Bosnia facing worst crisis in 15 years- envoy

A Muslim woman says a prayer in front of a monument with the names of 1,226 victims killed in the summer of 1992 at the beginning of the Bosnian war. – Reuters Photo

UNITED NATIONS: Ethnically divided Bosnia is facing its most serious crisis since it was established as a state 15 years ago, its international envoy warned on Monday, accusing Serb officials of threatening its viability.
Bosnia in the 1990s suffered Europe’s worst conflict since World War Two. The country remains divided between former wartime adversaries living in two autonomous regions — a separatist Serb Republic and a Muslim-Croat federation.
That situation resulted from the 1995 Dayton peace accord that ended the Bosnian war. Rivalry between the two regions has blocked reforms and progress towards European integration.
In a regular report to the UN Security Council, Austrian diplomat Valentin Inzko accused Serb authorities of “concrete actions which represent the most serious violation of (Dayton) that we have seen since the agreement was signed.”
In the latest challenge to central authority in Bosnia, the regional Serb parliament last month backed plans for a referendum on the legality of Bosnia’s national court, which prosecutes war crimes suspects, saying it is biased against Serbians.
The referendum, expected in mid-June, would also pronounce on the authority of Inzko, who as the international “high representative” for the Balkan state has the power to overturn laws and fire officials.
Inzko demanded that the Serb Republic authorities drop the referendum plan in the coming days. “Should this not happen …
I will have no choice but to repeal the … referendum decision,” he said.
In an unusually hard-hitting speech, the normally low-key Inzko said the international community faced “the most serious and most direct challenges to (Dayton) since it was signed over 15 years ago.” Bosnia’s bid to join the European Union and Nato had “come to a complete halt.”
The Serb Republic, and especially its president Milorad Dodik, “have continued openly to question the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Bosnia,” Inzko said.
Seven months after general elections, formation of a state government had become “almost impossible,” political parties “have continued to play zero-sum politics” and the situation looked set to continue for the time being, he added.
The divided Security Council took no immediate action on Inzko’s report. Western nations said they would back Inzko in any action he took.
US envoy Rosemary DiCarlo said, without elaborating, that Washington was “in the process of considering our own measures in support of Dayton and Bosnian state institutions, should they become necessary.”
But Ambassador Vitaly Churkin of Russia, which strongly backs the Serbs, criticized Inzko’s speech as “emotional.” He said the referendum did not directly violate Dayton, and that the political crisis in Bosnia was caused by the Muslims and by Inzko, who he said had made “arbitrary use” of his powers.

Bin Laden had Pakistan ‘complicity’: Key US senator

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney answers a question during a press briefing at the White House in Washington on May 9, 2011. the US said that it would not “apologize” for launching a raid to kill al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden on Pakistani soil, after the Islamabad government complained about US “unilateralism.” Carney said Washington took Pakistani complaints seriously but added: “we also do not apologize for the action that this president took.” Pakistan's Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani earlier complained about the US raid on Abbottabad last week which killed bin Laden, after the Pakistani government was not informed in advance. — AFP PHOTO

WASHINGTON: US Senate Intelligence Committee chairwoman Dianne Feinstein charged Monday that slain al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden could not have lived as he did in Pakistan without some official complicity. “I just don’t believe it was done without some form of complicity,” Feinstein told reporters as she delivered a stark and scathing warning to the troubled US ally to do more to battle extremists or risk souring ties.
“I think either we’re going to be allies in fighting terror, or the relationship makes less and less sense to me,” said the senator, who indicated she foresaw cuts in billions in US aid absent a course correction in Islamabad.
While some US lawmakers have called for stepping up help to Pakistan, “I feel a little differently,” said Feinstein who complained that “we provide funds, we try to help the government wherever we can” and get little in return.
“It’s becoming increasingly problematic,” she said. “I thoroughly agree with the administration’s request that Pakistan take a good look at what the support services were for bin Laden.” Feinstein said it was “incomprehensible” that bin Laden could live unperturbed for six years in “a military community” in Pakistan before the May 2 raid in which elite US commandos shot dead the elusive al Qaeda leader.
While Pakistan has denied knowingly allowing the world’s most hunted man to live in relative luxury, “I just don’t believe it,” said Feinstein, who stressed “that level of complicity is really a problem.” Feinstein charged that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) have been “essentially favoring the Haqqani network, which attacks our troops in Afghanistan,” while denying US forces access to their bases in remote North Waziristan.
“You have them not turning over both the inspirational head and the operational head of LeT, following the Mumbai bombing, to India,” she said, referring Lashkar-e-Taiba.
“Now you have this,” she said, referring to bin Laden.

CIA won’t withdraw spy chief in Pakistan: officials

“The current CIA station chief is a true pro, someone who knows how to work well with foreign partners and is looking to strengthen cooperation with Pakistani intelligence,” one of the US officials said. – File Photo

WASHINGTON: The Central Intelligence Agency has no intention of bringing home its chief operative in Pakistan despite an apparent attempt by the Pakistani media to unmask his identity, US officials said on Monday.
While the Pakistani media reports apparently were inaccurate, US officials said they believe the leak was a calculated attempt to divert attention from American demands for explanations of how Osama bin Laden could have hidden for years near Pakistan’s principal military academy.
US special forces killed bin Laden a week ago.
American officials suspect the attempted outing of the CIA station chief in Islamabad — the second incident of its kind in six months — was the work of someone in the Pakistani government, possibly Pakistan’s principal spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI).
The tense relationship between the CIA and the ISI has deteriorated further with the revelation that bin Laden lived for five years in Abbottabad, close to Pakistan’s capital.
The Obama administration has demanded access to ISI operatives and to bin Laden’s wives, who are in Pakistani custody, to try to map out the al Qaeda leader’s support network.
A private Pakistani TV network and a newspaper published what they said was the real name of the top CIA representative in Islamabad.
Two US officials familiar with dealings between Washington and Islamabad indicated that the name the TV channel aired was wrong, and that the real station chief would remain at his post.
“The current CIA station chief is a true pro, someone who knows how to work well with foreign partners and is looking to strengthen cooperation with Pakistani intelligence,” one of the US officials said.
This week’s incident follows a similar, more damaging leak to the Pakistani media in December.
In that incident, the man then serving as the CIA’s station chief in Islamabad left the country after his name appeared in local media accusing him of complicity in missile attacks in which civilians were killed.
US officials said they believed the exposure of the station chief was deliberate retaliation by elements of ISI who were upset that their agency and some of its officers had been named as defendants in a lawsuit filed in the US courts.
It was filed by the families of Americans killed by Pakistani militants in attacks on a Jewish center and other civilian targets in Mumbai, India in November 2008.
Allegations about ISI’s alleged relationship with the Lashkar e Taiba, a Pakistan-based group accused of carrying out the Mumbai attack, are expected to be aired at the trial in Chicago this month of a businessman accused by US authorities of involvement with the militant group.
The new attempt to disclose the CIA officer’s identity is a fresh blow to Pakistani-US relations, which were strained close to breaking point even before the raid last Monday in which US Navy SEAL commandos secretly flew across Pakistani territory, attacked his Abbotabad hide-out, killed the al Qaeda leader, and spirited away his body for burial at sea. – Reuters

Floods along mighty Mississippi swamp farms, homes

A home sits surrounded by floodwater May 9, 2011 in Memphis, Tennessee. - Photo by AFP

MEMPHIS: The worst floods to hit the central United States in more than 80 years swallowed up homes, farms and roadways Monday, as the mighty Mississippi River swelled to six times its normal width.
Officials patrolled stressed levees in waterlogged Memphis, Tennessee where the Mississippi – normally about half a mile across – is currently about three miles (4.8 kilometers) wide.
Daryl Hissong and his three-year-old son were among thousands of people forced from their homes by the muddy waters of record spring flooding.
They packed up on Sunday and by Monday morning there was five feet (almost two meters) of water inside his home in Millington, Tennessee, a suburb of Memphis.
“They said it’ll probably be a month before all of this goes down,” Hissong told AFP as he looked at the flood which had swept up to the rooftops of neighboring trailer homes.
Levees and natural bluffs have protected most of Memphis from serious flooding, but those living in the affluent neighborhood of Mud Island were struggling to keep the waters at bay.
The floodwaters already have engulfed homes along the shoreline and on Monday broke through a sandbag barrier set up around a condominium on the other side of the road.
“We’re staying and riding it out, I guess,” resident Dawn Watkins said as workers reinforced the sandbags. “I didn’t have any water until just a few minutes ago.” The US Army Corps of Engineers has deployed about 150 people to patrol the city’s levees day and night to check for potential problems.
“We’re very confident that the levee system is up to the test,” spokesman Jim Pogue said.
Portions of the Mississippi were closed to shipping and the US Coast Guard opened flood gates outside of New Orleans to help protect the low-lying city as a flood wave makes its way slowly down to the Gulf of Mexico.
“We’re looking at some pretty substantial flooding all the way from Memphis to Louisiana,” said Tom Bradshaw, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
Heavy rains last month filled rivers and creeks already swollen from the melting of a thick winter snow pack, which are backing up because the Mississippi is so swollen.
It’s the biggest flood in the Mississippi Valley since 1937 and the river is rising above those records in some areas, Bradshaw said.
“What’s helping us is that we have a lot of levees we didn’t have back in 1937 and they’re able to control the water a lot better so you don’t see the massive displacement of folks and literally washing away of towns that you did in the old days,” Bradshaw said.
But it will still take weeks for the river levels to return to normal and there are plenty of homes which could be lost, particularly in the low-lying Mississippi Delta.
Martin Moss, who lives near Horn Lake, Mississippi said the potential flooding was hard to take after three weeks of tornado warnings and severe thunderstorms which blasted the area last month.
“I could use a break from all this,” said Moss as he packed up his irreplaceable possessions and stored them in his attic.
And then there’s the second flood – tourists, gawkers, and amateur photographers whose cars glutted Downtown Memphis streets.
“I can understand their curiosity, but it was really quite difficult,” said Mary Ann Bodayla, who lives on Mud Island. “Even the mailman had difficulty because there were so many cars.” Meanwhile, Governor Steve Beshear of Kentucky said Monday most of the 3,800 people evacuated from counties along the Ohio and Mississippi rivers may soon be allowed to return home and assess the damage.
In Missouri where waters have also begun to recede, Governor Jay Nixon sought federal assistance for farmers in 56 counties. Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour is seeking federal help for 14 counties while Illinois Governor Pat Quinn is seeking federal funds for 11 counties.

US was prepared for Pakistan clash in bin Laden raid: report

US President Barack Obama. - File Photo

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama ordered that the team sent to raid Osama bin Laden’s compound be large enough to fight off Pakistani forces should they intervene, the New York Times reported.
Citing unnamed officials, the paper said Obama raised the prospect of a clash 10 days before the May 1 raid, resulting in an extra two fighter helicopters being sent to protect the commandos raiding the compound.
“Some people may have assumed we could talk our way out of a jam, but given our difficult relationship with Pakistan right now, the president did not want to leave anything to chance,” it quoted a senior official as saying.
“He wanted extra forces if they were necessary.” The Times also reported that two teams of specialists were on standby for the mission: one to bury the al Qaeda leader if he were killed, and another made up of lawyers, interrogators and translators in case he was captured.
It said the latter team was likely aboard the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson in the North Arabian Sea.
Bin Laden was buried at sea after he was shot dead in the raid, officials have said.
The latest revelations come at a time of heightened tensions between the two military allies, with Pakistan slamming the US operation and denying what it called “absurd” allegations that it was sheltering the world’s most wanted man.
Islamabad has also vowed to retaliate against any similar operations.
Washington in turn has emphatically refused to say sorry for taking out its enemy Number 1, blamed for masterminding the September 11, 2001 attacks in which almost 3,000 people were killed. – AFP

No one getting Osama bounty: White House

 WASHINGTON: White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said on Monday that no one would receive the federal government's $25 million reward money for finding Osama bin Laden because no one intentionally directed U.S. intelligence officials to the al Qaeda leader.

In a press briefing on Monday, Carney said "as far as I'm aware, no one knowledgeably said, 'Oh, Osama bin Laden's over here in Abbottabad at 5703, you know, Green Avenue.'

Carney said that the reward isn't given if someone "accidentally" provides the necessary information through the intelligence gathering process.

In 2001, the State Department offered a $25 million reward for information about bin Laden's whereabouts. In 2004, then-Sen. Hillary Clinton pushed for the passage of a bill that would allow the Secretary of State - the position she now holds - to authorize as much as $50 million as a prize.

At least one man has already begun angling for the prize money: Gary Brooks Faulkner, a 51-year-old American who was detained last year in Pakistan while setting out on a "lone wolf" mission to hunt down Osama bin Laden.

""I got off my ass. I got the son of a bitch out. He's dead now," Faulkner said in a recent interview with WLS Radio. "Whether it was by my hands or something else...You still realize that we lost total contact after he left Tora Bora. Nobody knew anything. He's in Pakistan, he's in Africa, he's in Somalia...he's everywhere else. People did nothing, absolutely nothing until I came on the scene, and that's a fact."

New York lawmakers have suggested that the money instead go to survivors of 9/11, as well as the families of victims.

Reps. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) and Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) introduced legislation on Sunday proposing to direct the bounty to those directly affected by the attacks.

"If the bounty isn't paid, Osama bin Laden's victims should get it," Weiner said, according to Politico.

The money, Nadler added, "was allocated for 9/11 victims in effect, and this is simply, saying use it more effectively for the purpose that it was set up in the first place."

Names of Osama’s wives released

 WASHINGTON: US officials have released the names of three wives of al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden which were arrested from Abbottabad compound.

According to American television, the three wives who were living with Osama Bin Laden have been identified as Umm-e-Hamza, Umm-e-Khalid and Amal al Saada.

Umm-e-Hamza and Umm-e- Khalid hailed from Saudi while Amal al Saada is Yemeni national. Fourth wife of Osama lived in Syria.

US official said that Pakistan agreed to give access to the US for quizzing Osama’s wives.

Bomb kills two police officers

 PESHAWAR: A bomb attack targeting a court in Nowshera on Tuesday killed two police constables including a female officer and wounded six other people, police said.

"It was a bomb blast. Two police constables including a policewoman were killed and six others were wounded. There are two police officers among the injured," said Qureish Khan, district police chief in Nowshera district.

The attack took place at the main entrance of the district courts in the town of Nowshera, about 35 kilometres (22 miles) east of Peshawar.

The district courts are located close to several military and other government buildings.

The target of the attack was the district courts, Khan said, adding that bomb disposal experts had informed him that a remote-controlled device was planted at the main gate of the district courts.

A doctor in Nowshera's main hospital said they had received two dead bodies and six injured.