White House says Obama administration's special envoy has stepped down, following two "tough" years in the position.
George Mitchell,the Obama administration's special Middle East peace envoy, has resigned after more than two years of trying to press Israel and the Palestinians into negotiations, US officials said.
The White House announced on Friday that the former senator and broker of the Northern Ireland peace deal had stepped down for personal reasons.Accepting Mitchell's resignation, Barack Obama, the US president, said in a statement that the veteran mediator "has contributed immeasurably to the goal of two states living side by side in peace and security".
"As a nation, we remain committed to peace in the Middle East and to building on George's hard work and progress toward achieving this goal," he said.
David Hale, the deputy Middle East envoy, has been asked to serve as the acting envoy by Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state.
"I have every confidence in David's ability to continue to make progress in this important effort," Obama said.
Al Jazeera's Patty Culhane, reporting from Washington, said Mitchell's resignation could be "a sign or symbol that the Obama administration is going to refocus its efforts on the Israeli-Palestinian process".
"Mitchell did make a push for peace, but weeks later it fizzled because of Israel's refusal to stop the settlement building. Since then it really has dropped out of the headlines in the US," she said.
Unfruitful efforts
Mitchell, 77, had spent much of the last two years shuttling between the Israelis and Palestinians in a bid to restart long-stalled peace talks.
Direct peace talks resumed briefly last year but broke down over Israeli settlement construction on occupied land.
Faced with deadlock, the US in December scrapped efforts to relaunch direct peace talks and Mitchell
has not visited the region since then.
In recent months, his activity had slowed markedly as the two sides drifted farther apart.
"From the Senate to Northern Ireland to the State Department, his work has brought peace and increasing prosperity to millions of people around the world and made our own country stronger and more secure," Clinton said in a statement on Friday.
Obama has recently made changes to his Middle East policy team and named Daniel Shapiro, a senior adviser who has helped shape the response to the Middle East upheaval, as his nominee to be the new US ambassador to Israel.
"We've been hearing from the White House that president Obama is going to give a big speech where he'll place a new focus on the Middle East peace process," said Culhane.
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Saturday, May 14, 2011
Deaths as Syrian army storms border town
At least four people killed after troops open fire near Lebanese border, as thousands attend funeral of shot protester.
At least four people have died after army troops stormed the town of Talkalakh in the restive Homs province in western Syria.
Witnesses said those killed on Saturday were among dozens of people attempting to leave Talkalakh and enter Lebanon, which borders the town, a day after a mass demonstration there against the rule of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.
"The security forces, who had been encircling Talkalakh since the morning, fired machine guns. At least three people were killed and several were wounded," a witness told the AFP news agency.
A fourth died in hospital in Lebanon from gunshot wounds sustained while fleeing the Syrian town, medical sources said.
Another eyewitness on the border told Al Jazeera that at least 19 people were wounded as the military swooped into the town.
The violence came after more than 8,000 people attended a funeral in the provincial capital of Homs for one of three protesters killed on Friday by Syrian security forces.
Mourners for Fouad al-Rajoub gathered near Bab al-Dreib and began making their way through the city, chanting for an end to the siege on Homs, Baniyas and Deraa, the major flashpoints in the country's uprising.
An eyewitness in the city said that, due to the size of the procession, the military had removed and relocated some of the checkpoints it had established throughout the city since mass anti-regime protests erupted there last month."Everything is peaceful now but we will be passing government buildings and I fear the snipers will open fire on us," he said.
Syrian army personnel were deployed in Talkalakh after officials said troops and tanks were pulled out of Baniyas and Deraa.
Security barriers were set up at the entrances of the Talkalakh and heavy gunfire was heard, according to activists' accounts. Security forces were deployed in surrounding villages as well.
Lebanese security officials said cracks of gunfire could be heard on the Lebanese side of the border.
Officials said scores of Syrians, including at least four injured people, had crossed into Lebanon - fleeing the violence in their country that has left at least 775 people dead since the start of the protest movement in mid-March.
'National dialogue'
Meanwhile, Adnan Mahmoud, the minister of information, announced "a comprehensive national dialogue in all Syrian governorates," Syria's state-run SANA news agency reported on Saturday.
In a press conference on Friday, Mahmoud said that the government was implementing "a comprehensive political, economic and social reform program in the interest of the people".
"There is a correlation between security and stability from one hand, and the reform from the other hand," SANA quote the minister as saying.
Mahmoud said army units had started to leave the coastal city of Baniyas and completed a pullout from Deraa, although residents there reported tanks outside mosques in the morning.
Aref Dalila, an economist who met Shaaban last week, said "the domination of the security apparatus over life in Syria" must end for different opinions to be represented.
"We are long used to these 'dialogues' in Syria, where the regime assembles its loyalists in a conference and the other opinion is either in jail or underground," he said.
According to the Syrian government "police and security forces have been sent to pursue armed groups which perpetrated acts of killing citizens, terrorised people, burned public and private properties, halted social and economic life, threatened schools and public security".
Source: Al Jazeera and agencies
At least four people have died after army troops stormed the town of Talkalakh in the restive Homs province in western Syria.
Witnesses said those killed on Saturday were among dozens of people attempting to leave Talkalakh and enter Lebanon, which borders the town, a day after a mass demonstration there against the rule of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.
"The security forces, who had been encircling Talkalakh since the morning, fired machine guns. At least three people were killed and several were wounded," a witness told the AFP news agency.
A fourth died in hospital in Lebanon from gunshot wounds sustained while fleeing the Syrian town, medical sources said.
Another eyewitness on the border told Al Jazeera that at least 19 people were wounded as the military swooped into the town.
The violence came after more than 8,000 people attended a funeral in the provincial capital of Homs for one of three protesters killed on Friday by Syrian security forces.
Mourners for Fouad al-Rajoub gathered near Bab al-Dreib and began making their way through the city, chanting for an end to the siege on Homs, Baniyas and Deraa, the major flashpoints in the country's uprising.
An eyewitness in the city said that, due to the size of the procession, the military had removed and relocated some of the checkpoints it had established throughout the city since mass anti-regime protests erupted there last month."Everything is peaceful now but we will be passing government buildings and I fear the snipers will open fire on us," he said.
Syrian army personnel were deployed in Talkalakh after officials said troops and tanks were pulled out of Baniyas and Deraa.
Security barriers were set up at the entrances of the Talkalakh and heavy gunfire was heard, according to activists' accounts. Security forces were deployed in surrounding villages as well.
Lebanese security officials said cracks of gunfire could be heard on the Lebanese side of the border.
Officials said scores of Syrians, including at least four injured people, had crossed into Lebanon - fleeing the violence in their country that has left at least 775 people dead since the start of the protest movement in mid-March.
'National dialogue'
Meanwhile, Adnan Mahmoud, the minister of information, announced "a comprehensive national dialogue in all Syrian governorates," Syria's state-run SANA news agency reported on Saturday.
In a press conference on Friday, Mahmoud said that the government was implementing "a comprehensive political, economic and social reform program in the interest of the people".
"There is a correlation between security and stability from one hand, and the reform from the other hand," SANA quote the minister as saying.
Mahmoud said army units had started to leave the coastal city of Baniyas and completed a pullout from Deraa, although residents there reported tanks outside mosques in the morning.
Aref Dalila, an economist who met Shaaban last week, said "the domination of the security apparatus over life in Syria" must end for different opinions to be represented.
"We are long used to these 'dialogues' in Syria, where the regime assembles its loyalists in a conference and the other opinion is either in jail or underground," he said.
According to the Syrian government "police and security forces have been sent to pursue armed groups which perpetrated acts of killing citizens, terrorised people, burned public and private properties, halted social and economic life, threatened schools and public security".
Source: Al Jazeera and agencies
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Bahrain denies mass sackings over protests
The head of Bahrain's civil service has denied that any employees were sacked after the largely Shia pro-democracy protests that the Gulf Arab kingdom crushed last month with military reinforcements from some of its neighbours.
Bahraini opposition groups and rights organisations say hundreds of public employees were dismissed on the grounds that they took part in protests. The government argues it had taken steps only against those who committed crimes during the protests.
"Up to now, no one has been dismissed for disciplinary reasons," state media quoted Ahmad bin Zayed al-Zayed, the head of the civil service, as saying.
He said further that any disciplinary measures for alleged involvement in the uprising would be for strictly defined administrative and criminal offences.
In comments reported late on Tuesday on Bahrain's state news agency, al-Zayed denied "what has been said about the dismissal of a number of employees ... in positions under the umbrella of the civil service".
Bahrain, which hosts the Fifth Fleet of the US navy, has a free trade pact with the US which the AFL-CIO trade union confederation last week urged the US to pull out of in response to violations of human and labour rights by Bahrain.
The International Labour Organisation (ILO), a specialised agency of the UN that deals with labour issues, has sent a team to Bahrain to share its concerns with high-level government officials, a spokesperson told Al Jazeera.
The representatives were due to meet members of the government, trade unionists and employer representatives on Wednesday and Thursday to discuss the dismissals of trade unionists alleged to have participated in recent demonstrations.
They were also expected to raise the issue of judicial actions taken by the government against the General Federation of Bahraini Trade Unions.
Bahraini unionists called strikes in solidarity with the Pearl Roundabout protests in February.
Dragged from workplace
The Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR), an opposition group central to the recent Shia-led anti-government protests, put the number of detainees at 817.
The figure included 71 women - in a clear breach of tradition in the conservative Muslim Gulf region, where women embody the honour of a family.
"This is a new phenomenon in Bahrain," Nabil Rajab, the head of the BCHR, said.
One woman who spoke to the AFP news agency said she was threatened with rape if she did not confess to taking part in protests.
"You'd better confess. Otherwise, I'd take you to the other interrogation room where men would make you talk," she said, quoting an officer's threat.The woman said she was dragged from her workplace along with other Shia Muslim colleagues. In the bus to the police station, policewomen slapped their faces and made them chant pro-monarchy slogans, she said.
Bahrain is ruled by the Sunni Muslim Al-Khalifa family.
She asked for details of her job not to be disclosed because police warned those arrested not to talk about their ordeal while in custody.
The woman said she eventually confessed to taking part in demonstrations at Pearl Square, the epicentre of the anti-regime protests, and also to protesting at work.
She said she shared a cell with several doctors, nurses and teachers. While being released, she said she saw teenage female students being dragged into a police station and beaten mercilessly by policewomen.
"They used to punish us psychologically by opening a door leading to the men's section of the police station so we could see them being beaten. We would hear their screams under torture," she said.
Shia targeted
Although security forces showed restraint in driving protesters from Pearl Square, the authorities later unleashed police on Shia dissidents nationwide.
"We can call this now a regime of sectarian separation that is working on a sectarian purge" of Shia, Rajab charged, citing raids on schools and medical centres during which Shia Muslims were ordered to line up separately from Sunnis.
Mattar Ibrahim Mattar, who quit parliament along with 17 other MPs in Wefaq, a Shia opposition group, in February in protest at violence against protesters, also spoke of Shia employees being sacked if they were suspected of having taken part in demonstrations.
"Police raid medical centres and separate employees based on their sects, then order Shias to stand by the wall and put their arms up ... while masked informers point out" those who joined the protests, he said.
More than 1,000 Shia employees had been fired, he said.
The government has admitted to dismissing some workers. On Tuesday, the health ministry said it had referred for prosecution 30 employees among those suspended because of "recent events", after an investigation found that they committed acts that "appeared criminal".
Even sports professionals were targeted. An investigatory committee has suspended 150 players, coaches and staff over their alleged involvement in protests.
Meanwhile, the authorities have demolished many Shia places of prayer and old mosques, saying they were built without authorisation.
"Ten mosques were demolished during one night in the village of Nuwaidrat," Mattar said. He said that some were very old and built before the system of building permits even existed.
Sheikh Khaled bin Ali Al-Khalifa, Bahrain's justice and Islamic affairs minister, has dismissed claims of mosques being demolished, saying in a statement on Friday that only "encroachments" were removed.
"This is being done to appease the Sunni Salafist groups that hate the Shia, and who are allied" with the authorities, Rajab of the BCHR said, alleging that the government aims to turn the pro-democracy uprising into a sectarian conflict.
Bahraini opposition groups and rights organisations say hundreds of public employees were dismissed on the grounds that they took part in protests. The government argues it had taken steps only against those who committed crimes during the protests.
"Up to now, no one has been dismissed for disciplinary reasons," state media quoted Ahmad bin Zayed al-Zayed, the head of the civil service, as saying.
He said further that any disciplinary measures for alleged involvement in the uprising would be for strictly defined administrative and criminal offences.
In comments reported late on Tuesday on Bahrain's state news agency, al-Zayed denied "what has been said about the dismissal of a number of employees ... in positions under the umbrella of the civil service".
Bahrain, which hosts the Fifth Fleet of the US navy, has a free trade pact with the US which the AFL-CIO trade union confederation last week urged the US to pull out of in response to violations of human and labour rights by Bahrain.
The International Labour Organisation (ILO), a specialised agency of the UN that deals with labour issues, has sent a team to Bahrain to share its concerns with high-level government officials, a spokesperson told Al Jazeera.
The representatives were due to meet members of the government, trade unionists and employer representatives on Wednesday and Thursday to discuss the dismissals of trade unionists alleged to have participated in recent demonstrations.
They were also expected to raise the issue of judicial actions taken by the government against the General Federation of Bahraini Trade Unions.
Bahraini unionists called strikes in solidarity with the Pearl Roundabout protests in February.
Dragged from workplace
The Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR), an opposition group central to the recent Shia-led anti-government protests, put the number of detainees at 817.
The figure included 71 women - in a clear breach of tradition in the conservative Muslim Gulf region, where women embody the honour of a family.
"This is a new phenomenon in Bahrain," Nabil Rajab, the head of the BCHR, said.
One woman who spoke to the AFP news agency said she was threatened with rape if she did not confess to taking part in protests.
"You'd better confess. Otherwise, I'd take you to the other interrogation room where men would make you talk," she said, quoting an officer's threat.The woman said she was dragged from her workplace along with other Shia Muslim colleagues. In the bus to the police station, policewomen slapped their faces and made them chant pro-monarchy slogans, she said.
Bahrain is ruled by the Sunni Muslim Al-Khalifa family.
She asked for details of her job not to be disclosed because police warned those arrested not to talk about their ordeal while in custody.
The woman said she eventually confessed to taking part in demonstrations at Pearl Square, the epicentre of the anti-regime protests, and also to protesting at work.
She said she shared a cell with several doctors, nurses and teachers. While being released, she said she saw teenage female students being dragged into a police station and beaten mercilessly by policewomen.
"They used to punish us psychologically by opening a door leading to the men's section of the police station so we could see them being beaten. We would hear their screams under torture," she said.
Shia targeted
Although security forces showed restraint in driving protesters from Pearl Square, the authorities later unleashed police on Shia dissidents nationwide.
"We can call this now a regime of sectarian separation that is working on a sectarian purge" of Shia, Rajab charged, citing raids on schools and medical centres during which Shia Muslims were ordered to line up separately from Sunnis.
Mattar Ibrahim Mattar, who quit parliament along with 17 other MPs in Wefaq, a Shia opposition group, in February in protest at violence against protesters, also spoke of Shia employees being sacked if they were suspected of having taken part in demonstrations.
"Police raid medical centres and separate employees based on their sects, then order Shias to stand by the wall and put their arms up ... while masked informers point out" those who joined the protests, he said.
More than 1,000 Shia employees had been fired, he said.
The government has admitted to dismissing some workers. On Tuesday, the health ministry said it had referred for prosecution 30 employees among those suspended because of "recent events", after an investigation found that they committed acts that "appeared criminal".
Even sports professionals were targeted. An investigatory committee has suspended 150 players, coaches and staff over their alleged involvement in protests.
Meanwhile, the authorities have demolished many Shia places of prayer and old mosques, saying they were built without authorisation.
"Ten mosques were demolished during one night in the village of Nuwaidrat," Mattar said. He said that some were very old and built before the system of building permits even existed.
Sheikh Khaled bin Ali Al-Khalifa, Bahrain's justice and Islamic affairs minister, has dismissed claims of mosques being demolished, saying in a statement on Friday that only "encroachments" were removed.
"This is being done to appease the Sunni Salafist groups that hate the Shia, and who are allied" with the authorities, Rajab of the BCHR said, alleging that the government aims to turn the pro-democracy uprising into a sectarian conflict.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Nigeria election: Red Cross says many fleeing violence
Tens of thousands of people have fled their homes because of post-election violence in Nigeria, the Red Cross says.
Riots broke out in the north after Goodluck Jonathan, a southerner, emerged as the winner of the presidential poll.
A civil rights group says the unrest has left more than 200 dead, while hundreds of arrests have been made.
The poll runner-up, General Muhammadu Buhari, has appealed for calm.
Nigeria is divided by rivalry between the predominantly Muslim north and the mainly Christian south - so much so that the presidency has often rotated between people who come from the two halves of the country, in an attempt to keep the peace.
Umar Marigar of the Red Cross told the BBC on Wednesday that the number of displaced had trebled in the last day - from 16,000 to 48,000, mainly in the north.
But he said that, in the southern state of Anambra, 8,400 people had sought refuge at the Onitsha military barracks because they feared reprisal attacks against northerners.
He added: ''The violent protests turn from political into ethno-religious crisis. As such, people might like to engage in retaliatory attacks. This is what we are always afraid of."
Shehu Sani, head of the Civil Rights Congress, told the AFP news agency: "In the whole region, from reports reaching Civil Rights Congress, the death toll is over 200."
He added that more than 1,000 people had been arrested in the city of Kaduna alone.
The BBC's Abdullahi Kaura Abubakar says it is calm now in Kaduna city, where streets have been left littered with burnt corpses and rioters burned churches, police stations and homes during two days of disturbances.
There are clashes in other parts of the state and more security forces have been deployed to those areas, he says.
'Irregularities'
Gen Buhari told the Voice of America's Hausa-language radio service that his Congress for Progressive Change party had noticed irregularities in the south and south-east of the country.
"I urge people to calm down and be law-abiding as we are pursuing these irregularities with [the electoral commission] with a view to ensure justice for them," he said.
Mr Jonathan was declared winner of Saturday's presidential poll, with the electoral commission saying he received about 57% of the vote with 22.5 million votes to General Buhari's 12.2 million votes.
International observers have said the election was reasonably free and fair.
Mr Jonathan, a Christian from the oil-producing Niger Delta, was appointed to the presidency last year upon the death of incumbent Umaru Yar'Adua, a northern Muslim whom he had served as vice-president.
He staked his reputation on the election, repeatedly promising it would be free and fair.
Riots broke out in the north after Goodluck Jonathan, a southerner, emerged as the winner of the presidential poll.
A civil rights group says the unrest has left more than 200 dead, while hundreds of arrests have been made.
The poll runner-up, General Muhammadu Buhari, has appealed for calm.
Nigeria is divided by rivalry between the predominantly Muslim north and the mainly Christian south - so much so that the presidency has often rotated between people who come from the two halves of the country, in an attempt to keep the peace.
Umar Marigar of the Red Cross told the BBC on Wednesday that the number of displaced had trebled in the last day - from 16,000 to 48,000, mainly in the north.
But he said that, in the southern state of Anambra, 8,400 people had sought refuge at the Onitsha military barracks because they feared reprisal attacks against northerners.
He added: ''The violent protests turn from political into ethno-religious crisis. As such, people might like to engage in retaliatory attacks. This is what we are always afraid of."
Shehu Sani, head of the Civil Rights Congress, told the AFP news agency: "In the whole region, from reports reaching Civil Rights Congress, the death toll is over 200."
He added that more than 1,000 people had been arrested in the city of Kaduna alone.
The BBC's Abdullahi Kaura Abubakar says it is calm now in Kaduna city, where streets have been left littered with burnt corpses and rioters burned churches, police stations and homes during two days of disturbances.
There are clashes in other parts of the state and more security forces have been deployed to those areas, he says.
'Irregularities'
Gen Buhari told the Voice of America's Hausa-language radio service that his Congress for Progressive Change party had noticed irregularities in the south and south-east of the country.
"I urge people to calm down and be law-abiding as we are pursuing these irregularities with [the electoral commission] with a view to ensure justice for them," he said.
Mr Jonathan was declared winner of Saturday's presidential poll, with the electoral commission saying he received about 57% of the vote with 22.5 million votes to General Buhari's 12.2 million votes.
International observers have said the election was reasonably free and fair.
Mr Jonathan, a Christian from the oil-producing Niger Delta, was appointed to the presidency last year upon the death of incumbent Umaru Yar'Adua, a northern Muslim whom he had served as vice-president.
He staked his reputation on the election, repeatedly promising it would be free and fair.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Burqa-clad suicide bomber kills 41 in Pakistan
KHAR - A female suicide bomber detonated her explosives-laden vest killing at least 41 people at an aid distribution center in northwestern Pakistan on Saturday while army helicopter gunships and artillery killed a similar number of Islamic militants in neighboring tribal regions near the Afghan border, officials said.
The bombing appeared to be the first suicide attack staged by a woman in Pakistan, and it underscored the resilience of militant groups in the country's tribal belt despite ongoing military operations against them.
The bomber struck in the main city in Bajur, a region near the Afghan border where the military has twice declared victory over Taliban and al-Qaida insurgents. It also came a day after some 150 militants killed 11 soldiers in a coordinated assault in the adjoining tribal region of Mohmand where the army also has carried out operations.
Top government official in Mohmand, Amjad Ali Khan, said helicopter gunships backed by artillery pounded militants hideouts on Saturday, killing 40 militants.
In Bajur, the bomber, dressed in a traditional women's burqa, first lobbed two hand grenades into the crowd waiting at a checkpoint outside the food aid distribution center in the town of Khar, local police official Fazal-e-Rabbi Khan said. The attacker then detonated her explosives vest, he said.
The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack through its spokesman, Azam Tariq. He did not give a reason for the attack.
Khan said the victims were from various parts of the Bajur tribal region who gather daily at the center to collect food tokens distributed by the World Food Program and other agencies to conflicted-affected people in the region. The people were displaced by an army offensive against Taliban militants in the region in early 2009.
Islamist militants battling the state have attacked buildings handing out humanitarian aid in Pakistan before, presumably because they are symbols of the government and Western influence.
Local government official Tariq Khan said the blast also wounded 60 people, some of them critically, of about 300 who were at the scene.
Officials said most of the people attacked belonged to the Salarzai tribe, which was among the first set up a militia to fight the Taliban in 2008. Other tribes later formed similar militias to resist the militants.
Tariq Khan and another local official, Sohail Khan, said an examination of the human remains has confirmed the bomber was a woman.
Hasan Askari Rizvi, a Lahore-based security and political analyst, said the suicide bombing appeared to be the first carried out by a woman in Pakistan.
"It is no surprise. They can use a woman, a child or whatever," Rizvi said. "Human life is not important to them, only the objective they are pursuing" of undermining state power, he added.
Male suicide bombers often don the burqa — an Islamic head-to-toe dress that also covers the woman's face — as a disguise. In 2007, officials initially claimed Pakistan's first female suicide bomber had killed 14 people in the northwest town of Bannu but the attacker was later identified as a man.
Akbar Jan, 45, who sustained leg wounds in the bombing, said from his hospital bed that people were lining up for the ration coupons when something exploded with a big bang.
"We thought someone had fired a rocket," he told The Associated Press. He said within seconds he saw the ground strewn with the wounded.
"I realized a little later that I myself have suffered wounds," he said. "Everybody was crying. It was blood and human flesh everywhere."
Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani condemned the bombing and said Pakistanis are "united against them."
Bajur is on the northern tip of Pakistan's semiautonomous tribal belt, bordering Afghanistan and the so-called "settled" areas in Pakistan. It has served as a key transit point and hideout for al-Qaida and the Taliban.
Bajur and other parts of the tribal regions are of major concern to the U.S. because they have been safe havens for militants fighting NATO and American troops across the border in Afghanistan. The U.S. has long pressured Pakistan to clear the tribal belt of the insurgents.
The military first declared victory in Bajur following a six-month operation launched in late 2008. But the army was forced to launch a follow-up operation in late January this year and declared victory again about a month later. Still, violence has persisted in the region.
The army also has taken steps to clear Mohmand, a tribal region next to Bajur that also has witnessed militant activity. On Friday, however, around 150 insurgents attacked five security checkpoints in that region, killing at least 11 soldiers and wounding a dozen more in a show of their ongoing strength.
The bombing appeared to be the first suicide attack staged by a woman in Pakistan, and it underscored the resilience of militant groups in the country's tribal belt despite ongoing military operations against them.
The bomber struck in the main city in Bajur, a region near the Afghan border where the military has twice declared victory over Taliban and al-Qaida insurgents. It also came a day after some 150 militants killed 11 soldiers in a coordinated assault in the adjoining tribal region of Mohmand where the army also has carried out operations.
Top government official in Mohmand, Amjad Ali Khan, said helicopter gunships backed by artillery pounded militants hideouts on Saturday, killing 40 militants.
In Bajur, the bomber, dressed in a traditional women's burqa, first lobbed two hand grenades into the crowd waiting at a checkpoint outside the food aid distribution center in the town of Khar, local police official Fazal-e-Rabbi Khan said. The attacker then detonated her explosives vest, he said.
The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack through its spokesman, Azam Tariq. He did not give a reason for the attack.
Khan said the victims were from various parts of the Bajur tribal region who gather daily at the center to collect food tokens distributed by the World Food Program and other agencies to conflicted-affected people in the region. The people were displaced by an army offensive against Taliban militants in the region in early 2009.
Islamist militants battling the state have attacked buildings handing out humanitarian aid in Pakistan before, presumably because they are symbols of the government and Western influence.
Local government official Tariq Khan said the blast also wounded 60 people, some of them critically, of about 300 who were at the scene.
Officials said most of the people attacked belonged to the Salarzai tribe, which was among the first set up a militia to fight the Taliban in 2008. Other tribes later formed similar militias to resist the militants.
Tariq Khan and another local official, Sohail Khan, said an examination of the human remains has confirmed the bomber was a woman.
Hasan Askari Rizvi, a Lahore-based security and political analyst, said the suicide bombing appeared to be the first carried out by a woman in Pakistan.
"It is no surprise. They can use a woman, a child or whatever," Rizvi said. "Human life is not important to them, only the objective they are pursuing" of undermining state power, he added.
Male suicide bombers often don the burqa — an Islamic head-to-toe dress that also covers the woman's face — as a disguise. In 2007, officials initially claimed Pakistan's first female suicide bomber had killed 14 people in the northwest town of Bannu but the attacker was later identified as a man.
Akbar Jan, 45, who sustained leg wounds in the bombing, said from his hospital bed that people were lining up for the ration coupons when something exploded with a big bang.
"We thought someone had fired a rocket," he told The Associated Press. He said within seconds he saw the ground strewn with the wounded.
"I realized a little later that I myself have suffered wounds," he said. "Everybody was crying. It was blood and human flesh everywhere."
Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani condemned the bombing and said Pakistanis are "united against them."
Bajur is on the northern tip of Pakistan's semiautonomous tribal belt, bordering Afghanistan and the so-called "settled" areas in Pakistan. It has served as a key transit point and hideout for al-Qaida and the Taliban.
Bajur and other parts of the tribal regions are of major concern to the U.S. because they have been safe havens for militants fighting NATO and American troops across the border in Afghanistan. The U.S. has long pressured Pakistan to clear the tribal belt of the insurgents.
The military first declared victory in Bajur following a six-month operation launched in late 2008. But the army was forced to launch a follow-up operation in late January this year and declared victory again about a month later. Still, violence has persisted in the region.
The army also has taken steps to clear Mohmand, a tribal region next to Bajur that also has witnessed militant activity. On Friday, however, around 150 insurgents attacked five security checkpoints in that region, killing at least 11 soldiers and wounding a dozen more in a show of their ongoing strength.
World economy can withstand $100 oil price -Kuwait
CAIRO - The global economy can withstand an oil price of $100 a barrel, Kuwait's oil minister said on Saturday, as other exporters indicated OPEC may decide against increasing output through 2011 as the market was well supplied.
Analysts have said oil producing countries are likely to raise output after crude rallied more than 30 percent from a low in May because they fear prices could damage economic growth in fuel importing countries.
European benchmark ICE Brent crude for February closed at $93.46 on Friday after hitting $94.74 a barrel, its highest level since Oct. 2008.
Arab oil exporters meeting in Cairo this weekend said they saw no need to supply more crude as stocks were high and prices had been inflated temporarily by cold weather in Europe.
Asked by Reuters if the world economy could stand a $100 oil price, Kuwaiti Oil Minister Sheikh Ahmad al-Abdullah al-Sabah said: "Yes it can".
Iraq's new oil minister and the head of Libya's National Oil Corporation both told Reuters that $100 was a fair price, while Qatar's Minister Abdullah al-Attiyah said he did not expect OPEC to increase production in 2011.
"I do not expect an OPEC meeting before June because oil prices are stable," he said.
Some delegates even called for exporters to comply better with agreed production limits. OPEC members' compliance with promised cutbacks reached 56 percent in November, according to Reuters estimates.
When asked if output could be raised, Kuwait's Sheikh Ahmad said: "No. More compliance, more compliance".
MARKET "WELL SUPPLIED"
Analysts have said oil producing countries are likely to raise output after crude rallied more than 30 percent from a low in May because they fear prices could damage economic growth in fuel importing countries.
European benchmark ICE Brent crude for February closed at $93.46 on Friday after hitting $94.74 a barrel, its highest level since Oct. 2008.
Arab oil exporters meeting in Cairo this weekend said they saw no need to supply more crude as stocks were high and prices had been inflated temporarily by cold weather in Europe.
Asked by Reuters if the world economy could stand a $100 oil price, Kuwaiti Oil Minister Sheikh Ahmad al-Abdullah al-Sabah said: "Yes it can".
Iraq's new oil minister and the head of Libya's National Oil Corporation both told Reuters that $100 was a fair price, while Qatar's Minister Abdullah al-Attiyah said he did not expect OPEC to increase production in 2011.
"I do not expect an OPEC meeting before June because oil prices are stable," he said.
Some delegates even called for exporters to comply better with agreed production limits. OPEC members' compliance with promised cutbacks reached 56 percent in November, according to Reuters estimates.
When asked if output could be raised, Kuwait's Sheikh Ahmad said: "No. More compliance, more compliance".
MARKET "WELL SUPPLIED"
Housewife saves husband from wolf - paper
DUBAI - A housewife has saved her husband from the clutches of a wolf in rural Saudi Arabia, local daily Arab News reported on Saturday.
The woman went out to look for her husband after he did not return from tending their goats to find him being attacked by the wolf, according to the newspaper.
The woman ran back to their house and returned with a kitchen knife and stabbed the animal to death, Arab News reported.
The husband, in his 70s, had been fending off the wolf for more than an hour before his wife turned up, according to the newspaper. The report did not give wife's age.
The family have hung the wolf’s body from a tree in front of the house to scare off other wolves, a custom in rural areas, Arab News reported.
The woman went out to look for her husband after he did not return from tending their goats to find him being attacked by the wolf, according to the newspaper.
The woman ran back to their house and returned with a kitchen knife and stabbed the animal to death, Arab News reported.
The husband, in his 70s, had been fending off the wolf for more than an hour before his wife turned up, according to the newspaper. The report did not give wife's age.
The family have hung the wolf’s body from a tree in front of the house to scare off other wolves, a custom in rural areas, Arab News reported.
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