The Star Online: World Updates
The Star Online: World Updates |
- Key al Qaeda man said killed in Pakistan drone strike
- FACTBOX - Yemen's Ali Abdullah Saleh
- Syria forces killed 70 protesters Friday - activists
| Key al Qaeda man said killed in Pakistan drone strike Posted: 04 Jun 2011 09:20 PM PDT ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A U.S. drone strike killed a senior al Qaeda figure in northwest Pakistan after a tipoff from local intelligence, Pakistani intelligence officials said on Saturday.
But a U.S. National Security official in Washington said he could not confirm the report and warned it could be premature. The elimination of Ilyas Kashmiri, regarded as one of the most dangerous militants in the world, would be another coup for the United States after American special forces killed Osama bin Laden in a garrison town close to Islamabad on May 2. More cooperation from Islamabad could help repair ties with ally Washington, badly damaged when it was discovered that bin Laden had apparently been living in Pakistan for years. One Pakistani intelligence official in Islamabad and three in the northwest said Kashmiri had been killed. "We are sure that he (Kashmiri) has been killed. Now we are trying to retrieve the bodies. We want to get photographs of the bodies," said the Pakistani intelligence official in Islamabad. Kashmiri was wrongly reported to have been killed in a September 2009 strike by a U.S. drone. It is difficult or impossible to get confirmation of the identities of those killed in drone strikes because they take place in remote areas not accessible to foreign journalists. A Pakistani television station quoted the group Kashmiri headed, Harkat-ul Jihad Islami (HUJI) which is allied to al Qaeda, as saying the latest report was true. "We confirm that our Amir (leader) and commander in chief, Mohammad Ilyas Kashmiri, along with other companions, was martyred in an American drone strike on June 3, 2011, at 11:15 p.m.," Abu Hanzla Kashir, who identified himself as a HUJI spokesman, said in a statement faxed to the station. "God willing ... America will very soon see our full revenge. Our only target is America." The U.S. National Security official expressed doubts about the statement. Its authenticity could not be independently verified. Britain's Channel 4 News said the death had been confirmed by a senior HUJI commander and close aide of Kashmiri. Kashmiri, said to be a former Pakistani military officer, and other militants were with an Afghan Taliban member involved in liaison with the Pakistani Taliban when the drone missile struck, said the intelligence official. He said they were in a house in South Waziristan, close to the Afghan border in northwest Pakistan, that was believed to be the HUJI headquarters of Kashmiri's group, which has been described as an operational wing of al Qaeda. "We were closing in on him and he switched off his satellite phone and cellphone and he wanted to cross the border to Afghanistan to find a hiding place," the Islamabad official added. "It was a tipoff by us since we were closely monitoring his movements." Five of his close allies were killed in the attack by a pilotless drone aircraft, intelligence officials said. U.S. ASKED PAKISTAN TO GO AFTER KASHMIRI The killing of bin Laden aroused international suspicions that Pakistani authorities had been complicit in hiding him, and led to domestic criticism of them for failing to detect or stop the U.S. team that killed him. U.S. scepticism of claims of Kashmiri's demise may be further evidence of deep distrust between Pakistani and U.S. intelligence services public pledges by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other American officials that relations had improved. Kashmiri was on a list which Washington gave Pakistan of militants it wanted killed or captured, a Pakistani official said. Drone strikes have increased under the Obama administration, sometimes killing civilians and fuelling anti-American sentiment. While Pakistani leaders publicly criticise the attacks, analysts say killing high-value targets would not be possible without Pakistani intelligence. Washington reiterated its call on Pakistan to crack down harder on militancy after it was discovered that bin Laden had been living in the country. The U.S. Department of State has labelled Kashmiri a "specially designated global terrorist". He has been linked to attacks including the 2008 rampage through the Indian city of Mumbai which killed 166 people. The Pakistani media has speculated that Kashmiri was the mastermind of an attack on the PNS Mehran naval base in Karachi last month which humiliated the Pakistani military. (Additional reporting by Saud Mehsud in Dera Ismail Khan, Hafiz Wazir in South Waziristan, Faisal Aziz in Karachi, Mark Hosenball and Myra MacDonald in London; writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Jon Boyle) Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by USA Best Price. | ||
| FACTBOX - Yemen's Ali Abdullah Saleh Posted: 04 Jun 2011 09:20 PM PDT REUTERS - Yemen President Ali Abdullah Saleh has flown to Saudi Arabia for treatment of wounds sustained in a rocket attack on his presidential palace on Friday. Here are some facts about Yemen's long-serving leader:
* SALEH AS PRESIDENT: -- Saleh, in power for more than three decades, has used internal conflicts with Houthi Shi'ite rebels in the north, Marxist rebels in the south and al-Qaeda operatives to the east to draw in foreign aid and military support and solidify his power base. Al Qaeda has already used Yemen to attempt attacks in Saudi Arabia and the United States in the past two years. -- Saleh presided over the unification of North Yemen and South Yemen in 1990 and has fended off rebels and separatists to prevent Yemen sliding into becoming a failed state. -- He was elected president by parliament in Oct. 1994, and first directly elected president in September 1999, winning 96.3 percent of the vote. Most recently, he was re-elected in September 2006 to a seven-year term. -- A string of Saleh's allies has defected to protesters, who are frustrated by rampant corruption and soaring unemployment. Some 40 percent of the population live on $2 a day or less, and one third face chronic hunger. -- Saleh has made many verbal concessions during the protests, recently promising to step down in weeks in return for immunity from prosecution. The opposition agreed to the peace plan, which was negotiated by the Gulf Cooperation Council. -- However, Saleh has yet to sign any plan and the latest refusal, on May 22, has sparked more street battles in Sanaa this time between his security forces and a powerful tribal group, the Hashed tribal alliance, led by Sadeq al-Ahmar whose family has backed protesters demanding Saleh's overthrow. -- The fighting forced thousands of residents to flee Sanaa and raised the prospect of chaos that could benefit the Yemen-based branch of al Qaeda and threaten neighbouring Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter. More than 370 people have been killed around Yemen since January when the protest movement began. -- Saleh was wounded when shells struck his palace on Friday. The government blamed the tribesmen but Sadeq al-Ahmar blamed the government to help justify its escalation of street fighting in the capital. * LIFE DETAILS: -- Born in March 1942 into a tribe living near Sanaa, he received only limited education before taking up a military career, beginning in 1958 as a non-commissioned officer. -- His first break came when North Yemen President Ahmed al-Ghashmi, who came from the same Hashed tribe as Saleh, appointed him military governor of Taiz, North Yemen's second city. When Ghashmi was killed by a bomb in 1978, Saleh replaced him as leader of the North. -- The severity of his rule aggravated tension with the South, and sporadic clashes escalated into open conflict between the two states in 1979. The brief war went badly for Saleh. -- However, Saleh was seen as a survivor. He crushed an attempt to overthrow him only months after he took power in North Yemen, and swept to victory when southerners tried to secede from united Yemen in 1994. Sources: Reuters/Globalsecurity.com (Writing by David Cutler, London Editorial Reference Unit) Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by USA Best Price. | ||
| Syria forces killed 70 protesters Friday - activists Posted: 04 Jun 2011 09:20 PM PDT BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian forces killed at least 70 protesters on Friday, activists said, one of the bloodiest days since the start of an 11-week revolt against the authoritarian rule of President Bashar al-Assad.
Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets on Friday in defiance of security forces determined to crush the uprising, and some activists said the death toll could hit 100. Rami Abdulrahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said at least 60 people were killed in Hama, where Assad's father Hafez crushed an armed revolt 29 years ago by killing up to 30,000 people and razing parts of the city. A political activist in Hama said tens of thousands of people were attending the funerals of dead protesters on Saturday, and that more protests were planned later in the day. "Anger is very high in the city, people will never be silent or scared. The whole city is shut today and people are calling for a three-day strike," the activist, who gave his name as Omar, told Reuters by phone from the city. "We expect protests after the evening prayers." Residents and activists said that security forces and snipers fired at demonstrators who thronged Hama on Friday. On top of the casualties there, Syrian human rights group Sawasiah said one person was killed in Damascus and two in the northwestern province of Idlib. Seven people were killed in the town of Rastan in central Syria, which has been under military assault and besieged by tanks since Sunday. Rights groups say security forces have killed more than 1,000 civilians during the uprising, provoking international outrage at Assad's ruthless handling of the demonstrators. Assad has tried brute force and political concessions, often simultaneously, to quell protests. The tactic has so far failed to stop the revolt against 41 years of rule by the Assad family, members of the minority Alawite sect in mainly Sunni Syria. In Deraa, birthplace of the revolt, hundreds defied a military curfew and demonstrated on Friday, two residents said. Syrian forces fired on demonstrations in the eastern city of Deir al-Zor and in Damascus' Barzeh district. Activists and residents said thousands marched in the northwestern province of Idlib, the Kurdish northeast, several Damascus suburbs, the city of Homs and the towns of Madaya and Zabadani in the west. "It is worth noting that Hama and Idlib, where the biggest demonstrations occurred, used to be the stronghold of the Muslim Brotherhood," said one activist who declined to be named. "The number of people who took to the streets could be a message from the (Muslim) Brotherhood to the regime that: "now we are taking part in the revolution in full weight"." ACTIVIST FREED U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Washington was "deeply concerned" by reports that Internet service and some mobile phone networks had been shut down in much of Syria. "We condemn any effort to suppress the Syrian people's exercise of their rights to free expression, assembly and association," she said in a statement. "Attempting to silence the population cannot prevent the transition currently taking place... the Syrian people will find a way to make their voices heard." Syrian authorities released a prominent activist on Saturday who had been in jail since 2008, Abdulrahman said. Ali Abdallah, in his 50s, had criticised Syria's ally Iran. He was a member of the Damascus Declaration, a rights movement named after a document calling for a democratic constitution and an end of the Baath Party's five-decade monopoly on power. Syrian authorities blame the violence on armed groups backed by Islamists and foreign powers, and say the groups have fired on civilians and security forces alike. Authorities have prevented most international media from operating in Syria, making it impossible to verify accounts of the violence. Activists say there have been some instances of citizens resisting security forces with personal weapons, and of security police shooting soldiers who refused to fire at protesters. Assad has sent in tanks to crush demonstrations in some flashpoints but has also offered some reforms, such as an amnesty for political prisoners and a national dialogue -- measures dismissed by opposition figures as too little too late. The United States, the European Union and Australia have imposed sanctions on Syria, but perhaps because of reluctance to get entangled in another confrontation after Libya, their reaction has been less vehement than some activists had hoped. (Additional reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis, editing by Tim Pearce) Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by USA Best Price. |
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