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Secret operation in Pak was called
off Train from India on trial run arrives in Dhaka
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Many foreign terrorists ‘inside Masjid’ Blair wanted to quit year before Iraq war: book
Swaminarayan temple to open in Toronto
Global warming threatens Tibet glaciers
Heavy sea battle in Lanka
26 killed in Baghdad
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Secret operation in Pak was called off Washington called off a secret military operation to capture top Al-Qaida members in Pakistan in early 2005 after senior officials in President George W. Bush's administration decided it could harm relations with Pakistan, according to the New York Times.
The newspaper, citing intelligence and military officials, reported over the weekend that the target was a meeting in Pakistan's tribal belt at which Al-Qaida's No. 2 leader Ayman al-Zawahri was expected to be present.
Members of a Navy Seals unit in parachute gear had already boarded C-130 cargo planes in Afghanistan when the mission was cancelled, the newspaper cited a former senior intelligence official involved in the planning as saying. Then defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld called off the mission, which had ballooned in the number of troops involved, at the eleventh hour because he felt it put too many American lives at risk. He was also concerned that it could cause a rift with Pakistan. A former senior intelligence official involved in planning the operation said it grew in scale "into the invasion of Pakistan." Rumsfeld believed an operation of that size would need to be approved by Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf and that the General would never agree. "We wanted to take a shot," the official added. General Musharraf joined the US-led war on terror in 2001 after the September 11 attacks on the US. Pakistan has since received millions of dollars in aid and military supplies from the US. Lately, however, a number of members of the US Congress have complained that Pakistan is doing little to justify this huge amount of aid. The decision to halt the planned "snatch and grab" operation frustrated some top intelligence officials and members of the military's secret Special Operations units, who say the US missed a significant opportunity to try to capture senior members of the Al-Qaida. Al-Zawahri frequently puts out videotaped messages in which he takes swipes at the US and its involvement in simultaneous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The wars, especially the one in Iraq, are extremely unpopular among Americans and have contributed to Bush's approval ratings reaching their lowest level since the start of his presidency in January, 2001. Officials interviewed by the New York Times said they were not certain Al-Zawahri attended the meeting in North Waziristan but intelligence officials had "unusually high confidence" that he was there. In order to boost intelligence, the paper reported that in early 2006, Bush ordered a "surge" of dozens of CIA agents to Pakistan, hoping that an influx of intelligence operatives would lead to better information. But that has brought the US no closer to locating the Al-Qaida's top two leaders. The paper reported that Pentagon officials said planners had to consider the political and human risks of undertaking a military campaign in a sovereign
country. Quoting analysts, the paper said they felt American counter-terrorism operations had been hamstrung because of concerns about General Musharraf's shaky government. "The reluctance to take risk or jeopardise our political relationship with General Musharraf may well account for the fact that five and a half years after 9/11 we are still trying to run bin Laden and Zawahri to ground," said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University. Those political considerations have created resentment among some members of the military's Special Operations forces, the paper reported. "The Special Operations guys are tearing their hair out at the highest levels," said a former Bush administration official with close ties to those troops. "There is a degree of frustration that is off the charts, because they are looking at targets on a daily basis and can't move against them." Stephen Cohen, South Asia analyst at the Brookings Institution in Washington, wrote in a Washington Post column that the US "is paying lip service to a regime [in Pakistan] that is collapsing before its eyes and that may yet turn
truly nasty." "Washington treats Pakistan as if it were a Cold War ally, dealing only with its top leadership. The great danger is that this time around, Pakistan may not have the internal resources to manage its own rescue. If that is the case, then in years to come, a nuclear-armed and terrorism-capable Pakistan will become everyone's biggest foreign policy problem," Cohen warned.
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Train from India on trial run arrives in Dhaka
Dhaka, July 8 Bangladesh hopes a regular passenger train service will be launched by mid-August to link its capital Dhaka to Kolkata, capital of India’s West Bengal state 375 km away. The trial train with 30 officials from Kolkata was received by Bangladesh railway officials at Darshana, a border entry point. The train, called “Moitree” (friendship), then headed towards Dhaka and was likely to reach a city station in late afternoon. “Bangladesh has taken enough security measures for the Indian trial train, so that none can cause any obstacle in efforts to consolidate ties between our two countries,” A.T.M. lsmail, a Bangladesh communications ministry official, told Reuters. Bangladesh will soon send a train to Kolkata on a similar trial run, before finalising the service, he said. The security, immigration and customs arrangements, crucial for such a cross-border service, would be fixed in a two-day meeting between the countries’ officials this week. The train service was suspended after the 1965 war between India and Pakistan, when Bangladesh was Pakistan’s eastern province. The service was not restored even after Bangladesh’s independence from Pakistan in 1971. — Reuters
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Many foreign terrorists ‘inside Masjid’ AT least nine most wanted terrorists are present in the Lal Masjid apart from several other foreign militants, religious affairs minister Ejazul Haq told reporters on Sunday. “They are wanted here and abroad for terrorist acts,” Ejaz said while addressing a news conference after a top-level meeting presided over by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz. He said foreign militants had virtually taken control of the resistance from inside the Lal Masjid from deputy chief cleric Maulana Abdul Rashid Ghazi. He said all of them had been identified. The total figure and names cannot be disclosed at this time. Asked if they are Arab or Central Asian members of Al-Qaeda, Ejaz said: “Even beyond that.” He did not elaborate, but sources suspect that Chinese Muslim extremists from Sinkiang province are hiding in the mosque. He said Ghazi’s demand for safe passage was meant for foreign militants. No country would accept these terrorists, he added.
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Blair wanted to quit year before Iraq war: book London, July 8 Blair asked a group of advisers in 2002 whether he should announce he would not lead Labour into a third election, Campbell said in an extract from his diaries, due to be published tomorrow. In the end Blair only finally handed over the leadership to his successor Gordon Brown last month, after a decade in power and more than two years after winning a historic third consecutive term for Labour in the 2005 general election. The moment of doubt came in June 2002 after Blair had been briefed on how his poll ratings on trust had ''really dipped'', Campbell said. ''In truth I've never really wanted to do more than two full terms,'' Campbell quoted Blair as saying. ''It was pretty clear to me that he had just about settled his view, that he would sometime announce it, say that he was going to stay for the full term, but not go into the election as leader,'' Campbell noted. The extracts were released a day before the publication of Campbell's political memoirs, based on the diaries he kept during his time as Blair's official spokesman and later director of communications. In a BBC television interview, Campbell defended his decision to publish his insider account, ''The Blair Years''. — Reuters
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Swaminarayan temple to open in Toronto
Toronto, July 8 Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty and Toronto mayor David Miller will be among other dignitaries to be present on the occasion. The temple, adorned with red-and-white flags to ward off the evil, will officially be one of the largest Hindu temples in the world. “Most people are proud to have it here,” said Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty. “It is the pride of Toronto and it will help Canadians to discover India in Canada,” he added. The local Hindu community has donated big bucks for the $40 million temple complex. The walls and ceilings of the phenomenal building are embellished with carved figures of humans and animals. The raw material was shipped first to villages in India where artisans sculpted the marble and limestone into forms and the finished pieces were then transported back to Toronto to be assembled. Each piece was marked with a bar code to facilitate construction, project manager Naren Sachdev explained. The project, started in 2005, despite the use of computers and high-tech equipment, took almost two years to complete. The Swaminarayan temple also houses the Indo-Canadian Museum of Cultural Heritage. — PTI
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Global warming threatens Tibet glaciers
Beijing, July 8 A group of scientists led by the World Wildlife Fund recently explored the source of the Yangtze River on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and reported the findings. The breathtaking view of Mount Yuzhu and 14 other snowy peaks stuns passengers travelling along the Qinghai-Tibet railway. But those who enter a typical glacier valley, west of Mount Yuzhu, will no longer find any trace of a glacier at the snow line altitude of about 5,000 meters. In its place, a spring of sliver water bubbles its way down the flank of the mountain. Scientists found the remnants of the glacier on the far side of the mountain. The Qinghai-Tibet plateau used to boast of 36,000 glaciers with an area of 50,000 sq km which feed several rivers in China, South Asia and Southeast Asia. Major rivers including the Bhramaputra and Sutlej originate from the Tibet plateau. In the past 100 years, the area of these glaciers has shrunk by 30 percent. Scientists say if the temperature at the end of this century rises to 2.1 to 4 degrees Celsius, this figure will increase to almost half. According to Chinese scientists, 15 percent of rich grassland and one fourth of wetland at high altitude have vanished in the past 15 years. The scientists have called for more support for ecological research on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. — PTI
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Heavy sea battle in Lanka
Colombo, July 8
LTTE claimed that they resisted an offensive by a flotilla of 21 naval fast attack craft to attack them off the coast of Trincomalee.
The Tigers said the fire fight lasted for three hours and they lost two of their cadres. They said they damaged three Dvora fast attack craft, but did not give the casualties on the military side. “Three Dvora FACs (fast-attack craft) were damaged in the (sea) clash. Two Sea Tigers were killed in action,” the LTTE said. The Navy said it was the Tigers who set off the fighting by trying to launch a simultaneous land and sea
attack. — PTI
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Baghdad, July 8 Two car bombs detonated nearly simultaneously in Baghdad’s mostly Shiite Karrada district, killing eight people. The first hit at 10:30, near a closed restaurant, destroying stalls and soft drink stands. Two passers-by were killed and eight wounded, a police official said. About five minutes later, the second car exploded about 2 kms away, hitting shops selling leather jackets and shoes. Six people were killed and seven wounded. On Baghdad’s southwestern outskirts, a bomb hit a truckload of newly recruited Iraqi soldiers being brought into the capital to join the crackdown, killing 15 soldiers and wounding 20, a police official at the nearest police station said. Also, a bomb hidden under a car went off at the entrance of Shorja market. — AP
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