India demands extradition of terror suspects in Pakistan, Hannah Cooper

Hannah Cooper — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 10:15:46 +0000

During a meeting on Monday night, a list of about twenty names of suspected terrorists linked with the Mumbai massacre was passed to Pakistan's High Commissioner to India. The Indian government is calling for their extradition. Included in the list are Dawood Ibrahim, who is thought to have been behind the 1993 bombings in Mumbai and tops India's most wanted list, and Maulana Masood Azhar, the leader of the banned Pakistani militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed.Keep up to date with the latest developments and sharpest perspectives in a world of strife and struggle.

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The toD verdict: Ajmal Qasab, the only surviving terrorist from last week's attacks on Mumbai, revealed during interrogation that he was part of a terrorist cell who trained in Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) camps in Pakistan, learning close-combat techniques, hostage-taking, handling of explosives and satellite navigation. They then captured an Indian ship in order to travel to Mumbai. LeT, banned as a terrorist organisation by the US and Great Britain in 2001, was banned a year later by the Pakistani authorities.

However, on Tuesday night, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari maintained that the attacks on Mumbai were instigated by stateless actors and that Pakistan was in no way responsible. Despite a White House announcement on Monday that they have no reason to suspect Pakistani involvement in the attacks and trust Zardari's government, Pakistan is being urged on all sides to take strong action against groups on their soil who are thought responsible for the attacks. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who arrived in New Delhi on Wednesday, has implored the Pakistani government to cooperate with their Indian counterpart. Zardari has assured the international community that he is complying with Indian investigations.

Pranab Mukherjee, the Indian foreign minister, said on Tuesday that India was not planning on launching a military campaign in response to the attacks in Mumbai, but in response to the question of what they would do should Pakistan not comply with the extradition orders, which do not yet have clear international support, the Indian government said: "We will cross the bridge when we come to it".

Indian finger pointing has further strained its relations with Pakistan and it remains to be seen what long-term effects last week's events will have upon efforts to forge a satisfactory resolution to the dispute over Kashmir. Indeed, the terrorist attacks on Mumbai have removed the spotlight from the elections in this region, which have been marked by sporadic acts of violence and the deaths of anti-election boycotters.

Pirates thwarted in attempted hijack

Despite chasing and shooting at a US cruise liner carrying 656 international passengers and 399 crew members, Somalian pirates were thwarted in their attempt to capture the vessel on Sunday in the Gulf of Aden. The pirates approached the liner in speedboats but the latter proved faster than the aggressors.

Piracy off the coast of Somalia has provoked an international crisis and led to the UN Security Council's adoption of a resolution allowing member states to continue fighting the pirates for another year, in addition to a planned European Union anti-piracy mission which is to commence next week.

Italy arrests ‘DIY' terrorists

The arrest of two suspected terrorists in Milan was announced on Tuesday, with eight under investigation. The men, both of Moroccan origin and residing legally in Italy, are purportedly members of a terrorist cell that was planning an attack on targets including a military base, police station, nightclub and supermarket. Italian police picked up on the activities of the men after they were monitored researching explosive techniques and discussing attacks. Bruno Megale, chief of the anti-terrorism united in Milan, called the actions "do-it-yourself terrorism", saying that the group had no established international network but drew much inspiration from al-Qaeda. The charge made against the two men, of "international terrorism", was one that was introduced into Italian law in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, and if convicted, they could face up to 15 years in prison.

Two die in Israeli air strike

An Israeli air strike, supposedly launched in response to the firing of mortar bombs across the border into Israeli by Palestinian insurgents, killed two and injured four others in the town of Rafah in the southern Gaza strip on Tuesday. Reports have emerged that both of the dead were civilians, one as young as 15, even though the Israeli army maintains that it was targeting Palestinian fighters.

The day before, Hebron saw violence break out between Israeli settlers and Palestinians due to a dispute over property ownership which saw some settlers defy a court order to leave their house. Five Palestinians were wounded, including children. The last few weeks have seen increased tension and violence between the Israelis and the Palestinians as the ceasefire in place since June, due to expire later this month, has been increasingly ignored. The UN is also warning of a humanitarian crisis in Gaza with the Israeli blockade provoking shortages of food, fuel and medical supplies.

In Iraq, death toll from bomb attacks rises

Tuesday saw the death of at least fourteen people across Iraq due to bomb attacks. The first was detonated outside a school in the northern city of Mosul, killing four people, including two children. A military checkpoint was also targeted by a suicide car bomber in an incident which killed five and wounded 25 in Tal Afar in the north of the country. The third bomb was set off at the side of a road in Hilla, south of Baghdad, as an Iraqi army convoy was passing. Five Iraqi soldiers were killed in this attack.

These strikes come just a day after bomb attacks across Iraq killed at least 30 people. Many people see these them as a message of contempt for the security pact passed in the Iraqi parliament last week which sets a deadline of the end of 2011 for the complete withdrawal of US troops from the country.

Soldiers and riot police clash in Zimbabwe

In the second of such protests in just one week, junior soldiers of the Zimbabwean army rioted in the capital on Monday after they were unable to withdraw their pay, made almost worthless by the country's 231 million percent inflation rate. The unarmed rioters attacked banks and shops and were repulsed with tear gas when riot police arrived. Several arrests were made and an investigation was launched on Tuesday, with army generals loyal to Mugabe vowing to take strong measures against those involved in the protests; it has been reported that three of the 12 soldiers who took part in last Thursday's riot have been killed.

Whilst these protests were small and a western diplomat has described them as "low-grade anarchy" rather than a "mutiny", they still point to a weakening of Mugabe's control over the forces that have hitherto propped up his regime. They reveal the rising desperation in Zimbabwe, a country currently seized by a cholera epidemic, and if the numbers involved become more significant they could pose a significant threat to Mugabe and his supporters.

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India demands extradition of terror suspects in Pakistan, Hannah Cooper