Pakistani rebel chief says would welcome help from arch-rival India

The elusive leader of a major rebel group fighting for independence in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province said he would welcome cash and other help from India, words likely to alarm Islamabad which accuses New Delhi of stirring trouble there.

In his first video interview in five years, Allah Nazar Baloch, head of the ethnic Baluch group Baluchistan Liberation Front (BLF), also vowed further attacks on a Chinese economic corridor, parts of which run through the resource-rich provinceThe planned $46 billion trade route is expected to link western China with Pakistan’s Arabian Sea via a network of roads, railways and energy pipelines.

“We not only wish India should support the Baluch national struggle diplomatically and financially, but the whole world,” said Baloch, a doctor-turned-guerrilla believed to be about 50, in filmed responses to questions sent by Reuters.

Baloch’s appeal for Indian help may deepen Pakistani suspicions that India has a hand in a decades-old insurgency in the vast southwestern province.

Historically fraught relations between the nuclear-armed neighbours deteriorated this month after 18 Indian soldiers in Kashmir were killed in an attack on an army base that New Delhi blames on Pakistan. Pakistan denies the accusation.

In the buildup to the raid, Pakistan had voiced outrage over the crackdown on protests in India’s part of the Muslim-majority region, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi hit back by accusing Pakistan of atrocities in Baluchistan.

Baloch, leader of one of three main armed groups fighting for Baluchistan’s independence, said that while he wanted support from India, the BLF had not received funding from Modi’s government, or India’s spy agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW).

“We welcome the statement that Narendra Modi gave to morally support the Baluch nation,” added Baloch, clad in a traditional beige shalwar kurta outfit, with an automatic rifle across his lap and ammunition hanging from his belt.

Baloch is the only leader of a sizeable separatist group who is believed to be waging a guerrilla war from inside Baluchistan; the other two leaders are in exile in Europe.

Security analysts say his fighters stage most of the attacks in the province and have borne the brunt of army operations against the insurgency. Reuters has not been able to establish the scale of the BLF campaign.

Pakistan has long suspected India of stoking the Baluchistan rebellion. Those fears grew in March when Pakistan arrested a man it said was a RAW spy in Baluchistan, and accused him of “subversive activities”. India denied he was a spy.

Brahamdagh Bugti, the Switzerland-based leader of the Balochistan Republican Party, another major separatist outfit, last week told Indian media that he planned to seek “political asylum” in India.

BLF chief Baloch claims to have “thousands” of fighters. Domestic news coverage of the Baluchistan conflict is rare and foreign journalists are broadly forbidden from visiting the province.

Baloch answered questions in a video recording, which was sent electronically.

Although the exact date of the recording could not be verified, he was responding to questions sent by Reuters six weeks ago. His responses contradicted government claims that he had been killed last year

China’s investment in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has brought fresh focus on Baluchistan, which is endowed with rich but largely unexploited reserves of copper and gold.

Several planned CPEC routes will snake across Baluchistan to its deep-sea port in Gwadar.

Chronic instability in the province, which has experienced waves of revolt by Baluch nationalists since it was formally incorporated into Pakistan in 1948, is a source of concern for China, which has appealed to Pakistan to improve security.

Baloch, speaking from an undisclosed location, called CPEC a Chinese “imperialistic scheme”, and vowed to attack roads, security personnel and construction crews associated with it.

Government officials say security has improved.

They point to freshly-paved CPEC roads, built at breakneck speed despite Baluchistan’s rugged terrain, as proof of success.

To allay Chinese fears, Pakistan is also raising a force of 15,000 personnel, mainly serving army soldiers, to secure the corridor

But risks remain. Frontier Works Organization, the army-run company building most of the CPEC roads in dangerous areas, said 44 workers had been killed and about 100 wounded in attacks on its CPEC sites over the past two years.

“We are attacking the CPEC project every day. Because it is aimed to turn the Baluch population into a minority. It is looting, plundering and taking away our resources,” Baloch said.

Baloch and other separatists fear that indigenous Baluch people, who are estimated to number about 7 million people out of Pakistan’s 190 million population, will become an ethnic minority in their ancestral lands if other groups flock to the region to work on exploiting its natural resources.

The rebel leader alleged that 150,000 people had been evicted from the route of the trade corridor by security forces to clear the way for roads and other infrastructure.

Pakistan’s military, which manages security for most of the province, did not comment on the number.

Human rights activists say that thousands of people have been killed or arbitrarily detained in Baluchistan by the military, a charge Pakistani security forces deny.

Charges of abuse have also been levelled at rebel groups, including the BLF, which are accused of targeting non-Baluch citizens as part of their rebellion.

Baloch denied BLF killed civilians, but said his group did go after “traitors”.

Asked if he would be open to negotiations with the Pakistani state, the rebel chief was clear: there would be no dialogue with what he considered “the biggest terrorist country”.“There will be no negotiations with Pakistan without national independence and without the presence of the United Nations,” he said. “Our destination is independence.”

Source: thehimalayantimes.com/

US to send more troops to Iraq ahead of Mosul battle

The United States will send around 600 new troops to Iraq to assist local forces in the battle to retake Mosul from Islamic State that is expected later this year, US and Iraqi officials said on Wednesday.

The new deployment is the third such boost in US troop levels in Iraq since April, underscoring the difficulties President Barack Obama has had in extracting the US military from the country.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said in a statement that his government asked for more US military trainers and advisers. Obama called it a “sombre decision.”

“I’ve always been very mindful that when I send any of our outstanding men and women in uniform into a war theatre, they’re taking a risk that they might not come back,” Obama said during a town hall event at a military base in Fort Lee, Virginia, televised on CNN.

The new troops will train and advise Iraqi security forces and Kurdish peshmerga forces, primarily in the Mosul fight, but also serve “to protect and expand Iraqi security forces’ gains elsewhere in Iraq,” US Defense Secretary Ash Carter said.

“We’ve said all along – whenever we see opportunities to accelerate the campaign, we want to seize them,” Carter said.

Though Iraqi forces will be in the combat role, “American forces combating ISIL in Iraq are in harm’s way,” Carter said, using an acronym for Islamic State.

Some of the 615 new service members will be based at Qayara air base, about 40 miles (60 km) from Mosul, Carter said. Iraqi forces recaptured the base from Islamic State militants in July and have been building it into a logistics hub to support their offensive into the northern city.

Other US troops will go to Ain al Asad air base in western Iraq, where hundreds of US personnel have been training Iraqi army forces.

Carter, who spoke to reporters while travelling in New Mexico, declined to name other locations where the new US forces will be based.

However, he said some of the forces would help enhance intelligence gathering efforts, particularly related to Islamic State’s plans to conduct attacks outside its own territory.

“We are prepared to continue to help the Iraqi security forces consolidate their control over the country,” Carter said.

“Mosul will be the last of the very large cities that needs to be recaptured, but they’ll need to continue to consolidate control over the whole city,” he added, leaving the door open for US forces to remain in Iraq after the fall of Mosul.

Mosul is Islamic State’s de facto Iraqi capital.

In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said the troops would be deployed to Iraq in the coming weeks.

Three US service members have been killed in direct combat since the launch of the U.S. campaign against Islamic State.

Abadi met with Obama and Vice President Joe Biden last week on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, though it was not clear whether the agreement was sealed there.

The United States currently has 4,565 troops in Iraq as part of a US-led coalition providing extensive air support, training and advice to the Iraqi military, which collapsed in 2014 in the face of Islamic State’s territorial gains and lightning advance toward Baghdad.

Iraqi forces, including Kurdish peshmerga forces and mostly Iranian-backed Shi’ite militias, have retaken around half of that territory over the past two years, but Mosul, the largest city under the ultra-hardline group’s control anywhere across its self-proclaimed caliphate, is likely to be the biggest battle yet.

The United States has gradually increased the number of US troops in Iraq this year, and moved them closer to the front lines of battle. Obama approved sending 560 more troops to Iraq in July, three months after the United States said it would dispatch about 200 more troops there.

To send the new troops, the White House will raise its cap on US forces in Iraq from 4,647, to 5,262 troops, a senior U.S. defence official said.

U.S. and Iraqi commanders say the push on Mosul could begin by the second half of October. Carter said the campaign to expel Islamic State from Mosul would intensify “in the coming weeks.”

The recapture of Mosul would be a major boost for plans by Abadi and the United States to weaken the militant group.

Current U.S. troop levels in Iraq are still a fraction of the 170,000 deployed at the height of the nine-year occupation that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003, sparking an al Qaeda-backed insurgency and throwing the country into a sectarian civil war.

Loath to become mired in another conflict overseas, the White House has insisted there would be no American “boots on the ground.” While coalition troops were initially confined to a few military bases, Americans have inched closer to the action as the campaign progresses.

Source: thehimalayantimes.com/

Four countries not to attend SAARC Summit

A summit of South Asian leaders set for November in Islamabad may be called off, as several countries have decided not to attend amid rising tension between arch-rivals India and Pakistan, officials said today.

SAARC Chair Nepal confirmed that it received letters from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan and India regarding their inability to attend the next South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation Summit to be held in Islamabad in November.

Officiating Foreign Secretary Jhabindra Aryal told The Himalayan Timesthat the messages were received via the SAARC Secretariat in Kathmandu. Embassy of India in Nepal also made a separate correspondence regarding this. The Ministry of External Affairs of India had conveyed yesterday to SAARC Chair Nepal about India’s inability to attend the Islamabad summit slated for November 9 and 10 amidst increased cross-border terrorist attacks in Jammu and Kashmir.

It’s learnt that the SAARC Secretariat has informed all member-states, including host Pakistan, about the notice of the four countries regarding their inability to attend the meeting.

Aryal said that as the chair of the regional bloc, Nepal believed that SAARC process should move smoothly, and the summit be held on time.

A foreign ministry official said it was up to the host country, Pakistan, whether to call off the summit now or persuade the four member-states to hold the jamboree on schedule.

SAARC has eight member-states: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. As per its charter, all the members have to attend summit, in which heads of state/government of the eight countries take part. If any member is absent, the regional jamboree can’t take place. The PM’s Foreign Affairs Adviser Rishi Raj Adhikari said consultation was under way with the member-states if the summit could be held on time. He added that as SAARC chair, Nepal would take a position on the matter after due consultation with the member-states.

He claimed that the summit could still be held on schedule if the ‘matters between the concerned member-states are resolved’.

Source: thehimalayantimes.com/

Tourists evacuated as Indonesian volcano Mount Barujani erupts

Rescuers in Indonesia were dispatched on Wednesday to evacuate nearly 400 tourists, most of them foreigners, after a volcano erupted at one of the country’s most popular hiking destinations, an official said.

Mount Barujani began erupting on Tuesday, sending columns of ash and smoke shooting 2 kilometres into the sky over Lombok island, a tourist hotspot to the immediate east of Bali.

Nearly 400 people were recorded as hiking near Barujani -- a smaller cone within the crater of Mount Rinjani -- when it began erupting, prompting plans for their immediate evacuation, said national disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho.

“A rescue team has been sent to Mount Rinjani to evacuate the tourists. They set off on Wednesday morning,” he said.

Hikers have been told to keep at least 3 kilometres from the smouldering volcano, a key attraction on the multi-day trek to the summit of Mount Rinjani made by thousands of tourists every year.

Nugroho said 389 hikers were recorded as having entered the national park since Sunday, the overwhelming majority of them foreigners.

While most would have taken the official route to the summit, rescue teams suspected some hikers may have gone off-piste, Nugroho added.

The threat level of the volcano was upgraded on Tuesday as Barujani sent plumes of smoke and hot ash into the atmosphere, but remains two steps from the highest-risk category.

There were no flight disturbances recorded on Wednesday due to the ash clouds, transport ministry spokesman Hemi Pramuraharjo told AFP.

Some flights to and from the nearby resort island of Bali were cancelled overnight, but Lombok’s international airport remains unaffected.

Flight disruptions due to drifting ash clouds are not uncommon in Indonesia, which sits on a belt of seismic activity known as the Pacific Ring of Fire and is home to 130 active volcanoes.

An eruption at Mount Rinjani last month forced the closure of Lombok airport and disrupted some flights to neighbouring Bali.

Source: www.hindustantimes.com/

Explosion kills 18 in coal mine in northern China, state blames illegal mining

Chinese authorities blamed illegal mining activities for a gas explosion at a coal mine that killed 18 miners and left two others missing, Chinese state media reported on Wednesday.

Tuesday morning’s explosion occurred at a small coal mine when 20 miners were working underground in the city of Shizuishan in the northwestern region of Ningxia, the official Xinhua News Agency said. State broadcaster CCTV had said that the blast had killed 19 people, but later reported 18 deaths.

Local officials at a news conference early on Wednesday said that representatives of the company that owned the mine, the Linli Coal Mining Co. Ltd., were in police custody, Xinhua said.

Xinhua cited an initial investigation as showing that the blast was caused by illegal mining, but did not provide details. The company could not immediately be reached at its listed phone number.

At the briefing, Wu Yuguo, the city’s vice mayor, said an excessive concentration of gas and the destruction of the mine shaft have hindered rescue efforts.

China’s mines have long been the world’s deadliest, but safety improvements have reduced deaths in recent years.

Calls to the Shizuishan city government Wednesday rang unanswered.

Source: www.hindustantimes.com/

FBI says New York bomb suspect Rahami likely acted alone, has no terror links

The suspect in the bombing in New York’s Chelsea neighbourhood this month appears to have acted on his own, with no connection to an extremist movement, the FBI said on Tuesday.

“We see so far no indication of a larger cell or the threat of related attacks,” FBI director James Comey testified at a Senate committee hearing.

The suspect in the September 17 bombing that left 31 people wounded, Ahmad Khan Rahami, was arrested in New Jersey two days after the attack.

He was wounded in a shootout with police as they closed in to arrest him. He has remained hospitalized and is unable to appear before a judge, according to the New Jersey prosecutor’s office.

US prosecutors, in a 13-page indictment on September 20, slapped him with four charges, including use of weapons of mass destruction.

In addition to the New York attack, he is charged with a pipe bombing, also on September 17, in Seaside Park, New Jersey, and planting several other bombs.

A naturalised US citizen born in Afghanistan, Rahami, 28, made several trips in recent years to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The terror charges came after the Federal Bureau of Investigation admitted it had investigated Rahami for terrorism in 2014 following a complaint from his father, but found no link to radicalisation or extremist sympathies.

Comey said the FBI is seeing a slight slowdown in new US terror investigation cases, but some 1,000 probes are currently ongoing.

“I hope that it’s going to... head downward but it has not headed downward yet,” he told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

By contrast, he said, the number of people leaving the country to join the Islamic State group in Syria or Iraq has fallen sharply.

“Where we used to see eight or 10 people from the United States trying to go to the so-called caliphate, we’re now down to one or none a month,” he said.

Source: www.hindustantimes.com/

Berlin: Police shoot dead man who attacked another refugee home resident

Police in the German capital have shot dead a man who attacked another resident with a knife in a refugee shelter.

German news agency dpa reports that the 29-year-old man was angry at a younger man who he believed had abused his daughter.

Dpa reported that the attack happened late Tuesday as police were arresting the 27-year-old alleged abuser in the refugee shelter in the centre of Berlin.

The head of the German Police Union, Bodo Pfalzgraf, said Wednesday that the incident was “tragic” but urged the media not to jump to conclusions about the police officers’ actions.

Pfalzgraf said officers were bound to “prevent vigilantism and a situation that threatens their own lives”.

Source: www.hindustantimes.com/

US: Unarmed black man dies after being shot by police in California

An unarmed black man has died after being shot by a police officer in El Cajon in southern California on Tuesday, the local police department said, appealing for calm as local media reported crowds had gathered at the scene of the shooting.

The death comes less than two weeks after black men in Charlotte, North Carolina and in Tulsa, Oklahoma, were shot dead by police, sparking protests. In Charlotte, rioting prompted the authorities to impose a state of emergency.

Similar deaths have added to a torrent of accusations over racial bias in US law enforcement and calls for greater police accountability for the killings of black people.

The El Cajon Police Department said two officers had responded to a call regarding a man walking in traffic. He refused their instructions to remove his hand from his pocket and then pulled out an object from his pants and pointed it at them, the department said in a statement.

The officers then simultaneously shot and tasered the man who died after being taken to hospital, the department said.

During a news conference hours after the shooting, El Cajon Police Department Jeff Davis said no weapon was found on the scene. He did not say what exactly the man pointed at the unidentified officers.

The incident prompted crowds of people to gather throughout Tuesday night at the scene and at the El Cajon Police Department, where they demanded information about the shooting, according to local media.

Video emerged on social media purportedly showing the moments after the incident at the scene. In the video, a woman, who claimed to be the man’s sister, is heard saying that she called police.

“Oh my God. You killed my brother. I just called for help and ... you killed him,” the unidentified woman said as she sobbed.

A bystander voluntarily provided investigators cell phone video that captured the incident, police said.

Police released a still photo from the video that depicted what appeared to be two officers pointing weapons at an individual who was pointing an object at them. At least one of the officers in the photo appeared to be white.

A study released in July shows police used force on black people at rates more than three times higher than for whites.

“Now is a time for calm,” Davis said at the news conference.

“I implore the community to be patient with us, work with us, look at the facts at hand before making any judgment.”

Source: www.hindustantimes.com/

Pakistani boy gangraped in Greek migrant camp, say police

Four Pakistani minors have been arrested for allegedly gangraping a 16-year-old Pakistani boy in a Greek migrant camp, police said on Wednesday.

“The four minors, aged 16 to 17, will appear before a prosecutor today,” a police source told AFP.

The incident allegedly occurred on Sunday in the Moria camp on the island of Lesbos.

Greece is accommodating over 60,000 refugees and migrants stuck in the country after a succession of Balkan and EU states shut their borders earlier this year.

Many of the camps are grossly overpopulated, and rights groups have repeatedly warned that minors must be housed separately for their safety.

There are also regular fights among refugees and migrants, who are forced to wait months for their asylum applications to be processed.

Some 5,000 people had to be evacuated from the Moria camp last week when a fire broke out after another brawl.

Greece is in the process of building additional camps on the mainland with EU funds.

But Athens says it has still not received the required EU staff promised by fellow member states to process a massive wave of asylum applications.

This would have enabled Greek authorities to relocate approved refugees out of the congested island camps.

Greece has also bemoaned the failure of fellow member states to accept thousands of refugees from its camps, despite a highly-publicised EU scheme launched last year.

“Fires and incidents in certain island camps are, in a fashion, the result of the failure to share out refugees to all EU member states,” junior foreign minister for European affairs Nikos Xydakis told Die Welt daily on Wednesday, according to an excerpt of the interview sent in advance.

Xydakis said some 7,000 refugees could immediately leave but “most EU states either accept very few or do not even respond to our requests.”

The Greek official also addressed a warning by German interior minister Thomas de Maiziere earlier this month to send migrants back to Greece, ending a five-year suspension of the EU’s Dublin rules, under which refugees must seek asylum in the first EU country they enter.

Xydakis said that returning migrants to Greece under the Dublin regulations is “not realistic” and it would mean the cash-strapped country would end up with an additional one-two million people when it is already “near its limits” with 60,000.

Source: www.hindustantimes.com/

Three Star Club of Nepal to lock horns with Sikkim United today

 Ruslan Three Star Club of Nepal will play against Sikkim United Club in the semi-finals of the 64th Bharat Ratna Lokopriya Gopinath Bordoloi Trophy Football Tournament at the Nehru Stadium in Guwahati today.

The Sikkim United advanced to the semi-finals after the club edged past Bongobir Ogragami FC, Bangladesh with the 1-0 win in the last group league match in group B at the Nehru Stadium on Tuesday.

The match between the Three Star and the hosts is scheduled to kick off at 4 pm today.

The winners of the match will further lock horns with the winners of second semi-final match between East Bengal versus Shillong Lajong that will kick off at 7 pm today itself.

Source: thehimalayantimes.com/

Rashford hopes to build momentum after breakthrough season

Manchester United forward Marcus Rashford will not dwell on his successful debut campaign and instead hopes to build on his impressive form under manager Jose Mourinho.

The teenager burst on to the scene in February, scoring on his Premier League, Europa League and senior international debuts. He struck five goals in 11 league games in his debut campaign and was included in England’s Euro 2016 squad.

The 18-year-old has already scored four goals in seven appearances in all competitions this season, forcing his way into Mourinho’s first-team plans despite the signing of prolific striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

“A lot of things happened last season and it is now behind me. It was last season,” Rashford told the club’s website (www.manutd.com).

“I have to try and recreate those moments this year and to get the goal early in the season was quite important for me to get back on a roll. I am just looking to build momentum now.”

Rashford also described last month’s 92nd-minute winner against Hull City in his first league outing under new manager Mourinho as his most important goal for United since he was handed his debut under previous coach Louis van Gaal.

“It was a different moment for me and I don’t think I’ve scored one so late in the game before. It was an amazing feeling to be with the travelling fans as well, a brilliant feeling,” Rashford added.

“I feel like that was the most important goal for me, to get the winner in the last minute away from home. I like the feeling that it gave me and I want more.”

United, who are sixth in the league standings, host struggling Stoke City on Sunday.

Source: thehimalayantimes.com/

Dhading bus accident: Injured airlifted to Kathmandu, death toll reaches 19

As many as 14 people, who were seriously injured in the bus accident in Marpak of Dhading, were airlifted to Kathmandu for treatment this afternoon. They were admitted to the Maharajganj-based Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital.

One of them, however, succumbed to injuries, making the death toll 19.

Earlier, 18 bodies were found at the accident site.

Among the victims, two are boys, 11 men and six women.

Seventeen of the victims have been identified, the Rastriya Samachar Samiti reported, quoting DSP Dipendra Panjiyar at the Dhading District Police Office.

Two men, including one who died in Kathmandu during the course of treatment, were not identified.

Victims are named as Mendijun Tamang, Thirmaya Tamang, Ranga Singh Tamang, Leela Bahadur Gurung, Rauta Tamang and Rawat Tamang (3) of Satyadevi VDC; Kamala Paudel, Dil Kumari Adhikari and Padma Bahadur Thapa of Marpak VDC; Rudra Bahadur Ghale of Gumdi VDC; Ram Chandra Sapkota of Darkha VDC; Larup Ramang of Sertung VDC; Man Bahadur Tamang, Chandra Man Tamang and Tek Bahadur Tamang of Ri VDC; bus driver Gangabir BK of Gorkha, and Khiya Lama whose address was not known, according to the RSS.

Many of them had visited the district headquarters to collect relief money distributed by the government for the reconstruction of their houses destroyed by the Nepal earthquake last year.

Source: thehimalayantimes.com/