Suspected US missiles, Pakistan jets hit militants

By MUNIR AHMAD, Associated Press Writer

ISLAMABAD – Suspected U.S. missiles and Pakistani fighter jets attacked followers of a notorious militant leader close to the Afghan border Tuesday, but the army complained the American strikes were hurting its campaign against the country's public enemy No. 1.

Between 12 and 14 militants were killed when two missiles hit a training camp run by Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud in South Waziristan tribal region, intelligence officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media. The missiles were believed fired by American drones.

Five foreigners were among the dead, but their nationalities were not known, the officials said. Top Arab leaders of the al-Qaida terror network are believed to be hiding in the region, as well as scores of militants from nearby countries such as Afghanistan and Uzbekistan.

Mehsud was not among the victims of the strike, the fourth in the space of two weeks targeting him or his followers.

Hours after the strikes, Pakistani war planes bombed militants positions around 25 miles (40 kilometers) away, the army said. Casualties in those strikes were unknown.

The army insisted it was not coordinating the missile strikes with Washington and reiterated its opposition to them despite the damage they were inflicting on Mehsud's followers.

"It hurts the campaign rather than helps," said Maj. Gen Athar Abbas, arguing that they alienate local tribes whose support the military needs to defeat Mehsud.

The United States is believed to have launched more than 40 missile strikes against targets in the border area since last August, according to a count by The Associated Press.

Washington does not directly acknowledge being responsible for launching the missiles, which have killed civilians as well as militants and contributed to anti-U.S. sentiment in Pakistan.

Any admission Islamabad works with the United States in attacks on its citizens likely would be damaging for the shaky civilian government. Most experts, however, believe the country's civilian and military leaders secretly endorse the strikes and likely provide the United States with intelligence on possible targets.

Washington wants to see Pakistan crack down on militants close to the border that also attack NATO and US troops in Afghanistan.

Three months ago, the Pakistan army launched an offensive in the Swat Valley, earning praise in the West.

Last month, it said it was undertaking an offensive in South Waziristan to kill or capture Mehsud, who is blamed for most of the bloodiest bombings to hit the nuclear-armed country in recent years.

China's restive west descends into mob violence

By WILLIAM FOREMAN, Associated Press Writer

URUMQI, China – Scattered mobs of Muslim Uighurs and Han Chinese roamed the streets and beat passers-by Tuesday as the capital of China's Xinjiang region degenerated into communal violence, prompting the government to impose a curfew in the aftermath of a riot that killed at least 156 people.

Members of the Muslim Uighur ethnic group attacked people near the Urumqi's railway station, and women in headscarves protested the arrests of husbands and sons in another part of the city. Meanwhile, for much of the afternoon, a mob of 1,000 mostly young Han Chinese holding clubs and chanting "Defend the Country" tore through streets trying to get to a Uighur neighborhood until they were repulsed by police firing tear gas.

Panic and anger bubbled up amid the suspicion. In some neighborhoods, Han Chinese — China's majority ethnic group — armed themselves with pieces of lumber and shovels to defend themselves. People bought up bottled water out of fear, as one resident said, that "the Uighurs might poison the water."

The outbursts happened despite swarms of paramilitary and riot police enforcing a dragnet that state media said led to the arrest more than 1,400 participants in Sunday's riot, the worst ethnic violence in the often tense region in decades.

Trying to control the message, the government has slowed mobile phone and Internet services, blocked Twitter — whose servers are overseas — and censored Chinese social networking and news sites and accused Uighurs living in exile of inciting Sunday's riot. State media coverage, however, carried graphic footage and pictures of the unrest _showing mainly Han Chinese victims and stoking the anger.

The violence is a further embarrassment for a Chinese leadership preparing for the 60th anniversary of communist rule in October and calling for the creation of a "harmonious society" to celebrate. Years of rapid development have failed to smooth over the ethnic fault lines in Xinjiang, where the Uighurs (pronounced WEE-gers) have watched growing numbers of Han Chinese move in.

Wang Lequan, Xinjiang's Communist Party secretary, declared a curfew in all but name, imposing traffic restrictions and ordering people off the streets from 9 p.m. to 8 a.m. Wednesday "to avoid further chaos."

"It is needed for the overall situation. I hope people pay great attention and act immediately," he said in an announcement broadcast on Xinjiang television.

Sunday's riot started as a peaceful demonstration by Uighurs over a deadly fight at a factory in eastern China between Han Chinese and Uighur workers. It then spiraled out of control, as mainly Uighur groups beat people and set fire to vehicles and shops belonging to Han Chinese.

After retreating from the tear gas, some among the Han Chinese mob were met by Urumqi's Communist Party leader Li Zhi, who climbed atop a police vehicle and started chanting with the crowd. Li pumped his fists, beat his chest, and urged the crowd to strike down Rebiya Kadeer, a 62-year-old Uighur leader exiled in the United States whom Chinese leaders accuse of being behind the riots.

"Those Muslims killed so many of our people. We just can't let that happen," said one man in the crowd, surnamed Liu. He carried a long wooden stick and said the Han Chinese were forced to take up arms. People walked by with bloodshot eyes from the tear gas.

To the east, on Xingfu road, Han Chinese residents stoned a car with two Uighurs inside until it crashed, pulling one passenger out and beating him until police arrived, residents said.

Elsewhere in the city Tuesday, about 200 people, mostly women in traditional headscarves, took to the streets in another neighborhood, wailing for the release of their sons and husbands in the crackdown and confronting lines of paramilitary police. The women said police came through their neighborhood Monday night and strip-searched men to check for cuts and other signs of fighting before hauling them away.

"My husband was detained at gunpoint. They were hitting people, they were stripping people naked. My husband was scared so he locked the door, but the police broke down the door and took him away," said a woman, who gave her name as Aynir. She said about 300 people were arrested in the market in the southern section of town.

The protesters briefly scuffled with paramilitary police, who pushed them back with long sticks before both sides retreated.

Foreign reporters on a government-run tour of the riot's aftermath witnessed the protest and without their presence, the incident might have gone unreported given the media controls.

Groups of 10 or so Uighur men with bricks and knives attacked Han Chinese passers-by and shop-owners midday outside the city's southern railway station, until police ran them off, witnesses said.

"They were using everything for weapons, like bricks, sticks and cleavers," said a Mr. Ma, an employee at the Dicos fast-food restaurant nearby. "Whenever the rioters saw someone on the street, they would ask 'are you a Uighur?' If they kept silent or couldn't answer in the Uighur language, they would get beaten or killed."

It was not immediately clear if anyone was killed in those reported attacks.

Li, the Communist Party official, told a news conference that more than 1,000 people had been detained as of early Tuesday and suggested more arrests were under way. "The number is changing all the time. We will let those who did not commit serious crimes go back to their work units."

The official Xinhua News Agency said earlier Tuesday that 1,434 suspects had been arrested, and that checkpoints had been set up to stop rioters from escaping.

Officials at the news conference said they could not give a breakdown of how many of the dead were Uighurs and how many were Han Chinese.

Sunday's riot started as a peaceful demonstration by 1,000 to 3,000 people protesting the June 25 deaths of Uighur factory workers killed in a brawl in the southern Chinese city of Shaoguan. Xinhua said two died. Messages circulating on Internet sites popular with Uighurs put the figure higher, raising tensions in Xinjiang.

In a sign the government was trying to address communal grievances, Xinhua announced Tuesday that 13 people had been arrested over the factory fight, including three from Xinjiang. Two others were arrested for spreading rumors on the Internet that Xinjiang employees had raped two female workers, the report said, citing a local police deputy director.

The disturbances in Xinjiang carry reminders of the widespread anti-Chinese protests that shook Tibet last year and have left large parts of western China living with police checkpoints and tightened security. Like the Tibetans, Uighur unrest has not been muted by rapid economic development, though the government publicly is unwilling to address ethnic tensions.

Fresh protest breaks out in Xinjiang

By WILLIAM FOREMAN, Associated Press Writer

URUMQI, China – A fresh protest has broken out in the capital of China's volatile Xinjiang region, with a large group of protesters blocking a main road in a stand-off with security forces.

The demonstration comes two days after at least 156 people were killed in ethnic violence in Urumqi.

The latest clash Tuesday came in front of a group of reporters who were being taken around the city to see the aftermath of Sunday's riots, when hundreds of vehicles and shops were attacked.

About 200 Uighurs, some screaming that their husbands and children had been arrested, blocked a road. Riot police were at one end of the road and paramilitary police were at the other end.

Iraq bans organized visits to Saddam grave

2009-07-06

Government’s decision comes after some schools near Tikrit arrange trips for their pupils.

BAGHDAD - The Iraqi government imposed a ban on Monday on all organized visits to the grave of executed leader Saddam Hussein after some schools near his stronghold of Tikrit arranged trips for their pupils.

"The cabinet secretariat has sent instructions to the education ministry and to Salaheddin province and its provincial council banning the organization of visits to the tomb of the president of the former regime," a statement said.

Saddam loyalists regularly hold commemorations by his graveside in his native village of Al-Awja, outside the northern town of Tikrit, on the anniversaries of his birth and execution.

Born on April 28, 1937, Saddam was hanged on December 30, 2006 after being convicted of crimes against humanity.

Buried alongside him are his two sons Uday and Qusay, who were killed in a US attack in the northern city of Mosul in July 2003.

Three regime officials who were sentenced to death with Saddam -- Barzan Ibrahim al-Hassan al-Tikriti, Awad Ahmed al-Bandar and Taha Yassin Ramadan -- also have their graves there.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=33063.

Yemen court condemns seven Shiite rebels to death

Seven defendants tried on charges of carrying out ‘criminal acts’, belonging to rebel group involved in uprising.

SANAA - A Yemeni court on Monday sentenced seven people to death for carrying out "criminal" acts and belonging to a Shiite rebel group which has been involved in a deadly uprising.

The court sentenced seven other defendants to terms of between 12 and 15 years in jail.

A total of 190 people are being tried in batches on charges over fighting against Yemeni security forces just north of the capital Sanaa in 2008.

"Death to America and death to Israel," the defendants cried after the court issued the verdict.

Gunfights broke out between rebels and security forces in an area northeast of Sanaa during which hundreds were killed or wounded between March and June 2008.

The rebels, whose stronghold is in Saada in the far northern mountains, want to restore the Zaidi imamate that was overthrown in a republican coup in 1962.

The insurgents are known as Huthis after their late commander, Hussein Badr Eddin al-Huthi, who was killed by the army in September 2004. Hussein was succeeded as field commander by his brother Abdul Malak.

An offshoot of Shiite Islam, Zaidis are a minority in mainly Sunni Yemen but form the majority in the north.

One of the poorest countries in the world, Yemen is also battling unrest in the south, where separatist sentiment runs deep almost two decades after unification with the north.

The ancestral homeland of Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, the country has also seen a string of attacks on foreign targets, oil facilities and government buildings claimed by Al-Qaeda loyalists.

Biden: US won't stand in Israel's way on Iran

US Vice President says his country cannot dictate to Israel what they can do if they are threatened.

WASHINGTON - US Vice President Joe Biden said in an interview broadcast Sunday that the United States would not stand in the way of Israel in its dealings with Iran's nuclear ambitions.

"Israel can determine for itself -- it's a sovereign nation -- what's in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else," Biden told ABC television's "This Week."

"Whether we agree or not. They're entitled to do that... We cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do when they make a determination, if they make a determination, that they're existentially threatened."

But the top US military officer meanwhile warned of the dangers posed by any military strike against Iran.

"It could be very destabilizing, and it is the unintended consequences of that which aren't predictable," Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff told "Fox News Sunday."

However, he added: "I think it's very important, as we deal with Iran, that we don't take any options, including military options, off the table."

President Barack Obama has said he wants to see progress on his diplomatic outreach to Iran by year's end, while not excluding a "range of steps," including tougher sanctions, if Tehran continued its controversial nuclear drive.

Hawkish Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not ruled out a possible military strike against Iran, insisting that Tehran, which the Mossad spy agency could have a ready-to-launch nuclear bomb within five years, must not obtain nuclear weapons.

"If the Netanyahu government decides to take a course of action different than the one being pursued now, that is their sovereign right to do that. That is not our choice," Biden said. "But there is no pressure from any nation that's going to alter our behavior as to how to proceed."

Israel, the region's sole if undeclared nuclear-armed state, contends -- as does the West -- that Iran is seeking to acquire a nuclear arsenal, despite Tehran's repeated denials.

The Jewish state has also called the Islamic Republic a threat to its existence, citing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's call to wipe Israel off the map.

Biden also confirmed that the Obama administration remains open to pursuing negotiations with Tehran, despite the regime's crackdown on protesters following a disputed election outcome last month that saw Ahmadinejad return to power.

"If the Iranians respond to the offer of engagement, we will engage," Biden said. "The offer's on the table."

Mullen declined to say whether the danger posed by a nuclear-armed Iran would be sufficient to outweigh the negative consequences of a US military strike on Tehran's weapons program.

Egyptians cry racism in woman's slaying in Germany

By MAGGIE MICHAEL

CAIRO (AP) — Thousands of Egyptian mourners marched behind the coffin of the "martyr of the head scarf" on Monday — a pregnant Muslim woman who was stabbed to death in a German courtroom as her young son watched.

Many in her homeland were outraged by the attack and saw the low key response in Germany as an example of racism and anti-Muslim sentiment.

Her husband was critically wounded in the attack Wednesday in Dresden when he tried to intervene and was stabbed by the attacker and accidentally shot by court security.

"There is no god but God and the Germans are the enemies of God," chanted the mourners for 32-year-old Marwa al-Sherbini in her hometown of Alexandria, where her body was buried after being flown back from Germany.

"We will avenge her killing," her brother Tarek el-Sherbini told The Associated Press by telephone from the mosque where prayers were being recited in front of his sister's coffin. "In the West, they don't recognize us. There is racism."

Al-Sherbini, who was about four months pregnant and wore the Islamic head scarf, was involved in a court case against her neighbor for calling her a terrorist and was set to testify against him when he stabbed her 18 times inside the courtroom in front of her 3-year-old son.

Her husband, who was in Germany on a research fellowship, came to her aid and was also stabbed by the neighbor and shot in the leg by a security guard who initially mistook him for the attacker, German prosecutors said. He is now in critical condition in a German hospital, according to al-Sherbini's brother.

"The guards thought that as long as he wasn't blond, he must be the attacker so they shot him," al-Sherbini told an Egyptian television station.

The man, who has only been identified as 28-year-old Alex W., remains in detention and prosecutors have opened an investigation on suspicion of murder.

Christian Avenarius, the prosecutor in Dresden where the incident took place, described the killer as driven by a deep hatred of Muslims. "It was very clearly a xenophobic attack of a fanatical lone wolf."

He added that the attacker was a Russian of German descent who had immigrated to Germany in 2003 and had expressed his contempt for Muslims at the start of the trial.

At its regular news conference on Monday, a German government spokesman Thomas Steg said if the attack was racist, the government "naturally condemns this in the strongest terms."

The killing has dominated Egyptian media for days, while it has received comparatively little coverage in German and Western media.

A German Muslim group criticized government officials and the media for not paying enough attention to the crime.

"The incident in Dresden had anti-Islamic motives. So far, the reactions from politicians and media have been incomprehensibly meager," Aiman Mazyek, the general secretary of the Central Council of Muslims, told Berlin's Tagesspiegel daily.

Egyptian commentators said the incident was an example of how hate crimes against Muslims are overlooked in comparison to those committed by Muslims against Westerners. Many commentators pointed to the uproar that followed the 2004 murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh by a Dutch-born Islamic fundamentalist angry over one of his films criticizing the treatment of Muslim women.

Abdel Azeem Hamad, chief editor of the independent Egyptian daily el-Shorouk, said that if the victim had been a Jew, there would have been an uproar.

"What we demand is just some attention to be given to the killing of a young innocent mother on the hands of fanatic extremist," he wrote in his column.

An Egyptian blogger Hicham Maged, wrote "let us play the 'What If' game."

"Just imagine if the situation was reversed and the victim was a Westerner who was stabbed anywhere in the world or — God forbid — in any Middle Eastern country by Muslim extremists," he said.

The Egyptian Pharmacists' Association called for a boycott of German drugs. The victim was a pharmacist.

According to numerous interviews in Egyptian local papers with el-Sherbini family, the man who stabbed al-Sherbini used to accuse her of being a "terrorist," and in one incident, he tried to take off her head scarf. Mourners at her funeral called her the "martyr of the head scarf."

Laila Shams, al-Sherbini's mother, told the el-Wafd daily that her daughter said she'd difficulty finding a job in Germany because of her head scarf.

"One (employer) suggested she remove her head scarf to get a job. She said no," she said.

Officials from a German Muslim group and the country's main Jewish group made a joint visit Monday to the Dresden hospital where the victim's husband is being treated.

"You don't have to be a Muslim to act against anti-Muslim behavior, and you don't have to be a Jew to act against anti-Semitism," said Stephan Kramer, the general secretary of the Central Council of Jews.