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UK troops
killed unarmed Iraqi civilians, says Amnesty
Website shows beheading of American Ashish Kumar Sen in
Washington US
anti-terror front in North Africa |
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Rocca in Pakistan Nawaz ’s brother
deported shortly after return to Pak Six Indians become rich overnight 7 students, teacher of Indian school killed
Former Australian diplomat William
Stuart Brown shouts at the Judge after the Judge sentenced him to 13 years in jail during his trial
at a court in Bali on Tuesday. The court found him guilty of sexually abusing two teenaged boys on the Indonesian resort isle.
— Reuters photo Feeding crocodiles for good luck!
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UK troops killed unarmed Iraqi civilians, London, May 11 “UK soldiers have opened fire and killed civilians in southern Iraq in circumstances where there was apparently no imminent threat of death or serious injury to themselves or others,” the report said. “In many cases where civilians have been killed by UK forces the British army has not even opened an investigation. “Where investigations have been opened, the (British) Royal Military Police, which is responsible for conducting the investigations, has been highly secretive. It has provided (the victims’) families with little or no information about the progress or conclusions of investigations.” The Amnesty report, which is likely to add to the furore over the abuse and torture of Iraqi prisoners by the British and US forces occupying Iraq, said British soldiers were implicated in the killings of 37 Iraqi civilians since combat operations were officially declared over on May 1, 2003. Amnesty cited the case of eight-year-old Hanan Saleh Matroud, who was fatally shot in the stomach in Karmat Ali on August 21, 2003 while soldiers from Company B of the 1st Battalion of the Kings’ Regiment were patrolling the town.
— AFP |
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Website shows beheading of American
Cairo, Egypt, May 11 The video showed five men wearing headscarves and black ski masks, standing over a bound man in an orange jumpsuit similar to a prisoner’s uniform who identified himself as Nick Berg, a U.S. contractor whose body was found near a highway overpass in Baghdad on Saturday. After reading a statement, the men were seen pulling the man to his side and putting a large knife to his neck. A scream sounded as the men cut his head off, shouting “Allahu Akbar!” “God is great.” They then held the head out before the camera. The video bore the title “Abu Musab al-Zarqawi shown slaughtering an American.” |
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Ashish Kumar Sen in Washington
President George W. Bush defended his embattled Secretary of Defence on Monday saying he was doing a “superb job.” “You are a strong Secretary of Defence, and our nation owes you a debt of gratitude,” Mr Bush told Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld after a meeting at the Pentagon. The ringing endorsement would provide some relief to the Secretary who has been the target of resignation calls in the wake of the Iraq prisoner-abuse scandal. At the Pentagon, officials showed Mr Bush new photographs of U.S. soldiers mistreating prisoners at Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison. The President promised “a full accounting for the cruel and disgraceful abuse of Iraqi detainees.” Calling the conduct that was first brought to light by CBS’ 60 Minutes II earlier this month “an insult to the Iraqi people, and an affront to the most basic standards of morality and decency,” Mr Bush added: “One basic difference between democracies and dictatorships is that free countries confront such abuses openly and directly.” He said all prison operations in Iraq “will be thoroughly reviewed to make certain that such offenses are not repeated. Those responsible for these abuses have caused harm that goes well beyond the walls of a prison. It has given some an excuse to question our cause and to cast doubt on our motives.” The military investigation in Iraq headed by Major General Antonio Taguba found “systemic and illegal abuse of detainees” in the Abu Ghraib facility between August, 2003, and February, 2004, and concluded that soldiers had “committed egregious acts and grave breaches of international law at Abu Ghraib/BCCF and Camp Bucca, Iraq.” Gen. Taguba will testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday. As the Bush administration braced for the political and diplomatic fallout of the scandal Defence Department officials said the White House was weighing whether or not to make public these graphic videos and photographs of torture of Iraqi prisoners. “We haven’t ruled it [release] in or out,” Defence Department spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said. Meanwhile, leaked excerpts from a confidential report from the International Committee of the Red Cross revealed the committee’s workers had seen Iraqi prisoners being kept “completely naked... and in total darkness” by U.S. and British forces. The 24-page report, based on inspections and interviews conducted by Red Cross officials at Abu Ghraib prison and other detention facilities in Iraq last year, was submitted to the U.S. government in February. “Physical and psychological coercion were used by military intelligence in a systematic way to gain confessions and extract information,” it said. Although the Red Cross made repeated warnings to the coalition about prisoner abuse throughout 2003, this appeared to have had little effect on the occupation forces, the report said. ICRC delegates’ findings were based on their observations and on private interviews with prisoners of war and civilian internees during the 29 visits the ICRC conducted in 14 places of detention throughout Iraq between March 31 and October 24, 2003. In an election year, the prisoner-abuse scandal has taken on a partisan hue with Democrats demanding Mr Rumsfeld’s resignation and Republicans standing firmly behind the Secretary. On Saturday, Vice President Dick Cheney, a former Defence Secretary, issued a statement in which he called Mr Rumsfeld “the best Secretary of Defence the United States has ever had. People ought to let him do his job.” Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Senator John W. Warner, Virginia Republican, told NBC that those calling for Mr Rumsfeld’s resignation should consider the difficulty of confirming a new Defence Secretary in an election year. “We’re in two wars, Afghanistan and Iraq,” Mr Warner said. “To pull out the top man at this time, and try and go through the complicated procedures of clearances, finding a new individual, bringing him in, bringing in that new individual’s staff, in the few months before the election - someone better weigh that carefully against these calls for his resignation.” Mr Rumsfeld’s opponents have been equally vocal in their criticism. After hearing Mr Rumsfeld’s testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee on Friday, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, said: “I think
the President of the United States should fire Secretary Rumsfeld. I think we need a new beginning, I think we need a new Secretary of Defence.” Asked by two senators about his future, Mr Rumsfeld replied: “Needless to say, if I felt I could not be effective, I’d resign in a minute. I would not resign simply because people try to make a political issue out of it.” |
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US anti-terror front in North Africa New York, May 11 The vast, arid region is a new Afghanistan, with well-financed bands of Islamic militants recruiting, training and arming themselves, Generals at the United States European Command, which oversees the area, were quoted as saying by the New York Times. Terrorist attacks like the one on March 11 in Madrid that killed 191 people seem to have a North African link, the Times quoted investigators as saying. They may presage others in Europe, the report said. Having learned from missteps in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Times said, the American officers are pursuing this battle with a new approach. Instead of planning on a heavy American military presence, they are dispatching Special Operations forces to countries like Mali and Mauritania to train soldiers and outfit them with pickup trucks, radios and global-positioning equipment. “We want to be preventative, so that we don’t have to put boots on the ground here in North Africa as we did in Afghanistan,” the European Command’s chief of counter-terrorism, Lt. Col. Powl Smith was quoted as saying. By assisting local governments to do the fighting themselves, “we don’t become a lightning rod for popular anger that radicals can capitalize on,” he added. American military officials say that Qaida-linked militants, pushed out of Afghanistan and blocked by increased surveillance of traditional points of entry along the Mediterranean coast, are turning to overland travel in order to make contact with North African Islamic terror groups. The officials, the paper said, cite the case of Emad Abdelwahid Ahmed Alwan, also known as Abu Mohamed, a Qaida militant who traveled across Africa in 2002 to help plan attacks. Alwan, a Yemeni and a close associate of Osama bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was linked to the October 2000 attack on the American warship Cole. He is believed to have been helping to plan an attack on the US Embassy in Mali’s capital, Bamako, before he was killed in late 2002 during a raid by Algerian forces in Algeria’s northeastern Batna Province. Alwan’s appearance in the region, the Times said, rattled the American military and added impetus to a strategy that had been taking shape since the September 11 attacks. The USA is working with the countries of the so-called Sahel, the impoverished southern fringe of the Sahara, to shore up border controls and deny sanctuary to suspected terrorists. The programme, called the Pan-Sahel Initiative, was begun with $ 7 million and focused on Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Chad. It is being expanded to include Senegal and possibly other countries. The European Command has asked for $ 125 million for the region over five years, the Times said. An added catalyst to the program was the kidnapping of Western tourists in the desert of southeastern Algerian early last year.
— PTI |
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CIA stopped FBI agent from giving info on 9/11 New York, May 11 ABC television network last night quoted US officials as saying the agent, working with the CIA at that time, wanted to warn his FBI bosses about a gathering in Malaysia where Al-Qaida suspects Khalid
Al-Midhar and Nawaq Alhamzi met with suspects in the October 12, 2000, bombing of the USS Cole off the coast of Yemen. After the meeting, CIA officials learned
Al-Midhar and Alhamzi had visas to enter the United States, the US officials said. “The failure to communicate that information to the FBI, which would have been potentially able to act on it, is a very serious failure,” said Mr Michael
Bromwich, a former Justice Department Inspector-General who now works for a private consulting firm.
— PTI |
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Rocca in Pakistan Islamabad, May 11 Ms Rocca has arrived to hold “serious” talks on a host of issues, including bilateral relations, regional situation and to review developments in Afghanistan and Iraq, Pakistan Foreign office spokesman Masood Khan said here.
— PTI |
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Nawaz ’s brother
deported shortly after return to Pak
Islamabad, May 11 A Gulf Air plane, carrying Shahbaz and a number of national and international newspersons, landed at Lahore airport at 1830 hrs IST. However, Shahbaz was immediately deported to Jeddah, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmad said. Prior to his return, 1,000 or 1,100 activists of his PML-N party were arrested as part of the government’s intense crackdown. Mr Rashid told TV networks here that Shahbaz alighted from the Gulf Air plane, taken into custody and underwent medical check-up at the airport. He claimed that Shahbaz was deported on the basis of an agreement he reportedly signed along with Nawaz giving an undertaking that he would not return for 10 years. Both Shahbaz, who is the President of Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N), and Mr Nawaz Sharif were exiled along with their families in 2000 after the military coup by President Pervez Musharraf. Shahbaz returned after the country’s Supreme Court said exile is illegal and as Pakistani he has right to return home and face any cases against him. — PTI
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Six Indians become rich overnight Dubai, May 11 Lady luck smiled on Ponnenkattu Rafeeq, a waiter for 15 years at the Equestrian Club, in the Abu Dhabi Duty Free’s ‘Be a Millionaire’ raffle draw contest that won him 1 million dirham (approx Rs 11 million), according to the Gulf News daily. Oddly enough, Rafeeq recently came back to India to join his wife and three sons, after buying the winning ticket on April 9. The five other Indians, who won Dirham 100,000 (around Rs 11 lakh) each are Rathina Kumar Arockiasamy, Rajesh Theruvathu, Reghunadhan Nair, Reynold Lazer Lopez, Siddique Kunnakkat and Mohammed Noman. Mohammad Noman, all of 12 years, was handed over the winning ticket by his father Sheikh Dawood, a driver with the Spanish Embassy in Abu Dhabi for the past 26 years, the report said. The next draw of the hugely popular millionaire contest will take place on June 1. “The raffle was a huge hit... so we will continue running the scheme at least for the foreseeable future,” said Mohammed Mounib, Managing Director of Abu Dhabi Dutee Free’s.
— PTI |
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7 students, teacher of Indian school killed Dubai, May 11 Sixteen students injured in the accident yesterday have been admitted to the hospitals. Some of the injured are stated to be in a critical condition. The accident happened yesterday morning when the bus rammed into a concrete pole supporting a hoarding on the Jeddah-Makkah Expressway. Two of those killed, Haifa, an 11th-grader, and Harsha, a 2nd-grader, were identified as the daughters of school bus driver from Mangalore Habeeb Rahman, who survived the accident. Officials identified the other students who died as Shirin Basheer, 15, from Kerala, Reshma Zakir, 14, Tamil Nadu, Hoshima Iramu Rehman, 13, Kerala, Reshmina Abdul Ghafoor, 11, Kerala and Roshama Abdul Ghafoor,12 and teacher Ruby Parveen 40. Indian Ambassador Kamaluddin Ahmed and Consul General Syed Akbaruddin, who visited the injured in the hospital, said the school provides insurance to cover the life and medical care of the children. Local media have reported that accidents involving school buses had become common and blamed them for poor maintenance of vehicles, a lack of skilled drivers and poor roads with meandering camels as some schools are located in remote areas.
— UNI |
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Paedophile gets 13-yr-jail Jakarta, May 11 William Stuart Brown, 52, broke down into tears, raised his fists and swore at the judges and the audience, who cheered and clapped after the sentence was read out today. “The actions of the defendant have caused post-traumatic stress for his two victims, and go against the religious values of the Balinese,’’ Judge I Nyoman Suta told a packed courtroom in the eastern town of Karangasem on Bali. “He has damaged the image of Bali because what he did has made people think that Bali is a haven for paedophiles,’’ Suta added. The 13-year jail term is two years short of the maximum allowed under Indonesian law. The last pedophile trial here, in 2002, also convicted a foreign national for sexually assaulting a minor.
— AP |
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Feeding crocodiles for good luck! Karachi, May 11 Each year, thousands of devotees meet at a shrine on the outskirts of Karachi for a four-day festival, to sing, pray and thrust big chunks of raw cow and goat meat into the snapping jaws of dozens of forbidding reptiles. The Sheedi people, who like the vast majority of Pakistan’s 150 million people are Muslims, believe their forefathers arrived in southern Pakistan centuries ago from someplace in Africa. They hold the festival each year to venerate their saint, Khwaja Hasan, and to bring themselves good fortune. “Acceptance of our offered meat by the Wagus (crocodiles) is a sign of luck and prosperity for us,’’ said organizer Ghulam Akber Sheedi. “The more they eat, the happier we are.’’ “We are Muslims and believe the Saint will help us in pleasing God and the Prophet,’’ he said. The ‘Sheedi Mela’ or “Sheedi Festival,” which began Sunday and runs until tomorrow, starts with a procession by girls from Manghopir village to the shrine, carrying decorated dishes full of meat and sweets on their heads. Sheedi elders offer prayers, then devotees dance in bare feet and sing for hours to the beat of African-style drums outside the shrine. Finally they proceed to the pond, waving the long wooden sticks they use to thrust the meat toward the crocodiles.
— AP |
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