It’s a good ship — keeps on going.
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“US Calls Russian Missile Threat ‘Unfortunate’”
voanews.com ^ | 05 July 2007 | David Gollust
Posted on 07/05/2007 3:19:20 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
ARTICLE SNIPPET: “The United States Thursday termed “unfortunate” a threat by a senior Russian official to counter a U.S. missile defense system in Europe with new offensive deployments. But the State Department says the Bush administration is otherwise having a constructive dialogue with Moscow on the issue. VOA’s David Gollust reports from the State Department.
Officials here are not dismissing the missile threat by Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov out of hand. But they say it runs counter to suggestions by other Russian leaders, notably President Vladimir Putin, that Moscow is ready for constructive talks on regional missile defense.
Ivanov, a former Russian defense minister, generated news headlines Wednesday with a warning that Moscow would place new offensive missiles in its Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad, bordering Poland, if a U.S. plan for anti-missile sites in Poland and the Czech Republic goes forward.
The Bush administration says the radar facility in Czech Republic and a battery of 10 interceptor missiles in Poland are needed to guard against a potential missile threat from Iran.
Despite U.S. assurances that the system is not aimed at Russia, Moscow contends it would undermine its strategic missile deterrence.
At a news briefing, State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack said the Ivanov comments were unfortunate and not constructive, and also said they were in marked contrast to positive conversations on missile defense that Presidents Bush and Putin had last Sunday and Monday in Kennebunkport, Maine:
“My read from the Kennebunkport meetings was that there was actually a good discussion on the issue of missile defense, and I think toward the end of those meetings, you had President Putin talking in terms of a discussion on a regional architecture for dealing with missile defense, and also acknowledging the fact there is a threat,” said Sean McCormack. “So that’s positive. And while we have not bridged what are obvious differences on missile defense, I think that there’s a very constructive conversation going on now.”
The Russian president proposed in Maine that the two countries collaborate on a regional missile defense system that would include a radar facility in southern Russia and another operated by Russia in Azerbaijan, a former Soviet republic that borders Iran.”
Islamabad - Hardcore Islamic students holed up in a mosque in Pakistan's capital early Friday fired several rockets at the security forces after their offer for conditional surrender was dismissed by the government, officials claimed.
'We have received these reports that they have started to use rocket launchers and explosive device against the security forces,' Information Minister Mohammed Ali Durrani told Geo news channel. He said one rocket damaged an armoured personnel carrier, but there was no causality reported.
However, the hard-line deputy chief of Lal Masjid, Red Mosque, Abdul Rashid Ghazi rejected the allegations. 'We do not have any rocket launchers,' he told Geo news channel. Heavy fire was being exchanged at the besieged mosque and the militants hurled several hand grenades, said an eyewitness.
Ghazi offered surrender on late Thursday in return for safe passage following heavy shelling by military and paramilitary troops. 'Those who give themselves in should not be arrested,' Ghazi told Aaj news as the security forces allowed the ambulances to escort dead and injured from the mosque to the hospitals during a short ceasefire. The government dismissed the offer and ordered him to unconditionally surrender.
Excerpted
Stand-off at siege mosque after the army blasts through perimeter walls
July 6, 2007
A battle for the soul of Pakistan neared resolution last night as militants holed up in a besieged mosque in central Islamabad agreed to lay down their weapons in return for amnesty and safe passage after three days of fierce fighting with government forces. As dusk fell Pakistani troops blew holes in the perimeter wall surrounding the Lal Masjid or Red Mosque as US-made helicopter gunships hovered overhead and a barrage of mortars struck the compound. Inside about 60 die-hard militants, many said to have been schooled in guerrilla warfare at mountain training camps in Kashmir and Afghanistan, held dozens of women and children in an underground storeroom.
Hundreds of police and soldiers, backed by armoured personnel carriers, took up positions around the complex and imposed an indefinite curfew on the neighbourhood.
Water, gas and electricity supplies were cut to the militants who had hoped to impose sharia law on the capital, bringing Islamic rule from remote tribal regions on the Afghan border. In an indication that the militants were at last prepared to concede defeat to President Musharraf, a key ally in the US-led War on Terror, the leader of the rebels said that he was ready to surrender and abdicate his position if given amnesty. Abdul Rashid Ghazi, the deputy cleric of the Red Mosque, said that he wanted to avoid further bloodshed. However, Pakistani authorities insisted on his unconditional surrender.
Mr Ghazi is the younger brother of the chief cleric of the mosque who was captured on Wednesday as he tried to slip through the military cordon dressed in a burka and high heels. In an interview broadcast on state television, Maulana Abdul Aziz asked his followers to give themselves up. The cleric began the interview by lifting the black veil he was wearing to reveal a face dominated by a bushy grey beard. Smiling through much of the interview Mr Aziz urged his followers to leave, but some women teachers had persuaded many students at a female seminary inside the mosque compound to stay behind. He said that it would be damaging for students to stay put any longer. “They should either leave, if they can, or surrender,” he said. Despite his belated attempts to forge a resolution Mr Aziz was charged with 25 criminal offences including kidnapping, incitement to murder and firearms offences. He was remanded for seven days in police custody. His daughter, who fled the mosque with him, was also taken into custody.
But his call to surrender went unheeded by his wife who is also the head of the Madrassa Hafza attached to the mosque. She told a local television network that she had no intention of giving herself in to the security forces. Umme Hassan, in her late 30s, who many regard as more radical than her husband, has mobilised hundreds of young women who formed the nucleus of the Red Mosque’s movement for enforcement of Sharia laws.
The burka-clad, stick wielding women known as the Hafza Brigade, had assumed the role of a self-styled vice squad, raiding houses and dragging out women alleged to be involved in prostitution. They are alleged to have kidnapped seven Chinese nationals who they accused of running a brothel from an acupuncture clinic. They were also seen stopping women and reprimanding them for not covering themselves with Islamic head-scarves.
Excerpted
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article2034149.ece