Thursday, 17 March 2011
Written by Editor
NEW DELHI: From Sierra Leone and Sudan to Iraq and Afghanistan, the term "child soldier" has been used to denote the conscription of children below the age of 15 into armed conflicts. Now, "child pirate" is likely to gain similar currency.
Indian authorities have been confounded to find that as many as 25 of the 61 pirates, apprehended after a gun-battle with naval warships in Arabian Sea on Saturday, are children below 15.
"At least four of them are just 11 or so. It seems younger and younger children in Somalia are being pushed into piracy, which is proving immensely lucrative in the lawless country...the established pirates, who have got rich, are no longer sailing out on raids," said an official.
Though there were a few youngsters among the 43 pirates nabbed in the earlier two encounters with the Navy on January 28 and February 5, this is the first time so many children below 15 have been apprehended.
With India's legal system is grappling with the absence of a specific provision dealing with piracy in the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the presence of "child pirates" will further complicate matters.
Thursday, 12 May 2011
Written by Editor
WASHINGTON: Calling Pakistani intelligence's failure to detect Osama bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad a "massive slip-up," ex-President Pervez Musharraf has admitted that "rogue" members of ISI and military may have helped the al-Qaeda chief hide in plain sight in the garrison city.
Musharraf, who lives in Britain in self-exile, said the "rogue" lower-level members of the powerful ISI and military might have known about bin Laden's location during the last year of his presidency six years ago.
"It's really appalling that he was there and nobody knew. I'm certainly appalled that I didn't know and that intelligence people from that time onward didn't know for six years that he was inside.
"And there is no excuse for this great, massive slip-up. And an investigation is in order and people must be punished for this big lapse," Musharraf told ABC News.
As a policy, the army and ISI are fighting terrorism and extremism, including al-Qaida and Taliban, he said.
Saturday, 14 May 2011
Written by Editor
WASHINGTON: A top Pakistani general on Friday cancelled a scheduled visit to the United States in a show of the Pakistani military's pique and anger against Washington as the Obama administration struggled to put ties back on the rails after the American raid that killed Osama bin Laden sparked off a furore in both countries.
The efforts were complicated by a massive blowback from militants in the form of a suicide attack that killed 80 people in Pakistan on Friday, compounded by a fourth drone strike inside Pakistan after the Osama kill as part of an unsparing American policy against suspected terrorists.
There was some marginal improvement in civilian engagement between the two sides with Pakistan providing access to the three widows of Osama bin Laden for questioning that reportedly yielded little in face of their hostility. Pakistan ambassador to the US also did his bit to douse disquiet in Washington by offering assurances that his country would not give China access to the US helicopter wreckage from which Beijing could extract proprietary American technologies.
Wednesday, 08 June 2011
Written by Editor
WASHINGTON: The United States has described India's proposed purchase of 10 Boeing C-17 Globemaster heavy-lift transport aircraft in a $4.1 billion deal as indicative of growing military and humanitarian ties between the two countries.
The deal announced during President Barack Obama's India visit "will double the value of US-Indian defence trade and provide the Indian Air Force with a strategic airlift and humanitarian response capability that, frankly, is unique in the region," State department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters.
"It will broaden India's capability, for instance, to provide humanitarian assistance to people devastated by natural disasters," he said.
"It will also allow them to deploy peacekeeping troops around the world and to evacuate its citizens from areas of civil strife anywhere in the world," Toner said.
"And I would just say that this deal is indicative of our growing military and humanitarian ties.
Monday, 12 September 2011
Written by Editor
NEW YORK: Two military aircraft escorted a New York-bound American Airlines flight from Los Angeles after three passengers locked themselves in the bathroom, officials said Sunday, the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks. A law enforcement official said it wasn't thought to be terrorism related.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command scrambled two F-16 jets to shadow Flight 34 until it landed safely at New York's John F Kennedy International Airport shortly after 4 pm (2000 GMT), the Transportation Security Administration said in a statement.
A NORAD spokesman said passengers locked themselves in the bathroom and were still inside when the plane landed. The FBI was responding to the airport. The official was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
A law enforcement official says it isn't thought to be terrorism. A NORAD spokesman confirmed the military aircraft intercepted the flight about 100 miles (160 kilometers) west of New York and shadowed it until it landed.
Thursday, 29 September 2011
Written by Editor
NEW DELHI: From just a couple of joint exercises annually a decade ago, Indian Army is really cranking up its engagement with foreign armies now. The 1.13-million force will undertake as many as 16 combat exercises with friendly forces in 2011-2012.
The flurry of exercises constitute an effective diplomatic tool to enhance overall strategic ties and military-to-military cooperation with countries in India's "immediate" and "strategic neighbourhood" as well as "priority nations'' far away.
From US, UK, France, Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan to Bangladesh, Myanmar, Nepal, Maldives, Seychelles, Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand, the response has been "simply overwhelming", say Army officers.
"Other armies are very keen to exercise with us since we have six decades of combat experience across the entire spectrum of conflict. One of the main focus areas in the exercises has been counter-terrorism/counter-insurgency in rural, semi-urban and urban terrains," said a senior officer.
Sunday, 23 October 2011
Written by Editor
CIZRE: Turkey on Saturday kept up a major offensive against Kurdish rebels on its border and in northern Iraq on the third day of operations after rebel attacks killed 24 Turkish soldiers. The military activity continued on both sides of the border, said an AFP photographer in the southeastern town of Cizre, less than 40 miles (70 kilometres) from the Iraqi frontier. Local residents saw a convoy of 43 military trucks returning from the north of Iraq where members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) are holed up, he added. The operation was continuing in Kazan valley in Hakkari province in the southeast, private NTV television reported. Turkish helicopters dropped commando units and several Kurdish rebels were killed in clashes, it added. Fifty-three rebels were killed since the operations began in the Kazan valley, the daily Hurriyet reported on its website, quoting unidentified sources as saying that the toll could increase. More than 30 of the rebels were killed on Saturday, it added.
Wednesday, 02 November 2011
Written by Editor
NEW DELHI: Lt Gen Shri Krishna Singh, a veteran Gorkha soldier, today took over as the Army's vice chief and asked the troops to remain vigilant to "stay one step ahead" of militants.
Singh succeeded Lt Gen Arvinder Singh Lamba, who superannuated yesterday.
"The militants tend to acquire new techniques and we have to be vigilant always to stay one step ahead of them," he told reporters soon after taking over the new post.
He said the Army was well-prepared to tackle both external and internal challenges faced by the country.
Lt Gen Singh is also one of the first officers to have been commissioned into the Army after the 1971 Bangladesh War.
Prior to this appointment, the Gorkha officer was commanding the Jaipur-based South Western Army.
In his career span of over 35 years, the General officer has commanded a brigade in Siachen Glacier, an infantry division on Line of Control and the Leh-based 14 Corps.
He has the privilege of being Colonel of 8 Gorkha Rifles (Sam's Own) since April 1, 2006, of which Field Marshal SHFJ Manekshaw was the first Colonel post-Independence.
Sunday, 18 March 2012
Written by Editor
DUBAI: Saudi Arabia is delivering military equipment to Syrian rebels in an effort to stop bloodshed by President Bashar al-Assad's regime, a top Arab diplomat said on Saturday.
"Saudi military equipment is on its way to Jordan to arm the Free Syrian Army," the diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity.
"This is a Saudi initiative to stop the massacres in Syria," he added saying further "details will follow at a later time."
The announcement came two days after the kingdom said it had shut down its embassy in Syria and withdrawn all its staff.
It also followed a brief meeting on the Syrian crisis last week between Jordan's King Abdullah and the Saudi monarch in Riyadh.
There was no official reaction to the statement from Riyadh or Amman, which this month called for a diplomatic solution to the Syrian crisis, arguing Jordan was among the worst affected by its repercussions.
Jordan shares its northern border with Syria, through which more than 65 per cent of its trade transits.
Thursday, 23 September 2010
Written by Editor
NEW YORK: America's CIA is running a 3,000-strong covert army to hunt down key leaders of Taliban and al-Qaida in not only Afghanistan but across the border in Pakistan.
This heavily-armed irregular force manned entirely by Afghan personnel operates in small units called Counter- terrorism Pursuit Teams, the New York Times reported today quoting extracts from a new book 'Obama's wars' by journalist Bob Woodward.
The stunning disclosures in the book which is making waves for laying bare the policy divisions and the personality clashes among the Obama advisors on the Afghan policy may complicate relations between Washington and Islamabad, the paper said.
"Firing missiles from unmanned drones patrolling over Pakistan's turbulent northwest tribal region at a rate that has outstripped the Bush administration's record is bad enough and now to have brigade size paramilitary units operating inside Pakistan marks a significant expansion of the covert war that the Obama administration has waged there," the book claims.
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