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Imran's party lawmakers to quit Parliament
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to The Tribune Shyam Bhatia in London Releasing foreign hostages held by militants of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group is just one of many complex problems facing Iraqi prime minister-designate and former deputy speaker of parliament Haider Al Abadi. Nevertheless freeing the hostages, mostly Indians and Turks, is arguably amongst the most pressing issues for Abadi as he also seeks to assert his authority over a myriad collection of squabbling parties made up of Shias, Sunnis, Kurds and others, as well as dangerous sub-groups of Sunni extremists like IS and Al-Qaida. It is still early days for Abadi, but experts are divided over just how capable he is in the medium term of both imposing his political will and bringing to heel the terrorists of IS formerly known as ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Sham) and ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant). It was Abadi's predecessor Nouri al Maliki's failure to accommodate the needs and demands of Iraq's warring factions that led to his resignation after eight years in office. Appearing on national television, Maliki announced to the country: "I announce before you today, to ease the movement of the political process and the formation of the new government, the withdrawal of my candidacy in favour of brother doctor Haider al-Abadi." Iran, US welcome Maliki’s long-awaited resignation
Maliki's long awaited resignation was subsequently welcomed by both the US and Iran. US National Security Adviser Susan Rice welcomed it as a 'major step' towards uniting Iraq and President Barack Obama commented: "We are modestly hopeful that the …situation is moving in the right direction." Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei commented separately: "I hope the designation of the new Prime Minister in Iraq will untie the knot and lead to the establishment of a new government and teach a good lesson to those who aim for sedition in Iraq." Iraqis and others say Maliki's blatantly discriminatory policies against the Sunni minority that paved the way for his enforced departure. It was Maliki in 2013 who authorised an arrest warrant against Sunni Vice-President Tareq al Hashemi, followed by the issuing of a similar arrest warrant against Sunni finance minister Rafaei Al Asawi.
Brutal face of IS
These were just some of the senseless and provocative acts that prompted so many Iraqi Sunnis to throw their support behind the brutal extremists of IS who have become notorious both for beheading those who oppose them and imposing 'jizya' taxation on religious minorities like the Christians if they refuse to convert to Islam. When it comes to other minorities like the Yazidis, unfairly accused of being devil worshippers, IS have embarked on a policy of systematically eliminating them from the face of the earth. It was the systematic persecution of the Yazidis, which invoked comparisons with the persecution of the Jews by the Nazis, that prompted Obama to authorize air strikes on IS strongholds on Mount Sinjar, East of the Syria border, where many Yazidis have fled for survival. But Mount Sinjar is just one of many Iraqi centres where IS has been busy trying to establish a stronghold. IS terrorists have also extended their tentacles to Mosul, Qaraqosh, Baiji, Tikrit and some distant suburbs of Baghdad itself. IS was once part of Al-Qaida in Iraq, but broke away in 2013 when its leader, Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, was able to attract a core of battle hardened militants who helped him establish his authority all along the Iraq-Syria border, a political dividing line between the two countries that no longer exists, focused on the Syrian provincial capital of Raqqa. Success followed success a few months later when IS forces overran Iraq's second largest city of Mosul, followed by the capture of central Falluja and parts of nearby Ramadi.
IS and Caliphate
Two months ago, IS declared it had created a Caliphate stretching from the Iraqi province of Diyala to Aleppo in Syria. Its declared aim is to extend the authority all over the Muslim world, even extending the Caliphate's borders to the doors of Rome. Charles Lister, a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Doha Centre in Qatar, describes IS as wealthiest militant organisation in the world that explicitly seeks to establish an Islamic state in the territory it controls. This includes large parts of Iraq and Syria, including the oil fields of Eastern Syria, that are a lucrative source of earnings. According to Lister IS also enjoys support in nearby Jordan and Turkey. IS's military success has been supplemented by taking control of assets that generate daily revenues.
Rising assets of IS
These assets include the Syrian oil fields, as well as cash and gold looted from the Mosul branch of Iraq's central bank. According to Professor Peter Neumann of King's College, London, IS assets before the capture of Mosul in June 2014 amounted to some $900 million. After the capture of Mosul these assets were estimated at some $2 billion. Yet, despite this accounting of military and financial success, foreign diplomats based in Baghdad are openly sceptical about how much further IS can extend its authority, despite its control of some key urban centres in Iraq and Syria. It also refuses to release several Turks and some 40 Indians, mostly Punjabis, who have been held as hostages for more than a month. Indian diplomats in Baghdad have refused to confirm or deny that the release of the hostages is contingent on the payment of lucrative ransoms. Other Baghdad-based diplomats, who do not wish to be named, describe IS as a "localised phenomenon" limited to Iraq and Syria. They argue that the terrorists' strongest support has come from the North of the country where local Sunni tribes disenchanted with the policies of the previous Maliki government decided to back IS. These same Sunni tribes were backed by their co-religionists across the border in Syria who have been engaged in a three-year civil war with Syrian President Bashar Al Asad. The Syrian Sunnis were helped to set up special fighting units called the "Sahwa" funded and trained by the Americans. Weapons intended for the Sahwa have found their way across to the Iraqis whio handed them over to IS. The 64 million dollar question now is whether Iraqi Sunnis will continue to back IS following Maliki's departure and the arrival of Abadi. Without their backing, IS will remain active, albeit as a small and brutal terrorist group that seeks to profit from the instability of the oil rich Middle East. |
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Missouri sends National Guard to protesting suburb
Ferguson, August 18 Gov Jay Nixon said the National Guard would help "in restoring peace and order" to Ferguson. The police said they acted in response to gunfire, looting, vandalism and protesters who hurled Molotov cocktails. — AP
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Imran's party lawmakers to quit Parliament
Opposition leader Imran Khan's political party today decided to withdraw its lawmakers from the National Assembly and all provincial assemblies except Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, piling pressure on beleaguered Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to quit, even as efforts by the ruling PML-N to reach out to anti-government protesters failed. "We are resigning from National Assembly, Punjab Assembly, Sindh Assembly, and Balochistan Assembly," Shah Mehmood Qureshi, the vice president of Pakistan Tehreek-i- Insaf (PTI) announced, as the five-day political stand-off here between the Pakistan government and anti-Sharif protesters intensified. He said, for the time being, his party is not resigning from the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly, as there is a coalition government in the province and the allies will have to be taken into confidence before making such a big decision. The Sharif-led government's offer to discuss all "constitutional" demands put forth by Khan's PTI and cleric Tahirul Qadri's Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) was rejected by the two protesting groups that have paralysed normal life in central Islamabad by staging sit-ins. Imran, who has set a 48-hour deadline for Sharif's resignation and declared a "civil disobedience movement" against the government, did not respond to the late last night offer for talks. However, Imran threatened to march into the sensitive "Red Zone" tomorrow with thousands of supporters. He asked his followers to remain peaceful during the protest and also urged police not to stand between him and the Red Zone. Imran said he would lead the crowd so that the first bullet is fired at him and not his supporters. The firebrand Canada-based cleric also rejected the government's proposal outright and announced the plans to expand the 'Revolution March' country-wide if his demands were not met. Qadri's 48-hour deadline for Sharif's resignation and formating of a national government expires at midnight tonight. (With inputs from PTI)
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to the Tribune Shyam Bhatia in London Gallantry of Sikh soldiers during World War I has been praised in a significant letter that is being put up for sale in the UK by Mullock’s. The letter, which will be available at www.the-saleroom.com, commemorates the Gallipoli Campaign. Written at the Suez Camp on January 11, 1916, on 14th King George’s Own 14th Sikhs letterhead, the letter is signed by Major Earle, Commandant of the 14th Sikhs. Major Earle’s letter was written following the Gallipoli Campaign — one of the worst periods of the war in which the allies lost hundreds of thousands of soldiers, many of them from the Commonwealth. In the letter, he has high praise for the Sikh soldiers under his command, writing: “How sorry I am to lose the Patiala’s — they were the most useful to us over in Gallipoli...of the Indian officers Major Ishar Singh, Sub Kala Singh and Sub Bhagat Singh were specially good...I should much like to see Kala Singh get some reward if such is possible, he is such an old man but stuck it splendidly altho he wasn’t at all well and need not have come back after he was sent away sick but especially asked to be allowed to return. The men I promoted (with HH the Maharajahs permission) are all good men and were selected because they had proved themselves to be so, they will I hope rise still higher in the Regiment... I will be glad if you can let the Maharajah know how good these men were to us and how sorry I am that I cannot keep them.” The letter further reads: “I might mention that it was the Patiala’s who had the worst time of any of this regiment in the blizzard that they were complimented by General Godley... The General even ordered a regimental order to be published on the subject.. you will have heard what this now famous blizzard was like...” The Gallipoli Campaign was fought against the Turks who were allied with the Germans between April 1915 and January 1916. The plan, largely formed by Winston Churchill, was to storm the Dardenelles Peninsula in Turkey and open up a sea route through the Eastern Mediterranean. In the end, the effort proved fruitless with almost 2,00,000 casualties, with nearly 5,000 Indian soldiers either killed or injured. Major E Earle served at Gallipoli with the Kings Georges Own Ferozepore Sikhs. His regimental and personal photograph albums of the Gallipoli Campaign are in the British Library.
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India-headed Nigerian dies showing Ebola symptoms
Abu Dhabi, August 18 “During the transit phase at Abu Dhabi International Airport, the patient’s health deteriorated and despite medical assistance, she could not be successfully resuscitated,” the Abu Dhabi health authority said in a statement. The woman was on her way to India for the treatment of advanced metastatic cancer, it said. At the time of resuscitation, the woman had shown signs that may be consistent with the Ebola virus infection, although her existing medical condition provided an adequate medical explanation, it said. “Full safety and precautionary measures have been taken by the medical staff who attended the patient according to World Health Organization (WHO) standards for dealing with suspected cases of infectious diseases,” it was quoted as saying by the WAM news agency. However, the woman’s husband, who was the only person sitting next to her on the plane and five medics who treated her, have been isolated pending test results of the deceased woman. — PTI
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Afghan Sikhs look for clues over stowaways in shipping container
Kabul, August 18 Staff at Tilbury Docks near London discovered one dead man in his 40s, and 34 other people alive, after hearing banging and screaming from inside the container on Sunday. British police said the survivors, including 13 children, were Afghan Sikhs. “I didn’t know of this until the news reports emerged and I am trying to contact families who may be involved,” Rawel Singh, a prominent leader of Afghanistan’s Sikh community, said. “I am urgently seeking more information.” Singh, vice-president of the Hindu and Sikh Council of Afghanistan, said only a few thousand Sikhs remained in Afghanistan, a sharp drop from before the civil war in the 1990s. Many of those remaining complain of brutal persecution in a Muslim-majority country that has been ravaged by decades of war. “Our rights are trampled and we are treated badly by the Afghan people,” Singh said. “We are discriminated against, our children cannot attend school, and our land has been stolen. Therefore many Sikhs are forced to flee Afghanistan.” Afghan’s Sikhs and Hindus often live in the same communities in Kabul, Jalalabad and Kandahar, working as labourers or in the clothes and traditional medicine businesses, said Singh. He said most Sikhs who had recently left Afghanistan headed for Australia and Russia rather than Britain. All 34 survivors from the shipping container were taken to nearby hospitals to be treated for hypothermia and dehydration. Four people are still in hospital, and the local Sikh community has been helping care for the survivors. “Officers and colleagues from the Border Force will be speaking to them via interpreters so we can piece together what happened,” said superintendent Trevor Roe of the local Essex police. — AFP
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India, Australia to sign civil nuke deal in Sept: Report
Melbourne, August 18 The “agreement has now been reached, with Indian officials convincing their Australian counterparts that the uranium will not end up in nuclear weapons,” said the report published by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. It said the two sides have struck the deal. Prime Minister “Abbott is due to visit India early next month to formally sign the agreement,” it said, adding sources have said the negotiations have been concluded relatively quickly compared to India’s dealings with other exporters. The negotiations between the two sides have been on since 2012 after Labor party reversed its decision to ban the uranium sale to India because New Delhi has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Australia holds about a third of the world’s recoverable uranium resources and exports 7,000 tonnes a year. India is looking to nuclear power to supplement its existing options to fuel economic growth. India has concluded agreements with Argentina and Kazakhstan. — PTI
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Strong quake hits west Iran, 250 injured Indian-origin ‘chicken king’ to review hygiene Assange to leave Ecuadorian embassy ‘soon’ 70,000 attend Europe’s Janmashtami celebration Nepal flood toll rises to 105 |
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Opposition leader Imran Khan's political party today decided to withdraw its lawmakers from the National Assembly and all provincial assemblies except Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa, piling pressure on beleaguered Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to quit, even as efforts by the ruling
PML-N to reach out to anti-government protesters failed.
convulsed by protests over the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teen, after a night in which police used tear gas to clear protesters off the streets well ahead of a curfew.
