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Kabul: Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan will on Wednesday start releasing 19 South Korean Christian volunteers kidnapped nearly six weeks ago, a representative of
the group said.

“Our decision is today,” said Qari Mohammad Bashir who was also involved in the talks with a Korean team on the release of the hostages. “We are trying to start the work today.”

Dera Ismail Khan: Militants freed 18 soldiers and a government official yesterday after they were kidnapped near the Afghan border earlier this month, the army and militants said.

Army spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad said the hostages were released in South Waziristan, a stronghold of pro-Taliban militants in Pakistan’s lawless frontier region.

A militant leader, Rehmanullah Mehsud, said the captives were handed over to tribal elders in Kaniguram, a village in South Waziristan.

Escorted by elders, the 19 men arrived at an army base in Wana, the main town of South Waziristan, said Khaista Khan, a local government official.

Khan praised tribal elders and some lawmakers from the region who had helped secure the hostages’ release.

No comment

However, he declined to comment on whether the militants had placed any conditions on their release.

According to local media reports, the kidnappers had demanded the release of jailed comrades and a pullback of troops during negotiations mediated by tribal elders, clerics and lawmakers belonging to an Islamist political party.

However, Arshad said on Geo television news that the hostages were released unconditionally.

Militants seized 16 paramilitary soldiers after they left their base in a van on August 9. One was later decapitated and his body dumped in a soccer field in the town of Jandola.

The other freed captives were an army colonel, two soldiers and a security official who were seized last week near Laddha, another village in South Waziristan.

Video

Dawn News TV on Monday aired excerpts of a video showing the kidnapped soldiers surrounded by masked militants with guns and rocket-propelled grenades.

The TV station said the video also showed the beheading of the soldier.

The kidnapping came amid fierce fighting between militants and security forces in several parts of Pakistan’s northwest, particularly in the neighbouring North Waziristan region.

President Pervez Musharraf has deployed extra troops to that region to address deteriorating security, winning praise from US officials who suggest that Al Qaida may be regrouping there.

Arshad said some 250 militants and 60 troops have died in a month of violence that has included a string of suicide attacks on security forces.

Islamabad: Authorities have arrested the alleged mastermind and four other suspects believed to be behind two recent suicide attacks in Pakistan’s capital that killed 31 people, an official said yesterday.

Interior Ministry spokes-man Javed Iqbal Cheema said investigators have also identified the two bombers – both Pakistani tribesmen – who blew themselves up in separate attacks in Islamabad last month.

“Fasiullah Khan was the mastermind, planner, and directing the suicide attacks in and around Islamabad,” Cheema said.

Khan spent six months at the Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, where he produced 400 petrol bombs, Cheema said, citing investigators.

Hyderabad: Hyderabad police yesterday arrested a man suspected to be involved in the twin terror bombings.

Mohammad Abdullah, a native of Assam, was taken into custody after residents in Bowenpalli, Secunderabad, caught him under suspicious circumstances. The youth also had injuries on his head and hands.

Police are questioning him to ascertain whether he has any links with the worst-ever terror attacks in the history of Andhra Pradesh that took place on Saturday evening.

The death toll in the blasts mounted to 43 with one of the injured succumbing to his wounds at a private hospital. Srinivas Rao, a native of Visakhapatnam, was standing near Gokul Chat in Koti when the bomb went off.

Police have also begun questioning citizens of Bangladesh and Pakistan overstaying in the city. There are reportedly 20 such foreign nationals who were staying in the city though their visas had expired.

Police had earlier detained about 10 people suspected to have links with Pakistan’s Inter Service Intelligence or terror groups backed by it.

The needle of suspicion points towards Bangladesh-based Harkatul Jihad Islami (HUJI), which was also blamed for the May 18 blast at the historic Makkah Masjid that claimed nine lives.

Mastermind

Shahid alias Bilal, a HUJI operative and a Hyderabad resident, is suspected to be the mastermind of both the attacks as well as the suicide bombing at the office of police commissioner’s task force in Begumpet in 2005. One policeman besides the suicide bomber, believed to be a Bangladeshi, was killed in the attack.

Shahid is currently believed to be in Bangladesh.

Meanwhile, three more people have been arrested in connection with the fake currency racket that was busted hours before Saturday’s blast.

Four people were arrested and fake currency worth Rs30 million was seized from them.

The accused are suspected to be members of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim’s gang.

Police Commissioner Balwinder Singh said a possible link between the fake currency racket and the terror bombings was also being probed.

Kabul: More than 100 suspected insurgents were killed in a battle with US-led troops in southern Afghanistan, the US military said on Wednesday.

The battle erupted after a convoy of Afghan and US coalition forces came under attack in Shah Wali Kot district in Kandahar province, it said in a statement.

US-led close air support attacked insurgent positions in the battle, it added.

“Afghan National Security Forces, advised by coalition forces, engaged and eliminated more than 100 insurgent fighters in a battle that started this morning and is still continuing in northern Kandahar province,” the US military said.

There were no civilian casualties but one Afghan security force member was killed and three foreign troops and three Afghan soldiers were wounded, it added.

No official from the Taliban, who lead the insurgency against Western troops and the Afghan government, could be immediately reached for comment.

There was no independent verification of the reported deaths of the insurgents.

Taliban spokesman often accuse Western troops of exaggerating insurgent casualties, while Western forces accuse the Taliban of exaggerating the number of casualties on the US, NATO and Afghan government side.

If confirmed, the Taliban toll would be the highest for many weeks.

Islamabad: A power-sharing pact between Pakistan’s embattled President Pervez Musharraf and former prime minister Benazir Bhutto has almost been finalised, a cabinet minister said on Wednesday.

Bhutto has demanded a commitment from Musharraf to quit as army chief and become a civilian president as a condition for any deal, but Railways Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said the issue had been settled.

“There is no more uniform issue. It has been settled and the president will make an announcement,” Ahmed told a news conference.

Musharraf, who has seen his popularity plummet in recent months, wants to get re-elected president for another five years between mid-September and mid-October, before his term as army chief expires at the end of the year.

But US ally Musharraf faces opposition, particularly over his plan to secure another term while remaining army chief, raising concern about stability in the nuclear-armed country seen as vital to efforts to tackle terrorism and pacify Afghanistan.

A pact with two-time prime minister Bhutto, whose Pakistan People’s Party is the country’s single largest party, would see Musharraf through, but he will have to pay Bhutto’s price.

Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper on Wednesday quoted Bhutto as saying the “uniform issue is resolved”.

Ahmed said the deal with Bhutto’s party was 80 per cent finalised.

“There are just two or three points that need to be settled,” Ahmed said, adding that the outcome of talks between the president’s aides and Bhutto in London this week were very important.

Under Musharraf’s plan, a general election will be held at the end of the year or early next year.

As well as demanding that Musharraf resign from the army, Bhutto, wants immunity from prosecution for corruption charges hanging over her and the removal of ban on a prime minister serving a third term.

Bhutto has set an Aug. 31 deadline for a deal.

Lucknow, India: Police briefly closed the Taj Mahal and placed parts of Agra city under curfew on Wednesday after Indian Muslims burned trucks and battled police to protest against the deaths of four community members hit by a lorry.

One person was killed by a stray police bullet and nine seriously injured in rioting triggered by the deaths of four men hit by a lorry while returning from “Shab-e-Barat”, or the “night of forgiveness or atonement”, when Muslims pray for the dead.

Angry crowds set fire to at least 20 vehicles, mainly trucks, officials said. One shoe factory was burnt in the rioting.

Television footage showed smoke billowing over one neighbourhood, young Muslims throwing bottles and stones and a line of trucks burning.

“They are hurling bricks at police sent to stop the violence in one area but the situation is coming under control as our people are on the job,” state police officer Brij Lal said.

After shutting the Taj Mahal to tourists on Wednesday, it was later reopened under heavy security, according to officials.

Schools and colleges were ordered shut in the crowded city as police tried to quell the violence.

People being killed by buses and trucks is common in India. Mobs often react angrily to such accidents, especially if the victims are part of a religious procession.

Earlier this month, Hindu pilgrims went on a rampage near the Indian capital, setting buses on fire and blocking a key highway, after two of them were run over by a truck.

In Agra, local member of parliament Raj Babbar blamed corrupt policemen for allowing trucks to move along roads that Muslim worshippers were using in large numbers.

Qala-e-Qazi, Afghanistan: Taliban militants released three South Korean hostages on Wednesday, the first of 19 captives scheduled to be freed under a deal struck between the insurgents and the South Korean government.

 The three, all women, were first handed to tribal leaders, who took them to an agreed location where officials of the International Committee of the Red Cross picked them up, according to an AP reporter who witnessed the hand over.

The three arrived in the central Afghan village of Qala-e-Qazi in a single car, their heads covered with green shawls.

They said nothing to reporters, who were asked by Red Cross representatives not to question them.Red Cross officials quickly took the three to their vehicles before leaving for an undisclosed location.

To secure the hostages’ release, South Korea reaffirmed a pledge to withdraw its 200 troops from Afghanistan by the end of this year and prevent South Korean Christian missionaries from working there. The Taliban apparently backed down on earlier demands for a prisoner exchange.

The Taliban originally kidnapped 23 hostages as they traveled by bus from Kabul to the former Taliban stronghold of Kandahar on July 19. In late July, the militants executed two male hostages, and they released two women earlier this month.

The insurgents have said they will free the hostages, who they are holding in different locations, over the next few days.

The accord for the South Koreans’ release came during one of the bloodiest periods of the Taliban’s war against US and NATO forces since the Taliban regime was toppled in late 2001 after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

South Korea‘s decision to hold face-to-face negotiations with the militants may dismay the United States government, which refuses to talk to the Taliban.

State Department spokesman Tom Casey said Tuesday that the US wanted the Koreans returned to their families and stressed that U.S. policy was not to make concessions to terrorists.

The deal for the hostages’ release was struck during talks between Taliban negotiators and South Korean diplomats in the central city of Ghazni. The Afghan government was not party to the negotiations, which were mediated by the ICRC.

The hostages’ relatives in South Korea welcomed news of the deal.“I would like to dance,” said Cho Myung-ho, mother of 28-year-old hostage Lee Joo-yeon.

South Korean presidential spokesman Cheon Ho-sun said the deal had been reached “on the condition that South Korea withdraws troops by the end of the year and South Korea suspends missionary work in Afghanistan.”

President Bush gave warning last night that Iran’s pursuit of the atomic bomb could lead to a nuclear holocaust in the Middle East, and promised to confront Tehran “before it is too late”.

Mr Bush’s remarks, the starkest warning that he has made about Iran’s nuclear ambitions, came hours after President Ahmadinejad of Iran said that a power vacuum was imminent in Iraq and that Tehran was ready to fill it.

Mr Bush also talked for the first time of “two strains” of Islamic radicalism causing chaos in Iraq and the region: not only Sunni jihadists, about whom he has spoken often, but also “Shia extremism, supported and embodied by Iran’s Government”.

The comments displayed a new aggression towards Tehran, a day after President Sarkozy of France raised the prospect of airstrikes on Iran if the crisis over its nuclear ambitions could not be solved through diplomacy.

Mr Bush said: “Iran’s pursuit of technology that could lead to nuclear weapons threatens to put a region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust.

“Iran’s actions threaten the security of nations everywhere, and the United States is rallying friends and allies to isolate Iran’s regime to impose economic sanctions. We will confront this danger before it is too late,” he told war veterans in Nevada.

Mr Bush has said repeatedly that he wants the Iran nuclear standoff to be resolved diplomatically.

There is, however, still debate within his Administration over the possibility of launching airstrikes should Iran continue to develop its nuclear capability.

Mr Ahmadinejad, in a news conference in Tehran, again denied that Iran was pursuing nuclear weapons, and dismissed any possibility of US military action against Iran. “Even if they were to decide to do so, they would be unable to carry it out,” he said.

He increased his provocation of Mr Bush, who accused Iran of arming insurgents with sophisticated roadside bombs that were killing US troops.

“The political power of the occupiers is collapsing rapidly,” Mr Ahmadinejad said. “Soon, we will see a huge power vacuum in the region. Of course, we are prepared to fill the gap.”

Although Mr Ahmadinejad revels in making provocative statements, his latest remarks will increase the fears in Washington and among its moderate Sunni allies in the region that an Iranian-dominated Iraq would trigger a regional war between Sunnis and Shias.

Mr Bush said that extremist forces would be emboldened if the US were driven out of Iraq, leaving Iran to pursue a nuclear weapon and set off an arms race.

“Iran could conclude that we were weak and could not stop them from gaining nuclear weapons,” Mr Bush said. On Iranian involvement in Iraq, he said: “I have authorised our military commanders in Iraq to confront Tehran’s murderous activities.”

Mr Bush’s speech was his second address on Iraq within a week and was part of a significant effort by the White House to prepare the ground for the progress report to Congress next month by General David Petraeus, the US ground commander.

Earlier, the American press reported that soon the White House will ask Congress for additional billions for the war in Iraq. Currently, US legislators are considering a bill to give for next fiscal year 7 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Kavkaz Center’s source reports with reference to sources from Chechnya that large Mujahideen units attacked dislocations and bases of the puppet “police” in the Nozhai-Yurt, Vedeno, Shatoi and Kurchaloi districts on the night of 28 August.

Tens of munafiqs (hypocrites) and murtads (apostates) were killed in fierce combat, according to the Chechen sources. The number of killed and injured puppets could be large.

Starting at dawn on 28 August, the Russian airforces carried out a number of missile and bomb raids on the surrounding villages in the mentioned districts, and the artillery was firing through the entire night.

The precise data on the results of the military operations by the Mujahideen is unknown yet.  Meanwhile, according to sources SobkorrRu news agency one of the missiles launched by Russian aircraft hit the house of a resident of Sharo-Argun village Alhazura Sariyev. As a result two of his relatives were killed.

Agency with reference to its sources reported that large numbers of dead Kadyrov’s militiamen and Russian occupiers, as well as losses among the civilians who died as a result of aerial and artillery strikes.

It was also reported that during the period from 20 to 27 August more than three thousand Russian troops were deployed to the mountainous parts of Chechnya.