Pakistan pays for terrorism

The world sympathizes with Pakistan for the series of terrorist attacks it has suffered in the recent past. The worst were the attacks on two mosques in Lahore on Friday in which over 70 people were killed and several more injured.

That the mosques belonged to the Ahmadi sect whose motto is ‘Love for all, hatred for none’ makes the senseless killing all the more poignant. The attacks are believed to be the handiwork of Sunni fundamentalists for whom the Ahmadis are a proscribed group which deserves no mercy.

There are many inbuilt provisions in the constitution and the laws of Pakistan which are discriminatory in nature to this sect, which originated at Qadian in India’s Punjab. It is the conditions created by the state that had emboldened the Islamists to mount Friday’s attack.

Former Gov. Tom Kean says U.S. more vulnerable to terrorist attacks since 9/11

The United States is more susceptible to terrorist attacks than any time since the 2001 assault on the World Trade Center, according to the chairman of the 9/11 commission.

Although some disagree with Kean, many involved in national security issues agree al Qaeda has mutated as an international organization over the past few years, diversifying its bases of operations and attack plans.While al Qaeda adapts, the U.S. intelligence community is in disarray, Kean said.
He noted that Obama has not replaced former Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, who announced his resignation May 20, and "six years after the recommendations of the 9/11 commission were released, we still haven’t gotten any action on reform in Congress.

Freedom Fighter hacked to death in Khulna District

A freedom fighter (FF) was hacked to death on May 26 near Lal Hospital at Khalishpur of Khulna District, reports Daily Star. The victim was identified as Altaf Hossain (60), son of Anwar Hossain Molla of Khalishpur Housing Estate. Altaf was a retired soldier of Bangladesh Army.

Meanwhile, Security Forces arrested two suspected militants of banned Islamisat outfit Allar Dal from village Kismat Bagchi under Sadullapur sub-district of Gaibandha District.Further, Police arrested Islami Chhatra Shibir cadre from Rajshahi University (RU) campus on May 27 in connection with February 9 violence on the campus. Arrestee Firuz Hossain Mintu, 35, is a resident of Hetem Kha village adjacent to the University.Separately, 13 people have been sued for killing a FF during the liberation war in 1971.
A petition case was filed on May 26 by one Aleya Begum accusing the 13 in the court of Senior Judicial Magistrate of Bagerhat Mohammed Rakibul Islam.According to the reports of Daily Star, the detained Chief of the Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), Saidur Rahman, claims during interrogation on May 26 that the outfit has 400 full-time members across the country and a military wing capable of launching spectacular attacks. It has huge explosives, handmade bombs and grenades stashed at different dens.

Three militants and a Policeman killed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Two militants and a Policeman were killed and two Police officers were harmed in an encounter when a group of militants attacked a Police van in Mamo Khwar area in Thall tehsil (revenue unit) of Hangu District in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on May 27, According to Daily Times.

Meanwhile, Security Forces (SFs) killed three Taliban (Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, TTP) militants, including a local ‘commander’, during search operation at Arkot area in Matta tehsil of Swat District. Officials said the militants had opened fire at troops that were carrying out a search operation at Arkot area.
The troops retaliated and killed three militants including local commander Akhtar, Naveedur Rehman and Rafiullah.

Bangkok defeat won't be end of Red Shirt struggle

The guns are silent, the barricades knocked down, the wounded hospitalized. The defeated Red Shirt complains leaders are in detention, their followers dispersed back to their homes in rural Thailand.

The Red Shirts' once-peaceful street dissents ended in violence and a military crackdown last week, but many believe their movement demanding a change of government is far from finished.

"I think this is a new commencement for the Red Shirts. It will be a darker and grimmer time of struggle and less focused activities.
By no stretch of the imagination is the movement finished," said Kevin Hewison, a Thailand scholar in the University of North Carolina."This is not the end," promised Somyot Pruksakasemsuk, a Red Shirt leader. "It will spread further and the situation will deteriorate."

As Thai monarchy's power wanes, king still revered

After deadly street violence 18 years ago, a military strongman and a pro-democracy activist faced down themselves at the feet of Thailand's king as he lectured the bitter enemies before television cameras like schoolboys after a playground brawl. No more blood was shed on Bangkok's lanes.

Today, as Thailand repairs its violence-scarred capital and tries to cure deepening social divisions, two crucial questions hang over the unnerved kingdom: Why didn't King Bhumibol Adulyadej intervene this time, and what is the future of an organization that did so much to hold the country together for more than half a century?During the two-month crisis,
which killed 88 people, injured more than 1,800 and reduced landmark buildings to ashes, the aging and sick monarch remained virtually silent despite widespread appeals for his intervention - a dramatic contrast to times when just a few words from the palace were enough to pull Thailand back from the brink.Both the anti-government Red Shirt activists who seized areas of downtown Bangkok and pro-monarchy groups issued the pleas, saying only Bhumibol could save the day.

Ex-prime minister charged with terrorism

A Thai court commanded an arrest warrant Tuesday for former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra on terrorism charges, accusing the fugitive leader of fomenting two months of unrest in Bangkok that left 88 people dead.

Thaksin, who was expelled in a 2006 military coup and later fled abroad following a corruption conviction, has been accused by the government of being a key force behind protests by the so-called Red Shirts who seized areas of downtown Bangkok before being overcome by army troops last week.

Details of the charges were being read out at the Criminal Court, a day after evidence by the Department of Special Investigations into Thaksin's alleged involvement in the protests.Shortly after the court proclaimed its decision, Thaksin's lawyer, the London-based Robert Amsterdam, said the government "has perverted justice through the laying of a charge that violates logic, law and any claim of hopes for reconciliation."

Yemen's Al Qaeda Coordinating with Gaza Terrorists

Haaretz has published details of another communication from the Shia Houthi rebels in Yemen which depicts an al Qaeda in Yemen training manual sent to terrorists in Gaza about how to build a light airplane for a terror attack.

In several earlier communications, a person spotting himself as Ali Hussein and representing himself as a member of the Houthi rebels sent scanned copies of intercepted communications from al Qaeda in Yemen to an anti-Hamas Salafi group in Gaza.Al Qaeda in Yemen is preparing to send
Somalis refugees from Yemen to Gaza through Egypt for attacks. The terror group also discussed about launching a rocket from Saudi Arabia on a nuclear reactor in Israel. The Houthis, in sending the letters, are trying to reveal the difference between their ideology and al Qaeda's in a bid to elicit support for their cause, which they say is an end to discrimination by the Yemeni government.

US says 2 Americans kidnapped in Yemen

The kidnapping of two U.S. citizens in Yemen in fact was not an act of terrorism, the State Department said. Spokesman P.J. Crowley said the two, who were not identified, were snatched Monday and that U.S. officials are working with local authorities to go to gain their release.

"There has been unfortunately a bit of a side business in what are called `tourist kidnappings' where, for whatever reason, a certain tribe has a particular criticism with the (Yemeni) government and uses the presence of foreigners for leverage," Crowley alleged. "So we have every reason to accept as true that this is one of those cases.” In the past few years, the al-Qaida terrorist network also has abducted foreigners in Yemen for its own reasons. In Yemen, officials believed Monday's kidnap victims were a man and a woman.
They were detained while traveling in al-Hudaydah province west of the capital, Sanaa. The officials spoke on condition of ambiguity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. Taxi driver Mohammed Saleh, who was driving the two, revealed six gunmen stopped them on the road and took them to the al-Hamra village. Al-Sharda tribesmen held the hostages were now "guests" in the village.

Maoist attack in India

Three dead bodies of the ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) activists, suspected to have been murdered by cadres of the Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist), were found from Sarenga area in Bankura District on May 21, reported PTI. However, CPI-M leaders have shed the blame on the Maoist-backed People's Committee against Police Atrocities (PCPA). One party activist is still missing, Police added.

In the meantime, DNA reported that according to a joint report by the Intelligence Bureau and West Bengal intelligence, CPI-Maoist has set up an eight-member special coordination committee to improve coordination between different units in Maoist affected States. Lalgarh in West Midnapore District would reside the headquarters of this Maoist committee.

The report says the eight representatives in the new committee are Papa Rao and Gopal from Dantewada-Bijapur (Chhattisgarh), Arjun and Bihari from Gurbandha, Sukhdev and Uday from Malkangiri-Koraput (Orissa) and Kanchan and Shahebda from Junglemahal. Shahebda is a CPI-Maoist politburo member and Kanchan is a state secretary in West Bengal. The report added that all eight Maoists are currently thrashing in the Belpahari region of West Midnapore District.

UK: Al-Qaeda Terrorist

A man described by a tribunal judge as a serious threat to the national security has won his appeal to stay in Britain. Abid Naseer has been arrested in April last year, along with several other men, on suspicion of being a ring leader planning a terror attack in the UK.

Two terror suspects, Abid Naseer and Ahmad Faraz Khan, firmly appealed against deportation to Pakistan. A special immigration court said that Naseer was an al-Qaeda operative, but neither man should be deported.

The two men were among those 10 Pakistanis who have been arrested last April as part of a massive counter-terrorism operation in Liverpool and Manchester. The security services believed that the men were planning to attack within days of their arrest, but neither was charged.

Finally the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (Siac) said it believed Mr Naseer, 23, posted a serious threat to national security. It found that he had been sending e-mails to an “al-Qaeda operative” in Pakistan – the e-mails were said to be at the heart of a plot to bomb targets in north-west England. Also it said Ahmad Faraz Khan, 23, had been a “knowing party” to the attack plan. But in both cases, Mr Justice Mitting said it would be wrong to send back the men to Pakistan.