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Three Madrid blast suspects blow up self, cop
19 killed in shooting in front of Spanish base Afghan, US forces to attack
Al-Qaida fighters |
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Pak sincere about peace, says Kasuri ‘Prejudiced’ Imams harming UK, says Muslim MP Maoists attack 9 Indian vehicles in Nepal Asian killed in racial attack
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Three Madrid blast suspects blow up self, cop Leganes (Spain), April 4 Spanish news agency Europa Press, quoting security force sources, said the suspects were among six men for whom Spain issued arrest warrants on March 31 connection with the March 11 attacks on Madrid trains that killed 191 persons. Police swooped on the working-class Madrid suburb of Leganes last evening in an attempt to round up several suspects. The operation turned ugly when the occupants of the first-floor flat, said by neighbours to be Moroccans in their 20s, spotted the police and began firing while shouting and chanting in Arabic, officials and local residents said. The police was about to raid the flat when the suspects set off an explosion, demolishing the front of the five-storey apartment block. “There are three bodies of suspected terrorists who may have killed themselves,” Interior Minister Angel Acebes said in a late-night news conference. A police officer of the Special Operations Group was also killed and 11 policemen were injured, Acebes said. The powerful blast sent a pall of smoke into the air, left a gaping hole in the front of the block, damaged nearby buildings and left a pile of rubble on the ground. The police cordoned off the area. Residents of surrounding blocks were evacuated and 30 families had to spend the night in a hotel because they could not return to their damaged homes. Europe Press said the blast blew the three bodies up to 30 metres from the living room of the apartment. The police was checking the building’s swimming pool for a possible fourth suspect’s body. “This is a quiet neighbourhood. There’s no conflict here. But it’s places like this where these people try to hide,’’ said local resident Juan Manuel Velez. Spain is holding 15 persons, many of them Moroccan, in connection with the March 11 attacks. Acebes has singled out the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group — a shadowy organisation believed to be tied to Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network — as prime suspect in the bombings. He said one suspect in the flat might have escaped before the police cordoned off the area.
— Reuters |
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19 killed in shooting in front of Spanish base
Najaf, April 4 Shooting broke out after thousands of supporters of an anti-American Muslim cleric gathered outside the garrison of the Spanish troops. Witnesses saw four bodies at al-Zahraa Hospital. Three bodies and 10 injured persons were brought to Sadr Educational Hospital in Najaf, said doctor Ra'ad al-Hadrawi. The slain Iraqi soldiers were inside the Spanish base, according to witnesses. A spokesman of the Spanish headquarters in nearby Diwaniyah, Commander Carlos Herradon, said attackers opened fire around noon on the Spanish base in Najaf. Spanish soldiers returned the fire, he said. Later, assailants regrouped in three clusters outside the base and gunfire continued till afternoon, he said. Herradon said he had no figures on the number of dead and injured. The crowd was protesting the reported detention of a supporter of Muqtada al-Sadr, a Shiite Muslim cleric who opposes the US-led occupation of Iraq. About 5,000 persons marched to the garrison of the Spanish military contingent in Najaf after hearing that Mustafa al-Yacoubi, a senior al-Sadr aide, had been detained. BAGHDAD: Two Iraqi protesters were killed when they threw themselves in front of approaching US tanks in Baghdad, news reports said. The demonstration was in support of Shia leader Moktada Al-Sadr, a cleric who is an outspoken opponent of the United States-led invasion. Al-Jazeera television reported that the demonstrators threw themselves in front of US tanks, which were unable to stop in time. The demonstration took place in the Liberation Square near the headquarters of the Coalition Provisional Authority. There was no immediate comment from the US military.
— AP, DPA |
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Baghdad, April 4 “Two marines assigned to the 1st Marine Division have been killed as a result of enemy action in the Al-Anbar province,” the military said in a statement. “One marine was killed in action yesterday. The other died today from wounds received in separate action yesterday.” The military declined to give any further information on the incidents, citing security reasons.
— AFP |
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Afghan, US forces to attack Al-Qaida fighters Afghanistan, April 4 Pakistani troops fought a 12-day battle against about 500 Al-Qaida fighters and their Pakistani tribal allies on Pakistan’s western border with Afghanistan last month. The Pakistani military said about 200 were captured or killed. The Governor of Afghanistan’s Paktika province, Haji Gulab Mangal, said a large number of militants had escaped from the fighting in Pakistan’s South Waziristan and taken refuge in Afghan mountains. “The Afghan forces have been told to be ready and soon an operation along with allied forces will be carried out against these elements,” Mangal told Reuters by the telephone. Pakistan has mounted its biggest ever campaign to pacify its lawless and largely autonomous tribal region on the Afghan border and clear the area of foreign fighters. As Pakistani forces hunt on their side, US forces have mounted an operation on the Afghan side of the border in what the Pentagon has called a “hammer and anvil” action to catch Al Qaida leaders, possibly Osama bin Laden. About 2,000 US Marine reinforcements have been arriving in Afghanistan to intensify the hunt while Pakistan has been moving fresh troops up to its side of the border. Mangal said the militants were in Saroza district. Uzbeks, Chechens, Tajiks and Afghans were among them. Pakistani forces had to watch the border closely because the militants might try to escape back into Pakistan, he said. A US military spokesman in Kabul said operations were going on in the south, southeast and east but he declined to comment on future operations. US-led forces had not seen large numbers coming across the frontier from Waziristan, but cross-border movement continued as it had in the past, he said. Twenty militants have been killed and 41 captured in Afghanistan since US and Afghan troops launched Operation Mountain Storm to clear Afghan border areas on March 7, an Afghan defence official said.
— Reuters |
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Pak sincere about peace, says Kasuri Islamabad, April 4 “We are not playing any games, but making true and sincere efforts for peace”, Pakistan Foreign Minister Khursheed Mahmud Kasuri told mediapersons in Lahore. Stating that the international community had commended the commencement of a composite dialogue between India and Pakistan, Mr Kasuri hoped that it would result in solution of all outstanding issues, including Kashmir. Referring to India’s reservations about the USA granting major non-NATO ally status to Pakistan, Mr Kasuri said he failed to understand why India was dejected over the decision. Mr Kasuri, who would visit China tomorrow, denied misunderstanding with Beijing as a result of Pakistan becoming a close ally of the USA. He said Islamabad had good relations with Beijing and political and defence ties were becoming stronger.
— PTI
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‘Prejudiced’ Imams harming UK, says Muslim MP London, April 4 “There is an increasing number of second and third-rate Islamic clerics who come to this country for dubious means. They are not spreading the true teaching of Islam, which preaches peace and tolerance,” Lord Ahmed said in an article in The Mail on Sunday today. “Theirs is a distorted version which is doing great harm to Muslims and to Britain. They perpetrate the outdated notion that Muslims are victims of British colonial oppression and encourage people to rise up against the rule of the white man,” Lord Ahmed said. Citing an example of the preaching of the imams, Lord Ahmed, who originally hailed from the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, said a couple of weeks ago he attended a Friday prayer service at a mosque in his home town of Rotherham and the imam referred to the fact that Mothers’ Day was approaching. “Mothering Sunday does not exist in the Islamic calendar but I looked forward to hearing the imam say that all faiths should take advantage of the opportunity to be especially kind to our mothers. “But, to my horror, that was not his message: He said that it was wrong to give flowers to your mother on Mothers’ Day because it did not and should not exist for Muslims. He said the only reason British people gave their mothers flowers on Mothers’ Day was because, unlike Muslims, it was the only day of the year that they saw them,” he said. “I was so shocked and angry that I spoke to him afterwards and told him it was totally wrong to deliver such a divisive and ill-informed sermon,” Lord Ahmed said. “It may seem a trivial incident but it is typical of the ignorant and prejudiced views that a significant minority of imams are inflicting on Muslims in mosques in Britain every day. “They are doing great damage and they bear responsibility for the alienation of some young Muslims who are being told to hate this country and are driven into the hands of extremists and terrorist sympathisers,” he said. “It is not a view I express lightly. The power of imams cannot be underestimated. It is a taboo to criticise them and I would not be surprised if, as a result of speaking out, I am the subject of a fatwa, accused of sinning - though, not, I should add, one that sentences me to death.” “It is also important to state that there are many intelligent, deeply spiritual and responsible imams in the UK who are preaching genuine teachings of the prophet Mohammed and Islam.” Lord Ahmed said if a Church of England vicar used the kind of abusive language about Muslims that some imams habitually use about the British, they would rightly be prosecuted for inciting racial hatred. “The reason the imams are not prosecuted is because the non-Muslim community has no idea what goes on inside some mosques. And the authorities would be scared to intervene if they did know, for fear of being called racists.”
— PTI |
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Maoists attack 9 Indian vehicles in Nepal Kathmandu, April 4 Eight empty tankers with Indian number plates were set ablaze by a group of Maoists in Kailali district, 600 km west of Kathmandu, the police said. These trucks were heading towards the Indian border after unloading petroleum products in Kailali. The rebels fired at three occupants of an Indian truck before setting afire the vehicle in Rupandehi district, 300 km west of the capital, the police said. The truck owner, driver and the cleaner suffered bullet injuries when they were attacked by the rebels while unloading goods from Rajasthan on a highway at Parsari village at 5.30 am, an official at District Police Office, Rupandehi, said. The injured Indian nationals were admitted to Bhairahawa Medical College and were said to be out of danger. One of the three wounded was identified as Hukum Ram Chaudhari from Rajasthan. Maoists exploded a powerful bomb at the house belonging to Home Minister Kamal Thapa injuring two security guards at Hetauda in Makawanpur district last evening, the police said.
— PTI |
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Asian killed in racial attack London, April 4 Pensioner Akberali Tayabali Mohamedally from Pakistan died after he was assaulted in an underpass at a roundabout in Northholt, a spokesman said today. The police believes he was involved in an altercation with two men who attacked and killed him on Friday night. Mohamedally, a resident of Radcliffe Way, Southhall, was taken to a hospital where he was declared dead shortly afterwards. A post-mortem examination would be carried out in due course, the police said. Detective Superintendent Sue Hill, who is leading the investigation, said: “We believe the two suspects to be white males.”
— PTI |
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Indian doctor gets £ 1 m as damages London, April 4 Delhi-educated Rajendra Choudhary launched the legal action against the Department of Health because he was repeatedly passed over for promotion, while his British-born
colleagues were made consultants. When the BMA refused to support him, the case was dropped and Dr Chaudhary took his trade union to an
industrial tribunal and won. He was awarded £ 8.15 lakh on the grounds of racial discrimination, but the BMA appealed on 39 grounds. Last week, an employment tribunal threw out the BMA appeal and increased Chaudhary’s award to £ 1 million. After winning his case, Dr Chaudhary said “I think many people will be shocked that a medical institution like the BMA is guilty of racial discrimination - but that is the truth.”
— PTI |
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