US seeks end to Libya bloodshed: Gaddafi assets frozen

BENGHAZI: The United States sought to drum up international backing for ways to stem the bloodshed in Libya as forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi waged fierce gun battles with opposition rebels holding cities near the capital.

President Barack Obama consulted the French, British and Italian leaders late on Thursday on immediate steps against Gaddafi over his bloody crackdown on a popular uprising in which up to 2,000 people may have died, according to French estimates.

As oil prices leapt towards $120, stoking fears the fragile global economic recovery could be threatened, Washington, which once branded Gaddafi a “mad dog,” said it was keeping all options open, including sanctions and military action.

However, coordinated international action against Gaddafi, who has ruled the oil-rich desert nation of six million for 41 years, still seemed some way off, as foreign governments focussed on evacuating thousands of their citizens trapped by the unrest.

With the Middle East still absorbing the aftershocks from the overthrow of veteran, Western-backed leaders in Tunisia and Egypt by people power, Western governments are also concerned not to be seen to be imposing neo-colonial solutions on Libya.

Disparate opposition forces were already in control of major centres in the east, including the second city Benghazi. Reports of the third city Misrata, as well as Zuara, in the west also falling brought the tide of rebellion closer to Gaddafi’s power base — though information from western Libya remained patchy.

Little opposition organisation exists in Libya after four decades of oppression, so the nature of the new ruling orders in eastern cities is still unclear. There was little sign of radical Islamists among the lawyers, doctors, tribal elders and army officers who made up committees trying to bring order.

But Gaddafi, appealing for calm on Thursday in a telephone call to state television, blamed the revolt on al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. He also said the protesters were fuelled by milk and Nescafe spiked with hallucinogenic drugs.

His opponents, including some in the capital Tripoli where many kept off the streets for fear of violence, said the latest public appearance by the 68-year-old showed he was out of touch.

“Their ages are 17. They give them pills at night, they put hallucinatory pills in their drinks, their milk, their coffee, their Nescafe,” Gaddafi said of the rebels fighting his forces.

His apparently conciliatory tone contrasted sharply with his raging defiance two days before when he vowed on television to crush the revolt and die a “martyr” in Libya, unlike the leaders in Egypt and Tunis ousted in past weeks by mass uprisings.

Amid reports of Gaddafi and his sons deploying African mercenaries and their own clansmen, all with little to lose if the old order is to collapse, a former minister who bolted Gaddafi’s cabinet this week said he believed Colonel Gaddafi would “do what Hitler did” and take his own life if cornered.

As growing numbers of Libyan officials, including cabinet ministers and ambassadors, reportedly deserted Gaddafi, the Swiss government said it was freezing assets of his family.

Libya’s foreign ministry denied that the leader had any such funds and said it would sue Switzerland for saying so. The Daily Telegraph said in an unsourced report that Britain may seize some $30 billion (18.6 billion pounds) held in Britain.

Diplomatic differences emerged even in a push by Western states to suspend Libya from the low-powered U.N. Human Rights Council, which met with strong resistance from Arab and some other Islamic states, as well as from Russia and Cuba.

Obama is sending Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Geneva on Monday to push the U.N. body to condemn Libya.

Gaddafi’s grip on power could depend in part on the performance around Tripoli of an elite military unit led by one of his younger sons, U.S. and European officials and secret diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks showed.

Libya’s 32nd Brigade, led by Gaddafi’s son Khamees, is the most elite of three last-ditch “regime protection units” totalling about 10,000 men in all, which are better equipped and more loyal to Gaddafi than the rest of the military, which has seen heavy desertion, officials said.

A witness told Reuters the unit had attacked anti-government militias controlling the town of Misrata, 200 km (120 miles) east of Tripoli, killing several people, although residents said the government forces were beaten back by lightly armed local people.

Bush shoe-thrower arrested at Baghdad

BAGHDAD: The Iraqi journalist who shot to fame for throwing a shoe at ex-US president trendpk.comrge W. Bush was detained on Thursday while attempting to hold a news conference in Baghdad.

Muntazer al-Zaidi had been due to hold a press conference in front of the Iraqi capital’s Abu Hanifa mosque in the mostly-Sunni district of Adhamiyah when an Iraqi army unit took him away.

“I have orders for you to come with me,” an army colonel told Zaidi, who initially refused, demanding to see a written arrest warrant.

He was eventually led into an army pick-up truck along with his brother Durgan.

Durgan al-Zaidi said before the news conference that his brother intended to add his voice to calls for a major protest in Baghdad for Friday.

The journalist shot to international notoriety for hurling both his shoes at Bush during a December 2008 press conference in Baghdad, and was eventually sentenced to three years in prison for assaulting a head of state.

That was reduced to one year on appeal, and his sentence was cut further for good behaviour. Zaidi alleged he suffered electric shocks and simulated drowning while in custody.

WikiLeaks Endorse ‘Hindu Terrorism’

While describing “win-win” relationship with India, during his famous trip to India, Obama’s main focus was Indo-US united front against terrorism, which relates to the Islamic militancy in the region, but he totally neglected Hindu terrorism which now has also been endorsed by the revelations of the WikiLeaks.

In this connection, in one of its diplomatic cables, WikiLeaks has indicated involvement of top Indian Army leadership in engaging Hindu extremist militants to carry out certain terror operations to keep Indian Muslims on the back foot and to keep pressure on the neighbouring Pakistan’s army and intelligence agencies, particularly the Inter-services Intelligence Agency, while the cable refused to confirm any involvement of ISI in any terror incident across India.

Disclosure of another cable confirmed that there was a nexus of top Indian army officials and extremist Hindu outfits, suggesting that an Indian Police officer, a counter terror specialist with the name of Hemant Karkare had exposed this nexus to some extent when he arrested a serving Colonel of Indian Army, Lt. Colonel Purohit for blazing a Pakistan bound train (Samjhota Express).

The cable further disclosed that Hemant Karkare held a secret meeting with a senior US diplomat at New Delhi and briefed him about the gravity and the growing depth of the nexus between top Indian army leadership and the militant Hindu fanatic groups. Karkare sought the security for him and his family from the said American diplomat as he feared that the army and establishment would eliminate him as intended to move further to expose the network. In addition, he had briefed the said US diplomat that a former Commander in Chief of the Central Command of the Indian army, Lt. General P.N Hoon was heading the militancy wing of the Hindu extremists and was getting full tactical, logistic and financial support from senior army officers. The day, Karkare was eliminated in a pre-planned ambush during the Mumbai attacks, a cable sent to the US read: “we have lost an important link and a vital evidence”.

Another cable sent to Washington termed Hindutva (Hindu Nationalism) brotherhood in general and Shiv Sena in particular, as ticking time bombs with regard to militancy and terrorism. In the cable, it was suggested that fund raisers like Hindu Students Council of America etc. should be banned to raise funds as they were generating funds for the Hindu militant outfits under the garb of charity.

Another file dubs Hindutva Brotherhood as a far bigger threat to regional and global peace that Taliban, Al-Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and the later three were declared as “peanuts”, if equated with Hindutva Brotherhood and Sangh Parivaar and Washington was urged to take up the issue with New Delhi.

However, there is no doubt that under the mask of secularism, Hindu terrorism prevails in every field at the cost of other minorities. It is even supported by Indian defence forces clandestinely. This fact could be judged from the recent past, when in the house of Bajrang Dal fundamentalists in Nanded, a bomb went off. The investigations proved that the militants belonging to the Bajrang Dal were found in the bomb-making and attack on a mosque in Parbhani in 2003. Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) of the Maharashtra had arrested Lt. Col. Srikant Purohit along with other army officials, indicating that they were helping in training the Hindu terrorists, providing them with the military-grade explosive RDX, used in the Malegaon bombings and terrorist attacks in other Indian cities. ATS further disclosed that Lt. Col. Purohit confessed that in 2007, he was involved in bombing of Samjhota express, which brunt alive 69 Pakistanis. Leaders of the Indian extremist parties, Shiv Sena, BJP, VHP and RSS has still been pressurising the Congress regime to release the culprits.

Before these revelations about Hindu terrorism, Indian government has been accusing the Islamic organizations in contact with Pakistani or Bangladeshi intelligence agencies in carrying out bomb blasts in Malegaon and other Indian places.

As regard Hindu terrorism, BBC indicated on November 21, 2008 that a new phrase has entered the sometimes cliche-riddled Indian press: “Hindu terrorism”, calling it the latest addition to the media lexicon.

Nevertheless, India which claims to be a secular state, has broken all the records of violence, genocide and massacre perpetrated on various ethnic and religious groups, entailing the community of its own lower castes. These atrocities and injustices display that Hindu terrorism is on rise.

It is notable that historical background and religious beliefs which have formed the habits and national character of Hindus are quite different from the other ethnic and religious communities. Indians still have a strong belief in the superiority of their race. Indian Hindus are followers of Chanakya (Say some thing else and do some thing else). These facts have been verified by the misdeeds of Hindu fundamentalist parties like the BJP, RSS, VHP, Shiv Sina and Bajrang Dal which have missed no opportunity to communalise national politics of India even under the Congress rule. With the backing of Indian officials, these parties have intensified anti-Christian and anti-Muslim bloodshed in the last decade coupled with the dissemination of Hindutva.

Besides previous genocide of Muslims and destruction of the Babri Mosque, more than 2500 Muslims were massacred in 2002 in the BJP-ruled Indian state of Gujarat. Regarding that massive genocide, both Human Rights Watch in 2002 and Amnesty International in 2003 charged the “Gujarat state administration” for involvement in “a massive cover-up of the state’s role in that massacre” and pointed out numerous police officials—specifically ministers, high officials and leaders of the VHP, BJP and Bajrang Dal as participants.

On September 13, 2008, the communal riots in Uttar Pradesh killed more than 200 Muslims. In one of the most tragic incidents in Assam, Hindu extremists burnt alive six members of a Muslim family. Violence has continued against the Muslims from time to time. Similarly, assaults on Christians and their property have been executed by the Hindu mobs in Orissa, Assam, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh. In this respect, at least 60 Christians have been assassinated in the recent past by Hindu extremists in the state of Orissa. Other minorities of India are also target of Hindu terrorism.

In Maharashtra, non-Hindu communities have lived in constant fear and awe since the advent of the fundamentalist party, Shiv Sena whose Chief Bal Thackeray has organised army of hoodlums to beat up any religious minority, openly directing the Hindu terrorists to loot and stone any of their shop or house. Silence of the subsequent governments on every challenge of Shiv Sena and lack of serious action against Thackeray’s vandalism have clearly verified the support of Indian high officialis behind Hindu terrorism.

Under the cover of democracy and secularism, Indian subsequent regimes dominated by politicians from the Hindi heartland—Hindutva have been using brutal force ruthlessly against any move to free Assam, Kashmir, Khalistan, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tamil Nadu and Tripura where wars of independence are alive in one or the other form.

Particularly, in the Indian-held Kashmir, since 1947, Indian forces have intermittently been employing all the possible techniques of military terrorism such as curfews, crackdowns, sieges, massacre, targeted killings etc. to maintain their alien rule. However, Indian brutalities keep on going against the current phase of Kashmiri uprising which began on August 12, 2008. In the last two years, more than 3000 unmarked graves of the unidentified bodies were uncovered in villages of Indian-held Kashmir. Sources have suggested that these graves include bodies of extrajudicial executions committed by the Indian military and paramilitary forces. European Parliament strongly condemned India regarding human rights violations in the occupied Kashmir.

The leakage of the diplomatic cables of the WikiLeaks has also indicated Indian Army in gross Human rights violations in Indian held Kashmir. In this respect, Lt. Gen HS Panag, the then GOC-in-Chief of the Northern Command of the Indian Army was equated with General Milosevic of Bosnia with regard to butchering the Muslims in the Indian through war crimes. The related cable urged Washington to secretly divert UN attention towards the genocide of innocent civilians in the Indian occupied Kashmir on the hands of Indian Army and also suggested that the US should avoid holding any joint drill with Indian army until it stops inhuman activities in Kashmir. The cable termed one Lt. Col. AK Mathur as “Devil’s Advocate” at Srinagar.

Nonetheless, besides previous evidence in this context, the disclosures of the WikiLeaks also endorse Hindu terrorism.

US Air Force blocks news sites posting WikiLeaks

WASHINGTON: The US Air Force has blocked its workforce from visiting 25 media websites that published secret diplomatic documents released by WikiLeaks, a spokesman said Wednesday.

The move meant computers used by Air Force employees could not access newsites, including the New York Times, The Guardian and Der Speigel, that have posted the cables online, Pentagon spokesman Colonel Dave Lapan told AFP.

The Air Force took the action because classified information was posted on those websites, he said.

The decision was taken by the 24th Air Force, which is responsible for cyber warfare and security.

No other branch of the military had taken a similar action, and Lapan said the measure was “neither DoD-directed nor DoD-wide,” referring to the Department of Defense.

Some cyber analysts called it a clumsy overreaction and the New York Times said

Pentagon faults official in spy operation: NY Times

WASHINGTON: A senior U.S. Defense Department official violated Pentagon rules and deliberately misled senior military officers when he created a spy operation using private contractors in Afghanistan and Pakistan, a Pentagon inquiry has found, according to the New York Times.

The Times quoted Pentagon spokesman Colonel David Lapan as saying the probe found that “further investigation is warranted of the misleading and incorrect statements the individual made” about the legality of the spy program.

The allegations about the off-the-books spy operation centered on Michael Furlong, a senior U.S. Air Force civilian official who hired contractors from private security companies that employed former CIA and military operatives, the Times reported.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates ordered the investigation in March.

The contractors gathered intelligence on the

US-S.Korea drill delay not due to China: Pentagon

WASHINGTON: The Pentagon on Monday rejected assertions in South Korean media that a decision to postpone a planned U.S.-South Korean naval exercise in the

Yellow Sea was due to protests from China.

“We were unable to come to a scheduling agreement,” Colonel Dave Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters.

“Our decision to postpone had nothing to do with China. As we’ve said in the past, these exercises are directed to send a message to North Korea and the Chinese should have no concerns with these types of exercises in international waters.” AGENCIES

Police investigate gunshots at Pentagon

Gunshots struck the Pentagon early on Tuesday but failed to penetrate the building, officials said, as police investigated the source of the gunfire.
Pentagon police officers heard about four or five gunshots around 4:55 am (0855 GMT) fired near the south parking lot of the sprawling Defense Department headquarters, officials said.
Authorities briefly closed the building and surrounding parking lots to search the area and then reopened the Pentagon’s entrances by 5:40 am, Colonel Dave Lapan told reporters.
Lapan said there were initial reports of damage from the gunshots hitting the building but none penetrated.
The Pentagon introduced tighter security after a gunman in March walked up to the main entrance at rush hour and opened fire, wounding two police officers before he was shot dead by return fire.
In Tuesday’s shooting, police were searching for a possible suspect along a nearby highway, Interstate 395, but details remained unclear, officials said.
They’re investigating it right now, they’re not sure what happened right now, Pentagon Force Protection Agency spokesman Chris Layman told.

Pentagon bracing for WikiLeaks publication on Iraq War

The Pentagon is said to be scouring an Iraq war database to prepare for potential fallout from an expected release by WikiLeaks of some 400,000 secret military reports.
Officials set up the taskforce several weeks ago in order to prepare for tonight’s anticipated release of sensitive intelligence on the US-led Iraq war.
The massive release is set to dwarf the whistleblower websites publication of 77,000 classified US military documents on the war in Afghanistan in July, including the names of Afghan informants and other details from raw intelligence reports. Another 15,000 are due out soon.
In order to prepare for Mondays anticipated release of sensitive intelligence on the US-led Iraq war, officials set up a 120-person taskforce several weeks ago to comb through the database and determine what the possible impacts might be, said Colonel David Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman. The Department of Defence is concerned the leak compiles significant activities from the war, or SIGACTS, which include incidents such as known attacks against coalition troops, Iraqi security forces, civilians or infrastructure in the country.
The data was culled from an Iraq-based database that contained significant acts, unit-level reporting, tactical reports, things of that nature, said Lapan, noting that Pentagon officials still do not know how many and which documents would be released. He urged WikiLeaks to return the documents to the US military, which he said found no need to redact them in the interim. Our position is redactions dont help, its returning the documents to their rightful owner, Lapan said. We dont believe WikiLeaks or others have the expertise needed. Its not as simple as just taking out names. There are other things and documents that arent names that are also potentially damaging.For the Iraq leak, Wikileaks is believed to be teaming up with the same news outlets as it did for the Afghanistan document dump The New York Times, Britains Guardian and Der Spiegel of Germany and Newsweek magazine has reported that all partners would release the material simultaneously.The July release caused uproar in the US government, with Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former CIA director Michael Hayden warning it could undermine the post-9/11 effort to break down walls between rival intelligence agencies.Difficulties in sharing intelligence information have been repeatedly identified as a problem plaguing spy and law enforcement services since the attacks of September 11, 2001.In a speech earlier this month, Clapper said President Barack Obama was full of angst over a haemorrhage of leaks of sensitive intelligence from government officials.I think its going to have a very chilling effect on the need to share, he said.WikiLeaks has not identified the source of the documents it has released so far but suspicion has fallen on Bradley Manning, a US Army intelligence analyst who is currently in military custody. Manning was arrested in May following the release by WikiLeaks of video footage of a US Apache helicopter strike in Iraq in which civilians died, and he has been charged with delivering defence information to an unauthorized source. Launched in 2006, WikiLeaks is facing internal troubles amid criticism its releases harm US national security and an ongoing investigation into its founder, Julian Assange, over an alleged sex crime in Sweden. It also has some money problems. Assange told The Guardian that British firm Moneybookers, an online payment company it uses to collect donations, closed his websites account in August after the US and Australian governments blacklisted WikiLeaks in the days following the initial release of Afghan documents. The website has been undergoing scheduled maintenance since September 29, but promises to be back online as soon as possible.

Firefighters try to douse peat fires in Moscow

Residents of villages in the Moscow region continued efforts to douse peat fires on Friday.
In Shatura district, 180 kilometres south-east of Moscow, local residents helped firefighters flood water into peat bogs near their homes. They hope that a change in the weather might help them, but the forecasts are not promising.
According to our meteorological data and forecasts there will be no rain in the near future, said Colonel Vitaly Simonov of the Emergencies Ministry. The situation is complex but stable, he added.
Russia’s worst heatwave since records began has set ablaze thousands of hectares (acres) of forest, killing 54 people and leaving thousands homeless. The Kremlin declared a state of emergency in several regions.
Smouldering underground fires in dried-out peat bogs blanketed Moscow in smoke for much of last week, causing mortality rates to soar. Strong winds this week cleared the smoke, at least temporarily.

Pentagon assessing risk from documents leak

WASHINGTON: The Pentagon is assessing the damage from the massive leak of secret military documents on Afghanistan.

A Pentagon spokesman says it may take days or weeks to fully assess the damage.

The White House blasted the website WikiLeaks.org for publishing more than 91-thousand previously classified documents related to the war in Afghanistan.

The documents indicate Pakistani intelligence agents are helping the Taliban attack U.S. and NATO troops.

The White House called the website”s actions “irresponsible.” At the Pentagon, Colonel Dave Lapan said the military is analyzing the leaks to determine national security threats and potential damage to the lives of service members and NATO partners.

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