London, May 4
Tamil Tiger rebels, cornered in a small stretch of land in Sri Lanka, are conscripting children, including girls as young as 11 years, to fight the island nation’s army, senior Lankan army officers have claimed.

“It’s like looking at your own child. Many of them are under 16. They grab them from their parents and when they try to pull them back they get shot. These children have the dog tags and cyanide capsules. The younger children (captured) go for rehabilitation programme,” Brig Priyantha, who commands an artillery division in the north, told British newspaper ‘The Daily Telegraph’.

Agreed his colleague, an officer who identified himself as “Roan”: “Considerable numbers of the dead are child soldiers. The youngest was around 12.” At Puthumatalan Lagoon, the edge of the no-fire zone, where thousands of civilians have escaped heavy fighting last month, Major-General Jaggath Dias, General Officer Commanding of 57th Division, also said his men were fighting with girls.

He said some of those his men had captured had their hair cut short to shame them for trying to run away from the front line.

“Girls are as young as eleven. Our soldiers have seen them on the frontline. It’s very difficult to shoot a child. But it does not matter what age, you have to shoot,” the British newspaper quoted Dias as saying.

A soldier guarding an abandoned clinic at Mullaitivi, a few miles from the frontline, said as many as “seven out of 10 were below 15” adding that in the last year an increasing number of LTTE fighters appeared to be young women. — PTI

Washington, May 4
Pakistan must move to the top of US strategic agenda to prevent Islamabad's nuclear arsenal from falling into the hands of Taliban, or worse, an extremist group that seized control of the government, a scholar has warned.

The "second scenario (would give) international terrorists even greater access to Pakistan's nuclear capabilities, the risk of nuclear confrontation with India would also increase dramatically," writes John R. Bolton in an article in the Wall Street Journal today.

President Barack Obama's endorsement of Pakistan's official position that it has secure control over its nuclear weapons arsenal is "not reassuring in light of the Taliban's military and political gains throughout Pakistan", he said.

"Unless there is swift, decisive action against the Islamic radicals there, Pakistan faces two very worrisome scenarios," wrote the former US ambassador to the UN, now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.

"One scenario is that instability continues to grow, and that the radicals disrupt both Pakistan's weak democratic institutions and the military," Bolton said, with "a tangible risk that several weapons could slip out of military control". "Such weapons could then find their way to Al-Qaida or other terrorists, with obvious global implications," he said.

But "the second scenario is even more dangerous". "Instability could cause the constitutional government to collapse entirely and the military to fragment" and "allow a well-organised, tightly disciplined group to seize control of the entire Pakistani government.

"Not only could this second scenario give international terrorists even greater access to Pakistan's nuclear capabilities, the risk of nuclear confrontation with India would also increase dramatically," Bolton said.

"To prevent either scenario, Pakistan must move to the top of our strategic agenda, albeit closely related to Afghanistan," he said, suggesting a strengthening of pro-American elements in Pakistan's military "so they can purge dangerous Islamicists from their ranks and roll back Taliban advances". — IANS

The Obama administration plans to offer Pakistan a new public formula for dual control of the drones to resolve the thorny issue of missile attacks by pilotless predators in the Pakistani tribal areas that are widely criticised in the country as assault on its sovereignty, according to the Washington Post.

The offer may be made by President Baqrack Obama when he meets President Asif Ali Zardari, who is due to begin on Tuesday a 4-day trip to the United States that include some intense one-on-one and trilateral sessions with the American President.

Thought the drone attacks ostensibly aim at high value Taliban or Al-Qaida targets, the question of violation of sovereignty and the collateral damage of death of innocent men, women and children and large-scale displacement of thousands of residents of these areas has caused lot of strain between the two countries amid and widespread anti-American sentiments.

The newspaper said the US officials were exploring ways to reduce the political strain on the Zardari government caused by US drone attacks on the Al Qaida sanctuaries in the tribal areas. The drone attacks, however, would continue.

Pakistanis protest these attacks as violations of sovereignty, “even though they have been blessed in secret by Zardari’s government,” the reported noted.

“This tension could be eased by some public formula for dual control,” the Post reported. “We’re looking at how we might find some common way ahead where utilisation of the asset could benefit the Pakistanis,” a senior Obama official told the Post.

Besides offering a formula for dual control of the drones, the Obama administration also plans to give $1.5 billion to Pakistan to beef up its ailing economy.

Islamabad, May 4
Pakistani authorities have deployed nearly 300 additional security personnel and installed anti-aircraft guns at a prison in Rawalpindi where Mumbai terror suspects are being held following intelligence reports that militants might try to free them.

Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, operations commander of the banned Lashker-e-Taiba, and four other LeT operatives - Zarar Shah, Hamad Amin Sadiq, Abu-al-Qama and Shahid Jamil Riaz - are currently being held at Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi after their arrest for alleged involvement in planning and executing the Mumbai attacks.

The authorities have tightened security by deploying about 300 additional personnel from the Pakistan Rangers, Punjab Constabulary and Elite Force inside and outside the jail.Anti-aircraft guns have been installed on the rooftop of the prison to foil any possible jailbreak attempt, unnamed Interior Ministry officials were quoted as saying by The News daily. — PTI