THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2007
NEWS
》INTERNATIONAL
5A
Pakistan expects election delay Musharraf imposes emergency rule
BY STEPHEN GRAHAM ASSOCIATED PRESS
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan's deposed, chief justice called on lawyers Tuesday to revolt against President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's imposition of emergency rule and a crackdown on the opposition that has left thousands under arrest.
The government considered a delay in parliamentary elections despite Western demands they be
on schedule in January to bring democracy to a nuclear-armed country dogged by political uncertainty and rising Islamic militancy.
Fragile security in the northwest cited by officials as a reason for the
suspension of the constitution --- deteriorated further as pro-Taliban militants seized a town from outnumbered security forces.
"Chaudhry! Chaudhry!" they chanted. "Musharraf is a criminal! We will not accept uniforms or bullets!"
While Musharraf says emergency powers are needed so the government can better fight Islamic extremists, his crackdown has been aimed at lawyers and liberal political activists opposing his rule. The Supreme Court, in particular, had chipped away at his powers this year.
Musharraf said emergency powers are needed so the government can better right Islamic extremists. His crackdown has been aimed at political activists opposing his rule.
and give the message that this is the time to sacrifice." Chaudhry said over loudspeakers. "Don't be afraid. God will help us and the day will come when you'll see the constitution supreme and no dictatorship for a long time."
Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, a figurehead for the resistance, has been under house arrest since Saturday night. But he managed to address hundreds of lawyers using a cell phone from his Islamabad residence, which he said was surrounded by security forces
Attorney gathered at the Islamabad Bar Association cheered.
Moments later, mobile phone service cut off in Islamabad, but Chaudhry's message had already been recorded as an MP3 file. It spread swiftly, and local TV stations aired it via satellite.
"Go to every corner of Pakistan
Cell phone service resumed hours later.
After Chaudhry spoke, hundreds of police in the central city of Multan blocked about 1,000 lawyers from leaving a district court complex to stage a street rally in defiance of a ban on protests. Both sides pelted each other with stones and officers swung clubs to scatter the crowd.
At least three lawyers and three officers were injured, some bleeding from the head. Violence also was reported at a rally by lawyers in the eastern city of Guiranwala.
The clashes marked the second straight day of unrest since emergency rule was declared Saturday by Musharraf, who took power in a 1999 coup. He has ousted independent-minded judges, put a stranglehold on the media and granted sweeping powers to authorities to crush dissent.
Many of those detained have been lawyers, who have been in the forefront of protests against the military ruler, but opposition party supporters and human rights activists also are under arrest. The government says about 2,500 were detained; the opposition says 3,500.
The United States and other Western nations have urged Musharraf to stick to the election timetable, but so far no date has been set. They also want the president to fulfill his promise to give up his second post as army chief.
"President Musharraf has made certain commitments with respect to taking off the uniform and to holding elections as scheduled in January. We have, through a number of different means, conveyed to him that we expect him to abide by those commitments," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.
A Pakistani Cabinet minister said the government discussed delaying the election by no more than three months, but added that no decision was made. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the issue to the media.
Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who returned to Pakistan last month to lead her party in the parliamentary elections following eight years in self-imposed exile, claimed the government had already decided to delay the ballot by one to two years.
"They have not announced it as such, (but) I know this from the inside," she told AP Television News, but provided no details of the source of her information.
INTERNATIONAL
Bomb explodes near Afghan factory
ASSOCIATED PRESS
KABUL, Afghanistan — A bomb attack struck a group of lawmakers Tuesday as they were being greeted by children on a visit to a sugar factory in Afghanistan's normally peaceful north. At least 28 people were killed, including five parliament members as well as children.
U. S.-backed President Hamid Karzai blamed the "the enemies of peace and security," a euphemism often used for the militant Taliban. But such a spectacular attack could also have been the work of al-Qaida. The Taliban denied involvement.
Video obtained by AP Television News of the scene just before the blast shows schoolchildren, tribal elders and government officials lining the streets to greet 18 lawmakers as they were about to enter the sugar factory in Baghlan, a town about 95 miles north of the capital, Kabul.
Officials gave conflicting reports whether the attack was a suicide bomber or a planted bomb. If it is determined to be a suicide bomber, that would point strongly to al-Qaida or Taliban involvement. No one claimed responsibility for the attack.
The video also shows an Afghan man holding the head of what he claimed was the suicide attacker, shouting "Look at this (expletive!) This is the guy who destroyed everything! This is the guy who killed us!"
Some of the children shook hands with the guests and one teenager handed red and pink roses to lawmaker Saved Mustafa Kazimi
Many victims were taken to the hospital, their legs and faces stained with blood. The video shows a woman leaning over a child lying motionless in a hospital bed. A boy, his legs bandaged, cried on a gurney that looked to have been left in a hallway.
Men placed another body next to four others already laid out under a tree. Elsewhere, a body with a severed arm was lying amid rubble. Puddles of blood soaked the packed dirt around the scene of the bombing.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
INTERNATIONAL
An Iraqi police officer stands guard at a security checkpoint in Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday. Death tolls for Americans and Iraqis have fallen dramatically in recent months, as has the number of bombings, shootings and other violence.
Deaths decline, toll tops record
"The children were standing on both sides of the street, and were shaking the hands of the officials, then suddenly the explosion happened," said Mohammad Yousuf Faye, a doctor at Baghlan's main hospital.
a former Afghan commerce minister and a powerful member of the opposition party National Front. Kazimi was killed,
BY STEVEN R. HURST
ASSOCIATED PRESS
BAGHADD — The U.S. military announced six new deaths Tuesday, making 2007 the bloodiest year for American troops in Iraq despite a recent decline in casualties and a sharp drop in roadside bombings that Washington links to Iran.
With nearly two months left in the year, the annual toll is now 853 — three more than the previous worst of 850 in 2004.
But the grim milestone comes as the Pentagon points toward other encouraging signs as well — growing security in Baghdad and other former militant strongholds that could help consolidate the gains against extremists.
A senior Navy officer, meanwhile, announced the planned release of nine Iranian prisoners and was at pains to say that a major cache of Iranian-made weapons and bombs displayed for reporters Tuesday
After the explosion, the video shows dead and wounded schoolchildren on the ground.
The video does not show the explosion.
Two men carried the bloody body of a boy by his limbs and placed it on the hard-packed dirt.
"It's our best judgment that these particular EFPs ... in recent large cache finds do not appear to have arrived here in Iraq after those pledges were made," Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, director of the Multi-National Force-Iraq's communications division, told reporters Tuesday.
Among the weapons Washington has accused Iran of supplying to Iraqi Shiite militia fighters are EFPs, or explosively formed projectiles. They fire a slug of molten metal capable of penetrating even the most heavily armored military vehicles, and thus are more deadly than other roadside bombs.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said last week that Iran had made such assurances to the Iraqi government. He did not reveal when the pledge was issued.
The No. 2 U.S. commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, last week that there had been a sharp decline in the number of EFPs found in
A decline in Iranian weapons deliveries could be one of several factors for the decrease in both Iraqi and American deaths over the past two months.
appeared to have been shipped into Iraq before Tehran made a vow to stop the flow of armaments.
HASSAN KAZEMI QOMI Iranian Ambassador
"Iran has strong ties with Iraqi society, and opening these consulates will strengthen these ties."
looks in Iraq over the last three months. At the time, he and Gates both said it was too early to tell whether the trend would hold, and whether it could be attributed to action by Iranian authorities. Iran publicly denies that it has sent
Kurdish Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani and Iranian Ambassador Hassan Kazemi Qomi inaugurated the building in Irbil and said both would have full diplomatic status.
weapons to Shiite militias in Iraq.
The positive moves toward Iran on Tuesday coincided with the opening of two Iranian consulates, the facility in Irbil that was shut by American forces after the raid, and a second in Sulaimaniyah, the largest city in the Kurdish zone.
The Iranian ambassador charged the United States ran roughshod over Iraqi sovereignty in conducting the raid in January.
Two of the Iranians who will be freed "in the coming days" were among five captured in January in a U.S. raid on an Iranian government facility in Irbil, the capital of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region in the north of the country.
"This is a very important step to enhance relations and facilitate the commerce between the two sides," Barzani told reporters.
Smith told reporters the identities of the nine Iranians would be released later. He said the decision to release the nine was made after they were determined not to be a threat to U.S. forces.
"The American forces breached Iraqi sovereignty by detaining the five Iranian diplomats at this same office in Irbil," Qomi said.
The Americans said the five were members of Iran's elite Quds Force, an arm of the Revolutionary Guards. Iran said the five were diplomats working in a facility that was undergoing preparations to be a consular office.
"Iran has strong ties with Iraqi society, and opening these consulates will strengthen these ties. It will also strengthen commerce and travel between the two sides." Qomi said.
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