Ex-NAB official arrested for corruption

ISLAMABAD: National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has arrested former Additional Director of NAB Balochistan Col (R) Muhammad Ishaq from Rawalpindi on the charges of corruption.

The accused allegedly misused authority and gained illegal benefits by using name of NAB Balochistan. The accused also allegedly took bribe from people for getting them appointed in Balochistan government.

The arrest warrants of accused were issued by Director General NAB Balochistan. The NAB Headquarters provided the intelligence assistance to NAB Rawalpindi Region to execute the arrest warrants.

Subsequently, Regional NAB Rawalpindi arrested the accused through coordinated efforts.The accused will be produced before the Accountability Court on Saturday for getting his physical remand.

Gunmen kill at least 26 in Kenya attack: official

MOMBASA: At least 26 people were killed when some 50 insurgents flying black flags swept into a Kenyan coastal town firing guns in an unprecedented attack, a local government official said Monday.

"So far we have collected over 26 bodies and taken them to the mortuary, but we are still looking for more," Benson Maisori, deputy commissioner for the district told.

Gun battles began Sunday evening and continued into the early hours of Monday morning, but by dawn, the town of Mpeketoni was reported calm.

The insurgents were reported to have been from Somalia´s Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab.

"There were around 50 attackers, heavily armed in three vehicles, and they were flying the Shebab flag," Maisori added, speaking from the town, where several buildings including hotels, restaurants, banks and government offices were razed to the ground.

"They were shouting in Somali and shouting ´Allahu Akbar´", he added, meaning "God is great", in Arabic.

Cafes and bars were reportedly packed with people watching the World Cup on television when the gunmen attacked.

The town of Mpeketoni, a trading centre on the main coastal road, lies on the mainland some 30 kilometres (20 miles) southwest of Lamu island, a popular tourist destination whose ancient architecture is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Kenyan army spokesman Major Emmanuel Chirchir described how the gunmen had stormed the town, overwhelming local police officers, and firing from vehicles "shooting people around in town".

Chirchir also said the attackers were "likely to be Al-Shebab," although there was no immediate claim of responsiblity from the Islamists themselves.

Attackers tried to storm a police post including an armoury, but Maisori said officers had defended the building and fought the gunmen off.

It was the latest in a series of attacks or bombings to hit Kenya -- most usually blamed on the Shebab or their supporters -- but the reported scale and nature of this attack is rare.

Kenyan troops crossed into southern Somalia in 2011 to fight the Shebab, later joining the now 22,000-strong African Union force battling the insurgents.

The Shebab vowed revenge, carrying out attacks, including one on Nairobi´s Westgate mall in September 2013 in which at least 67 people were killed.

 

Checkpoint blasts kill 15 in northern Iraq: official

KIRKUK: A roadside bomb followed by a suicide bomber detonating an explosives-rigged truck at a police checkpoint in northern Iraq killed 15 people on Monday, a local official said.

The official, Shallal Abdul Baban, told the blasts in Tuz Khurmatu also wounded 115 people and caused "great destruction".

The police checkpoint that was targeted was near an office of President Jalal Talabani´s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party.

The blasts came a day after a car bomb followed by a suicide bombing near a PUK office and a Kurdish intelligence building in Jalawla, another northern town, killed 18 people.

Powerful extremists group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant claimed the Jalawla attack in a statement posted on Twitter, and said it was carried out by two suicide bombers, one Egyptian and an Iraqi Kurd.

 

Army Chief embarks on official visit to China

RAWALPINDI: Chief of Army Staff (COAS), General Raheel Sharif left here for China on Monday on an official visit at the invitation of Chinese authorities.

According to a press release of Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR), during the visit, the COAS will call on China’s political and military leadership. The interaction will encompass Pak-China relations with particular emphasis on defence and security cooperation.

Earlier, the Army Chief was seen off at Nur Khan Air Base by senior military officials.

One dead, 23 injured in Thai quake: official

BANGKOK: An elderly woman died and 23 other people were injured after a strong earthquake shook northern Thailand, an official said Tuesday, as aftershocks continued to rattle the mountainous region popular with tourists.

The 83-year-old woman died when a wall in her house collapsed after the 6.0-magnitude struck quake on Monday afternoon, according to an official at the Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Department in Bangkok. "Twenty-three people were also injured in separate incidents caused by the quake," the official told AFP, without giving further details.

The quake, which struck at a shallow depth of just 7.4 kilometres (4.5 miles), had its epicentre in the remote Phan district of Chiang Rai province, geologists said, and was felt hundreds of miles to the south in Bangkok and even in Myanmar´s commercial capital Yangon.

"Since last evening (Monday) there were six large aftershocks with a magnitude between 5.0 to 5.9 and the last was this morning," Burin Wechbunthung, of the Meteorological Department told, adding there were a dozen smaller tremors.

Residents on Monday said they had seen cracked building facades, broken shop windows and damage to roads, while power was cut for several hours in Phan.

The area is a remote mountain retreat near the border with Myanmar and Laos and popular with foreign visitors. The quake was felt in the tourist hub city of Chiang Mai 160 kilometres (100 miles) southwest of Chiang Rai and as far away as Bangkok, 800 kilometres to the south, where tall buildings shook for several seconds.

Major earthquakes are rare in Thailand, although tremors often strike the north of the country.

 

Hamid Mir to issue official statement on attack today: wife

KARACHI: Senior journalist and Geo News’ anchor Hamid Mir will issue an official statement today (Thursday) pertaining to an attack that left him severely injured with six bullet wounds on Saturday evening, his wife told Geo News on Thursday.

Mr. Mir's wife thanked the nation for praying for her husband’s health and life, and said that it is due to the Almighty’s blessings and peoples’ wishes that Hamid Mir got a new life. She appealed to continue praying for Hamid Mir’s health who is recovering from his injuries at a private hospital in Karachi.

The doctors have extracted three bullets from Mir’s body, however, three bullets are still lodged in his legs and thighs that require major surgeries.

On Wednesday, Karachi police registered an FIR against unidentified assailants into an armed attack on Hamid Mir

The case was registered on behalf of sub-inspector Shahadat Khan under section 15 of Anti-Terrorism Act and 324/34 and 427 of PPO at the Airport Police Station.

It may be mentioned that Hamid Mir was attacked in Karachi on Saturday evening while his car was leaving the airport.

The attack took place when a single gunman wearing shalwar kameez stopped his car right outside the airport and opened fire. The driver of the car sped away but the gunman and his accomplices on two motorcycles and a car followed Hamid Mir and continued firing. The attackers followed Hamid Mir’s car till Karsaz before fleeing. While being chased Hamid Mir spoke to his colleagues over the phone and informed them of the attack.

Two dead, 368 rescued from capsized S. Korea ferry: official

SEOUL: Two bodies have been recovered and 368 people rescued from a South Korean ferry that capsized at sea Wednesday with 477 passengers and crew on board, a senior government official said.

"So far, 368 have been rescued," Lee Gyeong-Og, the vice minister of security and public administration, told a press briefing in Seoul

He also confirmed that two people had been killed, including one female crew member.

At least 25 dead in Mexico bus crash: official

XALAPA: A bus burst into flames after slamming into the back of a parked trailer-truck in southeastern Mexico, killing at least 25 people and injuring four others, an official said Sunday.

The death toll could rise to 33 but the fire made it difficult to identify all the bodies, Veracruz Governor Javier Duarte told Milenio television.

"The trailer-truck was on the shoulder of the highway at kilometer 135 (mile 84) ... when the bus hit the back of the trailer, which caused this regrettable accident," he said.

"In addition to crashing, the bus caught fire, which makes the investigative work to identify bodies more difficult."

The accident took place between 0630 GMT and 0700 GMT as the bus took passengers from the southeastern Tabasco state city of Villahermosa to Mexico City.

The tragedy occurred as Mexicans are set to begin Holy Week in the predominantly Roman Catholic country.

Militants seek laughter, crying ban, China official says

BEIJING: The governor of China's restive far western region of Xinjiang wrote on Monday that Islamist militants were trying to ban laughter at weddings and crying at funerals, as he appealed to people to stamp out the "tumour" of extremism.

Xinjiang, resource-rich and strategically located on the borders of central Asia, has been beset by violence for years, blamed by the government on Islamist militants and separatists.

Exiles and many rights groups say the real cause of the unrest is China's heavy-handed policies, including curbs on Islam and the culture and language of the Muslim Uighur people who call Xinjiang home.

China's nervousness about Islamist extremism has grown since a car burst into flames on the edge of Beijing's Tiananmen Square in October, and 29 people were stabbed to death last month in the southwestern city of Kunming.

Beijing blamed Xinjiang militants for both.

Writing in the official Xinjiang Daily, Xinjiang governor Nur Bekri said that acts of terror had been made possible by extremists taking advantage of people's faith, especially "young people who have seen little of the world".

"In order to incite fanaticism and control believers, religious extremists have blatantly distorted religious teachings, making up heresy such as 'jihadist martyrs go to heaven,' 'killing a pagan is worth over 10 years of piety,' and 'one gets whatever one wants in heaven'," he wrote.

"They use this to bewilder believers into what they believe is 'jihad' in the form of suicide terrorist attacks or other violence," Bekri added. People who do not follow the strictures of the Islamists are condemned by them as "traitors" and "scum", he said.

China's ruling atheist Communist Party has issued similar warnings in the past about extremism, accompanied by a harsh crackdown on suspected militants.

Uighurs have traditionally followed a moderate form of Islam, but many have begun adopting practices more commonly seen in Saudi Arabia or Pakistan, such as full-face veils for women, as China has intensified a security crackdown in recent years.

Bekri, an Uighur himself, accused the militants of ignoring the region's own traditions and of wanting to enforce a strict theocratic society.

"They ... push the banning of watching television, listen to the radio, reading newspapers, singing and dancing, not allowing laughter at weddings nor crying at funerals," he added. "They force men to grow beards and women to wear the burqa."

Extremists are also demanding that not only food, but also cosmetics, medicine and clothing be halal, and push the idea that government-subsidised housing is not halal and to be avoided, Bekri wrote.

"Resolutely eliminate the tumour of religious extremism," he added.

 

Afghan election HQ attacked by militants: official

KABUL: Insurgents attacked the headquarters of the Afghan election commission in Kabul on Saturday, officials said, one week ahead of voting and after a series of bloody attacks in the city.

"I can confirm an attack at the IEC (Independent Election Commission) headquarters," Noor Mohammad Noor, the IEC spokesman, told AFP. "We heard two explosions inside the IEC compound, the sound of firing is still ongoing, but people are safe and are in (reinforced) safe rooms."

Interior ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said: "Initial information shows that three or four attackers have occupied a building and are firing on the IEC office.

"On Friday, Taliban militants attacked a Kabul guesthouse used by a US anti-landmine charity, killing two people. Friday´s assault was the fourth significant attack this year in Kabul targeting foreigners or places where foreigners congregate.

The Taliban have vowed a campaign of violence to disrupt the polls on April 5, urging their fighters to attack polling staff, voters and security forces in the run-up to election day.

Obama to meet Ukrainian PM at White House: official

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama will meet in Washington this week with Ukraine's interim prime minister, in a show of support amid a tense stand-off with Russia over control of Crimea.
Obama will host crisis talks with Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk on Wednesday, US Deputy National Security Adviser Tony Blinken said, confirming earlier reports.
"He has invited the Ukrainian prime minister to come to the White House on Wednesday to further demonstrate... support," Blinken told NBC television's "Meet the Press" program.
Yatsenyuk had earlier announced in Kiev that he would travel to the United States, but gave no details of planned meetings.
Blinken said the US leader has been rallying world support for the Kiev's beleaguered fledgling administration and against Russia's incursion into the Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula.
"We've seen the president put together a major international support package. In terms of isolating Russia, what we've seen as a result of the mobilized support is the financial markets in Russia have hit lows, the ruble has hit a low, investors are wondering whether to get involved in Russia because of the instability," Blinken said.
"All of that is exacting a real cost and a real consequence."
He added: "The president has made clear that going forward in coordination with our partners and allies we have in place a mechanism with sanctions to raise the cost significantly.
"But this is really a choice for the Russians to make. They have to decide whether they want to resolve the diplomatically or whether they want to face growing isolation, growing economic cost."

Afghan official shot dead in Chaman

QUETTA: An Afghan government official and two other people were gunned down in separate incidents in Balochistan on Thursday.
Police sources said two unidentified men on a motorcycle opened fire on Sardar Mohammad, a customs officer in Afghanistan, in Roghani road area of Chaman. He received multiple bullets injuries and was rushed to a hospital, but died before getting any medical treatment. His body was handed over to Afghan officials after an autopsy.
According to sources, Sardar Mohammad was an important official and was considered a close associate of Afghan commander Abdul Raziq Khan, the in charge of Spin Buldak district, the first Afghan district after zero point at the Pak-Afghan border. At least 12 Afghan officials and Afghan Taliban commanders have been killed in Quetta and the border town of Chaman over the past one and a half years.
Pakistani official say that Afghan intelligence officials are usually involved in the killing of Afghan Taliban leaders in border areas and Quetta.
Meanwhile, armed men barged into the house one Kahir Mohammad in Quetta’s Etihad Colony and killed his son Abdul Zahir.
In Mastung, unidentified gunmen on a motorcycle killed a man, who was identified as Ghulam Nabi.