58 LTTE guerrillas killed
COLOMBO, Sept 12 — Eighteen Sri Lankan Army personnel and 58 LTTE guerrillas were killed and 150 troops wounded in fierce fighting in the North-West Mannar district where the security forces launched a major air and ground offensive to capture new territory from rebels.

1 dead, 200 hurt in Bangladesh clashes
DHAKA, Sept 12 — Amid fierce clashes that left one person dead and more than 200 injured, the mainstream Opposition in Bangladesh has declared a three-day shutdown across the country from tomorrow seeking resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government and immediate general elections.

Pak ‘planned’ Kargil intrusion 12 years ago
ISLAMABAD, Sep 12 — The intrusion into Kargil was planned 12 years ago but was dropped twice before Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif permitted its execution early this year.

Taliban detain 2 Pak scribes for spying
ISLAMABAD, Sept 12 — The Taliban Government in Kabul has detained two Pakistani journalists accusing them of spying on behalf of Iran evoking strong protests from various journalist groups in Islamabad.

China making missiles
WASHINGTON, Sept 12 — China is developing modern missiles which can be operated both from land and sea with technologies “gained through espionage,” the USA has claimed.

B’desh protest with India
DHAKA, Sept 12 — Bangladesh has lodged a protest with India over a series of border disputes during the recent months, saying that Dhaka was “gravely concerned” about the situation, reports said today.

China wanted J&K solution in ’62
ISLAMABAD, Sept 12 — A former senior official of the Inter-Services Intelligence has claimed that China had requested Pakistan in 1962 (when it had aggressed against India) “to settle its dispute by engaging Indians troops in Kashmir”.

KGB wanted to pin Kennedy killing on CIA
NEW YORK, Sept 12 — Soviet spies buried explosives across the USA and Europe as part of a cold war sabotage campaign that identified power stations, fuel pipelines and other infrastructure sites, a former KGB official said.

58 LTTE guerrillas killed

COLOMBO, Sept 12 (PTI) — Eighteen Sri Lankan Army personnel and 58 LTTE guerrillas were killed and 150 troops wounded in fierce fighting in the North-West Mannar district where the security forces launched a major air and ground offensive to capture new territory from rebels.

Army sources said here today heavy fighting broke out when the rebels began resisting a two-pronged Army attack on the Tamil guerrillas positions in the LTTE-controlled Vanni region in Mannar district.

They said 18 troops were killed and 150 soldiers were injured when the rebels began countering the Army advance with heavy mortar fire.

The condition of 48 injured soldiers was serious while the rest sustained simple injuries.

The LTTE also suffered heavily by losing 58 well-armed guerrillas in the offensive codenamed "Ranagosha-Five", they said.

The Army today resumed its aggression after a gap of nearly three months to capture more territory held by the LTTE in the Vanni region. The offensive began from two places at Palampatt, about 10 km from the holy Christian shrine Madu, which was captured early this year.

The ground troops were backed by the Air Force which attacked a number of defence bunkers of the rebels. A large number of guerrillas were killed or wounded in the attacks, they said.

Today’s offensive comes immediately after a two-day ceasefire agreed to by both sides to enable UNICEF to carry on with its anti-polio vaccination programme.

This part of a series of limited offensives is being carried out by the Army for the past six months to progressively take over the best part of the territory held by the LTTE.

The Army has already taken over one-thirds of the 8000 sq km Vanni region forcing the rebels to confine to small stretches of jungles.

1 dead, 200 hurt in Bangladesh clashes

DHAKA, Sept 12 (UNI) — Amid fierce clashes that left one person dead and more than 200 injured, the mainstream Opposition in Bangladesh has declared a three-day shutdown across the country from tomorrow seeking resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government and immediate general elections.

The four-party opposition alliance, led by BNP Chairperson and former Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia, declared the shutdown after a massive sit-in demonstration around the central secretariat protesting against the government decision to provide transshipment facility to India.

The sit-in was marred by clashes between the police and opposition activists leaving more than 200 persons wounded and scores of damaged vehicles.

Witnesses said bombings, tear-gas and gunfire disrupted the opposition’s agitation in central Dhaka as anti-government militants fought pitched battles with the police.

Clashes erupted near Baitul Mukarram mosque, where Begum Khaleda led the demonstration and spread like wild fire from the national mosque to the Motijheel commercial area and the crowded old Dhaka, witnesses said.

At least two persons were shot within the Baitul Mukarram mosque compound and admitted to the Dhaka medical college hospital. An unconfirmed report claimed a death at Savar, about 30 miles from here during an encounter between the police and Jatiya party workers.

Ultras set fire to over 20 vehicles, damaged scores of others and ransacked a power office.

The clash erupted at about 1 pm as soon as Begum Khaleda began her speech. Several bombs exploded near the north gate of the mosque. Crude devices went off prompting riot police to swing into action.

The police in bulletproof vests fired teargas shells and bullets to scare off bomb-throwing activists in Bijoynagar, Dainik Bangla Crossing, Motijheel, Roysaheb Bazar, Nayabazar, Bangshal, Joykali Mandir, Saidabad, Jatrabari and other areas in old Dhaka that looked like a veritable battlefield from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Cabinet on July 28 decided to examine the proposal of transshipment of Indian goods from one border to the other through Bangladesh employing Bangladeshi carriers.

The opposition alleged that the government was virtually providing a "corridor" to India in the name of transshipment, which would jeopardise Bangladesh’s security and sovereignty.

Pak ‘planned’ Kargil intrusion 12 years ago

ISLAMABAD, Sep 12 (UNI) — The intrusion into Kargil was planned 12 years ago but was dropped twice before Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif permitted its execution early this year.

Mr Altaf Gauhar, the once powerful Information Secretary to then President Ayub Khan in the 1960s, writes in the English-language daily The Nation that all Pakistani operations against India "are conceived and launched on the basis of one assumption: that the Indians are too cowardly and ill-organised to offer any effective military response which could pose a threat to Pakistan".

According to him, the 1947-48, 1965 and the 1971 wars all started on this assumption. And so was the Kargil intrusion, which, he says, was authorised by Gen Zia-ul Haq in 1987. But at the final war committee meeting at which General Zia was to approve it, the then Foreign Minister Gen Sahibzada Yaqub Khan (retd) opposed it on the plea that as a former General he knew that the posts that Pakistani soldiers would occupy were totally covered with snow almost throughout the year and it would be extremely difficult to have communication with them and meet their day-to-day needs. He said some soldiers had died there and their bodies remained untraced so far.

Secondly, he said, as the Foreign Minister he would find it extremely difficult to justify Pak military action. According to Mr Altaf Gauhar, General Zia was impressed by this assessment and therefore he decided to shelve this plan. But last year (according to a Nawa-i-Waqt story) this plan was revived and put up before Mr Nawaz Sharif. But the then Army Chief Gen Jahangir Karamat, was not willing to bite it and it was for this reason that he was asked to resign in October last year, Nawa-i-Waqt wrote.

Mr Altaf Gauhar states that the same plan was put up before Mr Sharif this year assuring him that Indians were totally unaware of the strategy and they would not be able to offer any response to Pakistan’s offensive. Through this operation, he was told, he would have a military victory to his credit after his courageous decision to go in for nuclear bomb despite international pressure, Mr Gauhar writes.

It is believed Mr Sharif gave the go-ahead to this plan before signing the Lahore declaration with his Indian counterpart, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, in February, he adds.

"The assumption that Indians would not offer an effective military response turned out to be a complete hoax,’’ he writes. Mr Sharif’s government just looked on helplessly "while the soldiers were starving on the heights of Kargil and we did not even have enough fuel to carry on the war".

Jakarta allows foreign peace force

JAKARTA, Sept 12 (Agencies) — Indonesia finally buckled under overwhelming international pressure today and agreed to let foreign peacekeeping troops into East Timor, winning quick approval from the USA and others.

In a nationally televised speech President B.J. Habibie said the suffering in East Timor had to stop immediately but gave no date when the troops would go in.

“I called U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to inform him about our readiness to accept a peacekeeping force through the U.N. To restore peace and security in East Timor to protect the people and implement the result of the direct ballot of August 30,” he said.

Thousands of East Timorese are thought to have been killed and tens of thousands made homeless in an Indonesian military-backed rampage by pro-Jakarta militias following the ballot in which the majority of the tiny territory voted to break away.

“Too many people have lost their lives since the beginning of the unrest, lost their homes and security. We cannot wait any longer. We have to stop the suffering, and immediately,” Mr Habibie said.

Indonesia has repeatedly baulked at international pressure to let in outside troops to end the violence in the former Portuguese colony. It will be the first time that armed foreign troops have been allowed into the country since Indonesia won independence from the Dutch more than 50 years ago.

Meanwhile, an Indonesian military spokesman on Sunday denied reports thousands of refugees were under attack from regular soldiers and pro-Jakarta militia in the East Timorese town of Dare.

“It’s a very safe haven for refugees,” General Sudrajat said when asked if the Indonesian military could guarantee the security of the estimated 30,000 persons sheltering in the mission town.

In an interview with Cable News Network (CNN), he said the situation was calm and under control.

A spokesman for the UN Mission in East Timor (UNAMET) said Indonesian troops and loyalist militia were attacking some 30,000 refugees massed around a seminary in Dare, nine kilometres south of the East Timor capital of Dili.

Meanwhile, India has asserted that any peacekeeping force in strife-torn East Timor must be deployed with the consent of Indonesia and approval of the Security Council.

Expressing concern over “appalling violence” in East Timor, India’s Deputy Permanent Representative to UN Satyabrata Pal told the Security Council, “In these trying times, Indonesia needs the encouragement and support of the international community.”

Mr Pal also urged that the steps being taken by Jakarta to contain violence be recognised.

In the meantime, children of Indonesian soldiers killed in East Timor burned as Australian flag outside the country’s Jakarta embassy on Saturday, then promptly presented staff with a new one as a token of friendship. The 300—youngsters were protesting against outside intervention over the crisis in the former Portuguese colony. Australia has been among the most vocal in the growing world anger over Indonesia’s failure to stop the bloodshed in East Timor.

DARWIN (Australia): UN Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson also said she wanted an international war crimes tribunal set up to investigate savage violations of human rights in East Timor.

Ms Robinson, who was hoping to briefly visit the East Timor capital Dili later in the day, said she would also Investigate the extent of Indonesian military and police involvement in human rights abuses on the Island.

“I am here to emphasise that this is the gravest situation of human rights violations, that the poor people of East Timor are not forgotten, and there must be accountability for this level of savage terrorising of the people,’’ she said on arrival in the northern Australian city of Darwin.

About 350 East Timorese UN Workers and their families were evacuated to Darwin on Friday, leaving only about 80 UN personnel at the besieged UN Mission in Dili.

The UN top human rights official on Sunday called off a planned visit to East Timor amid reports of an attack by pro-Jakarta militia and Indonesian troops on the Timorese town of Dare.

AUCKLAND: U.S. President Bill Clinton today said the USA might provide limited personnel support to any international peacekeeping force sent to East Timor to stop the killing.

He told reporters any U.S. contribution would consist mainly of “extensive airlift support” in the emergency effort to restore order where Indonesian martial law has failed.

President Clinton, taking his toughest stand yet on the East Timor crisis, said on Sunday he was reviewing U.S. Economic links with Indonesia and repeated a call for Jakarta to allow in foreign peacekeepers.

Turning the heat on Jakarta, Mr Clinton said Washington would review its commercial links. It has already cut military ties.

Mr Clinton, who also expressed concern about China-Taiwan relations, security issues posed by North Korea and economic reforms in Asia, said it was clear the Indonesian military was aiding and abetting violence in Dili, the capital of East Timor.

BANGKOK: A German priest helping refugees in East Timor was shot dead inside his Dili home late on Saturday, the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) said today.

Father Karl Albrecht, 70, was shot about 11 p.m. local time after confronting one or more intruders. A colleague heard three shots and the priest died in a hospital shortly after.

Armed militiamen had been seen prowling near the residence in recent days, apparently eyeing the Catholic charity’s vehicles, the JRS said.

LONDON: Britain has suspended delivery of nine Hawk trainer and ground attack jets to Indonesia and called for a similar ban on sales by the European Union as international condemnation grew over violence unleashed by pro-Jakarta militias in East Timor.

The decision came after Foreign Secretary Robin Cook was briefed yesterday on the scale of devastation in East Timor by Britain’s UN ambassador, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, who described Dili as a ‘‘living hell’’ after a visit to the city as part of a UN team.

General Wiranto, the Indonesian defence chief in charge of forces in East Timor, expressed his shock at the destruction during the same trip and said he would recommend the deployment of international peacekeepers.

Taliban detain 2 Pak scribes for spying

ISLAMABAD, Sept 12 (PTI) — The Taliban Government in Kabul has detained two Pakistani journalists accusing them of spying on behalf of Iran evoking strong protests from various journalist groups in Islamabad.

The two Pakistani journalists attached with the Peshawar bureau of the private news agency, NNI were arrested by Taliban officials in Chaghal Sarai in the eastern province of Kunar on September 7 when they were returning from the northern areas controlled by the anti-Taliban forces of Ahmed Shah Masood.

The Taliban-controlled Afghan Islamic Press quoting a senior Taliban official has reported that the two journalists were arrested because they were spying on behalf of the Iranian Government.

NNI sources in Islamabad said the two journalists, agency’s Peshawar bureau chief Salim Shafi and a correspondent Mohammed Azam, had gone to northern areas in Afghanistan as part of their professional duties after obtaining proper visas from the Afghan Consulate in Peshawar.

Various Pakistani journalists unions have condemned the arrest of the correspondents and demanded immediate release by the Taliban officials. They have also threatened to hold protest rallies in front of the Afghan Embassy here if the journalists were not released and have asked the Pakistani Foreign Office to take up the matter with the Taliban authorities for the release of the detained scribes.

The Taliban accuse Iran of helping the Northern Alliance led by Ahmed Shah Masood against Kabul and that probably prompted them to arrest the two journalists since they were coming from the Northern Alliance-controlled areas despite the fact that Pakistan is Taliban’s closest ally during their three-year control of power in Afghanistan.

China making missiles

WASHINGTON, Sept 12 (PTI, Reuters) — China is developing modern missiles which can be operated both from land and sea with technologies “gained through espionage,” the USA has claimed.

China is also developing a submarine-launched ballistic missile, JL-2, which is likely to be tested within the next decade and which will probably be able to hit the USA from within China, a latest US intelligence report has said.

Like the land-based missile, it will also be equipped with small advanced warheads.

This is the first time the US intelligence has publicly stated that espionage has helped China upgrade its nuclear weaponry enormously.

However, it said “They (Chinese) did not copy our systems, as much as the stolen US technology has guided their efforts for their work on their own weapons.

China is “significantly” improving its short-range missile systems and is increasing the size of its missiles forces deployed opposite Taiwan, the report added. The new missile buildup, it is pointed out, will effectively neutralise US power in the region.

Meanwhile, The Los Alamos National Laboratory in the USA has taken disciplinary measures ranging from a pay freeze of a latter of reprimand against three employees in connection with the handling of the China spying investigation, a statement said yesterday.

The punishments came in the aftermath of official inquiries that found inadequate actions were taken during an investigation of suspected Chinese spying at Los Alamos.

B’desh protest with India

DHAKA, Sept 12 (AFP) — Bangladesh has lodged a protest with India over a series of border disputes during the recent months, saying that Dhaka was “gravely concerned” about the situation, reports said today.

The Indian envoy to Dhaka, Mr Hamid Ali Rao, was summoned by the Foreign Ministry here yesterday and told that Bangladesh was “gravely concerned to observe that a series of incidents during the past months along the India-Bangladesh border have contributed to the undesirable build-up of tension in the border areas,” the official BSS news agency said.

China wanted J&K solution in ’62

ISLAMABAD, Sept 12 (UNI) — A former senior official of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has claimed that China had requested Pakistan in 1962 (when it had aggressed against India) “to settle its dispute by engaging Indians troops in Kashmir”.

But “Pakistan missed a golden opportunity to use a smooth chance to win a military victory in Kashmir,” The News has quoted Major-General Rafi-ud-Din as deploring.

He retired in 1993 as the Chief of Special Operations for the ISI.

Many Pakistanis, including former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, expressed regrets that their country did not capture Kashmir in 1962 just because the then President Ayub Khan was told by the USA not to create any problem in Kashmir.

Whatever the credibility of General Rafi-ud-Din’s claim, it has been made, notably, after the Chinese, for the first time, refused to support Pakistan during its (Pakistan’s) aggression in Kargil this year.

Spy’s revelations
KGB wanted to pin Kennedy killing on CIA

NEW YORK, Sept 12 (Reuters) — Soviet spies buried explosives across the USA and Europe as part of a cold war sabotage campaign that identified power stations, fuel pipelines and other infrastructure sites, a former KGB official said.

The revelations were included in a new book co-authored by ex-Soviet spymaster Vasili Mitrokhin and discussed in an interview he gave to the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC), excerpts of which would be broadcast today by the CBS news programme “60 Minutes.’’

Mr Mitrokhin, whose disclosure about Briton Melita Norwood’s nuclear espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union made headlines yesterday, said that for years he copied top-secret documents by hand and smuggled them from Russian intelligence headquarters, sometimes in his shoes, and hid some of them in a mattress.

He wrote “Sword and the Shield: Secret History of the KGB’’ with British academic Christopher Andrew, who spoke with “60 Minutes’’ about Mr Mitrokhin’s note-taking and smuggling activities over a 12-year period that began in the early 1970s when he was put in charge of moving the KGB archives to a new site.

Mr Mitrokhin, now 77 and living as a British citizen under an assumed name, was motivated by apparent disillusionment over Soviet crackdowns on dissidents.

“I wanted to show the efforts, the tremendous efforts of this machine of evil,’ Mr Mitrokhin told the BBC. “And I wanted to demonstrate what happens when the foundations of conscience are trampled over and when other moral principles are forgotten. I regarded this as my duty as a Russian patriot.’’

Mr Mitrokhin divulges a trove of information about KGB efforts in the USA, including an aggressive disinformation attempt to pin the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on the Central Intelligence Agency. (CIA)

But a major disclosure involves Mr Mitrokhin’s claim that Soviet spies surveyed hundreds of potential sabotage sites in the USA and western Europe in the 1960s and 1970s. “As part of that,’’ according to “60 Minutes’’ “they buried booby-trapped arms caches near some of the targets.’’ The explosives presumably are still there.

In the USA, the KGB sabotage plan covered areas across the country. One of the first targets identified by the KGB was an oil pipeline running from El Paso, Texas, to Costa Mesa, California.

Diplomat shot
JOHANNESBURG: The Zimbabwean Vice-Consul to South Africa was shot dead in front of his 11 year-old-son on Saturday, the police said. The 40-year-old diplomat and his child were travelling in Bedfordview in eastern Johannesburg when car hijackers shot him in the head, the police said. The diplomat, reportedly in the country since 1994, died at the scene where the police found a Makarov pistol.

Death penalty
TEHERAN: Four leaders of last July’s student protests in Iran have been sentenced to death, the Teheran daily Jomhuri Isalami quoted a senior judiciary official as saying on Sunday. “Iran’s supreme court has approved the death sentence for two of them and the case against the other two is still under review,” the president of the Teheran revolutionary court, Gholam-Hossein Rahbarpur, told thedaily in an exclusive interview. — DPA

Golden Lion Award
VENICE (Italy): Acclaimed Chinese director Zhang Yimou on Saturday won the coveted Golden Lion Award for best movie at the Venice film festival for his film about a rural village school. “Not One Less”. The jury, headed by Bosnian director Emir Kusturica, awarded the grand prize of the jury to Iran’s Abbas Kiarostami for “Le Vent Nous Emportera” (The Wind Will Carry Us), a beautifully shot tale of a quest set in the Kurdish part of Iran. — Reuters

Return of Pavarotti
BELFAST: Luciano Pavarotti has returned after a 36-year absence to the stage in Belfast, where he had made his debut in Puccini’s ‘Madame Butterfly’. He made his first appearance as Pinkerton in the Opera in 1963, five years before the sectarian bloodshed known as “The Troubles” began pitting Catholic against Protestant in the British-ruled province. — Reuters

Balkan peacekeepers
SOFIA: Multi-national Balkan peacekeeping forces established their headquarters in the Bulgarian town of Plovdin on Saturday, state radio reported. President Petar Stoyanov was quoted as calling the day a “step toward unifying the house of Europe once and for all” as officers of the seven-nation peacekeeping force went to work. — DPA

Chile activists’ march
SANTIAGO: Around 5,000 Chileans opposed to former dictator Augusto Pinochet on Saturday marched to mark the 26th anniversary of the bloody coup that swept him to power and there were isolated violent clashes with the police. A rag-tag army of anti-Pinochet factions — students, human rights activist and left-wingers — waved flags and banners in the capital. — Reuters