February 13, 2012
BAGHDAD: Al-Qaida’s chief has called on Muslims from other countries to support rebels in Syria seeking to overthrow President Bashar Assad, saying they cannot depend on the West for help.
Ayman al-Zawahri, in a videotaped statement released late Saturday, asked Muslims in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey to join the uprising against Assad’s ”pernicious, cancerous regime.” All four states border Syria.
International
February 13, 2012
CAIRO: The Arab League said it agreed on Sunday to open contacts with Syria’s opposition and to ask the United Nations to form a joint peacekeeping force to the unrest-swept country.
Arab diplomats “will open channels of communication with the Syrian opposition and offer full political and financial support, urging (the opposition) to unify its ranks,” it said in a statement obtained by AFP.
They would also “ask the UN Security Council to issue a decision on the formation of a joint UN-Arab peacekeeping force to oversee the implementation of a ceasefire,” it said.
International
February 13, 2012
QUETTA: Afghan security forces kidnapped two Pakistanis in southwestern Baluchistan province in Pakistan and later killed them, officials said on Sunday.
Some two dozen Afghan security force officers crossed the border into southwestern Pakistan on Friday and kidnapped the two Pakistanis, taking them back into Afghanistan, secretary of tribal affairs Naseebullah Bazai told AFP.
“Two Pakistanis were taken away by Afghan forces and shot dead inside Afghanistan,” Bazai said, adding that the government had called an immediate meeting with the Afghan Consulate General in Quetta.
International
February 13, 2012
TRIPOLI: Three people died and 23 were wounded during fierce clashes on Saturday between Lebanese Sunni Muslims hostile to Syria’s regime and Alawites who support it, a Lebanese security official said.
“A Sunni and an Alawite were killed and 23 people were wounded in clashes that continued since Friday between people from the neighbourhoods of Jabal Mohsen and Bab al-Tebbaneh” in the northern city of Tripoli, the official told AFP.
A 17-year-old girl died of her wounds later.
International
February 13, 2012
SRINAGAR: Protesters blocked a main highway in restive Indian administered Kashmir on Saturday after a young man was shot dead by the army in what military officials described as an “accidental” shooting.
Ashiq Hussain Rather, 22, was killed late on Friday when a soldier accidentally fired his rifle as security forces combed the area for militants, the army said.
The killing occurred in the Baramulla district of the scenic Kashmir valley.
International
February 13, 2012
MALE: The new Maldivian President Monday welcomed a Commonwealth mission to investigate the ousting of his predecessor as fresh clashes broke out in the streets of the restive capital Male.
President Mohamed Waheed agreed to a Commonwealth ministerial probe into the dramatic fall of Mohamed Nasheed, the nation’s first democratically-elected leader who came to power in 2008, spokesman Masood Imad said.
International
February 13, 2012
RIYADH, Saudi police forces exchanged fire with a group of masked men during a protest in the kingdom’s east killing one, state news agency SPA reported early Saturday, in the second such incident over the past 48 hours.
“Security forces came under fire from masked gunmen as they were following an unauthorised gathering (Friday) in the Shia town of Al-Awamiya in Qatif province,” SPA quoted a police spokesman as saying. Police “responded, sparking a fire exchange that resulted in wounding one of them who died later.”
International
February 13, 2012
ALEPPO: Two suicide car bombers struck security compounds in Aleppo, killing 28 people, Syrian officials have said the first significant violence in an industrial center that has largely stood by President Bashar Assad during the 11-month uprising against his rule.
Anti-Assad activists denied any involvement and accused the regime of setting off Friday’s blasts to smear the opposition as government forces pummel rebels in one of their main strongholds, Homs. State media touted the bombings as proof the regime faces a campaign by terrorists, not a popular uprising.
International
February 13, 2012
TOKYO: A scare over temperatures rising near danger level in a reactor at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, where workers are battling to prevent a resurgence of the radiation crisis, could be a false alarm, the plant operator said on Monday.
Instruments showed the temperature inside the plant's No.2 reactor topped 90 Celsius on Monday, double what it was a month ago and close to boiling point, in which water cooling nuclear fuel in the reactor could evaporate and start a new meltdown.
International
February 13, 2012
CAIRO: Thousands rallied outside Egypt’s defence ministry on Friday demanding the military rulers’ ouster on the eve of a planned civil disobedience campaign marking Hosni Mubarak’s overthrow a year ago.
During the day, several groups of protesters converged near the ministry building, as the security forces blocked off access with barbed wire and tanks.
Military music blared out from behind the barrier, while the activists chanted slogans such as: “The people want the execution of the Field Marshal”Hussein Tantawi, head of the ruling military council since Mubarak’s ouster.
International
