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Wednesday,
November 20, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Britain
next terror target ‘Prevail’ on Pak to stop terrorism
Commanders back
Musharraf Iraq
action no violation: Annan Joined at head for 28 yrs |
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Britain
next terror target London, November 19 They
believe the attack could be aimed at British targets overseas or be
carried out by sleeper cells either based in Britain or entering the
country from the continent. The news comes amid heightened security fears across Europe following a series of warnings from intelligence agencies and a taped threat from Osama bin Laden that more attacks would be carried out. Bin Laden specifically identified Britain, France, Canada, Italy, Germany and Australia as target nations, along with the USA. France, Germany and Australia have already suffered
Al-Qaida attacks on their citizens during the past year. A senior police anti-terrorist source told the Observer newspaper in London that it was not scare-mongering to alert the British public to the fact that this country is now in Al-Qaida’s sights: ‘When you see what has happened in the past weeks it is clear that people from several of the countries listed by Bin Laden have already been attacked. It won’t necessarily happen in this country, but could be in places where our citizens are known to gather in other countries.’ Islamist sources believe Britain’s close alliance to America in planning a war on Iraq is believed to mean British targets will be the next priority for an Al-Qaida attack. “Time has proved that Bin Laden is capable of this and that despite all the US efforts he is still at large. Imagine what he would choose. London is a much easier target than any American city,” said one Saudi dissident source. Extra police poured into London over the past week amid fears that emergency services would be unable to cope with a terrorist incident during the firefighters’ strike. The capital was on high alert for the state opening of Parliament and sensitive financial targets in the city were given extra protection. In a sign of the increased concern about the rising terrorist threat, senior officers this weekend expressed their relief that the week had passed off without any incident. The state of alert across the world is now at the highest it has been since the September 11 terror attacks in New York. The FBI warned two days ago that Al-Qaida was believed to be planning “a spectacular” against a US target, perhaps a national monument or major industrial site. But it is in Europe that the fear of imminent attack is at its greatest. In Germany Hans-Josef Beth, the head of Germany’s international counter-terrorism unit, named a specific terrorist believed to be plotting a chemical or biological attack. Beth said Abu Musab Zarqawi, an Al-Qaida operative who has been trained in the use of toxins, could be planning an attack. “Something big is in the air,” Beth told a conference in Berlin. Beth’s comments were followed by a similar warning from his boss, August Hanning, head of Germany’s federal intelligence service, who said the West had to “count on a new attack, an attack of a much larger dimension”. In France Jean-Louis Bruguiere, the country’s leading anti-terrorism judge, warned that Al-Qaida cells were still operative. Meanwhile the head of Interpol, Ronald Noble, has warned Al-Qaida is preparing to carry out simultaneous attacks in a number of countries. Terrorism experts believe that Bruguiere’s analysis is correct and — despite scores of arrests across the continent — Al-Qaida cells are still operative and undiscovered in many European countries. “In Europe there are definitely sleeper cells still around. It is not a question of ‘if’ an attack happens but a question of when and where it will happen,” said Dr Magnus Ranstorp, Deputy Director of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism at the University of St Andrews. Defence sources have revealed that last week’s security alerts for a suspected lorry bomb on cross-channel ferries to Britain was caused by information gleaned from detained suspects in France and the Netherlands.
Guardian |
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‘Prevail’ on Pak to stop terrorism London, November 19 “The West needs to make representations to the newly elected government of Pakistan that action must be taken to close down the training camps for the militants in Kashmir, whether or not the government is directly responsible for them. “Not to do so is to live by double standards. It is also to lose the best chance for a long time of peace in what should be a Himalayan paradise,” Baroness Shirley Williams, leader of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords, who was in Jammu and Kashmir last month along with a delegation of Liberal Democrat parliamentarians, said. “Most of the militants cross over from Pakistan, having been trained in training camps close to the Line of control between Pakistan and India. The degree of official involvement by Pakistan’s government, in particular its powerful intelligence agency, remains in dispute. “What is undeniable is that the infiltrators obtain money and fairly sophisticated weaponry from somewhere to sustain their terrorist attacks,” she said in a forthright article in the magazine, “The Tablet.”
PTI
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Pro-Pak army man is Speaker Islamabad, November 19 A contender from the liberal Pakistan Peoples Party of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto recorded 71 votes. None of the three main political groups won a clear majority in October’s general elections, but the Muslim League has been trying to woo smaller parties into a coalition. Tuesday’s vote showed it has had some success in this effort, but a government excluding both the Peoples Party and the Islamic groups would have a thin majority at best.
Reuters |
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Commanders back
Musharraf Islamabad, November 19 “A special meeting of corps commanders held here yesterday expressed confidence in the leadership of Musharraf in the transfer of power to the civilian government”, officials said. The meeting endorsed his decision to continue as head of the state and chief of the army staff, the officials were today quoted as saying by the media here. The mainstream political and religious parties have said they will not recognise the April referendum.
PTI |
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Iraq action no violation: Annan Pristina, Yugoslavia, November 19 Contradicting the US interpretation of Resolution 1441 on Iraq adopted two weeks ago, Mr Annan indicated that the council would not see such action by Iraq as a trigger for war. “Let me say that I don’t think that the council will say this is in contravention of the resolution,” Mr Annan said when asked if Iraq was violating 1441 by firing at alliance planes, as Washington contends. The USA is alone among the 15-member council member states in insisting that the no-fly zones are included in the resolution.
Reuters |
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Joined at head for 28 yrs Tehran, November 19 Laleh and Ladan Bijani said at Tehran airport their trip would be the “start of a fateful long journey that would decide the rest of our life”. In Singapore they would be examined by Dr Keith Goh, who was a key member of the team that separated Nepalese babies Ganga and Jamuna Shrestha in 1997. Dr Goh told the AP by e-mail that the tests performed on the twins in Germany were now outdated and new tests would be carried out to determine whether separation surgery would be safe.
AP |
DETAINED SURGEON RELEASED AFGHANISTAN
FREES 149 PRISONERS |
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