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Opposition in Pak attempts to form alliance
MMA to move Pak SC
Six more arrested for London bombings
Attacks linked to UK’s role in Iraq: suspect
Jihad call by youth wing of UK Muslim group
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7 die in car bomb blast
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Opposition in Pak attempts to form alliance
Islamabad, July 31 Mr Shah told the MMA leader that the party had already received directives from its leader to go ahead with the plan. Mr Shah said that the party’s Secretary-General, Zafar Iqbal Jhagra, had also been summoned to Jeddah for further instructions. Earlier, the MMA in its meeting in Islamabad last Wednesday had decided to take along all other Opposition parties into confidence before going for a ‘‘decisive’’ movement against General Pervez Musharraf. Talking to Dawn, Hafiz Hussain Ahmed said that he had told the PML-N leader during talks that it was the PPP parliamentarians that had caused a setback to the earlier understanding between the two groupings. He recalled his meeting with PPP parliamentarians’ Chairperson Benazir Bhutto in Dubai in which PML-N Chairman Raja Zafarul Haq also took part. In the meeting both sides had agreed to take steps to forge an alliance on a minimum-point agenda. He said he also recounted the earlier high-level meetings between top leaders of the two alliances in which both had agreed to forge a united Opposition front on a three-point agenda. Further elaborating, he said both alliances had decided to launch a campaign against the government and remove Gen Musharraf as President and Chief of Army Staff, to restore the 1973 Constitution as it stood on October 12, 1999, and appoint of an independent poll commission for holding free, fair and transparent elections. PML-N will convene an important meeting in Islamabad to discuss its talks with the MMA so far and chart its future course on its relations with the alliance if the talks on a grand Opposition alliance collapse. |
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MMA to move Pak SC
Islamabad, July 31 "It is bare violation of international human rights to expel students from country's madarsaas and the rulers are making wrong decisions owing to Western countries' pressure. The step to expel foreign students from Pakistani madarsaas has been taken on foreign masters' pressure and it will leave a negative impression about the role of madarsaas, globally," the Online News quoted MMA deputy parliamentary leader Hafiz Hussain as saying in an interview. Hussain further said that either the SC should take suo motto notice of the government's decision, else the organisation would approach the Apex Court challenging it. The Pakistan government's decision was taken in the wake of reports that at least four of the five 7/7 London bombers were Britons of Pakistani origin, and that the Islamic fundamentalists at Pakistani madarsaas had "influenced" their minds towards taking to terror activities. Referring to the London bombings, Hafiz said that not the seminaries, but the trained Universities' students were involved in the suicide bombings.
— ANI |
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Six more arrested for London bombings
London, July 31 “We have carried out search warrants at two addresses in the Sussex area in connection with July 21,” a spokeswoman for London’s Metropolitan police said, adding that the officers making the arrests were not armed. “Six people have been arrested at one of the addresses and they are in custody at a Sussex police station.” She said the suspects were arrested under Britain’s anti-terrorism law but no further information was released about their alleged roles in the failed bombings, in which four suspected Islamic extremists attempted to blow up three underground trains and a bus in London. “Searches of the premises are ongoing. No armed officers are present,” she said. The July 21 incidents, in which no one was injured because the bombs failed to fully explode, were an attempted repeat of the deadly July 7 attacks in London which killed 56 people, including the four suicide bombers. Three of the four alleged July 21 bombers were arrested in police raids in London and the central England city of Birmingham last week, while a fourth was detained in Rome on Friday and is facing extradition proceedings.
— AFP |
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Girlfriends of suspected bombers held, freed
London, July 31 The women were trying to board an express train for Stansted airport at the Liverpool Street station when armed anti-terror cops arrested them on Friday, it said. According to security sources, the two were partners of Muktar Said Ibrahim and Ramzi Mohammed, both linked to the failed suicide attacks on underground train stations here on July 21. However, the women were released on the same night after questioning.
— PTI
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Fake passport haul at Heathrow airport
London, July 31 The 19 passports inside were for Indian, Pakistani, British, Nepalese and South African nationals. ‘The News of the World’ called the find a “potential terrorist goldmine” and said anti-terrorist officers were urgently probing the discovery. The bag was spotted by a taxi driver on a verge near London’s main airport on Thursday, the day before three of the four July 21 attempted suicide bomber suspects were arrested. That attack was an attempted repeat of the July 7 blasts that killed 52 persons and the four bombers in blasts on three subway trains and a bus.
— AFP |
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Attacks linked to UK’s role in Iraq: suspect
London, July 31 However, security agencies have begun hunting for an Al-Qaida mastermind believed to be behind the recruitment and training of both sets of London bombers. Osman has revealed that the suspects watched hours of TV footage showing grief-stricken Iraqi widows and children alongside images of civilians killed in the conflict. He is alleged to have told prosecutors that after watching the footage, “there was a feeling of hatred and a conviction that it was necessary to give a signal — to do something,” ‘The Sunday Observer’ reported today. He claimed that the bombers were led by Mukhtar Said-Ibrahim, the bus bomber, who was arrested in London on Friday. According to the reports, Hussain claimed the men did not talk about Al-Qaida or Osama bin Laden. “We had no contacts with the organisation of Bin Laden. We knew it existed, we accessed its programmes through the Internet, but nothing directly,” he is reported to have claimed, adding that the bombings of July 7 took them by surprise. “We never had any contact with the Pakistanis.” But some of the Italian media quoted Osman as saying: “I hardly know anything. They only gave me a rucksack to carry on the tube in London. We wanted to stage an attack, but only as a show. Who gave me the explosive? I don’t know. I didn’t know him. I don’t remember. We didn’t want to kill, we just wanted to scare people.” Milan’s Corriere della Sera newspaper said Osman first told the authorities he did not know what was in the backpack he took on the London underground, then changed his version, saying he was told the attackers were only supposed to carry out “demonstrative” attacks. But the Rome daily Il Messaggero said the suspect told investigators “We were supposed to blow ourselves up.” According to the report Osman allegedly said: “More than praying we discussed work, politics, the war in Iraq... we always had new films of the war in Iraq... more than anything else those in which you could see Iraqi women and children who had been killed by the US and UK soldiers.”
— PTI |
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Jihad call by youth wing of UK Muslim group
CHILDREN as young as 11 are being targeted by radical Muslims who appear to have infiltrated a mainstream Muslim website, The Independent on Sunday can reveal. Literature aimed at children between 11 and 18 on the youth section of the Islamic Society of Britain (ISB) website calls on them to "boycott those who openly wage war against Allah".
The article containing that quote, entitled "Imam Hassan al-Banna on jihad", goes on to say: "Jihad is a powerful invigorating yearning for Islam's might and glory ... which makes you cry when looking at the weakness of Muslims today and the humiliating tragedies crushing him to death everywhere. "Jihad is to be a soldier for Allah. When the bugle calls ... you should be the first to answer the call to join the ranks for jihad." Other articles on atheism and secularism appear to be against integration. One article is entitled "Zionism, a black historical record", and another, "Israel simply has no right to exist". The ISB immediately disowned this content after being informed of it by the IoS, and promised to remove it. — By arrangement with
The Independent, London. |
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7 die in car bomb blast
Hilla (Iraq), July 31 The attack occurred around 50 km south of Baghdad, near the town of Haswa, the police department here said. The explosives-laden vehicle had been left by the side of the road, near the checkpoint, and was detonated through a remote-controlled device. All of those killed were civilians, the police said. Three of the wounded were policemen. The Iraqi police and army checkpoints are frequently targeted by insurgents, who see Iraqi security forces as allied to US-led forces and dismiss them as collaborators. The area south of Baghdad, in and around Hilla, has been dubbed “the triangle of death” by US forces because of the frequency of insurgent attacks. Iraqi forces have set up multiple checkpoints in the area to try to stem violence. |
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5 US soldiers killed
Baghdad, July 31 In the first attack early yesterday, a patrol hit a roadside bomb in the southern Dora neighbourhood, killing a soldier from Task Force Baghdad, a statement said. Two others were wounded in that incident. Later in the evening, four Task Force Baghdad soldiers were killed when a roadside bomb exploded in south-western Baghdad.
— AP |
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In video: Pakistan to conduct
more missile tests. (
