|
|
|
|
|
After Osama, Mullah Omar on US radar
NATO bombs won’t get me: Gaddafi
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Gaddafi not in Tripoli?
Obama was on Laden’s hit-list
Pakistan Parliament condemns US operation
|
|
After Osama, Mullah Omar on US radar
Quetta, May 14 For years, US officials have said the one-eyed Omar was based is in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta, not far from the Afghan border, where he heads a Taliban leadership council, or shura. Pakistan rejects assertions that Omar is in Pakistan, or even that the so-called Quetta shura exists. But such denials ring hollow after the Al Qaida leader was found in the country after years of similar protestations. People in Quetta are nervous and some are scornful of both sides in the fight against Islamist militancy. “I have no sympathy at all for Mullah Omar or the Taliban but I have none for the Americans either,” said Zulfiqar Tareen, a pharmaceutical company representative taking orders from shopkeepers in one of Quetta's main markets. “Yes, the Taliban are terrorists but so is America.” For the US, desperate to find some way to end the nearly decade-old Afghan war, catching or killing Omar could prove decisive. “If they really want to stabilise Afghanistan and Pakistan they should go after Mullah Omar. He is the key,” said an Arab diplomat in Pakistan. “It would not surprise me if he is the next target.” Quetta has long been a hub for Afghan refugees and Taliban sympathisers, about 100 km over a mountain pass to the border and Afghanistan's violence-plagued Kandahar province. Afghan officials say Quetta is a virtual rear base for the Taliban where fighters can rest and get medical care and where their leaders plot. Heavily bearded and turbaned Pashtun men eye strangers with suspicion in some neighbourhoods. Security in the capital of gas-rich Baluchistan province is heavy with numerous checkpoints on roads while guards with rifles slung over their shoulders pace the pavements outside buildings. But trouble in Quetta comes more from autonomy-seeking separatist rebels than from Islamists like the Taliban. City hotel worker Nasir Khan said Pakistan should be left out of the US war against the Afghan Taliban. Whether or not the shadowy Taliban supremo is in Quetta, security officials are nervous. “It's a very tricky situation,” said a senior intelligence official on the condition of anonymity. “If you ask us if Mullah Omar is in Quetta, the answer is ‘no’, we have no such information and we are confident about it.” Nevertheless, he said his men had stepped up efforts to track Omar although the had no new leads. “We'll definitely get him if we know where he is. It's very important for us to get him before the US does. We don't want another Abbottabad-like situation,” he said. — Reuters
|
|
NATO bombs won’t get me: Gaddafi
Tripoli, May 14 “Even if you kill the body you will not be able to kill the soul that lives in the hearts of millions,” he said. NATO allies, including the US, Britain and France, are bombing Libya as part of a UN mandate to protect civilians. They say they will not stop until the downfall of the Libyan leader, who took power in a coup 41 years ago. A NATO air strike on the eastern Libyan city of Brega on Friday that the Libyan government said killed 11 persons and wounded 45, was directed against a “command and control bunker”, the alliance said in a statement in Brussels. Libyan state television showed funerals for those killed in Brega being held in the capital on Saturday. “We are aware of allegations of civilian casualties in connection to this strike and although we cannot independently confirm the validity of the claim, we regret any loss of life by innocent civilians when they occur,” said NATO. — Reuters
Gaddafi not in Tripoli?
Rome: The Italian foreign minister said on Saturday that Muammar Gaddafi might have fled Tripoli but was likely still in Libya. Franco Frattini said: “International pressure has likely provoked the decision by Gaddafi to seek refuge in a safe place”. The comments came during a TV interview with Corriere della Sera that was posted on the newspaper's website.
“I lean toward the solution of an escape from Tripoli, not an escape from Libya," Frattini said. "Libya is a big country, with desert areas." Gadhafi is expected to be among three Libyan officials targeted by arrest warrants to be issued Monday by the International Criminal Court. Gadhafi's compound has been a frequent site of NATO-led
airstrikes, including an attack on April 30 where he is believed to have been inside but have escaped unharmed. Seeking to quell speculation he might have been killed, Libyan state TV this week showed Gadhafi meeting tribal leaders, apparently in a Tripoli hotel on Wednesday. Frattini said he had "many doubts that that footage had been made that day and especially in Tripoli.”
— AP
|
|
Obama was on Laden’s hit-list
There are references to the US President in the impounded files, although there is no direct mention of Obama in these materials that have been scanned so far by a CIA-led inter-agency Task Force, CBS News reported. According to a US intelligence official, bin Laden wanted to kill Obama as part of a plot to disrupt the 2012 presidential elections. — PTI
|
||
|
Pakistan Parliament condemns US operation
The Pakistan's Parliament in a joint session of the two houses has unanimously adopted a resolution condemning the US unilateral operation Abbotabad that killed Osama bin Laden and called upon the government to review country's terms of engagement with the US. The marathon session that last over 10 hours and continued till after midnight Friday also warned the US and NATO of cutting supplies to forces in Afghanistan if unilateral attacks, including drone strikes, were not halted. Lawmakers said the US had breached Pakistan's sovereignty by conducting raid inside its territory. The session had some dramatic moments setting rare precedent when top leadership of the Pakistan security establishment and intelligence admitted their lapses and submitted themselves to accountability before aggressive lawmakers, particular from the main opposition, the Pakistan Muslim League-N. ISI chief Lt Gen Shuja Pasha conceded negligence to locate Osama bin Laden in his Abbottabad lair for five years and offered to resign. The military further pledged to submit to policy formulations and planning and conduct of strategic goals by the Parliament and the political government abdicating their stranglehold of last many decades. The parliamentarians also agreed to appoint an independent commission on the Abbottabad operation to fix responsibility and recommend necessary measures to ensure that such an incident does not recur. The composition of the commission would be settled after consultations between the leader of the House and the leader of the Opposition, the resolution said. Pasha and deputy chief of air staff (operations) Air Marshal Mohammad Hassan briefed the parliamentarians and responded to barrage questions while heads of three armed forces — army, navy and air force — sat in the officials’ galleries. “If people think that the situation can improve in case of my resignation I am ready to step down right now,” Pasha is reported to have said. “I have already submitted my resignation to my chief (chief of army staff) and if the prime minister and the parliament want so, I will walk out from here as a retired officer,” sources quoted DG ISI as having said in response to questions from the lawmakers, mainly belonging to the opposition, over the Abbottabad fiasco.
|
|
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Letters | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | E-mail | |
l
Spiritual leader of the Taliban movement that operates in parts of Afghanistan & Pakistan 
The Libyan state television carried brief audio tape remarks it said were by Muammar Gaddafi in which he taunted NATO as a cowardly crusader whose bombs could not kill him.
Washington, May 14