Hindustan Times (Delhi)

WH dismisses ex-aide’s claims on Trump Bus ferrying Chinese attacked in Pakistan

- Yashwant Raj yashwant.raj@hindustant­imes.com

QUETTA: A suicide bomber wounded three Chinese engineers and three paramilita­ry guards in Balochista­n, officials said on Saturday.

The bomber struck near a bus carrying Chinese engineers from Baluchista­n to Karachi.

Hashim Ghilzai, a senior official in the region said the attacker was in a parked car and blew himself up when the bus got closer to him in the Dalbandin area.

The Baloch Liberation Army, a separatist group, claimed responsibi­lity for the suicide attack — the first time any Baluch separatist group has taken responsibi­lity for a suicide attack.

BLA spokesman Junaid Baloch in a statement on the group’s webpage that more such attacks would be carried out on Chinese involved in “exploiting the resources of Balochista­n.”

The southweste­rn province is the scene of a low-level insurgency by Baluoh separatist­s who want greater share from provincial resources or outright autonomy from Islamabad.

Militants in Pakistan carry out near-daily attacks, mainly targeting security forces. Most of the attacks have been linked to the Pakistani Taliban and other Islamic extremists.

In a separate incident, gunmen killed three police officers in northern Pakistan. Faizullah Faraq, spokesman for the local government of northern Gilgit Baltistan territory, said one of the gunmen who attacked a police post was killed. WASHINGTON: The White House has slammed a book by Omarosa Manigault Newman as “riddled with lies and false accusation­s” and sought to dismiss her as a “disgruntle­d” former employee of President Donald Trump.

In the forthcomin­g book titled Unhinged: An Insider Account of the Trump White House, Manigault Newman, once the seniormost African American aide in the White House, portrays Trump as “racist, misogynist and bigot”.

This is the first account of the Trump White House by an aide. Manigault Newman was fired by chief of staff John Kelly in December for allegedly misusing the White House car service, a charge she has denied.

She has written in detail about her ouster, claiming Trump did not have advance knowledge of it and that the Trump campaign had sought to buy her silence for a monthly payment of $15,000 as an outreach person. She turned it down, and went on to write the book, which is being described as explosive and incendiary.

“Instead of telling the truth about all the good President Trump and his administra­tion are doing to make America safe and prosperous, this book is riddled with lies and false accusation­s,” White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement. “It’s sad that a disgruntle­d former White House employee is trying to profit off these false attacks, and even worse that the media would now give her a platform, after not taking her seriously when she had only positive things to say about the President during her time in the administra­tion.”

Manigault Newman hasn’t cited evidence to support some of her most explosive charges, including that Trump had used the “N” word on the TV show The Apprentice, which he had hosted.

She said there were recordings of such conversati­ons, which she had tried to find.

Manigault Newman has been working with Trump since his days as the celebrity host of The Apprentice.

She first appeared as one of the contestant­s and stayed on as assistant on the show. She later joined the campaign in charge of outreach to the African American community.

 ?? AFP ?? Security personnel inspect the site of the suicide attack.
AFP Security personnel inspect the site of the suicide attack.

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