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46 die in militant
attacks near Chechnya Korean hostage beheaded in Iraq Al-Qaida leader
trained with Saudi military Defection of RAW agent to USA may mar strategic ties
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Imran Khan, Jemima split US paper
seeks independent probe into torture memos
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46 die in militant attacks near Chechnya Chermen (Russia), June 22 The fighters seized the Interior Ministry in Nazran, the largest city in Ingushetia, and attacked the border guards’ headquarters there as well as in two villages near the border with Chechnya shortly before midnight yesterday, regional emergency officials said. Interfax, citing the Ingushetia Interior Ministry, reported that the dead included 18 police and 28 civilians. Earlier today, the Ingush catastrophic medical centre told the Associated Press that 16 persons had been killed and 43 wounded in the fighting. The ITAR-Tass news agency, citing Ingush law enforcement officials, said five of the dead were policemen. Eyewitnesses reported at least six more persons dead in an attack on a border guards’ post on the outskirts of Nazran. Acting Ingush Interior Minister Abukar Kostoyev was wounded in the first minutes of the fighting in Nazran and was taken to Vladikavkaz in North Ossetia, where he died, the Ingush Interior Ministry official said. Ingush emergency officials said that the Health Minister and a Deputy Interior Minister of Ingushetia had also been killed in the fighting in Nazran. “There are a lot of casualties, both from the law enforcement side and among civilians,” the Interfax news agency quoted Ingush President Murat Zyazikov as saying. An official from the Ingush Interior Ministry said it was not immediately clear who the attackers were, but said some of them were shouting “Allahu Akhbar” — a frequent rallying cry of Chechnya’s separatist rebels as their insurgency increasingly comes under the influence of radical Islam. Ingush police estimated that up to 100 militants, armed with grenade and rocket-launchers, were involved in the assaults. In an interview excerpted on Radio Liberty last week, Chechnya’s separatist President Aslan Maskhadov said rebels were preparing to undertake new offensives. “We are planning to change tactics. Initially, we concentrated our efforts on acts of sabotage, but soon we are planning to start active military actions,” he said. There was heavy fighting in Karabulak, where the militants attacked a border guard and customs post and a police station, and the assailants seized a police checkpoint in the village of Yandare, Ingush emergency officials said. The police at the Chermen checkpoint on the North Ossetian border said that a 10-vehicle Russian military convoy had been ambushed en route to Nazran. Three vehicles from the column were later seen returning to Vladikavkaz, the North Ossetian capital, carrying an unclear number of casualties. By early today, Russian forces had fought off the rebels attacking the border guards’ headquarters in Nazran, Ingush emergency officials said. As dawn broke, there was still sporadic shooting in the city and in Karabulak, but the fighters were stealing away. Alleged militants stole some Nazran residents’ cars to make a getaway, and people were hiding in their houses, said a resident. Russian President Vladimir Putin was briefed by Ingush President Murad Zyazikov this morning on the situation in the Caucasian region. Mr Zyazikov announced a three-day mourning period beginning tomorrow, Interfax news agency reported. “This was aimed at destabilising the situation” in the region, he said.
— AP |
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Korean hostage beheaded in Iraq
Baghdad, June 22 South Korea confirmed on Tuesday that US troops had found the body of 33-year-old Kim Sun-il, five days after he was seized in Falluja, a guerrilla hotbed 50 km west of Baghdad. Arabic satellite channel Al-Jazeera broadcast footage of four heavily armed men standing over a kneeling Kim, who was dressed in an orange tunic and with an orange blindfold — mimicking the orange jumpsuits worn by prisoners in US detention facilities like Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. "We warned you and you ignored (the warning)... Enough lies. Your army is not here for the sake of Iraqis but for the sake of cursed America," one of the men said. A spokesman for the television network said the tape went on to show one of the men cutting off Kim's head with a knife. On Monday, a group led by Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said it was holding Kim and would execute him unless Seoul pulled out its 670 military medics and engineers in Iraq and cancelled plans to deploy 3,000 more troops.
— Reuters |
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Al-Qaida leader
trained with Saudi military Riyadh, June 22 Saleh Mohammed Al-Aoofi is a logical choice to replace Abdulaziz al-Morqin, mastermind of the kidnapping and beheading of American engineer Paul M Johnson Jr, after the previous leader was killed in a shootout with Saudi forces Friday after his cell announced it had killed Johnson, Saudi analysts and newspapers said. Saud Musaibeeh, a public relations official at the Interior Ministry, refused yesterday to comment on the possibility Al-Qaida had a new leader in the kingdom. Al-Aoofi is fifth on the Saudi government list of most wanted terrorists. Two of those above him on the list, including No 1 Al-Moqrin, are dead.
— AP |
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Defection
of RAW agent to USA may mar strategic ties The defection of an alleged CIA spy from the ranks of Indian intelligence is “just the tip of the iceberg” in what is likely a “significant infiltration” by the CIA and Israel’s Mossad, according to intelligence analysts. Analysts with the U.S.-based intelligence gathering firm Stratfor say this infiltration likely covers three Intelligence branches — the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), the Intelligence Bureau and the Defense Intelligence Agency. Rabinder Singh, a Joint Secretary in India’s Research and Analysis Wing, defected to the USA sometime between May 14 and early June after his purported involvement with the Central Intelligence Agency was discovered. Mr Rabinder Singh, who fled India a day before his scheduled arrest, travelled through Nepal and entered the USA with a US passport. Stratfor analysts say the defection has provided the Manmohan Singh government with a “good reason” to back away from the USA and drift closer to France, Germany and Russia. Questions about Rabinder Singh’s loyalties were first raised while the Bharatiya Janata Party was in power, but analysts say no action was taken “probably because the BJP feared disrupting its developing alliance with the USA and Israel.” Pointing out that the Congress party-led government has no history of close relations with Washington and Israel - and no particular affinity toward either, the analysts say the scandal has made New Delhi question U.S. intentions toward India. The incident “will mar the budding strategic alliance between the two countries. It will also prompt India to limit intelligence-sharing with Washington — which, in turn, will hurt the U.S. intelligence war against Pakistan- and Afghanistan-based militants, about whom Indian intelligence services know a great deal.” While the Indian government has ordered an investigation into Mr Rabinder Singh’s case, Stratfor analysts predict serious repercussions for the Indian intelligence community. A “shake-up” could result in the reorganisation of the Indian intelligence structure, perhaps leading to the creation of a single major counterintelligence agency. “An eventual purge of some suspected intelligence officers, whose guilt might not be proven, is very likely. It also is likely that authorities will end the dubious practice that allows career intelligence officers who have relatives living abroad - and whose contacts with foreigners are not closely monitored - to continue in the service.” The analysts justify the official silence on the matter in New Delhi and Washington saying “there will be no public outcry from India over this scandal, however, because a public quarrel with the USA is not in India’s best interests. Washington is, of course, content to keep the case under wraps; the last thing it needs is to further alienate India’s new government and to spark a public outcry over espionage against an ally at a time when the CIA Director’s resignation has been linked to intelligence failures in the war against terrorism.” |
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Imran Khan, Jemima split
Islamabad, June 22 “I sadly announce that Jemima and I are divorced,” Imran said in a statement. “This was a mutual decision and is clearly very sad for both of us. My home and my future is in Pakistan. Whilst Jemima tried her best to settle here, my political life made it difficult for her to adopt to life in Pakistan,” he said in the brief statement. Khan and Jemima married in 1995 and the couple have two sons. It was not clear who will get the custody of the children. Jemima, daughter of the late UK billionaire Sir James Goldsmith, became a Muslim after the marriage and adopted Pakistani lifestyle. She recently moved back to London, taking their two children with her to be educated in the United Kingdom. The news of divorce came in the midst of media reports that Jemima was dating famous British actor Hugh Grant in London. Imran, who fell in love with Jemima in the heydays of his glorious cricket career, took to politics after retirement from the game and currently headed Pakistan-Tehrik-e-Insaf, (Justice) party. In the 2002 National Assembly elections, Imran won from Mianwali in Punjab. He initially supported President Pervez Musharraf but later became a strong critic of the military establishment in Pakistan.
— PTI  |
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US paper
seeks independent probe into torture memos Washington, June 22 Rumsfeld had said that the editorials raised questions among US troops in Iraq, reduced the willingness of people in Iraq and Afghanistan to cooperate with the US and could be used by others as an excuse to torture the US soldiers or civilians. But the Post retorted by saying: “Dictators who wish to justify torture, and those who would mistreat Americans, have no need to read our editorials. They can download from the Internet the 50-page legal brief issued by Mr Rumsfeld’s chief counsel.” |
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Clinton’s autobiography goes on sale
New York, June 22 The 957-page book ‘My Life’ is expected to become an easy best seller as thousands of people lined-up for several hours in book shops to buy it. At a venue, about 1000 people held a party to celebrate the occasion even as the conservative groups prepared rebuttals and tried to take initiative out of hands of the Democrats. The book encouraged Democrats who believe it would give a boost to the election campaign of their Presidential candidate John Kerry but Republicans expressed the view that it could overshadow the Kerry’s campaign to the advantage of President George W Bush. Analysts were reserving their judgement and currently giving both view points. They want the issue to play out for the next few days before making any call.
— PTI |
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