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Thursday,
October 10, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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US, British jets attack N. Iraq missile site Pak N-bombs ‘unguarded’
21st century ultras ‘hard’ to trace Al-Qaida activists in PoK Nepalese leaders for coalition govt |
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2 LTTE prisoners freed on bail
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US, British jets attack N. Iraq missile site
Washington, October 9 The strike against the air defence target northwest of Mosul, was the 47th of the year by US and British jets policing no-fly zones set up in both northern and southern Iraq following the 1991 Gulf war. The US European Command, which is responsible for patrolling the northern zone, said in a release from its headquarters in Germany that the jets responded to threats to shoot them down by attacking an “imminently hostile surface-to-air missile system” with guided weapons. All of the aircraft left the area safely and damage to the target was being assessed, the release said. The frequency of the air strikes against Iraqi air defences has fluctuated over the decade since the Gulf War. But they have increased sharply in recent months as speculation has grown that US President George W. Bush might order an invasion to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, who Washington accuses of developing weapons of mass destruction. CAIRO: Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has said that President Bush’s latest speech on Iraq was positive and offered Baghdad the opportunity to respond to UN demands on disarmament. Bush had said on Monday that a war over Iraq, which Egypt has said would plunge the region into chaos, was not imminent or unavoidable and pledged to build an international coalition against Iraq if it defied UN Security Council resolutions. Mubarak was quoted by Egypt’s official Middle East News Agency as saying: “Bush, in his latest speech, gave Iraq a chance to respond to Security Council resolutions to destroy all weapons of mass destruction.” “(Mubarak) expressed his hope that Iraq would respond to these statements and not keep any weapons of mass destruction,” the report said, adding that Egypt had been told by Iraq that it did not possess any such weapons. Mubarak, who was speaking to reporters at the inauguration of a road project today was also quoted as saying that Bush’s speech contained “many positive (elements) and Iraq should respond to it”. Reuters
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Saddam ‘may use’ chemical arms
Washington, October 9 The conclusion is contained in a letter CIA Director George Tenet sent to Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Bob Graham, which addresses some of the concerns raised by the US lawmakers in the course of their debate on the US policy towards Iraq. Mr Tenet said Baghdad at the moment “appears to be drawing a line short of conducting terrorist attacks with conventional or CBW against the USA. But the CIA director warned this Iraqi approach could undergo a revaluation, if Saddam Hussein were to conclude that he was about to lose power or even his life. “Should Saddam conclude that a US-led attack could no longer be deterred, he probably would become much less constrained in adopting the terrorist actions,” Mr Tenet wrote. “Saddam might decide that the extreme step of assisting Islamist terrorists in conducting a WMD attack against the USA would be his last chance to exact vengeance by taking a large number of victims with him,” he added according to the report made public yesterday. AFP
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Pak N-bombs ‘unguarded’
Washington, October 9 Pakistan asserts that it has complete control over its weapons, but that could change if Pakistan is taken over by Islamic fundamentalists sympathetic to Al Qaida and other terrorist groups, the report said. It said the US, British, French and Israeli nuclear weapons were thought to be well guarded. Chinese weapons were also thought to be well guarded although less was known on this point, the report added. The report, which focuses on a possible terrorist nuclear attack on a US sea port, said it was a low-probability but high-consequence threat. Terrorists might attempt to smuggle the bomb into a US port in many ways, such as a tanker or a dry bulk freighter, but sea containers might provide them a particularly attractive route, the report said. Containers could easily accommodate a nuclear weapon, the report said. A terrorist group, as distinct from a nation, might obtain a nuclear bomb by several plausible routes. In each case, a reasonable estimate of explosive yield was that of the Hiroshima bomb — 15 kilo tons, equivalent to the explosive force of 15,000 tons of TNT, the report said. UNI
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21st century
ultras ‘hard’ to trace The 21st century is going to be dramatically different as far as terrorist threat is concerned and terrorist organisations may resort to the weapons of mass destruction — chemical, biological and nuclear. This grim scenario has been projected by the two co-chairmen of the bipartisan U.S. Commission on National Security, a Pentagon-established body. Participating in recent forum at John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, former U.S. Senators Gary Hart and Warren Rudman said despite the fact that the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington were conventional in nature, the major terrorist threat in the 21st century would be form the weapons of mass destruction. Mr Rudman said terrorist organisations, as opposed to governments that sponsored terrorism, were shadowy groups that were difficult to trace and penetrate. “The old Soviet Union was a threat, but we knew the phone numbers and addresses of our opponents there. We even knew what cars they drove. But this is a very different situation. It is a very difficult task for the intelligence organisations no matter how we reform and streamline them.” |
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Al-Qaida activists in PoK
Islamabad, October 9 In a communication to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, he also claimed that Osama bin Laden, prime accused in the September bombing of the World Trade Center (WTC) in New York and other installations in the USA was brought by the ISI agents to the Korrun Agency in July and then shifted to a hideout at Daret in Balwaristan. Mr Khan, who heads the Balwaristan National Front, released a list of 30 Al-Qaida activists, who are presently in Balwaristan. These activists are being given protection by the local Wahabi people. He further stated that another group of Al-Qaida and Taliban suspects along with several women and children, were shifted to Gilgit and then Darel near Chilas on the left bank of the Indus. This group was brought by the ISI operators in Pajaero vehicles. Giving names of the Taliban and the Al-Qaida members in Balwaristan, he urged the UN and the members of the international community to take action against Pakistan for sheltering the terrorists. He also stated that Pakistan was running a number of terrorist camps in Darel Astore and Tangir areas in Balwaristan. UNI
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Oust Pervez, Osama’s plea Peshawar, October 9 The letter, distributed in certain Afghan refugee camps in the north-western city of Peshawar, also appealed to Pakistan’s Islamic clerics to lead their people into “jehad (holy struggle) against crusaders and their allies”. “My Pakistani Muslim brothers...get rid of the shameful Musharraf and my call is especially to the Pakistani clerics,” said the letter, addressed to the Pakistani nation and quoting heavily from the Koran.
Reuters
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Nepalese leaders for coalition govt
Kathmandu, October 9 Leaders of the six political parties — the Nepali Congress, the CPN (UML), the Rashtriya Prajatantra Party, the Nepal Sadbhavana Party, the Nepal Majdoor Kisan Party and the Janamorcha Nepal — agreed that an all party government should be formed, after consultations with the political parties, with a definite mission. “The meeting also finalised the draft of the memorandum to be submitted to the king urging for the formation of an all party government,’’ said Arjun Narsingh KC, a spokesman of the Nepali Congress. The leaders of the six major political parties, who are expected to jointly meet the king today, have agreed to form an all party government as a means to resolve the political crisis that arose in the country after Nepal’s King Gyanendra sacked Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba’s government. Meanwhile, suspected Maoist rebels exploded a small bomb at a Norwegian-funded private hydro-electric project but the blast caused no damage, an Interior Ministry spokesman said on Wednesday. UNI, Reuters
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2 LTTE prisoners freed on bail
Colombo, October 9 The two Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) members were released on a bail of Rs 25,000 by a magistrate in the eastern port city of Trincomalee yesterday. The LTTE took seven soldiers into custody at Wilgampura in the Trincomalee district. One of them was handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross last week. IANS
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Japanese shares Nobel prize
STOCKHOLM: John Fenn of the USA Japan’s Koichi Tanaka and Kurt Wuethrich of Switzerland won the 2002 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said today. They share the 1 million prize for work on proteins which has led to increased understanding of the processes of life. The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences today went to two Americans for using psychological research and laboratory experiments in economic analysis. Reuters
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video: As the countdown to elections nears, major political parties and candidates in Pakistan are gearing up for the day.
