73 jawans killed in Chhattisgarh Naxal attack

At least 73 CRPF personnel were killed in an attack by Naxalites in Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh early on Tuesday.
The attack took place when a CRPF patrol party was returning from a road opening duty in the Naxalite-infested Mukrana forest in the district between six to seven am.
"We have rushed helicopters to evacuate the casualties," Chhattisgarh Director General of Police Viswa Ranjan said.
The death toll in the attack may rise as many of the personnel have been seriously injured.
The CRPF patrol party was totally taken aback by the Maoists who surfaced at a hillock to carry out the attack.
During the attack, the Maoists opened indiscriminate fire and triggered an IED blast.
Dantewada Superintendent of Police Amresh Mishra told that the Naxals blew up a vehicle carrying the CRPF personnel.
The incident took place in the early hours near Chintalnar -Tarmetla village in the district when ultras attacked a joint team comprising personnel from CRPF, district forces and special police, he said.
The team had been camping in interiors of Tarmetla jungles for the last three days as part of a combing operation, Mishra said.
Four policemen have been injured in the blast. Additional police forces have been rushed to the spot, he said.
The attack came two days after Maoists triggered a landmine blast killing 11 security personnel and injuring several others in Orissa's Koraput district.
The landmine had exploded in Tanginiguda area when a van carrying jawans of the elite anti-Naxalite Special Operation Group (SOG) was returning from an operation in adjacent Malkangiri district.

Jai Hind

Rahul Vallamber

Pune blast part of Lashkar's 'Karachi Project'?

PUNE/NEW DELHI: Investigators suspect the blast in Pune on Saturday was set off by Indian Mujahideen as part of the `Karachi Project' - a plot by the Lashkar-e-Taiba involving fugitive Indian jihadis and serving and retired officers of the Pakistan army aimed at keeping up the offensive against India.

Sources in security agencies believe that the Southern Brigade of Indian Mujahideen which comprises absconding IM terrorists Abdus Subhan Qureshi and Mohsin Chaudhary - a Pune resident - could have been behind the explosion in the landmark German Bakery that left nine dead.
The assessment is based on similarities with other terror attacks carried out by IM which was floated by Lashkar to camouflage its hand in the continued terror campaign against India. The date of the attack is part of the pattern that the group has followed since the serial blasts it engineered in Jaipur in 2008 - that is to strike either on 13th on 26th. The last five major attacks, including 26/11, have happened on these two dates. The only significant deviation was the attack in Bangalore on July 25, 2008.

Second, they have always struck in the evening hours and have involved blasts, with the exception of 26/11 which was a frontal assault by Pakistani gunmen.

But there are other reasons as well why agencies are veering around to the IM angle. The intelligence with them suggests that IM leaders who are part of the `Karachi Project' have been under pressure for sometime to resume their activities. As part of the project, which was revealed by American Lashkar jihadi David Headley to his FBI interrogators, fugitive IM leaders Bhatkal brothers - Riaz and Iqbal - Mufti Sufiyan and Rasool Parti are being sheltered in Karachi by Lashkar. Headley, who recceed Chabad House close to German Bakery, had also told FBI interrogators about serving and retired officers of Pakistan army being part of the project.

Mohammad Amjad Khwaja, a leading IM jihadi from Hyderabad who was lodged in Pakistan by Lashkar as part of the Karachi Project and was recently arrested after reaching here, told his interrogators that he and his associates were shown videos of Pune's Osho Ashram and Mumbai's Blue Synagogue.

The IM leaders could have settled on Pune also because the outfit has always had a strong presence in the city. Some of the prominent ones - techies Mohammed Mansoor Asgar Peerbhoy who headed the `media wing' of the group, Mohammad Atiq Mohammad Iqbal and Anik Shafiq Sayyad, and Anwar Abdulganj Bagwan, an MBBS doctor from a local hospital - are in prison. But Mohsin Chaudhary, known to agencies, along with other foot soldiers from the city and other parts of Maharashtra as well as Karnataka, have so far dodged the police hunt. Union home ministry identified the fugitives on the run as Mohammad Ali, Amin, Irfan and Abu Rashid.


Jai Hind
Rahul Vallamber

Terror Threat to Vaishnodevi: CRPF

The cave shrine of Vaishnodevi, one of the most revered places of worship visited by about eight million pilgrims each year, faced a fresh terror threat and security has been beefed up.

Central Reserve Police Force's (CRPF) Special Director General N K Tripathi on Tuesday warned of the threat to the hill shrine, about 61 kms from here, saying it is on the radar of militants.

"There is a threat to the cave shrine of Vaishnodevi from militants. We have received inputs that militants want to do some mischief," he told reporters.

"Elaborate security measures are in place as per the threat perception. There is no laxity on part of the CRPF," he said, adding "the shrine is secured and safe, so pilgrims need not fear. They can undertake pilgrimage as CRPF is there for their security".

CRPF jawans have been put on high level of alert and are already keeping a hawk's vigil from the days in the run up to Republic Day on January 26 in Trikuta hills, the abode of the holy shrine, Tripathi said.

To a question, he said CRPF is main security agency providing security cover to the shrine an entire battalion is standing guard. A CRPF battalion usually comprises 1,000 personnel.

There is always a change in the strategy as per threat perception from time to time, Tripathi said.

"I had visited the shrine for security review after the threat inputs. There is frisking of pilgrims, round the clock patrolling, check points, nakas and electronic surveillance at the shrine and around it," he said.


Jai Hind
Rahul Vallamber

Baghdad bomb blasts kill 128 on 08/12/2009

BAGHDAD: A wave of violent chaos engulfed Iraq’s capital yesterday as a series of co-ordinated bombs, including at least two suicide attacks, struck the city, killing at least 128 people and wounding as many as 513 others.



Four explosions hit Baghdad within the space of a few minutes, all close to government buildings. An hour earlier, a suicide car bomb detonated near a police patrol in the southern neighbourhood of Doura.

The attacks, the worst since October 25 when two car bombs killed 155, further called into question the government’s ability to protect its citizens and prompted angry complaints about failures by the police and army.



“We have already sent a formal message to Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki saying that the current security plan has failed,” Hadi al Amri, the head of the Iraqi parliament’s security commission, said. “It is clear that we need a new security plan.

“There have been consistent warnings that government and civilian targets will be increasingly attacked in the run-up to the national elections, but insufficient action has been taken to stop those attacks.”



Rahul Vallamber
www.stopterrorism.co.in

Twin blasts in ISI office in Pakistan's Punjab province (08/12/09)

Islamabad, Dec 8 (PTI) Two blasts ripped through an ISI office within Multan cantonment in Pakistan's Punjab province today, injuring several people.

The first blast occurred shortly before noon and was followed soon by a more powerful explosion, witnesses said.

Military police cordoned off the area and prevented people and the media from approaching the site of the blast.

Zafar Ahir, an editor of Jang newspaper who witnessed the blasts, said the target of the attack was an ISI office.

"More than half of the ISI office has been destroyed.

I saw the building blow up," he told Geo News channel.

Several injured persons were taken by ambulances to nearby hospitals, where authorities declared an emergency.

? ? Geo News aired mobile phone footage shot by a passer-by which showed the facade of one building was completely destroyed by the blasts.

Several nearby buildings were also damaged.


www.stopterrorism.co.in
rahul vallamber

3 Serial Blast in Assam. 4 died and 25 injured . (22/11/2009)

25 people were injured and 4 died on Sunday when a bomb exploded outside a police station in Assam's Nalbari district, police said.
The bomb was kept on a parked bicycle and it exploded around 10 a.m., an official said.
Police suspect that militants of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) carried out the explosion.
Nalbari district is about 70 km west of Assam's main city of Guwahati.
One more blast happened in GOPAL BAZAR.
With in 15 mints 3 serial blast took place.
Assam is in RED ALEART.

Rahul Vallamber
www.stopterrorism.co.in

Eleven Killed In Pakistan Car Bomb Blast

2:54pm UK, Saturday November 14, 2009
Eleven people have been killed by a suicide car bomber in the Pakistani city of Peshawar.
The bomber detonated his device when policemen asked him to stop for a search.
Police official Malik Jehangir, who was in charge of the checkpoint, said his officers were checking vehicles when he saw a suspicious black car across the barrier and he asked one of them to go and check it.
"I saw that there was some argument between the driver and the policeman and suddenly a blast downed me," he said.
Another witness, Akbar Ali, said that he was riding a motorcycle and waiting in the queue at the checkpoint when he saw a scuffle between the bomber and the policeman.
"He was a young man, about 20-years-old with a small beard and wearing a white cap. When I noticed that his body was swollen, I left my bike there and ran away fearing he might be a bomber."
Ali said that seconds after a huge blast threw him to the ground.
Peshawar is near the Afghanistan border and has a massive al Qaeda and Taliban presence.
It has increasingly become the favoured target for attacks by militants, particularly since the Pakistani army launched its offensive in October.
On Friday a suicide attack in Peshawar devastated the three-storey provincial headquarters of the country's Inter Services Intelligence agency.
At least 17 people were killed and 39 others were injured in the bombing. Taliban militants claimed responsibility

www.stopterrorism.co.in
Rahul Vallamber