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Pak General escapes attack on convoy Bush’s policies led to abuse in Iraq: Al-Qaida men clash with Pak forces, 24 killed ‘Geneva norms not for Al-Qaida’
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IFJ seeks probe into attacks on journalists in B’desh Deuba expands ministry
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Pak General escapes attack on convoy
Islamabad, June 10 “Seven army men were among 10 persons killed in the attack,” military spokesman Maj-Gen Shaukat Sultan said. The police in Karachi said Lieut-General Ahsan Saleem Hayat, Karachi Commander of the Pakistan army, escaped unhurt in the attack. Three policemen were also killed in the attack, while three others, including the commander’s guard and driver, were wounded, they said. This was the first time that a top commander of the Pakistan army came under attack from militants. The militants attacked the convoy near a bridge in the busy Clifton area in the city with AK-47 rifles. They also reportedly used bombs in the attack. Windows of nearby shops and apartments were shattered in the gunfire and the subsequent explosion, the police said. A bomb was defused while the attackers fled firing in the area. The security forces surrounded the area after the incident and ambulances shifted the bodies and injured to a hospital. No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack. The police suspected that the attack was carried out by militant groups owing allegiance to the Al-Qaida. The assailants used two stolen cars to carry out the attack, Major-General Sultan said. Both vehicles had been found, he added. Today’s attack, which was the first of its kind against a top military official in Pakistan, came as the army battled Al-Qaida militants in south Waziristan tribal area bordering Afghanistan. However, a military official in Karachi, Col Idris Mallik, denied that the army commander was the target. The attack was not on the motorcade of the commander, he said. It was directed against the police vehicle and the commander’s vehicle happened to be in the vicinity during the attack, he added. The increase in violence has created a political crisis in the Sindh province, which is governed by a shaky coalition owing allegiance to President Pervez Musharraf. Last month, around 14 persons were killed when a man dressed up as a Shia religious scholar blew himself up in a mosque. This was followed by the murder of Sunni scholar Mufti Shamzai. All these incidents resulted in rioting and destruction of vehicles and buildings by irate mobs. Chief Minister of Sindh province Ali Muhammad Mehar was sacked following violence. He was replaced by Arbab Ghulam Rahim of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (PML-Q). He assumed office yesterday only. Meanwhile, Pakistan has placed its international airports at Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad on high security alert following intelligence reports that there was a threat of hijacking, a government official said. “There is a high alert at the three international airports after hijacking threats,” said Major Riaz Ahmad, a spokesman for the Airport Security Force. “We received some intelligence reports on hijacking last night and have beefed up security,” he added. A security agency source said the alert was to ward off any retaliation to a military crackdown on foreign militants in a remote tribal region this week. News of the alert came after an assassination bid on an army commander in Karachi.
— PTI, Reuters |
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Bush’s policies led to abuse in Iraq: Rights Watch
Washington, June 10 The 38-page report, ‘’The Road to Abu Ghraib,’’ charged the Bush administration with adopting a deliberate policy of permitting illegal interrogation techniques, and then spending two years covering up or ignoring reports of torture and other abuse by US troops. ‘’The horrors of Abu Ghraib were not simply the acts of individual soldiers,’’ said Mr Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch. ‘’Abu Ghraib resulted from decisions made by the Bush administration to cast the rules aside.’’ According to Human Rights Watch, the administration policies created the climate for Abu Ghraib in three ways. First, in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the Bush administration decided that the war on terror permitted the USA to circumvent the restraints of international law. The Geneva Conventions were sidestepped as ‘’obsolete’’. Consequently, it said, the USA began to create offshore, off-limits prisons such as Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and maintained other detainees in ‘’undisclosed locations’’. The Bush administration also sent terrorism suspects without legal process to countries where information was beaten out of them. Second, the USA employed coercive methods to inflict pain and humiliation on detainees to ‘’soften them up’’ for interrogation. These methods included holding detainees in painful stress positions; depriving them of sleep and light for prolonged periods; exposing them to extremes of heat, cold, noise and light; hooding them; and holding them naked.
— UNI |
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Al-Qaida men clash with Pak forces, 24 killed Wana (Pakistan), June 10 Over 20 foreign militants were among those killed, Pakistan officials told AFP, after the fighting yesterday erupted in the rugged tribal border region thought to be a possible hiding place for Al-Qaida leader Osama-bin-Laden. “More than 20 foreign militants have died so far,”the tribal territory's security chief Brigadier Mahmood Shah said. One paramilitary soldier and three civilians, including a woman, from the local Mahsud tribe was also killed in the firefight which began early morning and continued late into the night. The gunbattle started in Shakai village, 35 km north of
Wana, the main town in the tribal South Waziristan district after militants holed up in the area fired rockets at military personnel. “We have recovered six bodies while seven others were buried in
Shakai,” Shah said. He said bodies of seven or eight more fighters were lying at the site of the clash. One injured foreign militant was arrested. — AFP |
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‘Geneva norms not for Al-Qaida’
Washington, June 10 The department’s lawyers concluded that Taliban and Al-Qaida fighters were not protected by the Geneva Conventions because they did not satisfy four main conditions of the treaty itself. — AP |
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IFJ seeks probe into attacks on journalists in B’desh
Sydney, June 10 The letter says: According to our information, police attacked several journalists on three separate occasions while covering strike action in Dhaka and Jessore. “On June 4 four photojournalists, Mamun Abedin of Bhorer Kagoj; Abu Taher Khokon of New Age; Ali Hossain Mintu of Dainik Janata; and Akhter Hossain of News Today were injured in an attack by the police as they covered a protest march in Dhaka.” “We understand that the following day, June 5, M.A. Manik, was beaten by police while covering a strike in the town of Jessore. Manik is a photographer working for the local Bengali-language Grammer Kagoj. Five more journalists were injured when the police attacked march organised by the local press club to protest the earlier attack. The IFJ calls on the Bangladeshi Government to mount a full investigation into the attacks and to ensure that the officers involved in the attacks are punished. Journalists must be allowed to fulfil their journalistic duty, free from fear of arrest or physical violence.” |
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Deuba expands ministry Kathmandu, June 10 The expansion of the ministry came nine days after Mr Deuba was reappointed by the King in a bid to end pro-democracy protests. The King had sacked Mr Dueba as premier in 2002.
— PTI |
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