Free Republic

Donor meeting: Israel not invited By Our Reporter ISLAMABAD, Nov 11: Chief Relief Commissioner Maj-Gen Farooq Ahmad Khan has said there is no physical presence of Israel in Pakistan. Addressing a press briefing here on Friday, he said that no medical or engineering teams from Israel were engaged in the quake-stricken areas or the NWFP and Azad Jammu and Kashmir. He said Israel was not among the 70 countries invited to attend the forthcoming International Donors’ Conference to be held in Islamabad. He said all the quake-hit villages had been accessed, but it could not be said that relief had...

LONDON, NOVEMBER 7: Even as those who survived the October 8 killer quake struggle to rebuild their lives against the advancing winter, Pakistan, within 10 days of the quake, was moving closer to finalising a $1 billion defence deal for a Saab-Ericsson airborne early warning system, the latest issue of Jane’s Defence Weekly says. According to the report, the Swedish company announced on October 18 that it had inked a provisional contract with Pakistan, envisioning the replacement of the Pakistan Air Forces’s F-27 Fokker planes. The deal was believed to be for seven aircraft, but final steps were yet to...

A US Army CH-47 Chinook helicopter taking part in earthquake relief efforts in Pakistan apparently came under fire while delivering aid, the US military said yesterday. US Central Command said the helicopter was not hit and returned safely with its crew to Chaklala air base. The US military said the aircraft "is believed to have been fired upon by a rocket-propelled grenade," but did not identify who fired the weapon.

Assailants fired at a U.S. military helicopter Tuesday as it ferried supplies to earthquake victims in Pakistan's portion of divided Kashmir, the U.S. military said, but it vowed to continue aid flights. The attack with an apparent rocket-propelled grenade came as the CH-47 Chinook flew over Chakothi, a quake-ravaged town near the frontier separating the Pakistani and Indian portions of the Himalayan region, said Capt. Rob Newell, a spokesman for the U.S. military relief effort. "The aircraft was not hit and returned safely with its crew" to an air base near the capital, Islamabad, he told The Associated Press. The...

Tragedy has made ruthless terrorists into good samaritans overnight as banned terrorist organisations run mobile hospitals and ferry medicines to the victims of Pakistan's Oct 8 earthquake on mules and donkeys. Thousands have camped alongside some 200 donor organisations in Abbottabad, a North West Frontier Province (NWFP) town 200 km northwest of Islamabad, and are virtually spearheading relief work here. Subsequently, the local population has begun hailing them as messiahs. "I think the jehadi organisations are working in the most organised way," enthused Rauf Kareem, a volunteer camping here since Oct 10. "In the beginning they were barred by the...

The United States has said it would nearly double its military forces in earthquake relief efforts in Pakistan to 1,000 as Washington steps up aid to its "war on terror" ally reeling from the deadly disaster. The higher troop levels will come as Washington takes on bigger responsibilities in reconstruction and medical aid, including the setting up of two mobile hospitals with facilities to perform major surgeries, military officials said. Rear Admiral Michael LeFever, the Islamabad-based director of the US Disaster Assistance, said via audio feed in the Pentagon that "there would probably in the vicinity of over 1,000 US...

Islamabad, October 25: Cashing on the devastation inflicted by the October 8 earthquake, Islamists in Pakistan have termed the temblor as ‘God's wrath’ on the country for the decision to desert Taliban and back the American ‘invasion’ of Afghanistan. Riaz Hussain Pirzada, a treasury member belonging to the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Q, but considered close to Islamist alliance Muthahida Majlis Amal (MMA), told the National Assembly yesterday that the quake was ‘god's wrath’ for Pakistan's support of the US campaign. God was also ‘angry’ with Pakistan because "we welcomed the holy month of Ramzan by rigging the last phase of...

Americans have spread free matchbooks and pamphlets in Pakistan offering vast sums of money to get information about Osama bin Laden and his cohorts. Nothing has worked. But dropping food, tents, and a helping hand in the aftermath of the Oct. 8 earthquake is buying the US some newfound goodwill here that some hope may eventually yield important leads in the war on terror. The area worst hit by the quake also happens to be the epicenter of Pakistan's extremist community, a place dotted with camps training jihadis to fight in Indian Kashmir. Al Qaeda has used this militant infrastructure...

BY God's grace, our 48 hours fasting prayer was a great blessing. Around 400 people participated at the prayer service. Also thousands of prayer warriors joined with us in prayers from around the world. We remembered you and your needs during our intercessions. Jalaliya Masood was in a critical stage according yesterday morning report. But by God's grace, the report came today morning that he is somewhat better. Certainly it is because of the prayers from the children of God, we surely believe. Kindly continue praying for him. He is just 35 years of age with wife and four little...

Six-year-old Aisha loves the orange blouse and jeans given to her by the kind woman who rescued her from the chaos of the Kashmir earthquake. She snuggles up to her, trying to forget the devastation of her village home and the deaths of her parents 15 days ago. What Aisha does not know is that the woman, Kausar, is a prostitute who has bought her from relatives for 50,000 rupees (£500) and plans to put her to work in the sex trade as soon as she reaches puberty. Aisha is not alone. According to welfare agencies, many of the hundreds...

Al-Qaida’s second in command Ayman al-Zawahri urged Muslims to help Pakistan’s earthquake victims despite the country’s close ties to the United States. He was speaking in a video aired on Al Jazeera television on Sunday in which he sat next to an assault rifle. “I call on all Muslims and Islamic charity organizations in particular to go to Pakistan and give a lending hand to the victims there,” Zawahri said on the tape. "We all know that (President Pervez) Musharraf's government is an agent of the United States but despite that I call on all Muslims to run to the...

Al-Qaida’s second in command Ayman al-Zawahri urged Muslims to help Pakistan’s earthquake victims despite the country’s close ties to the United States. He was speaking in a video aired on Al Jazeera television on Sunday in which he sat next to an assault rifle. “I call on all Muslims and Islamic charity organizations in particular to go to Pakistan and give a lending hand to the victims there,” Zawahri said on the tape. "We all know that (President Pervez) Musharraf's government is an agent of the United States but despite that I call on all Muslims to run to the...

Campaigners in Scotland have turned to spicy Indian curry and lilting music to raise funds for rehabilitating earthquake victims in South Asia. Posters have gone up across Edinburgh inviting people to 14 Indian restaurants participating in the Asia Quake Appeal. In the restaurants, diners will be given a leaflet about the struggle to save lives and rebuild communities in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. They will be invited to make a donation that will go to the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC). Said Judith Robertson, chairperson of the DEC in Scotland: "We urge people in Scotland to have a curry this weekend...

CHAKLALA AIR BASE, Pakistan -- High in a remote valley, the U.S. Army transport helicopter settled Thursday with a bump on the dry riverbed, and the earthquake survivors came running. Jostling and shoving for space, they crowded around the rear cargo hatch as the soldiers on board began tossing out tents, blankets and biscuits until they had no more to give. As the helicopter revved its engines for takeoff, a balding man with a beard leaned across the edge of the lowered cargo ramp and, smiling his gratitude, extended his hand toward Brandon Chasteen, a 21-year-old Army medic from Chattanooga,...

THE death toll from South Asia's huge earthquake was last night put at more than 79,000, making it one of the deadliest in the past 100 years. And it was also revealed that hundreds of al-Qaeda terrorists had perished in several of their training camps which were destroyed. The government of the North West Frontier Province said 37,958 people had died there with the toll likely to rise. The prime minister in Pakistani-held Kashmir confirmed 40,000 people had died in the area and India reported 1,360 deaths in the part of Kashmir it controls. Meanwhile, Pakistan has stated several of...

The United Nations attacked international donors today for a shortfall in funding for victims of the South Asian earthquake that has left relief agencies struggling with a logistical nightmare worse than the Boxing Day tsunami. As a 12-year-old boy was confirmed as the first British fatality from the quake, Jan Egeland, the UN's disaster relief chief, gave warning that the death toll in the earthquake could rise above 100,000 because of a lack of aid. Mr Egeland told a news conference in Geneva: "We have never had this kind of logistical nightmare, ever. We thought the tsunami was bad -...

BAGH, Pakistan - Soldiers pulled a young girl alive from the rubble of her home Sunday, eight days after a mammoth earthquake killed tens of thousands of people and caused widespread damage in Pakistan's mountainous north and part of India. The cheering report came as torrential rains halted relief flights into the Himalayan region of Kashmir, which was worst hit by the quake. A general warned that the cold and wet were likely to cause more deaths among the estimated 2 million people left homeless by the disaster. The military said rescuers found the polio-stricken girl in a wrecked house...

The journey down from the mountainside had felt otherworldly to 15-year-old Faisa as she drifted in and out of consciousness in the cold mist. She remembers only the smell of aircraft fuel and the wind in her hair as she sat in the damp cargo hold of the Chinook helicopter, opposite the stretcher holding her younger brother Saeed.Days earlier she had emerged from the baked mud and timber wreckage of her home, near the disputed Kashmiri town of Uri, gasping for air and in pain from severe leg and head wounds.Among the first things she saw were the bodies of...

Just today I returned back from the quake hit areas. I am suffering of fever, cold and cough. I got it from the quake hit area itself. There I was fully engaged with relief services with our volunteers. I wanted to continue few days more. But others forced me to go back because of my sick and uneasiness. It is absolutely cooler place, for it is more than 8000 feet high. I have consulted with the doctors and taking medicines. By God's grace and because of all your prayers I will be allright soon. We have 16 newly christian families...