Month: July 2009

New Delhi, July 06: Afghanistan National Army chief General Bismillah Khan Mohammadi arrived on a four day official visit to India on Monday. He will be meeting senior military and defence officials and is likely to discuss issues like training of Afghan Army officers.

Mohammadi, who took over the Afghanistan Army in 2002, was given a guard of honour at South Block lawns on his arrival. He will be visiting military installations in Pune, Mumbai and Hyderabad.

Gaza, July 06: A UN human rights mission investigating possible war crimes in the Gaza Strip has resumed its public hearings with the victims of Israel’s deadly offensive.

The two-day session at the UN’s human rights headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, which follows a first set of hearings in Gaza nearly 10 days ago, aims at giving a chance to those who were not able to travel to Gaza to present their testimony.

In Gaza, Palestinians who were trapped in the three-week onslaught detailed the gory killing of their relatives to the fact-finding mission one after another.

Kabul, July 06: Sixteen Afghan nationals working for the UN-sponsored demining agency, who were kidnapped over the weekend, have been freed unharmed.

The personnel from the Mine Detection and Dog Centre (MDC) — which is part of the overall UN mine clearing agency in Afghanistan known as UNMACA — were seized by unknown gunmen in Afghanistan’s eastern Paktia province on Saturday.

The provincial tribal chiefs were able to secure the release of the men late on Sunday after making contact with the kidnappers, Sherin Agha Ahmad Shah, head of the MDC in Paktia said on Monday.

Tehran, July 06: Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Monday warned some Western states of “negative impact” if their interference in the internal matters of Iran continues.

“The Western stance will have a negative impact in future relations,” the ayatollah said in a speech carried on state television.

Khamenei was referring to alleged Western interference in the recent unrest over alleged fraud in the June 12 presidential election.

Mogadishu, July 06: Somali al-Shabaab fighters have reportedly issued a deadline for the country’s government to hand over all the weapons in its possession.

On Monday, top al-Shabaab commander Sheik Mukhtar Abu Subeyr said the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and its affiliates have five days to deliver up their armaments, a Press TV correspondent reported.

Subeyr warned his group’s gunmen against showing mercy to the government’s officials in their captivity or the ones they could capture.

Tehran, July 06: A senior Iranian official has warned that any aggression against his country would trigger a “decisive and full-scale response”.

“I think that America and Israel are fully aware what kind of result such a wrong judgment will entail,” said Alaeddin Boroujerdi, the head of parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, in Japan on Monday.

“That kind of erroneous judgment poses a threat to the entire Middle Eastern region and the world,” he added.

Baghdad, July 06: A car bomb wounded 10 civilians in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul Monday, and gunmen shot dead a traffic policeman, in further violence there after the withdrawal of U.S. troops from cities.

Grenade attacks Sunday killed a policeman and wounded many other people in what seemed like an attempt by insurgents to take advantage of the U.S. absence to ramp up violence in their last urban holdout.

Kandahar, July 06:Afghanistan’s insurgent Taliban movement said Monday they had launched a guerrilla operation to counter a major assault by US Marines on their stronghold in Helmand province.

Operation Foladi Jal, or “iron net” in Pashtu, would teach the Marines “a lesson,” Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi told AFP by telephone from an unknown location.

About 4,000 Marines poured into the southern province on the border with Pakistan in an operation called Khanjar (dagger) that has faced little resistance since it was launched five days ago.