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Wednesday,
March 13, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Israeli troops take over most of Ramallah, kill 27 Palestinians
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Pak wants FBI agent to testify on Pearl Islamabad, March 12 Pakistan, while weighing options to decide over the US request for extradition of Sheikh Omar Saeed, the self-confessed kidnapper of US journalist Daniel Pearl, has also asked the Bush Administration to permit a senior FBI official involved in Pearl’s probe to testify as a witness.
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Israeli
troops take over most of Ramallah, kill 27 Palestinians
Gaza/Ramallah, March 12 A total of 26 Palestinians were killed in the offensive, which began late Monday night, with an Israeli army thrust deep into the northern Gaza Strip. The latest deaths came this morning, Palestinians said, when two Palestinians died when Israeli troops fired on an ambulance. Two other Palestinians were killed earlier as the army began its incursion into the West Bank city, the centre of Palestinian cultural, political and economic activity in the West Bank. Also today, Israeli troops killed four accused militants near Netzarm in the Gaza Strip. Israel Radio said the four had fired mortars at an Israeli settlement in the northern Gaza Strip. Palestinian gunman also shot dead an Israeli and slightly injured another at a roadblock near Jerusalem, Israel Radio reported. Some 18 Palestinians were killed after the Israeli army entered the Gaze Strip late last night. Gunman from Arafat’s minstream Fatah faction also shot dead a suspected Palestinian collaborator accused of giving Israel information that had led to the killing of three Fatah activists last week. They had hung the corpse by the feet in Ramallah’s central Manara square. Meanwhile, Israeli attack helicopters rocketed police buildings in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah yesterday, but caused no casualties, Palestinians said. Reports said Israeli troops had reoccupied nearly all of Ramallah, its suburbs of El-Bireh and Bitunya and the adjacent refugee camp of Amari, sparking heavy fighting and killing two Palestinians. The troops arrested 30 Palestinians in El-Bireh. In Amari, dozens of suspected militants fled to central Ramallah. Bulldozers destroyed the home of Wafa Idrisi, the woman suicide bomber who had blown herself up in Jerusalem late January. The Israeli offensive began shortly before midnight. The troops withdrew Tuesday morning after blowing up a Kassam-2 rocket production site and the home of a Palestinian militant who had attacked a Tel Aviv restaurant last week, Israel Radio said. Israeli forces had begun entering Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, rounding up males and interrogating them. Israeli soldiers also fired into the compound housing Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s headquarters in Ramallah, wounding a securityman, a senior Palestinian official said. Information Minister Yasser Abed-Rabbo said a securityman was shot in the chest. The man was in critical condition, hospital sources said. Palestinian medical sources said the intensity of the Israeli onslaught also made it impossible to rescue many of the wounded. Dozens of Palestinians rushed to the main hospital in the area to give blood for the wounded. Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat accused Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of being responsible for a “blood bath.” However, an Israeli army spokesman said the operations in Jabalya camp were only targeted at armed terrorists and not civilians.” In Gaza City, hundreds of Palestinians, including a number of armed men, took to the streets and assembled in front of the al-Shifa hospital to denounce the Israeli incursion. Mosques in the city used loudspeakers to call for a jihad, or holy war.
Agencies |
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Pak wants FBI agent to testify on Pearl Islamabad, March 12 A formal request, seeking the permission of the US State Department, has been made by Pakistan’s foreign office to allow special FBI agent Roland J. Wilczynski to appear as a witness in the local court, where Sheikh was being tried along with three others. The USA, however, has not yet responded to Pakistan Government’s request, Pakistan daily ‘The Nation’ said today. Though initially the USA was reluctant to allow the FBI agent to appear in a Pakistani court, the American authorities might agree to permit him to appear as a witness since the Pakistani prosecutors believed that his appearance in the court would strengthen the case against the suspects, it said. The news of Pakistan’s request to USA was also confirmed by the Interior Ministry spokesman Brig Javed Iqbal Cheema, the daily said adding that Islamabad might ask for the appearance of more than one FBI agents. Birgadier Cheema however, said that he had no idea if appearance of more officials had been sought. He said as per the set court procedure, investigators appear as witnesses. “This is a normal course,” he added. An unspecified number of FBI agents have actively been involved in the investigation of the Pearl kidnapping case along with the Pakistani police. Authorities of the two countries have also examined the possibility to extradite Sheikh Omar, a British national, to the USA, it said and quoted an official as saying that all arrangements had been finalised to whisk him away on a few hours notice. “We are just waiting for the final approval,” the officials said. However, Brigadier Cheema said the government had not yet taken any decision over extradition of Sheikh Omar as the investigation into the case was on and a decision into the matter would be taken after completion of the probe. The FBI agent Wilczynski was believed to be a cyber crime expert who had helped Pakistani investigators track down three suspects who had sent e-mails.
PTI |
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Pak to issue arms licences to diplomats Islamabad, March 12 The decision, however, does not apply to Indian diplomats as the Indian consulate in Karachi has been closed for several years. The Pakistan Government has asked foreign diplomats residing in Karachi to send in their applications to get arms licences, Pakistan daily The News quoting official documents said today. The application for the arms licences is to be routed through the Pakistan Foreign and Interior Ministries, it said, adding that the decision was taken at a high-level official meeting presided over by Pakistan Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider recently. The decision to issue arms licences to diplomats followed the recent abduction and killing of US journalist Daniel Pearl and a sharp increase in sectarian killings. So far about 60 to 80 doctors have been gunned down in the city during the past one and a half years, it said. In Karachi, sectarian outfits have targeted professionals, mainly doctors and lawyers. The killings have continued in the city despite the ongoing crackdown by the government.
PTI |
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India ‘can build’ ICBM Washington, March 12 “Rumours persist concerning Indian plans for an ICBM programme, referred to in open sources as the Surya. “Most components needed for an ICBM are available from India’s indigenous space programme. India can convert its polar space launch vehicle into an ICBM within a year or two of a decision to do so,” the report to the Senate sub-committee on possible missile developments abroad said. Growing experience and an expanding infrastructure are providing India the means to accelerate both development and production of new systems, it says. Some Indian defence writers argue that possession of an ICBM is a key symbol in India’s quest for recognition as a world power and useful in preventing diplomatic bullying by the USA, the report adds. The report says India believes that a nuclear-capable missile delivery option is necessary to deter first use of nuclear weapons by Pakistan and thereby preserve the option to wage limited conventional war in response to Pakistani provocations in Kashmir or elsewhere. Nuclear weapons also serve as a hedge against a confrontation with China. Pakistan sees missile-delivered nuclear weapons as a vital deterrent to India’s much larger conventional forces, and as a necessary counter to New Delhi’s nuclear programme, the consensus report says adding that Islamabad pursued a nuclear-capability programme more for strategic reasons than for international prestige. Since the 1980s, Pakistan has pursued development of an indigenous ballistic missile capacity in an attempt to avoid reliance on any foreign entity for this key capability.
PTI |
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Pak, China sign defence MoU Islamabad, March 12 The Pakistan-China MoU, one among several signed between the two countries during the past few decades, focussed on the production of military equipment in Pakistan, reports in the official media here said. The details of the MoU were, however, not released to the media. The MoU was signed by the visiting Chinese delegation headed by the Deputy Chief of General Staff, Gen Xiong Guangkai, and top Pakistan defence officials yesterday. The Chinese delegation, which has been holding talks with Pakistan officials, including President Pervez Musharraf also met Pakistan’s Secretary Defence Lt-Gen (retd) Hamid Nawaz Khan yesterday. “They hoped the cooperation between China and Pakistan would progress further in future,” an official announcement said. During their meeting, current regional situation also came under discussion, it said adding that the Chinese officials appreciated Pakistan’s support in the international efforts towards elimination of terrorism and peace in Afghanistan and the stand taken by General Musharraf in the context of political situation in the subcontinent.
PTI |
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Polling
ends in Zimbabwe Harare, March 12 Opposition lawyer Eric Matinenga said high court judge Paddington Garwe had ruled that he had no jurisdiction to keep polling stations open further. Another judge had on Sunday ordered an unscheduled day for voting on Monday. “There’s no extra day,” Eric Matinenga told reporters outside the court shortly after the riot police, some firing tear gas shells and shooting into the air, had dispersed thousands of voters waiting outside polling stations in and around Harare. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) argued that its supporters had been deliberately disenfranchised by the late opening of polling stations yesterday and the previous long delays. MDC leader Margan Tsvangirai said the voting hours had been manipulated at the cost of his supporters. He said Mugabe had used violence and cheating to cling to power. Information Minister Jonathan Moyo, a close Mugabe aide, said vote counting would begin on Tuesday and the result could be known early on Wednesday.
Reuters |
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