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No agent in Al-Qaida’s
inner circle, says CIA
230 die in Bangladesh, Vietnam floods
Kenya urges abductors to
free hostages
Egyptian diplomat taken hostage in
Iraq
Pak releases 3 aides of
A.Q. Khan
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Karachi blast leaves
1 dead, 7 injured
NATO troops for Afghan poll
Pentagon declares Bush’s pay
records
6 baby sellers get death in
China
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No agent in Al-Qaida’s inner circle, says CIA
Washington, July 24 In a briefing to selected members of the media on Wednesday, a day before the 9/11 Commission released its final report, CIA officials also revealed that with the help of these agents, many Al-Qaida operatives were killed and plots to attack US installations were thwarted, the media reported today. “They are beyond foot soldiers but not in the inner circle,” the Washington Post quoted an intelligence official as saying on condition of anonymity. The agents, who include Pakistanis, Afghans and Uzbeks, were “more senior than the agents the US had three years ago who were on the periphery,” the official said. Aided by them, electronic intercepts, satellite imagery and extensive help from foreign intelligence services, the US over the past two years had captured or killed two-thirds of bin Laden’s top aides and broken up plots against US Embassies, US and foreign aircraft, and ships and other targets worldwide, the Post reported. However, although the US intelligence community believes that Al-Qaida today is far less capable than the team that put together the September 11 attacks, bin Laden “looks to the United States still as the brass ring” (top target), another intelligence official told a group of reporters. The Post noted that this was the first time that the CIA officials had semi-publicly described with such specificity the placing of agents and other steps aimed at cracking the Al-Qaida. “They made the revelation as part of the response to the stern criticism of the agency this week by the 9/11 Commission,” the paper said. The report had portrayed the US intelligence as having failed dramatically before the 2001 attacks, largely because it lacked sufficient sources of human intelligence about bin Laden’s organisation. —
PTI |
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230 die in Bangladesh, Vietnam floods
Dhaka, July 24 Flash floods in a northern Vietnamese province have claimed 31 lives, and more people are missing and feared dead, officials in Hanoi said today. Many low-lying areas of Dhaka were inundated affecting thousands of people, officials said. Even diplomatic areas of Gulshan and Baridhara were flooded. The official BSS news agency put the death toll at 202 since the floods hit the country three weeks ago. Tens of thousands of people have taken shelter on rooftops, schools and highways. A spokesman for the government Flood Warning Centre said all the rivers around Dhaka continued to swell today and the situation in other parts of Bangladesh might worsen. The situation in Kurigram and Gaibandha areas in the North remained serious, but water receded in the northeastern Sylhet district after which train and air links with Dhaka were restored, officials said. More than two crore people have been hit by this year’s deluge, the worst since 1998, officials said. Two more bodies were recovered yesterday, while 18 villagers remained missing from flash floods that hit three villages in Yen Minh District in northern Ha Giang province of Vietnam earlier in the week. Rescuers found some bodies that had been washed nearly 30 km from their homes. Nineteen persons were injured and 24 homes were destroyed. Many homeless residents are staying at temporary shelters in local government buildings and schools. — PTI, AP |
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Kenya urges abductors to
free hostages
Nairobi, July 24 The Kenyan government had already appealed on Thursday for the release of its nationals, three truck drivers. “We plead with the kidnappers to release the men so that they can be reunited with their families,” Mr Mutua said then. The group calling itself “The Holders of the Black Banners” offered last night a new 48-hour deadline to the Kuwait and Gulf Link Transport firm, for which the men worked, to pull out of the Gulf nation. The former deadline was fixed for today. The group added yesterday a new demand of “payment of damages to families of victims of Fallujah and the release of Iraqi detainees from American and Kuwaiti prisons”, according to the Al-Jazeera news channel. “As a country, we cannot meet these new demands, because we were not part of the attacks in Fallujah and we are not holding any Iraqi prisoner,” Mr Mutua added. The group, also described as Black Flags, on Wednesday kidnapped three Kenyans, three Indians and an Egyptian, all truck drivers, and had originally set a deadline for today, saying it would then start to behead one hostage every 72 hours. —
AFP |
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Egyptian diplomat taken hostage in Iraq
Baghdad, July 24 Desouki provided no further details regarding the circumstances of Kotb’s abduction yesterday. Just minutes before, Arab television Al-Jazeera broadcast a tape showing a man identified as Kotb sitting in front of six masked armed men dressed head-to-toe in black with white bandanas around their foreheads. Kotb was purportedly kidnapped by a group called the Lions of Allah in response to what they described as “Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif’s offer to Iraq of his country’s security expertise.” Al-Jazeera said Kotb spoke on the tape and “his abductors were treating him well and he gave assurances that the Egyptian embassy was not working with the US-led forces and is just helping the Iraqis with reconstruction.” —
AFP |
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Pak releases 3 aides of
A.Q. Khan
Islamabad, July 24 The three — Brig Sajawal Khan, scientist Nazir Ahmed and Major Islamul Haq — were detained late last year under a probe into a proliferation network run by Dr Khan, the father of the country’s nuclear programme. Several scientists and officials of the country’s main uranium enrichment facility, Khan Research Laboratory, were released earlier this year after remaining under interrogation for months. Only one scientist, Mohammad Farooq, is still in custody while Dr Khan has been under virtual house arrest since February when he was given a conditional pardon after he admitted to leaking nuclear secrets to other countries and sought clemency. “These three who have been released, have been allowed to go home because they are not required for the time being,” a top military spokesman Maj-Gen Shaukat Sultan, said. —
AFP |
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Karachi blast leaves 1 dead, 7 injured
Islamabad, July 24 The van was carrying staff and students of Jamia Al-Rasheedia Trust — whose bank accounts have been seized by the government on suspicion of aiding the Al-Qaida members in the country and abroad. The dead man was identified as Mohammed Azam, an electrician at the seminary, while the seven injured were all students, the police said. Meanwhile, the police dismissed initial reports that the explosion occurred inside the vehicle. No one has claimed responsibility for the blast. For several months Karachi, housing over 15 million people, has been experiencing sectarian violence by the extremist groups of the Sunni and Shia communities. —
PTI |
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NATO troops for Afghan poll
Brussels, July 24 At the alliance summit in Istanbul last month NATO leaders took the decision in principle to beef up the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), but left the details open. —
AFP |
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Pentagon declares Bush’s pay records
Washington, July 24 The records, however, did not resolve the key questions over whether Bush had carried out military duty in Alabama between May 1972 and May 1973, the Washington Post reported today. The Democrats accused Bush of skipping military duty during this period, when thousands of drafted Americans were risking their lives in Vietnam. Democrat Presidential candidate John Kerry is a decorated Vietnam War veteran. The Pentagon released copies of Bush’s payroll covering the first quarter of 1969 — when Bush served in the Texas Air National Guard, and the third quarter of 1972 — when he had already transferred to the National Guard in the southern state of Alabama to work on the US senate campaign of a family friend.—
PTI |
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6 baby sellers get death in China
Beijing, July 24 The Ring leaders Xie Deming and Cui Wenxian were sentenced to death yesterday, four others got suspended death sentences and five of the traffickers were given life in prison. The remaining were given jail sentences of varying lengths. The police said this was the biggest baby trafficking case in Communist China’s 55 years history. The sale of women and children has become a nationwide problem in China, where stringent rules on family planning allow couples to have just one child, at least in the cities, and limit numbers elsewhere. The restrictions have bolstered a traditional bias for male offspring, seen as the mainstay for aging parents and has resulted in abortions or killings of baby girls. —
Reuters |
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