|
|
|
|
|
Taliban fighters storm border checkpost in Pak; 70 killed ‘Slain scribe had received death threats from ISI’ |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
US-Pak joint team to go after top suspects
Make Pak aid development oriented: Experts
Pak won’t take dictation from anyone on
N Waziristan ops, says Gilani
Haqqani network shifts base to Khurram ahead of Pak offensive
Maj Iqbal sought progress report on 26/11 plot
40 insurgents among 70 dead in Pak clashes
Australian school
makes Sikh boy shave off beard, apologises
|
|
Taliban fighters storm border checkpost in Pak; 70 killed Islamabad, June 2 About 300 heavily armed militants attacked the check post at Shalotal in upper Dir district of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province early yesterday. Intermittent gun battles between the militants and troops continued till today. Officials said today that 27 security personnel had died so far and efforts were underway to evacuate the bodies. They claimed 45 militants were killed though this could not be independently confirmed. Six civilians, including two women and as many children, were also reportedly killed during the clashes. The check post attacked by militants is located close to the border with the Kunar province of Afghanistan. Officials said the militants had destroyed two schools and several houses with rockets. The local administration rushed additional policemen and Frontier Constabulary Troops to the area to flush out the militants. Helicopter gunships pounded locations where the militants were holed up. The administration imposed curfew in the area and sealed it off. The army had conducted a major operation against the Taliban in Dir and the nearby areas two years ago. At least 13 Pakistani security personnel were killed in a similar cross-border raid by Taliban in the Lower Dir region two months ago. In a late night development, Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir conveyed to the Afghan ambassador Pakistan’s “strong concern on the cross-border attack launched from the territory of Afghanistan. — PTI
|
|
|
‘Slain scribe had received death threats from ISI’
Islamabad, June 2 Hameed Haroon, president of the All Pakistan Newspapers Society, said Shahzad had confided to him and several others that "he had received death threats from various officers of the ISI on at least three occasions in the past five years". The government and intelligence agencies should take the investigation into Shahzad's murder "seriously and examine his last testimony closely", Haroon, who is also chief of the Dawn media group, said. He said, “Nobody, not even the ISI, should be above the law.” Following allegations from journalists' organisations and rights groups that the ISI was linked to the abduction of Shahzad on Sunday, an unnamed officer of the spy agency yesterday denied his organisation was in any way linked to the kidnapping or killing of the reporter. Shahzad went missing two days after he wrote a report in which he alleged that the Al-Qaida had infiltrated the Pakistan navy. He contended that terrorists attacked a naval airbase in Karachi on May 22 after the failure of secret talks between the Al-Qaida and the navy for the release of naval personnel arrested for links to the terror network. The reporter's body, with marks of severe torture, was found in a canal in the Punjab province on Monday. Journalists' groups have demanded the government should set up a commission to probe his killing. — PTI
|
|
|
US-Pak joint team to go after top suspects
Washington, June 2 The move comes after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton presented the Pakistanis with the US list of most-wanted terrorism targets, US and Pakistani officials said yesterday. The investigative team will be made up mainly of intelligence officers from both nations, according to two US and one Pakistani official. It would draw in part on any intelligence emerging from the CIA's analysis of computer and written files gathered by the Navy SEALs who raided bin Laden's hideout in Abbottabad, as well as Pakistani intelligence gleaned from interrogations of those who frequented or lived near the bin Laden compound, the officials said. The formation of the team marks a return to the counterterrorism cooperation that has led to major takedowns of al-Qaida militants, like the joint arrest of Khaled Sheikh Mohammed in 2003. All those interviewed spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss matters of intelligence. The US and Pakistan have engaged in a diplomatic stare-down since the May 2 raid, with the Pakistanis outraged over the unilateral action as an affront to its sovereignty, and the Americans angry to find that bin Laden had been hiding for more than five years in a military town just 35 miles from the capital Islamabad. The US deliberately hid the operation from Pakistan, recipient of billions in counterterrorism aid, for fear that the operation would leak to militants. A series of high-level US visits has aimed to take the edge off Marc Grossman, the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan and CIA Deputy Director Mike Morell met with intelligence chief Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha last month. Last week, the secretary of state and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Adm. Mike Mullen, held a day of intensive meetings with top Pakistani military and civilian officials. Among the confidence-building measures was a visit by the CIA to re-examine the bin Laden compound last Friday. Pakistan also returned the tail section of the US stealth Blackhawk helicopter that broke off when the SEALs blew up the aircraft to destroy its secret noise- and radar-deadening technology. The CIA has also shared some information gleaned from the raid, and Pakistan has reciprocated, U.S. and Pakistani officials said yesterday. The joint intelligence team will go after five top targets, including al-Qaida No 3 Ayman al-Zawahiri, and al-Qaida operations chief Atiya Abdel Rahman, as well as Taliban leader like Mullah Omar, all of whom US intelligence officials believe are hiding in Pakistan, one US official said. Another target is Siraq Haqqani, leader of the Haqqani tribe in Pakistan's lawless tribal areas. Allied with the Taliban and al-Qaida, the Haqqanis are behind some of the deadliest attacks against US troops and Afghan civilians in Afghanistan. — AP
Make Pak aid development oriented: Experts
Washington: Noting that America’s efforts are heavily focused on security in nuclear-armed Pakistan, a group of eminent US experts have called for a substantial revamp of the country’s approach towards Islamabad to make aid development oriented.
“The US is way off course in
Pakistan. It’s heavily focused on security while neglecting low-cost, low-risk investments in jobs, growth, and the long haul of democracy building,” said Nancy Birdsall, president of the Washington-based Centre for Global Development, which released a report on Pakistan prepared by eminent US and Pakistani development experts. The report says that the administration’s integrated “Af-Pak” approach -- lumping Pakistan together with Afghanistan in policy deliberations and bureaucratic lines of authority -- has “muddled” the Pakistan development mission. Similarly, “the integration of development, diplomacy, and defence has...left the programme without a clear, focused mandate.” — PTI
Pak won’t take dictation from anyone on
N Waziristan ops, says Gilani
Islamabad:The Pakistan Government will “think whether there is any need” for a military operation in North Waziristan and not take dictation from anyone on launching a campaign against militants in the tribal region, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has said. The government will take action wherever and whenever its writ is challenged, Gilani said last night during an appearance on “Prime Minister Online”, a monthly TV show in which the premier interacts with callers from across the country.
Asked about reports that a military operation is imminent in North Waziristan tribal agency, he said: “We will think whether there is any need for it. We will not interfere in the matter unnecessarily. “We are not fond of any military action and we want to have an exit strategy,” he added. — PTI
Haqqani network shifts base to Khurram ahead of Pak offensive
Washington: Apparently anticipating an impending Pakistan Army offensive on its stronghold of north Waziristan, the dreaded Haqqani network has been preparing an alternative safe haven in the Khurram agency, a US report said.
“The Haqqani Network has been preparing an alternative safe haven for itself in Kurram agency to the north, in the event of a Pakistani operation in North Waziristan,” the American Enterprise Institute said in a report. The security think tank said the possible Pakistani military strike would be “fraught with complications, and likely unsatisfying to those who expect such operations to have a significant impact on the war in Afghanistan.” The think-tank said the Haqqani network and few other militant groups would not be the target “this time too” of the Pakistani Army campaign, preparations for which are in launch stages. — PTI
|
|
Maj Iqbal sought progress report on 26/11 plot
Chicago, June 2 Iqbal had telephonic talk with Rana and another co-accused in the Mumbai attacks David Coleman Headley, a Pakistani-American, and exchanged e-mails with them, five FBI agents testified during Rana’s trial in the court hearing the 26/11 case. In an e-mail of July 7, 2008, Iqbal asked Rana if there was any “progress made on the project”. Prosecutors said he was seeking an update on the preparations for the 26/11 attacks. Defence attorneys, however, argued that any discussion Iqbal had with Rana was focussed on their plans to work as partners in Rana’s immigration business. In his deposition, Headley, an LeT operative, had said that Iqbal had given money to Rana to open a business office in Mumbai which was used as a cover to zero in on targets for the attacks. An e-mail sent from Chaudhery Khan, another name for Major Iqbal, from chaudherykhan@yahoo.com in which he gave his mobile number for future contacts, was shown in the court by prosecutor Sarah Streicker. Another e-email from tahawwur@yahoo.com in which Rana booked Headley’s flight on December 8, 2008, from New York to Chicago with a stop at Atlanta, was also produced. — PTI
|
|
40 insurgents among 70 dead in Pak clashes
Islamabad, June 2 Skirmishes broke out after about 200 militants launched a pre-dawn attack on the post in a remote village in Dir region on Wednesday. "We have shifted the bodies of police and paramilitary forces killed in the clash to a hospital and now they are being transported to their hometowns," Murad Khan, a local police official, told Reuters by telephone. He said 35 to 40 militants were killed. There was no way to verify that toll because most journalists are not allowed to enter the border region in the northwest, the epicentre of fighting between militants and security forces. Militants often dispute official casualty counts. "They (militants) have taken away the bodies of their men," said Khan. Pakistan's Taliban movement, which has close ties to al Qaeda, has increased pressure on the U.S.-backed government after vowing to avenge the killing of Osama bin Laden by U.S. special forces on May 2 in a Pakistani town. It has stepped up suicide bombings, attacking paramilitary cadets, a naval base, a U.S. consulate convoy and other targets. Government officials said army troops were moved to Dir early on Thursday to support security forces. The fighting lasted for more than 24 hours. "The fighting has now stopped and our forces have now regained the control of the area," a security official said. The battle erupted after militants dressed in military uniforms attacked the post and killed one policeman. After the bin Laden raid, Washington reiterated its call for Pakistan to crack down harder on militancy, especially on groups that cross over to Afghanistan to attack Western forces. It was not clear which militants had taken on security forces in Dir, but groups along the frontier are closely linked. — Reuters
|
|
Australian school makes Sikh boy shave off beard, apologises Melbourne, June 2 The boy, studying in Class 11 at an outer northern Christian school in Melbourne, was forced to shave off his beard, Harkirat Singh of the Sikh Federation of Australia was quoted as saying by ABC Radio. He said that he was contacted by the parents of the student early this week. The Sikh Federation, according to a report, said it had left the boy depressed and embarrassed, and amounted to bullying. The school has apologised for the incident. “Our process has brought us to the conclusion that facial hair will be permitted by Sikh boys at the school. I apologise for any harm or hurt that he might have felt. That's not our intention,” he said. — PTI
|
||||||
15 dead in Syria attacks
Gurdwara vandalised in Australia
NYT names 1st woman executive editor Japan Prime Minister survives
no-confidence vote Series of NATO strikes target Tripoli 
|
| 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 | |
Over 70 persons, including 28 security personnel, were killed when hundreds of heavily armed Taliban fighters crossed into northwest Pakistan and besieged a remote
checkpost, in one of the deadliest attacks in months.
Islamabad:The Pakistan Government will “think whether there is any need” for a military operation in North Waziristan and not take dictation from anyone on launching a campaign against militants in the tribal region, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has said. The government will take action wherever and whenever its writ is challenged, Gilani said last night during an appearance on “Prime Minister Online”, a monthly TV show in which the premier interacts with callers from across the country.
Tokyo