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100 Al-Qaida suspects held in Pakistan 10 killed in Pak army copter attack 84 countries determined to fight terror, US bombing kills 6 Afghan civilians US monitoring Pak, China nuclear activities since 1960 |
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Pak coast guard arrests 11 Indian fishermen
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100 Al-Qaida suspects held in Pakistan Islamabad, March 20 The arrested men included Uzbeks, Arabs, Chechens and locals, Corps Commander Peshawar Lieut-Gen Safdar Hussain said at Wana, the headquarters of South Waziristan, about 300 km south of here. General Hussain said Russian-made arms have been seized from those arrested in operation. Explosives and other equipment being used for suicide bomb attacks have also been recovered, he added. Some 400 or 500 “miscreants and foreign militants” are showing stiff resistance at the Palwasha and Shin Warsa areas, he said, adding that the operation has been expanded to 60 square km from 50 km. “These people have been here for a long, long time. They are extremely professional fighters,” General Hussain said. “They have tremendous patience before they open fire.” While not ruling out the possibility of al-Zawahiri’s presence in the area, he said the military intercepted a wireless message in Uzbek and Chechen language, in which a message about the injury of a colleague was being passed. He said the injured suspect could likely be Uzbek Nek Muhammad or Chechen commander Daud. General Hussain said the suspects tried to flee to Afghanistan in five vehicles but firing by the Pakistani helicopter gunship Cobra foiled their attempt and destroyed their vehicles. “To seal off the border completely is impossible,” the Corps Commander said, adding that there are 240 escaping points to Afghanistan. He said three foreign suspects were killed yesterday, adding that a local Yar Gul tribe is assisting the militants. He asserted the tribe would be given harsh punishment. Pakistani forces today resumed heavy artillery bombardment of an area where they say more than 400 armed militants are believed to be holed up. The militants responded with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades. Cobra gunship helicopters have assisted ground troops in the offensive, now entering its fifth day.
— PTI |
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Al-Zawahiri may have visited Australia Sydney, March 20 The Federal Attorney-General Philip Ruddock told reporters al-Zawahiri did not visit Australia under his own name or a known alias. “Now that doesn’t mean to say that he may not have come under some other false documentation or some other alias that’s not known to us,” he said. Hamid Mir, a Pakistani journalist who was the first to interview Bin Laden after the 9/11 attacks, told ABC TV that Al-Qaida’s number two arrived in Australia on a false passport. “He (al-Zawahiri) told me that in the early 1990s he travelled to New Zealand, he was there to meet some of his people, then he came to Australia, then from Australia he went to Indonesia. In those days, in early 1996 he was on a mission to organise his network all over the world,” Mir said. “He told me he stopped for a while in Darwin. He was ... looking for help and collecting funds.” Mir said
al-Zawahiri also told him about nuclear weapons. — PTI |
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10 killed in Pak army copter attack
Wana, Pakistan, March 20 One official said they were civilians and had been hit after Pakistani troops had come under fire in a tribal area near the Afghan border. A military spokesman said vehicles trying to leave the cordoned-off area without raising a white flag were being attacked.
— Reuters
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84 countries determined to fight terror, says US Washington, March 20 Mr Bush was addressing an audience in the White House which included diplomats from 84
countries, including Indian Ambassador Lalit Mansingh, on the significance of Operation Iraq Freedom for the war against Iraq, and Operation Enduring Freedom to defeat the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. “Many coalition countries have sacrificed in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Among the fallen soldiers and civilians are sons and daughters of Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, the UK and the US. “We honour their courage, we pray for the comfort of their families. We will uphold the cause they served,” he said yesterday. The 84 countries represented at the gathering, Mr Bush said, are united against a common danger, and joined in a common purpose.
— PTI |
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US bombing kills 6 Afghan civilians Kandahar, March 20 Many of the casualties in the yesterday night raid on a village in Charcheno district were women and children, said a local government official, who did not want to be identified. A local police officer, who also did not want to be named, said six persons had died and seven had been injured. U.S. military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Bryan Hilferty said he was unaware of any civilian casualties. He said U.S. planes had pounded suspected Taliban positions in the area yesterday morning in retaliation for the killing of two U.S. soldiers on Thursday, not on Friday night.
— Reuters |
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US monitoring Pak, China nuclear activities since 1960 Islamabad, March 20 US government deployed detection systems, including US Air Force planes, spy drones, satellites, human intelligence and acoustic, seismic, and radiological equipment for gathering intelligence and to monitor nuclear activities such as the production of fissile materials, plutonium and enriched uranium in Pakistan, the Dawn daily reported. It said the intelligence gathering activities started in 1964 ostensibly to monitor China’s nuclear activities and a proposal to this effect was made in a telegram dated November 18, 1964, from the US Embassy in Karachi to the State Department. Though the proposal was rejected by the then President Ayub Khan, declassified State Department documents reveal the US secretly went ahead with its planned proposal. A report sent by the US delegation after meeting Mr Ayub said: “... several weeks ago we had asked for standby permission to bring in C-130s for atmospheric samplings over Pakistan as needed within 24 hours after the next Chinese detonation. Mr Ayub said he knew about (the) request. But he (was) unable to agree to it.” An outgoing joint state/defence message titled ‘Project Clear Sky’ said Atomic Energy Detection Systems (AEDS) activities were planned for 31 countries, including Pakistan with the operational responsibility assigned to the US Air Force. A document from US deputy chief AF Technical Applications Centre to the US State Department shows that one of the assigned tasks performed by the USAF as part of the AEDS was the determination of rare gases produced as a result of nuclear activities in different target countries.
— PTI |
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President of Taiwan re-elected Taipei, March 20 Taiwanese voted separately on a referendum asking if Taiwan should beef up defences if China refused to withdraw missiles targeting the territory and whether to seek peace talks with Beijing. Those results were expected later today. Official results were not in. But unofficial results reported by TVBS cable news said Chen squeaked by with about 50,000 more votes than Nationalist Party leader Lien Chan after a
Cliffhanger campaign. A total of about 13 million ballots were cast. Fireworks boomed in the night sky as ruling party lawmaker Hsiao Bi-Khim told supporters at Chen’s headquarters, “We’ve proved to the world that we’ve won. Today’s victory is a victory for democracy and a victory for Asia.” On the eve of the vote, gunfire hit Chen in the abdomen and Vice President Annette Lu in the knee as they rode through the southern town of Taiwan, waving to supporters from an open-top jeep.
— AP |
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Pak coast guard arrests 11 Indian fishermen Karachi, March 20 The Maritime Security Agency also seized two boats of the fishermen’s yesterday in the Arabian Sea, about 100 km east of Karachi, the capital of Pakistan’s southern Sindh province, said Lieut-Cmdr Mohammed Zeshan, an agency spokesman. The men were handed over to the police for questioning.
— AP |
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Islamabad, March 20
