Negative Blogs

India (Reuters) - Police fired at hundreds of stone-throwing protesters in Kashmir on Tuesday, killing three civilians, authorities said, the latest violence in a region at the core of a dispute between India and Pakistan.

The deaths of at least 14 people, mostly protesters, in the last three weeks have triggered the biggest anti-India demonstrations in two years across Muslim-majority Kashmir valley. Many locals blame security forces for the deaths.

“The fresh protests broke out when a body of a teenager was fished out from a rivulet on Tuesday,” Mohammad Afzal, a police official said.

Locals said the teenager had jumped into the water in Kashmir’s summer capital, Srinagar, and drowned while being chased by security forces during a demonstration on Monday evening.

Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram last week accused Pakistan-based militant group, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), of being behind growing anti-India protests, but many locals believe the protests are mostly spontaneous.

The growing troubles could hurt a tentative process that New Delhi and Islamabad have begun to repair relations after the 2008 attacks on Mumbai, which India blames on LeT.

In Islamabad, scores of Pakistani Kashmiris staged a protest against the recent killings.

“I want to assure my brothers in Indian occupied Kashmir that we will continue to support you until we liberate every inch of our motherland from Indian subjugation,” Syed Salahuddin, a top commander of Kashmiri militant group, Hizb-ul-Mujahideen told protesters.

Peace in Kashmir is seen as crucial for progress in relations between the two nuclear-armed countries who claim the region in full but rule in parts and have fought two wars over it.

Authorities imposed curfew in Srinagar and closed schools and colleges on Tuesday after separatists appealed to students to hold anti-India protests.

But thousands of people shouting “we want freedom” took to the streets in Srinagar to protest the fresh killings.

In downtown Srinagar, the protesters were led by the region’s

senior separatist leader, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq.

“Protests and civil disobedience will continue until India withdraws its security forces from all populated areas, and punish those found guilty,” Farooq said.

The conflict in Kashmir has killed tens of thousands of people since a revolt against New Delhi broke out in the scenic Himalayan region two decades ago.

By Sheikh Mushtaq

The bodies of Muzaffar Ahmad Bhat and Fayaz Ahmad Wani (covered with white cloth) lie on the road as policemen chase away mourners in Srinagar July 6, 2010.

Al-Qaida launches English-language propaganda magazine as it broadens reach in U.S., Europe.

Al-Qaida launched its first online propaganda magazine in English on Tuesday, a move that could help the terror group recruit inside the U.S. and Europe.

The magazine, called Inspire, is being run by al-Qaida’s branch in Yemen, which has been linked to the failed Christmas Day bombing attempt of a U.S.-bound airliner.

The launch suggests that, as al-Qaida’s core has been weakened by CIA drone airstrikes, the group hopes to broaden its reach inside the U.S., where officials have seen a spate of homegrown terrorists.

“This new magazine is clearly intended for the aspiring jihadist in the U.S. or U.K. who may be the next Fort Hood murderer or Times Square bomber,” Bruce Riedel, a Brookings Institution scholar and former CIA officer, said.

Tuesday’s launch did not go smoothly. The magazine was 67 pages long, but all but the first three pages were just garbled computer code, according to SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist websites and obtained a copy of the magazine.

The table of contents included articles such as “Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom,” which promised to be “a detailed yet short, easy-to-read manual on how to make a bomb using ingredients found in a kitchen.”

“We also call upon and encourage our readers to contribute by sending their articles, comments or suggestions to us,” the magazine’s introduction read.

At the heart of al-Qaida’s propaganda effort is Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical U.S.-born cleric now living in Yemen. Authorities say his online sermons, in English, have inspired several recent terrorist plots in the United States. The magazine promotes an article by al-Awlaki titled “May Our Souls be Sacrificed for You.” But like most of the magazine, the article did not appear in the version circulated Tuesday.

Until now, al-Qaida has relied on Arabic websites to carry its message. Now it appears to be capitalizing on its recent success recruiting inside the U.S.

By MATT APUZZO and ADAM GOLDMAN

Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden talks at a news conference in Afghanistan in this May 26, 1998 file photo. Al-Qaida launched its first online propaganda magazine in English on Tuesday, a move that could help the terror group recruit inside the U.S. and Europe.

A congressional investigation says tens of millions of dollars of U.S. taxpayer funds are indirectly being paid to Afghan warlords, public officials and even the Taliban to ensure safe passage of U.S. supply convoys in Afghanistan.

A lengthy report released late Monday says eight Afghan-based private contractors working with the Defense Department through a $2.1 billion transportation contract are paying several thousand dollars per truck for guards.

The contract covers at least 70 percent of all goods and services used by U.S. forces. 

Congressional investigators say trucking contractors raised the issue with military officials, but their concerns were never properly addressed. 

The report was completed by the House of Representative’s national security subcommittee, which will hold hearings on the report Tuesday.

The U.S. military says it has begun investigating reports of corruption in Afghanistan, and has created a task force to determine the impact of its contracting processes on corruption.

By VOA News

A U.S. armored personal carrier vehicle escorts a convoy of trucks carrying U.S. equipments in Kabul, Afghanistan (File)

Iraqi officials say a bomb attack in the northern part of the country has killed eight people, including six police officers.

The attack came less than 24 hours after twin car bombs killed at least 26 people in the capital, Baghdad.

The latest bombings happened late Sundayin the town of Shirqat.  Reports indicate two bombs were involved and that the second went off as people gathered to inspect the site of the first.

There are conflicting reports as to whether the second bombing was a suicide attack or a roadside bomb.

Iraq has been hit by a wave of violence since the nation’s parliamentary elections in March failed to yield a clear winner.

Some officials fear insurgents may be taking advantage of the country’s political deadlock to try to derail recent security gains. 

The Baghdad bombs exploded within minutes of each other Sunday near the headquarters of the Trade Bank of Iraq.

Police officers and civilians were among the dead. More than 53 people were wounded.

Baghdad’s security chief (General Qassam Mohammed Atta) indicated the bank was the apparent target of the explosions

The bank was established in 2003 after the U.S.-led invasion, and is the conduit for much of the Iraqi government’s efforts to help finance reconstruction and international trade.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing, but an al-Qaida front group (the Islamic State of Iraq) has said it carried out last week’s suicide attack on Iraq’s Central Bank that killed 18 people in Baghdad.

By VOA News

A woman cries out during the funeral for a relative killed in an attack on Iraq's central Bank as the body is taken for burial, 14 Jun 2010.

The Afghan Taliban says it has captured dozens of Pakistani soldiers after attacking their checkpoint in a cross-border raid.

Pakistani security sources confirm some troops are missing.

The Taliban says it is holding up to 40 Pakistani troops after its raid in the Mohmand tribal area on Monday.

Afghan officials said eight soldiers had been handed over to the Pakistani consulate in Jalalabad, but Pakistan’s army said it had no knowledge of this.

Checkpoint ‘over-run’
The BBC’s M Ilyas Khan says that while attacks by the Taliban on border check posts are relatively routine, it is unusual for Pakistani soldiers to be held by the militants in Afghanistan.

A Taliban spokesman told the BBC that it was in fact holding Pakistani troops on both sides of the border after Monday’s attack.

It said 30 soldiers were being held in Afghanistan and 10 in Pakistan.

The Taliban says it captured the soldiers after over-running the checkpoint.

Local officials in the Mohmand area confirmed to the BBC that about 40 soldiers were unaccounted for.

Pakistani security sources said on Monday an undisclosed number of troops were missing.

An Afghan army commander in Jalalabad told the BBC that 10 Pakistani soldiers had been handed over to the Pakistani consulate, although the Pakistani army said it was not aware of this.

‘Baseless propaganda’
Meanwhile, the Afghan Taliban have dismissed the findings of a report which says Pakistan’s intelligence service had a direct role in supporting the insurgents.

In an e-mail sent to the BBC, the Taliban said the report was “baseless propaganda”.

The report, compiled by a London School of Economics scholar, said Pakistani intelligence provided funding, training and sanctuaries to the Taliban on a much greater scale than previously thought.

“The Islamic Emirate considers this report of the London School of Economics as merely baseless propaganda,” the letter said.

The Taliban have also denied reports that their fighters hanged a seven-year-old boy last week on charges of spying in Afghanistan’s Helmand province.

“After a full investigation by the Islamic Emirate leadership, it became clear that no event of execution had taken place,” a Taliban statement said.

The Taliban criticised journalists for misreporting the event.

By BBC

The Pakistani army is often atttacked by the Taliban on border areas.

Those at event thought to have had ties to police or anti-Taliban militia

KABUL, Afghanistan - At least 40 people were killed and 77 injured by a suicide bomb attack on a packed wedding party in insurgency-plagued southern Afghanistan, officials said Thursday.

“A suicide bomber went inside the party where hundreds of people were sitting and blew himself up,” a police official said of the blast at around 9:30 p.m. (1 p.m. ET) on Wednesday in Arghandab district, north of Kandahar, where foreign troops are focusing on a push in coming months to whittle out the Taliban.

A Kandahar policeman said many of the guests had links to local police officials or a local militia, which was why it was likely targeted, although the Taliban denied responsibility.

“We condemn such a brutal act,” Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi told Reuters from an undisclosed location. “The Taliban wage Jihad (holy war) in order to free the people from the hands of occupiers. How can we kill them?”

The Taliban have previously claimed responsibility for insurgent attacks, but recanted once civilian casualties have become clear.

Ahmadi laid blame at the feet of the the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) for Afghanistan, which has killed hundreds of civilians in misdirected air strikes, but a U.S. military spokesman dismissed this as “misinformation.”

Earlier Wednesday, the four U.S. soldiers were killed when a helicopter they were riding in came under fire and crashed in Helmand, which is next to Kandahar. A total of 29 NATO troops have been killed this month, including 10 on Monday alone, seven of them Americans. It was the deadliest day for the military alliance in seven months.

‘End of the world’
Witnesses described scenes of chaos at the wedding, which had drawn around 400 celebrants including women and children from nearby villages.

“Some people were waiting for food, others were dancing inside a big tent, when I heard a deafening blast,” a wounded survivor named Aminullah said.

“The dust went up in the sky and I saw dead bodies everywhere. Women and children were screaming. I thought it was end of the world.”

Agha Mohammed, who survived the wedding blast, said the guests were all seated and having a meal when the explosion occurred, sending a huge fireball and smoke into the sky.

He told The Associated Press that the scale of the destruction caused by the blast was more than was common in a suicide attack. “We have experience with war and this does not look like a suicide bombing,” Mohammed said.

Rural wedding parties in Afghanistan can often be raucous affairs with large gatherings of people and frequently accompanied by celebratory gunfire. Several have mistakenly been attacked in the past by foreign forces. However Taliban attacks have claimed more civilian lives.

Citing hospital reports, Kandahar Governor Tooryalai Wisa said ball bearings had been used as shrapnel, a hallmark of suicide bombings. Children were among the dead, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

“The Taliban are doing two things at once,” Wisa said. “On one side they target people who are in favor of the government, then at the same time they don’t want people to know their real face.”

Cruel people

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, whose plan to seek engagement with the Taliban won support at a tribal peace conference last week, deplored the wedding bombing as a “terrorist attack.”

“This attack … is the work of those cruel people who act against Islamic and divine values,” Karzai’s office said in a statement.

U.S. military spokesman Col. Wayne Shanks said the deaths were not the result of an airstrike, and said any suggestion otherwise was “Taliban misinformation.”

“This ruthless violence brought to the Afghan people at what should have been a time for celebration demonstrates the Taliban’s sickening and indiscriminate tactics to try to intimidate the citizens of Afghanistan,” Lt. Gen. Nick Parker, Deputy Commander, International Security Assistance Force said in a prepared statement.

“It only proves they have no regard for human life,” he added.

Ahmadi did claim responsibility on behalf of the insurgents for killing the U.S. troops, saying militants shot down the helicopter with two rockets.

Helmand provincial government spokesman Daoud Ahmadi said the attack occurred about midday in Sangin district.

Both U.S. and British troops are operating in Helmand, part of a band of provinces across southern Afghanistan that are the Taliban’s heartland.

Also Wednesday, another NATO service member died in a homemade bomb attack. The Ministry of Defense in London said he was British.

By msnbc

A Afghan policeman talks to an injured man at a hospital following the explosion at a wedding party in Kandahar on Thursday. A suicide attack ripped through a wedding party in full swing in the Taliban's heartland late Wednesday.

KABUL, Afghanistan —As rockets landed nearby and suicide attackers detonated explosives, President Hamid Karzai opened a national consultative peace assembly on Wednesday morning with the goal of winning popular backing for his plan to persuade Taliban and insurgent foot soldiers to stop fighting.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attacks, and the authorities said at least three suicide bombers were involved.

In his speech, which was interrupted by a rocket that exploded close by and an exchange of gunfire, forcing Mr. Karzai to tell his audience not to worry. He spoke directly to the Taliban, calling on them to join the government.

Within minutes, a larger explosion from another rocket shook the large tent where the gathering, known as a jirga, was being held. The jirga took a scheduled 10-minute break, but did not resume until an hour and a half later, after the shooting had stopped.

At least one suicide bomber struck near the Takya Khana mosque, close to the jirga site, according to Ezatullah, a police officer in District 5, which includes that area. Like many Afghans, he uses only one name.

Mr. Ezatullah said police officials believed “a few suicide attackers” had entered the area.

A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, took credit for the attacks and said the insurgents had sent four suicide bombers to Kabul, although he was nt yet sure if any had attacked.

“Our main purpose is to disrupt the peace jirga,” Mr. Mujahid said, adding that the bombers were armed with automatic weapons, rocket launchers and grenades. He said they had installed themselves on the roof of a building near Kabul Polytechnical University and had been firing down on the jirga tent.

A security perimeter in the Takya Khana area had been set up around the mosque, the university and the jirga site, all of which had been blocked off to the public for the past week.

According to an Afghan police commander, who declined to give his name, the Taliban had established a safe house inside the area and launched their attacks from there. He said authorities had detained an elderly man named Mohammed Nabih, from Wardak Province, who told them he had been employed as a guard at the house 10 days ago. He was captured on Wednesday after he ran out of ammunition.

Officials recaptured the house on Wednesday afternoon, and found the bodies of two dead insurgents inside. Two Afghan policemen were wounded in the operation.

The Taliban infiltrated the area, according to some accounts, disguised in the head-to-toe burqas women traditionally wear in Afghanistan.

“It was a quick response by our security forces,” said a presidential spokesman, Waheed Omer. “All three suicide attackers were killed.” He maintained they did not get close enough to pose a threat to the jirga. It was unclear how many of the attackers set off their bombs before police killed them.

In Mr. Karzai’s speech to the jirga, he called the Taliban “brothers” and “dear Talibs,” and he described their flight to Pakistan and their fighting as a reaction to injustices done by local Afghans who had “disturbed them “ and by foreign troops.

“To those Taliban compelled to flee by the government’s and foreign troops’ mistakes, they are welcome and can come and join us,” Mr. Karzai said.

Not welcome, he noted, were those connected to Al Qaeda and those who have harmed innocent Afghans. He singled out those who killed teachers and scholars as particularly reprehensible.

“I can’t forgive,” Mr. Karzai said, “Al Qaeda or those who kill students, teachers, scholars, there is no room for them in the peace jirga.”

He made no reference to the main reasons people have given for joining the insurgency —frustration with a lack of government services and anger about governmental corruption and incompetence.

The jirga elected Burhanudin Rabbani as its chairman. Mr. Rabbani, head of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, is a member of the coalition of opposition presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah, who lost a contested election to President Karzai last year. Mr. Abdullah and many of his followers declined to participate in the jirga.

The consultative jirga, unlike a loya jirga, is nonbinding and the attendees were selected with heavy government input, raising questions about whether its conclusions will be taken seriously by Afghans.

Convening a jirga was one of Mr. Karzai’s central campaign promises before his re-election last year, made in recognition of the growing public unhappiness with the war.

The outcome is largely preordained, as the government has handpicked the delegates and broadly set the parameters of the discussion. But the event is not wholly without risk. It is already being criticized as being more symbolic than practical, and even as a show of national unity intended to wring money from international donors.

“If you were serious about a reconciliation process, a jirga like this would be the right thing to do, to consult the population, to discuss grievances, resolve issues,” said Martine van Biljert, co-director of the Afghanistan Analysts Network, a policy research organization. “But it doesn’t look like it will seriously provide a platform for any of this.”

Many of Mr. Karzai’s fellow ethnic Pashtuns insist that only talks with the Taliban leadership, and with Pakistan, which has long backed the insurgents, will end the war. Their support is critical since most of the fighting is in Pashtun areas, and the Taliban are predominantly Pashtuns.

“I will tell you in two words how to bring peace,” said Hajji Muhammad Omar, a member of Parliament from Kunduz, who served as a governor during the Taliban’s rule. “First, talk to the Taliban leadership and second, convince Pakistan.”

The jirga could call for the formation of a commission of elders to initiate contacts with the Taliban leadership, Mr. Wardak said. But many Pashtuns are already saying the jirga is a waste of time without the presence of the Taliban. According to Afghan tribal custom, a jirga is supposed to bring the two warring parties together on neutral ground while selected elders negotiate and then guarantee a settlement that is binding on all parties.

Mr. Karzai’s early plans to invite representatives of the Taliban and of Hezb-e-Islami were abandoned in February, Mr. Wardak said. The Taliban leadership council had agreed to enter talks and send representatives to a peace jirga, according to two Afghan security officials, but contacts ended after the arrest of the Taliban’s No. 2 leader, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, in January.

By ALISSA J. RUBIN and ROD NORDLAND

Afghan soldiers after a battle with Taliban suicide attackers that took place as President Hamid Karzai opened a peace assembly on Tuesday in Kabul.

Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) — A suicide bomb in Afghanistan’s capital killed at least a dozen civilians and five U.S. troops on Tuesday — a bloody strike claimed by the Taliban and deplored by the NATO coalition.

The blast, which occurred on a busy road near a NATO-led military convoy and a registration center for the Afghan Army, rocked an area close to government buildings fortified with security.

Officials were still trying to sort out the casualty numbers. Local medical officials said at least 12 civilians were killed and 48 others were injured. The British Foreign Office put the civilian death toll at 19.

Along with the five American troops, a Canadian service member died, Canada’s forces confirmed.

A spokesman for NATO’s International Security Assistance Force confirmed that five U.S. military vehicles were destroyed along with 13 civilian vehicles. One of the civilian vehicles was a bus filled with people.

Hours after the explosion, a nearby field was littered with charred body parts, some thrown hundreds of meters from the blast site.

Zabiullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, confirmed the operation and said the attacker was able to “destroy five foreign vehicles and damage one more.”

Calling the attack a “deplorable act of violence,” the U.S. Embassy said the strike demonstrates the Taliban’s “callous disregard for the well being of the Afghan people.”

British Foreign Minister Alistair Burt condemned the strike and said the British and international commitment “to support the Afghan government and people to work for a political solution through the peace jirga at the end of this month will not be shaken.”

The jirga is an assembly of tribal elders. Afghan President Hamid Karzai wants the elders to support a reintegration plan for Taliban members who renounce violence and lay down their arms.

Brig. Gen. Josef Blotz, an ISAF spokesman, called Tuesday’s attack “desperate brutality and aggression” and said it reflects “the pessimism of an enemy who seek to kill the innocent and to stop the progress necessary for a better Afghanistan.”

By the CNN

Car bomb rocks Afghan capital.

Anti-government Red Shirt protesters have ignored an ultimatum to abandon their occupation of central Bangkok, as the leaders of the demonstration promised to die rather than give in to the authorities.

Helicopters dropped leaflets warning that anyone caught inside the area faced two years in prison.

But almost two hours after the 3pm [9am UK time] deadline, several thousand people remained in the protest area, which has been sealed off and fortified with towering barricades of rubber tires and bamboo poles.

Weng Tojirakarn, a senior Red Shirt leader, said: “If you insist on brutality, we will stay here persistently, and we will tell our people, ‘Do not be afraid. Stay here, do not fight back, and let them shoot us.’”

Satit Wonghnongtaey, a minister attached to the office of the Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, said: “The operation [to disperse] will be executed as soon as possible. The authorities will do everything possible … including broadcast radio messages, police loudspeaker trucks and leaflets.”

But both sides still held out the faint possibility of a compromise, suggesting that even at the moment of greatest tension a peaceful solution was being discussed behind the scenes.

Panitan Wattanayagorn, spokesman for Mr Abhisit, said: “The Government is ready to go forward with negotiation when the situation is defused, when the protest ends, violence ends and attacks on authorities end.

“We insist they have to be sincere to make every effort to return the country to normality … This sincerity must be reflected by their action to bring back peace.”

Earlier, doctors announced the death in hospital of Major General Khattiya Sawasdiphol, a militant supporter of the Red Shirts. He was suspected by many Thais of organising a covert militia to fight off attempts to break up the demonstrations. General Khattiya was shot in the head last Thursday during an interview with an American reporter by an unidentified sniper.

Red Shirts in the central stronghold in the Ratchaprasong district wept as a song was sung to honour him and at least 36 other people killed in the past five days, as armed soldiers have attempted with mixed success to create a perimeter around the Red Shirt area.

Supplies of food, water and tires for constructing barricades are still entering Ratchaprasong. A new protest base has been established to the south-east at the Bon Kai intersection beneath one of Bangkok’s elevated expressways. Young men continued to play a dangerous cat and mouse game with soldiers along the Rama IV road in front of it, throwing fireworks and petrol bombs and ducking down side alleys when the soldiers fired their rifles.

The Government has frozen 106 personal and business bank accounts of leading Red Shirts and of companies associated with Thaksin Shinawatra, the former Prime Minister whose ejection from power in a 2006 coup was the beginning of the protest movement. The Reds are demanding that Mr Abhisit, whose party was repeatedly defeated by Mr Thaksin, step down and call a general election.

The authorities have been encouraging women and children to move from the protest area to the sanctuary of a nearby Buddhist temple, but the suggestion appears to have been largely ignored. Rojanee Cheepacrarat, a 57-year old volunteer nurse at one of the medical and first aid stations in the protest area, said: “My children are worried about me, but I am not afraid.

“I smile at the soldiers – I call them my sons. They are innocent, and they are scared – it is just their officers who tell them to shoot.”

There have been reports of splits among the protest leaders, with some of them favouring a compromise to bring an end to the confrontation, but Dr Weng insisted that they were united. He also called for direct intervention by foreign governments to pressure the Government.

“Let all the civilised countries of the world know [the truth of what is happening],” he said. “We cannot walk out of here, because they will shoot us with snipers.

“People all over the world are a brotherhood. How can they let their brothers be killed by this government?”

By Richard Lloyd Parry, Bangkok

A fainting woman among the guests led to safety out of the Dusit Thani hotel in Bangkok after an explosion and shots were heard nearby.

Officials in Iraq say the death toll from a wave of shootings and bomb attacks across the country Monday has risen to at least 67.

In the deadliest attack, at least 36 people were killed and 100 were wounded when two car bombs exploded in the central Iraqi city of Hilla.  Investigators say explosions occurred outside of a textile factory in the city, which is about 95 kilometers south of Baghdad.

Earlier Monday, 13 people were killed and 70 others injured in a double bombing in the town of Suwayra located about 50 kilometers south of Baghdad.

In the capital, gunmen killed seven Iraqi soldiers and policemen in attacks on six checkpoints.

In separate incidents, two people were killed in two separate bombings that targeted police officers south of Baghdad.

Meanwhile, a car bomb in Tarmiya, located north of the capital, killed three people and injured 16 others.

In the western city of Fallujah, four bombs were detonated outside of the homes of police officers, leaving four people dead and several injured.

Also, in the northeastern city of Mosul, two Kurdish soldiers were killed when a suicide bomber detonated a car bomb near a checkpoint manned by Iraqi and Kurdish forces.

An Iraqi man walks through rubble at the site of a bombing that targeted police in Fallujah, west of Baghdad, Iraq, 10 May 2010.