"Terrorists surrender, hostages freed in Peshawar"

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar hostage drama ended as the three terrorists surrendered while the two detained hostages were freed after operation. According to ISPR, the situation is completely under control in Peshawar cantonment.

Earlier, suspected militants overpowered their guards during interrogation on Saturday in an army building in northwest Pakistan and took two of them hostage, the army said.

Police had initially said a number of insurgents tried to get into a secure area close to theUS consulate and army buildings in Peshawar city, with exchanges of gunfire between the militants and security forces.

“Some of the terrorists who were kept in a building for interrogations overpowered their two sentries during interrogations,” military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas told private TV channel.

“Terrorists are still inside the building, we are making all our efforts to solve this problem,” he said.

Police said the army had sealed off the site while intermittent gunfire continued.

An AFP reporter at the scene said army and police had blocked all the roads into the area while helicopters patrolled the skies.

Bashir Bilour, a provincial cabinet minister whose home is nearby, told AFP that the first round of firing continued for 30 minutes.

“Soldiers have also entered my hujra (visitors’ compound). I cannot go outside,” he added.

There were no immediate reports of any casualties.

Bombs and attacks blamed on Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked militants have hit soldiers, government officials and civilians across nuclear-armed Pakistan since government troops besieged a radical mosque in Islamabad in July 2007.

Such attacks have killed more than 3,574 people in the past three years, concentrated largely in the northwest and border areas with Afghanistan, where 141,000 US and NATO troops have been fighting the Taliban for nine years.

A roadside remote control bomb on Monday killed two anti-Taliban militia men in Mattni on the outskirts of Peshawar and wounded five others, police said. — AFP

Encephalitis kills 211 in India, toll expected to soar

NEW DELHI: At least 211 people, most of them children, have died in an outbreak of Japanese encephalitis in an impoverished region of northern Indian and the death toll is likely to soar, officials said Saturday.

“Most of the deaths have occurred in the Gorakhpur district of Uttar Pradesh state since the monsoon struck the region in July,” regional health officer U.K. Srivastava said by telephone.

Eastern parts of the state have in the past been ravaged by Japanese encephalitis as malnourished children succumbed to the virus which is transmitted by mosquitoes from pigs to humans.

The district health chief said the deaths of five more children on Friday pushed the toll to 211, with hundreds languishing, some two to a bed, in hospitals in Gorakhpur, a deeply neglected region of 14 million people.

“A total of 1,299 patients had been admitted in hospitals until Friday in Gorakhpur” which is the epicentre of the outbreak, Srivastava said.

“More encephalitis patients are coming into our hospitals today,” Srivastava told AFP.

“We fear the total number of encephalitis cases will go up to at least 3,500 and the death rate will be at the same ratio of around 20 per cent this year,” Srivastava said.

Japanese encephalitis causes brain inflammation and can result in brain damage. Symptoms include headaches, seizures and fever.

Health experts say 70 million children in India are at risk of encephalitis.

Unusually heavy monsoon rains coupled with overflowing rivers coursing through Gorakhpur are posing a challenge to health workers battling encephalitis.

“We have begun spraying insecticides to wipe out populations of the culex mosquitos which transmits the disease and we are handing out chlorine to villagers to disinfect their drinking water supplies,” he said.

Mosquito-borne illnesses affect tens of thousands of Indians during the rainy season. —AFP

North Korea threatens nuclear “holy war” if attacked

BEIJING: North Korea would answer any attack on it with a nuclear “holy war”, the country's ambassador to Cuba said, according to official Chinese media, while the North's leader Kim Jong-il appeared to be visiting China.

The ambassador Kwon Sung-chol made the remarks on Friday at a ceremony marking 50 years of diplomatic ties between North Korea and Cuba, the same day that Pyongyang said it was open to returning to nuclear disarmament negotiations.

“If Washington and Seoul try to create a conflict on the Korean peninsula, we will respond with a holy war on the basis of our nuclear deterrent forces,” Kwon said, according to China's Xinhua news agency on Saturday, in a story datelined Havana.

“Our government will strive for the denuclearisation of the peninsula and the establishment of a lasting peace as the beginning of the reunification process of the two Koreas,” said Kwon.

Washington and Seoul have said Pyongyang must abandon its nuclear weapons development, but have not threatened to attack the poor and isolated North.

North Korea's number two leader, Kim Yong-nam, told visiting former US President Jimmy Carter that the reclusive state wanted to resume six-way nuclear disarmament talks, the North's state news agency said on Friday.

The North's leader, Kim Jong-il, appears to be visiting China in a secrecy-shrouded trip that analysts say appears intended to line up Beijing behind his succession plans. —Reuters

Three killed, 40 injured in Iran earthquake

TEHRAN: Three people, including two children, have been killed and 40 others injured in an earthquake which struck Iran’s biggest desert, Dasht-e Kavir, state television reported on Saturday.

The 5.9 magnitude quake struck on Friday south of the northern city of Damghan.

In a separate report, the state television website quoted secretary general of Iran Red Crescent, Zaher Rostani, as saying that an elderly woman was also among those killed in the quake.

The website said six villages near Damghan were damaged in the quake which was about 278 kilometres east of Tehran.

The tremor, which struck at 11:53 pm local time Friday, was also felt in the capital Tehran.

Iran sits astride several major fault lines in the Earth’s crust, and is prone to frequent earthquakes, many of which have been devastating.

The worst in recent times was a 6.3 magnitude quake which hit the southern city of Bam in December 2003, killing 31,000 people, about a quarter of its population, and destroying the city’s ancient mud-built citadel. —AFP

Floodwaters make another break in Thatta levee

THATTA: Floodwaters made another break Saturday in the levees protecting the southern city of Thatta, as thousands of residents fled for high ground and left the city nearly empty.

Both sides of the main road were crowded with people - from Thatta and nearby flooded villages - fleeing the floodwaters. Many had spent the night sleeping out in the open.

Hadi Baksh Kalhoro, a Thatta disaster management official, said more than 175,000 people had left the city, leaving it nearly deserted.

Some are heading for nearby towns or cities, he said, with thousands also headed for the high ground of an ancient graveyard for Muslim saints.

He said the latest levee breach, which happened early Saturday, could leave the outskirts of Thatta flooded by later in the day. The city is about 75 miles (125 kilometers) southeast of the major coastal city of Karachi.

Sindh is the worst-affected province. Out of its 23 districts, 19 have so far been ravaged by floods, a statement by the United Nations' Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said Friday.

“More than seven million people have been displaced in Sindh since August 3, one million only in the past two days,” Ghulam Ali Pasha, provincial relief commissioner for southern Sindh province told AFP.

Pasha said that 2.3 million people were still in need of tents and food.

“We are fighting to save Thatta and other towns,” in Sindh province, he added.

Thatta was deserted as people fled with their livestock and other belongings, heading for nearby Makli and Karachi as engineers tried to repair six-metre (20-foot) wide breach a nearby dyke, an AFP reporter said.

An OCHA spokesman in Islamabad Friday estimated that one million people had been displaced in a 48-hour period in Sindh alone.

The United Nations, the Pakistani army and a host of local and international relief groups have been rushing aid workers, medicine, food and water to the affected regions, but are unable to reach many people.

The new levee breach came as a gunbattle broke out at an office of security forces in the main city in Pakistan's northwest. The motive behind the attack, in the city of Peshawar, was not immediately clear, police said. – AP

Gunmen attack Pakistan army buildings in Peshawar

PESHAWAR: Suspected militants attacked army buildings near the US consulate in Pakistan's northwestern capital Peshawar on Saturday, police said.

Police said a number of armed fighters tried to get into a secure area close to the consulate and army buildings early in the morning and that exchanges of fire between the attackers and security forces were continuing.

“There target is not clear but they were trying to reach a very sensitive area. There is the US consulate and army offices and buildings in that area,” Karim Khan, a senior police official in Peshawar, told AFP.

“The US consulate is completely safe,” he added.

Richard Snelsire, a spokesman for the US Embassy in Islamabad, told AFP he had “no information right now” on whether the consulate was the intended target.

Police said the army had sealed off the site of the attack, preventing anyone from entering, while intermittent gunfire continued.

An AFP reporter at the scene said army and police had blocked all the roads into the area while helicopters patrolled the skies.

Bashir Bilour, a provincial cabinet minister whose home is in front of the consulate, said: “The first round of firing continued for 30 minutes. I don't know what's going on but the army has sealed off the whole area and firing is still continuing.” “Soldiers have also entered my Hujra (Visitors compound). I cannot go outside,” he added. – AFP

Taliban attack US base in Afghanistan's east

KABUL: Up to 30 Taliban insurgents, including suicide bombers, attacked a US base in Afghanistan's east on Saturday, officials said, but there were no details available about possible casualties or damage.

The attack began overnight at the well-fortified Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost province near the southeastern border with Pakistan, where US and other foreign forces have been stepping up operations against a resurgent Taliban.

Seven Central Intelligence Agency officers were killed by a suicide bomber inside the base last December, the second-most deadly attack in CIA history.

Lieutenant Commander Katie Kendrick, a spokeswoman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, confirmed the new attack but could give few other details.

“There is ongoing activity there, but it is fresh and I can't give more details,” Kendrick said.

Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban, said 30 fighters had attacked the base. They included suicide bombers and others armed with rockets and machine guns, Mujahid told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location.

Despite the presence of almost 150,000 foreign troops, violence across Afghanistan is at its worst since the Taliban were ousted by US-backed Afghan forces in late 2001.

Taliban-led insurgents have launched increasingly brazen attacks around Afghanistan in a bid to topple the government and force out foreign troops. More than 2,000 foreign troops have been killed, most of them Americans, since the conflict began.

Hundreds of civilians have also been caught in the crossfire, with civilian deaths spiking by 31 per cent in the first six months of this year, according to a United Nations report.

CONTRACTORS KILLED

On Saturday, ISAF said its forces had mistakenly killed two private security contractors after one of its patrols came under fire from insurgents in Wardak province west of the capital.

A car approached the patrol at speed on a highway in the Maidan Shahr district of Wardak on Friday and men could be seen shooting out of the vehicle's windows, ISAF said in a statement.

The patrol fired on the vehicle, killing two people inside later identified as private security contractors.
“It is believed that the private security contractors were returning fire against the same insurgents who had just previously attacked the coalition vehicle, and had increased their speed to break contact,” ISAF said.

The suicide attack on Forward Operating Base Chapman on Dec. 30 last year highlighted the insurgency's reach and coordination, particularly in their strongholds in the south and east.

The insurgents launched a similar attack this month on the main foreign base in southern Kandahar province, the spiritual homeland of the Taliban.

Poor security is one of the main concerns for Afghans before parliamentary elections on Sept. 18, a milestone after fraud-marred presidential polls last year and with US

President Barack Obama planning a strategy review in December. – Reuters