Bold attack on Kashmir minister leaves guard dead

SRINAGAR: Suspected rebels opened fire on the law minister in India-controlled Kashmir, killing one of his police guards and wounding three others, police said on Monday.

Law Minister Ali Mohammed Sagar ducked and crawled into his house to escape the attack Sunday night unharmed, a police officer said on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak with media.

Sagar had been greeting guests arriving for his niece’s engagement party at his home in Srinagar, the main city of Indian Kashmir, when gunmen sprayed the area with bullets before fleeing the scene, police said in a statement.

One of Sagar’s police guards was killed at the scene. Two other guards as well as Sagar’s driver were being treated Monday for gunshot wounds in a Srinagar hospital.

No militant group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack.

Muslim militants have been fighting since 1989 against Indian rule in the disputed Himalayan territory. More than 68,000 people have died in the violence and subsequent Indian crackdowns.

Sunday’s attack was unusually brazen for recent years after Indian forces largely suppressed insurgent strikes. Kashmiris now show resistance mostly in demonstrations.

Less than two weeks ago, however, suspected rebels in Srinagar shot and wounded a member of the state’s governing National Conference, a pro-India party.

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Al-Qaeda group claims kidnap of five Westerners in Mali

WASHINGTON: A statement from a group identifying itself as al-Qaeda in the Magreb has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of five Europeans in Mali in two separate incidents, the SITE monitoring group said on Sunday.

The message posted along with pictures of the victims on Jihadi forums identified two French nationals and “identified three others as Europeans but didn’t indicate their nationality,” said SITE in a statement.

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb (AQIM) said the kidnappings were a revenge act for the “repeated aggression” of France in the region and the “continuous foolish policies” of French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

They meanwhile denied involvement in the abduction of three Europeans in Algeria that was claimed on Saturday by an AQIM splinter group.

AQIM, addressing Sarkozy directly, said in the statemement released by SITE: “So, if you want, you have the ability to preserve their lives and release them as soon as you respond to the legitimate demands of the mujahideen; and if you want, you have the ability to kill them, whether by refusing or by being hasty and committing another uncalculated foolishness.”

The Mauritanian news agency ANI had previously carried pictures of the abducted five Westerners claimed by AQIM.

One photo showed French nationals Serge Lazarevic and Philippe Verdon with three armed men behind them, their faces obscured by turbans.

The other showed a Dutch national, a Swede and a man with dual British-South African nationality surrounded by four armed men, their faces similarly masked.

The group meanwhile in the statement denied kidnapping two Spanish nationals and an Italian from a refugee camp in Algeria in a seperate incident that has been claimed by a group which said it had broken away from AQIM.

On Saturday, that off-shoot group – calling itself the Jamat Tawhid Wal Jihad Fi Garbi Afriqqiya in West Africa – claimed the October kidnapping in an audio and written message sent to AFP’s correspondent in Bamako.

Security sources in the region have recently spoken of the formation of the breakaway group, which means “Unity Movement for Jihad in West Africa.”

The kidnapping of tourists in the region, which began in 2003 when 32 German and Swiss travellers were seized in southern Algeria, has become big business for local people looking to sell a foreigner to AQIM for a quick windfall.

AQIM grew out of a movement launched in the late 1990s by radical Algerian Islamists who sought the overthrow of the Algerian government to be replaced with Islamic rule.

The organisation linked to al-Qaeda in 2006.

These militant Islamists have spun a tight network across tribes, clans, family and business lines that stretch across the Sahel.

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Posted in: INTERNATIONAL

Obama meets Maliki as US exits Iraq

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama meets Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Monday, marking America’s exit from a war launched in a aerial “shock and awe” assault that went on to deeply wound both nations.

Obama will hold talks with Maliki at the White House, have a press conference and join his visitor at nearby Arlington National Cemetery where many of the nearly 4,500 US war dead lie buried following the 2003 US invasion.

Tens of thousands of Iraqis also died in a war, insurgency and civil dislocation that left Iraq with the stirrings of a democratic, yet troubled political system and facing territorial challenges from neighbor Iran.

The meeting will be an important full circle moment in Obama’s presidency, as his initial opposition to an unpopular war as an unknown Illinois state lawmaker powered his unlikely rise to the pinnacle of US power.

Since then though, Obama has proved a steely commander-in-chief, escalating the Afghan war even as he pulled troops out of Iraq and intensified a ruthless US covert campaign against al-Qaeda leaders and foot soldiers.

Maliki will meet Obama less than a month before the complete withdrawal of US troops from Iraq and more than eight years after the launch of the US-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein.

Maliki will also meet with Vice President Joe Biden and lawmakers to discuss security, energy, education and justice.

The US and Iraqi leaders “will hold talks on the removal of US military forces from Iraq, and our efforts to start a new chapter in the comprehensive strategic partnership between the United States and Iraq,” the White House said.

The full withdrawal from Iraq was mandated under an agreement concluded by the former administration of President George W. Bush.

Long-running talks designed to provide for a future US training mission by US troops failed over the issue of providing immunity for US troops in Iraq, though both sides say they are still talking on future military exchanges.

The meeting comes as Iraq’s top security adviser said that Nato will mirror the nearly-complete pullout of US forces by withdrawing its Iraq training mission at year’s end after Baghdad refused to grant it legal immunity.

But an official at Nato headquarters in Brussels denied that any decision had been taken.

“When they ask us to extend the mission, we need to see that the same legal framework will extend as well,” the official said on condition of anonymity.

Iraq said the end of the mission was a surprise, with Nato previously having agreed in principle to staying through to the end of 2013.

“We are sorry that Nato has advised that it will withdraw its mission from Iraq… because immunity is something that is out of the government’s reach,” National Security Adviser Falah al-Fayadh said in an interview aboard a flight transporting Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to Washington.

He said Baghdad was informed of the decision on Thursday.

The failure to agree on immunity from prosecution closely mirrors Iraq’s refusal to grant US soldiers similar protections earlier this year, sinking the deal between the two countries that means all American soldiers left in Iraq will leave by December 31.

Around 6,000 US troops remain stationed in the country on three bases, down from peaks of nearly 170,000 soldiers and 505 bases. All the troops must leave by the end of the month.

For his third visit to the United States since coming to power in May 2006, Maliki is being accompanied by Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, Culture Minister and acting Defence Minister Saadun al-Dulaimi, Transport Minister Khayrullah Hassan Babakir, Trade Minister Hadi al-Ameri and National Security Adviser Falah al-Fayadh.

Also on the trip are National Investment Commission chief Sami al-Araji and Maliki’s chief adviser and former oil minister Thamer al-Ghadban.

With American troops on their way out, some Republican lawmakers have expressed concern that neighboring Iran could step into the security vacuum.

The US military leaves behind an Iraqi security force with more than 900,000 troops, which US and Iraqi officials assess is capable of maintaining internal security but cannot defend the country’s borders, airspace or maritime territory.

Some 157 uniformed US soldiers and up to 763 civilian contractors will remain to help train Iraqi forces under the authority of the sprawling US embassy in Baghdad.

Obama will mark the final withdrawal of all US troops from Iraq by addressing returning soldiers on Wednesday at a base in North Carolina.

Facing a reelection battle in November, Obama is expected to stress he has kept his 2008 campaign promise to bring American troops home from Iraq.

But although violence has declined markedly from the sectarian bloodbath that marked a peak in 2006-2007 when tens of thousands were left dead, it remains a common feature of modern Iraq. In November alone, 187 people were killed in attacks, and several major bombings took place this month.

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Posted in: INTERNATIONAL