Six soldiers, 15 militants dead in Kurram operation

TrendPK.com

PARACHANAR: Six security troops were martyred and 15 militants killed in a skirmish in the Jogi area of the northwestern Kurram tribal region, near the Afghanistan border, security officials said.  
 
They said the fight also left three security men and 13 insurgents injured.

Officials said the area was completely cleared of militants following Pak army’s search operation in which heavy artillery was used.

A permanent check post had been established in the area, sources said. TrendPK

Pakistan launches military operation near Afghan border

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani security forces have launched a major offensive against militants in the northwestern tribal region of Kurram on the Afghan border, Pakistan’s military spokesman said on Monday.

Pakistan orders inquiry into killing of five Chechens

QUETTA: A Pakistan provincial government on Thursday ordered an inquiry into the killing by security forces of five Chechens, including three women, after media said they had been unarmed.

The group was killed this week, with authorities saying they were al-Qaeda-linked suicide bombers.

Islamist militants have stepped up attacks in Pakistan after the killing of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden by U.S. special forces in the northwestern town of Abbottabad on May 2. Last week, 80 people were killed in twin suicide bombings at a paramilitary academy in the northwestern town of Charsadda.

On Tuesday, the paramilitary Frontier Corps and police gunned down five Chechens near a security checkpoint on the outskirts of Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province, saying explosives were strapped to their bodies and they were attempting to attack government forces.

But the media raised doubts over statements by security forces, with television footage showing a wounded woman waving her hand in the air before her death.

The daily Dawn on Thursday quoted witnesses as saying that the suspects were unarmed, had put up no resistance to the security forces and appeared to be about to surrender.

“The chief minister has ordered an inquiry after media reports raised doubts about the whole incident,” a provincial government spokesman told Reuters, referring to the head of the province.

Two officials of a bomb disposal squad which searched the bodies after the shooting told Reuters that they found no explosives strapped to the bodies of the Chechens.

“They were unarmed and had no suicide jackets or explosives with them,” one of the officials said.

“Five valid and two expired Russian passports were found in a ladies’ handbag lying with the bodies,” the second official said.

A witness earlier this week said the five had got out of a vehicle and were chased by police before they were shot.

Pakistan’s commitment to fighting militancy has come under intense scrutiny after discovery of the al Qaeda chief near a military academy in the military town not far away from Islamabad.

Pakistan’s tribal areas along the Afgfhan border has been described as a global hub for militants, including Arabs and Chechens inspired by Al Qaeda.

A decade after federal forces drove separatists out of power in Chechnya in the second of two wars, the North Caucasus are plagued by near-daily violence, where rebels want to carve out a separate Islamic state with Sharia law. While Chechnya now rests on a shaky peace, neighbouring regions are at the heart of a growing Islamist insurgency.

Interview with man who sold land bin Laden

ABBOTTABAD: The Pakistani man who owned the compound that sheltered Osama bin Laden in his final years said he was buying the property for “an uncle,” according to the doctor who sold him a piece of the land in 2005.

The man was identified in property records as Mohammad Arshad; neighbors said one of two Pakistani men living in the house went by the name Arshad Khan.

The two names apparently refer to the same man and both names may be fake.

But one thing is clear, bin Laden relied on a small, trusted inner circle as lifelines to the outside that provided for his daily needs such as food and medicine and kept his location secret.

And it appears they did not betray him.

Among those in that inner circle were Arshad and another man who has been identified as either his brother or cousin.

Arshad is suspected as the courier who ultimately led the Americans to bin Laden, unwittingly, after years of painstaking tracking.

American officials said the courier and his brother were killed in the American commando raid on Monday in the northwestern Pakistani town of Abbottabad.

Qazi Mahfooz ul Haq, a doctor, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that he sold a plot of land to Arshad in 2005.

He said the buyer was a sturdily built man who had a tuft of hair under his lower lip.

He spoke with an accent that sounded like it was from Waziristan, a tribal region close to Afghanistan that is home to many al-Qaida operatives.

Neighbors identified Arshad Khan as one of two Pakistani men living in the house where bin Laden hid for up to six years.

Property records obtained by The Associated Press show Mohammad Arshad bought adjoining plots in four stages between 2004 and 2005 for 48-thousand US Dollars.

Ul Haq saw Arshad a few times after he sold him the land, he said.

“He was a good and simple humble type of man,” he said.

Arshad bought two other plots used for the compound in a less transparent transaction in November 2004, according to a review of the property records.

Raja Imtiaz Ahmed, who previously owned the two plots, said he sold them to a middleman who may have then passed them on to Arshad.

He could not recall the middleman’s name and was looking for records that would reveal it.

Turkish police detain 10 al Qaeda suspects: report

ISTANBUL: Turkish police have detained 10 suspected al Qaeda militants who they believe were planning an attack ahead of New Year, state-run Anatolian news agency reported.

The agency said the suspects, eight of whom were detained in anti-terror raids in the northwestern city of Bursa on Wednesday, were expected to be brought before a court on Friday.

A further two people were detained in Istanbul and taken to Bursa, the agency said. Bursa police said in a statement that eight suspects linked to a terror group had been detained.

Turkish police often arrest suspected Islamist militants and describe them as having links to al Qaeda, though details seldom emerge. Around 120 al Qaeda suspects were rounded up last January in raids mostly carried out in the southeast.

In October, police held five male students suspected of providing support to al Qaeda

Pakistan court sends married pupil back to school

PESHAWAR: A Pakistani court Thursday ordered a married pupil back to school, saying that tying the knot was no grounds for expulsion despite teachers’ fears of gossip.

Ghairat Khan, a seventh grader with a beard, was thrown out of an elite English-language school in the northwestern city of Peshawar seven months ago because teachers believed marital relations were inappropriate playground talk.

“The court reinstated Ghairat Khan and he will rejoin school tomorrow. The board of directors at the school has been ordered to submit an explanation by December 15,” court official Musaddiq Hussain Gilani told AFP.

Khan, whose school record says he was born in April 1997 but who told AFP he was 18 years old, attended classes at Peshawar Model School with 12 and 13-year-old boys.

“I am very happy,” Khan told AFP.

“Today we went to court where the

Irish government faces election backlash after fiscal pain

DUBLIN: Ireland’s government will face the first real backlash from a vicious set of austerity measures when voters head to the polls in the northwestern county of Donegal on Thursday.

Prime Minister Brian Cowen’s four-year plan for tackling the worst budget deficit in Europe has failed to impress investors or calm fears that Ireland’s woes will tip other euro zone nations into crisis.

The 15 billion euros ($20 billion) in spending cuts and tax increases unveiled on Wednesday will form the basis for an IMF/EU rescue package worth about 85 billion euros.

But the measures, including cuts to the minimum wage and thousands of job losses, are likely to seal defeat for Cowen’s Fianna Fail party in the poll for a vacant parliamentary seat in Donegal and result in Cowen’s majority shrinking to just two.

Ruling Fianna Fail held the seat in Donegal South West

KP’s cultural revival effort – Trend Pk VIDEO

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) is very rich in culture and tradition. Aisha Butt shares with us an effort to revive the golden culture of the northwestern province of Pakistan. (November 1, 2010)

KP’s cultural revival effort – Trend Pk VIDEO

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) is very rich in culture and tradition. Aisha Butt shares with us an effort to revive the golden culture of the northwestern province of Pakistan. (November 1, 2010)

KP’s cultural revival effort – Trend Pk VIDEO

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) is very rich in culture and tradition. Aisha Butt shares with us an effort to revive the golden culture of the northwestern province of Pakistan. (November 1, 2010)

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