Tripoli, April 12
France and Britain, who first launched air attacks on Libya in coalition with the United States, today criticised NATO’S bombing campaign, saying it must do more to stop Muammar Gaddafi bombarding civilians.

NATO took over air operations from the three nations on March 31 but heavy government bombardment of the besieged western city of Misrata has continued unabated with hundreds of civilians reported killed.

The criticism by London and Paris followed new shelling of Misrata on Monday and the collapse of an African Union peace initiative. Echoing rebel complaints, Alain Juppe told France Info radio, “It’s not enough.”

He said NATO must stop Gaddafi shelling civilians and take out heavy weapons bombarding Misrata. In a barbed reference to the alliance command of the operation, Juppe added: “NATO must play its role fully. It wanted to take the lead in operations, we accepted that.”

British Foreign Secretary William Hague also said NATO must intensify attacks, calling on other alliance countries to match London’s supply of extra ground attack aircraft in Libya. NATO, is operating under a UN mandate to protect civilians, stepped up air strikes around Misrata and the eastern battlefront city of Ajdabiyah at the weekend. It rejected the criticism.

“NATO is conducting its military operations in Libya with vigour within the current mandate. The pace of the operations is determined by the need to protect the population,” it said.

Libyan state television said on Tuesday a NATO strike on the town of Kikla, south of Tripoli, had killed civilians and members of the police force. It did not give details.

The spat within the alliance came after heavy shelling and street fighting in the coastal city of Misrata on Monday where Human Rights Watch says at least 250 people, mostly civilians, have died.

Rebels on Monday rejected an African Union peace plan, saying there could be no deal unless Gaddafi was toppled. His son Saif al Islam said such an idea was ridiculous. Rebel leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil on Tuesday thanked Western countries for the air strikes but said they could not relieve besieged cities and appealed for arms and supplies.

“NATO’s air fleet cannot deliver the occupied cities where Gaddafi’s forces, using the civilian populations as a human shield, have now taken cover,” he said in a statement, adding that the insurgents needed time to build an army capable of toppling the Libyan leader.

Abdel Jalil pointedly named French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who the rebels hail as a hero, as the leader of the coalition supporting his forces. Sarkozy led calls for military intervention in Libya and his warplanes were the first to attack Gaddafi’s forces.

Rebels in Misrata, their last major bastion in western Libya and under siege for six weeks, scorned reports that Gaddafi had accepted a ceasefire, saying they were fighting house-to-house battles with his forces. — Reuters

The US-Pakistan cooperation in the fight against extremism appears to be in dire straits with a Pakistani official saying joint intelligence operations have been on hold since January, while a US news report on Tuesday said Pakistan has asked the CIA to suspend drone strikes on militants on its territory.

“The breakdown in intelligence cooperation has cast a pall over US-Pakistani relations, with some officials in both countries saying intelligence ties are at their lowest point since the September 11, 2001, attacks spurred the alliance,” the Wall Street Journal reported.

Over the weekend, a Reuters report quoted an unidentified senior Pakistani intelligence official as saying US-Pakistan intelligence operations have been ‘on hold’ since January.

The Obama administration last year stepped up a covert programme that involves firing missiles from unmanned aerial vehicles at terrorists operating in Pakistan’s tribal areas along the Afghan border.

A majority of the attacks against the West in recent years had their origins in Pakistan. The US-Pakistan relationship has been under increased strain since the arrest of CIA contractor Raymond Davis by Pakistani authorities in Lahore in January. Davis was jailed after killed two Pakistani men on January 27. He was released last month after the victims’ relatives agreed to settle in exchange for blood money.

Earlier in November, stress was added to the fragile relationship when a civil court case related to the Mumbai attacks was filed in New York in which Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the head of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Agency, was named as a defendant.

A majority of Pakistanis oppose drone strikes, which they see as a violation of their sovereign territory. In a rare public statement, Pakistan’s army chief, Gen Ashfaq Kayani, condemned a March 17 US drone strike that Pakistan said killed up to 40 persons in North Waziristan.

US and Pakistani officials have not publicly acknowledged the covert programme. The Predator drones are operated from bases inside Pakistan-the Shamsi air base and Jacobabad-and operations were planned after what Pakistani officials at the time described as ‘robust intelligence sharing’ between Pakistan and the US.

In private conversations, Pakistani officials said they were kept in the loop by the US on covert operations targeting terrorists on Pakistani soil. They also admitted that the drones have been deadly and effective weapons in the war against the terrorists. A Pakistani official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the operations, said the drones have been ‘useful in eliminating the bad guys’.

The drones have targeted members of Al-Qaida and Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or the Pakistani Taliban. In August of 2009, TTP leader, Baitullah Mehsud, was killed in a CIA drone strike.

On Monday, CIA Director Leon Panetta met with General Pasha at the CIA’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia. An unidentified US official told the Wall Street Journal: “The United States expects to continue its aggressive counterterrorism operations in Pakistan, and it would be unfortunate if the Pakistanis somehow stepped back from counterterrorism efforts that protect Americans and their citizens alike.”

Relatives of the recent metro station blast victims cry at a hospital in Minsk on Tuesday. — AFP

Minsk, April 12
Belarusian authorities said today they have suspects in a subway bombing as the death toll rose to 12, with more than 200 wounded. The opposition, meanwhile, voiced fears that the attack may lead to an increased crackdown on dissent.

Belarus’ domestic security agency, which still goes under its Soviet-era name KGB, said that had identified the likely perpetrator of yesterday’s explosion at a busy downtown subway station and was searching for him. It didn’t elaborate.

Interior Minister Anatoly Kuleshov said the police had created composite pictures of two male suspects using testimony from witnesses. He said the bomb apparently was radio-controlled.

The Interior Ministry said the bomb placed under a bench on the Oktyabrskaya station exploded as people were coming off the trains at an evening peak hour.

The Oktyabrskaya station is within 100 metres of the presidential administration building and the Palace of the Republic, a concert hall often used for government ceremonies.

Belarus’ authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko said at a meeting with officials late yesterday that foreign forces could be behind the explosion, but he didn’t elaborate.

Authorities said that 204 persons have sought medical help and 157 of them have been hospitalised, including 22 in critical condition.

Viktor Sirenko, the chief doctor of the Minsk Emergency Hospital, said many victims had lost arms or legs.

People streamed to the site of explosion to lay flowers as police tightened security at all subway stations. “I went through that hell, I saw that pile of disfigured bodies,” 37-year old Nina Rusetskaya said as she lit a candle at the explosion site.

“I rode a car in the back of the train and only survived by miracle.” Lukashenko, in power for nearly 17 years and dubbed “Europe’s last dictator” by the West, was declared the overwhelming winner of December’s presidential election which international observers said was rigged. He has run the former Soviet nation of 10 million with an iron fist, retaining Soviet-style controls over the economy and cracking down on opposition and independent media. — AP

Abidjan, April 12
Clashes involving heavy weapons erupted in two districts of Ivory Coast's commercial capital Abidjan loyal to former President Laurent Gbagbo one day after he was captured, witnesses said. The weapons were heard in the central plateau district and in the northern Cocody area as forces loyal to Gbabo's rival, President Alassane Ouattara, struggled to return security to the city after 10 days of fighting.

"There were clashes using heavy weapons," around midday, said a resident of Plateau, largely deserted since fighting erupted and home to the presidential palace. "No way we're going outside for the time being," said another resident, also speaking by telephone.

"This morning we saw a convoy of cars (Ouattara's military chief) Cherif Ousmane told us they were going to flush out snipers posted on all tall buildings in Plateau," said a young woman. "Shortly after they went by, loud blasts began," said the woman, who asked not to be named.

In Cocody, where Gbagbo was arrested at his official residence yesterday, a resident said "there was sporadic small arms fire in the morning, after which we heard rocket and heavy machine-gun fire for several minutes." Plateau and Cocody were the districts most completely controlled by forces loyal to Gbagbo during the fighting that culminated in Gbagbo's arrest by Ouattara's forces yesterday. — AFP