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60 Iraqis killed in Fallujah fighting
Arson attack guts Malaysian Embassy
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Pak SC allows Sharif’s kin to return home US rules out ‘stepping in’ Pak areas 8 get death for US diplomat’s murder
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60 Iraqis killed in Fallujah fighting
Fallujah (Iraq), April 7 Marines and gunmen were engaged in heavy battles in the Dubat neighbourhood on the eastern side of Fallujah and in other part in the centre of the city, witnesses said. The US warplanes opened fire on groups of Iraqis in the streets. Rocket-propelled grenade fire set a US Humvee ablaze, injuring soldiers inside, witnesses said. Among the dead were 26 persons, including 16 children and eight women, when warplanes struck four houses late yesterday, said Hatem Samir, head of the clinic at Fallujah Hospital. Others were killed in street battles before dawn and during the day. Messages from mosque loudspeakers called for “jihad,” or holy war. Some gunmen in the streets were seen carrying mortars and some women carried automatic weapons. Hundreds of US marines and Iraqi police personnel have surrounded Fallujah, west of Baghdad, since Monday in a large-scale operation aimed at uprooting Sunni Arab guerrillas behind attacks on Americans. Meanwhile, the US marines bombed a mosque in the centre of the town and killed around 40 insurgents inside, a marine officer said. The attack came from a jet aircraft at a high angle to minimise the impact, the officer said. “We wanted to kill the people inside,” said Lieut-Col Brennan Byrne. KARBALA: Five Iranians and three Iraqis were killed and 16 wounded during overnight clashes between the US troops and militiamen of radical cleric Moqtada Sadr in this central city, an official said. “There were eight killed, including five Iranians, and 16 wounded, including four Iranians, during the overnight clashes in Karbala,” said Saleh al-Hasnawi, Health Ministry official responsible for hospitals in Karbala. KIRKUK:
Eight Iraqis were killed and 12 wounded in an exchange of gunfire with the US troops during a demonstration west of here in protest against the US attacks on Fallujah, the police said.
— AP, AFP |
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Arson attack guts Malaysian Embassy Kuala Lumpur, April 7 Four men climbed the walls of the embassy in Kuala Lumpur at mid-morning, fighting with staff before dousing the building with petrol and hurling burning rags to set it alight. The attack was the second in days on foreign embassies in Kuala Lumpur. The Australian High Commission was struck late last month by a small explosive device which caused no damage. “They threw the petrol and used rags soaked in petrol to start the fire,” Kuala Lumpur city police chief Mustafa Abdullah told mediapersons. He said two diplomats were injured in the attack, one seriously and requiring hospital treatment. “Four men have been arrested and they will be charged with arson, trespassing and causing injury,” he said, adding another 10 persons at the site had been taken for questioning. A security guard, who declined to be identified, said the Myanmar minister counsellor and Second Secretary were both hurt.
— Reuters |
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UN downplaying Taliban threats, says India United Nations, April 7 Participating in a debate on the situation in Afghanistan in the Security Council yesterday, he told the secretariat that it would not be “incorrect” to say that the steady dilution of reporting on Afghanistan over the past year or so had not always been fully consistent with the position on the ground. “In our view the reports of the UN Secretariat must be objective, far more discerning and reflective of the ground realties,” he told the 15-member council. Mr Nambiar criticised the latest report by Secretary-General Kofi Annan and briefing by the peacekeeping department for making “scant” reference to the security threat by Taliban and Al-Qaida terrorists “preferring” to refer to them as “extremists”. “Is it the UN’s view that these groups no long represent a threat to Afghanistan or are these reports and briefings in the Council the product of some compromise? Or did absence of any reference to these organisations imply that the work the Security Council Committee on the Taliban/Al-Qaida had achieved closure, at least in Afghanistan,” Mr Nambiar asked.
— PTI |
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Pak SC allows Sharif’s kin to return home Islamabad, April 7 A three-member Bench of the apex court said Shehbaz, also the president of the Opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), could return home. However, he would have to face trial in any pending cases against him, it said while ruling that sending the citizens on exile was violation of their fundamental right. The PML-N, which filed the case for Shehbaz’s return, claimed that Shehbaz was not a party to the deal which was aimed at keeping Sharif out of Pakistan and argued that no cases were registered against him. The government prosecutors in Lahore said Shehbaz could be prosecuted for embezzlement of funds during his tenure as Chief Minister of Punjab province, when Nawaz Sharif was Prime Minister. It was not clear yet whether Shebaz would take advantage of the apex court judgement and return to Pakistan to lead the Opposition against General Musharraf, who had committed to give up the powerful post of the Chief of Army by December 2004.
— PTI |
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US rules out ‘stepping in’ Pak areas
Washington, April 7 “I think that’s an eventuality that, fortunately, we don’t have to deal with at this point,” State Department Spokesman Adam Ereli told mediapersons here yesterday. Pakistan, in the past several weeks, has been making concerted and courageous efforts against terrorist elements in the tribal regions bordering Afghanistan, he said. “We’ve had a good dialogue with Pakistan on the subject of moving against terrorist elements operating on their territory. These actions have involved the loss of considerable Pakistani life,” he said.
— PTI |
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8 get death for US diplomat’s murder Amman, April 7 Libyan Salem Saad bin Sweid and Jordanian Yasser Friehat, who were accused of shooting diplomat Laurence Foley on the doorstep of his home in October 2002, were among those given the death sentence. Chief Judge Fawaz al-Baqour also handed down death sentences on six fugitives in absentia. Two other Jordanian defendants in the dock, were sentenced to hard labour. The case was dismissed against another defendant for lack of evidence. They were all charged with conspiring to carry out “terrorist acts that caused the death of a person and possession of an unlicensed automatic weapon.”
— Reuters |
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