| Al-Qaeda wing claims US plane plot | |||||
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has said that it was behind the failed attempt to bomb a US aircraft on Christmas day. The group said on its website on Monday that the attempt had been carried out in retaliation for US strikes on the group in Yemen. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian, attempted to light an explosive device on a flight from Lagos to Detroit, via Amsterdam, with nearly 300 people onboard. The group said it had provided Abdulmutallab with the device, but that a technical fault prevented it from successfully detonating. Abdulmutallab, who was overpowered by passengers on the flight, is in US custody having been charged with the attack. According to a chargesheet prepared by prosecutors, Abdulmutallab tried to bring down the aircraft using a device containing PETN, also known as pentaerythritol, an explosive. Abdulmutallab, who suffered burns in the incident, was moved from a hospital to a federal prison west of Detroit on Monday. The explosive material was allegedly sewn into his underwear and officials believe tragedy was averted only because the makeshift detonator failed to work properly before fellow passengers jumped on him. Air safety review Meanwhile, Barack Obama, the US president, has ordered a review of how travellers are placed on watch lists and the screening procedures of air passengers following the failed bid to blow up the airliner. Abdulmutallab, a former student in London, was added to a watch-list of some 550,000 names last month after his father told US embassy officials in Abuja that he was concerned by his son's increasing radicalism.
"There is a series of databases that list people of concern to several agencies across the government. We want to make sure information-sharing is going on," Robert Gibbs, a White House spokesman, said. "The president has asked that a review be undertaken to ensure that any information gets to where it needs to go, to the people making the decisions." Obama has also ordered a second review to examine how "an individual with the chemical explosive he had on him could get onto an airliner in Amsterdam and fly into this country," Gibbs said. Susan Collins, a Republican senator, said that following his father's warning, Abdulmutallab's visa should have been revoked, or at the very least he should have been given a physical pat-down at the airport. "This individual should not have been missed," Collins told The New York Times. "Clearly, there should have been a red flag next to his name." Family pledge With questions now being asked about security measures, air travellers in the US were being told to check-in four hours ahead of scheduled departure times, while bomb-sniffing dogs were visible at airports across the country. Once on board, many passengers were told they would be unable to hold coats or blankets in their laps and would not be allowed to enter aircraft restrooms for the last hour of their flights. In Nigeria, Abdulmutallab's family promised their full co-operation with security agencies and said his recent behaviour had been "completely out of character". In a statement, the family said it had grown so concerned at the lack of contact in recent weeks that his parents had contacted security agencies. "Before then, from very early childhood, Farouk, to the best of parental monitoring, had never shown any attitude, conduct or association that would give concern." Relatives have said previously that Abdulmutallab, son of leading Nigerian businessman Umar Abdulmutallab, had broken contact with them several weeks ago after announcing that he was studying in Yemen. According to The New York Times, Abdulmutallab told FBI agents he was connected to an al-Qaeda affiliate, which operates largely in Yemen and Saudi Arabia, by a radical Yemeni cleric whom he contacted online. But Janet Napolitano, Obama's top security official, said there was "no indication" Abdulmutallab was acting as part of a larger plot and warned against speculating that he had been trained by al-Qaeda. | |||||
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Monday, 28 December 2009
Al-Qaeda wing claims US plane plot
Deaths in Pakistan city blast
| Deaths in Pakistan city blast | |||
At least 25 people have been killed after a bomb blast struck a procession of Shia Muslims in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi, according to police sources. The explosion struck on Monday as Shia worshippers marked Ashoura, the holiest event on the Shia Muslim calendar. Police sources told Al Jazeera that at least 50 people were injured in the blast, with many of those in a critical condition. The cause of the blast was not immediately clear. "We are trying to ascertain whether it was a time bomb or a suicide attack, but it is a terrorist attack," Abdul Wahid Khan, a senior police official, was quoted by the Reuters news agency as saying. The Pakistan Rangers, a paramilitary force, has taken over responsibility for restive areas of Karachi, officials said. Television footage showed crowds around the blast area, smoke rising over the scene and ambulances going back and forth. Some people in the crowd, apparently angered at the attack, fired shots into the air, witnesses said. Building ablaze Local television stations reported that more than a dozen vehicles and a four-storey building were also set ablaze by people reacting to the attack. Fazal Qureshi, chief editor of the Pakistan Press International news agency, told Al Jazeera: "These processions cover long distances, they were marching through the central road when suddenly the bomber blew himself up. "It is impossible to stop someone who is prepared to die. There is an atmosphere of fear throughout the city." Imran Khan, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Islamabad, said: "The Shia community would certainly have been the specific target of this attack, but there have been no claims of responsibility so far." "The Shia are in the minority but make up a significant number of Pakistanis. "They are woven into the fabric of Pakistan. However, they are under attack for their beliefs." Rehman Malik, the interior minister, has called for people to show restraint and asked that Shia processions over the next two days be cancelled following the attack. Talat Hussain, the director of news at the local AAJ TV, told Al Jazeera: "Any number of groups come to mind who may have carried out the attack ... The game clearly is to disrupt Pakistan." Concerning the violent reaction to the strike, Hussain said: "People have been saying that the government has been apathetic to the listening to the warnings of potential attacks and people's fears." Pakistan had tightened security to protect mass processions ahead of Ashoura, deploying tens of thousands of police and paramilitary forces. | |||
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Iran seizes opposition figures
| Iran seizes opposition figures | |||||||||||||||||||
Security forces in Iran have arrested a number of prominent critics of the government in the wake of opposition protests that left as many as eight people dead in Tehran, the capital. Ebrahim Yazdi, who served as foreign minister in the early months of Iran's 1979 revolution, and Emadeddin Baghi, a human rights campaigner and journalist, were arrested on Monday, according to the pro-opposition Rahesabz website. There were also reports that two aides to Mohammad Khatami, a former reformist president, and three advisers to Mir Hossein Mousavi, an opposition leader, were detained. Security forces reportedly stormed a series of opposition offices in an apparent crackdown following fierce clashes at street protests during the Shia Muslim commemoration of Ashoura. Seyyed Ali Mousavi, Mousavi's 35-year-old nephew, was among the eight people killed, with the Parlemannews website saying he was shot during clashes at Tehran's Enghelab square "and was martyred after he was taken to Ebnesina hospital". State television attributed his death to "unknown assailants". Norooz, an opposition website, said police had fired teargas to disperse supporters of Mousavi outside the hospital. Opposition reports that police fired on protesters during the demonstrations, could not be independently verified as foreign media face severe restrictions in Iran. 'Suspicious death' Ahmad Reza Radan, Iran's deputy police chief, acknowledged that "several people" had been killed, but denied that police had used guns to contain the protests.
"As the police was not using firearms this [death] is suspicious and it is being investigated," he said. Opposition leaders criticised the government for the killings in what are some of the bloodiest confrontations since the demonstrations that followed the disputed June 12 presidential poll won by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "What has happened to this religious system that it orders the killing of innocent people during the holy day of Ashoura?" Mehdi Karroubi, one of the defeated reformist candidates in the election, said in a statement reported on the Jaras website. The website also said that unrest had spread to other parts of Iran, including the holy city of Qom, Shiraz, Isfahan, Najafabad, Mashhad and Babol. Security forces attacked But others played down the protests. Kian Mokhtari, a columnist and political commentator in Tehran, told Al Jazeera that reports of the protests had been exaggerated. "There are 10 million Basji [religious security forces] in Iran and if the Supreme Leader intended to crack down - you can't call this a crackdown," he said.
He said: "Peaceful demonstrations were planned for today [Monday], so I have no idea why these several thousand-at-most people went out and decided to pick a fight. "But they went out and their first act was to set fire to a bank and then they attacked the Ashoura mourners. Payam Akhavan, who co-founded the Iran Human Rights Documentation Centre, characterised the protests as a result of Iran's disputed June election, which saw Mousavi and others beaten to the presidency by Ahmadinejad, the incumbent. "The regime has tried to portray the Green [opposition] Movement, the protests, as a very limited segment of Iranian society - middle class, secular students in Tehran," he told Al Jazeera. "But now it's clear that the protests against the regime encompass a very broad cross-section of Iranian society, including devout Muslims." Outside influences Mohammad Marandi, a professor at Tehran University, said that the protests were being organised from abroad, a sentiment frequently stressed by the Iranian government. "They are largely being orchestrated from abroad, they are orchestrated from television networks that are being beamed in from the United States and Europe," Marandi told Al Jazeera.
But Trita Parsi, the president of the National Iranian American Council, an advocacy group, rejected that assessment. "This is a movement that is homegrown, that is finding its inspiration from what is taking place inside the country," he told Al Jazeera. "There is no evidence or any clear indication that they will be taking any particular orders or money from outside." Iran's government has been criticised internationally for its clampdown on the protests. Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, said the actions of the security forces were "unacceptable". | |||||||||||||||||||
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Gaza aid convoy to change course
| Gaza aid convoy to change course | |||||||
Organisers of Viva Palestina aid convoy, which is trying to reach the Gaza Strip, have now agreed to go via Syria en route to Egypt.
The agreement came after a Turkish mediator reached a deal with the Egyptian consul in Jordan's Red Sea port of Aqaba.
The convoy will now head to the Syrian port of Latakia to sail from there to the Egyptian port of El Arish, and then to Gaza. The Viva Palestina convoy, which has been stranded in Aqaba for the past five days, is led by George Galloway, a British MP. Meanwhile, at least 300 French participants of the Gaza Freedom March spent the night camped out in front of their embassy in Cairo, bringing a major road in the Egyptian capital to a halt as riot police wielding plexiglass shields surrounded them.
"They want media exposure and to pressure and embarrass Egypt," he said. On Sunday, police briefly detained 38 international participants in the Sinai town of El-Arish, organisers said. "At noon (1000 GMT) on December 27, Egyptian security forces detained a group of 30 activists in their hotel in El-Arish as they prepared to leave for Gaza, placing them under house arrest. "Another group of eight people, including American, British, Spanish, Japanese and Greek citizens, were detained at the bus station of El-Arish in the afternoon of December 27," they said. On Sunday, Egyptian police also stopped some 200 protesters from renting boats on the Nile to hold a procession to commemorate those who died in the Gaza war. | |||||||
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Israel plans settlement expansion
| Israel plans settlement expansion | |||
Israel housing ministry has approved plans to build almost 700 new apartments in three Jewish settlements in east Jerusalem. "The Palestinian Authority strongly condemns the new decision to build in east Jerusalem and wonders whether there is a freeze of settlement activity or an intensification of it," Saeb Erakat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said. The White House called for Israel and the Palestinians to return to the negotiating table as soon as possible and for Israel to halt the construction of new homes. "The United States opposes new Israeli construction in East Jerusalem," Robert Gibbs, a White House spokesman, said in a statement. 'Unilateral action' "We feel that unilateral actions make it harder for people to get back together at the table, and that's what our goals are," another US official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, declared a 10-month suspension of settlement construction in the occupied West Bank earlier this month but the temporary halt does not include east Jerusalem. "We make a distinction between the West Bank and Jerusalem. Jerusalem is our capital and remains such,'' Mark Regev, a government spokesman, said on Monday. Palestinians claim east Jerusalem as the capital of any future state and consider Jewish neighbourhoods there to be settlements. East Jerusalem was annexed after the 1967 Middle East war, a move not recognised by the international community. On November 16, Israel gave its approval for 900 new housing units in another east Jerusalem settlement. Israel's 10-month moratorium on construction in the West Bank, which Netanyahu said was to encourage the resumption of the peace talks, excludes public buildings and building on 3,000 settlement homes already under way. About 190,000 Israelis live in east Jerusalem and another 290,000 settlers currently live in the occupied West Bank. Netanyahu was due to travel to Egypt on Tuesday to meet Hosni Mubarak, the president, to discuss Middle East peacemaking. | |||
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Kadima rejects Netanyahu offer
| Kadima rejects Netanyahu offer | |||
Kadima, Israel's main opposition party, has voted against joining the ruling coalition after an offer from Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, last week. Yohanan Plasner, a Kadima MP, said that the offer had been unanimously rejected on Monday by the party's parliamentary group. "The prime minister's proposal as relayed to the Kadima chairman does not express an honest desire for such partnership," Plasner said. "A unity government has many advantages, but a national unity should not be an empty expression, but a commitment for a real partnership with a joint vision and principles and an agreed way to materialise these principles," he said. Tzipi Livni, the Kadima leader, said that Netanyahu's offer was "cynical and unrealistic". 'Small-time politics' She said that the offer was an attempt to use Israel's international relations issues for "small-time politics", adding such behaviour was "unworthy of the prime minister". Israel is under considerable pressure from the international community, particularly the US, to meet Palestinian pre-requisites for peace talks, such as the halting of settlement building in the occupied West Bank. However, analysts have said that Netanyahu preferred to protect his coalition - currently comprising right-wing and religious parties - by not meeting those requests. The centrist Kadima has 28 seats in the Knesset, the 120-seat Israeli parliament. That is one more than Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party. Netanyahu offered several cabinet posts without portfolios to Kadima politicians last week. It has been suggested by experts that the move was an attempt to win the support of defectors, while splitting Kadima. Livni earlier rejected an offer to join the ruling coalition after elections in March, disagreeing with Netanyahu's hard line stance against the Palestinians. | |||
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Plea for UK man facing China death
| Plea for UK man facing China death | |||
Relatives of a British man on death row in China after being convicted of smuggling heroin, have appealed for a pardon as they say he is mentally ill. Akmal Shaikh is due to be put to death on Tuesday morning but cousins who visited him in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang province, said that he was not aware that his execution date had been set until they told him. The 53-year-old father of three was caught carrying a suitcase containing 4kg of heroin from an aircraft in 2007. His family have said that Shaikh, who was born in Pakistan but was raised in the UK, was tricked into carrying the suitcase by a gang in Poland, where he had been living for at least six years. Bipolar diagnosis Seema Khan, Shaikh's cousin, told Al Jazeera: "He has been assessed in the UK as suffering from bipolar disorder. And the evidence shows that he is displaying the symptoms of this disease. "We lost touch with him about six years ago when he left for Poland. We know that he was picked up from Poland, living rough on the streets, by a gang. "[They] must have offered him food and a bed, and duped him and used him as a mule. "He did not actually go out to obtain drugs, the drugs were brought to him ... He would not have had the money to get on a plane to China." Shaikh's family has said that the gang offered him a music recording contract to tempt him to fly to China. A court in China rejected Shaikh's final appeal on December 21. He would be the first European citizen to be put to death in China since 1951 if executed. "The case has been processed in accordance with the law ... The defendant's litigation rights and legitimate treatment have been fully granted," Jiang Yu, a Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman, said last week. Gordon Brown, the UK prime minister, has had his request for a pardon rejected by Beijing. A vigil has been held outside the Chinese embassy in London for Shaikh. |
| Source: | Al Jazeera and agencies |
Afghan children killed in air raid
| Afghan children killed in air raid | |||
At least 10 Afghan civilians, mostly school children, have been killed in an air raid by Nato-led forces in the east of the country, the office of Hamid Karzai, the president, has said. The incident reportedly occurred on Sunday in a remote part of Kunar province on the border with Pakistan, the statement added. "It is a very rugged area, we cannot go there because of the presence of the Taliban," Sayed Fazlullah Wahedi, the Kunar state governor, said on Monday. "Elders of the village have told us that 10 people have been killed in this air strike, eight of them school students," Wahedi said. Karzai's office said that it would hold an investigation into the incident. Nato-led forces, who are fighting Taliban and al-Qaeda forces in the country, said they would also look into the incident. International forces have been in Afghanistan since a 2001 invasion by the US to remove the Taliban from power. Civilian deaths due to intermittent air raids conducted by Western forces have enraged ordinary Afghans and made their military operation hugely unpopular. Although United Nations figures show far more civilians are killed by the Taliban, deaths at the hands of foreigners spark wide resentment and undermine international forces' attempts to weaken the Taliban by building trust among the peaceful population. Karzai has also repeatedly condemned civilian casualties in the past, but missile strikes at suspected hideouts of Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters continue at regular intervals. | |||
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Al-Qaeda claims Italian kidnappings
| Al-Qaeda claims Italian kidnappings | |||
The North African branch of al-Qaeda has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of two Italians in Mauritania earlier this month. Al-Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb said in an audio message broadcast on the Al-Arabiya television news channel that they had kidnapped the Italians on December 19 because of Italy's involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. Italian media has named the couple as Sergio Cicala, 65, and his wife Philomene Kabouree, 39, who is from Burkina Faso and has dual Italian and Burkina Faso citizenship. Italy's foreign ministry has said it is using political and diplomatic channels to try to secure the release of the couple who are believed to have been travelling to Mali. High alert At the time of the kidnapping, Italian state television said the couple's minibus had been found riddled with bullets, without citing its sources for the report. Mauritanian officials have said they have arrested and are interrogating a Malian citizen who they think may be responsible for the kidnap. Armed groups, some of them with links to al-Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb, operate across the vast, remote desert zone, which includes eastern Mauritania, northern Mali and southern Algeria. The Italians' kidnapping came nearly three weeks after three Spanish aid workers were seized in Mauritania. | |||
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Russian 'YouTube cop' in fraud case
| Russian 'YouTube cop' in fraud case | |||
Russian prosecutors are filing fraud charges against a police officer who had complained on YouTube of abuse and corruption in the country's law enforcement system. The prosecutor's office in the southern Krasnodar region said in a statement that Alexey Dymovsky, a former major, had embezzled about $800 while working as a narcotics investigator. Dymovsky was fired after he posted three videos on the video website in November in which he said he was promised a promotion in return for jailing an innocent person. The videos received more than one million hits, provoking a public outcry and prompting several similar postings. Charges denied The prosecutor's office said on Monday that a criminal case would be brought against Dymovsky for "fraud committed by a person using his official position". Dymovsky, who worked for the police force in the Black Sea port of Novorossiisk, said the charges against him were were fabricated. "They want to silence me and gain revenge," he told the Reuters news agency by telephone. Dymovsky had appealed to Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister, to rein in senior officers whom he accused of pressuring subordinates to charge innocent people to meet statistical targets. Regional police conducted their own investigation after the videos were released, which they said did not back up Dymovsky's allegations. "The main thing is that the people of Russia have seen the light. Others will follow me," Dymovsky, who has founded a rights defence group, said. Corruption is endemic in Russian society and global surveys have repeatedly ranked the former Soviet state as one of the most corrupt in the world. | |||
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HIV on the rise among UK Muslims
| HIV on the rise among UK Muslims | ||
One medical expert says that the stigma of having the virus is causing needless deaths among the community in the UK. Jessica Baldwin report from Britain. | ||
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Iraq poll critical for stability
| Iraq poll critical for stability | ||
After months of delay, Iraq finally set an election date for March 2010. The vote is seen as a critical step towards the withdrawal of US troops. But can it herald a new era for a country besieged by years of violence and unrest? Al Jazeera's Mosab Jasim reports on Iraqis' hopes for the upcoming ballot, but David Mack, a former US diplomat in Iraq, tells Al Jazeera that if political reconciliation cannot be reached, the election could cause more instability. | ||
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Fears remain after Gaza war
| Fears remain after Gaza war | ||||
One year after the start of Israel's war on Gaza, Al Jazeera's Sherine Tadros revisits a family she met during the assault.
Her children are afraid to sleep alone, fearing there might be another attack. Together with other mothers, Rima has started a group for kids with side effects from the war. | ||||
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