Iran arrests 13 terrorist group members: report

June 14, 2010 By Leave a Comment

(Reuters) – Iran said on Sunday it had arrested 13 members of a terrorist group that authorities in the Islamic state say carried out attacks on minority Sunnis, state television reported.

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The armed group was linked to the Islamic state’s “foreign enemies,” state television said, using a phrase that usually refers to the United States and Israel.

“The group was directly involved in last year’s assassination of a Sunni Friday prayer leader … a Sunni member of an influential clerical body … and a Sunni religious leader,” an Intelligence Ministry statement said, television reported.

The ministry did not identify the group nor say whether those detained were Sunni rebels in southern Iran or Kurdish separatists based in mountainous areas close to the borders with Iraq and Turkey.

According to state television, Intelligence Ministry agents who detained the 13 suspects at locations around the country, also seized 10 bombs and 500 kg of explosives from the group, which had planned more attacks.

Sectarian violence is relatively rare in Iran, whose Shi’ite leaders reject allegations by Western rights groups that it discriminates against ethnic and religious minorities.

Many Sunnis live in southeastern Iran, which has seen an increase in bombings and clashes between security forces, ethnic Baluch Sunni insurgents and drug traffickers.

Iranian officials often accuse the United States and Israel of supporting terrorists. The both dismiss such allegations.

Washington and its European allies accuse Iran of trying to build a nuclear bomb under cover of a civilian programme. Iran denies any such intention.

(Reporting by Hossein Jaseb, Writing by Parisa Hafezi; Editing by Jon Boyle)

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Iran arrests 13 terrorist group members-state TV

June 14, 2010 By Leave a Comment

June 13 (Reuters) – Iran said on Sunday it had arrested 13 members of a terrorist group that authorities in the Islamic state say carried out attacks on minority Sunnis, state television reported.

The armed group was linked to the Islamic state’s “foreign enemies”, state television said, using a phrase that usually refers to the United States and Israel.

“The group was directly involved in last year’s assassination of a Sunni Friday prayer leader … a Sunni member of an influential clerical body … and a Sunni religious leader,” an Intelligence Ministry statement said, television reported.

The ministry did not identify the group nor say whether those detained were Sunni rebels in southern Iran or Kurdish separatists based in mountainous areas close to the borders with Iraq and Turkey.

According to state television, Intelligence Ministry agents who detained the 13 suspects at locations around the country, also seized 10 bombs and 500 kg of explosives from the group, which had planned more attacks.

Sectarian violence is relatively rare in Iran, whose Shi’ite leaders reject allegations by Western rights groups that it discriminates against ethnic and religious minorities.

Many Sunnis live in southeastern Iran, which has seen an increase in bombings and clashes between security forces, ethnic Baluch Sunni insurgents and drug traffickers.

Iranian officials often accuse the United States and Israel of supporting terrorists. The both dismiss such allegations.

Washington and its European allies accuse Iran of trying to build a nuclear bomb under cover of a civilian programme. Iran denies any such intention. (Reporting by Hossein Jaseb, Writing by Parisa Hafezi; Editing by Jon Boyle)

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Security guards drugged in $5 mln Iraq bank robbery

May 29, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Robbers in Iraq stole 6.5 billion Iraqi dinars ($5.5 million) from a state-owned bank on Friday, assisted by a security guard who spiked his colleagues’ tea, police officials said.

“According to the information available to the security forces, one of the guards drugged his colleagues by putting a drug in their tea,” Najaf province security committee head Louai al-Yasiri told Reuters.

After the drinks were spiked, armed men entered the Rafidain bank in the town of al-Mishkab, Najaf province, shortly after midnight and made off with the loot, said Yasiri.

The drugged security guards have since recovered and no other casualties were reported.

The bank robbery followed a gold heist on Tuesday in Baghdad, when gunmen shot dead 14 people and stripped a row of goldsmiths of gold and cash in a bustling trade market normally heavily guarded by police.

The Iraqi government blamed the gold robbery on Sunni al Qaeda insurgents, trying to finance their operations.

Security officials say there are strong links between organised crime and the diminished but adapting insurgency.

Despite sectarian violence at a low ebb not seen since late 2003, shootings and bombings by militants and criminal gangs remain common.

Yasiri said police had evidence suggesting who might have been behind the bank robbery and the investigation was ongoing.

(Reporting by Khalid Farhan in Najaf, writing by Muhanad Mohammed; Editing by Michael Taylor)

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Gunmen attack worshippers in Pakistan’s Lahore

May 29, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Gunmen attacked worshippers from a minority sect in two areas of the northeastern Pakistani city of Lahore on Friday, government and police officials said, but there was no immediate word about casualties.

The gunmen opened fire shortly after Friday prayers and threw what could have been grenades at two Ahmadi mosques in residential neighbourhoods in Pakistan’s cultural capital.

Some gunmen were still holed up inside one mosque in Model Town, one of the neighbourhoods, police said.

“Some gunmen have managed to enter the worship place. We have surrounded it. I have no idea of casualties,” Illyas Saleem, a senior police officer in Model Town, told Reuters.

Witnesses said the attacks started shortly after prayers.

“I saw some gunmen run towards the Ahmadis’ place of worship and then I heard blasts and gunfire,” Mohammad Nawaz, a resident, told Reuters.

Ahmadis are a minority Muslim sect founded in the late 19th century. Pakistan is the only Muslim state to have declared Ahmadis non-Muslims.

Its 4 million-odd members have seen their religious rights in overwhelmingly Muslim Pakistan curtailed by law.

Pakistan, a key U.S. ally in the fight against militancy, is often the scene of sectarian violence, with militants from Sunni Muslim groups attacking Shi’ite Muslim and Christian communities.

(Reporting by Mubasher Bukhari in Lahore and Kamran Haider in Islamabad; Editing by Chris Allbritton and Paul Tait)

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Fresh appeals lodged in Iraqi election impasse

May 24, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Election officials in Iraq said on Sunday they had received new appeals stemming from March’s parliamentary election but did not expect more than a brief delay in ratification of the results.

A political vacuum since the inconclusive vote is fuelling tension, with a proposed Shi’ite alliance causing concern that minority Sunnis could be pushed to the sidelines.

A cross-sectarian bloc led by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi won a two-seat victory, with the heavy backing of Sunni voters. Allawi has warned that any attempt to marginalise his bloc in a new government could trigger renewed sectarian violence.

The major Shi’ite groups, incumbent Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s State of Law and the Iraqi National Alliance, which has close ties to Shi’ite neighbour Iran, have announced plans to unite to form the largest bloc in parliament.

Allawi, a secular Shi’ite, visited Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s most revered Shi’ite cleric, on Sunday in the holy city of Najaf in southern Iraq.

In the capital, election officials said they had received four new appeals from candidates who lost their seats in the new 325-seat parliament after a recount of votes cast in Baghdad.

“We have received four appeals from candidates — not blocs — and certainly this will delay sending the results to the federal (Supreme) court for approval,” said Amal al-Biraqdar, deputy head of Independent High Electoral Committee (IHEC).

Monday is the last day for electoral appeals, which the court of appeals should rule on within 10 days. The results will then be sent to the Supreme Court for certification.

IHEC commissioner Saad al-Rawi said he did not expect the court of appeals to take long in reviewing the latest complaints, “a day or two, not more”.

The delay in the formation of a new government has rattled nerves, and the prospect of the Sunni minority losing out on a place in power is fuelling fears of a slide back into broader sectarian bloodshed.

The alliance between State of Law and INA would be just four seats short of a governing majority in the parliament, but they have yet to agree on who becomes prime minister.

Speaking to reporters in Najaf, Allawi said Sistani was not taking sides.

“He does not support a certain bloc or oppose any bloc. he does not have a veto against any side,” he said. Sistani, he added, “stresses the need to accelerate the formation of the government”.

A source within Sistani’s office said the Grand Ayatollah had urged “all blocs” to contribute to a new government.

(Additional reporting by Muhanad Mohammed in Baghdad and Khalid Farhan in Najaf; Writing by Matt Robinson; Editing by Alison Williams)

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Election recount starts in Iraq

May 4, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Election officials in Iraq have begun recounting millions of votes from March’s parliamentary elections to counter allegations of ballot fraud.

The initial count named former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi as the winner by a slim two-seat majority over incumbent prime minister Nouri al-Maliki.

But Mr Maliki refused to accept the result and demanded a recount, accusing the election commission of using improper counting procedures.

Officials have begun recounting 2.5 million ballot papers – a process that could take at least 10 days and may reverse Mr Allawi’s win.

The delay in forming a new government could stoke new sectarian violence because a change in the result would anger Iraq’s Sunni minority, which voted in force for Mr Allawi’s coalition.

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Hospital blast kills 10 in Pakistan

April 17, 2010 By Leave a Comment

A suicide bomber has killed 10 people, including a TV journalist and senior police officials, in a suspected attack against Sh’ite Muslims inside a hospital in Pakistan’s southwestern city of Quetta.

A member of parliament from the ruling Pakistan People’s Party was among the scores wounded in the attack outside the emergency ward of the hospital in Quetta, the provincial capital of Baluchistan, officials said.

“Ten people, including two senior police officials, were killed in the attack and another 47 wounded,” provincial police chief Rehmatullah Niazi said.

A cameraman from the private TV news channel Samaa was among the dead, while five other reporters were injured. They were in the hospital to cover the arrival of the body of a Shi’ite man killed in a drive-by shooting earlier in the day.

Another senior police official said it was a suicide attack. The official said it appeared to be a sectarian attack against Shi’ites.

Police said 15 kilograms of explosives were used in the bomb that badly damaged the emergency ward building. Broken window glass and pools of blood marked the scene of the attack.

Shi’ite Muslims are a minority in Pakistan, which is about 80 per cent Sunni, and thousands of people have been killed in sectarian violence across the country in the past 30 years.

The country’s biggest and poorest province of Baluchistan has also suffered a decades-long low-level insurgency by Baluch separatists who are demanding more provincial autonomy and control of its resources.

The leadership council of the Afghan Taliban, known as the Quetta shura, is widely believed to be based in Afghan refugee camps outside the city, although Pakistani officials deny that.

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Egypt sectarian clashes up, gov’t action weak-study

April 12, 2010 By Leave a Comment

CAIRO, April 11 (Reuters) – Egypt must face up to increasing sectarian violence and prosecute offenders in order to stave off a further rise in such attacks, a rights group said on Sunday.

“The state does not have a plan to quash sectarian tension and it does not even acknowledge its existence,” Hossam Bahgat, director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, said at a news conference to launch the study.

The group’s study found the number of cases of sectarian violence rose between 2008 and 2009 in the overwhelmingly Muslim nation where Christians make up some 10 percent of the 78 million population.

It identified 53 examples of clashes, with 24 in 2008 and 29 last year, saying many cases were not being investigated sufficiently or had been ignored.

In one high-profile case, six Coptic Christians were killed in a drive-by shooting in Nagaa Hamady, south of Cairo, on Coptic Christmas eve on Jan. 7 by Muslims who blamed the Christian community in the rape of a Muslim girl.[ID:nLDE60C0FZ]

Several Muslims accused of the shooting are facing trial.

But activists say the government tends to act only in the biggest cases and in some instances works to block a victim from pursuing legal action against the suspected attackers.

“Authorities pressure the victims to renounce their rights the very moment they step into the police station,” Bahgat said.

He said the state, as well as religious leaders on both sides who wanted to emphasise religious harmony, were sweeping incidents under the carpet rather than dealing with them openly.

SPILLING OVER

The government routinely plays down the significance of any clashes as isolated incidents.

The study found Minya, a governorate south of Cairo, had the highest percentage of clashes, with one case every 35 days in 17 villages, with rows often spilling over from village to the next. No one had been referred to trial in any of those cases.

“We fear the smallest clashes will explode into bigger sectarian conflicts,” Bahgat said.

“Our nightmare will be when it triggers violence, quickly spilling over into entire governorates and beyond.”

Clashes in Egypt have started over property rows or relationships between a couple from different religions.

But the study said it was more common for a minor non-religious dispute to escalate into retribution against a whole community. It cited examples of rows over livestock ownership or schoolyard fights turning into broader clashes.

The rights group noted some improvements with the Ministry of Religious Endowments beginning to send Muslim preachers to villages in southern Egypt to promote religious tolerance. But it said more work needed to be done.

“When you have a problem you fail to address for 40 years, it will continue to deteriorate,” Bahgat said.

(Editing by Michael Roddy)

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Egypt sectarian clashes up, gov’t action weak-study

April 12, 2010 By Leave a Comment

CAIRO, April 11 (Reuters) – Egypt must face up to increasing sectarian violence and prosecute offenders in order to stave off a further rise in such attacks, a rights group said on Sunday.

“The state does not have a plan to quash sectarian tension and it does not even acknowledge its existence,” Hossam Bahgat, director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, said at a news conference to launch the study.

The group’s study found the number of cases of sectarian violence rose between 2008 and 2009 in the overwhelmingly Muslim nation where Christians make up some 10 percent of the 78 million population.

It identified 53 examples of clashes, with 24 in 2008 and 29 last year, saying many cases were not being investigated sufficiently or had been ignored.

In one high-profile case, six Coptic Christians were killed in a drive-by shooting in Nagaa Hamady, south of Cairo, on Coptic Christmas eve on Jan. 7 by Muslims who blamed the Christian community in the rape of a Muslim girl.[ID:nLDE60C0FZ]

Several Muslims accused of the shooting are facing trial.

But activists say the government tends to act only in the biggest cases and in some instances works to block a victim from pursuing legal action against the suspected attackers.

“Authorities pressure the victims to renounce their rights the very moment they step into the police station,” Bahgat said.

He said the state, as well as religious leaders on both sides who wanted to emphasise religious harmony, were sweeping incidents under the carpet rather than dealing with them openly.

SPILLING OVER

The government routinely plays down the significance of any clashes as isolated incidents.

The study found Minya, a governorate south of Cairo, had the highest percentage of clashes, with one case every 35 days in 17 villages, with rows often spilling over from village to the next. No one had been referred to trial in any of those cases.

“We fear the smallest clashes will explode into bigger sectarian conflicts,” Bahgat said.

“Our nightmare will be when it triggers violence, quickly spilling over into entire governorates and beyond.”

Clashes in Egypt have started over property rows or relationships between a couple from different religions.

But the study said it was more common for a minor non-religious dispute to escalate into retribution against a whole community. It cited examples of rows over livestock ownership or schoolyard fights turning into broader clashes.

The rights group noted some improvements with the Ministry of Religious Endowments beginning to send Muslim preachers to villages in southern Egypt to promote religious tolerance. But it said more work needed to be done.

“When you have a problem you fail to address for 40 years, it will continue to deteriorate,” Bahgat said.

(Editing by Michael Roddy)

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Baghdad blasts kill 11, destroy buildings

April 7, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Coordinated blasts destroyed four buildings and killed up to 11 people across Baghdad on Tuesday, authorities said, bringing the number killed around the capital in the last five days to 70.

The surge in violence comes amid prolonged uncertainty over who will form the next government nearly a month after a parliamentary election that produced no clear winner. Coalition negotiations could take months more.

A police source said the blasts had killed 11 people and wounded 30 more. An official with the Health Ministry put the toll at four dead and 75 wounded, with others trapped under the rubble.

The blasts took place in the Shula and Chukook districts of northwestern Baghdad, the al-Shurta al-Rabaa area of southwestern Baghdad and the Alawi district in the centre of the city, the sources said.

A suicide bomber struck near the former British embassy in central Baghdad, an Interior Ministry source said.

The explosions hit the capital two days after coordinated suicide car bomb attacks on foreign embassies killed 41 people and wounded more than 200 others. The Iranian, Egyptian and German embassies appeared to be the targets.

Gunmen also attacked a village south of Baghdad and killed 24 people on Friday.

NO CLEAR WINNER

Iraqi security forces had predicted a possible upturn of violence following the March 7 election, which highlighted Iraq’s sectarian divide.

The top two coalitions, the cross-sectarian Iraqiya bloc of former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and the State of Law bloc led by Shi’ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, finished just two seats apart. Neither won enough to form a majority government.

All of the major coalitions are involved in talks to form a new government.

After the last parliamentary election in 2005, sectarian violence exploded as politicians took five months to reach agreement on a government.

(Additional reporting by Aseel Kami; Writing by Ian Simpson and Jim Loney; Editing by Jon Hemming)

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Iraqi PM’s call for recount rejected

March 22, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Iraqi prime minister Nuri al-Maliki’s called for a nationwide recount of votes from the country’s March 7 parliamentary election has been rejected by the country’s electoral authority.

Mr al-Maliki had been warning the country could return to violence if his demand was not met.

The call came after new results from the electoral commission showed on Saturday secularist challenger Iyad Allawi edging ahead of Maliki’s bloc by about 8,000 votes with about 93 per cent of the counting complete.

Iraqi president Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, also issued a statement on Sunday asking the Independent High Electoral Commission for a recount in some provinces.

The tight race portends weeks or months of difficult negotiations ahead to form a new government, raising the prospect of a political vacuum that could set back Iraq’s fragile security gains.

“There are demands from several political blocs to manually recount the votes and to protect the democratic experience and preserve the credibility of the political process,” said Mr Maliki, a Shiite who won over many Iraqis with his nationalist rhetoric and steps to crush sectarian violence.

“I call on the High Electoral Commission to respond immediately to the demands of those blocs to preserve the political stability and prevent the security situation from deteriorating and avoid the return of violence.”

The vote counting process has been dogged by allegations of fraud and irregularities.

But Faraj al-Haidari, the head of the electoral commission, questioned the need for a recount.

“Why should we respond to do a manual counting? Why? For what reason?” he said.

“If there is a glitch, they can file a complaint and say there was a glitch in that station.

“They say they want a manual count, but this is up to the commissioners’ board to decide. We do an accurate electronic count.”

Mr Maliki and Mr Allawi have been locked in a neck-and-neck race and the lead in the popular vote has changed hands several times.

The country’s divided vote is a reminder of its precarious democracy as it emerges from the shadow of war and years of sectarian slaughter unleashed by the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

Violence fell sharply over the past two years but a tenacious insurgency keeps Iraq under siege as US troops prepare to withdraw by 2012.

- Reuters

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Nigerian village on alert after bloody attack

March 19, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Security forces in Nigeria are again on high alert following an attack on a village near the city of Jos, which killed at least 13 people.

Hundreds of people have been killed in sectarian violence in the area in the past few months.

A dusk-to-dawn curfew has been enforced by the Nigerian military around the city of Jos since January, but still people are being brutally murdered.

In the latest violence, witnesses say Muslim herders disguised as soldiers attacked a predominantly Christian village killing more than a dozen people, mostly women and children.

The attackers struck at night and reportedly used machetes to butcher their victims before burning homes.

Survivors say some of their relatives are still missing.

The killings are believed to be related to a feud between the nomadic Muslim group Fulani and the Berom, who are Christian farmers.

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Car bomb in Iraq’s Falluja kills 7, wounds 20: police

March 16, 2010 By Leave a Comment

(Reuters) – A car bomb in Iraq’s western Anbar province killed seven civilians and wounded 20 others on Monday, as Iraq struggles to end years of sectarian violence after a pivotal national vote.

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The bomb exploded in a car parked about 150 meters(500 feet) from an army patrol in the city of Falluja, some 50 km (30 miles) west of Baghdad, police said.

“The blast rocked the area and I found myself suddenly on the floor,” said 30-year-old Mohammed Abdullah, a shopkeeper who was wounded in the blast. “Once I saw the smoke and the burning car, I immediately knew it was a bomb.”

Anbar had been relatively quiet since Sunni Muslim tribal leaders in 2006 turned on Sunni Islamist groups like al Qaeda, who had once dominated the vast desert province.

Overall violence in Iraq has fallen in the last two years, but insurgents continue to strike in Anbar and other restive areas such as northern Nineveh province.

Last week’s vote is seen as a crucial test for Iraq’s young democracy, and will help decide whether the country can avoid relapse into violence as U.S. forces prepare to withdraw by the end of 2011.

(Reporting by Fadhel al-Badrani; editing by Rania El Gamal and Ralph Boulton)

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Murder charges likely over Nigerian massacre

March 12, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Nigerian authorities are planning to lay murder charges against 49 people accused of involvement in the massacre of villagers at the weekend.

Nigerian police say most of those facing charges of murder are Muslim militants from the Fulani ethnic group.

It is alleged that gangs armed with machetes attacked predominantly Christian villages near the city of Jos, hacking to death women and children.

Initial reports claimed as many as 500 people had been killed, but local police now say just more than 100 people died.

The region remains tense and hundreds of people have fled their home fearing further attacks.

Soldiers are enforcing a dusk-to-dawn curfew in and around Jos, which has increasingly become a flashpoint for sectarian violence.

SMS: Nigerian authorities are planning to lay murder charges against 49 peo

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No LeT, JeM operatives in Pak CID’s latest ‘Red Book’ of wanted terrorists

August 29, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Lahore, Aug.29 (ANI): Pakistan Punjab province’s Crime Investigation Department (CID) has released its 12th ‘Red Book’ containing names of most wanted high profile terrorists.

The book, which also includes the names of those involved in sectarian violence, mentions a combined head money of 54 million rupees announced by the Punjab government for the militants.

Incredibly, the book which contains the names of 91 most dreaded terrorists does not have names of any of the Laskar-e-Taiba (LeT) operatives or Jaish-e-Mohammad militants.

The Red Book is divided into three categories. The first category names 20 individuals involved in suicide attacks. Out of these, 12 carry head money, while the CID is still collecting the information on the remaining eight, The Daily Times reports.

The terrorists named in the book are also accused of planning suicide attacks in Bahawalpur and Mailsi, training recruits, operating terrorist training camps and links with the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

Outlawed terrorist outfits such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) may be on the US’s list of most dreaded terror groups, but it seems Pakistan does not consider them dangerous as far as the Criminal Investigation Department’s (CID) recently released ‘Red Book’ of terrorists is concerned. (ANI)

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Thai troops kill two suspected separatists in deep South

May 28, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Pattani, Thailand – Thai troops killed two suspected Muslim separatists in the troubled province of Yala where insurgents set off eight bombs and fires on Wendesday, police said Thursday.

The two suspected separatists were killed in a joint police-army ambush at 8 pm Wednesday as they returned to Yaha district of Yala, 700 kilometres south of Bangkok.

“We think these two men were members of a new group who have recently received training in a neighbouring country,” Yaha Police Captain Thannapon Yawapak said.

According to military intelligence, more than 500 Muslim youths have left their homes in the Yaha neighbourhood to receive military training in the “neighbouring country,” Thannapon said. Thailand’s deep South – a majority Muslim region comprising Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala provinces – has been the scene of escalating sectarian violence over the past five years. More than 3,700 people have died in clashes, beheadings, bombings and assassinations.

On Wednesday, insurgents set off bombs and fires in eight different locations in Yala, killing no one but causing more than 100 million baht (2.9 million dollars) in damages.

Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban and army chief Anupong Paojinda travelled to the south Thursday to assess security measures in the region.

After five years of violence in the Muslim-majority three-province region bordering Malaysia, there is no sign of an abatement in the conflict.

Of the 300,000 Thai Buddhists who lived in the region, about 70,000 have left since separatists raided an army depot in January 2004, killing four soldiers and making off with 300 weapons, leading to an escalation of the region’s long-simmering separatist struggle.

The incident sparked a series of brutal government crackdowns on the separatist movement, which turned much of the area’s 2 million people, 80 per cent of whom are Muslim, against the central government.

Although the region, which centuries ago was the independent Islamic sultanate of Pattani, was conquered by Bangkok about 200 years ago, it has never wholly submitted to Thai rule.

Analysts said the region’s Muslim population, the majority of whom speak a Malay dialect and follow Malay customs, feels alienated from the predominantly Buddhist Thai state.(dpa)

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PRESS DIGEST – Washington Post – April 13

April 13, 2009 By Leave a Comment

WASHINGTON, April 13 (Reuters) – The Washington Post included the following items on its front page on April 13 Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

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MOMBASA, KENYA – An American captain held hostage for five days by Somali pirates in a lifeboat adrift in the Indian Ocean was rescued unharmed Sunday in a surprise U.S. military operation in which snipers killed three pirates with the captain tied up just feet away, American military officials said. A fourth pirate was in U.S. custody.

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As bargain hunters turn their attention to foreclosures, many are discovering the toughest challenge is dealing with the banks that repossessed the homes. The closer buyers get to the settlement table, the greater the potential for bureaucratic bungling and the chance the buyers will give up.

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SAMARRA, Iraq – The destruction of the venerated mosque Samarra in 2006 has come to be seen as the spark for the terrible sectarian violence that gripped Iraq. Now, the Iraqi government holds up the holy city as evidence that peace is possible, even in the country’s most contentious areas. But the quiet here is a brittle one, where Shiites exercise dominance and alienated Sunnis wallow in resentment.

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‘Teenage suicide bombers don’t act out of religious fervour’

April 8, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Islamabad, April 7 (IANS) The teenage suicide bomber of the kind who struck at a Shia mosque in Pakistan’s Punjab killing at least 24 people, including four children, did not act out of religious fervour ‘but under coercion or brainwashing’, an editorial in a leading English daily said Tuesday.

Another editorial welcomed the ‘change’ in that the interior minister had refrained from finger wagging at neighbouring countries and had admitted that a Pakistani was involved in Sunday’s attack in which 35 people were injured.

‘The suicide-bomber was just 17 years old and certainly did not know what he was doing. Now we know enough about this kind of terrorism to know that children who do the dirty work don’t do it out of religious fervour but under coercion or brainwashing,’ Daily Times said in an editorial.

Noting that ‘these children are business for some renegade madrassas and their clergy’, it added: ‘The going rate for a suicide-bomber is from Rs.600,000 to Rs.800,000.

The editorial also pointed out that Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud ‘has announced that he will strike Pakistan twice a week. And he is said to have 300 children suicide-bombers in reserve’.

Daily Times also saw the Sunday attack as part of the efforts of the Taliban and Al Qaeda to drive a wedge between Shias and Sunnis.

‘Baitullah Mehsud has the Shias of Orakzai and Kurram Agencies under his heel; he has wrested control of such Shia community towns in the NWFP as Hangu and Kohat, the last one Pakistan’s major air force centre, to force the Shias to live under fear,’ the editorial noted.

As for Al Qaeda, it ‘let’ slain commander Abu Musab Al Zarqawi ‘start killing’ Shias in Iraq and, in the 1990s, had ‘tolerated sectarian violence’ by Pakistani terror group Lashkar-e Jhangvi ‘whose boys were trained in its camps in Afghanistan’, the editorial contended.

Then, Taliban chief Mullah Umar ‘always declined to hand over the killers to Pakistan as they fled into his territory.

‘Now, sectarianism also makes strategic sense for terrorist groups because its fallout plugs into the larger mayhem they have planned to unleash on Pakistan to bring the state down to its knees,’ Daily Times added.

On its part, The News termed as ‘a positive development’ the ‘admission’ by Interior Minister Rehman Malik that the Sunday bombing and other recent terrorist attacks, including that on a police check post in Islamabad that killed eight Frontier Corps personnel, ‘are the work of Pakistanis’.

‘It is not clear how, why or when this light has suddenly dawned on the man responsible for safeguarding our security, but certainly it makes a change from the past tendency to immediately point fingers in the direction of neighbouring countries,’ The News maintained.

‘This is the doing of our own people. Cover-ups and a refusal to face what is happening to our country will take us nowhere. We must hope the interior advisor’s admission can lead to action to deal with the elements who have set up base everywhere in the country and today threaten its very survival,’ the editorial contended.

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Obama says Iraq entering critical phase

April 8, 2009 By Leave a Comment

U.S. President Barack Obama pushed Iraq’s feuding factions to compromise on Tuesday, sounding a note of impatience as he said Iraqis should take responsibility for their country so U.S. troops could leave.

Obama, whose troop withdrawal strategy assumes Iraq staying relatively stable over the next 18 months, voiced concern that elections late this year could bring unresolved political issues “to a head” in a country that is only slowly emerging from years of sectarian violence in which tens of thousands died.

He flew to Baghdad on a previously unannounced trip to meet U.S. military commanders and Iraqi leaders and assess security there first-hand.

The strategy Obama announced after taking office in January aims to wind down the six-year war launched by his predecessor George W. Bush, seeking to withdraw all U.S. combat troops by the end of August 2010 and other forces by the end of 2011.

“It is time for us to transition to the Iraqis. They need to take responsibility for their country … In order to do that they need to make political accommodations,” Obama told some 1,500 cheering troops at the sprawling Camp Victory U.S. base military just outside Baghdad.

Iraq experts worry that recent security gains could unravel if Iraqi factions fail to compromise on issues such as sharing oil revenues more equitably and giving Sunni Arabs, who formed the backbone of an insurgency, greater say in political life.

The Shi’ite-led government, which includes minority Kurds and Sunni Arabs, has made some reforms but often failed to reach agreement on the political issues that really matter.

Iraqi officials said both sides agreed in their meetings with Obama that recent security gains needed to be matched by progress in political accommodations.

“Iraq is an important country, and it depends on political leaders for its administration toward prosperity and development in a civilised manner,” the three-member presidency council led by President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, said after they met Obama.

Obama’s visit to Baghdad, which lasted just over four hours, was shrouded in the security-conscious secrecy that marked similar trips by Bush, whose legacy was defined by the war he launched in 2003 to topple Saddam Hussein.

The trip was made known only after Air Force One, flying from Istanbul at the end of Obama’s first major international tour, had touched down at Baghdad International Airport.

Obama met the top U.S. commander in Iraq, General Raymond Odierno, and also held talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, Talabani and the two vice presidents.

His arrival came a day after a string of seemingly coordinated bombings across the Iraqi capital killed 37 people. On Tuesday, a car bomb killed nine people in a Shi’ite district in northwest Baghdad, police said.

His position on the war was a defining distinction between Obama and Bush, said Iraq government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh.

“The Iraq war is not Obama’s war, and he wants to bring about a withdrawal. President Bush would often talk about a long-term presence of American troops in Iraq, whereas Obama wants a withdrawal as quickly as possible, that’s the difference, and that is positive for Iraq,” he said.

‘CRITICAL PERIOD’

Under Obama’s Iraq strategy, the roughly 140,000 U.S. troops now there will be drawn down to between 35,000 and 50,000 by the end of August 2010. Those staying until 2011 will concentrate on training Iraqi forces.

“This is going to be a critical period, these next 18 months,” Obama told U.S. troops at Camp Victory. “You will be critical in terms of us being able to make sure Iraq is stable, that it is not a safe haven for terrorists, and we can start bringing our folks home.”

Odierno told Obama that even with the recent spike in bombings, violence was at its lowest level since 2003, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

But, underscoring the fragile security, U.S. officials ruled out any idea of Obama travelling by motorcade into Baghdad after bad weather forced the cancellation of a planned helicopter trip into the city to meet Iraqi leaders. Instead, Maliki and Talabani went to Camp Victory for talks with Obama.

The sectarian warfare and insurgency unleashed by the 2003 U.S.-led invasion have receded sharply over the past year, but Iraqi security forces still face huge challenges as they take on policing and military operations from the United States.

Maliki, speaking after his talks with Obama, urged foreign firms to return and invest in Iraq, saying the country was now more stable.

NATIONAL ELECTION

Iraq held its most peaceful elections since the invasion when a provincial ballot in January passed without a single major militant attack. But U.S. and Iraqi officials say tensions between rival factions are likely to rise ahead of a national election later in the year.

“We’ve made significant political progress. You’ve seen a greater willingness on the part of all the factions in Iraq to resolve their issues politically and through non-violent means. But with the national elections coming up many of the unresolved issues may be brought to a head,” Obama warned.

The fate of the city of Kirkuk, which sits on rich oil reserves and is claimed by Kurds as their ancestral capital, amid growing tensions between Kurds in their semi-autonomous region in the north and Arabs in Baghdad could ignite Iraq’s next big ethno-sectarian conflict, analysts warn.

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