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Thailand tense, 6 die in fresh street battles Toll touches 23, Prime Minister warns of imminent crackdown
Bangkok, May 15 Six people were killed and 31 injured as street fighting continued for the third day today in the Thai capital with the country’s military setting up buffer grounds around protesters demanding Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva’s resignation. Reporters wearing protective gear cover clashes between Thai soldiers and anti-government protesters in central Bangkok on Saturday. — Reuters

Next attack on US to be postmarked ‘Pakistan’
Washington, May 15
A former CIA analyst, who helped President Barack Obama formulate his Pakistan-Afghanistan policy, sees “a very serious possibility that the next mass casualty terrorist attack on the United States will be postmarked ‘Pakistan.’”

smooth sailing

Sixteen-year-old Jessica Watson (centre) is greeted by her brother Tom (left) and her father Roger upon her arrival at a dock in Sydney on Saturday after sailing solo, nonstop and unassisted around the world, capping off a nearly 23,000 nautical mile voyage that many thought she wouldn’t survive. Watson, from Buderim, Queensland, sailed out of Sydney on October 18. — AP/PTI

Co-education spoiling Pak youth: JuD chief
Lahore, May 15
JuD chief Hafiz Mohd Saeed has asked Muslim men to “make their women observe purdah” and criticised co-education saying it was perverting the youth of Pakistan. Delivering the sermon during Friday prayers at the JuD’s Jamia Masjid Al-Qadsia at Chowburji in Lahore, Saeed described the ban imposed by France and other European countries on wearing the ‘hijab’ and constructing minarets in mosques as a “conspiracy against Muslims.” “Tell the Europeans (by making your women wear a veil) how important it (the veil) is for a Muslim woman,” he said yesterday.

Pak militants kidnap 60
Peshawar, May 15
Pro-Taliban militants armed with automatic rifles today kidnapped about 60 people, including women and children, after ambushing their vehicles in Pakistan’s northwest Khurram tribal region, the police said. The militants off loaded the people from 10 vehicles and took them hostage at gunpoint and set one tractor on fire, it said. The police said it was trying to trace abductors and recover the hostages.

Sole survivor of Libyan jet crash leaves for home Tripoli, May 15 The Dutch boy, who is the sole survivor of a plane crash in Libya, left for home today on a medical evacuation flight, just hours after being told that his parents and older brother perished in the disaster. Ruben van Assouw

Thailand tense, 6 die in fresh street battles
Toll touches 23, Prime Minister warns of imminent crackdown

Bangkok, May 15
Six people were killed and 31 injured as street fighting continued for the third day today in the Thai capital with the country’s military setting up buffer grounds around protesters demanding Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva’s resignation.

With this, the death toll in the street battles in the past three days rose to 23. Emergency services said six people were killed and 31 injured in today’s fresh violence.

Thai troops fired at protesters today as parts of Bangkok’s usually vibrant street turned into battlegrounds with soldiers trying to isolate a sprawling encampment of Red Shirts demonstrators, who want to topple the government and see the Premier step down.

Television grabs showed soldiers crouched behind sandbags, firing live rounds at hundreds of unruly protesters who lobbed petrol bombs, rocks and crude homemade rockets.

Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has warned of an imminent crackdown on the anti-government protest.

“We can’t turn back,” Abhisit said in a national address on Channel 3 TV Saturday night. “We want to restore the state's legal power, peace and normalcy.”

The statement was issued as Thai troops surrounded the followers of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship at their protest site on Ratchaprasong Road, in the heart of Bangkok’s upmarket commercial district.

The tourism industry is hard hit with major hotels forced to shut down. The protesters also set fire to vehicles, and smoke filled many street corners.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed concern over “the rapidly mounting tensions and violence”. The red shirts began their protest two months ago, demanding immediate elections because they consider the current government to be illegitimate.

Meanwhile, many countries have issued travel advisories for the Thai capital.

The US Embassy offered to evacuate families and partners of US government staff based in Bangkok on a voluntary basis, and is urging its citizens against any travel to Bangkok, in its latest update to be issued soon.

The British Embassy warned on Saturday of “intense violence” in two areas of the capital. “We expect shooting and intense violence in Ratchaprarop, Din Daeng area and other violent areas,” the embassy said in a statement, referring to areas in Bangkok where troops and protesters have clashed.

Similarly Germany, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, China, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan, have issued advisories warning their citizens against visiting the country. — Agencies

Next attack on US to be postmarked ‘Pakistan’

Washington, May 15
A former CIA analyst, who helped President Barack Obama formulate his Pakistan-Afghanistan policy, sees “a very serious possibility that the next mass casualty terrorist attack on the United States will be postmarked ‘Pakistan.’”

“What we are observing in Pakistan now is a very dangerous phenomenon,” says Bruce Riedel, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution, in an interview with the Council on Foreign Relations, a Washington think tank.

“The ideology of Al-Qaida, the ideology of global Islamic jihad that all jihadists should focus on the United States as the ultimate enemy, is gaining ground with groups beyond Al-Qaida,” said Riedel, who chaired a special inter-agency committee last year to develop Obama’s Af-Pak policy.

Obama and previous Bush administrations have been pressuring Pakistan for years to shutdown completely the jihadist Frankenstein that was created over three decades in Pakistan, Riedel said. But “no Pakistani government has yet been willing to take on the entire network of terrorist groups.”

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has also raised questions about some in the Pakistani government still retaining links with Al-Qaida, the Afghan Taliban, the Pakistani Taliban, Lashkar-e-Toiba and a host of other groups.

“We saw this in 2008 in Mumbai, when Lashkar-e-Toiba attacked Mumbai and attacked American and Israeli targets,” Riedel said noting “Those are the targets of Al-Qaida and the global Islamic jihad.”

“We have now seen the Pakistani Taliban try to launch an attack on the United States of America for the first time,” he said referring to the arrest of Pakistani-American Faisal Shahzad in connection to the failed car bombing in New York’s Times Square.

“This spreading of the idea of global Islamic jihad is very dangerous and as it gets deeper and deeper into the extremist groups in Pakistan it means we can expect more attacks like the one we saw at Times Square, and we can expect them to become increasingly sophisticated and more capable,” Riedel said. — IANS

Co-education spoiling Pak youth: JuD chief

Lahore, May 15
JuD chief Hafiz Mohd Saeed has asked Muslim men to “make their women observe purdah” and criticised co-education saying it was perverting the youth of Pakistan.

Delivering the sermon during Friday prayers at the JuD’s Jamia Masjid Al-Qadsia at Chowburji in Lahore, Saeed described the ban imposed by France and other European countries on wearing the ‘hijab’ and constructing minarets in mosques as a “conspiracy against Muslims.” “Tell the Europeans (by making your women wear a veil) how important it (the veil) is for a Muslim woman,” he said yesterday.

Saeed - a prime accused in the Mumbai attacks - was also critical of co-education in Pakistan.

“Through co-education, the youth of the country is getting perverted,” he said. Saeed asked parents and teachers to play their role in stopping co-education.

“Anti-Islam forces are spending billions of dollars to keep Muslims away from the basic teachings of Islam. They want us to adopt their culture and our rulers have also become a tool in their hands and are promoting obscenity here,” he said.

Criticising Pakistan’s rulers, the founder of the Lashker-e-Toiba he said the country must not submit and surrender to the US on every issue.

“Yes, it is understandable that Pakistan is facing pressure in the presence of NATO forces in Afghanistan but it does not mean that we should accept each demand made by the US,” he said. — PTI

Pak militants kidnap 60

Peshawar, May 15
Pro-Taliban militants armed with automatic rifles today kidnapped about 60 people, including women and children, after ambushing their vehicles in Pakistan’s northwest Khurram tribal region, the police said.

The militants off loaded the people from 10 vehicles and took them hostage at gunpoint and set one tractor on fire, it said.

The police said it was trying to trace abductors and recover the hostages.

Robberies and kidnapping for ransom are common in the volatile Khurram tribal region, which has witnessed several sectarian clashes between the majority Sunni and the minority Shia Muslims. — PTI

Sole survivor of Libyan jet crash leaves for home

Tripoli, May 15
The Dutch boy, who is the sole survivor of a plane crash in Libya, left for home today on a medical evacuation flight, just hours after being told that his parents and older brother perished in the disaster.

Nine-year-old Ruben van Assouw’s survival of a crash that shattered the airliner into pieces has stunned doctors and given the tragedy at least one hopeful story. The Afriqiyah Airways flight from South Africa hit the ground short of the runway while landing on Wednesday in Tripoli, killing 103 persons, including the boy’s parents and 11-year-old brother.

The boy was recovering well enough to make the journey and most likely would not have to be sedated during the trip, said Sadig Bendala, one of the doctors who treated the boy at a Tripoli hospital.

The plane carrying him home to the Netherlands was equipped with sophisticated medical equipment.

Bendala accompanied him on the flight and said he was emotionally touched by his story. “He’s a special patient. He’s a miracle,” Bendala said before boarding the plane. “For sure I will have a good relationship with him for the rest of my life.”

Dutch Foreign Ministry officials would not say precisely where the flight was headed. — AP