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Wednesday,
December 26, 2001, Chandigarh, India  
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Pak to rein in ‘jehadi’ outfits Guards have proof of links with J&K ultras Kabul’s
‘Mother Teresa’ relieved |
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Xmas party at Kabul’s nightspot! Cross-border raid
leaves one Israeli dead
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Train rams into bus, 28 killed Ex-Russian Captain jailed for treason Lankan ceasefire gets under way UK confirms suicide bomb suspect British
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Pak to rein in ‘jehadi’ outfits Islamabad, December 25 Following the government decision to not let any jehadi organisation operate in Pakistan, authorities will ensure that no such group is able to collect donations or recruit volunteers for jehad, The News, a local daily said. Pakistani officials were quoted as saying that the decision to curb jehadi groups was in line with Pakistan’s security interest. They, however, said Indian statements against the Pakistan-based jehadi groups — Lashker-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, whom New Delhi accuses of a series of terror attacks, including on the Indian Parliament — are forcing Pakistani officials not to directly confront the groups, as it may be interpreted as a decision taken under Indian pressure. “What to talk of General Musharraf’s administration, no Pakistani government would like to be seen as succumbing to Indian pressure,” a senior Pakistani official said. “As a matter of fact Indian statements have undermined our resolve to launch a crackdown on the extremist groups in Pakistan.” The News in its front-page report said to achieve this national security objective, senior security officials would further increase their contact with leaders of jehadi outfits to convince them that their public activities were not in Pakistan’s security interest. “The government is against a deadly head-on confrontation with a very emotional community,” an official familiar with recent discussions on the subject was quoted as saying. “Without much arm twisting the government and religious leaders are trying to arrive at a common platform.” The military regime’s resolve to counter activities of all extremist groups in Pakistan were fuelled further in recent days as it received reports that a few renegade bands associated with a jehadi organisation were active outside Jammu and Kashmir. The aim of the group was to stage a terrorist action with an aim at increasing New Delhi-Islamabad tension so that President Pervez Musharraf is forced to go slow on jehadi groups in Pakistan. The paper said a series of measures aimed at eliminating activities of all jehadi groups were discussed at a top level meeting held under Joint Chief of Staff Committee chairman, Gen. Mohammad Aziz Khan, at the Joint Staff Headquarters in Rawalpindi yesterday. Officials said by abstaining from Monday’s meeting which he was expected to chair, Musharraf provided his military commanders a relaxed atmosphere to freely discuss the strain on the country’s security situation and make independent professional recommendations to him for final decisions. General Aziz Khan, who had some experience of dealing with religious groups during his tenure at the Inter-Services Intelligence, is now playing a lead role in the government’s decision-making on military and strategic affairs, said the paper. Meanwhile, the Lashkar-e-Toiba withdrew Rs.4 billion from its bank accounts after the September 11 attack and subsequent moves by the global coalition against terrorism, a highly placed source said. The source said Lashkar, one of the two Pakistani groups New Delhi has accused of attacking the Indian Parliament on December 13, withdrew the money from bank accounts in Pakistan and elsewhere in the world. “Some secret agencies are trying to locate where this money has been shifted,” the source told IANS on anonymity. He confirmed that when the U.S. government froze bank accounts of the Lashkar, there was no “significant” amount in those accounts. “But, after this action the Lashkar would certainly face difficulties in collecting funds which they used to get through their bank accounts at least in 19 countries,” said the source. Pakistan yesterday also froze the bank accounts of Lashkar and Ummah Tameer-e-Nau (UTN), also accused by the U.S.A. of involvement in terrorism. The UTN belongs to retired nuclear scientist Bashiruddin Mahmood, under detention for the last six weeks for alleged involvement in clandestine nuclear commerce with Al-Qaida. Information secretary Syed Anwar Mehmood said the accounts of the two organisations have been frozen under the U.S. decision and Pakistan has acted under its obligation to combat international terror. “We have once again asked India to provide us with evidence against the two organisations for their involvement in attacks on Indian Parliament. India has refused to share information with us therefore Pakistan is unable to take any action against the two groups,” Mehmood said. In the meantime, the Lashkar-e-Toiba chief, Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, who resigned yesterday announced the immediate closure of Lashkar’s offices in Pakistan. He said no Pakistani will hold any office in this organisation and only Kashmiris will be office-bearers. “The Lashkar will have its offices only in Kashmir and its council and the chief will also be from Kashmir.” Maulana Abdul Wahid of Poonch will now replace Saeed, who will act as chairman of the Jamaat-al-Dawa, new name for the Markaz al-Dawawal-Irshad, the political wing of
Lashkar. IANS |
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Guards have proof of links with J&K ultras Kabul, December 25 And to satisfy the curiosity of a group of Indian journalists on a visit to the camp at Rishkor, some 25 km south of here, one of them showed a letter written to a Kashmiri Al-Qaida activist stationed there by his brother in Islamabad. The guard, who identified himself as “Commander Poppal” of the Northern Alliance, said the letter and several other documents were recovered after the alliance troops moved in following the US bombardment of the camp. He was ready to part with documents for $600. No bargains. Mohammad Yahya, a senior fighter, said he had various documents and books of the Al-Qaida that he was ready to sell for a “fair price” of $2,000. The letter Poppal showed was written by Mian Zulfikar Adil Reham to his brother, Haji Inyutur Rehman, an inmate of the camp. The letter dated March 19, 2001, was written on a letterhead of Harkat-ul-Jehad-il-Islami in Jammu and Kashmir, a front organisation of the Pakistan-based terror group Lashker-e-Toyyeba, whose assets were frozen by the USA last week. It bore the address: PO Box No.1796, GPO (General Post Office), Islamabad, Pakistan, with the telephone number 051-435030. “You are fighting against the Americans. I am very happy about it because that is the secret duty of all believers,” the letter written in Urdu said. Poppal also showed a health club membership card of another Pakistani Al-Qaida activist but declined to show the remaining documents. He said he “have them but would not show the documents unless the journalists are ready to buy them.” His colleague Yahya too said he would show the documents in his possession only after he got the money. The sprawling Al-Qaida camp, the guards said, had up to 1,200 trainees. There were no Afghans among them, only Arabs, Pakistanis, Chechens and Kashmiris. The Taliban occupied the former Afghan army garrison before the Al-Qaida moved in two years ago. Many of the Arab members had their families in the camp. And Osama bin Laden, their leader, was said to have visited the camp many times. An unspecified number of Al-Qaida men were believed killed in the US-led bombing but the survivors had managed to remove their bodies before the US marines and Northern Alliance troops arrived. Almost every building in the camp had been pulverised. The whole area is littered with spent shells and wreckage of field guns, anti-aircraft guns and other military hardware.
IANS |
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Commander held for aiding Al-Qaida
Islamabad, December 25 Awal Gul, an important commander of the tribal forces that took part in the Tora Bora operation, was arrested on Sunday by the men of commander Hazrat Ali, the Pakistan-based news agency said. Haji Mohammad Zaman, the other tribal commander who led the fight against the Al-Qaida in Tora Bora, confirmed the arrest of Awal
Gul. DPA |
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Kabul sets up panel on army
formation Kabul, December 25 The decision was taken last night after a marathon meeting of the core committee of the Cabinet presided over by President Hamid Karzai. The meeting was
preceded by a meeting of a top level US delegation with the Afghan President, official sources said. PTI |
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Kabul’s ‘Mother Teresa’ relieved Kabul, December 25 Through the bloody warlord era after the Soviet withdrawal and the austere years of the Taliban rule, the flamboyant Italian has worked as head of the International Committee of the Red Cross Orthopaedic Project, earning the name, “The Mother Teresa of Kabul”. “Why would I leave?” says Cairo, 48, a former lawyer from Turin who retrained as a physiotherapist and joined the ICRC. “These people are my family.” “It has been a tough time, but every day everybody is just hoping that tomorrow will be better.” Cairo breathed a sigh of relief when a new interim government under Mr Hamid Karzai was sworn in on Saturday with a mandate to rebuild a nation with a massive injection of international aid. But at the back of his mind, he remembers how quickly the USA abandoned Afghanistan after the erstwhile Soviet Union withdrew its troops in 1989 and how aid workers battled for media attention through the 1990s.
Reuters |
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Xmas party at Kabul’s nightspot! Kabul, December 25 But with the militia bombed out of Afghanistan by the Americans and lot of journalists stranded here, some kind soul put this up at ‘Hotel Kabul Intercontinental’ to enliven the dull atmosphere prevailing here. The screamer at the hotel lobby reads: “Christmas party on December 25 at 6 p.m. onwards at Kabul’s liveliest nightspot, 5th floor, Supper Club.” What surprises one in the whole of the impromptu advertisement is the line — “bring your own...!” What could one bring on his own in Kabul? May be, dry naans, lot of apples and oranges or the big cauliflowers that are available in plenty in the market!
PTI |
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Cross-border raid leaves one Israeli dead Bet Yosef (Israel), December 25 The sources said Israeli helicopters and ground forces pursued the gunmen into Jordan. The army would not confirm that troops had crossed the border. It said Jordanian forces were cooperating fully. The fighting erupted at the usually quiet border on the Jordan valley, about 16 km north of the West Bank. Security sources said they did not know who carried out the attack. Hostilities at the border have been rare since Israel and Jordan signed a peace treaty in 1994. Palestinian militant groups have been behind a wave of shootings and bomb attacks against Israeli targets since an uprising against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip erupted in September 2000. A group from Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction wounded an Israeli settler in a shooting in the west bank yesterday. The attack was retaliation for Israel’s ban on Arafat attending Christmas celebrations in Bethlehem. A Jordan Government spokesmen denied any shots were fired. Security sources said the gunmen shot at an Israeli patrol from across the border. A gunbattle erupted when Israeli troops went to scour the area on their side of the border for infiltrators. Meanwhile, Israeli officials said that President Arafat would be forced to remain in Ramallah until the Palestinian Authority arrested the militants responsible for assassinating Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze’evi on October 17. Environment Minister Tzahi Hanegbi told Israel Radio that the Palestinian leader would be confined to Ramallah “until he arrests the murderers”. Israel believes the assassins, Hamdi Kuran and Basel el-Asmar, from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, are hiding in Ramallah under PA patronage. Arafat has been stranded in Ramallah since Israel destroyed his helicopter fleet on December 2, in retaliation for a wave of Palestinian suicide bombings. Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon yesterday refused to let him travel to Bethlehem to attend Christmas Mass, unless he arrested Ze’evi’s killers. In the end Arafat was forced to address the worshippers in Bethlehem via a broadcast telephone address. He called the Israeli ban on his travelling to Jesus’ birthplace a “crime”. JERUSALEM: Israeli tanks and troops entered Palestinian-controlled territory in the West Bank early today and arrested seven suspected militants before withdrawing. The incursion came hours after Palestinians held a Midnight mass in the West Bank town of Bethlehem without Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat after Israel forbade him from attending the services. As part of efforts to end the 15-months-old Israeli-Palestinian fighting, the Foreign Minister, Mr Shimon Peres and Mr Ahmed Qureia, a key lieutenant of Mr Arafat, are conducting talks aimed at a renewal of stalled peace talks, Israel confirmed yesterday. Palestinian officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, have said the new proposals discussed by Mr Peres and Mr Qureia included a ceasefire followed within eight weeks by recognition of a Palestinian state in existing autonomy zones, which make up about 42 per cent of the West Bank and two-thirds of the Gaza Strip.
Reuters, DPA, AP |
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Train rams into bus, 28 killed Beijing, December 25 The overloaded bus “disintegrated completely’’ in the crash at about noon on Sunday in the city of Artux, some 1,040 km west of the regional capital Urumqi and near the border with Kyrgyzstan, an Artux official and state media said. There were no reports of casualties from the passenger train, which resumed its journey after two hours, a newspaper in the western province of Sichuan said today. It said most of the bus passengers were killed at the scene of the accident, which scattered debris and bodies across snow-covered ground in Artux, near the city of Kashgar. One pregnant woman died on way to the hospital, while two of the 11 injured passengers were still in danger, a doctor at a local hospital said here today. The crash was the latest reminder of China’s dangerous road safety record — nearly 80,000 persons were killed in road accidents in the first 10 months this year, state media have said. The grisly death toll has prompted the State Council, or Cabinet, to issue a new law aimed at reinforcing safety measures and reducing road accidents, state media said today. The National People’s Congress, China’s legislative body, is expected to pass the law soon, the Xinhua News Agency said today. It gave no details on the law.
Reuters |
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Ex-Russian Captain jailed for treason Vladivostok (Russia), December 25 The decision stunned Pasko and his defence team, who had expected him to be cleared at the re-trial of his case, which has highlighted concerns about media freedom. The court found the former Captain guilty of high treason in the form of espionage under Article 275 of the legal code, and ordered that he serve his sentence in a high-security prison. The court dismissed nine of the 10 charges against Pasko, but his lawyer Ivan Pavlov was visibly shocked by the decision. “The court’s decision is illegal and we will tomorrow lodge an appeal,” he said. After the verdict, Pasko was handcuffed and led from the court room. Sergei Mironov, the new speaker of the upper house of the Russian Parliament, the Federation Council, has said he would urge President Vladimir Putin to grant a pardon should Pasko lose his case, NTV television said. Pasko was arrested in November, 1997, by counter-intelligence agents on his return from Japan, where he had given journalists evidence that the Russian navy had dumped toxic waste in the Sea of Japan. He spent 20 months in prison ahead of his first trial, which resulted in him being cleared of high treason in July, 1999. He was convicted on a lesser charge of exceeding his authority as an officer, but freed under an amnesty law. However, Pasko maintained his innocence and appealed against the guilty verdict, leading to the re-trial. Pasko wrote about his experiences during his 18 months in detention ahead of his first trial, which lasted five months and was held behind closed doors. At a news conference to publicise the book, “Case No. 10: Grigory Pasko against the FSB”, Pasko said Russia was gripped by a “spy mania”.
Reuters |
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Lankan ceasefire gets under way Colombo, December 25 Defence Ministry spokesman Sanath Karunaratne said instructions were sent to all combat troops in the northern and eastern regions to hold their fire during the one-month “cessation of hostilities” which began on Christmas Eve. “There will be no new military operations. No air targets will be engaged. But naval operations will continue to prevent LTTE’s attempts to smuggle in arms and ammunition,” Mr Karunaratne said. He said the air force would help the navy in the event of a confrontation with the LTTE. The new government of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe announced on Friday that it would reciprocate the ceasefire declared by the LTTE two days earlier to help create conditions for peace negotiations. Mr Wickremesinghe, who ended a three-day visit to India yesterday, said he hoped the ceasefire could be extended beyond the initial one-month period. However, he cautioned that there could be no quick way to end the dragging conflict and he was keen to take the process “step by step”. The LTTE said last week that its supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran had asked his cadres to hold their fire in line with the truce. The UK, Japan and India have welcomed the Sri Lankan truce which they believe will pave the way for negotiations to end the fighting that has killed over 60,000 persons since 1972.
PTI |
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UK confirms suicide bomb suspect British London, December 25 “We have confirmed that the man is a British citizen,” said a spokesman for Scotland Yard. The man got on a flight from Paris to Miami on Saturday, and was overpowered by fellow passengers as he reportedly tried to detonate explosives in his shoes. The spokesman strongly denied media information that Scotland Yard had confirmed that the suspect’s name was Richard Colvin Reid, born in England in 1973 with a police record of minor violations. Boston: Investigators have said they are probing whether a man who went under three different names was acting alone or with others when he allegedly tried to blow up a jetliner. Though the suspect was charged in federal court here earlier yesterday under the name of British passport holder Richard C. Reid (28), investigators say the probe into his true identity is continuing. Reid allegedly attempted to ignite explosives in his shoes on an American Airlines flight carrying 197 persons from Paris to Miami that was diverted here Saturday. The tall, lanky, long-haired suspect has alternately identified himself to the US authorities as Sri Lanka-born Tariq Raja, born in 1973, and as Abdel Rahim, a name reflecting his conversion to Islam, the French police have said.
AFP |
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