W O R L D

US intensifies covert war in Yemen
Aims to stop Qaida from grabbing power
Washington, June 9
Exploiting a growing power vacuum in Yemen, US has intensified a covert war in the country to strike at militant suspects with armed drones and fighter jets.

An army deserter shouts slogans during a demonstration demanding the resignation of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh in Sanaa on Thursday. — AP/PTI

Saleh out of ICU
Sanaa, June 9
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh is out of intensive care in neighbouring Saudi Arabia where he is being treated for bomb blast wounds, state media said, prompting celebratory gunfire by his supporters that left dozens wounded.

Libyan rebels hope to restart oil production Win aid pledges of more than $500 mn Abu Dhabi/Tripoli, June 9 Libya’s rebels said they hoped to restart oil production and gained pledges of more than $500 million of aid today as Western powers press them to plan for the day after Muammar Gaddafi leaves power. Libyan rebel fighters hold a checkpoint near Misrata's eastern frontline on Thursday. — Reuters

Pak jails breeding ground for extremists
Islamabad, June 9
Pakistan’s jails have become breeding grounds for extremists because outlawed groups like Tehrik-e-Taliban have taken their “ideological campaign” to prisoners, according to an adviser to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.

Taliban storm Pak checkpost, eight soldiers killed
Miranshah, June 9
Around 150 militants armed with rockets attacked a security checkpost in Pakistan’s Waziristan today, killing eight soldiers, intelligence officials said, as tensions rise in the volatile northwestern region along the Afghan border.

Come here, work, go home: UK to migrants
London, June 9
As part of continuing efforts to reduce migration from India and other countries outside the European Union, the David Cameron government today announced proposals that seek to prevent foreign professionals from settling here permanently.

US intensifies covert war in Yemen
Aims to stop Qaida from grabbing power

Washington, June 9
Exploiting a growing power vacuum in Yemen, US has intensified a covert war in the country to strike at militant suspects with armed drones and fighter jets.

The accelerated campaign has been taking place over the past few weeks amid a violent conflict in the country that has left the government in Sanaa, a US ally, struggling to cling to power, ‘New York Times’ reported quoting American officials.

The stepped up attacks are aimed at keeping terrorists in the south, who are linked to Al-Qaida from snatching power in the vacuum created by shifting of Yemen’s entire top leadership, including President Ali Abdullah Saleh, to Saudi Arabia for medical treatment after an attack on its palace.

The US strikes have been resumed after almost a year long pause, which was halted as poor intelligence led to bungling of missions and killing of some pro-American forces, which undercut the covert campaign. The paper said that on Friday American jet fighters had killed Ali al-Harithi, a midlevel Al-Qaida operative and several other militant suspects in a strike in south Yemen.

Weeks earlier American drones fired missiles aimed at Anwar al-Awlaki, the radical American born cleric who the US government has tried to kill for more than a year. However, Awlaki survived.

The American campaign in Yemen, NYT said, was led by the Pentagon’s joint special operations command and is closely co-ordinated with CIA. It said teams of US military and intelligence operatives had set up a command post in Sanaa, to plot future strikes.

Concerned that the support for the campaign could wane, if the Saleh government was to fall, the US officials said Washington had opened lines to the opposition groups, who have assured that the operations against Al-Qaida would be allowed to continue regardless of who wins the power struggle in Sanaa.

Al-Qaida’s affiliate in Yemen is suspected by CIA to pose greatest immediate threat to the US, more than even Qaeda’s senior leadership believed to be living underground in Pakistan. — PTI

Saleh out of ICU

Sanaa, June 9
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh is out of intensive care in neighbouring Saudi Arabia where he is being treated for bomb blast wounds, state media said, prompting celebratory gunfire by his supporters that left dozens wounded.

Fireworks rang out over the Yemeni capital on Wednesday night as Saleh loyalists took to the streets of Sanaa “feting the success of the surgery... and his transfer from intensive care to a royal suite” in a military hospital in Riyadh, the official Saba news agency said.

The celebratory gunfire wounded some 80 persons in the capital alone, medical sources said. Witnesses said there were also casualties in provincial towns.

There have been conflicting reports about the veteran leader’s health since he was flown to Riyadh on Saturday for treatment for wounds sustained in a bomb attack on his presidential compound the previous day. He has not been seen in public since. — AFP

Libyan rebels hope to restart oil production
Win aid pledges of more than $500 mn

Abu Dhabi/Tripoli, June 9
Libya’s rebels said they hoped to restart oil production and gained pledges of more than $500 million of aid today as Western powers press them to plan for the day after Muammar Gaddafi leaves power.

While NATO continued to pound Tripoli from the air, Western and Arab nations met rebels in Abu Dhabi to focus on what one US official called the “end-game” for the Libyan leader.

At the United Nations, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) said its investigators had found evidence linking Gaddafi to a policy of raping opponents. A possible war crimes prosecution could be an incentive for Gaddafi to cling to power, but Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade offered to help ease his former African Union ally’s exit from power and appealed to him to step down.

“It is in your own interest and the interest of all the Libyan people that you leave power in Libya and never dream of coming back to power,” Wade said during a visit to the rebel-held east Libyan city of Benghazi.

NATO air strikes resumed in Tripoli on Wednesday night after a lull following the heaviest day of bombings since March, with new blasts shaking the city on Thursday morning and afternoon.

Rebel Oil and Finance Minister Ali Tarhouni said the Benghazi-based leadership hoped to restart production of up to 100,000 barrels a day “soon”, without specifying a timeframe, and called for more aid, immediately.

Meanwhile, rebels in the besieged western city of Misrata said thousands of pro-Gaddafi forces launched a major advance on the city and killed at least 12 persons with a barrage of shell fire late on Wednesday, though NATO disputed that account. — Reuters

Pak jails breeding ground for extremists

Islamabad, June 9
Pakistan’s jails have become breeding grounds for extremists because outlawed groups like Tehrik-e-Taliban have taken their “ideological campaign” to prisoners, according to an adviser to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.

Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar, the newly inducted adviser to the Prime Minister on human rights, made the observation in a letter sent to Gilani as also to the Director General of ISI and the Chief Minister of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province after a visit to Haripur jail, a media report said today.

The jail, one of the oldest in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, came under the spotlight after the 9/11 attacks in the US as many Pakistanis were brought there from Afghanistan, where they had gone with radical cleric Maulana Sufi Muhammad and other extremists to join the ‘jihad’.

Khokar said in his letter that the Pakistani Taliban and the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, an anti-Shia group, had taken their “ideological campaign” to prisoners, Dawn News channel quoted its sources as saying.

“This jail has become a nursery for extremists because these elements are living with common prisoners and juveniles and there is no proper screening mechanism in place,” said Amir Rana, an expert on terrorism, and Director of the Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies. — PTI

Taliban storm Pak checkpost, eight soldiers killed

Miranshah, June 9
Around 150 militants armed with rockets attacked a security checkpost in Pakistan’s Waziristan today, killing eight soldiers, intelligence officials said, as tensions rise in the volatile northwestern region along the Afghan border.

The attack, in which about 12 militants were killed, appeared to be part of a new strategy by the Pakistani Taliban of staging large-scale assaults on military and government targets in a bid to demoralise the army.

It came on the heels of a flurry of missile strikes by US drone aircraft in the tribal region along the Afghan border regarded as a hub of militants from around the world.

The Pakistani Taliban have intensified attacks across Pakistan in recent weeks to avenge the killing of Osama bin Laden by US special forces in the country on May 2. — Reuters

Come here, work, go home: UK to migrants

London, June 9
As part of continuing efforts to reduce migration from India and other countries outside the European Union, the David Cameron government today announced proposals that seek to prevent foreign professionals from settling here permanently.

The proposals, announced in a consultation exercise, will affect Indian skilled workers as well as domestic workers such as cooks and 'ayahs', who travel to Britain with their employers.

Immigration minister Damian Green said, “We want the brightest and best workers to come to the UK, make a strong contribution to our economy while they are here, and then return home.” Campaign groups said that if foreign professionals were not allowed to settle here permanently, they would rather migrate to countries such as Canada and Australia. — PTI