The New Nation - Internet Edition

India on alert as bombings toll rises to 40

Reuters, New Delhi

India's major cities were put on high alert on Sunday, with fears of more attacks after at least 40 people were killed in two days of bombings that hit a communally-sensitive western city and a southern IT hub

At least 16 small bombs exploded in the Indian city of Ahmedabad on Saturday, killing at least 39 people and wounding 110, a day after another set of blasts in Bangalore killed a woman.

A little known group called the "Indian Mujahideen" claimed responsibility for the Ahmedabad attack on Saturday. The same group said it carried out bombs attacks that killed 63 people in the western city of Jaipur in May.

It is unusual for any group to claim responsibility, but India says it suspects militant groups from Pakistan and Bangladesh are behind a wave of bombings in recent years, with targets ranging from mosques and Hindu temples to trains.

"The entire nation, including major metro cities in India have been put on high alert and they have been asked to step up security in vital installations," a home ministry spokesman said.

In New Delhi, police used loudspeakers and distributed leaflets in crowded market places, warning people to watch out for unclaimed baggage and suspicious objects. Police guarded Hindu temples in the eastern city of Kolkata.

There were two separate series of bombings in Ahmedadad, the first near busy market places. A second quick succession of bombs went off 20 to 25 minutes later around a hospital, where at least six people died, police said. All were detonated with timers.

"I came with my two children to cheer up my mother admitted to hospital," said Pankaj Patel, whose son Rohan and daughter Pratha were killed at Ahmedadad hospital. "They were laughing when the blast occurred. Now they are dead."

Two doctors were killed in the hospital in a blast in which at least one bomb was tied onto a gas cylinder. Charred motorcycles and bicycles were shown outside. TV showed victims writhing in pain and covered in blood on hospital floors.

The other bombs were in Ahmedabad's crowded old city dominated by its Muslim community. Many were packed into metal tiffin boxes, used to carry food, and packed with ball-bearings. Some were left on bicycles.

Police found three other unexploded bombs in Ahmedabad on Sunday, local media said.

Ahmedabad is the main city in the communally sensitive and relatively wealthy western state of Gujarat, scene of deadly riots in 2002 in which 2,500 people are thought to have died, most of them Muslims killed by rampaging Hindu mobs.

Both Ahmedabad and Bangalore are in states ruled by the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party and are among the country's fastest-growing.

Gujarat's Chief Minister Narendra Modi is one of India's most controversial politicians, accused of turning a blind eye to the Gujarat riots.

Some analysts say there is evidence of local Muslim groups, for years seen as unaffected by the rise of global Islamist militancy, of taking up violence against India, where they are a poor and often neglected minority. They may be getting training and financial backing from Pakistan or Bangladesh.

"Over the last few years, the dissatisfaction among Indian Muslims has hitched onto the wagon of the global/regional jihad," said C. Uday Bhaskar, a security analyst and former director of New Delhi's Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses.

"If you have 150 million Muslims in India, only 0.0001 percent of that figure would mean a militant nucleus of 15,000 people."

Police raided one house in Mumbai where they believe e-mails from the Indian Mujahideen were linked, local media reported.

India's home ministry said on Friday it suspected "a small militant group" was behind the Bangalore attacks, while some police officials suspected the blasts could be the work of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India.

Some IT companies in Bangalore, known as India's Silicon Valley, were increasing security after bombs went off there. Each bomb had a similar explosive force to one or two grenades.

The city is a prominent software development centre and is also home to a major outsourcing industry.

Meanwhile, authorities scoured a western Indian city Sunday for those behind a series of bombings that killed at least 45 people, reportedly rounding up more than two dozen residents. A little-known group claimed responsibility for the attack.

The city's police control room also reported that 110 people were wounded as at least 16 bombs went off Saturday evening in several crowded neighborhoods of Ahmadabad. The attack came a day after seven smaller blasts killed two people in the southern technology hub of Bangalore.

The historic city in 2002 was the scene of some of the worst rioting between India's Hindu majority and Muslim minority.

Another unexploded bomb was found and defused early Sunday, the city's police commissioner O.P. Mathur said.

The attacks prompted authorities to put cities around the country on alert and security was stepped up in markets and at hospitals, airports and train stations.

A group calling itself the Indian Mujahedeen claimed responsibility for Saturday's attack but offered few details in e-mails sent to several television news stations, the CNN-IBN station reported. The group was unknown before May when it said it was behind a series of bombings in Jaipur, also in western India, that left 61 people dead.

Gaza clashes as Hamas presses security crackdown

AFP, Gaza City

Clashes broke out in Gaza City early on Sunday, wounding at least six people, as Hamas-run security forces pressed a territory-wide crackdown on rival Palestinian factions after a deadly bombing.

The fighting erupted overnight when Hamas-run police moved to arrest members of the Army of Islam, a small, shadowy militant group believed to be linked to Al-Qaeda.

"Hamas forces came to arrest us early this morning, just after midnight," a member of the group who asked not to be named told reporters. "There was fighting for several hours, with rocket-propelled grenades, explosions, and gunfire, but they did not arrest anyone."

At least six people were wounded in the clashes, a medic at Gaza's main Al-Shifa hospital said. Witnesses said they heard heavy exchanges of gunfire and explosions in which several people were wounded, including militants and police, but the medic, who asked not to be named, declined to give details.

The clashes came as Hamas cracked down on rival movements suspected of planting a bomb on Friday night that killed five senior militants and a five-year-old girl, the deadliest Palestinian attack on the group since it seized power in the Gaza Strip in June 2007. Hamas on Saturday blamed the attack at a Gaza City beach club popular with its members on Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas's Fatah party, which it accused of trying to undermine its rule.

Since the explosion Hamas-run forces have arrested more than 200 people, security officials said, most of them members of Fatah, which was largely expelled from the Strip when Hamas took over.

Security forces have also raided more than 40 offices, sporting clubs and charities, most of them linked to Fatah, confiscating computers and documents, according to the independent Palestinian Centre for Human Rights.

Fatah has denied any involvement in the blast and said the attack was part of an internal Hamas conflict.

The two main Palestinian factions have been bitterly divided since Hamas took over the Gaza Strip but the factional clashes that rocked the impoverished territory before it seized power had mostly ceased.

NATO air strikes kill 70 rebels in Afghanistan

AFP, Khost

Between 50 and 70 Taliban-linked militants were killed Sunday in air strikes by international forces in eastern Afghanistan near the Pakistani border, a provincial governor said.

The past weeks have seen a spike in insurgent activity, including several bloody suicide attacks, with several military operations under way across the war-wracked country to fight back the extremists.

On Sunday, international troops were called in to help police fight back an attack by militants in Khost province who killed two policemen as they headed for Spera district centre, provincial governor Arsala Jamal told AFP.

"Taliban attacked one of our police posts. As they retreated, international military air forces came in and bombed them. Fifty to 70 Taliban have been killed," Jamal said.

"They had killed one policeman in the initial attack and had captured another officer who was later beheaded." The governor said he had video footage of the rebels being killed in the strikes near the border.

"I can say with responsibility that 50 to 70 Taliban have been killed. We have video showing they were killed," he said, when asked how he knew how many had died.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) confirmed there had been action in the area but said it was too early to give details.

"We have reports of a huge number of insurgents killed but we are still doing battle damage assessment," an ISAF media officer told AFP.

The rebels were able to get "very close" to the district headquarters in Spera, 15 kilometres (nine miles) from the border with Pakistan, before the air forces arrived, the governor said.

Sri Lanka fighting kills 74, mostly rebels

Reuters, Colombo

Sri Lankan troops continued their offensive against Tamil Tiger rebels in two days of fighting in the north that killed 66 Tigers and eight soldiers, the military said on Saturday.

The fighting in the district of Jafna, Vavuiya Polonnaruwa, Mannar and Mullaitivu came three days after the government dismissed a declaration by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) of a unilateral ceasefire from July 26 to August 4.

"Our offensives are going on, troops had killed 66 LTTE terrorists in the fighting on Thursday and Friday," said military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara.

"Eight soldiers had died and 11 were injured from the fighting," he added.

The Tigers were not immediately available for comment. The government and rebels trade death toll claims that are almost impossible to verify independently.

Sri Lanka's government is pursuing a strategy to gradually retake the Tiger's northern stronghold and win the 25-year civil war amidst an almost daily barrage of land, sea and air attacks in northern rebel-held territories.

The latest fighting comes a week after the military said it had dealt a "fatal blow" to the rebels with the capture of the northwestern town of Vidattaltivu, the main base of the Tigers' sea wing and their logistics hub for the region.

An email statement from the Tamil Tigers early on Tuesday said the rebels would refrain from military action during the 15th South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) conference from July 26 to August 4.

But warned they would be forced to take "defensive action" if the military attacked them.

3 Pak troops, 15 militants killed in fighting

AP, Quetta

Suspected tribal insurgents ambushed a security forces patrol in southwest Pakistan, and three troops and 15 militants were killed in the fighting, an official said Sunday.

Maj. Gen. Salim Nawaz said three troops were killed in the attack in the Toba Mandrani area near the gas producing town of Sui. Security forces retaliated, killing 15 insurgents, some near the scene of the ambush and others in subsequent clashes and search operations in nearby areas, he said. Five other troops were wounded in the clash late Saturday, Salim said. Authorities blame attacks on security forces and gas wells and gas pipelines around Sui on rebel tribesmen been waging a violent campaign to force the central government to increase royalties for resources extracted from the area.

The insurgency in the southwestern Baluchistan province, of which Quetta is the capital, is rooted in long-standing grievances by ethnic-Baluch leaders.

The Baluchistan unrest is separate from the Islamic militancy Pakistan is facing along its northwestern frontier with Afghanistan.

Sui, where key gas wells are located, is about 180 miles southeast of Quetta.

Drunken passengers force flight to land in Germany

AP, Berlin

Two drunken British women went on a rampage on a charter plane, hitting one flight attendant with a bottle of vodka and trying to open a cabin door as the aircraft was cruising over Austria at 10,000 meters (32,800 feet), police said Saturday.

The staff on the flight from Greece to England eventually forced the women back to their seats and the pilot made an emergency in Frankfurt on Thursday, police told The Associated Press, confirming a statement they had issued on Friday.

The identities of the women, aged 26 and 27, were not released, but police said the 26-year-old may be charged with attempted assault and interfering with air traffic.

Both women were released, police said.

The rampage occurred when a flight attendant denied the women alcohol because they were visibly intoxicated, police said. The 26-year-old took a swipe at a cabin attendant with a bottle of vodka, then attempted to open a cabin door.

"Apparently the 26-year-old wanted to catch some fresh air," the statement said, in an effort to make light of the altercation.

The two women were taken into custody by police at the Frankfurt airport and given a breathalyzer test. Both were legally intoxicated.

After an hour in Frankfurt, the flight continued on to Manchester, England.

Karadzic trial revives Bosnian hopes for justice

AP, The Hague

Sabaheta Fejzic felt cheated when Slobodan Milosevic, on trial for Balkan atrocities, died in his cell before his judges could reach a verdict.

Instead of delivering quick justice, the trial at the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague had dragged on for more than four years before the ousted Serbian president suffered a heart attack on March 11, 2006.

Fejzic's husband and only child, a 16-year-old son, were among 8,000 Muslim men and boys murdered by Serb forces in and around the Bosnian town of Srebrenica in July 1995. The arrest last week of Radovan Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb leader, offers her the hope that at least one of the alleged architects of Europe's worst atrocities since World War II will finally meet justice.

"I, as a victim, appeal to the Hague Tribunal to issue a verdict as soon as possible because we are afraid of another Milosevic situation - that his life is shorter than his trial," she told The Associated Press in Sarajevo. "May he (Karadzic) receive a lifelong prison term and may he live long and be healthy."

Karadzic's capture may help change perceptions of the tribunal among those who suffered under him and his military commander Gen. Ratko Mladic, said Diane Orentlicher of the Open Society Justice Initiative, a group that promotes law reform and human rights.

For Bosnians, all the court's actions over 15 years "were in the shadow of Karadzic and Mladic - meaning as long as those two people had escaped justice almost nothing else the tribunal had accomplished could take away what they had suffered," said Orentlicher, the group's general counsel.

The court has convicted dozens of war criminals and pronounced the Srebrenica massacre a genocide.

It also has established crucial jurisprudence for other international courts.

But critics say Milosevic's trial was meandering, unfocused, and gave the defendant a political platform.

Richard Dicker, director of the International Justice program at New York-based Human Rights Watch, said prosecutors, judges and Milosevic himself share blame for the case dragging on.

Ukrainian president wants national church

AP, Kiev

The Ukrainian president on Saturday asked the world's Orthodox spiritual leader to bless the creation of a Ukrainian church that would be independent of the powerful Moscow patriarchate.

The request to Bartholomew I of Constantinople is part of Viktor Yushchenko's drive to assert Ukraine's independence and shake off centuries of Russian influence. It is certain to anger the Russian Orthodox church, which is trying to maintain its influence over this Orthodox country of 46 million. "I believe that, as if by the gift of God, as a historical truth and justice, a national self-governing church will be established in Ukraine," Yushchenko said at the start of a prayer service.

Turkish warplanes bomb PKK targets in Iraq

AP, Ankara

Turkish warplanes on Sunday bombed 12 Kurdish rebel targets in northern Iraq, the military said.

The fighter jets attacked the rebel targets on Mount Qandil, on the Iraqi-Iranian border, where the rebel leadership is believed to be based, the military said in a statement posted on its official Web site. All planes returned to their bases safely and the military was working to determine possible rebel casualties in the raids that began at midnight, the statement said.

The pro-Kurdish news agency Firat, which frequently carries rebel statements, confirmed the raids, saying the bombing campaign lasted for two hours.

The agency said the rebel group had not suffered any losses but claimed that the airstrikes had caused panic among local villagers.

Turkey has conducted frequent air raids on suspected positions of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, in northern Iraq. Earlier this year, it launched a weeklong ground offensive.

The rebels have been fighting for self-rule in southeastern Turkey since 1984. The violence has killed tens of thousands of people since then.

The U.S. and the European Union consider the PKK a terrorist group, and Washington has been sharing intelligence to help Turkey fight the rebels.

Raul Castro fails to announce reforms in Cuba

AP, Santiago

President Raul Castro warned Washington that Cuba would keep its defenses up no matter who wins November's U.S. presidential election, but failed to announce any new changes to the communist system during a speech Saturday.

In a 48-minute Revolution Day address, Castro also told Cubans to prepare for tough times ahead as rising oil and commodity prices take a toll on the island's economy.

Amid anticipation that he would use the speech to unveil fresh reforms, Castro instead focused on the past as he spoke to thousands of supporters in front of the Moncada military complex.

Iran hangs 29 criminals

Reuters, Tehran

Iran executed 29 convicted drug smugglers and "bandits" on Sunday morning in Tehran's Evin prison, the state broadcaster's website IRIB reported.

"Twenty-nine drug smugglers and well-known bandits were hanged in Evin prison on Sunday at dawn. These criminals had smuggled thousands of kilos of narcotics in the country and outside the country," IRIB reported.

Iran said on Saturday it planned to execute 30 people for murder, rape, drug smuggling and other crimes.

Police have in recent weeks arrested dozens of people in a new crackdown on "immoral behavior" in the Islamic Republic, whose human rights record is often criticized in the West.

"Some of these people were convicted of other crimes such as rape, murder, armed robbery t and disrupting public security and peace," IRIB said.

Iran usually carries out executions by hanging and in prisons. Sunday's executions all took place at 0510 (8:40 p.m. Saturday EDT), according to IRIB.

At least 10 people were hanged in the country in July. In September last year, 21 people were executed in one day, but in two different places.

Policy gains in Europe may be tougher for Obama

AP, London

There is little question that Barack Obama captured Europe's heart during the tumultuous visit that ended Saturday evening, but hard questions remain about whether Obama, if he wins, could transform that enthusiasm into concrete policy gains.

After the harsh anti-Americanism that has thrived in Europe for most of this decade, it was jarring to see a U.S. politician receive such adoration from the public, press, and the continent's leaders, who seemed almost to swoon in his presence. Polls show not only that a strong majority in countries like Britain would choose Obama over Republican rival John McCain if they could, but also that the general distaste for the United States has softened somewhat as Obama's White House bid gathers pace. "Since the race has been going on, we've found a slight movement toward the U.S.," said Anthony Wells, research chief for PoliticsHome in Britain. "I'm confident this is the Obama influence.

The anti-Americanism of recent years seems closely tied to George Bush. The people love Obama." But many analysts believe that if Obama completes his march to the Oval Office, this backing will dissipate the first time he presses Europe to send more troops to Afghanistan or to support an aggressive U.S.

Cambodian ruling party heads to poll win

AP, Phnom Penh

Cambodians went to the polls Sunday in an election dominated by a tense border dispute with neighboring Thailand that has fueled national sentiment, strengthening longtime Prime Minister Hun Sen.

Hun Sen's reputation as a strongman who intimidates rivals has served him well, with voters rallying around the leader as Cambodian troops face off with Thai soldiers for a second week at a disputed 11th century Hindu temple on the border.

Dressed in gray safari shirt and pants, Hun Sen flashed a broad smile and displayed a black-inked forefinger to waiting cameras after casting his ballot Sunday in a provincial town outside the capital, Phnom Penh. He declined comment to reporters. Opposition leader Sam Rainsy called a midday news conference, claiming some 200,000 registered voters in the capital, where the opposition is strongest, were unable to cast ballots because their names had been left off voter lists. The ruling party "is full of tricks. Scrap the election and do it again," he said. Allegations of vote fraud have plagued past Cambodian elections but never dented the ruling party's dominance. Asia's longest-serving leader, the 57-year-old Hun Sen was forecast to win the vote even before the military standoff escalated earlier this month.

But patriotic passions over Preah Vihear temple and Hun Sen's firm stance against Thailand have swayed many undecided voters in his favor, analysts say.

"Everybody now supports the government because this is a national issue," said Kek Galabru, a prominent Cambodian human rights activist and election monitor. "More people will vote for (Hun Sen) to give him more power to deal with Preah Vihear."

Bosnia threatened with break-up, Ashdown says

Reuters, London

Bosnia is closer to breaking up than at any time since its 1992-95 war and the European Union must do more to prevent its division, former international peace overseer Paddy Ashdown said.

Ashdown said the Serb Republic, which together with the Muslim-Croat federation makes up the Bosnian state, had set up parallel institutions and was working towards secession.

"Radovan Karadzic is at last on his way to The Hague. But the division of Bosnia that was his dream is now more likely than at any time since he became a fugitive," Ashdown said in an article published by The Observer newspaper on Sunday.

Karadzic, leader of the Bosnian Serbs in the Bosnia war, was arrested in Serbia this week after 11 years in hiding. The Muslim-Croat federation and the Serb Republic have run separate police forces in Bosnia since hostilities ended. In April Bosnia's parliament approved a law which intended to unify the forces, but after four years of debate the original plan was watered down and the merger will be largely cosmetic.

Ashdown said Milorad Dodik, prime minister of the Serb Republic "is now aggressively reversing a decade of reforms" and had used the autonomy granted by the Dayton peace accords which ended

Bosnia's war "to undermine the Bosnia Dayton envisaged."

The European Union should use Bosnia's EU membership aspirations as a lever to push for reforms which would support Bosnian central government, said Ashdown, who served as High Representative in Bosnia from 2002 to 2006..

"Brussels must t resist attempts to undermine the Bosnian state, insist on constitutional reform to make Bosnia more functional and tackle corruption which is becoming ever more embedded," he wrote.

Bush, Pakistan PM set to grapple with growing militancy

AFP, Washington

Concerned by Afghanistan's worsening insurgency, US President George W. Bush is expected to quiz Pakistan's Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani in talks this week about his new government's counterterrorism strategy or, as some experts see, the lack of one.

Bush said ahead of the talks Monday that he was "troubled" by the movement of extremists from Pakistan to Afghanistan-both Washington's allies in the "war on terror"-and would discuss the threat with Gilani, who is making his first White House visit since he took over the helm in March.

Gilani is also scheduled to meet with popular Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, who warned last summer-and repeated the threat a week ago-that he would send in the US military unilaterally if Islamabad did not act against Al-Qaeda targets.

"I think Gilani has his work cut out for him in terms of explaining how his government intends to get a handle on this problem, which is not only a Pakistani problem but a problem for the international community as well," said Lisa Curtis, a former State Department advisory and ex-CIA analyst. She said while Bush was expected to demonstrate support for Gilani's democratic government, he would seek an explanation of how it was dealing with the "burgeoning terrorist safe haven," now extending into settled areas of the North-West Frontier Province bordering Afghanistan.

"We have not seen a real focused (counterterrorism) strategy by the new government-a strategy that the US has confidence in," said Curtis, now with the Washington-based Heritage Foundation.

"I think the militants are the ones who are gaining from whatever Pakistan is pursuing at the moment," she said.

Afghan and Western officials have long said that the Taliban and Al-Qaeda have been able to regroup in Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal areas after they were expelled from Afghanistan in 2001 in a US-led invasion.