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Kashmiri, Afghan groups behind attack on Pervez Stench of death fills Bam
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1,000 rescued from ruins in Bam Saudi agents thwart plot to blow up plane Osama seen in Iran, says
British daily 4 Pak terror suspects held in Cyprus
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Kashmiri, Afghan groups behind attack on Pervez
Islamabad, December 28 Pakistan’s North-Western Frontier Province borders Afghanistan. “It’s a huge network of terrorists with tentacles from Kashmir to Afghanistan. They also have international ties,” he said. As 20 persons were detained for questioning into the Christmas Day suicide attack on the Pakistan President, investigations reportedly revealed that one of the bombers involved in the assassination bid either belonged to the banned Jaish-e-Mohammad or its break away group Khudamul Islam, while another was believed to be a Chechen. One of the suicide bombers was believed to be a Chechen while the other a local involved with Jaish, Pakistani daily ‘The Nation’ said today. Other newspaper reports, however, said the local suicide bomber had been identified as Muhammad Jamil of Rawalkot in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir who had links with a little-known Pakistani militant group, Al-Jehad. But, The Nation said Jamil was a member of the banned militant group whose leader was released by India a few years ago while swapping passengers of a hijacked Indian plane in Kandahar in Afghanistan, referring to the leader of Jaish, Masood Azhar. Jaish was banned last year and Azhar floated Khudamul Islam which was also proscribed recently by Musharraf. However, there appeared to be few details regarding the identity of the Chechen militant believed to have belonged to a Chechen group owing allegiance to Al-Qaida. Jaish, with its focus mainly on Kashmir, has links with Al-Qaida and the Taliban. The police has so far arrested 20 persons, including one of the main suspects linked to the assassination attempt. The Nation said the identification of the two suicide bombers, whose faces were found to be in tact, had led to several arrests in Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Rawalakot. Clues found at the blast site, which included a chip of a cellphone carried by one of the attackers and the chassis and engine numbers of the two cars used in the incident, led the police to detain a number of persons, it said. Based on the engine and chassis numbers, owner of one of the cars identified Jamil as the one who bought it a few days before the attack. Other newspaper reports said that Jamil (31), son of Muhammad Sabil Khan, belonged to a religious party. His parents said he left home several years ago and visited them once in a while. Pakistan Information Minister Sheikh Rashid yesterday said a “network” of local and foreign militants had been identified as the one responsible for
December 25 suicide attack on Musharraf. — PTI, Reuters |
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Bam, Iran, December 28 Iranian state television said 13,000 bodies had been recovered so far. From the USA to China, Britain to Australia, nations rushed to respond to Iran’s appeals and sent rescue workers, doctors, tents and cash to help deal with what appeared to be the world’s most lethal earthquake in at least 10 years. Cemeteries in Bam were overflowing with fully clothed corpses and hundreds of bodies had been tipped into trenches hollowed out by mechanical diggers, witnesses said. The pre-dawn quake on Friday also injured about 30,000 persons when it flattened about 70 per cent of the mostly mud-brick buildings in the ancient Silk Road city. Bam airport was converted into a sprawling, makeshift hospital and rubble-strewn pavements were lined with injured, some on intravenous drips. “The number of dead could be far more than 20,000 — many places are untouched. We are beginning to smell the stench of death. If we haven’t cleared the area by the end of the week, there will be a threat of epidemics,’’ said one aid worker. Reuters witnesses saw some looting when vans of young men armed with pistols and Kalashnikovs drove into Bam and stole Red Crescent tents, while others on motorbikes chased aid trucks, picking up blankets thrown out by soldiers. “These guys have legs and can run after trucks, the aid is meant for those like me who cannot move,’’ said one old woman sitting at the roadside. Residents said relief efforts were chaotic. “There is no organisation. Whoever is stronger takes the aid,’’ said Mehdi Dehghani. President Mohammad Khatami said Iran could not cope on its own, as the authorities battled to accommodate thousands of homeless people on a second bitterly cold night. “Everyone is doing their best to help, but the disaster is so huge that I believe no matter how much is done we cannot meet the people’s expectations,’’ President Khatami said on state television. The Interior Ministry confirmed on Saturday the death toll stood at 20,000, but the chaos and scale of the disaster made it difficult for officials to produce exact casualty figures. Interior Minister Abdolvahed Mousavi-Lari said he could not make any forecasts about the final toll. But he said: “In a city of something under 100,000 persons, 70 per cent of buildings collapsed... With this scale of damage, the number of dead and injured will be very high.’’ Officials said many survivors should have been in tents by late yesterday, but witnesses said a number spent the night in the open among palm groves around Bam, burning cardboard and any other material they could find to fend off the cold. Ari Vakkilainnen, leading a Finnish rescue team, said only 30 people were dug out alive overnight. “I do not think that many people are alive because of the structure of the buildings,’’ he said. “Someone could still be alive after 72 hours, but if they are losing blood they need water.’’ Dust-coated Iranian rescue worker Ahmad Ali said he lacked the tools to do his job properly. “We are using our bare hands. On Friday, a baby was pushed through the rubble by its parents. The parents died. We wanted to help so much but have no equipment,’’ he said. In rare direct contact between Washington and Tehran, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and Iran’s permanent representative to the United Nations, Mohammad Javad Zarif, held telephone talks about aid. A US Air force C-130 Hercules landed in Kerman, near Bam, with a first shipment of medical and humanitarian supplies. The US military said it planned to ship in around 70 tonnes of aid from logistics sites in the Gulf, in place for the US-led war on Iraq and its reconstruction. The Islamic Republic’s quick acceptance of help from the international community contrasted with its rejection in 1990 when a quake killed 36,000 persons. It said help would be welcome from everywhere except Israel.
— Reuters |
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1,000 rescued from ruins in Bam
Bam, December 28 The confirmed death toll passed the 20,000 mark, Interior Minister Abdolvahed Mussavi Lari said. “Unfortunately, the number of dead now tops 20,000 and about 15,000 bodies have already been buried,” the minister was quoted as saying by the state television. The search for survivors was expected to end later in the day and there was no need to rush more international rescue teams to the area, the United Nations said in Geneva. Meanwhile, the state IRNA news agency reported that some 1,000 persons had been pulled alive from the ruins on yesterday and today. Those rescued were located thanks to the “sniffer dogs and hi-tech ultrasound equipment of both Iranian and foreign emergency teams”, the news agency said. On the ground, freezing night-time temperatures over the past 48 hours and the disorganisation of the relief effort in the face of the massive casualty toll left little hope of further survivors being found.
— AFP |
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Saudi agents thwart plot to blow up plane
London, December 28 Quoting Tory Shadow Minister for Homeland Security Patrick Mercer, The Mail today claimed that two Islamic suicide pilots had been arrested while preparing to crash a pair of light aircraft into a packed British Airways passenger jet. Mercer claimed that he had been informed of the existence of the plot by an ‘unimpeachable’ source and would raise the issue in the House of Commons immediately after the Christmas recess. According to him, terrorists had already loaded their attack planes with explosives when they were apprehended. They had planned to swoop into the huge Boeing 777 airliner as it taxied on the runway at Saudi Arabia’s main airport and kill all 380 passengers and crew, the report said. British Airways, however, appeared unaware of the planned Saudi attack, but a spokesman told the tabloid: “We never comment on security matters.” The Foreign Office said it had checked with the ‘relevant agencies’ but could find no record of the incident. Although British Airways was not identified specifically as the intended target, it is the only airline from a major coalition country to use the Saudi airport.
— PTI |
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Osama seen
in Iran, says British daily Tehran, December 28 The daily attributed the story to a source having links with the Revolutionary Guards. The report said: “A man with links to Iran’s intelligence services and hard-line Revolutionary Guard Corps (RGC) has told the daily that he saw the al-Qaida leader in Iran two months ago. He saw him arrive at an RGC guesthouse close to the small town of Najmabad on October 23.” The Al-Qaida leader, accompanied by Al-Zawahiri, was being driven by RGC officers before they arrived at the guest house, a 90 minute drive from Tehran, it was further reported. The witness said both had subtly changed their appearances, with trimmed beards and hair cut short. Neither was wearing the traditional turbans, he said, and both were dressed in Pakistani- style clothes and carrying long shawls across their shoulders. Meanwhile, senior Iranian security officials have strenuously denied the claims.
— ANI |
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4 Pak terror suspects held in Cyprus NICOSIA (Cyprus), December 28 “The four were observed moving suspiciously near the airport and were detained for questioning after giving contradictory statements about their presence there,” deputy police Chief Sotiris Charalambous told reporters yesterday. The island’s two civil airports, at Paphos and Larnaca, were under maximum security alert during the holiday period following an Interpol warning of possible terrorist attacks. The four, all students, told the police that they were at the airport to welcome a Pakistani friend. However, Charalambous said the flight they referred to did not exist. “In view of these suspicious circumstances, their questioning will continue through the night,” he said.
— AP |
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