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Sunday, December 27, 2009

Karachi, Muzaffarabad blasts: Several injured


Several people have been injured in blasts in Karachi and Muzaffarabad on Sunday. In Karachi, the blast was occurred in Qasba coloney just before the passing of Muharram prosessions from the area. At least 20 people including Rangers and Police officials have been injured. Relief activities have been started. The injured have been shifted to nearby hospitals where emergency was declared after the blast. Police and Rangers have reached the spot and cordonned off the area. According to police sources, the blast was done with a remote control device. In Muzaffarabad, 6 people have been injured in a blast at CMH road while firing

World's fastest train introduced in China


China on Saturday unveiled what it billed as the fastest rail link in the world -- a train connecting at an average speed of 350 kilometers an hour. The super-high-speed train reduces the 1,069 kilometer journey to a three hour ride and cuts the previous journey time by more than seven and a half hours, the official said. Work on the project began in 2005 as part of plans to expand a high-speed network aimed at eventually linking Guangzhou, a business hub in southern China near Hong Kong, with the capital Beijing. "The train can go 394.2 kilometers per hour, it's the fastest train in operation in the world," said officials.

Elite U.S. Force Expanding Hunt in Afghanistan


Secretive branches of the military’s Special Operations forces have increased counterterrorism missions against some of the most lethal groups in Afghanistan and, because of their success, plan an even bigger expansion next year, according to American commanders. The commandos, from the Army’s Delta Force and the Navy's  classified Seals units, have had success weakening the network of Sirajuddin Haqqani  the strongest Taliban warrior in eastern Afghanistan, the officers said. Mr. Haqqani’s group has used its bases in neighboring Pakistan to carry out deadly strikes in and around Kabul, the Afghan capital. Guided by intercepted cellphone communications, the American commandos have also killed some important Taliban operatives in Marja, the most fearsome Taliban stronghold in Helmand Province in the south, the officers said. Marine commanders say they believe that there are some 1,000 fighters holed up in the town.
Although Obama and his top aides have not publicly discussed these highly classified missions as part of the administration’s revamped strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, the counterterrorism operations are expected to increase, along with the deployment of 30,000 more American forces in the next year. The increased counterterrorism operations over the past three or four months reflect growth in every part of the Afghanistan campaign, including conventional forces securing the population, other troops training and partnering with Afghan security forces, and more civilians to complement and capitalize on security gains. American commanders in Afghanistan rely on the commando units to carry out some of the most complicated operations against militant leaders, and the missions are never publicly acknowledged. The commandos are the same elite forces that have been pursuing Osama Bin laden, captured Saddam Hussein in Iraq in 2003 and led the hunt that ended in 2006 in the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader in Iraq of the insurgent group Al-Qaeda in MesopotamiaIn recent interviews here, commanders explained that the special-mission units from the Joint Special Operations Command were playing a pivotal role in hurting some of the toughest militant groups, and buying some time before American reinforcements arrived and more Afghan security forces could be trained. “They are extremely effective in the areas where we are focused,” said one American general in Afghanistan about the commandos, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the classified status of the missions. Gen. David H. Petraeus, who is in charge of the military’s Central Command, mentioned the increased focus on counterterrorism operations in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Dec. 9. But he spoke more obliquely about the teams actually conducting attacks against hard-core Taliban extremists, particularly those in rural areas outside the reach of population centers that conventional forces will focus on. “We actually will be increasing our counterterrorist component of the overall strategy,” General Petraeus told lawmakers. “There’s no question you’ve got to kill or capture those bad guys that are not reconcilable. And we are intending to do that, and we will have additional national mission force elements to do that when the spring rolls around.” Senior military officials say it is not surprising that the commandos are playing such an important role in the fight, particularly because Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the senior American and NATO officer in Afghanistan, led the Joint Special Operations Command for five years. In addition to the classified American commando missions, military officials say that other NATO special operations forces have teamed up with Afghan counterparts to attack Taliban bomb-making networks and other militant cells. About six weeks ago, allied and Afghan special operations forces killed about 150 Taliban fighters in several villages near Kunduz, in northern Afghanistan, a senior NATO military official said. Some missions have killed Taliban fighters while searching for Pfc. Bowe R. Bergdahl, who was reported missing on June 30 in eastern Afghanistan. The Taliban in July posted a video on jihadist Web sites in which the soldier identified himself and said that he had been captured when he lagged behind on a patrol. A second video was released on Friday. “We’ve been hitting them hard, but I want to be careful not to overstate our progress,” said the NATO official, speaking on the condition of anonymity in order to describe the operations in detail. “It has not yet been decisive.” In Helmand, more than 10,000 Marines, as well as Afghan and British forces, are gearing up for a major confrontation in Marja early next year. Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, the senior Marine commander in the south, said in a recent interview, “The overt message we’re putting out is, Marja is next.” General Nicholson said there were both “kinetic and nonkinetic shaping operations” under way. In military parlance that means covert operations, including stealthy commando raids against specific targets, as well as an overt propaganda campaign intended to persuade some Taliban fighters to defect. Military officials say the commandos are mindful of General McChrystal’s directive earlier this year to take additional steps to prevent civilian casualties. In February, before General McChrystal was named to his current position, the head of the Joint Special Operations Command, Vice Adm. William H. McRaven, ordered a halt to most commando missions in Afghanistan, reflecting a growing concern that civilian deaths caused by American firepower were jeopardizing broader goals there. The halt, which lasted about two weeks, came after a series of nighttime raids by Special Operations troops killed women and children, and after months of mounting outrage in Afghanistan about civilians killed in air and ground attacks. The order covered all commando missions except those against the top leaders of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, military officials said. Across the border in Pakistan, where American commandos are not permitted to operate, the CIA has stepped up its missile strikes by Predator and Reaper drones on groups like the Haqqani network. But an official with Pakistan’s main spy agency, the ISI directorate, or I.S.I., said there had also been more than 60 joint operations involving the I.S.I. and the C.I.A. in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and Baluchistan in the past year. The official said the missions included “snatch and grabs” — the abduction of important militants — as well as efforts to kill leaders. These operations were based on intelligence provided by either the United States or Pakistan to be used against the Taliban and Al Qaeda, the official said. “We can expect to see more U.S. action against Haqqani,” a senior American diplomat in Pakistan said in a recent interview. The increasing tempo of commando operations in Afghanistan has caused some strains with other American commanders. Many of the top Special Operations forces, as well as intelligence analysts and surveillance aircraft, are being moved to Afghanistan from Iraq, as the Iraq war begins to wind down. “It’s caused some tensions over resources,” said Lt. Gen. Charles H. Jacoby Jr., the second-ranking commander in Iraq.

Afghan war museum displays past's horror



Afghan human rights activists have opened the country's first war crimes museum on the site of a mass grave, taking a first step towards national reconciliation for victims of atrocities. At the foot of the snow-capped Hindu Kush mountains stands a tall, white marble monument and, nearby, the single-storey museum which leading rights advocate Nader Nadery said represents the Afghan public's demand for justice. The museum aims to commemorate the deaths of tens of thousands of people in the past four decades of war and revolution that have blighted Afghanistan. Inside the museum, glass cases display a vast and heartbreaking array of objects found in the mass grave outside Faizabad, capital of remote northeastern Badakhshan province. Torn pieces of cloth, mangled shoes, rusty handcuffs and small personal belongings such as prayer beads and false teeth bear testimony to lives violently snuffed out and bodies tossed like garbage into a hole in the ground. Hundreds of photographs, mostly black and white, of teenage boys and elderly men with beards and turbans -- and every age in between -- adorn the walls. “The demand from the public for justice led us to establish this human rights victims war museum,” Nadery, a senior commissioner with the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), told AFP at its opening. “The objective is to make sure the victims are remembered and that war crimes never happen again,” he said, adding: “It's like the Holocaust museum.” Dozens of activists, officials and relatives of the victims gathered for the opening ceremony last Tuesday. Sima Samar, head of the AIHRC and a nominee for this year's Nobel peace prize won by US President Barack Obama, told them the monument could remind “passers-by (to) say a prayer for the victims and curse those responsible.” Mass killings The decision to build the monument followed the discovery here in 2006 of a mass grave containing the remains of more than 300 people. The victims were murdered in a “systematic mass killing” of people believed to have been opponents of Afghanistan's communist regime, which took power in 1978, sparking a nationwide armed resistance which lasted 10 years and cost millions of lives, Samar said. AIHRC has registered more than 100 mass graves, some of them containing up to 1,200 bodies, under a programme launched in 2007, Nadery said. The atrocities continued in the post-communist era when resistance fighters turned on each other in a bloody power struggle after defeating the Russians, who had invaded the country to protect the pro-Moscow regime in Kabul. Once again tens of thousands of civilians lost their lives, in fighting and mass killings similar to that in Faizabad, in the 1992-1996 civil war which was concentrated in Kabul, a city that still bears the scars. The United Nations estimates that more than 80,000 Afghan civilians died in that war. Despite the presence in the country of international troops following the 2001 overthrow of the Taliban -- another brutal regime which took over amid the chaos of the 1990s civil war -- the crimes did not end, Nadery said. With the country now in the grip of an Islamic insurgency -- and the 113,000 foreign troops fighting under US and NATO command to be boosted in the coming year by another 37,000 -- Afghan civilians are still victims of both sides, dying in insurgent attacks and counter-insurgent operations alike. Thousands of civilians have died in crossfire between militants and security forces since the 2001 invasion. Scores of others have been captured and reportedly tortured by Afghan and foreign forces. Nearly 1,100 civilians have died in violence in the past six months, according to the latest UN figures, showing a 24 per cent increase compared to the same period last year. 'We want justice' The litany of atrocities has prompted rights activists to call for justice. At the end of 2006 President Hamid Karzai signed a “Peace, Reconciliation and Justice Action Plan” that seeks to establish accountability and could lead to the trial of those responsible for war crimes. But the South African-style plan for what is called “transitional justice” remains unfulfilled as rights groups accuse the government of “unwillingness” to take action. “The main reason the government lacks the political willingness to deal with this issue stems from the fact that there are some people within the government who feel threatened by the prospect of having to be accountable for their actions and deal with the past,” Nadery said. The main targets of his concern are the strongmen and former militia commanders accused of war crimes now sharing government with Karzai. Ignoring warnings from his Western backers, the US, NATO and the UN, Karzai appointed Marshal Mohammad Qasim Fahim, a notorious warlord, as his vice president before the August presidential election which he won.

Nigerian charged with attempt to blow US airline



Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab of Nigeria has been charged with an attempt to bomb a US airline. However, neither Al-Qaeda nor any other such group has been charged in this regard. Meanwhile, UK police raided the house of Umar, mastermind of the US airline bomb plan, in London.

Iran police deny protester deaths



Iranian authorities have denied claims by opposition websites that at least four people have been killed in clashes between protesters and police in central Tehran. The websites on Sunday said the victims were killed as police used live ammunition and tear gas to disperse them.But Azizollah Rajabzadeh, the Tehran police chief, insisted that no protester had been killed. "So far there have been no reports of killings and no one has been killed up to now,"  Rajabzadeh was quoted by the Iran Students News Agency as saying. However, pictures linked on the Twitter microblogging site appeared to show a man with a wound to his head being carried away by opposition protesters.The clashes in Tehran came as the country's Shia Muslims marked Ashoura, a religious event commemorating the 7th century death of Prophet Muhammad's grandson. Amateur video footage posted on the internet, said to be from the protest, showed protesters running away from riot police or Basij militias on motorbikes.

PPP ready to give sacrifices for democracy: Zardari



President Asif Ali Zardari has said that Pakistan People’s Party is ready to give any sacrifice to uphold democracy in the country, saying that “We are the people who tread the path of martyrs”.  Zardari stated this while addressing a gathering consisting PPP members at Naudero, Garhi Khuda Bux after paying respects to Benazir Bhutto on her 2nd death anniversary on Sunday, Dunya News reported. Zardari posed a question whether he was criticized for giving political approval to the war on terror, for protecting the rights of Balochistan or for giving a unanimous NFC award to the nation? Zardai said that it was the incumbent government that first take up the Balochistan issue and got a unanimous NFC award after 19 years. He added that his government has resolved all the issues unanimously. He said he raised the slogan of ‘Pakistan Khappay’ for country’s stability. He noted that his government did not want clash between the institutions. He warned the political actors against luring the masses and vowed not to let anyone derail democracy in the country, saying that PPP nourished it with its own blood. Is Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto blamed for uniting the broken Pakistan, for making it an atomic power, for giving the poor their rights or for making the first constitution of country?, Zardari questioned. Zardari pledged to continue the mission of ZA Bhutto and added that PPP believes in the politics of reconciliation. He hailed the party workers and vowed to strengthen democracy in the country.