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Suicide bomber kills 41 in Pakistan
ISLAMABAD: A suicide bomber killed 41 peo-
ple in an attack on a Pakistani military convoy
passing through a market yesterday as the
Taliban claimed responsibility for a weekend
raid on the army’s headquarters.
Militant attacks have intensified over the past
week as the army prepares to launch a ground
offensive on the Al Qaeda-linked fighters’ South
Waziristan stronghold.
A suicide bomber on foot leapt at a military
vehicle in Shangla district, near the Swat valley,
security officials said.
“The bomber hit one of three military vehi-
cles that were passing through the busiest mar-
ket in the district,” top Shangla police official,
Khan Bahadur Khan, said by telephone.
Provincial information minister Mian Ift-
ikhar Hussain said 41 people had been killed,
including 35 civilians and six soldiers, and 45
people were wounded.
The army has largely driven the militants out
of Swat and their leader, Baitullah Mehsud, was
killed by a missile fired by a US drone aircraft
in August.
The militants are hitting back.
The army said Pakistani Taliban commander
Wali-ur-Rehman was behind Saturday’s attack on
its headquarters in Rawalpindi, near Islamabad.
UN: Afghan vote fraud ‘significant’
KABUL: The UN special representative to Af-
ghanistan acknowledged on Sunday for the first
time that the country’s presidential election had
been tainted by “significant” and “widespread”
fraud. Kai Eide, who is Norwegian, called a news
conference to counter allegations by his sacked
deputy, Peter Galbraith, an American, that he had
concealed evidence of vote fraud.
Commandos stormed an office building near
the headquarters and rescued 39 people taken
hostage by gunmen after an attack at a main
gate of the headquarters.
Nine militants and three hostages were killed
in the violence in Rawalpindi while the number
of soldiers killed rose to 11, with the deaths of
three wounded men, a military official said.
The 10 attackers had wanted to take senior
military officers hostage to demand the release
of a “long list” of captured militants, said army
spokesman Maj-Gen Athar Abbas.
Abbas said a telephone conversation had
been intercepted between Reham and one of
his subordinates.
“It revealed that this attack was planned
in the area of South Waziristan,” Abbas told a
news conference, adding Rehman had told his
subordinate to pray for the attackers’ success.
The leader of the attack, a former soldier who
deserted in 2004 and joined a militant group
based in Punjab province, was the only attacker
captured alive but wounded, Abbas said.
The man, identified as Aqeel, also known as
Dr Usman, was from Punjab, he said.
Abbas said that while the Taliban and Punjabi
militant groups had links there were no militant
“safe havens” in Punjab, Pakistan’s biggest and
Eide said the United Nations supported vote
fraud investigations which are due to be com-
pleted, and a final result announced, in days.
The elections, held on Aug 20, have been
overshadowed by the fraud allegations, mostly
aimed at President Hamid Karzai.
Eide’s decision to speak to the media reflected
the damage the row with Galbraith has done to
economically most important province.
Earlier yesterday, Pakistani Taliban spokes-
man Azam Tariq claimed responsibility and
threatened more attacks.
“It was carried out by our Punjab unit,” Tariq
said by telephone. “We will take revenge for our
martyrs and will carry out more attacks, whether
it’s the GHQ or something bigger,” he said, refer-
ring to the army’s General Headquarters.
A ground offensive in South Waziristan could
be the army’s toughest test since the militants
turned on the state.
The army has not said when it would begin
but interior minister Rehman Malik said on the
weekend it was “imminent”.
The military has been conducting air and ar-
tillery strikes for months, while moving troops,
blockading the region and trying to win over
factions.
Military aircraft attacked in the region yes-
terday killing up to five militants, an intelligence
official said, a day after about 16 militants were
killed in air strikes.
“There is no mercy for them because our
determination and resolve is to flush them out,”
Malik said in an interview in Singapore.
“They have no room in Pakistan, I promise
you.” – Reuters
the credibility of the United Nations as the
election’s organiser and funder.
Karzai leads preliminary results with about
55% of the vote, against his nearest rival Abdul-
lah Abdullah, who is on 28%.
“It is true that in a number of polling sta-
tions in the south and the southeast there was
significant fraud,” Eide said.
“The extent of that fraud is now being deter-
mined,” he said, referring to investigations by
the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC)
and an audit of suspicious ballot boxes by the
Independent Election Commission (IEC) last
week. “It has been claimed that there was 30%
fraud. There is no way to know at this stage
what the level of fraud is.
“No one knows. I can only say there was
widespread fraud,” he said.
Eide called the news conference to answer
accusations by Galbraith, who was dismissed
last month after a row with his boss over the
fraud issue, that he tried to conceal information
about the extent of the fraud.
He was flanked by the ambassadors to Ka-
bul from the United States, Britain and France,
with the German ambassador, the European
Union’s special representative to Afghanistan,
and a Nato representative also in attendance.
None of the ambassadors made any com-
ment, and reporters were not permitted to ask
them questions. – AFP
First woman wins
Nobel Economics Prize
STOCKHOLM: Elinor Ostrom
(pix) became the first woman to
win the Nobel Economics Prize
yesterday for research seen as
highly topical in the wake of the
economic crisis and amid efforts
to tackle climate change.
Fellow US economist Oliver
Williamson shared the 10-million-kronor (RM5
million) prize with Ostrom, whose name has
circulated for years as a possible winner.
Ostrom told Swedish television her first reac-
tion was “great surprise and appreciation” and
said she was “in shock” at being the first woman
to clinch the honour.
Ostrom describes herself as a political scientist
instead of an economist and is a professor at
Indiana University, where she researches the man-
agement of common property or property under
common control, such as natural resources.
Her work challenged the notion that common
property is poorly managed and should be either
regulated by central authorities or privatised, the
jury said.
Williamson, a professor at the University of
California Berkeley, was honoured with the other
half of the prize “for his analysis of economic
governance, especially the boundaries of the
firm”. – AFP
theSun | TUESDAY OCTOBER 13 2009
briefs
London Evening Standard
becomes free newspaper
LONDON: The London Evening Standard
yesterday became a free newspaper in a
bid to boost its flagging circulation, ending
182 years as a paid-for title.
“Today is an historic day for the London
Evening Standard as we become the first
quality daily newspaper to go free,” said
editor Geordie Grieg in an editorial.
“In this pioneering move we will be giv-
ing away 600,000 copies to Londoners.
“We are proud to be free and many
of London’s most prominent voices have
given their support.” – AFP
Michael Jackson’s
new song released
NEW YORK: A previously unreleased
song by Michael Jackson entitled
This Is It was unveiled to the world
yesterday almost four months after
the star’s death.
The track was released at the stroke
of midnight at www.MichaelJackson.
com, marking “yet another exciting
moment in music history for one of the
world’s most revered artists”, Sony
Music Entertainment said in a state-
ment. – AFP
No one wants to see
curvy women: Lagerfeld
BERLIN: Curvy women have no place on the
catwalk, iconic German fashion designer
Karl Lagerfeld was quoted as saying on Sun-
day, after a magazine said it was banning
skinny models in favour of “real women”.
“No one wants to see curvy women,”
Lagerfeld was quoted as saying on the
website of news magazine Focus.
“You’ve got fat mothers with their bags
of chips sitting in front of the television and
saying that thin models are ugly,” he added.
The world of fashion is about “dreams and
illusions”, he said, dismissing as “absurd”
the debate prompted by Brigitte magazine
which said it would no longer feature
professional models. – AFP
US arrests suspected
Pan Am flight hijacker
WASHINGTON: A man wanted in con-
nection with the hijacking of a Pan
Am flight to Cuba nearly 41 years ago
was arrested in New York on Sunday, a
Justice Department official said.
Luis Armando Pena Soltren was ar-
rested at John F. Kennedy International
Airport for suspected involvement in
the November 1968 hijacking of a
Puerto Rico-bound Pan Am flight from
New York, said Justice Department
spokesman Richard Kolko. He said
Soltren has been in Cuba for almost
41 years. – Reuters
N. Korea fires missiles,
puzzles outside world
SEOUL: North Korea test-fired short-range
missiles yesterday, South Korean media
reported, sparking consternation just as the
reclusive state had been signalling to the out-
side world it might return to nuclear talks.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said
Washington would continue to work towards
a nuclear-free Korean peninsula, while a Rus-
sian official expressed bewilderment.
South Korea’s Yonhap news agency
quoted a government source as saying
Pyongyang had launched five missiles off
its east coast and declared a “no sail” zone
in the area from Oct 10 to 20. – Reuters
Priest kidnapped
in Philippines
MANILA: An Irish Catholic priest was
snatched by six armed men from his
mission’s residence in a southern
Philippine city, a regional police chief
said yesterday.
Michael Sinot, a Columbian mis-
sionary, was abducted late on Sunday
at the Columban House in Pagadian
City, according to Chief Superintendent
Angel Sunglao. – dpa