Silchar, August 10
The Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) today fired at three Indian border outposts and killed two women, injured five others and displaced 4000 persons, creating a war-like situation in Cachar district, BSF sources said.

The Border Security Forces (BSF) have also retaliated and the firing which started since last night still continues.

The Bangladesh Rifles targeted Harinagar, Kinnokhal and Tokargram border outposts of the BSF with heavy mortars since last night. The BSF immediately retaliated to protect the post and since 10.15 p.m. last night, it was going on in full swing with brief lull around wee hours.

Those who were killed in the BDR firing have been identified as Sabita Dey and Santa Dey, residents of Kinnokhal, near the Bangladesh border. Another woman and a boy were also injured in the same area.

The intercepted BDR communication revealed that there were casualties on the other side also and at least four BDR personnel were injured and a madrasa building was destroyed, the BSF sources said.

The civil administration have opened three relief camps so far where more than 2,200 persons have taken shelter and all villages bordering Bangladesh have been evacuated as a precautionary measure.

Giving this information BSF’s Cachar sector DIG Aswani Kumar Singh said today that troops of 38 Bn BDR started unprovoked firing from Barathakoria and Kaziipara villages of Sylhet sector in Bangladesh last night, first targeting Harinagar post with mortar and heavy machine guns. — UNI

Beirut/Jerusalem, August 10
Israeli forces today took control of the Lebanese hub of Marjayoun ahead of possible strikes on Beirut as Tel Aviv said it was holding off a major offensive till the weekend to give diplomats at the UN more time to work out a peace plan.

Israeli tanks and artillery used positions around Marjayoun — a largely Christian town that was used as a command centre by Israeli forces during their 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon till 2000 — to attack Hizbollah positions.

At least four persons were killed in airstrikes and ground fighting in southern Lebanon. The Israeli aerial bombardment targeted Bekaa Valley, Tyre, villages along the border and a historical lighthouse in Beirut.

A Hizbollah rocket landed in the Israeli village of Deir-al Assad, killing a woman and her daughter and wounding two others, officials said. Hizbollah also claimed to have destroyed 13 Israeli tanks.

Meanwhile, Israeli Cabinet minister Rafi Eitan said Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had decided to put off an expanded offensive cleared yesterday by the security cabinet in view of diplomatic considerations.

Hizbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah appeared on television, threatening to turn Lebanon into a “graveyard” for Israelis. — PTI

Islamabad, August 10
The Pakistani authorities have put the founder and former head of the Lashkar-e-Taiba under house arrest in Lahore, a spokesman for an Islamic charity said today.

Hafiz Mohammad Saeed resigned almost five years ago from Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group suspected of involvement in the Indian rail blasts of July 11 that killed over 180 persons, to become the head of a charity called Jamaat-ud-Dawa, regarded as its sister organisation.

The United States has designated both as terrorist organisations.

''They informed us last night that Hafiz could not leave his residence and this restriction is for one month,'' Yahya Mujahid, Jamaat-ud-Dawa's spokesman told Reuters.

He said the police had been stationed at Saeed's residence and it had also cancelled permission for Jamaat-ud-Dawa to hold a rally in Lahore on August 12.

Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao told Reuters that the authorities detained Saeed, fearing his activities could create a law and order situation.

''He was put under house arrest under the Maintainance of Public Order,'' Sherpao said, referring to a law under which the authorities could detain a person up to 90 days.

After joining a US-led global war on terrorism following the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, Pakistan put the leaders of several militant organisations under house arrest.

Saeed has been put under house arrest several times before but was released later.

India has called for Pakistan to act more forcefully to shut down militant groups in the wake of the Mumbai blasts, and New Delhi's suspicions of Pakistani links to the attacks have jeopardised a two- year-old peace process.

There was no immediate official reaction from India, but Foreign Ministry officials in New Delhi expressed a mixture of surprise and scepticism.

''Pakistan is probably trying to give the impression that they are doing something about these groups. Such house arrests have taken place in the past as well and these leaders end up living in luxury,'' an official said.

Lashkar-e-Taiba was one of the groups implicated in December, 2001, attack on Parliament, which brought the two countries to the brink of fourth war.

The group was banned by Pakistan, and its members say it only operates out of Kashmir these days, although members of Lashkar have been arrested in the United States.

The Jamaat-ud-Dawa was added to a US State Department terrorist list earlier this year. Pakistan has put it on a watchlist but has not banned it.

In a report issued last year, the State Department said the Lashkar used the charity to gather funds and maintain ties with religious militant groups around the world, ranging from the Philippines to West Asia and Chechnya.

The Jamaat ud-Dawa has been prominent in providing relief after an earthquake killed over 73,000 people and left around three million destitute in Kashmir and northwest Pakistan in October.— Reuters

New Delhi, August 10
While the Government of India refrained from formal reaction on the house arrest of Lashkar-e-Toiba’s founder Hafeez Mohammad Sayeed in Pakistan this afternoon, the mandarins here view the development as ”a revolving door arrest”.

Western commentators have often accused Islamabad of pursuing a “revolving door” strategy in its so-called “fight against terror” — wherein terrorists are ‘arrested’ and let off as though they were entering and exiting through a revolving door.

Sayeed’s ‘house arrest’ for a month’s period, announced after sustained pressure from Washington at the behest of New Delhi, has failed to win Indian government’s kudos. The question being asked in the corridors of power here is not when India’s one of the most wanted terrorist would be released. Instead, the question doing the rounds here is how many airconditioners, carpets and chandeliers adorn his house where he has been ‘detained’.

Islamabad has not officially intimated New Delhi on the development. Nor has New Delhi sought any clarification from Islamabad in this regard. This itself — from New Delhi’s point of view — is suggestive of the real motive behind Pakistan’s move.

New Delhi’s sense is that Sayeed has been put under ‘house arrest’ to buy time in this moment of heat generated on the issue while the development is paraded as yet another instance of Pakistan’s role in combating terror.

Hafeez Mohammad Sayeed had formed Jamaat-ud-Dawa in February 2002 in the wake of 9/11 and terrorist attack on Indian Parliament and maintained that it had nothing to do with the Lashkar-e-Toiba. But the Indian government as well as the international community have maintained all along that JuD was nothing but a reincarnation of LeT.

Sayeed’s JuD had recently organised an international conference in the wake of October, 2005 Kashmir earthquake which was attended, among others, by International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC). India had fiercely protested against the ICRC’s act in Geneva as well as here and categorically conveyed to the ICRC that the JuD was not a charitable organisation but a deadly terrorist outfit, and new wine in old bottle as far as JuD and LeT were concerned.

London, August 10
A UK bomb plot foiled today echoed one planned a decade ago in Asia and lays bare the threats airlines still face despite heightened vigilance since the deadly hijackings of 2001, security analysts say.

The UK and US authorities said several airliners set to fly from London to the US were to be blown up by bombs which suspects planned to carry on board in hand luggage and ordered passengers not to carry liquids on board.

Dr Peter Neumann, Director of the Centre for Defence Studies at London’s King’s College, said the plot bore many similarities to one in 1995 by Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, convicted of planning to blow up the World Trade Center.

“He actually planned to blow up 11 planes over the Pacific with a liquid explosive,” Neumann told Reuters. “This is almost exactly the same type of plan we see emerging in this particular instance.”

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff in raising the US security level on aviation to its highest level for the first time, said plane passengers would be banned from carrying on board any liquid other than medicine or baby food. — Reuters