The New Nation - Internet Edition

US soldier among 71 killed in Iraq unrest

AFP, Baghdad

At least seventy-one people including An American soldier were killed in different incidents in Iraq.

An American soldier was killed when a roadside bomb exploded near his vehicle during combat operations north of Baghdad, the US military said in a statement on Saturday.

The attack occurred on Friday, the statement said without giving further details. The latest death brings the total number of American soldiers killed since the 2003 invasion to 3,927, according to an AFP tally based on figures from independent website www.icasualties.org.

The statement did not say whether the death occurred during a joint US-Iraqi assault against Al-Qaeda in Iraq, codenamed Operation Iron Harvest, which began in four central and northern provinces on January 8. Six troops were killed last week by a blast in a booby-trapped house in Diyala province, the main focus of the operation, which forms part of the countrywide Phantom Phoenix assault by Iraqi-US forces on Al-Qaeda strongholds.

Meanwhile, Iraqi security forces overran a mosque in southern Iraq where fighters of a shadowy Shiite messianic sect were holed up Saturday, ending two days of clashes in two cities that killed more than 70 people, police said.

The fighting came as millions of Shiites across Iraq marked Saturday's climax of 10-day Ashura rituals, which commemorate the killing of Imam Hussein by armies of the Sunni caliph Yazid in 680. The mosque was the last stronghold of the cultists. Wearing yellow headbands sporting the Star of David, they attacked police simultaneously early Friday afternoon in the southern port city of Basra and in Nasiriyah, about 350 kilometres (220 miles) south of Baghdad.

Fighting raged through the afternoon in both cities. It died down in Basra during the night but continuing sporadically in Nasiriyah.

A police official in Nasiriyah said Iraq's security forces raided hideouts of the doomsday cultists at daybreak on Saturday, flushing them out of the mosque and houses they had occupied in Al-Salhiyah suburb. "Some of the insurgents were killed and arrested while others fled during the raid," the police official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity. The security forces had found the mosque to be booby-trapped and disposal experts later triggered a blast which destroyed the building, he said. Amid the rubble was found yellow headbands and anti-government literature. Two policemen were killed by teenage snipers during Saturday's clashes in Nasiriyah. The snipers, two 14-year-old boys, were quickly arrested, police said.

Police officials said at least 35 cultists were killed in Basra and 18 in Nasiriyah. A total of 14 police, two Iraqi soldiers and two civilians were also killed.

At least 25 cultists were arrested in Naisiriyah and 75 in Basra. Followers of the cult, led by Ahmed al-Hassani al-Yamani, seek to hasten the return of Imam Mahdi, an eighth century imam who vanished as a boy and whom Shiites believe will return to bring justice to the world.

Yamani has his own website on which he claims to be an ambassador for the Mahdi, whom he says is imminently to re-appear.

The fighting comes as around two million Shiites have descended on the holy city of Karbala in central Iraq for Saturday's climax of the Ashura rituals, which commemorate the killing of Imam Hussein by armies of the Sunni caliph Yazid in 680.

During Ashura last January, another militant sect dubbing itself the Jund al-Samaa, or "Soldiers of Heaven," clashed with US and Iraqi forces outside Karbala and another holy Shiite city, Najaf.

Last year's fighting left 263 sect followers dead, including their leader Dhia Abdul Zahra Kadhim al-Krimawi, also known as Abu Kamar, who believed he was descended from the Prophet Mohammed.

Proceedings in Karbala were continuing peacefully, governor of the province Aqil al-Khazali told a press conference on Saturday.

"Two million people have come to Karbala for Ashura," he said.

"There have been no security violations so far and the ceremonies have gone ahead without incident."

"We are preparing buses to take people home," he added.

Ashura ceremonies have been targeted by Sunni insurgents in the past. On Thursday a suicide bomber blew himself up during a procession outside a mosque in Baquba, 60 kilometres (35 miles) north of Baghdad, killing eight people.

British forces handed over control of the oil-rich province of Basra to Iraqi forces in mid-December, amid warnings that it could descend into violent turf wars between Shiite militias.

Britain expects to sharply reduce its nearly 5,000-strong troop presence in the province, but says around half that number will stay at their base at Basra airport to support the Iraqi security forces and for training purposes.

Pakistan troops kill 90 militants in Benazir killing suspect's den

AFP, Islamabad

Pakistani soldiers killed up to 90 Islamist militants near the Afghan border Friday, as the chief of the CIA linked the leader of the extremists in the region to the assassination of Bhutto.

The fierce clashes were the latest in a series to rock the lawless Pakistani tribal region of South Waziristan, the stronghold of wanted Islamist warlord Baitullah Mehsud and his Al-Qaeda and Taliban allies.

Militants have stepped up attacks on troops in the region since opposition leader Bhutto was killed last month, underlining US fears Pakistan is spiralling out of control ahead of February 18 elections.

CIA Director Michael Hayden told The Washington Post in an interview published Friday that Al-Qaeda and allies of tribal chief Mehsud were behind her killing at a political rally on December 27.

"This was done by that network around Baitullah Mehsud. We have no reason to question that," Hayden said, echoing assertions by President Pervez Musharraf's government about Bhutto's death.

The CIA chief was quoted as saying there is a "nexus now that probably was always there in latency but is now active: a nexus between Al-Qaeda and various extremist and separatist groups."

The rebels have shown their growing strength in the past week, capturing a Pakistani paramilitary fort in the tribal belt and killing seven soldiers on Wednesday, with another 15 troops still missing.

Soldiers on Friday fought off a "large number" of insurgents who surrounded another fort at Ladha in South Waziristan and attacked it with rockets, the military said in a statement.

White House missing CIA, Iraq e-mails

AFP, Washington

Apparent gaps in White House e-mail archives coincide with dates in late 2003 and early 2004 when the administration was struggling to deal with the CIA leak investigation and the possibility of a congressional probe into Iraq intelligence failures.

The gaps - 473 days over a period of 20 months - are cited in a chart prepared by White House computer technicians and shared in September with the House Reform and Government Oversight Committee, which has been looking into reports of missing e-mail.

Among the times for which e-mail may not have been archived from Vice President Dick Cheney's office are four days in early October 2003, just as a federal probe was beginning into the leak of Valerie Plame's CIA identity, an inquiry that eventually ensnared Cheney's chief of staff.

Contents of the chart - which the White House now disputes - were disclosed Thursday by Rep. Henry Waxman, a California Democrat who chairs the House committee, as he announced plans for a Feb. 15 hearing. Waxman said he decided to release details from the White House-prepared chart after presidential spokesman Tony Fratto declared "we have absolutely no reason to believe that any e-mails are missing."

Among the periods of time for which the chart indicates e-mail is missing is a five-day span starting on Jan. 29, 2004, when the White House was dealing with the possibility of an election-year probe by Congress into Iraq intelligence failures.

Not archived by the office of the vice president is e-mail for Jan. 29-31, 2004, according to chart information released by Waxman. In addition, all e-mail from the White House Office in the Executive Office of the President was listed as missing for one of those days.

The chart indicates that e-mail also was not archived by the White House on the following Monday - Feb. 2, 2004 - the day President Bush took a big step in averting what could have been a politically troublesome congressional inquiry. He ordered an independent investigation into intelligence failures in Iraq.

32 killed in fresh Lankan violence

AFP, Colombo

At least 31 Sri Lankan guerrillas and one soldier were killed in heavy fighting between government forces and Tamil Tiger rebels across the embattled north, the defence ministry said.

The rebels died in clashes Friday and early Saturday in the Vavuniya, Mannar and Jaffna districts bordering the de facto mini-state run by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the defence ministry said in a statement.

A government trooper was killed in Vavuniya late Friday, it said. The latest ministry figures raised the death toll since the start of the year to 469 rebels and 21 soldiers. The figures cannot be independently checked as no journalists or rights groups have access to the embattled areas.

Thaksin-backed party forms new Thai coalition govt

Reuters, Bangkok

Thailand's People Power Party (PPP), backed by ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, won support of five small allies on Saturday to lead a coalition government emerging after a December 23 general election.

The PPP-led coalition, announced one day after the Supreme Court cleared the party of charges of poll irregularities, paved the way for its pugnacious leader, Sumak Sundaravej, to become prime minister at the age of 72.

Court convicts 12 in Gujarat riots case

Reuters, Mumbai

A court convicted 12 Hindu men on Friday in connection with the gang-rape of a pregnant Muslim woman and the murder of her family in a trial seen as key to winning justice for victims of one of India's worst religious riots.

Human rights groups say about 2,500 people, most of them Muslims, were hacked, beaten or burned to death in Gujarat after a suspected Muslim mob burnt alive 59 Hindu activists and pilgrims inside a train in February 2002.

Israeli air strike destroys ministry building in Gaza

Reuters, Gaza

Israeli air strikes killed two Hamas militants in Gaza early Saturday, a day after Israel sealed the territory and bombed an empty Hamas government ministry in an intensifying campaign to halt rocket fire on Israeli border towns. The four-storey ministry complex in Gaza City was empty at the time but one woman was killed and at least 30 others nearby were wounded in the air strike, medical officials said. "It felt like an earthquake," said Umm Fahmi, a woman who lives across from the blast site. "My house did not only shake, it jumped from its foundations and back down. How could they drop such a bomb in a residential area on top of people's heads?" she said, peering through the dust at the concrete and steel remains of the security complex.