Australia summons Israeli envoy over Dubai killing | ||||
 The three 'Australians' were among 15 new suspects released by Dubai BBC,01:16 GMT, Thursday, 25 February 2010 Australia has summoned the Israeli ambassador to explain the use of Australian passports by three suspects in the killing of a senior Palestinian. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Canberra would "not be silent on the matter". Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a senior member of the Palestinian militant group Hamas who helped supply arms to the Gaza Strip, was killed in Dubai in January. Police in Dubai earlier said they had identified 15 more suspects in the killing, taking the total to 26. They said the new suspects used British, French, Irish and - for the first time - Australian documents. Mr Rudd said Canberra would retaliate against any country found to be involved in forging its passports. He said that Australia would first try to establish the facts, but that this was not "a minor matter."
"It is not something you just push to one side. It is of the deepest concern," he added. The AFP news agency was reporting that Australia said the three passports appeared to have been "duplicated or altered". On Tuesday, Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni applauded the killing, which Dubai believes was organised by Israel's intelligence service, Mossad. Israel has been widely blamed for the murder, but has refused to confirm or deny any involvement. One of the founders of Hamas's military wing, the Izz al-Din Qassam Brigades, Mr Mabhouh was found dead in a hotel room in the Gulf emirate on 20 January. A post-mortem examination report said he had been electrocuted and then suffocated. Travel chart Earlier this month Dubai authorities released the names and passport photographs of 11 "agents with European passports" - six from the UK, three Irish, one French and one German.
All four countries have since said the documents were fraudulent. On Wednesday, the police released a new list of suspects who allegedly offered "logistical support" in the months before the January killing. The police also produced a chart tracing the travel routes of both the new and old suspects before and after Mr Mabhouh's death. "The suspects gathered in Dubai and dispersed to various locations before pairing up again in different teams and heading off to other destinations," they said. The police said two of the Australian passport holders had allegedly travelled by boat to Iran during a reconnaissance mission last August. Investigators have also discovered that 14 of the suspects had used credit cards issued by MetaBank - a small bank based in the US state of Iowa - to book hotel rooms and pay for air travel. A MetaBank spokeswoman told the Associated Press news agency that the bank was trying to confirm the reports. New list The six newly identified suspects who used UK passports were listed as Daniel Marc Schnur, Gabriella Barney, Roy Allan Cannon, Stephen Keith Drake, Mark Sklur and Philip Carr.
Those on Irish passports were Ivy Brinton, Anna Shuana Clasby and Chester Halvey; on French passports David Bernard LaPierre, Melenie Heard and Eric Rassineux; and on Australian passports Bruce Joshua Daniel, Nicole Sandra Mccabe and Adam Korman, according to the statement. British officials said they were trying to contact the people whose names and passport details had been used. "We can confirm that six more UK passports have been identified," the Foreign Office in London said. "We will seek to make contact with these individuals and offer consular assistance as we have the previous individuals." "The foreign secretary and others have made clear we expect full Israeli co-operation," it added. The Dubai police statement said the investigation was ongoing and that they were "not ruling out the possibility" of more suspects. | ||||
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Australia and the Dubai killing [ 680 ]
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Athens during 24-hour general strike...[ 679 ]
In pictures: protesters and riot police clash in Athens during 24-hour general strike
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Police fired tear gas and clashed with demonstrators in Athens after some 50,000 people finished a peaceful march against cutbacks intended to fix the country's debt crisis
Picture: REUTERSNasa, Image of the day..[ 678 ]
Image of the Day Gallery
Window to the World
Floating just below the International Space Station, astronaut Nicholas Patrick put some finishing touches on the newly installed cupola space windows last week. Patrick was a mission specialist onboard the space shuttle Endeavor's recently completed STS-130 mission to the ISS.Image Credit: NASA
Tyrkey : Senior Military officers charged. [ 677 ]
Top Turkish officers charged over 'coup plot' | |||||
BBC 12:59 GMT, Wednesday, 24 February 2010 Seven senior military officers have been formally charged in Turkey with attempting to overthrow the government. They include four admirals, a general and two colonels, some of them retired. The seven were among more than 40 officers arrested on Monday over an alleged 2003 plot to stir up chaos in Turkey and justify a military coup. The scale of Monday's operation against the military was unprecedented and increased the tension between the government and the armed forces. Dozens of current or former members of the military have been arrested in the past few years over similar plot allegations, and some have been charged.
All the country's top generals and admirals met at short notice on Tuesday to evaluate the "serious situation", the military said. This is now turning into a critical test of the government's authority over the military, says the BBC's Jonathan Head in Istanbul. Never before have so many senior officers faced charges like this in a civilian court. The charged men were arrested over the so-called "sledgehammer" plot, which reportedly dates back to 2003. Reports of the alleged plot first surfaced in the liberal Taraf newspaper, which said it had discovered documents detailing plans to bomb two Istanbul mosques and provoke Greece into shooting down a Turkish plane over the Aegean Sea. The army has said the plans had been discussed but only as part of a planning exercise at a military seminar. The alleged plot is similar, and possibly linked, to the reported Ergenekon conspiracy, in which military figures and staunch secularists allegedly planned to foment unrest, leading to a coup. Scores of people, including military officers, journalists and academics, are on trial in connection with that case. 'Power struggle' Analysts say the crackdown on the military would have been unthinkable only a few years ago.
The army has regarded itself as the guardian of a secular Turkish state. It has overthrown or forced the resignation of four governments since 1960 - the last time in 1997. But the power of the army has been eroded in recent years, with Turkey enacting reforms designed to prepare it for entry to the European Union. And General Ilker Basbug, the head of the army, has insisted that coups in Turkey are a thing of the past. Many Turks regard the cases as the latest stage in an ongoing power struggle between Turkey's secular nationalist establishment and the governing AK Party. Critics believe the Ergenekon and sledgehammer investigations are simply attempts to silence the government's political and military opponents. The AK Party has its roots in political Islam, and is accused by some nationalists of having secret plans to turn staunchly secular Turkey into an Islamic state. The government rejects those claims, saying its intention is to modernise Turkey and move it closer to EU membership. | |||||
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Afghanistan: U.S.Death toll hits 1,000[ 676 ]
U.S. Afghan death toll hits 1,000
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The number of U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan has reached 1,000, an independent website said on Tuesday, with deadly bombings in the south and east highlighting the struggle to stabilize the country.
A website which tracks casualties, www.icasualties.org, said 54 U.S. troops have been killed in Afghanistan this year, raising the total to 1,000 since the Taliban's fall. This compares with eight this year in Iraq, where 4,378 have been killed since 2003.
Afghanistan is high on U.S. President Barack Obama's foreign policy agenda and more American casualties or a military campaign that fails to bring stability to the country in an increasingly unpopular war could harm his presidency.
Also on Tuesday, Afghan President Hamid Karzai's office said he had signed into law changes that remove foreign observers from the electoral watchdog tasked with reviewing voting fraud.
That could put Karzai in conflict with Western donors who have said they will not fund September 18 parliamentary elections without electoral reforms, following a 2009 presidential poll beset by massive fraud.
"The Afghan government for long has wanted to 'Afghanize' the electoral process and 10 days ago, the cabinet ratified the amendment and the president endorsed it," Karzai spokesman Siamak Herawi said.
Free and fair elections are part of a Western strategy to stabilize the nation, alongside military plans to push the Taliban out of its strongholds and give control of them to the Afghan government.
BLAST KILLS CIVILIANS
The Islamist militants have made a comeback, operating out of strongholds in the south into the east and north, and are resisting efforts by President Hamid Karzai's government to impose control.
The second of the offensives, Operation Mushtarak, was launched by NATO-led troops 10 days ago to flush militants out of the Marjah district of Helmand, where they had set up their last big stronghold in Afghanistan's most violent province.
Western forces say they have broken the Taliban's grip and only face pockets of resistance, some of it fierce, in Marjah.
But violence is continuing. A bomb that killed at least seven civilians and wounded 14 near a government building in Helmand's capital, Lashkar Gah, underscored the vast security challenges facing NATO and Karzai's U.S.-backed government.
"The blast was caused by explosives attached to a bicycle and was controlled remotely," said Dawud Ahmadi, spokesman for Helmand's provincial government.
Karzai condemned three separate bombings in the past 24 hours, including a suicide attack which killed 16 people in eastern Nangahar province. Ghulam Ghamsharik, a former commander in the war against Soviet occupation troops, and a provincial refugee ministry official were among those killed.
The latest Helmand operation is an early test of Obama's plan to add 30,000 troops to win control of Taliban bastions and hand them over to Afghan authorities before the start of a gradual U.S. troop withdrawal in 2011.
In an example of the Taliban's tenacity, U.S. Marines who pushed 5 km (3 miles) east of Marjah said they were engaged in a firefight lasting more than eight hours on Monday as they picked their way through rudimentary fortifications.
They called in two strikes by Cobra attack helicopters, which fired Hellfire missiles on dug-in insurgents.
"The clearance went quicker than expected, even though the resistance was more than anticipated," Marine Lieutenant Mark Greenlief told Reuters on Tuesday.
Greenlief said "a lot" of militants were killed but would not say exactly how many. He said Monday's patrol uncovered "multiple" roadside bombs, weapons caches and enemy fighting positions. "We enveloped the insurgents," he said.
Marjah is a prime example of the challenge facing U.S. troops and their NATO allies. The operation's success hinges on whether they can keep Taliban fighters from re-capturing the area and make sure Afghan forces can secure the area on their own.
(Additional reporting by Sayed Salahuddin and Hamid Shalizi in KABUL; Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Bryson Hull and David Fox)