacks “militarily insignificant” because they do not reduce the capacity of the 156,000 American troops in the country, of which 53,000 are in Baghdad alone.
— Reuters |
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US military halts civic poll in Iraq
Washington, June 28 The order to stop planning for elections was made by Major-Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of the 4th Infantry Division, which controls the northern half of Iraq, a media report said. It follows similar decisions by the 3rd Infantry Division in central Iraq and those of British commanders in the south. Top US civil administrator L. Paul Bremer told The Washington Post that there was “no blanket prohibition” against self-rule. “I’m not opposed to it, but I want to do it a way that takes care of our concerns. . . . Elections that are held too early can be destructive. It’s got to be done very carefully,” he said. “In a postwar situation like this, if you start holding elections, the people who are rejectionist tend to win. It is often the best-organised who win, and the best organised right now are the former Baathists and to some extend the Islamists,” he said. The decision has created resentment among local leaders and the population, who say the US-led occupation forces are not making good on their promise to bring greater freedom and democracy, the daily said.
—PTI |
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A US grand jury has charged 11
Muslims, mostly Americans, with conspiring with Lashkar-e-Toiba
terrorist outfit to engage in jehad in Kashmir, Chechnya, the
Philippines and other countries friendly to the USA.
