Airstrike kills Qaeda leader
2 militants killed in B’desh
WASHINGTON, March 26, (Agencies): A US counterterrorism airstrike earlier this month in Afghanistan killed an al-Qaeda leader responsible for a deadly hotel attack in Islamabad in 2008 and the 2009 attack on a bus carrying the Sri Lankan cricket team, the Pentagon said Saturday.
In confirming the death of Qari Yasin, US officials said Yasin was a senior terrorist figure from Balochistan, Pakistan, had ties to the group Tehrik-e Taleban and had plotted multiple alQaeda terror attacks. The airstrike that led to his death was conducted March 19 in Paktika Province, Afghanistan.
Yasin plotted the Sept 20, 2008, bombing on the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad that killed dozens, officials said. The victims included two American service members, Air Force Maj Rodolfo I. Rodriguez of El Paso, Texas, and Navy Cryptologic Technician 3rd Class Petty Officer Matthew J. O’Bryant of Theodore, Alabama, US officials said.
The bus attack in the Pakistani city of Lahore killed six Pakistani policemen and two civilians and wounded six members of the cricket team.
Two suspected militants were killed Sunday in an ongoing military raid on a building where armed militants were holed up in eastern Bangladesh, police and army officials said. Six people, including two policemen, were killed in explosions near that building a day earlier.
Brig Gen Mohammad Fakhrul Ahsan told reporters that the government operations were not yet over and that one or more militants were still inside the building Sunday evening. Army and paramilitary troops have been trying since Friday to flush out Islamist radicals who have holed up in a building in the city of Sylhet with a large cache of ammunition.
The six people killed Saturday died after a series of explosions took place on a road near an Islamic religious school and close to the building under siege. At least 25 people have been wounded in the attacks and 78 civilians have been rescued from the building after troops broke a section of the compound wall where the building is located.
One person was killed and about 14 injured when violence erupted following a scuffle between Muslim and Hindu school students in Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat, a senior administrative official said on Sunday.
A crowd of about 5,000 people attacked Muslim residents and set dozens of homes and vehicles on fire at Vadavali village in Patan district on Saturday after Hindu students complained of misbehaviour by Muslim students, said K. K. Nirala, the district’s top administrative official.
The first democratically elected president of the Maldives said Saturday that he has signed an agreement with his one-time archrival and former strongman to try to restore democracy in the archipelago state.
Former President Mohamed Nasheed told The Associated Press that the immediate goal of the agreement, which was also signed by two opposition party leaders, is to form a majority in a parliament now controlled by lawmakers supporting President Yameen Abdul Gayoom.