KLA adviser resigns
PRISTINA, March 3 — Yugoslav forces pounded an area along Kosovo’s border with Macedonia with tank and mortar fire yesterday, pressing an offensive that has driven thousands of ethnic Albanian civilians from their homes.

Harkat hand in anti-Sharif plot
LONDON, March 3 — A Pakistani intelligence report has blamed the Inter-Services Intelligence funded Islamic mercenary group, Harkat-ul Ansar, for the recent plot to kill Premier Nawaz Sharif, media reports said here today.

Anwar case: Mahathir’s offer
DHAKA, March 3 — Malaysian Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Bin Mohammad today said he is ready to give evidence against sacked Deputy Premier Anwar Ibrahim if asked by the court.

Taliban ‘helped’ Laden disappear
KANDHAR, (Afghanistan), March 3 — Two weeks ago, suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden disappeared from his refuge in southern Afghanistan. Since then, his whereabouts have been a mystery.

Ethnic status for PoK nationals sought

LONDON, March 3 (PTI) — Fourteen ruling Labour Party members of British Parliament have urged the government to recognise Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) nationals residing in the UK as Kashmiris in the forthcoming census.

The 14 lawmakers led by Bradford West MP, Mr Marsha Singh introduced a motion in the House of Commons yesterday, seeking a distinct ethnic status category for their sizeable community in Britain.

Signatories to the motion, called upon the government to categorise PoK nationals as Kashmiris in the, year 2001 census, include leader of the All-Party Kashmir Parliamentary Group, Mr Roger Godsiff.

Mr Marsha Singh, Mr Godsiff and Peterborough MP, Helen Brinton, who addressed a meeting last night in the committee room of the Commons, said PoK residents have expressed resentment over being categorised as Pakistanis with Punjabi as their main language in the census.

They said PoK residents, who far outnumber Pakistanis living in the U.K., have expressed desire to be categorised as “Kashmiris — a distinct ethnic category” in the census.

The meeting, which drew widespread support of PoK groups here, has come as a big blow to the Pakistani authorities, seeking to project these groups as favouring Kashmir’s merger with Pakistan.

KLA adviser resigns

PRISTINA, March 3 (AP) — Yugoslav forces pounded an area along Kosovo’s border with Macedonia with tank and mortar fire yesterday, pressing an offensive that has driven thousands of ethnic Albanian civilians from their homes.

The fighting is part of an operation that began a few days ago along a strategic route that Nato troops would likely use if they entered Yugoslavia, either as part of a peacekeeping force or to rescue unarmed international monitors.

And in a political development that could boost international efforts to persuade ethnic Albanians to accept a plan for self-rule, Mr Adem Demaci resigned on Monday as political adviser to the Kosovo Liberation Army.

The influential hard-liner, who has been outspoken in his opposition to the US-backed plan because it falls short of independence, said the KLA leadership “thinks they know more about politics than I do.’’

Elsewhere, the Serbian Media Centre reported fresh fighting 45 km west of Pristina, after KLA fighters attacked a military convoy near Klina. The ethnic Albanian-run Kosovo Information Centre also reported fighting 15 km west of Pristina, saying Serb forces attacked three villages.

BELGRADE: Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic has rejected the proposal for the deployment of foreign troops in Kosovo to police any peace agreement.

Mr Knut Vollebaek, chairman-in-office of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) told a press conference in Belgrade on Monday that during his talks with Mr Milosevic he urged him to accept international military presence in Kosovo to be invited by the Yugoslav Authorities, but he flatly rejected it.

Militants also ‘violated’ rights

LONDON, March 3 (PTI) — Amnesty International has for the first time conceded that militant groups in Jammu and Kashmir “with foreign backing” have committed “terrible atrocities” against the local population and said this had made it difficult to assess the human rights situation in the state.

In its report on human rights abuses in Jammu and Kashmir, the London-based Watchdog also asked the Indian Government to put an end to cases of “disappearance” of persons in the state and prosecute those responsible.

Claiming that 800 persons, including children and some very old people, had disappeared since 1990, Amnesty, in its report titled “If they are dead, tell us — Disappearances in Jammu and Kashmir” said India had the means to end the problem through legal or other institutionalised methods.

The report, however, conceded that over the past year (1998), instances of disappearance had almost ceased.

It noted that there was difficulty in assessing the human rights situation in Jammu and Kashmir, where armed groups “with foreign backing, have committed terrible abuses against the local population.”

But it said, “such a situation should not come in the way of the responsibility of the authorities to trace disappeared persons and ensure justice.”

Harkat hand in anti-Sharif plot

LONDON, March 3 (PTI) — A Pakistani intelligence report has blamed the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) funded Islamic mercenary group, Harkat-ul Ansar, for the recent plot to kill Premier Nawaz Sharif, media reports said here today.

Three Lashkar-e-Janghvi activists, arrested in connection with the plot to blow up a bridge near Raiwind on which Mr Sharif’s cavalcade was to pass, have close links with the Harkat-ul-Ansar, active in Kashmir, the reports said.

Pakistani paper ‘The News International’ quoting the secret report, forwarded to the Cabinet, said the three — Sarfraz Siddiq, Noor Gul and Mohammad Arshad — had received training in Harkat camps at Khost near the Pakistan-Afghan border.

While the three were later mysteriously shot dead in custody, the chief of the Lashkar-e-Janghvi, which had announced a booty on Mr Sharif’s head, has fled Pakistan and sought shelter in Afghan terrorist camps, the paper said.

In the report, Pakistan’s leading intelligence agencies have admitted for the first time that “over 800 Pakistanis were under training at the Khaled bin Waleed camp in Afghanistan, most of them linked to the fundamentalist Laskar-e-Jhangvi and the Shiite Sipaha-e-Sahaba.”

Anwar case
Mahathir’s offer

DHAKA, March 3 (UNI) — Malaysian Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Bin Mohammad today said he is ready to give evidence against sacked Deputy Premier Anwar Ibrahim if asked by the court.

“If I am asked I will appear in the court,’’ he told a press conference here at the end of the two-day summit of developing-eight countries of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) — Bangladesh, Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Turkey, Egypt, Iran and Nigeria.

Mr Mahathir said the charges in a sex case against Anwar have not been dropped. They are being amended.

Accusing Anwar of trying to overthrow the government through a street movement, Mr Mahathir said “I chose him as my successor for I believed he was a pious person. But unfortunately, I discovered evidences that he was not a person suitable for leading the country as Prime Minister.’’

The Law will decide in due course whether he is a friend or foe of Malaysia, said Mr Mahathir.

Taliban ‘helped’ Laden disappear

KANDHAR, (Afghanistan), March 3 (AP) — Two weeks ago, suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden disappeared from his refuge in southern Afghanistan. Since then, his whereabouts have been a mystery.

Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers say they have no idea where he is even though, according to a top Taliban official, he was accompanied by 10 Afghan agents sent to both protect and spy on him.

The U.S. authorities, who want bin Laden in connection with the August 7 bombings that devastated the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, also say they have no idea whether the Saudi national is still in Afghanistan.

Bin Laden arrived here nearly five years ago, taking refuge amid Afghanistan’s anarchy after Sudan expelled him. His disappearance followed a US Missile attack against his training camps on August 21, and Taliban assertions that they were putting pressure on him to rein in his activities.

Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, who speaks for Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, says the Taliban sent bin Laden his escorts on February 10.

Some of the escorts worked for the Taliban’s interior ministry, a police organisation. Their job was to protect bin Laden, he said.

Others worked for the secret service. Their job was to spy on him’’ and “still others worked for the foreign ministry because he is our foreign guest,’” he said.

On February 13, Omar announced that bin Laden had disappeared.

As of Sunday, bin Laden’s escorts had not returned to the Taliban’s southern stronghold of Kandahar, militia officials claim. Nor was there any sign the escorts had left Afghanistan, they said.

“They were told to go up to a place where he wants to go and where they can go,’’ Mr Muttawakil said. To leave the country would require formalities, passports, visas. I don’t think they would have left the country.’’

Arab judge
JERUSALEM: Israel has appointed its first Arab as a judge on the Supreme Court. Mr Abd el-Rahman Zouabi (68) will appear on the Bench for the first time on Wednesday said that Mr Moshe Gorali, the Spokesman for Israel’s courts. His appointment is for nine months and temporary appointees do not always receive permanent places on the court. — AP

Indian convicted
NEW YORK: An Indian who made millions running a chain of gas stations has been convicted of ordering two contract killings to protect his mob-style operation. He could face the death penalty. A jury on Tuesday convicted Gurmeet Singh Dhinsa from Punjab in a federal court in the New York city of Brooklyn after deliberating for two-and-a-half days. — AP

No mediation: Mandela
JOHANNESBURG: South African President Nelson Mandela will not intervene to bring peace in strife-torn Sri Lanka despite pleas by several human rights groups, his spokesperson has said. “I can only say President Mandela will not intervene in Sri Lanka,” Mr Mandela’s spokesperson told a group of South African newspersons who had recently visited Sri Lanka at government invitation. — PTI

Hijacker surrenders
PARIS: An Italian who hijacked an Air France plane to Paris’s Charles de Gaulle Airport on Tuesday surrendered shortly after 1800 hours GMT, after freeing all passengers, an informed source said. Stefano Sasvorani gave himself up to Gendarmes three hours after diverting the plane from Orly, south of Paris, to the airport to the north of the Capital during a flight from Marseille. — AFP

Plea for clemency
THE HAGUE: The International Court of Justice, acting on an urgent appeal from Germany, asked the USA to suspend the execution set for Wednesday of German National Walter Lagrand. At the same time, the Arizona Clemency Board on Tuesday recommended that Governor Jane Dee Hull delay the execution by 60 days.— AFP