News Update Place

Updated at : Tuesday, January 08, 2008   JERUSALEM: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned Tehran in an interview published on Tuesday that it should cease its “provocations” after Iranian vessels confronted US warships in the Gulf.

“Iran should not engage in such provocations,” Rice said in an interview to a
newspaper and website in Israel after Washington said armed Iranian speedboats had threatened three US warships in the Strait of Hormuz.

“That’s what it was and it needs to stop. The US is going to defend its interests. It’s going to defend its allies,” Rice was quoted as saying.

Iran is “the single greatest threat to the kind of Middle East we all want to see,” she added.

The weekend incident, in which the Iranian boats radioed a threat to blow up the US ships, according to US officials, sent tensions rising ahead of the US President George W. Bush’s visit to the region.

“It was provocative, and that kind of provocation is dangerous,” Rice also told the BBC’s Arabic service. “I would sincerely hope that the Iranians would refrain from any such activity.”

The Strait of Hormuz is a crucial energy supply route, with about 20-25 per cent of the world’s crude oil passing through from Gulf oil producers.

The US Fifth Fleet is based in Bahrain and US Navy officials say about three dozen US and coalition warships are in the region at any one time. The aircraft carrier USS Harry Truman currently is in the Gulf.

“The United States under this president has sent a very strong signal that America has strong interests in the Gulf, that the United States will continue to defend its interests in the Gulf, and this goes back for decades,” Rice told the BBC.

At least 15 people are feared to have been killed in two separate suspected suicide attacks against security forces in Pakistan.

A suicide bomber rammed a car into a defence ministry bus outside an intelligence service office in garrison city of Rawalpindi on Saturday.

Another bomber blew up his vehicle outside Pakistan’s army headquarters.

Al Jazeera correspondent Kamal Hyder said: “The blast outside the intelligence agency was very powerful and the casualties are likely to be in the dozens.”

The blasts were powerful and the death toll is said to be rising

Reports of the number of people killed in the attack varied, with the Reuters news agency reporting at least 15 people were killed. (more…)

At least thirteen people have been killed in a series of explosions that ripped through courthouse complexes in three north Indian cities, officials said.

The blasts on Friday were reported from Lucknow, Varanasi and Faizabad, all in the populous state of Uttar Pradesh, according to the police.

The blasts were reported in three cities across
the state of Utter Pradesh

“I believe it is the handiwork of groups who are trying to spread terror in our country,” Sriprakash Jaiswal, junior home minister, said.

But Padam Kriti, spokesman of the state’s Bar Association, said that this year the state’s lawyers had decided not to defend suspects held on “terror” charges.

He said “it looks like” that decision may have been behind the blasts.

Carnage

Nine people were killed, including three lawyers, in the Hindu holy city of Varanasi and four more people died in Faizabad, according to J N Chamber, the Uttar Pradesh state home secretary.

He said three blasts were reported from Varanasi and two each in Lucknow and Faizabad.

Vipin Mishra, a spokesman for the home ministry of Uttar Pradesh state, where all three cities are located said the blasts in Varanasi killed two lawyers and injured at least 12 others.

The blasts went off less than 15 minutes apart inside court complexes, but not in courtrooms, Mishra said.

NDTV news channel showed what appeared to be at least one dead man lying on a pavement, with other wounded people were lying nearby.

Lucknow is the capital of the state and Varanasi is a popular Hindu pilgrimage centre.

At least 15 people were killed and 60 wounded there in three explosions in 2006.

NOUAKCHOTT (Mauritania), Nov 6: At least 45 African migrants have died of cold and thirst after their boat ran aground in the Atlantic Ocean trying to reach Europe, a Mauritanian security official said on Tuesday.

Mauritanian soldiers who discovered the beached vessel on Monday also found 98 survivors aboard the boat, which had set sail from Senegal some 20 days ago, trying to reach Spain’s Canary Islands.

Of those survivors, six were in a coma and two died during the night at a hospital in Mauritania’s second city of Nouadhibou. Four others were in a critical condition. According to the official, the dead were “victims of cold, thirst and hunger and (they) were thrown overboard by the survivors”.

The group left Senegal’s southern city of Ziguinchor on Oct 16 and a week ago, the boat’s engine broke down off Morocco. Currents and winds drove it aground at Laguerra, on Mauritania’s border with Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara.

A Red Cross official reached by phone from the capital confirmed the survivors were extremely tired.

“We are helping with feeding, medicine and with hospital care,” a local Red Cross official Mohamed Ould Hamada said.

Local administrative officials said the migrants were mainly from Senegal, with a few from Mali, Guinea-Bissau and Gambia.

An unknown number of migrants die every year trying to reach the Canaries.

The Canary Islands have been a magnet in recent years for mainly sub-Saharan immigrants aspiring to reach Europe after a security crackdown in Morocco and two Spanish enclaves there.

Recent days have seen an upsurge of departures despite the stepped-up maritime patrols off Africa’s Atlantic coast by the European Union border agency Frontex, which cooperates with some west African nations.

The surveillance system is considered water tight, but migrants try to avoid it by setting sail from the unmonitored Gambian waters and later take on to the international waters.—AFP

BAGHDAD, Nov 6: The US military said on Tuesday it will release nine Iranians detained in Iraq in recent months, including two seized in a swoop in the Kurdish city of Arbil in January accused of fomenting violence.

US military spokesman Rear Admiral Gregory Smith told reporters that the nine will be released in the coming days as none of them posed a threat to security in Iraq.

The Americans are known to be holding at least six Iranians they accused of aiding the anti-American insurgency or helping Shiite militias involved in a vicious sectarian conflict.

“It is our intention to release nine Iranians currently held captive in the near future,” Smith said.” These individuals have no continuing value, nor do they pose a further threat to Iraqi security.” US forces detained five Iranians in January in a raid in a building in Arbil, accusing them of aiding the deadly insurgency in Iraq, although Tehran insisted they were diplomats.—AFP

MILAN (Italy), Nov 6: The Italian government said on Tuesday it had “decapitated” a pan-European network recruiting suicide bombers, with raids targeting 20 suspects in Italy, France and Portugal.

The “very important operation has decapitated a jihadist network that operates across Europe … with the aim of preparing men to send to the Iraqi and Afghan theatres,” Interior Minister Giuliano Amato told a news conference in Rome.

The group primarily consisted of Tunisians, Amato said, adding that the operation was carried out in cooperation with security forces of several other countries.

“Looking at the places involved, it is clear that there’s a terrorist network that knows no boundaries and that operates clandestinely in many countries,” Amato said.

Eleven people were arrested in Italy, including 10 in various parts of northern Italy and one in southern Calabria, the ANSA news agency said, adding that three apartments served as logistical bases, two in the Milan area and one in Reggio Emilia, also in the north.

Nine other suspects are sought in France, Portugal and Britain under European arrest warrants issued by a Milan court.

A Tunisian suspect was arrested in a Paris suburb, French officials said, while another suspect was picked up in Portugal, the Portuguese news agency LUSA reported.

The raids in Italy uncovered remote electronic detonators and poisons, as well as instructions on guerrilla warfare techniques, ANSA said.

Investigators also found evidence of psychological training, according to Milan anti-terrorist prosecutor Nicola Piacente.

“During a telephone call there was a conversation in which a person pretended to be in a car full of explosives,” Piacente said.

He said there was evidence that moderate Muslim countries were targets as well as Iraq and Afghanistan.

Officers were searching for foreign nationals suspected of having formed “jihadist” cells, ANSA said, adding that the investigation had begun in 2004.

The suspects are also accused of falsifying identity documents allowing them to travel clandestinely from one European country to another.

The investigation stemmed from the break-up in 2002 of a radical Islamist cell based in Italy with connections in France.

A bi-annual report in August warned that Italy faces “heightened risks” of attack and an influx of Muslim radicals, and cited 60 threats in the first half of 2007.

Italy saw a “rise in Islamic meeting places which, even if they are primarily organised and frequented by law-abiding people, remain potentially exposed to infiltration by radicals,” the report said.

It highlighted “networks of north African origin” while stating that “interactions or contacts with other radical milieux” from the Balkans, the Middle East or central Asia were also possible.

An Iraqi said to be close to Al-Qaeda was arrested at Venice airport in September on suspicion of belonging to a group blamed for several kidnappings and attacks in Iraq.Hussein Saber Fadhil was allegedly planning to go to Iraq to carry out attacks using aircraft to be purchased from an Italian firm.—AFP

BAGHDAD, Nov 6: Six American troops have been killed in bomb attacks in Iraq, the US military said on Tuesday, making 2007 the deadliest year for the American forces since the invasion.According to a tally based on Pentagon figures, 851 US soldiers have died so far this year in Iraq, against 846 in 2004, the previous most lethal year for the American military since the US-led invasion of March 2003.

“We lost five soldiers yesterday (Monday) in two unfortunate incidents.

Both involving IEDs (improvised explosive devices). There is still much danger out there,” Rear Admiral Gregory Smith told reporters in Baghdad.

Another military statement announced the death of a sailor from wounds sustained in a explosion in the Salaheddin province on Monday. The US military’s overall losses in Iraq since the invasion four years ago have now reached 3,856, according to a tally based on Pentagon figures.

The military also announced that Iraqi forces have uncovered a mass grave con-

taining 22 bodies near a vast lake northwest of Baghdad.

The grave was discovered on Saturday near Thar Thar lake, which spans the central-west provinces of Anbar and Salaheddin, during an operation by US and Iraqi forces targeting Al Qaeda hideouts, it said.

Despite the latest bout of killings, US and Iraqi officials say violence levels have fallen significantly across Iraq since a US troop “surge” ordered by US President George Bush in February.

With an extra 28,500 US troops on the ground, they say, the number of bombings and shootings has dropped to levels not seen since before February 2006, when a wave of sectarian violence was unleashed by the bombing of a Shiite shrine in the city of Samarra.

Rear Admiral Smith told the Baghdad news conference that because of the surge as well as an increasing trend by Iraqis to tip off the security forces, the number of arms caches being uncovered in Iraq had increased significantly.—AFP

LAHORE, Nov 6: Lawyers continued their countrywide protest campaign and boycott of courts for a second day on Tuesday against the imposition of emergency and arrest of judges.

Dozens of lawyers were arrested in various cities and towns, including Lahore, Multan and Quetta, when they tried to take out rallies.

In Islamabad, the Constitution Avenue was declared out of bound for lawyers and the general public to stop protesters from reaching the Supreme Court.

In Multan, lawyers clashed with police when they tried to come out of the high court and district bar premises.

A number of lawyers suffered injuries. Police later arrested over a dozen lawyers.

In Lahore, police arrested around two dozen lawyers from the Lahore High Court, Aiwan-i-Adl and Cantonment Courts.

The judges, who have taken oath under the Provisional Constitutional Order, did arrive to attend to their duties but had nothing much to do in the absence of lawyers and litigants.

In Peshawar and several towns of the NWFP, lawyers boycotted the courts and clashed with police. Policemen in civvies and uniform had replaced the general public normally seen busy pleading and seeking justice.

Cameramen and photojournalists were stopped from entering the premises

ISLAMABAD, Nov 6: Ruling Pakistan Muslim League president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain has said that the state of emergency should not last more than three weeks.

“I’m sure it will end in two to three weeks as President Pervez Musharraf is aware of the consequences of long emergency rule,” he told Dawn here on Tuesday.

“Nobody is in favour of emergency. It was promulgated reluctantly by the chief of the army staff,” the PML chief said, rejecting some politicians’ view that it was a “virtual martial law”.

Asked if general elections would be held as planned earlier, he said that “postponing the elections may favour some individuals or parties but not us”. He did not elaborate.

Chaudhry Shujaat ruled out any possibility of a pre-poll arrangement with the Pakistan People’s Party. “This could be considered after the general elections in which we will be rivals,” he added.

“But we are ready to meet PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto and her aides to discuss steps which may help improve the political climate and ensure transition to full democracy,” he said.

Answering a question, he said the PML was fully geared to contest elections on the basis of its government’s performance.

Chaudhry Shujaat rejected opposition’s allegation that polls would not be held in a free, fair and transparent manner under President Gen Musharraf and that the ruling party would be allowed to rig them.

“Gone are the days when elections could be easily manipulated,” he said, adding that after the lifting of the state of emergency, political parties would start a fully-fledged election campaign.

Asked about Monday’s rumours relating to President Musharraf, the PML chief said the army was fully behind the president and, therefore, there was no question of his ouster. “This could be a wishful thinking of some people but I can assure you that Musharraf is not going anywhere”.

He said that the rumours had been spread by speculators and as a result people lost Rs186 billion in the stock market.

He said political parties, members of the civil society and print and electronic media should join hands for restoration of full democracy in Pakistan as early as possible.

APP adds: Meanwhile, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said that the PML and allied parties fully supported President Musharraf’s decision to impose emergency in national interest.
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