India checking Chile claim of nabbing key IC-814 hijack accused

NEW DELHI: Indian agencies on Monday scrambled to check the veracity of information from Chile that the police there had detained one of the key conspirators behind the hijacking of anIndian Airlines plane to Kandahar in 1999. 

Chilean police detained one Abdul Rauf. The detention took place on the basis of an Interpol Red Corner issued for Abdul Rauf, one of the masterminds of the plot that led to the swap of three notorious Pakistan-backed terrorists for the passengers aboard the hijacked aircraft. 

Chilean authorities have sent across photographs and fingerprints of the detained person. The CBI will send a team to Chile if the indications firm up. 

For Indian agencies, Rauf has been crucial as they suspect him to have acted as the conduit between ISI leaders and the hijackers during the 6-day crisis that saw the Vajpayee government succumbing to the clamour for safe release of passengers at the cost of its initial stand not to negotiate with the hijackers. 

The key role that Rauf, brother-in–law of Maulana Masood Azhar, one of the terrorists who had to be freed as part of the bargain, played in the hijacking has been attested to by Abdul Latif, one of the accused who is in Indian custody. 

Latif said that Rauf, along with Yusuf Azhar, brother of Maulana Masood, planned the hijack, travelling along with fellow-conspirators to Nepal where the hijackers boarded the ill-fated Indian Airlines plane. 

However, sources were keeping fingers crossed whether the person detained by Chilean police was a genuine catch. "We have our doubts because we are not sure whether someone who is on an international wanted list and is so crucial for the real plotters will take the risk of travelling to a distant country under his own identity. Why will anyone take such a risk when he can easily acquire a fake identity with the help of official agencies in Pakistan," a senior investigator said. 

CBI can be helped by the fact that it has copies of driving licences and passports of the hijackers and other plotters, including Rauf. 

More importantly, Maulana Masood fell out of favour with the ISI after the failed his Jaish-e-Mohammad unsuccessfully plotted to assassinate former Pakistani ruler Pervez Musharraf. The ISI has since promoted LeT as its main jihadi proxy against India. 

In case Rauf turns out to be the person India is so keen on laying its hands on, the role of the US will become crucial. While Washington has close ties with Chile, it also has to take into account the sensibilities of Pakistan which is crucial to its war in Afghanistan. 

Earlier, the CBI had to face disappointment after Kenyan police claimed that they had Abdul Karim Tunda, a notorious jihadi terrorist who conducted a bombing campaign in the Capital, in their custody. The detained person turned out to be British national Ismoila Olatunde. 

The hijacking of IC-814 was a serious setback to India as it had to release, besides Masood, Omar Sheikh, who later went on to kidnap American journalist Daniel Pearl leading to the latter's killing. Masood, a jihadi ideologue who was a key figure of the anti-India terrorist outfit Jaish-e-Islam, used his celebrity as someone whom India could not detain to launch his own Jaish-e-Mohmmad. 

Mushtaq Ahmad Zargar, the third terrorist to be released, continues to operate from Pakistan. 

Politically, it blotted Vajpayee government's "tough-on-terror" claim, enabling BJP's political opponents to taunt it for its "surrender" to terror. 

The anti-hijacking policy framed by the NDA government which was adopted by UPA rules out negotiations with hijackers.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/India-checking-Chile-claim-of-nabbing-key-IC-814-hijack-accused/articleshow/7953231.cms

US lawmakers tell Obama, dump Pakistan and go with India

WASHINGTON: Expressing apprehension that theUnited States is being "taken for suckers" and "looked at as patsies" by Pakistan, two American lawmakers on Tuesday called for strengthening ties with India even as a White House report gave a harshly critical assessment of Islamabad's effort to defeat extremism. 

While administration officials defended Washington's support for Pakistan using the same logic as London is doing on UK Prime Minister David Cameron's ongoing visit to Islamabad ("a difficult partnership with Pakistan is far better than having a hostile Pakistan," one U.S official testified), lawmakers wanted a major reappraisal of U.S outlook for the region. They expressed doubts if any good would come out of the current U.S policy of coddling Islamabad in the face of Pakistani duplicity in combating extremism. Instead, they pushed for even closer ties with India. 

"After 10 years of hearing the same sales pitch I tend to doubt it. I doubt that our money is buying anything that's deep or durable," New York Congressman Gary Ackerman said at a hearing. "I doubt the leaders in the Afghan government and the Pakistani government are going to do anything except pursue their own narrow, venal self interests. I doubt the ISI will ever stop working with us during the day and going to see their not-so-secret friends in the Lashkar-e-Taibaor Jaish-e Mohammed and other terrorist groups at night." 

His California colleague Dana Rohrabacher went even further back to frame the situation in a historical context. "I've been hearing that for 50 years. And I will tell you, a realistic relationship, rather than basing the relationship on wishful thinking, is what will bring about peace in that part of the world. What we've had is wishful thinking and what I call irrational optimism," he said at a hearing called to assess U.S foreign policy priorities in South Asia. 

The critical comments came just hours after a White House report to Congress concluded that after years of work with the Pakistani military "there remains no clear path toward defeating the insurgency" that thrives in the country, remarks that analysts said reflected growing frustration in the administration over Pakistan's commitment to fight extremism. 

Still, administration officials defended Washington's outreach to Pakistan, insisting that the country is vital to US national security interests and suggesting the U.S had no other options. 

But lawmakers were not convinced. Both Rohrabacher and Ackerman, who described U.S ties withNew Delhi as the "one shining light" and "brightest light" respectively of the administration's foreign policy pressed for greater emphasis on India. 

"I would hope that we have the intelligence to work and to make sure that India is our best friend in that part of the world," Rochrabacher said, offering his contrast between the two countries. "The fact is that Pakistan is committed to Islam...India is dedicated to prosperity for their people." 

Amid what lawmakers saw as Washington's compulsive obsession with Pakistan, Ackerman in fact criticized the administration for not using U.S diplomatic leadership and agenda-setting capability to focus global attention to the threat to India from Pakistan-based terrorists, such as Lashkar-e-Taiba. 

"If there is, God forbid, another Mumbai-like strike, we will not be able to say that we did our utmost to prevent it because in truth, we haven't," he warned. "The ambitions of these terrorists have only grown and a full-fledged global campaign to crush these thugs still awaits at our peril." 

While critical of Pakistan, the White House report offered no new prescription of how to handle Islamabad, aside from reflecting on the well-known fact that India looms large in the Pakistani military's thinking. 

"As India continues to dominate their strategic threat perception, large elements of Pakistan's military remain committed to maintaining a ratio of Pakistani to Indian forces along the eastern border," the Presidential report to the Congress on Afghanistan and Pakistan said, adding, "This deprives the Pakistani COIN (counter-insurgency) fight of sufficient forces to achieve its 'clear' objectives and support the 'hold' efforts." 

Some analysts have suggested India should take steps to reassure Pakistan about its security, but the broad reading in Washington is that nothing can placate a security establishment that uses a trumped-up or exaggerated Indian threat to extend its stranglehold on the Pakistani people and the country's resources. President Obama downwards, U.S officials have said the Pakistani military's obsession is misplaced. Frustrated lawmakers on Tuesday suggested in effect that the administration simply strengthen ties with India to counter Pakistan's policy.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/US-lawmakers-tell-Obama-dump-Pakistan-and-go-with-India/articleshow/7886263.cms

Afghans protest Quran burning for 4th day

Kabul: Protests erupted in Afghanistan again on Monday against a Florida pastor's burning of the Quran, making four straight days of demonstrations — some deadly — against the destruction of Islam's holy book in a country struggling to beat back an insurgency led by Taliban religious extremists. 

The demonstration in eastern Laghman province briefly threatened to turn into another melee as about 300 protesters brandished sticks and threw stones at police, who in turned started firing shots in the air, according to a news agency photographer at the scene.

The protest started in Alingar district and the shouting crowd moved toward the provincial capital of Mihtarlam, where they clashed with officers who wanted to keep them out of the city, said Gen Abdul Aziz Gharanai, the provincial police chief. 

However, the protesters dispersed as officers started firing warning shots and no one was wounded, Gharanai said. The agency photographer also heard no reports of serious injuries. 

At least 21 people have been killed in the past three days of protests across the country. 

The violence was set off by anger over the March 20 burning of the Quran by a Florida church — the same church whose pastor had threatened to do so last year on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks, triggering worldwide outrage. 

The protests began Friday when thousands of demonstrators in the previously peaceful northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif poured into the streets after Friday's Muslim prayer services and overran a UN compound, killing three UN staff members and four Nepalese guards. 

The demonstrations have appeared to awaken a simmering anti-foreigner sentiment in the country, where anger about civilian casualties and international contractors making fortunes off the long-running conflict have worn down the welcome for Western forces over more than nine years of fighting. 

Meanwhile, NATO said one of its service members was killed Sunday in an insurgent attack in the east. NATO did not disclose other details or the nationality of the dead. The majority of the troops in the east are American. 

The latest death makes a total of 102 NATO service members killed so far this year. In the same period of 2010, 129 NATO troops died. 

Bureau Report

Source: http://www.zeenews.com/news697581.html