Islamic World

Tehran, July 28: Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has ordered the closure of a prison in southern Tehran, state media reported Tuesday amid concerns about the fate of protestors arrested in the wake of last month’s contested presidential election.

Parliament deputy Kazem Jalali told the Mehr news agency that the leader ordered the Kahrizak detention centre shut down because it lacked the necessary standards for preserving detainees’ rights.

Kahrizak is said to be the main place where the election protestors were held and where some of them also died in mysterious ways.

Potiskum, July 28: Nigeria’s security forces were on maximum alert after two days of battles with radical Islamists which witnesses and authorities on Tuesday said had left more than 150 dead.

While authorities have so far confirmed only 55 deaths in the northern states of Bauchi and Yobe, journalists in the capital of a third state said they had seen scores of bodies dumped at the local police headquarters.

Ankara, July 28: Iraq must do more to stop Kurdish rebels using hideouts in its territory to launch deadly attacks in Turkey, a Turkish minister said Monday after meeting with Iraqi and U.S. officials to discuss the issue.

“We always have greater expectations. We are after more solid results,” Interior Minister Besir Atalay said, regarding the attacks by rebels of the Kurdistan Workers Party, which the U.S. and European Union consider a terrorist organization.

Kabul, July 28: Fifteen people, among them a presidential campaign worker, were killed in three separate incidents in Afghanistan, officials said Tuesday.

In the eastern province of Laghman, a local election campaign official of presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah was shot dead Tuesday morning by unidentified gunmen in Dawlat Shah district.

Rahm Khuda Mukhlis, the police chief of Dawlat Shah district, confirmed the attack on officials of Abdullah’s election campaign and said that one person was killed and two others were injured in this incident.

Islamabad, July 28: Though on the run from the major Pakistani offensive, the retreating Taliban militants have carried out a gruesome beheading of a captured police official. The police found the decapitated body of a constable in a town in Swat valley, where for the last three months the Pakistan Army is carrying out a flushing operation against the Taliban, officials were quoted by TV channels as saying.

They said the police constable was kidnapped a week ago by militants. His corpse was found today with his head severed about four kilometres from Swat”s main town Mingora.

Dubai, July 28: President Asif Ali Zardari will visit Tajikistan from today to attend two regional summits.

During his two days visit President Asif Ali Zardari would meet Tajik president Enomali Rahman and discuss the matters related to expansion of bilateral trade ties between the two countries and import of electricity from Tajikistan to Pakistan.

A trilateral summit of Tajikistan, Pakistan and Afghanistan and a quadrilateral summit of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Russia will be held during the visit.

Gaza, July 28: Police order a lingerie shop to hide its scantily clad mannequins. A judge warns female lawyers to wear head scarves in court. Beach patrols break up groups of singles and make men wear shirts.

It’s all part of a new Hamas campaign to get Gazans to adhere to a strict Muslim lifestyle — and the first clear attempt by the Islamic militants to go beyond benign persuasion in doing so.

It suggests that having consolidated its hold on Gaza in the two years since it seized control by force, Hamas feels emboldened enough to extend its ideology into people’s private lives.

Jerusalem, July 28: US special Middle East envoy George Mitchell Monday called on Israel, the Palestinians and Arab states to take steps to promote a comprehensive peace in the Middle East, calling it one of President Barack Obama’s ‘top priorities’.

‘We believe that a full, comprehensive peace presents the best way for all the people of the region to achieve the security, peace and prosperity all its citizens deserve,’ he told reporters in Cairo after meeting Egyptian President Hosny Mubarak and Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit.

Kabul, July 28: A majority of the public believes that the war in Afghanistan is unwinnable and British troops should be pulled out immediately, a poll for The Independent has found.

The growing opposition to the military offensive emerged as another two UK soldiers were killed, bringing the number of deaths so far this month to 22. Gordon Brown declared yesterday that Operation Panther’s Claw – the five-week onslaught on Taliban positions in Helmand province – had been a success.

Kabul, July 28: Visiting Afghanistan Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta rubbished Islamabad’s allegation that India was backing the Balochistan insurgency in Pakistan.

“This is not a new claim by Pakistan,” he said, adding: “But we need to have closer relation against international terrorism in our region.”

Spanta said this during his talks with Indian External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna.

Dubai, July 28: Despite the impact of the global economic crisis, the UAE continues to be a favoured destination for Indian workers among the Gulf nations which has about 1.5 million population from the country.

India’s Consul General to the UAE Venu Rajamony said that an estimated 1.5 million Indians are in the UAE with 1.2 million of them in Dubai and Northern Emirates.

They are mostly from the South Indian States of Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh as estimated by the Embassy, he said.

Tehran, July 28: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was grappling with a new political crisis that has weakened his standing even among hawkish supporters as the opposition warned it would press on with its protest campaign.

The embattled Ahmadinejad, already forced into a climbdown over his choice of a top aide, was again under fire on Monday over the sacking of the intelligence minister and the resignation of his culture minister.

Riyadh, July 28: Saudi Arabia confirmed that a man had died of swine flu.

The health ministry said this was the first such death and that it had taken place in a private hospital in Dammam in the eastern part of the country.

Health ministry officials said that the dead man was 30 and that he was admitted to the hospital on Wednesday with a fever and pneumonia.

He expired on Saturday despite being treated with antibiotics and the anti-flu drug Tamiflu, the ministry said.

Algeria, July : Algerian security forces have killed five armed Islamic extremists in the northeastern Tizi Ouzou region, about 100 kilometres (60 miles) east of Algiers, several papers reported Monday.

The Islamists were tracked down in the forested highlands of Sid Ali Bounab, about 15 kilometres from Tizi Ouzou, the capital of Algeria’s ethnic Kabylie region, according to the French-language daily El Watan.

London, July : The government announced Monday the end of a bloody offensive against the Taliban in southern Afghanistan, saying it now needs to hold and build on the ground it has cleared of insurgents.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown praised the “heroic” efforts of British forces in Helmand province, where the troop death toll has surged since the assault was launched late last month.

“The first phase of Operation Panther’s Claw has now ended,” a Ministry of Defence spokeswoman told AFP. “There are three phases. The first was the most heavily military phase.

Ankara, July 27: Two men, apparently members of pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP), have been killed in southeastern Turkey near the Iraqi border, security sources say.

The bodies of Necman Olmez and Ferhat Edis have been found dead on Sunday near the town of Beytussebap in the southeastern province of Sirnak.

Turkish security forces have been searching for the two men from Saturday when local residents said they had seen unknown people arresting them on a road outside town.

Kabul, July 27: Afghanistan has signed a cease-fire deal with Taliban militants in an Afghan province, as the country draws near elections amid growing violence.

A presidential spokesman, Seyamak Herawi, said on Monday that the truce was struck on Saturday in the remote north-western Badghis province near the border with Turkmenistan, after mediation between Taliban leaders, tribal elders and other influential figures.

He added that the government is planning to sign similar deals with the Taliban in other parts of the country.

Tehran, July 27: Iran’s Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani has called for full explanation from the Minister of Road and Transportation over the country’s latest aviation accidents.

Larijani made the request in a meeting with the Iranian Minister of Road and Transportation Hamid Behbahani, the country’s Aviation Organization, and members of the parliament’s National Security commission in his office on Sunday.

Baghdad, July 27: At least four people have been killed and nine others injured by a bomb blast at the funeral of a local police officer in western Iraq.

The bomber detonated his explosive vest Sunday at the funeral for a police officer killed in another bomb attack near Falluja in Anbar province a day before, the police spokesman said.

On Saturday, at least five people were killed and 21 others wounded as a bomb-laden car exploded near the offices of a Sunni Arab political party in Fallujah.

Tehran, July 27: Chairman of the Expediency Council Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has rejected a “power struggle” among top Iranian officials following the last month’s presidential election.

“I have hope in the Leader [of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei] to take an action to resolve the current problems based on his thoughts and experience,” said the influential cleric on Sunday.

“I have the same short-term solutions, which I offered in the Friday prayer sermons,” he added.

Jurusalem, July 27: Israel’s defense minister told visiting U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Monday that his country is taking “no option” off the table regarding Iran’s nuclear program, indicating that a military strike remains a possibility even as the U.S. tries to persuade Israel to give diplomacy more time.

“This is our position. We mean it,” Defense Minister Ehud Barak said, standing alongside Gates. At the same time, Barak said that the current priority should be diplomacy.

Kyrgyzstan, July 27: Kyrgyzstan’s opposition leader headed to Russia on Monday seeking to win Moscow’s support in his standoff with President Kurmanbek Bakiyev following last week’s disputed election in the Central Asian nation.

The ex-Soviet republic is at the heart of Russia-U.S. rivalry in the vast region stretching between Afghanistan, Iran, China and Russia. Courted by both Moscow and Washington, it now hosts a Russian and a U.S. military air base.

Washington, July 27: Taliban has come under tremendous pressure following Pakistan”s military action against the militant group in Swat valley and adjoining areas, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said today. “We have seen the Pakistani government and military really step up, which had not happened to the extent it has now.

Kabul, July 27: Afghanistan has struck a ceasefire deal with Taliban insurgents in a remote province, a presidential spokesman said on Monday, the first move of its kind amid an escalation of violence ahead of elections next month.

The truce was reached on Saturday in northwestern Badghis province, near the border with Turkmenistan, spokesman Seyamak Herawi said. The government wanted to make similar deals with the Taliban in other parts of the country in a bid to improve security for the Aug. 20 presidential election, he said.

—-Agencies

Tehran, July 27: A senior Iranian dignitary says a commission has been set up to probe into the case of the detainees who were arrested after the June 12 presidential election unrest.

“The commission consists of seven members including representatives of judicial, article 90, training and research commissions and two members of the National Security commission,” ILNA news agency quoted head of the Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Alaeddin Boroujerdi as saying on Sunday.