Islamabad, July 15: Pakistani troops killed 13 militants in the latest clashes in the Swat Valley, the army said Wednesday, underscoring the region’s fragile security even as refugees displaced by fighting return home.
One clash occurred near Kabal town, which lies across the river from Mingora, the Swat Valley’s main city. Kabal has been considered a likely hide-out of the Swat Taliban’s leadership.
Tehran, July 15: Germany’s BND foreign intelligence agency believes Iran is capable of producing and testing an atomic bomb within six months, much sooner than most analysts estimate, according to a report in German weekly Stern.
The report, which quotes BND experts, says the agency has information supporting the view that Iran has mastered the enrichment technology necessary to make a bomb and has enough centrifuges to make weaponised uranium.
“If they wanted to, they could detonate an atomic bomb in half a year’s time,” the story quoted a BND expert as saying.
Tehran, July 15: Ten members of Iran’s Junior Judo squad were among the passengers of an Iranian jet which crashed in northwest Iran with nearly 168 people on board.
Eight Iranian judo athletes and two coaches were traveling to the Armenian capital, Yerevan, on Wednesday to hold a training camp.
The Iranian passenger plane crashed near the city of Qazvin.
The Russian-made Tupolev went down near the village of Jannat-Abad at 11:33 am local time.
—–Agencies
Kirkuk, July 15: Analysts interpret the unexpected trip by the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff to Iraq’s northern city of a Kirkuk as a warning to ethnic Kurds.
Adm. Mike Mullen traveled on Monday to the oil-rich city of Kirkuk which Kurds have claimed as the capital of their autonomous region in the north.
They have drawn up a draft constitution claiming extra areas as part of the region’s territory, including the ethnically divided Kirkuk province and parts of Nineveh and Diyala provinces in official Kurdish territory.
United Nations, July 15: The sanctions list for Al Qaeda and Taliban operatives contains names of dead people and entries with missing information, says Thomas Mayr-Harting, Austria’s ambassador to the United Nations.
‘It is not the purpose of the list to contain dead people,’ he told the press at the UN, noting that members of the deceased person’s family were unfairly deprived of the assets. Mayr-Harting is chairman of the Al Qaeda and Taliban Sanctions Committee.
Tehran, July 15: A senior Iranian lawmaker says tension between Parliament and the Ahmadinejad government will be heightened if Cabinet nominees are given a vote of no confidence.
“If competent people are introduced to Parliament as the new government’s ministers, we will give them a vote of confidence,” Deputy Head of the Parliament (Majlis) National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, Hossein Sobhani-Nia, told ILNA news agency on Wednesday.
“But if they are inept, Parliament might give them a vote of no confidence which will increase tensions,” he added.
Jerusalem, July 15: The Israeli military used reckless force during the fighting in Gaza earlier this year, resulting in needless deaths and damage, a group of former Israeli soldiers charged in a report Wednesday.
In testimonies collected by Breaking the Silence, an organization of Israeli army reservists, 26 soldiers who participated in the three weeks of Gaza fighting describe demolishing homes and using firepower beyond what was necessary given the relatively light resistance they encountered.
Tehran, July 15: Defeated presidential candidate — transformed into opposition leader — Mir-Hossein Mousavi plans to open a new political front after the idea of establishing a party gained momentum in Iranian political circles.
One of his senior aides, Alireza Beheshti, said Tuesday that the party would pave the way for Mousavi to keep up his protests against the results and conduct of the 10th presidential election through a new platform.
Tehran, July 15: An Iranian passenger plane has crashed in northwest of Tehran, near the city of Qazvin with all on board presumed dead.
Qazvin Police Chief Hossein Behzadpour said Wednesday that all on board are “most probably” dead.
The crash occurred near Jannat-abad village near Qazvin.
—–Agencies
Tehran, July 15: A reformist Web site says Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi has vowed not to let the blood of protesters killed in a postelection crackdown go in vain.
Mousavi made the remark Tuesday night when he and his wife visited the family of Sohrab Aarabi, 19, who disappeared during a June 15 protest. The family has been told he had been shot dead. He was buried Monday.
Baghdad, July 15: A suicide bomber has killed seven people in an attack on security forces in Iraq’s Anbar province.
Two police officials in Baghdad say the suicide bomber, who was driving a minibus, attacked a checkpoint of Iraqi soldiers and police officers at about 8 a.m. Wednesday. Six police were among the dead, and 17 people were injured.
Officials say the attack happened in the former insurgent stronghold of Ramadi, 70 miles (115 kilometers) west of Baghdad.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
–Agencies
Taipei, July 15: A Taiwanese Air Force F-5F jet is believed to have crashed during a training missing over the Taiwan Strait Wednesday morning.
The twin-seat F-5F took off from the Chingchuangkang Air Base on the west coast at 11.14 a.m. for an air-to-land shooting drill near the Penghu Islands in the Taiwan Strait, but vanished from the radar at 11.36 a.m., the air force said.
An S-70C helicopter and ships despatched to search for the missing jet and pilots found some plane wreckage and a blood-stained life saver, Hsieh Mao-sung, spokesman for the air base, told a news conference.
Jerusalem, July 15: The Israeli military used reckless force during the fighting in Gaza earlier this year, resulting in needless deaths and damage, a group of former Israeli soldiers charged in a report on Wednesday.
In testimonies collected by the organization Breaking the Silence, formed by Israeli army reservists, soldiers who participated in the Gaza fighting describe demolishing homes for no reason and using firepower beyond what was necessary given the relatively light resistance they encountered. None of the soldiers are identified.
Jerusalem, July 15: Israeli soldiers have recounted how “permissive” rules of engagement led to the death of civilians in Gaza where the Israeli army alleges that no crimes have been committed.
In print and video testimony published on Wednesday by the activist group Breaking the Silence, some 30 soldiers testified that the Israeli Army sought to minimize its own casualties to ensure public support for “Operation Cast Lead”.
The soldiers said they entered Gaza with blazing guns upon a guideline by commanders to shoot first and worry later about distinguishing civilians from combatants.
Abuja, July 15: Nigeria’s main rebel group, which has waged an “oil war” against the government, declares a 60-day ceasefire following the release of its leader.
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) said the truce, set to come into effect from Wednesday, was in response to the freeing of rebel leader Henry Okah.
The 45-year-old Okah — who was arrested in September 2007 for arms trafficking and treason — was freed Monday just hours the MEND set fire to an oil depot and loading tankers in Lagoc, the country’s economic center, the Associated Press reported.
Cairo, July 15: The second in command of al-Qaida is warning the Pakistani people that the U.S. interference in their country’s affairs poses a grave danger to its future and very existence.
In an audio message in English dated July 14 and addressed to the Pakistani people, Ayman al-Zawahri said the Pakistani people are struggling against “a clique of corrupt politicians and a junta of military officers who are fighting to remain on the American pay list.”
Baghdad, July 15: A car bomb explosion has struck the western Iraqi city of Ramadi in Anber province, leaving six people, including two traffic police officers, killed.
The bombing targeted a check point in downtown Ramadi early on Wednesday and wounded 16 men, women and children, AFP cited police and medics as saying.
The attack comes two weeks after US withdrawal from Iraqi cities and towns under a security pact between Baghdad and Washington that requires Washington to pull out its troops from the Iraqi soil by the end of 2011.
Kabul, July 15: A civilian helicopter ferrying humanitarian aid was shot down in a southern Afghan province where fighting with the Taliban is raging, killing all six Ukrainian crew members and a child on the ground, officials said. Three U.S. service members and an Italian soldier died in the latest clashes.
The transport helicopter crashed in flames Tuesday in the Sangin district of Helmand province, the center of Afghanistan’s opium poppy cultivation where thousands of Marines are conducting their biggest offensive since the hardline Islamic movement was ousted from power in 2001.
Washington, July 15: The Pentagon says it will deploy newly created army brigades in Iraq ahead of a planned withdrawal of US combat forces from the war-torn country.
The US Defense Department says about 14,000 troops in four brigades will help train Iraqi security forces and protect ongoing civilian efforts.
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman says the troops are the first elements of a residual US force.
Jerusalem, July 15: Sufficient evidence exists to prosecute Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman for corruption and disrupting a police investigation, a report says.
Lieberman is suspected of money laundering, breaching public trust, fraudulent receipt of goods, and interrupting the course of an investigation against him, Israeli police investigators said on Tuesday.
National Fraud Unit officials met with Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz on Tuesday night to discuss the lengthy corruption investigation and presented their findings to him, the Jerusalem Post reported.
Tehran, July 15: Iran’s ambassador to Indonesia says finding “honesty” in Western countries’ internal and foreign policies is very difficult.
Ambassador Kamalvandi Behrouz noted that measures taken by the West in many countries including Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine, clearly illustrate the unjust Western policies, IRNA reported on Tuesday.
He said that the West is trying to undermine the harmony of democracy and religion in Iran, adding that democracy in Iran, which is based on Islamic principles, is thriving.
Sharm-el-Sheikh, July 15: As part of the media team accompanying the Prime Minister to Egypt to take part in the 15th Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit meet, I can’t help but feel a sense of anxiety.
I am walking the streets of the place where my father was posted in 1961 as a young officer with the United Nations Emergency Force. Then Captain Ramamohan Rao, he was sent to the United Nations emergency force in Gaza strip as part of the Indian Contingent.
Jerusalem, July 15: Israeli troops were repeatedly encouraged by officers to prioritise their own safety over that of Palestinian civilians when they embarked on the ground invasion of Gaza in January, according to the first direct testimonies of soldiers who served in the operation.
Sharm-el-Sheikh (Egypt), July 15: Indian Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon and his Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir, who met here late Tuesday, will meet once again Wednesday before the prime ministers of the two countries hold talks, official sources said.
Holding out the possibility that the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Yousuf Raza Gilani would perhaps meet the press together after their talks Thursday morning, sources here said that the two foreign secretaries held one-on-one discussions for 90 minutes.
“They had good, detailed discussions,” official sources said.
Occupied Jerusalem, July 15: The Israeli government is planning to remove Arabic and English names of cities and towns on road signs, keeping only their Hebrew versions.
“(Transportation) Minister Yisrael Katz took this decision that will be progressively applied,” a ministry spokeswoman told. Under the new plan, only Hebrew names of cities, towns and villages will remain on road signs. Currently, Israeli road signs are written in Hebrew, Arabic and English, with the city names in each language.