STORIES
 

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Sept 10, New Delhi -- Indian and Israeli officials said today they were pleased with the symbolism as well as the substance of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's abbreviated visit, issuing a statement condemning countries that give sanctuary to terrorists and pledging cooperation in the fields of health, environment, culture and drug-trafficking. Israeli officials described the visit -- the first by a sitting Israeli prime minister since the two countries established diplomatic relations in 1992 -- as a turning point and cited the potential for expanded intelligence sharing and other cooperation in the fight against Muslim extremist groups they say pose a threat to both countries.

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Sept 10, New Delhi -- Israel and India vowed on Wednesday to work together more closely as Prime Minister Ariel Sharon prepared to return home early after two suicide bombings in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. ``Terror is the enemy of freedom and democracy. Israel and India...will combat this menace,'' Sharon told business leaders. ``It is my intent to make every effort to reach an agreement that will bring peace and security in the region...(but) we cannot move forward on the process unless there is a full cessation in hostilities.''

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Sept 10, Karachi, Pakistan -- Police in Pakistan stepped up security near Western diplomatic missions and government offices Wednesday, fearing attacks by Muslim militants on the second anniversary of the September 11 strikes on the United States. Hundreds of additional policemen were deployed in both the center of the volatile commercial hub Karachi and the capital Islamabad and stopped and searched vehicles at random. Karachi Police Chief Tariq Jameel told Reuters an extra 1,000 officers had been put on the streets.

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Sept 10, Dhaka -- Pakistan's foreign minister arrived in Bangladesh's capital Wednesday to deliver a letter formally inviting Prime Minister Khaleda Zia to a regional summit in Pakistan early next year. The 12th summit of the seven-nation South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation is scheduled to be held Jan. 4-6 in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. Pakistan Foreign Minister Khursheed Kasuri was expected to meet Zia on Thursday and hand her an invitation from Pakistan Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali to attend the summit, Bangladesh Foreign Ministry officials said.

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Sept 10, Dhaka -- Students and teachers from a Muslim school fought with members of an Islamic militant group who were distributing leaflets in their village, urging people to join an armed ``jihad,' or holy war, to make secular Bangladesh an Islamic state, police said Wednesday. Police used batons to stop the fighting and arrested 13 members of the Hizbul Tauhid militant group. About 45 people were wounded. Ten of them, including two police officers, were hospitalized, a police officer said on condition of anonymity.

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Sept 11, Srinagar, India -- Ten people were wounded Thursday when suspected Muslim rebels threw a grenade in a crowded market area in the heart of Srinagar, summer capital of Indian Kashmir, police and witnesses said. The attack, on the second anniversary of the September 11, 2001, hijack attacks in the United States, was the latest incident in a rising spiral of violence in the disputed region, at the heart of decades of animosity between India and Pakistan. Police said the grenade was apparently aimed at a security patrol in the city's Lal Chowk area but it missed its target and exploded on a road, wounding nine civilians and a border guard.

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Sept 10, Jammu, India -- Government troops killed six suspected Islamic militants in a gunfight Wednesday, after the rebels allegedly sneaked into India's portion of Kashmir amid cross-border shelling by Pakistani and Indian troops, police said. Nearly a dozen suspected militants are believed to have crossed into Indian Kashmir overnight during an exchange of fire between Indian and Pakistani troops, said a police officer in Jammu, winter capital of Indian-held Kashmir.

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Sept 11 -- Hundreds of riot police in Katmandu detained a former prime minister and at least 1,000 other demonstrators who were protesting against the king. Former Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala was among more than 20,000 people who marched through the capital chanting pro-democracy slogans.

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Sept 10, Katmandu -- Rebels raided a town in central Nepal, shooting to death three officers at a police station and two boys watching a soccer game at a school next-door, police said Wednesday. At least six police officers were missing after the attack. They could be hiding in nearby forests or have been captured by the rebels, a police officer said on condition of anonymity. The attack occurred at Khaireni, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) west of the capital, Katmandu, on Tuesday.

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Sept 10, Seatac -- The wall calendar showing men with turbans and long beards has disappeared. Gone, too, are the bruises on his scalp, the 10 stitches that closed a bloody gash and most of the headaches. What remain are the searing memories of an unprovoked attack, the fear that it could happen again and the reminders that life won't ever be quite the same. Karnail "Kail" Singh is a Renton resident, India native, world traveler, poet, writer and SeaTac motel owner. What he is not is a Muslim. But a transient apparently thought he was. Five weeks after the 9/11 attacks, the man clubbed Singh unconscious in the sunlit lobby of the SeaTac Crest Motor Inn. "You still here? Go to back to Allah!" Singh remembers the man shouting just before striking him twice.

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Sept 10, Vancouver, Canada -- Tight security enveloped a special courtroom Wednesday for expected testimony from a key witness in the Air India bombing trial -- one of the three alleged conspirators in the 1985 blasts that killed 331 people. Inderjit Singh Reyat pleaded guilty to manslaughter in February to his role in what is considered the worst terrorist bombing of an airliner in history. He was scheduled to testify at the trial of Ajaib Singh Bagri and Ripudaman Singh Malik, who face eight counts each of murder, attempted murder and conspiracy in connection with June 1985 blast that killed 329 people on Flight 182 from Montreal to London.

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Sept 10, Islamabad -- Members of the Afghan government and even some Pakistani intelligence officials suggest Pakistan is not doing all it can to stop Taliban forces. At least three low-level Pakistani army officers have been arrested on charges they helped Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Al-Qaida's chief of operations, hide in the country before his arrest in March, Pakistani intelligence officials told the New York Times.

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Sept 11, Karachi, Pakistan -- When the World Trade Center came under attack on Sept. 11, New York police cadet Mohammad Salman Hamdani drove across the city, parked his two-door Toyota a few blocks away, then rushed into the eye of the storm. Like hundreds of others, he died heroically trying to help the thousands of people trapped inside. Two years after the terror strikes in the United States -- and 17 months after Hamdani's funeral in New York -- his relatives in Pakistan still hope against hope that he will return home to them.

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Sept 10, Colombo -- Sri Lankan Tamil Tiger rebels announced on Wednesday that they would boycott an international aid meeting to be hosted by Japanese peace envoy Yasushi Akashi in Colombo on Friday. "In responding to an invitation from the Japanese embassy in Colombo, the LTTE has expressed its inability to participate in the meeting," the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels said in a statement.

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Sept 11, Karachi, Pakistan -- The recent arrests of Pakistani military officers for possible ties to former Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives are the first visible signs of latent support for extremists within the country's military. The officers hailed mostly from the Northwest Frontier Province, a stronghold of Pakistan's religious parties that are sympathetic to the Taliban and Al Qaeda. These parties have led a movement to force Pervez Musharraf to give up either his presidency or the post of army chief.

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Sept 10, Islamabad -- Two years after the Sept. 11 attacks, questions are multiplying about whether Pakistan, a critical U.S. ally in the campaign against terrorism, is mounting a sincere effort to crack down on a resurgent Taliban and other Islamic militants. The Pakistani military, which dominates the country, is credited by U.S. officials with excellent cooperation in hunting down members of Al Qaeda. But members of the Afghan government and some Pakistani political and intelligence officials suggest that Pakistan is not doing all it could to stop Taliban forces from using its territory to attack Afghan territory, and that some elements of the Pakistani Army are harboring members of the Taliban and Qaeda.

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              --- South Asian News, September 11, 2003 ---

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