Pakistan's claims that it does not have terrorist training camps in its territory is being strongly contested by FBI which has told a US court that satellite pictures pointed towards such a camp. In the trial of 23-year-old Pakistani American Hamid Hayat, who has been accused of terrorism-related charges, defence intelligence agency's expert Eric Benn has stated that there was as much of a seventy percent 'probability' that the satellite images pointed to a militant training camp near Balakot in northeast Pakistan. Much to Pakistan's embarrassment, Benn told the district court in California that although he did not 'detect any formal weapons training', including firing ranges, targets, rocket launchers or explosives testing, it did not mean they were not taking place. The structures and trail in the remote terrain fit the 'signature' of 'militant training', as opposed to regular training of Pakistani Armed forces, he said. Hamid's sentencing has been postponed by the court by four months to November and his father Umer Hayat, who at one time was charged with lying to federal authorities, is being retried after the first round ended in a hung jury, according to media reports. The allegation against Hamid has been that from California's area of Lodi, which has a small Pakistani immigrant community, the 23-year-old went to Pakistan to attend religious school and training for terrorism with the intent of returning to the US to commit violent acts. The reports said Hamid, who was to be sentenced on July 14, is facing charges of militancy and 'jihad'. which can give him a jail term of as many as 39 years. The federal prosecutors want to nail their suspect- and indirectly Pakistan - in the terror training camp case. The defence has argued that Hamid never attended any terror facility but only made up the story to satisfy agents of the FBI who grilled him in June last year.

http://oheraldo.in/node/17235

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Suspected Islamic militants killed three members of a Hindu family living in a Kashmir village, police said Friday. The militants entered the family's home in the village of Arra in Kashmir's Udhampur district and fatally shot a woman and two children as they slept, said Police Inspector General S.P. Vaid. Arra is a predominantly Muslim village 210 kilometres northwest of Jammu. Vaid said the head of the family, Ram Singh, feared that he would be targeted by militants because he was a minority Hindu and therefore always slept at the guard post in the village. The militants, however, targeted his family, Vaid said. Police were searching for the killers, he said. More than a dozen Islamic militants groups have been fighting security forces in Kashmir. The militants often target civilians, suspecting them to be police informers. The insurgency has claimed the lives of more than 68,000 people, most of them civilians. Meanwhile, six people were wounded in an explosion inside a tailor's shop in Baramulla, a town north of Srinagar, said Police Superintendent Viplav Kumar. Three of the wounded were in critical condition at a Srinagar hospital, he said, adding that Islamic militants were the suspected culprits in the attack. However, police were not sure whether the blast was caused by a bomb planted in the shop or a grenade thrown inside by an assailant.

http://www.kashmirlive.com, August 11, 2006

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Language and religion posed no barriers for a Hindu tea stall owner as he came to the rescue of a distressed Muslim woman from Kolkata being forced into prostitution - she has now decided to marry her saviour. Bhagwat, who runs a tea stall at the St John's College crossing here, not far from the monument to love, the Taj Mahal, doesn't speak a word of Bengali. Nor can 25-year-old Mumtaz understand all he says. But the pair knew the language of love. An unsuspecting Mumtaz, who disappeared three months ago from Bhagwangulla village in West Bengal, came to Agra with a woman who wanted to 'sell' her to a brothel here. When Mumtaz learnt what was in store for her, after accidentally overhearing the woman companion's telephonic conversation, she lost no time in running away from the Agra railway station. Spotting her in distress at the College Crossing, Bhagwat provided her shelter and food at his home. Mumtaz began to help him at his tea stall during the day - and promptly fell in love with him. When policemen and her mother came from Kolkata looking for her, Mumtaz refused to go back. She told her mother she wanted to marry Bhagwat and stay in Agra. The mother gave her consent to the marriage, but the West Bengal Police were in a dilemma because they had registered a case of kidnapping and that required the woman's presence in the court. But Mumtaz refused to quit Agra - and Bhagwat.

http://indiaenews.com/2006-07/16685-hindu-saves-muslim-taj.htm

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Ibrahim Savant, named on Friday as a suspect in an alleged suicide bomb plot on U.S.-bound aircraft, had a regular job and loved football, just like many other young Britons, his neighbours said. Neighbours and friends in the ethnically mixed eastern London suburb where the 25-year-old spent his youth said he was well-known. "We grew up together. He was a normal, average guy," said Assad, who declined to give his surname. "Everyone around here will be amazed and dismayed at his arrest," he added. Assad said Savant converted to Islam in 1997 or 1998, began wearing traditional Muslim dress and grew a beard. He attended a local mosque, one of several in the area of Walthamstow, which has a high Asian population. Savant was one of 19 people named on Friday by the Bank of England in connection with the alleged plot to blow up numerous transatlantic flights. The bank, acting on instructions from the government, ordered their assets frozen. U.S. authorities said all those arrested were British Muslims. The neighbours' surprise at Savant's alleged involvement reflect growing fears about home-grown Islamist militancy in Britain and the difficulties faced by police to track it down. The four British Muslim suicide bombers who killed 52 people on London's transport network in July last year had appeared to live similarly unremarkable lives.

http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1046677

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THE death toll from a series of co-ordinated blasts on commuter trains in India's financial capital Mumbai had risen to 174, the United News of India (UNI) news agency reported today, citing police. Earlier, Mumbai police had put the death toll from yesterday's explosions at 163. The number of injured remained at 464, UNI said, citing police data. The city's police commissioner AN Roy appealed for calm among the millions of daily train commuters in the city of almost 18 million people after the blasts, which struck during yesterday's evening rush hour. The sprawling city on India's west coast has had several bombings in the past. It was rocked in 1993 by a series of blasts that killed about 250 people and injured more than 1000. Police have blamed Muslim underground groups or Kashmiri militants for most of the previous attacks.

Courtesy: http://www.news.com.au

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