FACTBOX-Afghan women after the Taliban

July 20, 2010 By Leave a Comment

July 19 (Reuters) – Afghanistan will ask for more control of billions of dollars pledged to reconstruct the war-torn country at a major international conference next week.

Critics accuse the government of squandering millions in foreign aid, but President Hamid Karzai says most waste occurs on development projects outside official control, and he wants direct access to more of the $13 billion pot.

One of the pillars of the conference is social development for women, a key issue after a rights group last week warned last week that they risked sacrificing hard-won freedoms as the government seeks peace with the hardline Islamist Taliban. [ID:nSGE66C0D9]

Following are some facts about women in Afghanistan:

RIGHTS AFTER THE TALIBAN

For five years under the Taliban’s Islamist regime, women were banned from education and work. Since the Taliban’s 2001 fall, women’s rights have improved.

But it is often still taboo for women and girls to go to school or work in rural areas. Forced marriage, often of young girls, is still common.

Afghan women are among the world’s worst off, and violence and rape are a “huge problem”, according to the United Nations.

A law for Afghanistan’s minority Shi’a Muslims caused international outcry because one of its articles was seen as permitting marital rape. U.S. President Barack Obama called the law “abhorant” and it was changed by President Hamid Karzai.

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS

Karzai’s first cabinet after his 2004 election contained three female ministers and a female vice president. The current cabinet has a woman Minister for Martyrs and the Disabled, while two others are acting in womens’ affairs and public health roles after permanent appointments were blocked by parliament.

The Afghan parliament uses a quota system to ensure at least 25 percent of seats go to women. While affirmative action is seen as necessary by many, some have complained that in many provinces women get seats based on gender rather than voter support.

Outside urban centres like Kabul and Herat, where Afghanistan’s only female chief prosecutor works, Afghan women are poorly represented in local government. The first female city mayor was appointed in Daikundi province last year.

HEALTH

Afghanistan has the second worst maternal mortality rate in the world, after Sierra Leone. For many women becoming pregnant is akin to a potentially fatal illness, the U.N. says. For every 100,000 live births, 1,600 women die in labour.

Poverty, rugged terrain and a shortage of female medical staff have contributed to the high maternal mortality rate. In remote northeast Badakhshan province, the rate is the world’s worst with 6,500 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. Although midwife numbers have increased over the past few years, it is still well under the 8,000 needed to help bring down the level of maternal mortality, the U.N. says.

EDUCATION

The number of girls and women in education has soared since the ousting of the Taliban in 2001, but is still poor by world standards. Just 24 percent of girls were in secondary education by 2007, with drop-outs highest among older students.

Cultural and religious practices still keep many girls from school, especially in rural areas. Even in Kabul, girls are often harassed and bullied by young men for attending school.

According to the ministry of education between January 2006 and December 2008, there were 1,153 attacks on schools, from small arms explosions to death threats. The majority of attacks, 40 percent, were against girls’ schools.

(Sources: World Health Organisation, Reuters reports, UNIFEM, World Bank, Afghan Ministry of Women’s Affairs and Afghan Ministry of Education) (Reporting by Golnar Motevalli; Editing by Rob Taylor) (golnar.motevalli@reuters.com; +93 708 871 211; Reuters Messaging: golnar.motevalli.reuters.com@reuters.net) (If you have a query or comment about this story, send an email to news.feedback.asia@thomsonreuters.com)

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Iranian prosecutor urges Islamic dress checks

July 19, 2010 By Leave a Comment

(Reuters) – Iran’s prosecutor called on Sunday for tighter checks on women who fail to observe Islamic dress code in public, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported.

Under Iran’s Sharia law, imposed after the 1979 Islamic revolution, women are obliged to cover their hair and wear long, loose-fitting clothes. Violators can receive lashes, fines or imprisonment.

“Unfortunately the law … which considers violation of the Islamic dress code as a punishable crime, has not been implemented in the country in the past 15 years,” said general prosecutor Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei.

“Under the law, violators of public chastity should be punished by being sentenced to up to two months in jail or 74 lashes.”

Strict dress codes were enforced in the years after the revolution but in recent years clamp downs have tended to last just weeks or months in summer, when women wear lighter clothing such as calf-length trousers and colored scarves.

Young women in urban areas often defy the limitations by wearing tight clothing and colorful headscarves that barely cover their hair. The codes are less commonly flouted in rural regions.

Enforcement of codes governing women’s dress have become stricter since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took office in 2005, promising a return to the values of the revolution.

The president’s hardline supporters, who say Islamic attire helps protect women against the sex symbol status they have in the West, have pressed for tighter controls on “immoral behavior.”

“It is up to the judge to decide whether to punish violators by only fining them,” said Mohseni-Ejei.

(Writing by Ramin Mostafavi; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

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Yemen language schools near-empty after militant student

June 5, 2010 By Leave a Comment

(Reuters) – When Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab enrolled in an Arabic course in Yemen last year, few who met him could have guessed what this withdrawn young man was really up to, nor the devastating impact he would leave behind.

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Staff at the now-deserted language center where he studied are still reeling from the actions of the Nigerian, suspected of trying to blow up a U.S.-bound plane in December, just weeks after leaving the Arabian peninsula country.

Adil Badi, a teacher at the Sanaa Institute for the Arabic Language, said radical Muslims such as Abdulmutallab, a student from a wealthy family who had no criminal record, had used the Arabic courses on offer in Yemen as a pretext for entering the country to meet fellow militants there.

“They had something else to do in Yemen but their excuse was to study Arabic,” Badi said.

Prized for the purity of its dialect and cheap living costs, Yemen was long a popular destination for students of Arabic. But over the years, a number of foreign militants have arrived in Yemen in the guise of Arabic students, only to join al Qaeda training camps.

Sherif Mobley, a U.S. citizen currently being held in Yemen on suspicion of belonging to al Qaeda, also first came to the country as a student of Arabic at a language institute, before attending a university run by prominent hardline Muslim cleric Sheikh Abdul-Majid al-Zindani, officials say.

Abdulmutallab was on his second visit to Yemen when he enrolled at the center in August 2009. When his visa expired in September, he disappeared for around two months, during which officials believe he moved to al Qaeda’s main hideout there.

Four months after the attempted bombing, an al Qaeda video showed Abdulmutallab attending a militant training camp in the desert and also showed footage of him in an apparent martyr’s farewell.

During this time, the former engineering student also met Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical U.S.-born preacher who is wanted dead or alive by Washington.

“His goals and objectives came prior to Yemen,” said Sabri Saleem, president of the Yemen College of Middle Eastern Studies, one of Sanaa’s oldest Arabic language schools. “He just came to implement.”

VISA BAN

Yemen has a long history with al Qaeda, whose resurgent regional wing has its base in the impoverished country and continues to attract Islamist militants from abroad.

Saleem’s institute keeps close tabs on its students, screening academic records, keeping track of their movements while they are in the country, and making them sign a declaration that they would adhere to the centre’s rules.

Of the 9,000 students who have passed through his school over the past two decades, Saleem said only one of them was radical, and that was John Walker Lindh.

Dubbed the “American Taliban,” Lindh was captured in 2001 during the Afghanistan war and jailed under a U.S. plea deal for 20 years for fighting alongside the Taliban.

The Yemeni government has made it clear that it does not believe Abdulmutallab was radicalized in Yemen, but that this happened in London, where he was a student.

But in the immediate aftermath of the attempted bombing, it banned visas issued at arrival in the airport.

Foreign Minister Abubakr al-Qirbi told Reuters that Yemen had also begun to screen individuals applying for tourist visas from its embassies abroad.

That U.S. and many European citizens could previously obtain visas at the airport had turned out to be a major security problem for the government, he said.

“That’s how some of these extremist groups managed to get into the country,” the minister said.

BAD FOR BUSINESS

While security concerns have kept potential students away for several years now, language schools say that enrolments have fallen sharply in the months since the failed plane attack, particularly as the government tightens visa restrictions.

Pictures displayed in the reception of the Sanaa Institute for the Arabic Language tell of better times. One shows a class listening attentively to the teacher, while in another a group of students poses in the now-empty garden outside.

“We are on the verge of bankruptcy,” said Badi, adding that he had only two students left, one from South Korea and the other from the United States.

Belman Sihombing, a chef from Indonesia who came to study Arabic with his wife and daughter, said his family only managed to obtain their visas with help from the school’s director.

“The visa was a problem from my embassy in my country. They wouldn’t give it to us because of the Nigerian trying to bomb the United States, so all embassies don’t give visas,” he said.

Saleem said recent events had hit his institution badly too.

This summer, Saleem’s center, which is accredited with over 100 universities across the world, will host 32 students, compared to 85 last year and 230 students in 2008, he said.

Concern over security in Yemen, which is also facing rising violence between government forces and separatists in the south and has just ended a bloody round of fighting with northern rebels, has long been an issue for his business.

“It was really building up, but the Nigerian was the worst case,” he said. “If I didn’t own the building we are in, then we would have closed by now.”

(Editing by Lin Noueihed)

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Somali Islamists seize pirate hub

May 4, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Heavily armed Islamist militants on Sunday seized Somalia’s port town and major pirate hub of Harardhere, meeting no resistance as pirates fled before their arrival, residents said.

Militants from the Hezb Al-Islam group had been advancing on Harardhere, 500 kilometres north of the capital Mogadishu, over the past few weeks and entered without a fight.

“The pirates emptied the town this morning after getting the information that Islamist fighters were about to enter town. I saw heavily armed militants enter the town on around 10 armed vehicles,” Abdulkadir Hasan, an elder in Harardhere said.

“There was not fighting because the Islamists did not encounter any resistance.”

Harardhere is one of three major pirate hubs in Somalia. As of late April, pirates operating from the Somali coast were holding 23 foreign vessels and 384 sailors awaiting the payment of ransom, maritime watchdog Ecoterra says.

The residents said the only militants who entered the town Sunday were from Hezb Al-Islam. Fighters from another hardline Islamist group, the Al Qaeda-inspired Shebab, have in recent days advanced on villages close to the town.

Ahmed Hasan Tubey, another witness, said the Hezb Al-Islam fighters chanted “Allahu Akbar” (God is great) as they entered the port town.

“They entered the town chanting Allahu Akbar, and took control of the police station and other positions,” he said.

Somalia’s hardline Islamists, who long condoned piracy, turned against the pirates after they started targeting vessels owned by Somali businessmen that were bringing food into the country.

Late last month Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage, a Shebab spokesman, said his group had previously seen the pirates as a positive force fighting illegal fishing off Somalia.

“But now they have interfered with Somali commercial interests by hijacking Somali vessels,” he said, adding: “We have decided to take immediate action against those gangs.”

But he insisted: “We will not be cooperating in any way with the foreign naval forces in the waters off Somalia that have ulterior motives.”

An international flotilla of warships has been patrolling waters off Somalia, one of the world’s busiest maritime routes, since 2008, in a bid to stop the hijackings.

Despite the patrols, Somali sea bandits operating in nimble skiffs and mother ships – from which the smaller boats take to the sea – have repeatedly managed to seize vessels for ransom.

The International Maritime Bureau (IMB) has reported a drop in the number of vessels hijacked in the first three months of 2010 compared to the same period last year.

Sixty-seven piracy incidents were reported since January compared to 102 in the first quarter of 2009, the Kuala Lumpur-based agency said in a report last month.

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Gogoi hopes for talks with Assam rebel groups

May 3, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Guwahati, May 3 (ANI): Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi hopes that with Bangladesh handing over National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) chief Ranjan Daimary alias D R Nabla, early talks with rebel groups operating in Assam could take place soon.

Speaking here on Sunday, Gogoi said: “We are still hoping that they give up violence and come forward for talks. The NDFB or the ULFA and everyone engaged in violence and thus various killings that took place in the state should come forward for talks. Lots of innocent people died in Dhemaji and other places in Assam. We want to say that problems cannot be solved through violence.”

Daimary who was handed over to India”s Border Security Force on Friday, is wanted in the 2008 Assam serial bomb blasts case and has been hiding in Bangladesh since then.
India had raised the matter with Bangladesh several times at various levels.

He is opposing the ongoing peace talks with the Union Government.

The Border Security Force (BSF), which took Daimary into its custody from the BDR, later handed him over to the Assam Police. The Assam Police has taken Daimary to Guwahati under tight security.

In October 1986, Daimary formed the Bodo Security Force, which was later renamed as the NDFB.

Though the NDFB, has entered into a ceasefire agreement with the Government in May 2005, but it has mostly flouted the ground rules of agreement.

After the 2008 blast, the NDFB split into two factions – one supporting the ceasefire, led by B Sungthagra alias Dhirn Boro – and the other hardline faction, led by Daimary.

Daimary”s faction claims it is the real NDFB and has sought to establish a separate Bodoland.

Daimary was suspended from the outfit by the other faction subsequently. (ANI)

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Somali rebels planning attack on Mogadishu port-sources

April 3, 2010 By Leave a Comment

* Boats and animals could be used to carry bombs

* Mogadishu port a target

By Abdi Guled

MOGADISHU, April 2 (Reuters) – Hardline Islamist insurgents have plans to attack the Somali capital’s seaport with vessels packed full of explosives, African Union peacekeepers and moderate Islamists said on Friday. Al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab fighters are waging a deadly insurgency against the fragile Western-backed government, intent on imposing a harsher version of Sharia law throughout the impoverished nation.

“We have information that al Shabaab want to use a boat laden with explosives to attack the seaport,” Major Barigye Ba-hoku, spokesman for the African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia (AMISOM), told Reuters.

“We don’t know when they might attack, but they are planning it,” he said.

The AU also received intelligence from inside al Shabaab that trucks and animals such as donkeys and dogs could be used to target African Union (AU) troops and destabilise President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed’s administration further.

“We know they are preparing trucks in the lower Shabelle region for suicide attacks,” said Ba-hoku.

CREDIBLE INTELLIGENCE

The moderate Islamist group Ahlu Sunna Waljamaca, which signed a power-sharing deal with the government last month, also said it had credible intelligence of a planned attack on Mogadishu’s port.

“We have concrete information that al Shabaab is planning to use boats to attack Mogadishu, Bossaso and Yemen ports,” said Sheikh Abdullahi Yusuf, an Ahlu Sunna spokesman.

More than 5,000 peacekeepers from Uganda and Burundi are deployed in Mogadishu, but their operations are largely restricted to protecting the port, airport and the presidential palace.

Clan rivalries have deprived Somalia of an effective government for nearly 20 years.

Western and neighbouring countries say the anarchic nation is a breeding ground for militants intent on launching attacks on east Africa and beyond.

It is also a base for pirates seizing foreign ships for ransom. The last week has seen a spike in attacks on vessels heading for and out of Mogadishu. (Editing by Richard Lough)

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Somali rebels planning attack on Mogadishu port-sources

April 3, 2010 By Leave a Comment

(Reuters) – Hardline Islamist insurgents have plans to attack the Somali capital’s seaport with vessels packed full of explosives, African Union peacekeepers and moderate Islamists said Friday. Al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab fighters are waging a deadly insurgency against the fragile Western-backed government, intent on imposing a harsher version of Sharia law throughout the impoverished nation.

World

“We have information that al Shabaab want to use a boat laden with explosives to attack the seaport,” Major Barigye Ba-hoku, spokesman for the African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia (AMISOM), told Reuters.

“We don’t know when they might attack, but they are planning it,” he said.

The AU also received intelligence from inside al Shabaab that trucks and animals such as donkeys and dogs could be used to target African Union (AU) troops and destabilize President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed’s administration further.

“We know they are preparing trucks in the lower Shabelle region for suicide attacks,” said Ba-hoku.

CREDIBLE INTELLIGENCE

The moderate Islamist group Ahlu Sunna Waljamaca, which signed a power-sharing deal with the government last month, also said it had credible intelligence of a planned attack on Mogadishu’s port.

“We have concrete information that al Shabaab is planning to use boats to attack Mogadishu, Bossaso and Yemen ports,” said Sheikh Abdullahi Yusuf, an Ahlu Sunna spokesman.

More than 5,000 peacekeepers from Uganda and Burundi are deployed in Mogadishu, but their operations are largely restricted to protecting the port, airport and the presidential palace.

Clan rivalries have deprived Somalia of an effective government for nearly 20 years.

Western and neighboring countries say the anarchic nation is a breeding ground for militants intent on launching attacks on east Africa and beyond.

It is also a base for pirates seizing foreign ships for ransom. The last week has seen a spike in attacks on vessels heading for and out of Mogadishu.

(Editing by Richard Lough)

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Bali bombing mastermind killed in police raid

September 17, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Jakarta, Sep. 17 (ANI): Terrorist mastermind Noordin Mohammed Top was killed in a police raid on a militant hideout in Central Java on Thursday, Indonesian police have officially confirmed.

The 41-year-old Malaysian-born extremist was one of four militants killed in the raid near Solo, national police chief Bambang Hendarso Danuri told reporters.

The terrorist, who was on the run for almost seven years, was identified using fingerprint analysis, Danuri said.

“He is Noordin M Top,” Danuri said, sparking a round of applause throughout the room.

Noordin led a hardline splinter group of terror organisation Jemaah Islamiah.

He was the suspected mastermind of July’s attacks on the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in Jakarta that killed seven, including three Australians.

Authorities believe he also masterminded a 2003 attack on the Marriott, a 2004 attack on Australia’s embassy in Jakarta and the 2005 Bali bombings that killed four Australians.

It’s believed he also helped plan the 2002 Bali bombings which killed 202 people, including 88 Australians.Police came close to catching Noordin several times but he always managed to elude capture.

Noordin’s death will be a major setback for Islamic extremists throughout Indonesia and Southeast Asia.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s office said it was aware of reports of Top’s death.

“We are awaiting official confirmation from the Indonesian government,” Fairfax News quoted a spokesman, as saying. (ANI)

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Pak Taliban spokesman arrested

September 12, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Peshawar, Sep.11 (ANI) The Pakistan Government on Friday announced that it had arrested the chief spokesman of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, Muslim Khan.

Khan was formerly a commander and spokesman of the Swat Taliban.

“Muslim Khan and Mahmood Khan with head money of 10 million rupees (120,482 US dollars) have been arrested by security forces in a successful operation in Swat,’ military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said in a statement.

Muslim Khan was second on the most-wanted list behind Mullah Fazlullah. He earned notoriety as the hardline Taliban spokesman in Swat but was largely impossible to reach after the military launched its summer ground and air assault.

Mahmood Khan was number four on the most-wanted list, described as commander of Kuza Banda in northern Swat.

“Along with them, three other terrorist leaders Fazle Ghaffar, Abdul Rehman and Sartaj have been also been apprehended,” the Dawn quoted Major General Abbas, as saying.

Pakistan says more than 1,900 militants and over 167 security personnel were killed in the offensive but the tolls are impossible to verify independently.

Answering a question on Muslim Khan’s arrest, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said it should be seen as a national success. (ANI)

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Hurriyat leader Geelani placed under house arrest

September 12, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Srinagar, Sep.11 (ANI): Jammu and Kashmir police on Friday placed leader of the hardline faction of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) under house arrest as a preventive measure.

The arrest was ordered to prevent protests against Indian rule during Friday prayers.

Geelani’s close aide Aiyaz Akbar told reporters here that the former had been told not to break through his security cordon.

The ailing Geelani, 79, was earlier set free by police on Wednesday after serving a three-month jail sentence for organising protests against the Shopian double rape and murder case.

The latest detention came hours after he led scores of Kashmiris in an anti-India demonstration in Srinagar.

Police and federal paramilitaries were monitoring Friday prayers during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

He had addressed a press conference at his residence Thursday afternoon and later led scores of his supporters who shouted anti-India and pro-freedom slogans. (ANI)

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Kashmir strike affects normal life

August 22, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Srinagar, Aug 22 (ANI): Normal life across the Kashmir Valley was affected on the second day of a general strike on Saturday.

Separatist organizations called for the strike to protest against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s statement on Kashmir.

Shops, business establishments, banks, educational institutions and government and semi-government institutions remained closed.

The effect of the strike was total in Baramulla, Bandipora, Kupwara, Ganderbal, Budgam, Anantnag, Pulwama, Kulgam and Shopian Districts.

In his Independence Day address Singh had said the “people of all areas of Jammu and Kashmir have participated vigorously in both assembly and parliamentary elections which is a proof that there is no place for separatist thought in the state.”

Objecting to Singh’s statement, the hardline Hurriyat faction headed by Syed Ali Shah Geelani called for the two-day strike. (ANI)

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British embassy official confesses to spying during trial in Iran

August 9, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Tehran (Iran), Aug. 9 (ANI): Britain’s troubled relations with Iran suffered a further setback as a British embassy official confessed to spying during a trial in Tehran, saying that Britain had provided financial assistance to Iran’s reformists to weaken the hardline clerical regime during the disputed presidential elections in June this year.

Hossein Rassam, a political analyst with the embassy, said the embassy had allocated a budget of 300,000 pounds to set up links with political groups, individuals and activists.

“My main responsibility was to gather information from Tehran and other cities by setting up contacts with individuals and other influential parties and political groups and send reports to London,” The Sunday Times quoted Rassam, as saying.

He further said that before the election he had personally made contact with the Mir Hossein Mousavi’s campaign headquarters.

Rassam also highlighted that due to Britain’s hostile policies towards Iran and fear of exposure, the embassy had employed local staff to establish such contacts.

Rassam was paraded in Tehran’s Revolutionary Square in a mass show trial along with numerous opposition figures who were accused of crimes, including rioting, spying and plotting a “soft overthrow” of the regime after the elections.

Meanwhile, Rassam has apologised for “his mistakes”, and appealed for mercy.

The charge of espionage carries the death sentence in Iran. (ANI)

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Shiv Sena wants houses in Mumbai for only for locals

July 14, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Mumbai, July 14 (ANI): In turf battle ahead of state polls in Maharashtra, Shiv Sena has promised houses in Mumbai to state’s bona-fide residents.

Having lost ground to its faction, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, over hardline political posturing, Shiv Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray led a bunch of party activists and supporters to the Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (MMRDA) head office demanding that non-Maharashtrians should be barred in that allotment of shelters.

“In another two to three months, Shiv Sena is confident of coming to power and then our government will provide 500 square feet area houses to Marathi ‘manoos’ (bona-fide residents of Maharashtra) to ensure that they need not go out of Mumbai to reside.

Marathi manoos is entitled to shelter and none else. This is our stand,” said Thackeray.

“In Mumbai, the houses are built by the MMRDA for the poor. These houses are also grabbed by builders. Immigrants from Bihar and Bangladesh are begging for accommodation whereas what we are demanding is proper accommodation from government which is our right,” he added.

The MMRDA last month announced that it would provide 43,000 homes at a rent starting as low as Rupees 800 per month.

The project is aimed at reducing the number of slums in Mumbai.

Shiv Sena members feel that the housing scheme doesn’t give preference to Maharashtrians and would encourage outsiders to settle in Mumbai.

Maharashtra will hold elections to state assembly by October and the migrants’ issue could swing votes. (ANI)

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Pak Army claims Swat, Buner cleared of Taliban militants

July 8, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Islamabad, July 8 (ANI): The operation in Swat and Buner has been completed and these areas have been cleared of militants, the Pakistan Army claimed today.

Addressing a press conference accompanied with Federal Information minister Qamar Zaman Kaira, military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said a meeting with Army chief Ashfaq Pervaiz Kayani was held to discuss the issue of IDPs.

Kaira said that the area had been cleared of “terrorists”, but a military statement issued Wednesday said that some pockets of resistance remained, The News reported.

The military claims to have killed about 1,600 militants in their northwest operation, but such tolls are impossible to verify.

As Swat operations wrap up, military and government officials have vowed to open up a second front against Pakistan’s main Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud, who is holed up in the lawless tribal areas along the Afghan border.

Major General Athar Abbas said that there are terrorists in some areas conducting activities, adding the extremists are being chased and their training centers have been razed.

He added the process of targeting the hideouts of extremists will continue for some time and the Pak Army will stay in Swat.

He said the army had “credible” information that Fazlullah was hit; said Major General Athar Abbas giving no further details about the hardline cleric’s condition.

“In one of the strikes, Fazlullah has been injured,” he said, adding that the air strike wounding the commander hit two days ago in Swat.

Armed Taliban marched into the district of Buner in April, putting Fazlullah’s fighters within 100 kilometres (60 miles) of the national capital Islamabad, and Pakistan unleashed its fresh military offensive.

Abbas said that the operation in Swat and two other northwest districts was almost over, but said the top leadership remained elusive, with many simply disappearing into the mountains of the rugged region, The News reported.

“We are constantly targeting militant leaders. They always keep themselves protected,” Abbas said. (ANI)

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Seven injured in fresh Kashmir clashes

July 2, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Srinagar, July 2 (ANI): At least seven persons, including a policeman were injured during fresh clashes across the Kashmir Valley on Thursday.

The police vehicle was set ablaze by a mob in Pulwama town. Two protesters — Nazir Ahmad Bhat and Pervaiz Ahmad — were critically injured when they were hit by the vehicle as the policeman tried to drive away. The protesters set the vehicle ablaze.

The driver, Mohammad Amin, was severely thrashed by the mob before he was rescued and admitted to hospital.

In Baramulla, protests continued for the fourth consecutive day against policemen being involved in the killing of four persons. Protests also took place in Shopian over the rape and murder of two women on May 30.

Police had to fire rubber bullets, burst teargas shells and used batons to disperse hundreds of demonstrators, who violated curfew in the old town of Baramulla.

Violent clashes also took place between police and groups of youth in nearby Sopore town, where authorities relaxed curfew for three hours in the morning, the sources said.

The government has already ordered a magisterial probe into the Baramulla incident and pulled out the CRPF yesterday. Police reinforcements have taken position in the town to maintain law and order, sources said, adding, at least 12 companies of police reached the town from Jammu last evening.

Demonstrations also took place in Srinagar. Several demonstrators shouted pro-freedom slogans near the Jamia Masjid under the banner of moderate faction of Hurriyat Conference.

Meanwhile, a general strike called by the hardline faction of the Hurriyat Conference paralysed normal life across the Kashmir Valley for the third consecutive day Thursday. (ANI)

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Strike is an injustice to common people: Omar Abdullah

July 2, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Srinagar, July 2 (ANI): As the strike call given by the hardline faction of the separatist Hurriyat Conference continued for the third consecutive day in Kashmir, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah termed it a grave injustice to the common people whose earnings have been seriously affected.

“The strike does not affect my earnings, it affects the poor people who earn in these two to three months and can use it for the rest of the year, be it houseboat owners, taxi drivers. It is pure injustice for these people,” Abdullah said.

“The people who call for strikes should understand this. If they want to punish the government they should look for other ways to do so. They are punishing common Kashmiris, which I believe is grave injustice,” he added.

Because of the strike during the tourist season, daily wage earners like labourers, taxi drivers, houseboat owners and shopkeepers are suffering the most.

“It is the labour class that is suffering. For employees, they take their salary by the end of the month, but it is the labourers who suffer,” said Reyaz Ahmad, a resident.

The strike was called against the killing of two civilians when police opened fire to quell protests in Baramulla district on Monday.

The protests erupted over the alleged misbehavior of policeman with a woman. (ANI)

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Separatists call strike in Kashmir over Baramullah killings

June 30, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Srinagar, June 30 (ANI): Roads in Srinagar wore a deserted look following the strike call given by the hardline faction of the separatist Hurriyat Conference Party over the killing of two youths in Baramullah district of the state.

“The call has been given by the Hurriyat to protest against killing of the two youths in Baramullah yesterday. So, strike is being observed in the whole valley,” said Shabir Ahmad, a resident.

Crfew continued without relaxation in Baramulla for the second successive day on Tuesday.

On Monday, at least two people were killed and 10 others injured, including policemen, after police resorted to firing to quell protests over an alleged misbehaviour with a local woman here on Monday.he dead were identified as Saleem Rashid Wani and Tariq Ahmad Malik.A probe has been ordered to investigate the firing incident and allegations of the woman.

The Additional Deputy Commissioner has been assigned the responsibility for probing the incident and submit the report within 10 days. (ANI)

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‘Barbaric’ Somalian Islamic radicals publicly chop off hands and legs of alleged thieves

June 27, 2009 By Leave a Comment

London, June 26 (ANI): In an appalling incident in the Somalian capital, Mogadishu, pro-Al Queda insurgents on Thursday used a machete to slice off a hand and a foot from each of four men accused of stealing mobile phones and guns.

The men screamed in pain, as some 300 spectators were compelled to watch the slaughter by the al-Shabaab fighters. Some of the onlookers even vomited while the amputations were in progress.

An ad-hoc court set up by the hardline al-Shabaab movement had earlier this week found the men, aged 18 to 25, guilty of stealing mobile phones and guns from residents in several Mogadishu suburbs.

“We have carried out this sentence under the Islamic religion and we will punish like this everyone who carries out these acts,” The Scotsman quoted al-Shabaab official Sheikh Ali Mohamud Fidow, as saying.

The punishments, which leading international human rights groups pleaded unsuccessfully with al-Shabaab to forego, have sent tremors through western diplomatic and intelligence communities.

Al-Shabaab openly expresses its support for al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, although intelligence sources said it has proved hard to identify what its formal links are to al-Qaeda. (ANI)

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Iranian football players banned for protesting against Ahmadinejad’s re-election

June 26, 2009 By Leave a Comment

London, June 24 (ANI): The Iranian football players, who wore green wristbands to protest against the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have reportedly been banned from the team for life. reen was adopted as the colour of Mir Hossain Mousavi’s campaign, and has been widely displayed in opposition street protests in Iran’s post-election turmoil.

At least seven Iranian players wore the bands in the first half against South Korea, although most were forced to take them off before the second.

A pro-government newspaper reported they had been “retired” from the national team after several members wore green tape on their wrists in a World Cup qualifier against South Korea in Seoul.

Other newspapers said the players were retiring voluntarily, reportedly because of their age, but at least one suggested they were forced out, The Telegraph reports.

The speculation focused on two players who both wore green wristband in Seoul: Ali Karimi, 31, and Mehdi Mahdavikia, 32. However, both had earlier announced plans to quit soon because of their age.

The Seoul incident was a gesture of solidarity with opposition leader Mir Hossain Mousavi whose supporters accuse the government of rigging Iran’s June 12 election in favour of the hardline Ahmadinejad.

Mahdavikia is one of Iran’s biggest sports heroes for a goal he scored to eliminate the United States during the first round of the World Cup in 1998. (ANI)

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Mousavi seeks to overturn Iran election result

June 14, 2009 By Leave a Comment

TEHRAN – Defeated candidate Mirhossein Mousavi demanded on Sunday that Iran’s presidential election be annulled and urged more protests, while tens of thousands of people hailed the victory of the hardline Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Mousavi’s supporters again took to the streets after violence on Saturday, clashing with police in protests that have underscored political rifts exposed by Friday’s disputed vote.

In a statement on his website, Mousavi said he had formally asked the Guardian Council, a legislative body, to cancel the election result.

“I urge you, Iranian nation, to continue your nationwide protests in a peaceful and legal way,” he added.

Mousavi’s supporters handed out leaflets calling for a rally in Tehran on Monday afternoon. After dusk some took to the rooftops across the city calling out “Allah Akbar” (God is greatest), an echo of tactics by protesters in the 1979 Islamic revolution.

The unrest that has rocked Tehran and other cities since results were declared on Saturday is the sharpest expression of discontent against the Islamic Republic’s leadership for years.

The election result has disconcerted Western powers trying to induce the world’s fifth biggest oil exporter to curb its nuclear programme. U.S. President Barack Obama had urged Iran’s leadership “to unclench its fist” for a new start in ties.

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden cast doubt on the election result but said Washington was reserving its position for now.

“It sure looks like the way they’re suppressing speech, the way they’re suppressing crowds, the way in which people are being treated, that there’s some real doubt,” he told NBC’s “Meet the Press” when asked if Ahmadinejad had won the vote.

Germany, one of Iran’s biggest trading partners and a negotiator in the West’s nuclear talks with Tehran, has summoned the Iranian ambassador, the foreign minister said.

“We are looking toward Tehran with great concern at the moment. There are a lot of reports about electoral fraud,” Frank-Walter Steinmeier told Germany’s ZDF television.

An adviser to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, said what was happening in Iran was “clearly not good news for anyone, neither for the Iranians nor for peace and stability in the world.”

SEA OF FLAGS

Ahmadinejad appeared amid a sea of red, white and green Iranian flags waved by partisans thronging Tehran’s Vali-e Asr square, some perched on rooftops or cars, to applaud the victory he achieved with a surprising 63 percent of the vote.

“Some … say the vote is disrupted, there has been a fraud. Where are the irregularities in the election?” he said in a speech that the crowd punctuated with roars of approval.

“Some people want democracy only for their own sake. Some want elections, freedom, a sound election. They recognize it only as long as the result favors them,” he declared.

Tarverdi Chegine, a 35-year-old government employee, told Reuters: “We have a very brave president. I love him.”

He said anti-Ahmadinejad protesters were not true Iranians. “They belong to the West. They belong to Bush. We are anti-Bush.”

After the rally, witnesses said Ahmadinejad and Mousavi supporters clashed on a main Tehran street. A Reuters reporter saw fires and broken glass on the street, people throwing stones, and riot police on motorbikes. One policeman was beating people on the pavement with a rubber truncheon.

About 2,000 students at Tehran University, some with Mousavi posters, others covering their faces with bandanas, chanted anti-government slogans and taunted riot police across the road outside. Some threw stones at police when they chased protesters who had tried to gather outside the university gates.

Abdul Reza, 26, standing behind the gates and watching as police charged the crowd outside, said: “Mousavi is the real president of Iran. Ahmadinejad did not win the election.”

Speaking at a news conference Ahmadinejad described the election as “clean and healthy” and dismissed complaints by defeated candidates as sour grapes.

He consigned Iran’s nuclear dispute to the past, signaling no nuclear policy change in his second term, and warned that any country that attacked his own would regret it. “Who dares to attack Iran? Who even dares to think about it?” he asked.

Iran’s refusal to halt nuclear work the West suspects is aimed at making bombs, a charge Tehran denies, has sparked talk of possible U.S. or Israeli strikes on its nuclear sites.

FRAUD REJECTED

Police have detained over 100 reformers, including a brother of former President Mohammad Khatami, a leading reformer said. A police official denied Khatami’s brother had been arrested.

Interior Ministry officials have rejected accusations of election fraud and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s top authority, has called on Iranians to back their president.

A senior Western diplomat in Tehran said he believed the authorities would soon subdue the street unrest, but said Ahmadinejad’s re-election battle had exposed a polarizing power struggle between radicals and moderate conservatives which could affect the Islamic Republic’s long-term stability.

“There is turbulence in the whole system,” he added.

A spokesman for Mousavi said his newspaper, Kalameh-ye Sabz, and its website had been shut down. Mobile telephone text services have also been interrupted in Tehran for several days, and the British Broadcasting Corporation said Iran was using “heavy electronic jamming” to interrupt its widely watched BBC Persian television service.

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