Al-Qaeda 'ideologically inclined' to carry out attacks in India: UN report

Agencies
August 14, 2018

United Nations, Aug 14: Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), the terror group's newest affiliate, is "ideologically inclined" to carry out attacks inside India but its capability is believed to be low and is relatively isolated owing to increased security measures in the region, according to a UN report.

The 22nd report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team was submitted to the UN Security Council Al Qaeda Sanctions Committee.

The report said that AQIS is "relatively isolated owing to increased security measures within the wider region, but the group continues to seek security gaps for opportunistic attacks".

The group is "ideologically inclined to carry out attacks inside India but its capability is believed to be low," it said, adding that according to Member States, the strength of AQIS in Afghanistan is estimated at several hundred people, located in Laghman, Paktika, Kandahar, Ghazni and Zabul provinces.

Noting that Al-Qaeda still maintains a presence in South Asia, the report said the terror group adapts to the local environment, trying to embed itself into local struggles and communities and is closely allied with the Taliban.

According to one Member State, although the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), also known as ISIS, poses an immediate threat, Al-Qaeda is the 'intellectually stronger group' and remains a longer-term threat.

The report added that some members of the Al-Qaeda core, including Aiman al-Zawahiri and son of slain Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, Hamza bin Laden are reported to be in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border areas.

Other members of the Al-Qaeda core may leave for more secure areas, it said.

The report said that between 20,000 and 30,000 Islamic State fighters remain in Iraq and Syria and among these there is still a significant component of the many thousands of active foreign terrorist fighters.

One Member State reports that some recent plots detected and prevented in Europe had originated from ISIL in Afghanistan. In addition to establishing a presence across Afghanistan, ISIL also attempts to have an impact on other countries in the region.

"According to one Member State, ISIL in Afghanistan is responsible for at least one attack in the Kashmir region,? the report said. However, no details about the attack in Kashmir were given in the report.

The sanctions monitoring team submits independent reports every six months to the Security Council on the Islamic State, Al-Qaeda and associated individuals, groups, undertakings and entities.

The report added that in Afghanistan, ISIL persistently tried to expand its presence, despite pressure from the Afghan National Defence and Security Forces, the international coalition and the Taliban.

ISIL currently has its main presence in the eastern provinces of Kunar, Nangarhar and Nuristan, and is also active in Jowzjan, Faryab, Sari Pul and Badakhshan provinces in the north. The group has the intention to expand into Ghazni, Kunduz, Laghman, Logar and Uruzgan provinces.

"In Kabul, Herat and Jalalabad, ISIL already has sleeper cells and has committed disruptive, high-profile attacks, including against both Government and Taliban targets during the Eid al-Fitr ceasefire," it added.

The report noted that that ISIL has between 3,500 and 4,000 members in Afghanistan, including between 600 and 1,000 in northern Afghanistan (with both numbers on the increase). It is led by Abu Sayed Bajauri who is not listed and the majority of its members and leaders were formerly members of Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan and it may represent an emerging threat to Central Asian States.

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Agencies
July 7,2020

India's COVID-19 tally raced past the seven lakh-mark with 22,252 fresh infections on Tuesday, five days after crossing the six lakh post, while the death toll climbed to 20,160 as 467 more people succumbed to the disease, according to the Union health ministry.

With this, the country has recorded over 20,000 cases of the infection for the fifth consecutive day.

India's coronavirus infection caseload stands at 7,19,665, the ministry's data updated at 8 am showed.

With a steady rise, the number of recoveries stands at 4,39,947, while there are 2,59,557 active cases of coronavirus infection in the country.

"Thus, around 61.13 % of patients have recovered so far," an official said.

The total number of confirmed cases also includes foreigners.

Of the 467 deaths reported in the last 24 hours, 204 are from Maharashtra, 61 from Tamil Nadu, 48 from Delhi, 29 from Karnataka, 24 from Uttar Pradesh, 22 from West Bengal, 17 from Gujarat.

Telangana and Haryana reported 11 deaths each; Madhya Pradesh nine; Andhra Pradesh seven; Jammu and Kashmir six; Rajasthan and Punjab five each; Bihar, Kerala and Odisha two each; and Arunachal Pradesh and Jharkhand one each.

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News Network
February 17,2020

Feb 17: Chinese authorities on Monday reported a slight upturn in new virus cases and 105 more deaths for a total of 1,770 since the outbreak began two months ago.

The 2,048 new cases followed three days of declines but was up by just 39 cases from the previous day’s figure. Another 10,844 people have recovered from COVID-19, a disease caused by the new coronavirus, and have been discharged from hospitals, according to Monday’s figures.

The update followed the publication late Saturday in China’s official media of a recent speech by President Xi Jinping in which he indicated for the first time that he had led the response to the outbreak from early in the crisis. While the reports were an apparent attempt to demonstrate the Communist Party leadership acted decisively from the start, it also opened Xi up to criticism over why the public was not alerted sooner.

In his speech, Xi said he gave instructions on fighting the virus on Jan. 7 and ordered the shutdown of the most-affected cities that began on Jan. 23.

The disclosure of his speech indicates top leaders knew about the outbreak’s potential severity at least two weeks before such dangers were made known to the public. It was not until late January that officials said the virus can spread between humans and public alarm began to rise.

New cases in other countries are raising growing concerns about containment of the virus.

Taiwan on Sunday reported its first death from COVID-19, the fifth fatality outside of mainland China. Taiwan’s Central News Agency, citing health minister Chen Shih-chung, said the man who died was in his 60s and had not traveled overseas recently and had no known contact with virus patients.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe convened an experts meeting to discuss containment measures in his country, where more than a dozen cases have emerged in the past few days without any obvious link to China.

“The situation surrounding this virus is changing by the minute,” Abe said.

Japanese Health Minister Katsunobu Kato said the country is “entering into a phase that is different from before,” requiring new steps to stop the spread of the virus.

Japan now has 413 confirmed cases, including 355 from a quarantined cruise ship, and one death from the virus. Its total is the highest number of cases among about two dozen countries outside of China where the illness has spread.

Hundreds of Americans from the cruise ship took charter flights home, as Japan announced another 70 infections had been confirmed on the Diamond Princess. Canada, Hong Kong and Italy were planning similar flights.

The 300 or so Americans flying on U.S.-government chartered aircraft back to the U.S. will face another 14-day quarantine at Travis Air Force Base in California and Lackland Air Force Base in Texas. The U.S. Embassy said the departure was offered because people on the ship were at a high risk of exposure to the virus. People with symptoms were banned from the flights.

About 255 Canadians and 330 Hong Kong residents are on board the ship or undergoing treatment in Japanese hospitals. There are also 35 Italians, of which 25 are crew members, including the captain.

In China’s Hubei province, where the outbreak began in December, all vehicle traffic will be banned in another containment measure. It expands a vehicle ban in the provincial capital, Wuhan, where public transportation, trains and planes have been halted for weeks.

Exceptions were being made for vehicles involved in epidemic prevention and transporting daily necessities.

Hubei has built new hospitals with thousands of patient beds and China has sent thousands of military medical personnel to staff the new facilities and help the overburdened health care system.

Last Thursday, Hubei changed how it recognized COVID-19 cases, accepting a doctor’s diagnosis rather than waiting for confirmed laboratory test results, in order to treat patients faster. The tally spiked by more than 15,000 cases under the new method.

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News Network
February 16,2020

Munich, Feb 16: Iran's foreign minister said Saturday that US President Donald Trump is receiving bad advice if he believes an American "maximum pressure" campaign against his country will cause the government in Tehran to collapse.

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told a group of top defense officials and diplomats at the Munich Security Conference that the information provided to the president has dissuaded Trump from accepting offers from other leaders to mediate between Washington and Tehran.

"President Trump has been convinced that we are about to collapse so he doesn't want to talk to a collapsing regime," Zarif said.

To support his argument, the Iranian minister cited Trump's decision to pull out unilaterally in 2018 from Iran's nuclear deal with the US and other world powers. Trump said the landmark 2015 accord didn't address Iran's ballistic missile program or regional activities and needed to be renegotiated.

Since then, the Trump administration's re-imposition of US sanctions in a campaign of so-called "maximum pressure" have taken a severe toll on the Iranian economy and sent Iran's currency plunging.

"I believe President Trump, unfortunately, does not have good advisers," Zarif said. "He's been wanting for Iran to collapse since he withdrew from the nuclear deal." Zarif also said the killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in a US drone strike in Iraq on January 3 was a miscalculation by Washington that has galvanized support for Iran instead of increasing pressure on the regime.

The Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA, promised Iran economic incentives in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program. It was intended to prevent Tehran from developing a nuclear bomb, which Iran insists it does not want to do.

Since the US withdrawal, the deal's other signatories - Germany, France, Britain, Russia and China - have unsuccessfully struggled to come up with ways to offset the effects of the new American sanctions.

Washington has pressured the other countries - so far without success - to abandon the deal entirely US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said at the Munich Security Conference earlier Saturday that while there may be disagreements on what to do with the JCPOA, "when I talk to my counterparts here in Europe, everybody gets it."

"Everyone understands that these are folks who continue to build out their nuclear program," Pompeo said. "So there's a common understanding about the threat; we have tactical differences on how to proceed."

In recent months, Iran has steadily violated the limitations the deal placed on the amount of enriched uranium and heavy water it can stockpile, the number and type of centrifuges it can operate, and the purity of the uranium it enriches.

Iranian officials insist the moves are intended only to put pressure on the countries that remain part of the deal to provide economic help to Iran and that all the measures taken are fully reversible.

Zarif rejected Trump's suggestion of negotiating a new deal, saying the one negotiated during the Obama administration was the only vehicle for talks on Iran's nuclear program.

"There is no point in talking over something you already talked about. You don't buy a horse twice," he said.

"It's not about opening talks with the United States. It's about bringing the United States to the negotiating table that's already there," Zarif said.

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