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US officials meeting insurgents in Iraq
Chechen militants tried to steal
Sikh protesters disrupt hotel wedding in UK
Hearing in Pak gang rape case begins
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Rights panel highlights injustices in USA
UK supports India for UNSC seat
Deuba, six others cleared of
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US officials meeting insurgents in Iraq
Defence
Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Sunday confirmed a British newspaper report that the US officials had been meeting some insurgents in Iraq.
The US military officials say the talks are part of a US plan to create a rift between Iraqi and foreign insurgents. Doing a round of the Sunday morning television talk shows, Rumsfeld denied these contacts involved terrorist groups that have claimed responsibility for deadly attacks across Iraq. “There’s no one negotiating with Zarqawi or the people that are out chopping people’s heads off... but they’re certainly reaching out continuously, and we help to facilitate those from time to time,” he said. Meetings go on “all the time,” Rumsfeld said, adding that Iraq’s government often initiates contact. “I would not make a big deal out of it.” He told Fox News the meetings were part of a plan to “split people off and get some people to be supportive.” He denied part of the report in the Sunday Times that the US met with Ansar al-Sunna, which has carried out suicide bombings, and several other Islamist groups. In an interview with CNN, Gen John Abizaid, Commander of the US Central Command, who heads the US operation in Iraq, said “US and Iraqi officials are looking for the right people in the Sunni community to talk to in order to ensure that the Sunni Arab community becomes part of the political process. And clearly we know that vast majority of the insurgents are from the Sunni Arab community. It makes sense to talk to them.” Gen Abizaid echoed Rumsfeld’s remark saying the US was “not going to compromise with Zarqawi.” President George W. Bush will address the nation on Tuesday. In his speech, Bush will focus on the situation in Iraq. Recent opinion polls reveal a sharp decline in support for the US operation in Iraq and a growing number of Americans want the troops to come back home. Rumsfeld warned against reading too much into opinion polls. “If you start chasing polls, you’re going to get seasick,” he told Fox News. “The task for the President, the government and the military leadership is to show that progress is being made, which it is.” He warned that the insurgency in Iraq could go on for over a decade. “Coalition forces, foreign forces, are not going to repress that insurgency. We’re going to create an environment that the Iraqi people and the Iraqi security forces can win against that insurgency.” In an interview with George Stephanopoulos on the ABC News program “This Week,” he disputed the notion that the US Army is in danger of being “broken” by its overseas commitments and recruitment challenges. |
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Chechen militants tried to steal N-weapons twice
THE official responsible for keeping Russia’s nuclear arsenal safely under lock and key has revealed that lone “terrorists” have twice tried to break into warehouses containing atomic warheads since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Although Colonel General Igor Valynkin, Head of the Defence Ministry’s shadowy 12th Directorate, did not identify the would-be nuclear thieves, official sources have been quoted in the Russian media as saying that both men were Chechens. In both cases the men were intercepted by ‘mobile units’ tasked with protecting Russia’s nuclear storage facilities and arrested by the FSB security service. Valynkin said that Chechen militants anxious for independence from Moscow pose the greatest threat to Russia’s nuclear arsenal. “The threat emanates in the first instance from Chechen terrorist groups,” he told reporters. “We get special information about their plans regarding our nuclear facilities from the FSB and we use this information to urgently take the necessary security measures at the facilities concerned.” He said the two attempted break-ins occurred in 2002 and 2003. Defence Ministry sources told daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta that the incidents took place in the Saratov Region where two nuclear storage facilities are located. In both cases Chechens were caught assessing security arrangements and trying to gain access to warehouses containing warheads. Viktor Ilyukhin, an MP and Deputy Chairman of the Russian Parliament’s Security Committee, warned that Chechens have inside knowledge. “Before the start of what is called the civil war in the North Caucasus many Chechens served in the armed forces, in the Interior Ministry troops, and many have experience of guarding our crucial strategically important facilities,” he told Ekho Moskvy Radio. “Their location is not in any way a secret for the Chechens.” Though Russia is scrapping many of its warheads under bilateral agreements with the United States, its arsenal remains large. Officials say there are some 60 warehouses scattered across the country containing around 1,000 strategic nuclear warheads, and just under 5,000 tactical nuclear weapons including portable warheads known as “nuclear briefcases.” Each month three or four armoured trains containing warheads trundle across the country and, according to the CIA, such trains have already attracted the attention of two Chechen terror groups. In its annual report to Congress it noted that representatives from both groups had been spotted hanging around at railway junctions outside Moscow trying to get information on the special trains. Domestically, however, Valynkin’s revelation about the two attempted break-ins has been interpreted as an effort to secure greater American funding for Russia’s cash-strapped nuclear storage facilities. This is not the first time that Chechen militants have been accused of trying to get their hands on nuclear weapons. Earlier this year UK-based oligarch Boris Berezovsky claimed that Chechen separatists had contacted him and asked him if he wanted to buy “a nuclear briefcase.” The FSB said his claim was “nonsense.” Russia insists it has elaborate security measures in place to prevent nuclear theft. Guards are carefully vetted and must take regular lie detector tests and storage facilities are allegedly ringed by hidden motion sensors for miles around. Valynkin said he had full confidence in the 12th Directorate’s capabilities. “Today I can say that it is difficult for terrorists to penetrate our nuclear facilities,” he said. “But nobody can give a 100 per cent guarantee...but I guarantee 100 per cent that we securely protect nuclear weapons.” — By arrangement with
The Independent. |
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Sikh protesters disrupt hotel wedding in UK
London, June 27 The couple, who did not want to be named, watched helplessly as about 40 members of the “Respect to Guru Granth Sahib Ji Campaign” violently interrupted the wedding at a hotel in Slough, Berkshire on Saturday. The group claimed that the Sikh holy book should not have been brought to a place where alcohol, meat and cigarettes were available. The priest fell in a scuffle with the protesters and the gang fled with Guru Granth Sahib which was to be used in the service and took it to a gurdwara in Slough. After the police restored calm, they stood guard at the hotel overnight as managers met to discuss another wedding planned for yesterday. A spokesman for the Thames Valley Police said, “Apparently a compromise has been reached by both sides over the holy book used for the service and a ‘semi-holy book’ is to be used instead. No one was injured in the incident on Saturday and there have been no arrests.” This is the second time that members of the group have disrupted a wedding for religious reasons. Two weeks ago the group staged a “confiscation raid” during a wedding in
Ilford, east London. — PTI |
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Hearing in Pak gang rape case begins
Islamabad, June 27 Victim Mukhtaran Mai's appeal will be a test case in Pakistan where, like other parts of South Asia, women often suffer brutal "honour punishments", including rape and murder, to pay for the alleged crimes of relatives. The 33-year-old was raped in June 2002 on the orders of a tribal council in the remote village of Meerwala in reprisal for her brother's alleged affair with a woman from a powerful rival clan. Six men were sentenced to death in August 2002 after she defied local customs and testified. But the Lahore High Court acquitted five of them on March 3 and commuted the sentence of the sixth to life imprisonment. The decision shocked the country and was condemned around the world, while Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf caused further anger earlier this month by briefly banning Mai from leaving the country. The Supreme Court opened the case and adjourned it until tomorrow after a 45-minute hearing. "I have high hopes. I hope the original verdict will be upheld and that the accused will be punished," she said at the court, where she was accompanied by rights workers who have supported her pursuit of justice. — AFP
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Rights panel highlights injustices in USA
New York, June 27 “These men were victims of a Justice Department that was willing to do an end run around the law,” said Jamie Fellner, Director of Human Rights Watch’s US Program. “Criminal suspects are treated better than these material witnesses were.” The report said following the September 11 attacks, the Justice Department held the 70 men — all but one Muslim — under a narrow federal law that permits the arrest and brief detention of “material witnesses” who have important information about a crime, if they might otherwise flee to avoid testifying before a grand jury or in court. Although federal officials suspected the men of involvement in terrorism, they held them as material witnesses, not criminal suspects. Almost half of the witnesses were never brought before a grand jury or court to testify. The US Government has apologized to 13 for wrongfully detaining them. Only a handful were ever charged with crimes related to terrorism. The 101-page report titled “Witness to Abuse: Human Rights Abuses under the Material Witness Law since September 11” documents how the Justice Department denied the witnesses fundamental due process safeguards. Many were not informed of the reason for their arrest, allowed immediate access to a lawyer, nor permitted to see the evidence used against them. The Justice Department evaded fundamental protections for the suspects and the legal requirements for arrested witnesses. Their court proceedings were conducted behind closed doors, and all the court documents were sealed. “Haste, incompetence and prejudice played a role in these detentions,” said Anjana Malhotra, the report’s author, and Aryeh Neier, fellow at Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union. “Muslim men were arrested for little more than attending the same mosque as a September 11 hijacker or owning a box-cutter.” The Justice Department has refused to reveal how many material witnesses it has detained in connection with its counter terrorism investigations and has largely ignored repeated Congressional inquiries. After a year of extensive research, Human Rights Watch and the ACLU have confirmed 70 such material witnesses. Sixtyfour were of West Asian or South Asian descent; 17 were US citizens, and all but one was Muslim. The report details how the Justice Department relied on false, flimsy or irrelevant evidence to secure arrest warrants for the men and to persuade courts that they were flight risks who had to be incarcerated. Almost all the men, in fact, had cooperated with federal authorities before their arrest.
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UK supports India for UNSC seat sans veto
London, June 27 “We have extended full support to India to become a permanent member of the Security Council without veto power. At present five permanent members have veto powers and if we extend it to four more countries it will make it difficult,” British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said at a joint press conference with External Affairs Minister K. Natwar Singh after their talks here. Straw noted that most of the permanent members of the Security Council never used the veto. “We have never used it since 1989.” Several issues, including the latest developments in Nepal, Indo-Pakistan relations, came up for discussion during the meeting.
— PTI |
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Deuba, six others cleared of corruption charges
Kathmandu, June 27 However, Deuba, sacked by King Gyanendra when he seized power earlier this year, would continue to remain in detention on charges of irregularity in awarding the Melamchi Drinking Water Project contract funded by the Asian Development Bank. “Deuba and six other ministers who were charged with distributing money from the Prime Minister’s Fund during the Dasain festival last year has been given clean chit by the Royal Commission for Corruption
Control,” commission spokesman Prem Raj Karki said.
— PTI |
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