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Monday, January 23, 2012

ISI chief secretly meets Musharraf in Dubai


Lt General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the chief of the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), held a secret meeting with former President General (retired) Pervez Musharraf in Dubai advising him not to visit Pakistan, sources told DawnNews on Monday. “General Pasha, who has remained very close to the former president, held a meeting with him (Musharraf) in Dubai and advised him not to return to the country as the situation is not conducive for his return,” said an insider while requesting anonymity from this correspondent.The Senate on Monday also passed a resolution demanding the arrest of the former military ruler on his return. Interior Minister Rehman Malik also announced that Musharraf would be arrested the day he landed in Pakistan. The sources claim that Pasha strictly advised Musharraf to not to return. It is yet not clear whether the meeting was held on the directions of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party government or if it was a private meeting. However the sources insist that it was a private meeting between the two. The sources also claim that Pasha enjoys a long history of relations with the former dictator.In 2008, during the last year of Musharraf as president, Pasha was appointed to the key posting of Director General (DG) of Military Operations Directorate. Later General Kayani, after becoming the chief of Army Staff, promoted him as Lt Gen and appointed him the chief of the ISI.Currently two important cases against Pervez Musharraf have been registered in Pakistan. An Anti Terrorists Court (ATC) in Rawalpindi has already declared Musharraf a proclaimed offender in the Benazir Bhutto murder case. Musharraf was also nominated in Akbar Bugti’s murder case in Balochistan. The sources also claim that Musharraf, after meeting with the ISI Chief, called a meeting of his party on January 25th for revisiting his decision to return to Pakistan.

Man hurls shoe at Rahul Gandhi


Police arrested a man who has thrown shoe at Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi while he was addressing a rally in Vikasnagar in Uttarakhand. The shoe fell 10 meters short of the Congress general secretary, Dehra Dun Senior Superintendent of Police GN Goswami told media. The man who threw the shoe, identified as Kuldip, was immediately taken into custody, Mr Goswami said, adding that he was being interrogated. As the security personnel and Congress supporters grabbed Kuldip, Mr Gandhi was heard saying "don`t hit him". In recent days, Sonia Gandhi has also campaigned in Uttarakhand.

Afghan soldier ‘killed French troops over US abuse video’


An Afghan soldier who shot dead four French troops has said he did it because of a recent video showing US Marines urinating on the dead bodies of Taliban insurgents. The attack on the soldiers, who were unarmed, came on Friday at a base in eastern Afghanistan and left 15 other French troops wounded, eight of them seriously. “During the initial interrogations by French soldiers, he told them he did it because of the video in which American soldiers were urinating on bodies,” an Afghan army officer said.The report was backed by an intelligence source and another with access to information from the Afghan ministry of defence, both of whom requested anonymity. “In his initial confessions, he said that he was strongly motivated to kill the soldiers when he saw the video of a foreign soldiers urinating on Afghan corpses,” the intelligence source said. The Afghan soldier had also referred to a video showing British soldiers allegedly abusing Afghan children, the source with access to ministry of defence information said. Less than a week after news of the US Marines video broke, British military police arrested two servicemen over allegations that they abused an Afghan boy and a girl, both aged about 10, and filmed the incidents. A spokesperson for the British embassy in Kabul said an investigation into the allegations was under way and therefore the embassy could not comment on reports of the soldier’s claim. French Defence Minister Gerard Longuet said during a visit to Kabul at the weekend that he had been told the Afghan soldier who killed the four French troops was a Taliban infiltrator. But President Hamid Karzai did not make the same accusation in a statement Sunday, describing the attack as “an isolated and individual action”. The US video, posted online earlier this month, showed four US soldiers urinating on three bloodied corpses, and one of the men, apparently aware he was being filmed, saying: “Have a great day, buddy,” referring to one of the dead. The images conjured up previous abuses committed by US troops during the decade-long war against Taliban insurgents and top US officials scrambled to condemn the soldiers.