Muammar Gaddafi, Son Mo'tassim killed; Dictator's Body Placed in Mosque
Muammar Gaddafi's death - who pulled the trigger?
Dragged & battered before being shot
Quirky Colonel and his iron rule
Dad’s the way: Like father, like sons
Muammar Gaddafi caught hiding like a 'rat'
Libya: Big expectations, power plays
India offers all help to Libya
West has failed to eradicate radical Islam’
Qaddafi is Dead, Libyan Officials Say
Libyan fighters hoist govt. flag above captured Sirte
Woman drug pusher among seven outlaws arrested In Pakistan
Karachi nuclear plant leaks, but no damage
India links imports to Pak MFN status
Krishna hopes US, Pak will settle differences across the table
India releases Pakistani prisoner
Pakistani Hindus flay Anna Hazare over anti-Pakistan statement
US teen charged in ‘Jihad Jane’ terror plot
Clinton urges Pakistan to boost anti-terror fight
US want good relations between Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan: Toner
NATO kills 115 militants in east Afghanistan fight
Six terrorists killed in Khurram Agency
Two soldiers, five militants killed in Khyber clash
Turkish jets keep bombing northern Iraq
Pak- US ties on a ‘Knife Edge’: Pak General
Pak rebuffs India with dam in PoK
Friend’ Haqqani now thorn in US flesh
Waziristan is new nail in Pak- US ties
Some govt. allies corrupt, others terrorists: Nawaz
Pakistan must act to remove Haqqani safe havens: Clinton
NATO sends troops to disputed Kosovo border posts
Small investors struggle while Afghanistan hopes for big deals
Afghan lawmaker ends hunger strike on 18th day
US won’t enter Waziristan’: Pak Intel. Report
Benazir made Sharif’s return to Pak possible'
PAK VITAL TO US AFGHAN PLANS
Immigration system at Pak-Afghan border soon
After skullcap, Narendra Modi refuses keffiyeh - a traditional Arab head-dress
Compiled By New Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://newageislam.com/islamic-world-news/muammar-gaddafi,-son-mo-tassim/d/5732
--------
Muammar Gaddafi, Son Mo'tassim killed; Dictator's Body Placed in Mosque
SIRTE (LIBYA): Muammar Gaddafi is dead, Libya's new leaders said, killed by fighters who overran his home town and final bastion on Thursday. His bloodied body was stripped and displayed around the world from cellphone video. Later the body of the fallen dictator has been taken to Misrata where it is placed in a mosque.
Senior officials in the interim government, which ended his 42-year rule two months ago but had laboured to subdue thousands of diehard loyalists, said his death would allow a declaration of "liberation" after eight months of bloodshed.
"We confirm that all the evils, plus Gaddafi, have vanished from this beloved country," Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril said in Tripoli as the body was delivered, a prize of war, to Misrata, the city whose siege and suffering at the hands of Gaddafi's forces made it a symbol of the rebel cause.
"It's time to start a new Libya, a united Libya," Jibril added. "One people, one future." A formal declaration of liberation, that will set the clock ticking on a timeline to elections, would be made by Friday, he said later.
Western leaders, who had held off cautiously from comment until Jibril spoke, echoed his sentiments now that Gaddafi, a self-styled "king of kings" in Africa whom they had lately courted after decades of enmity, was dead at 69.
British Prime Minister David Cameron, who with French President Nicolas Sarkozy was an early sponsor of February's revolt in Benghazi, said: "People in Libya today have an even greater chance after this news of building themselves a strong and democratic future."
The new national flag, resurrected by rebels who forced Gaddafi from his capital Tripoli in August, filled streets and squares as jubilant crowds whooped for joy and fired in the air.
In Sirte, a one-time fishing village and Gaddafi's home town that grandiose schemes had styled a new "capital of Africa", fighters danced, brandishing a golden pistol they said they had taken from Gaddafi.
Accounts were hazy of his final hours, which also appeared to have cost the lives of senior aides. But top officials of the National Transitional Council, including Abdel Majid Mlegta, said he had died of wounds sustained in clashes.
FINAL HOURS
One possible description, pieced together from various sources, suggests that Gaddafi may have tried to break out of his final redoubt at dawn in a convoy of vehicles after weeks of dogged resistance. However, he was stopped by a NATO air strike and captured, possibly three or four hours later, after gun battles with NTC fighters who found him hiding in a drainage culvert.
NATO said its warplanes fired on a convoy near Sirte about 8:30 a.m. (0630 GMT), striking two military vehicles in the group, but could not confirm that Gaddafi had been a passenger.
Accounts from his enemies suggested his capture, and death soon after from wounds, may have taken place around noon.
One of Gaddafi's sons, heir-apparent Saif al-Islam, was at large, they believed. NTC official Mlegta told Reuters that he was surrounded after also trying to flee Sirte. Another son, Mo'tassim, whose arrest was announced earlier in the day, had been killed resisting his captors, Mlegta added.
He said that the elder Gaddafi had been wounded in both legs early in the morning as he tried to flee in the convoy which NATO warplanes attacked. "He was also hit in his head," he said. "There was a lot of firing against his group and he died."
There was no shortage of NTC fighters in Sirte claiming to have seen him die, though many accounts were conflicting. Libyan television carried video of two drainage pipes, about a metre across, where it said fighters had cornered a man who long inspired both fear and admiration around the world.
After February's uprising in the long discontented east of the country around Benghazi -- inspired by the Arab Spring movements that overthrew the leaders of neighbouring Tunisia and Egypt -- the revolt against Gaddafi ground slowly across the country before a dramatic turn saw Tripoli fall in August.
LIBERATION
An announcement of final liberation was expected as the chairman of the NTC prepared to address the nation of six million. They now face the challenge of turning oil wealth once monopolised by Gaddafi and his clan into a democracy that can heal an array of tribal, ethnic and regional divisions he exploited.
The two months since the fall of Tripoli have tested the nerves of the motley alliance of anti-Gaddafi forces and their Western and Arab backers, who had begun to question the ability of the NTC forces to root out diehard Gaddafi loyalists in Sirte and a couple of other towns.
Gaddafi, wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of ordering the killing of civilians, was toppled by rebel forces on Aug. 23, a week short of the 42nd anniversary of the military coup which brought him to power in 1969.
NTC fighters hoisted the red, black and green national flag above a large utilities building in the centre of a newly-captured Sirte neighbourhood and celebratory gunfire broke out among their ecstatic and relieved comrades.
Hundreds of NTC troops had surrounded the Mediterranean coastal town for weeks in a chaotic struggle that killed and wounded scores of the besieging forces and an unknown number of defenders.
NTC fighters said there were a large number of corpses inside the last redoubts of the Gaddafi troops. It was not immediately possible to verify that information.
The death of Gaddafi is a setback to campaigners seeking the full truth about the 1988 bombing over Lockerbie in Scotland of Pan Am flight 103 which claimed 270 lives, mainly Americans, and for which one of Gaddafi's agents was convicted.
"There is much still to be resolved and we may now have lost an opportunity for getting nearer the truth," said Jim Swire, the father of one of the Lockerbie victims.
Swire has never believed in the guilt of Abdel Basset al-Megrahi who was convicted of the bombing in 2001 and sent to serve a life sentence in a Scottish prison. Al-Megrahi was released and sent back to Libya in 2009 because he was thought to only have a few months to live.
"Although we have not a scrap of evidence that Gaddafi himself was involved in causing the Lockerbie atrocity, my take on that was that at least he would have known who was," Swire told Sky TV.
"I would have loved to see Gaddafi appear in front of the International Criminal Court both to answer charges against the gross treatment of his own people... and to hear what he knew about the Lockerbie atrocity."
'One Gaddafi son dead, another being surrounded NTC'
One of Muammar Gaddafi's sons, Mo'tassim, has been killed by fighters from Libya's NTC while another, Saif al-Islam, is trying to flee the fallen city of Sirte but is being surrounded, a senior NTC military official said on Thursday.
"Mo'tassim was killed by the fighters. He was trying to fight back and he was resisting them," National Transitional Council official Abdel Majid Mlegta told Reuters.
"Saif al-Islam is trying to flee Sirte in a small convoy. Our fighters are encircling them," he added.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/middle-east/Muammar-Gaddafi-son-Motassim-killed-dictators-body-placed-in-mosque/articleshow/10431215.cms
------
Muammar Gaddafi's death - who pulled the trigger?
Reuters | Oct 21, 2011,
SIRTE: Disturbing images of a blood-stained and shaken Muammar Gaddafi being jostled by angry fighters quickly circulated around the world after the Libyan dictator's dramatic death near his home town of Sirte.
The exact circumstances of his demise are still unclear with conflicting accounts of his death circulating. But the footage, possibly of the last chaotic moments of Gaddafi's life, offered some clues into what happened.
Gaddafi was still alive when he was captured near Sirte. In the video, filmed by a bystander in the crowd and later aired on television around the world, Gaddafi is shown being dragged off a vehicle's bonnet and pulled to the ground by his hair.
"Keep him alive, keep him alive!" someone shouts. Gunshots then ring out. The camera veers off.
"They captured him alive and while he was being taken away, they beat him and then they killed him," one senior source in the NTC told Reuters. "He might have been resisting."
In what appeared to contradict the events depicted in the video, Libya's ruling National Transitional Council said Gaddafi was killed when a gunfight broke out after his capture between his supporters and government fighters. He died from a bullet wound to the head.
It said no order had been given to kill him. Gaddafi called the rebels who rose up against his 42-years of one-man rule "rats", but in the end it was he who was captured cowering in a drainage pipe full of rubbish and filth.
"He called us rats, but look where we found him," said Ahmed Al Sahati, a 27-year-old government fighter, standing next to two stinking drainage pipes under a six-lane highway near Sirte.
On the ground, government fighters and the scenes of sheer carnage nearby told the story of the dictator's final hours.
Shortly before dawn prayers on Thursday, Gaddafi, surrounded by a few dozen loyal bodyguards and accompanied by the head of his now non-existent army Abu Bakr Younis Jabr, broke out of the two-month siege of Sirte and made a break for the west.
But they did not get far. France said its aircraft struck military vehicles belonging to Gaddafi forces near Sirte at about 8:30 a.m. (0630 GMT) on Thursday, but said it was unsure whether the strikes had killed Gaddafi.
Some two miles west of Sirte, 15 pick-up trucks mounted with heavy machine guns lay burnt out, smashed and smouldering next to an electricity sub station some 20 metres from the main road.
They had clearly been hit by a force far beyond anything the motley army the former rebels has assembled during eight months of revolt to overthrow the once feared leader.
But there was no bomb crater, indicating the strike may have been carried out by a helicopter gunship, or that it had been strafed by a fighter jet.
"My master is here"
Inside the trucks still in their seats sat the charred skeletal remains of drivers and passengers killed instantly by the strike. Other bodies lay mutilated and contorted strewn across the grass. Some 50 bodies in all.
Gaddafi himself and a handful of his men escaped death and appeared to have run through a stand of trees towards the main road and hid in the two drainage pipes.
But a group of government fighters were on their tail. "At first we fired at them with anti-aircraft guns, but it was no use," said Salem Bakeer, while being feted by his comrades near the road. "Then we went in on foot.
"One of Gaddafi's men came out waving his rifle in the air and shouting surrender, but as soon as he saw my face he started shooting at me," he told Reuters.
"Then I think Gaddafi must have told them to stop. 'My master is here, my master is here', he said, 'Muammar Gaddafi is here and he is wounded'," said Bakeer.
"We went in and brought Gaddafi out. He was saying 'what's wrong? What's wrong? What's going on?'. Then we took him and put him in the car," Bakeer said.
At the time of capture, Gaddafi was already wounded with gunshots to his leg and to his back, Bakeer said.
Other government fighters who said they took part in Gaddafi's capture, separately confirmed Bakeer's version of events, though one said the man who ruled Libya for 42 years was shot and wounded at the last minute by one of his own men.
"One of Muammar Gaddafi's guards shot him in the chest," said Omran Jouma Shawan.
Another of the fighters who said he took part in the capture toted a heavily engraved a golden pistol he said he took from Gaddafi as he was hoisted on the shoulders of his comrades.
Army chief Jabr was also captured alive, Bakeer said. NTC officials later announced he was dead.
Fallen electricity cables partially covered the entrance to the pipes and the bodies of three men, apparently Gaddafi bodyguards lay at the entrance to one end, one in shorts probably due to a bandaged wound on his leg.
Four more bodies lay at the other end of the pipes. All black men, one had his brains blown out, another man had been decapitated, his dreadlocked head lying beside his torso.
Joyous government fighters fired their weapons in the air, shouted "Allahu Akbar" and posed for pictures. Others wrote graffiti on the concrete parapets of the highway.
"Gaddafi was captured here," said one simply.
"They beat him, then they killed him"
From there Gaddafi was taken to Sirte where he and his dwindling band of die-hard supporters had made a last stand under a rain of missile and artillery fire in a desperate two-month siege.
Video footage showed Gaddafi, dazed and wounded, but still clearly alive and as he was dragged from the front of a pick-up truck by a crowd of angry jostling government soldiers who hit him and pulled his hair to drag him to the ground.
He then appeared to fall to the ground and was enveloped by the crowd. NTC officials later announced Gaddafi had died of his wounds after capture.
Someone in the crowd shouted "keep him alive, keep him alive", but another fighter cried out in a high pitched crazed scream. Gaddafi then goes out of view and gunshots are heard.
Further television footage showed what appeared to be Gaddafi's lifeless body being loaded into an ambulance in Sirte.
An NTC spokesman in Benghazi, Jalal al-Galal, said a doctor who examined Gaddafi when he arrived in Misrata found he had been shot in the head and abdomen.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/middle-east/Muammar-Gaddafis-death--who-pulled-the-trigger/articleshow/10434983.cms
--------
Dragged & battered before being shot
NYT News Service | Oct 21, 2011,
TRIPOLI: Colonel Muammar el-Gaddafi was alive but wounded and bloody when he was captured. Television footage showed him being dragged around by armed men in Sirte. Channels also broadcast a separate clip of his half-naked corpse, with lifeless open eyes and an apparent gunshot wound to the side of the head, as jubilant fighters fired automatic weapons in the air.
The images punctuated an emphatic and violent ending to his four decades as a ruthless and bombastic autocrat who had basked in his reputation as the self-styled king of kings of Africa.
"We have been waiting for this moment for a long time. Gaddafi has been killed," Mahmoud Jibril , prime minister of the Transitional National Council (TNC), the interim government, said in Tripoli. Mahmoud Shammam, the council's chief spokesman, called it "the day of real liberation . We were serious about giving him a fair trial. It seems God has some other wish" .
Libyans rejoiced as news of his death spread. Car horns blared and residents poured into the streets in Tripoli and in the eastern city of Benghazi, where the rebellion against the Colonel began in February.
Fighters from Misrata, the port city that suffered enormously at the hands of Colonel Gaddafi's forces, were in possession of his body and had taken it to a morgue in their hometown. There were unconfirmed reports that they intended to display it in the town's central square.
Within an hour of the news of the Colonel's death, the Arab twittersphere lit up with gleeful comments , many of them hinting at a similar fate awaiting other Arab dictators - most notably President Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen and President Bashar al-Assad of Syria. One of them read: "Ben Ali escaped, Mubarak is in jail, Qaddafi was killed. Which fate do you prefer, Ali Abdullah Saleh? You can consult with Bashar." Another was more direct: "Bashar al-Assad , how do you feel today?"
Jibril said he had no details on how Colonel Gaddafi had been killed, saying those would be provided when the government had a clearer picture of the chaotic events.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/rest-of-world/Dragged-battered-before-being-shot/articleshow/10435915.cms
-------
Quirky Colonel and his iron rule
Reuters | Oct 21, 2011,
TRIPOLI: Muammar Gaddafi's love of comic-opera uniforms, exotic female bodyguards and Bedouin tents provided a theatrical backdrop for 42 years of bloody repression that in the end could not withstand a determined uprising backed by Nato air power.
Chased out of Tripoli when rebel forces took the capital last month, Gaddafi disappeared, some said into the empty desert spaces of his vast country.
But on Thursday, senior figures in Libya's interim National Transitional Council ( NTC) announced that the man who had ruled their country was dead, having succumbed to wounds when the former rebels took his home town, Sirte, the last stronghold of fighters still loyal to the ancient regime. In tandem with his eccentricity, Gaddafi had a charisma which initially at least won him support among many ordinary Libyans.
His readiness to take on Western powers and Israel, both with rhetoric and action , earned him a certain cachet with some in other Arab states who felt their own leaders were too supine.
Full Report at:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/rest-of-world/Quirky-Colonel-and-his-iron-rule/articleshow/10435936.cms
---------
Dad’s the way: Like father, like sons
NYT News Service | Oct 21, 2011,
TRIPOLI: Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, was 27 when he led the bloodless coup that deposed Libya's monarch in 1969. Soon afterward , he began styling himself a desert nomad philosopher. By the time he was done, Libya had no parliament , no unified military command, no political parties , no unions, no civil society and no nongovernmental organizations. His ministries were hollow, with the notable exception of the state oil company.
He married at least twice. His oldest son, Mohammed, from his first marriage, became a businessman and the agent for foreign companies working in Libya. Seven other children - six sons and a daughter - came from his marriage to Safia Farkash, a former nurse. Seif-el-Islam , the oldest son, had been the face of modern Libya, establishing an international charity and forever pledging that political reform was around the corner. His moderate reputation evaporated at the start of the uprising after he delivered a disjointed address vowing that Libya would flow with blood.
Among Seif 's brothers, Muatassim , Hannibal and Khamis were military men who commanded their own brigades. Muatassim headed the National Security Council but was better known for carousing in hot spots like the Caribbean island of St Bart's , where he was reported to have paid several singers, including Mariah Carey, $1 million each for appearing at his holiday parties.
Hannibal gained notoriety for beating his wife and servants in luxurious European hotels. After Hannibal was arrested in Switzerland in 2008, the Colonel broke off diplomatic relations and held two Swiss businessmen hostage. When the rebels took over Gaddafi's compound, racy photos emerged of Hannibal's wife Aline Skaff posing in lingerie in luxury hotel rooms.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/rest-of-world/Dads-the-way-Like-father-like-sons/articleshow/10435877.cms
-------
Muammar Gaddafi caught hiding like a 'rat'
Reuters | Oct 20, 2011,
SIRTE (LIBYA): Muammar Gaddafi called the rebels who rose up against his 42-years of one-man rule "rats", but in the end it was he who was captured cowering in a drainage pipe full of rubbish and filth.
"He called us rats, but look where we found him," said Ahmed Al Sahati, a 27-year-old government fighter, standing next to two stinking drainage pipes under a six-lane highway.
Government fighters, video evidence and the scenes of sheer carnage nearby told the story of the dictator's final hours.
Shortly before dawn prayers on Thursday, Gaddafi surrounded by a few dozen loyal bodyguards and accompanied by the head of his now non-existent army Abu Bakr Younis Jabr broke out of the two-month siege of Sirte and made a break for the west.
But they did not get far. NATO said its aircraft struck military vehicles belonging to pro-Gaddafi forces near Sirte at about 8:30 a.m. (0630 GMT) on Thursday, but the alliance said it was unsure whether the strikes had killed Gaddafi.
Fifteen pick-up trucks mounted with heavy machine guns lay burnt out, smashed and smouldering next to an electricity sub station some 20 metres from the main road, about two miles west of Sirte.
Full Report at:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/middle-east/Muammar-Gaddafi-caught-hiding-like-a-rat/articleshow/10431885.cms
-------
Libya: Big expectations, power plays
Reuters | Oct 20, 2011,
LONDON: Jockeying for power among Libya's well-armed and fractious new leadership may intensify after the death of deposed autocrat Muammar Gaddafi, an anxious and, for many, joyous moment in a country hungry for stability and impatient to swap the bullet for the ballot box.
The interim government will be determined to ensure that lingering pro-Gaddafi forces are prevented from launching any rearguard guerrilla insurgency from the countryside that could destabilise the north African OPEC member and its oil industry.
One of Gaddafi's most politically influential sons, Saif al-Islam, and his security chief Abdullah Sanussi are apparently still at large and may still be able to recruit armed followers.
Full Report at:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/uk/Libya-Big-expectations-power-plays/articleshow/10430811.cms
---------
India offers all help to Libya
TNN | Oct 21, 2011,
NEW DELHI: India reiterated its offer of assistance to Libya after it was confirmed that Muammar Gaddafi had been killed in his hometown of Sirte. "India's relations with the people of Libya are deep and long standing. At this juncture, India reiterates its readiness to extend all possible assistance to the people of Libya in their political transition and rebuilding of the country," the MEA spokesperson said.
"The strife in Libya and the suffering of its people has been a matter of concern to us," he added.
While India refrained from reacting officially to Gaddafi's death, it agreed to work with France to help the National Transitional Council of Libya to "rebuild their country after the sufferings they have endured".
In a joint statement between foreign minister S M Krishna and Alain Juppe, his French counterpart in New Delhi, they said, "The two countries support the efforts of the National Transition Council representing the Libyan people as a whole, to establish democratic institutions in a free Libya, to promote human rights, and to rebuild their country after the sufferings they have endured."
France has been at the forefront of the international action against Gaddafi, while India is the reluctant supporter. India abstained on the UNSC resolution 1970 and 1973 that started the NATO action in Libya. As fighting continued in Libya, India feared that the country would descend into civil war. This was one of the main reasons why India refrained from voting in a similar resolution against Syria recently.
India recognised the NTC just days before PM Manmohan Singh travelled to UNGA at the end of September, one of the last countries to do so. China was the other late supporter of the NTC.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/middle-east/India-offers-all-help-to-Libya/articleshow/10434464.cms
--------
West has failed to eradicate radical Islam’
19 October
New Delhi: Seeking to take stock of what he calls the ‘9/11 Wars’, journalist Jason Burke on Wednesday said neither of the main parties involved in the 10-year-old conflict had emerged from it victorious.
“The West has failed in its more ambitious aims of entirely eradicating radical Islam. In fact, it has polarised the situation to a point where it is much worse. At the same time, al-Qaeda has failed in its strategic aim, which was to rally hundreds of millions of people in the Islamic world to a radical flag. Both have failed in their key objectives,” Burke said.
Burke, the South Asia correspondent of The Guardian and The Observer newspapers, has extensively covered the Middle East and South Asia, specialising in conflict, terrorism and Islamic militancy. He is the author of Al-Qaeda: The True Story of Radical Islam, On the Road to Kandahar: Travels through Conflict in the Islamic World and the recently-released The 9/11 Wars.
On Wednesday, Burke was at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club (FCC) of South Asia, at a discussion moderated by Simon Denyer of the Washington Post, who is also the president of FCC.
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/west-has-failed-to-eradicate-radical-islam/862436/
-------
Qaddafi is Dead, Libyan Officials Say
By KAREEM FAHIM
TRIPOLI, Libya — The head of the Libyan military council said that Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi was killed Thursday as fighters battling the vestiges of his fallen regime wrested control of his hometown of Surt after a prolonged struggle. Al-Jazeera television showed what it said was Colonel Qaddafi’s corpse as Libyans rejoiced.
Abdul Hakim Belhaj, the leader of the Tripoli military council, said on Al Jazeera that the former leader had been killed and that anti-Qaddafi forces had his body.
The report of Colonel Qaddafi’s death by the highest ranking military officer in Libya’s interim government appeared to put an end to the fierce manhunt for the former leader who remained on the lam in Libya for weeks after the fall of his government.
Libya’s interim leaders had said they believed that some Qaddafi family members — possibly including Colonel Qaddafi and several of his sons — were hiding in the coastal town of Surt or in Bani Walid, another loyalist bastion that the anti-Qaddafi forces captured several days ago.
There were multiple reports on Thursday that Colonel Qaddafi had been either captured or killed in the fighting. Previous such reports regarding high-level Qaddafi officials have proven false.
As rumor of his death spread in the capital, Tripoli, car horns blared as many celebrated in the streets.
Full Report at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/21/world/africa/libyan-fighters-say-qaddafi-stronghold-has-fallen.html
-------
Libyan fighters hoist govt. flag above captured Sirte
Oct 20, 2011
SIRTE: Libyan interim government fighters captured Muammar Qadhafi’s home town on Thursday, extinguishing the last significant resistance by forces loyal to the deposed leader and ending a two-month siege.
The capture of Sirte means Libya’s ruling National Transitional Council (NTC) should now begin the task of forging a new democratic system which it had said it would start after the city, built as a showpiece for Qadhafi’s rule, had fallen.
Qadhafi, wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of ordering the killing of civilians, is in hiding, possibly deep in Libya’s southern Sahara desert.
He was toppled by rebel forces on August, 23 after 42 years of one-man rule over the oil-producing North African state.
“Sirte has been liberated. There are no Qadhafi forces any more,” said Colonel Yunus Al Abdali, head of operations in the eastern half of the city. “We are now chasing his fighters who are trying to run away.”
Government fighters hoisted the red, black and green national flag above a large utilities building in the centre of a newly-captured Sirte neighbourhood and celebratory gunfire broke out among their ecstatic and relieved comrades.
“Libya is free from east to west,” cried a young fighter Malik Al Gantri, a young fighter from Tripoli who had been in the battle for Sirte for two weeks. “I hope to go home now,” he said. “I want to see my mother.”
Hundreds of NTC fighters gathered in the centre of Sirte shouting “Allahu Akbar” (“God is greatest”), firing guns into the air and dancing in the streets. One of them, a man aged 65 and blind in one eye, rode around on a mountain bike and carrying an AK47 assault rifle and a Libyan flag.
“This is the best day of my life,” said Al Sharash Thawban.
“The whole city of Sirte is freed from that criminal Qadhafi.”
But a group of about 40 vehicles carrying around 100 Qadhafi loyalists broke out of the siege early on Thursday morning and had headed west, NTC fighters said.
“They broke out just as we were waking up to pray,” said Dr Abdul Rauf Mohammad, who was among the NTC troops.
Full Report at:
http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/20/libyan-fighters-hoist-govt-flag-above-captured-sirte.html
-------
Woman drug pusher among seven outlaws arrested In Pakistan
Staff Report
October 21, 2011
ISLAMABAD: Police on Thursday nabbed seven outlaws from various areas of the city and recovered stolen CNG kit, 1.360-kilogram of hashish, heroin, liquor and weapons from their possession, a spokesman for police said.
According to spokesman, Assistant Sub-Inspector (ASI) Muhammad Arshad of Bhara Kahu police nabbed a thief Nadeem who was involved in stealing CNG vehicle kits. Sub-Inspector (SI) Yar Muhammad of Tarnol police arrested a woman Bheraj Bibi for possessing 1.250-kilogrma of hashish while SI Muhammad Usman of Bhara Kay police nabbed an accused Waseem for having 110-gram of hashish.
SI Athar Khan of Sabzi Mandi police arrested Qamar and Ali for having a total of 327-gram of heroin while ASI Umer Hayat of Nilore police nabbed a bootlegger Zaheer Ahmed for having two liquor bottles.
ASI Nazir Ahmed of Secretariat police recovered a 30-bore pistol from an accused Israr. Cases have been registered against these nabbed persons and further investigation is underway. Senior Superintendent of Police Muhammad Yousuf Malik has appreciated this performance.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2011\10\21\story_21-10-2011_pg11_4
--------
Karachi nuclear plant leaks, but no damage
October 21, 2011
KARACHI: A nuclear power plant imposed a seven-hour emergency after heavy water leaked from a feeder pipe to the reactor, but no radiation or damage has been reported, an official said on Thursday.
The leakage at the Karachi Nuclear Power Plant, commonly known as KANUPP, started around midnight on Tuesday during a routine maintenance shut down, said Tariq Rashid, a plant spokesman.
The 137-megawatt power plant, which started commercial operations in 1972, is located about 24 kilometres to the west of Karachi.
“During the emergency no radioactivity was recorded. None of our staff is affected,” said the official. “The plant was already shut down since October 5 and the leakage started during maintenance checks,” said Rashid.
He said the emergency was imposed at the plant immediately after the leak and the affected area was isolated. The emergency was lifted seven hours later, after the leak was brought under control. “The situation is completely under control and no damage or radiation has been reported, though it will slightly delay the reopening of the plant,” Rashid said. He said the plant will be operational again in 4-5 weeks.
KANUPP supplies 80 megawatts of power to the Karachi Electric Supply Company, the city’s main power utility. reuters
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2011\10\21\story_21-10-2011_pg1_4
----------
India links imports to Pak MFN status
Sidhartha, TNN | Oct 21, 2011,
NEW DELHI: India is walking the extra mile to ensure that a trade deal with Pakistan is worked out at the earliest. New Delhi has indicated that it will offer preferential access to textiles and other goods from across the border if Pakistan granted most favoured nation (MFN) status and initiated steps to boost imports from India.
Sources said that India may look at allowing the entry of textiles and other goods from Pakistan at concessional or zero duty to boost trade relations. The package could be similar to the one that has been offered to Bangladesh, they said.
While it is hopeful of a positive signal from Pakistan when the commerce secretaries meet between November 14 and 18, India wants Pakistan to not just move from a system of a positive list to negative list. Instead, it has suggested that Pakistan follow the Safta principle of trade through a small sensitive list of items, which should be pruned over time.
A meeting of commerce ministers is, however, expected to take place around February on the sidelines of the Safta meeting in Islamabad.
Last week, Pakistan foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar indicating that MFN status for India, a long-pending issue, was on its way. Officials said that the positive signals pointed towards a commitment from both the sides to keep trade on a separate negotiating track to improve ties.
Although Khar and others have raised concerns over non-tariff barriers faced by Pakistani exporters, officials said that India has tried to convey to Islamabad that goods would face the same safety standards as those imposed on other countries, including Made-in-India products. Pakistan has said that India uses non-tariff barriers such as safety standards for cement, textiles and surgical instruments. "If the cement meets the prescribed norms, or textiles products do not contain dyes that are banned then there is no question of denying entry into India. We have conveyed this to Pakistan," an official said.
Apart from MFN, progress has also been made on electricity trade, where officials from both sides started talks on Thursday. Similarly, during a meeting of home ministry officials, the issue of relaxed norms for business visas is expected to be finalized. If the deal fructifies, multiple entry visas of longer duration and with permission to visit multiple cities would be issued.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/India-links-imports-to-Pak-MFN-status/articleshow/10435156.cms
--------
Krishna hopes US, Pak will settle differences across the table
TNN | Oct 21, 2011,
NEW DELHI: At a time when US-Pakistan relations have hit an all time low, foreign minister S M Krishna on Thursday came up with his own advice to diffuse the situation. Describing the US and Pakistan as friendly powers, Krishna said they should sit across the table and sort out their differences to prevent any devastating consequences for other countries, particularly India.
Krishna's description of US and Pakistan as friendly powers comes at a time when government officials and experts believe that US for the first time seems keen on calling Islamabad's bluff in not reining in the Haqqani network. As US increases troop presence at the Af-Pak border near Waziristan, Pakistani army chief Ashfaq Perzez Kayani is reported have warned Washington that Pakistan cannot be treated like Afghanistan and Iran because it is a nuclear power.
"This question concerns the relationship between two friendly powers, the US and Pakistan. It is India's desire that all outstanding issues between them are settled across the table and thereby a situation created in the region which will be conducive for development," said Krishna, while addressing the media in the presence of his French counterpart Alain Juppe. He was asked about the ongoing flare-up in US-Pakistan relations.
"Anything which upsets the region will have devastating consequences for the developmental agenda of other countries, particularly India. So we sincerely hope they will be able to sort out their differences," he went on to add.
In fact, keeping up the pressure on Pakistan, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said on Thursday that she will deliver a clear message to Islamabad during her visit to Pakistan that there cannot be a safe haven for terrorists anywhere. Juppe too expressed concern over the situation in Pakistan saying that France was developing a dialogue with Pakistan to seek a solution for Afghanistan.
"We are worried about the situation in Pakistan. We are aware of the difficulties faced by this country at political, economic and security levels. We think it is absolutely necessary to develop a dialogue with Pakistan because this country has a positive role to play in finding a solution to Afghanistan," he said.
"We have also discussed these points with India," he said, adding France has proposed that a collective security mechanism be prepared through this dialogue.
In a joint statement, India and France said that they endeavoured to jointly fight international terrorism, which was a common threat, and reiterated that terror cannot be justified on any ground or attributed to any root causes. The two sides also reaffirmed their "solidarity with Afghanistan and the will of the international community to remain committed after the 2014 transition through bilateral and multilateral for a", it said.
Looking ahead to the Istanbul Conference of November 2, they welcomed the commitment of the region to work for a stable, peaceful, democratic and independent Afghanistan, achieved through an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned process.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/US-Pak-conflict-will-seriously-hit-India-Krishna/articleshow/10434831.cms
-------
India releases Pakistani prisoner
October 21, 2011
LAHORE: The Indian authorities handed over a prisoner to Pakistan Rangers at Wagha border on Thursday. Pakistan Rangers sources said that the prisoner, Dilshad, was arrested by Indian officials on the charge of border crossing. The prisoner belonged to Hyderabad was detained in Indian jails for the last 12 years. app
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2011\10\21\story_21-10-2011_pg7_9
--------
Pakistani Hindus flay Anna Hazare over anti-Pakistan statement
By Hussain Kashif
October 21, 2011
LAHORE: The Pakistani Hindu community strongly condemned an anti-Pakistan statement delivered by Indian social activist Anna Hazare on Thursday.
Several representatives of minorities living in the country, while talking to Daily Times, declared the Anna Hazare’s recent statement, in which he came down hard on Pakistan, saying he was ready for war against it (Pakistan), as a black spot on his collar.
All Pakistan Hindu Rights Movement (APHRM) Chairman Haroon Sarab Diyal and other leaders of the Hindu community, including Pundit Rajesh Kalyan from Rawalpindi, Rajesh Kumar from Khyber Pukhtunkhwa, Amar Nath Randhawa from Lahore, Ratan Lal from Sialkot and Preetam Das from Rahim Yar Khan termed Anna Hazare’s statement as irresponsible and harmful for the continuing peace process between the neighbouring countries.
The APHRM chairman said that Anna Hazare had given an irresponsible statement without giving thought to its aftermath and effects on both nations. He said that the irresponsible comments of Anna Hazare had not only harmed the peace process continuing between both countries, but had also hurt the feelings of all Pakistanis who had idealised him as a man of vision and a fighter against corruption and other social problems.
Pundit Rajesh Kalyan and Amar Nath Randhawa said that more than 4.2 million Hindus were living in Pakistan and all of them were ready to sacrifice their lives for protecting their motherland. Rajesh Kumar and Ratan Lal said that their forefathers had given sacrifices for Pakistan in 1947 and that their efforts would not go to waste as the next generation was just as committed to protecting the country at any cost. They said that Pakistani Hindus would not permit anyone to destroy their country, as the protection of the homeland was a part of their religious beliefs.
A Pakistani delegation, comprising of Justice (r) Nasir Aslam Zahid and peace activist Karamat Ali, met Anna Hazare at his village and extended an invitation to visit Pakistan in connection with his anti-corruption movement, which was accepted by him.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2011\10\21\story_21-10-2011_pg7_15
--------
US teen charged in ‘Jihad Jane’ terror plot
October 21, 2011
PHILADELPHIA: A Maryland teenager has been indicted on federal terrorism charges that accuse him of helping the American terror suspect dubbed ‘Jihad Jane’ with her plot to kill a Swedish artist. Mohammad Hassan Khalid, a legal immigrant from Pakistan who turned 18 this month, allegedly helped recruit women with passports to further the plot of Colleen LaRose of Pennsylvania and others. The indictment released on Thursday also names Ali Charaf Damache, 46, an Algerian who lived in Ireland and married another suspect in the case, Jamie Paulin-Ramirez of Colorado. Paulin-Ramirez pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorists, the same charge now facing Khalid. Khalid had been the rare juvenile in federal custody since his July 6 arrest at his family’s home. He was an honors student at his public high school, who had been offered a full scholarship to Johns Hopkins University this fall. He has been held in Berks County. “This case demonstrates that we must remain vigilant within our communities to make sure that we bring to justice those terrorists, of any age or background, who seek to do great harm to our citizens,” US Attorney Zane Memeger said in a statement. The teen’s lawyer, Jeffrey M Lindy, did not immediately return a call for comment. Khalid met LaRose in an online chat room in 2009, when he was 15, according to the indictment and a person close to his family. ap
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2011\10\21\story_21-10-2011_pg7_4
-------
Clinton urges Pakistan to boost anti-terror fight
Oct 20, 2011
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has called for a new, three-way partnership between the U.S., Afghanistan and Pakistan to fight insurgents and bring back into society those fighters willing to accept clear guidelines.
Clinton pushed Pakistan's leaders to fight harder against terrorists within their own borders, saying the Pakistanis "must be part of the solution." "That means ridding their own country of terrorists who kill their own people and who cross the border to kill people in Afghanistan," Clinton said.
Outlining a fresh "fight, talk, build" strategy at a news conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Clinton said it was imperative for the three nations to cooperate to end the war in Afghanistan. Clinton said she would bring her message next to Pakistan, where she will lead a delegation of Obama administration officials in talks with Pakistani leaders. Ties between the two countries have been strained over counterterrorism issues. "We intend to push Pakistan very hard," Clinton said.
"We will be looking to the Pakistanis to take the lead because the terrorists operating outside of Pakistan pose a threat to the Pakistanis as well as to others," she said. "Our message is very clear: We're going to be fighting, we are going to be talking and we are going to be building ... and they can either be helping or hindering but we are not going to stop."
Clinton said she would emphasize the urgency of the new strategy to officials in Pakistan.
"Violent extremism has also taken the lives of thousands of Pakistanis as well as Afghans. And if you look beyond the history of distrust, it is clear that all countries in the region will have to work together for all the people in the region," she said.
Clinton said she would emphasize the urgency of the new strategy to officials in Pakistan. She also underscored continuing U.S. support for Karzai's flagging reconciliation efforts.
Karzai has grown leery of the reconciliation effort and has also said that Pakistan must do more to control the militant networks that find safe haven in the neighboring country and use it as a staging ground for operations that challenge his government's efforts to rebuild after a decade of fighting against the Taliban.
The diplomatic push comes in tandem with the military operations, which have increasingly focused on eastern Afghanistan. The area has seen an uptick in NATO and Afghan operations after an earlier focus on the Taliban's traditional strongholds in the country's south forced the insurgents to shift their efforts to other, often quieter, regions. Clinton has urged the Taliban to be part of a peaceful future in Afghanistan or "face continuing assault".
She also underscored continuing U.S. support for Karzai's flagging efforts to bring back into society those insurgents willing to accept clear guidelines.
"Insurgents must renounce violence, abandon al-Qaida and abide by the laws and constitution of Afghanistan, including its protections for women and minorities," Clinton said.
"Reconciliation is possible," she added. "Indeed, it represents the best hope for Afghanistan and the region." Mr Karzai has expressed frustration at the process to engage the Taliban after the assassinations of several key Afghan leaders.
US officials say she also wants to convince Afghans that Washington is committed to a long-term relationship with their country.
"She wants to signal US support for a secure and stable Afghanistan," a US official told journalists travelling with Mrs Clinton.
Mrs Clinton met civic leaders at the US embassy in Kabul before her scheduled meeting with President Karzai. She assured women's rights activists, education officials and politicians that their concerns were "being heard at the highest levels of the US government".
"I am here to have a reality check," she said. "I want to hear what people in Afghanistan are thinking about the way forward."
Mrs Clinton has been a champion of women's rights in Afghanistan but activists fear that any deal with Islamist insurgents could undo advances made.
Mrs Clinton also met Mr Rabbani's son, Salahuddin, telling him that his father "was a brave man and trying to do the right thing".
Salahuddin Rabbani replied: "We will make sure we continue his vision."
http://nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/Politics/20-Oct-2011/Terrorists-to-be-targeted-on-AfghanPak-border-Clinton
-------
US want good relations between Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan: Toner
Oct 20, 2011
The US Wednesday said it wants Pakistan, India and Afghanistan to share "good" and "constructive" relations between each other as this will ensure stability and peace in the South Asian region. "Our policy remains that we need good relations between Pakistan and India," State Department spokesperson Mark Toner said in Washington during his daily press briefing.
Similarly, he said the US needs "good, constructive" relations between India and Afghanistan, as well as Afghanistan and Pakistan so that the three nations can "prosper and increase stability and peace" in the region. "Certainly, an important element of that in Pakistan and elsewhere is strengthening democratic institutions and democratic governance," he said.
In response to a question on the US issuing a travel alert to its citizens in India, Toner said the holiday season, particularly from October to January, has been a period when terrorists have carried out attacks across cities in India.
He said recent Indian government advisories and local media reports increased indications that there are "terrorist attacks possibly in planning".
http://nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/Politics/20-Oct-2011/US-wants-good-relations-between-Pakistan-India-Afghanistan-Toner
-------
NATO kills 115 militants in east Afghanistan fight
Oct 20, 2011
NATO and Afghan forces have killed at least 115 insurgents over the past week as part of an ongoing operation in a northeastern Afghanistan province, the coalition said Thursday, as it looks to curb insurgent activity along the border with neighboring Pakistan.
The fighting in Kunar province, known for its rugged terrain that leaves coalition supply lines from Pakistan vulnerable to insurgent attacks, comes as NATO is stepping up efforts to secure the country and ready Afghan forces to fully take over security responsibilities before international forces wind down their combat mission n 2014.
NATO said the operation has been going on since around Oct. 15 and has included the use of fighter jets and long-range bombers. The alliance said that one NATO service member has been killed since the fighting began. It was not immediately clear if any Afghan troops had been killed.
For Full Report :
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2011/10/20/nato-kills-115-militants-east-afghanistan-fight.html
-------
Six terrorists killed in Khurram Agency
Oct 20 2011,
PARACHINAR: At least six terrorists were killed and two hideouts destroyed when security forces shelled them on Wednesday.
According to details, security forces early on Wednesday morning engaged the suspected hideouts of extremists in the Spearkot area of Kurram Agency with heavy artillery fire.
During the shelling, two hideouts were destroyed and six insurgents were killed on the spot.
The official sources said that the terrorists killed belonged to the Mullah Toofan Group of the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. The area targeted by security forces is occupied by extremists belonging to the Mullah Toofan Group and has been shelled several times during recent months.
http://paktribune.com/news/Six-terrorists-killed-in-Kurram-Agency-244485.html
--------
Two soldiers, five militants killed in Khyber clash
Oct 20 2011,
AFP
PESHAWAR: Two soldiers and five militants were killed on Thursday in gunbattles in Pakistan’s Khyber tribal district along the Afghan border, officials said.
The fighting erupted when Pakistan’s paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC) launched a search operation in the Malik din Khel area of Khyber.
The strategically important Khyber district lies between Peshawar and Afghanistan and is the main route for Nato supplies in Afghanistan.
Mutahir Zeb, the top administrative official of Khyber, said militants from Lashkar-i-Islam were involved in the attack.
For Full Report :
http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/20/two-soldiers-five-militants-killed-in-khyber-clash.html
-------
Turkish jets keep bombing northern Iraq
Oct 20, 2011
Military activity at the air base in mainly Kurdish Diyarbakir province was very intensive throughout the night with many F-16 jets taking off to bomb the hideouts of the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), they said.
The intense military activity also disrupted civilian air traffic in Diyarbakir, they added.
PKK attacks against military posts along the border with Iraq killed 24 people and injured 18 late Tuesday.
According to press reports, the attacks were carried out when between 200 and 250 Kurdish militants entrenched in the mountains of northern Iraq entered Turkish territory to carry out raids on several military posts.
For Full Report :
http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/20/turkish-jets-keep-bombing-northern-iraq.html
-------
Pak- US ties on a ‘Knife Edge’: Pak General
Oct 20 2011,
By Badar Alam in Karachi
GENERAL Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, chief of Pakistan’s omnipotent army, assured the parliamentarians at a rare briefing at his headquarters in Rawalpindi that the US would never dare to launch another unilateral strike in the country, since “ it is no Iraq or Afghanistan”. The apparent reference to the nuclear prowess of Pakistan came a time when the US is putting unprecedented pressure on its ally act against the Haqqani network the restive Waziristan. More significantly, the comments came just day ahead of the US secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s visit to Islamabad.
member of the parliamentary committee, who attended the briefing in Rawalpindi, quoted Kayani as saying that the US would have to think “ 10 times” before taking such an action against Pakistan.
For Full Report :
http://epaper.mailtoday.in/epaperhome.aspx?issue=20102011
-------
Pak rebuffs India with dam in PoK
Oct 20 2011,
By Dipanjan Roy Chaudhury in New Delhi
ISLAMABAD gave two hoots to repeated Indian pleas to avoid construction activities in Pakistan occupied Kashmir ( PoK).
This came to the fore when Pakistan PM Yousaf Raza Gilani on Tuesday laid the foundation for the 4,500MW Diamer- Bhasha Dam in the Gilgit- Baltistan region of PoK. India, which considers any construction in PoK as illegal, had earlier lodged protests with Pakistan as well as China and the US to stop funding any infrastructure project on a territory that is being held illegally by the neighbouring country.
Earlier this year India had lodged a protest with the US for deciding to fund the Diamer- Bhasha project. The presence of Chinese army in PoK has also raised concern with none other than army chief V. K. Singh publicly raising his voice on the issue.
The Diamer- Bhasha project has also seen opposition by locals. Residents of Kohistan district recently staged a protest complaining that the Gilani government is yet to relocate families whose houses come in the path of the dam or pay them compensation for the loss of their land.
With a storage capacity of about 8 million acre feet ( MAF) and estimated electricity generation of 4,500 MW, Diamer- Bhasha will exceed both the Tarbela and Mangla dams, whose storage capacities have fallen drastically because of silting.
The project may take over eight to 10 years to complete and will cost over $ 12 billion.
Pakistani officials claim the electricity generated by this project will help overcome 12- 14 hour daily outages.
Sources said the Diamer- Bhasha project site ( in the Northern Area of PoK) was an integral part of India by virtue of Jammu & Kashmir’s accession to the country in 1947. A couple of years ago India had lodged a formal protest with Pakistan over the proposed dam in that area.
There were fears the dam’s reservoir would inundate large areas in the northern part of Jammu and Kashmir, adjoining PoK. Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari, during his visit to Xinjiang province in September, made a strong pitch for Chinese construction firms for the project and the 7,200 MW Bunji dam, also in PoK. China’s support to Pakistan’s projects in the disputed territory is to the tune of $ 12- 15 billion. India has serious reservation about projects proposed for PoK with the help of Chinese funding. India has also raised the issue with China on certain projects.
Gilani also announced an additional one billion Pakistani rupees for repair and expansion of the Karakoram highway and other roads in the region.
Another $ 200 million was announced for development of Diamer district. These announcements are bound to create discomfiture in the power corridors in New Delhi.
mail today
-------
Friend’ Haqqani now thorn in US f lesh
Oct 20 2011,
Named after its leader, Jalaluddin Haqqani, it is one of three Talibanallied insurgent factions fighting USled NATO and Afghan troops in Afghanistan.
an anti- Soviet mujahideen commander, Jalaluddin won funding and weapons from the US and Pakistani intelligence services. He was held in such high esteem that he even visited the White House when Ronald Reagan was President.
Despite ill health, Jalaluddin, who is in his 70s, still inspires Haqqani foot soldiers believed to number up to 4,000, as well as other militant groups who revere him. His son, Siraj runs the daily affairs of the network
WHERE DOES IT OPERATE?
The group is active across much of southeastern Afghanistan and seeks to regain full control over its traditional bases in Khost, Paktia and Paktika provinces. The Haqqanis, who are based in Pakistan’s North Waziristan, have been heavily targeted by the US drone missiles.
WHY DOESN’T PAK ACT AGAINST IT?
As one of the most powerful insurgent groups in Afghanistan, the Haqqanis could act as a spoiler if Pakistan feels its interests are threatened in any settlement to the 10- year war. Islamabad also sees the Haqqanis as an insurance policy against the growing influence of rival India in Afghanistan. Attacking the Haqqanis could further destabilise Pakistan.
http://epaper.mailtoday.in/epaperhome.aspx?issue=20102011
-------
Waziristan is new nail in Pak- US ties
Oct 20 2011,
WHAT ARE PAKISTAN’S NIGGLING PROBLEMS WITH THE UNITED STATES?
FOR all the talk of Pakistan and the United States being strategic allies in the war on terrorism, the two countries are a prickly pair, with both sides suspicious of the other.
The May 2 raid, which Pakistan sees as a clear violation of its sovereignty, has further deepened the discord.
Pakistan’s army has warned the United States it would risk counterterrorism cooperation if it conducted another assault.
Even before the bin Laden raid, Pakistan had regularly complained about US drone strikes that have killed hundreds in Pakistan's tribal regions. Pakistan says the strikes undermine efforts to deal with militancy because civilian casualties inflame public anger and bolster support for the fighters.
For Full Report :
http://epaper.mailtoday.in/epaperhome.aspx?issue=20102011
-------
Some govt. allies corrupt, others terrorists: Nawaz
Oct 20 2011,
DERA GHAZI KHAN: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President Nawaz Sharif said on Wednesday that some among the government allies were corrupt and some were involved in terrorism.
Addressing a public gathering in connection with the launch of 'Go Zardari Go' movement here, he said he had never seen such a corrupt government throughout his life. "Corruption is going on day and night," Nawaz deplored.
The PML-N chief said despite being proven to be involved in corruption and terrorism, some people were entrenched safely as ministers. "Some of them are directly involved in corruption while brothers of some of them are also involved in corruption," Nawaz alleged without elaborating.
During his visit to the flood-hit areas of Sindh, Nawaz said he realised that the government did not exist there. He said he did not demand any personal favour from the PPP government, but insisted on fulfillment of promises. Nawaz said that incompetent and inexperienced rulers were defaming democracy in the country.
For Full Report :
http://paktribune.com/news/Some-govt-allies-corrupt-others-terrorists-Nawaz-244482.html
-------
Pakistan must act to remove Haqqani safe havens: Clinton
Oct 20, 2011
KABUL: A major offensive is under way against Haqqani militants in eastern Afghanistan and Pakistan must act to remove safe havens on its side of the border, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Thursday.
“We are taking action against the Haqqanis. There was a major military operation inside Afghanistan in recent days,” she told a joint news conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
“It continues. That has been rounding up and eliminating Haqqani operatives on this side of the border,” she added.
The top US diplomat also said there was an “international effort to squeeze the Haqqanis with their funding and other aspects of their operations”.
The United States recently accused the Haqqanis of orchestrating a 19-hour siege of the US embassy in Kabul, a September truck bombing on a Nato outpost that wounded 77 Americans and a June attack on Kabul’s InterContinental hotel.
Clinton confirmed that the United States believes the network operates out of a “safe haven in Pakistan”.
“And now it’s a question as to how much cooperation Pakistanis will provide in going after those safe havens,” she added.
For Full Report :
http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/20/clinton-says-will-ramp-up-pressure-on-pakistan-militant-havens.html
-------
NATO sends troops to disputed Kosovo border posts
Oct 20, 2011
Two convoys of at least 100 armed transport vehicles, trucks and dredges of the Kosovo peacekeeping forces (KFOR) moved towards the Brnjak border crossing into Serbia at around 2:30 am (0030 GMT), local reporters contacted by AFP said.
A convoy stopped before the first roadblock on the road to the Brnjak crossing, a Kosovo Serb citizen on the scene told AFP by telephone, adding that some 150 local Serbs gathered at the barricade.
Meanwhile, another KFOR’s convoy stopped a few hundred meters (yards) away from another barricade on another road leading to Brnjak, a witness there said.
Some 100 Serbs swiftly assembled at the scene.
For Full Report :
http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/20/nato-sends-troops-to-disputed-kosovo-border-posts-witnesses.html
-------
Small investors struggle while Afghanistan hopes for big deals
Oct 20, 2011
KABUL: Afghanistan is in desperate need of investment to invigorate its tiny, fragile economy, but on top of the grave physical dangers of the decade-old war, businesses are put off by corruption, pitiful infrastructure, and a slothful bureaucracy.
Even after the billions of dollars of Western aid that have been pumped in, Afghan gross domestic product was only $15 billion last year, smaller than that of Cameroon, El Salvador and Uganda, and its jobless rate is around 30 percent.
As it looks beyond the 2014 deadline for foreign combat troops to leave, the government is banking on potentially huge mining projects to bring in cash, not least to pay for the disciplined security forces it needs to prevent the country being sucked into a full-blown civil war.
For Full Report :
http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/20/small-investors-struggle-while-afghanistan-hopes-for-big-deals.html
-------
Afghan lawmaker ends hunger strike on 18th day
Oct 20, 2011
Semin Barekzai, a 32-year-old mother of three, stopped eating and moved into a tent outside parliament at the start of October, in a bid to be reinstated as a lawmaker.
She had won her seat last September, but in August the Independent Election Commission (IEC) ruled that she and eight other lawmakers should be replaced because other candidates had actually received more votes.
Hunger strikes are unusual in Afghanistan though a familiar political weapon in nearby India, and Barekzai’s campaign exposed divisions on how democracy should function in the war-torn, conservative and ethnically divided country.
For Full Report :
http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/19/afghan-lawmaker-ends-hunger-strike-on-18th-day.html
-------
US won’t enter Waziristan’: Pak Intel. Report
Oct 20, 2011
ISLAMABAD – The US troops amassed at the Pakistan-Afghanistan border near the tribal North Waziristan Agency will not cross into Pakistan and will only install 'sophisticated equipment' on the Afghanistan side for surveillance of the Haqqani network, official sources said, citing intelligence reports.
“The intelligence agencies have told the government that the US forces do not plan to enter Pakistan and are at the border just to install sophisticated equipment to check the movement of the Haqqani network activists,” reports Indian newspaper Decan Chronical, quoting a senior government official .
“Keeping in view the latest meetings between the Pakistan and the US officials and the intelligence reports there is at least no fear of ground attack on North Waziristan,” said the official. The US has deployed hundreds of troops long the Pakistan-Afghanistan border near the tribal North Waziristan Agency as fear grows of attack on the Haqqani network. The heavily armed US forces are backed by gunship helicopters. The relations between Pakistan and the US have deteriorated recently as the US is pressing Pakistan to launch a military operation in North Waziristan. The Pakistan government and the military rejected the US demand and told them that a US operation in North Waziristan will be treated as attack on Pakistan.
For Full Report :
http://dailymailnews.com/1011/20/FrontPage/index.php?id=4
-------
Benazir made Sharif’s return to Pak possible'
Oct 20 2011,
Islamabad : Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) chief Nawaz Sharif should be obliged to the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leadership for making possible his return from exile, Information Minister Firdous Ashiq Awan has said.
Addressing a press conference, Awan urged Sharif to prove himself a patriot and avoid politics of allegations.
"The credit goes to PPP leadership (Benazir Bhutto) to make possible his return from exile. He should be obliged," The Nation quoted Awan, as saying.
She asked the former prime minister not to unleash a covert war in the Sindh province in disguise of sympathising the people of the flood-hit areas.
"In an attempt to get support of flood-affected people, Sharif was shedding crocodile tears," the minister said, adding that instead of making covert political attacks, Sharif should make political move, which would be welcomed by the PPP.
For Full Report :
http://www.indianexpress.com/story-print/862662/
-------
Pak vital to US Afghan plans
Oct 20 2011,
by Vivek Katju
AMID heightened tensions along the Afghan- Pakistan border ( or the Durand Line) Pakistan army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani briefed the defence committees of both Houses of the Pakistan Parliament on October 18 at the General Headquarters ( GHQ), Rawalpindi. The reported comments by Kayani are noteworthy for many reasons, but first a few words on the tensions.
Press reports emanating out of the US indicate that the US and Afghan forces along the Durand Line have faced an increasing number of rocket attacks from the Pakistani side over the past few months. They are getting frustrated at their inability to root out the source of these attacks. Such sentiments on the part of US operatives along the Afghan side of the Durand Line are nothing new.
In 2003 and 2004 and later too, US intelligence operatives in the region were greatly troubled at the increasing consolidation of the Taliban in some Afghan provinces but their reports became a casualty of Washington’s fixation on securing al- Qaeda operatives at any cost and Pakistan was given carte blanche on the Taliban.
Today Washington will have greater sympathy with its soldiers on the ground but can do little more than issue dire warnings to Pakistan. Pakistani generals are aware that the US can inflict no real damage to Pakistan’s interest at this stage for the country occupies a pivotal position in US exit strategies in Afghanistan.
In recent months, Pakistan has charged Afghanistan for harbouring Pakistani Taliban in Kunar and Nooristan Provinces of Afghanistan from where they have attacked Pakistani territory.
Doubtless, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, with the US looking the other way, wants to signal that Afghanistan is also capable of playing Pakistan’s game.
The Pakistani generals will not be fazed by these actions for they can cause Pakistan no real harm.
Similarly, the Afghan defence minister’s announcement that NATO and Afghan forces have launched an operation directed against the Haqqani network will not cause sleepless nights in Rawalpindi. The Haqqanis are Pakistan’s current favourites; indeed, as Admiral Mike Mullen said, they are a virtual arm of the ISI. Hence their current sanctuaries within Pakistan will be fully safeguarded.
To return to the GHQ briefing: Kayani is reported to have said that Pakistan could not be compared to either Iraq or Afghanistan for Pakistan is a nuclear power. This was as much an assurance to his own people as a warning to the US. To the former it was designed to boost confidence in the Pakistani army’s ability to defend the country’s territorial integrity as well as its honour.
For the latter, it was a clear message that any action that would become a cause of embarrassment for the Pakistani army would be unacceptable and would have the most serious consequences.
Kayani did not have to specifically mention Afghanistan but his intention was clear. In addition to Afghanistan, was Kayani also indicating that Pakistan as a nuclear power could adversely impact on the US’ nonproliferation efforts as it has done in the past? Kayani is also reported to have made some other points that merit attention.
He denied that Pakistan had any desire to control Afghanistan. For history indicates that no country has succeeded in establishing control over Afghanistan.
This is complete hogwash.
PAKISTANI actions over the last two decades have demonstrated an overriding desire to have overarching influence over Kabul’s security policies. Pakistan’s actions against Indian interests in Afghanistan have been a clear pointer in this direction.
Kayani clearly stated that Pakistan would not conduct military action in North Waziristan. This is hardly surprising for this territory is currently vital for its Afghan policies.
Reports claim that initially the members of the defence committees had refused to go to GHQ for the briefing.
But they obviously quickly fell in line.
So much for those who believe that Pakistan is moving ahead on the road to democracy.
( The writer is a former secretary ( west) in the ministry of external affairs and a former ambassador to Afghanistan)
mail today
-------
Immigration system at Pak-Afghan border soon
Oct 20 2011,
QUETTA: Interior Minister Rehman Malik has said the government is going to implement immigration system along Pak-Afghan border in Chaman and Torkham from November.
Addressing a news conference at Chief Minister's Secretariat on Wednesday, Malik said the government would revive the biometric computerised system by November 30 to screen all people travelling across the Pak-Afghan border.
The move has been made after frequent terror attacks and increase in sectarian violence in Balochistan.
The interior minister said he had come to Quetta with the task to discuss three issues, including illegal cross border activities, target killings of Hazara community and negotiations with those angry Baloch nationalists who had taken to hills. He was accompanied by Home Minister Zafarullah Zehri on the occasion. Malik visited the Chaman border and also held meetings with members of the Hazara community and Sunni leaders in Quetta.
Speaking about biometric computerised system, he said, "It will be most modern system aimed at preventing illegal immigrants from crossing into Pakistan, and keep a check on cross-border activities." He added, "I have talked to officials and tribesmen on either side of the border and they have expressed their willingness to extend their cooperation to curb the activities of illegal immigrants."
For Full Report :
http://paktribune.com/news/Immigration-system-at-Pak-Afghan-border-soon-244483.html
--------
After skullcap, Narendra Modi refuses keffiyeh - a traditional Arab head-dress
Yagnesh Mehta,TNN | Oct 21, 2011,
NAVSARI: A concern for his core constituency - Hindus - seems to be holding chief minister Narendra Modi back from going all out to woo Muslims through his Sadbhavana mission.
In a deja vu of Modi refusing to wear a skullcap offered by a Muslim cleric during the three-day fast held in Ahmedabad last month, the chief minister politely turned down a similar request by a party worker, who offered him a chequered scarf, or keffiyeh during a Sadbhavana mission event held in Navsari on Thursday.
Mohammad Hussain Fadia, a BJP worker from Simlak village offered keffiyah, a traditional Arab head-dress, to Modi on the dais, throwing the machinery into tizzy. There were striking similarities between the two episodes: fasts at Ahmedabad and Navsari.
In the three-day fast, Modi had worn 'pagdis' offered to him by various religious and spiritual leaders. But, he refused to wear a skullcap fearing it would alienate Hindus. On Thursday, the chief minister welcomed a number of supporters who offered him scarves before declining to accept keffiyeh.
Realising the gravity of the situation, Fadia quickly got down from the stage and went missing only to reappear before media with a clarification. Accompanied by Haj committee chairman Mehboob Ali Bawa, Fadia told mediamen that he was a loyal party worker and Modi supporter.
"I had not taken the scarf to the dais to offer it to CM but I was just holding it in my hand," he said.
Simultaneously, the state information department also got into damage-control mode, issuing a release claiming it was an attempt to malign Modi.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/After-skullcap-Narendra-Modi-refuses-keffiyeh--a-traditional-Arab-head-dress/articleshow/10434545.cms
URL: https://newageislam.com/islamic-world-news/muammar-gaddafi,-son-mo-tassim/d/5732