QUETTA: Unidentified assailants on Friday blew up a Nato oil tanker near the western by-pass in Quetta, a private television channel reported.

The Afghanistan-bound oil tanker that started travelling from Karachi had reached Quetta’s Akhtarabad area early on Friday, police said.

The driver pulled up the tanker at a petrol pump and after a while the tanker exploded, with the oil spilling out.

Police arrested two suspects who were attempting to flee from the scene and started an investigation.

KABUL: Three foreign soldiers were killed in two separate Taliban-style bomb attacks in Afghanistan’s volatile south, Nato said Friday.

The three, whose nationalities were not released, were all killed on Thursday, Nato’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said.

Cheap and easy to make and plant, improvised explosive devices (IEDs) are the Taliban’s main weapon in the war in Afghanistan, nearing the end of its ninth year.

A total of 408 foreign troops have died in the Afghan war so far this year, according to an AFP tally based on that kept by the icasualties.org website.

The toll for July is 86, compared with 102 in June which was the worst month for foreign military casualties since the end of 2001.

Nato and the United States have close to 150,000 troops in the country, with 30,000 deployed to the southern Taliban heartland in Helmand and Kandahar provinces. —AFP

PESHAWAR: The death toll in three days of flooding in Pakistan reached at least 313 on Friday, rescue and government officials said, as rains bloated rivers, submerged villages, and triggered landslides.

The rising toll from the monsoon rains underscore the poor infrastructure in Pakistan, where under-equipped rescue workers were struggling to reach people stranded in far-flung villages. The weather forecast was mixed, with some areas expected to see reduced rainfall and others likely to see intensification.

Television footage showed striking images of people clinging to fences and other stationary items as water at times gushed over their heads.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa appeared to be the hardest hit, and Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the information minister for the province, said it was the worst flooding in the region since 1929. The highway connecting Peshawar to Islamabad was shut down after the water washed away bridges and other links.

At least 291 people died in various parts of that province over the last three days, said Mujahid Khan of the Edhi Foundation.

In Pakistani-administered Kashmir, at least 22 people had been confirmed dead as of Thursday evening, the region’s prime minister, Sardar Attique Khan, told reporters.

The tolls from the deluge were expected to rise because many people were still missing. Poor weather this week also may have been a factor in Wednesday's Airblue plane crash that killed 152 people in Islamabad.

In the Swat Valley, residents were forced to trudge through knee-deep water in some streets.

A newly constructed part of a dam in the Charsadda district collapsed, while the UN said it had reports that 5,000 homes were underwater in that area. Hussain estimated 400,000 people were stranded in various northwest villages.

''A rescue operation using helicopters cannot be conducted due to the bad weather, while there are only 48 rescue boats available for rescue,'' he said on Thursday.

Pakistan's poorest residents are often the ones living in flood-prone areas because they can't afford safer land.

Balochistan province has also been hit hard by the recent rains. Last week, flash floods in the region killed at least 41 people and swept away thousands of homes. The UN statement Thursday said 150,000 people were affected there.

The UN said Punjab province was also hit by some flooding. Crops were soaked in farmlands throughout the country. The UN said the humanitarian community was trying to put together a proper response, but the rains were making many roads impassable, complicating efforts to assess needs.

The search for human remains has been called off and most bodies handed over to families for burial, police said.

The Airblue passenger jet crashed in a ball of fire in the forested Margalla Hills overlooking the Pakistani capital in heavy rain and poor visibility on Wednesday, while trying to land after flying from Karachi.

“We have recovered remains of all the dead bodies. Now our focus is on the investigation and we are searching for any clue which can help us,” senior Islamabad police official Bani Amin told AFP.

Monsoon rains hampered the search for two days, but aviation experts and other investigators resumed work after the weather cleared on Friday.

Investigators are focusing on the black box as the flight data recorder will provide valuable clues as to why the 10-year-old Airbus 321, which was piloted by an experienced captain, came down.

“Today the investigators are going to the hilltop. The priority is the black box and any other technical clue from the wreckage,” Ramzan Sajid, spokesman for the Islamabad city administration official, told AFP.

Airblue, one of Pakistan's most respected airlines, has been tight-lipped about any possible technical fault or pilot error.

Reports that the pilot was told to take another route were mere speculation, company spokesman Raheel Ahmad told AFP.

The only deadlier civilian plane crash involving a Pakistani jet occurred when a PIA Airbus A300 crashed into a cloud-covered hillside on approach to the Nepalese capital Kathmandu in 1992, killing 167 people. – AFP

PESHAWAR: At least 17 people were killed in Shangla district's Bisham area due to land-sliding, DawnNews reported.

Another 35 people were also wounded in the incident and a rescue operation was underway.
 

Sources said that the flight, PK 302, was taxiing on the runway when a bird smashed into its engine number one. At least 421 passengers were reported to be onboard.

Ambulances and rescue teams reached the spot to put out the fire.

Spokesman for PIA, Sultan Hasan said all the passengers are safe and will be taken to Lahore through another fight.

“We heard a loud voice as the plane took off,” said a passenger Sumaiyya Baig.

“The incident of birds bumping is usual, we stop the plane in such situation and resumes the flight after examination,” said PIA spokesman Sultan Hasan. “In some cases the damaged plane replaced with a new one”.

An emergency has been declared at the Karachi airport. —Agencies

The team is headed by the President Safety Investigation Board of Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) Air Commodore Khwaja M. Majeed.

The team has collected some evidence and sent it to the laboratory for examination while the record of last contact between pilot and Islamabad control tower has also been sealed.

The seven-member team included experts of technical and operational field and also a representative of Airblue.

The DIG operation Islamabad said that more dead bodies or body parts feared to be under plane debris.

Agencies Add: Monsoon rain and clouds on Thursday hampered the search for the black box of a Pakistani airliner that slammed into hilly woodland killing all 152 people on board, the nation’s worst aviation disaster.

The Airblue passenger jet crashed in a ball of flames, disintegrating in the forested Margalla Hills overlooking the Pakistani capital in heavy rain and poor visibility on Wednesday while trying to land after flying from Karachi.

Pakistan observed a day of mourning, but questions focused increasingly on why the pilot had been flying the Airbus 321 so low over the craggy hills in a restricted flight zone while making his approach to land.

Helicopters were grounded because of poor visibility, rain and clouds, and the black box had yet to be located, officials said.

Investigators hope the flight data recorder will give clues to the fate of the 10-year-old Airbus, which was piloted by an experienced captain.

Officials called off the search for human remains and civil aviation teams left the crash site around dusk.

“So far we could not find the black box, heavy rain continued at the crash site, the terrain is also very slippery,” Civil Aviation Authority spokesman Pervez George told AFP.

He could not say if the search would resume on Friday.

“It all depends on the weather. We are not sure when the weather will allow us to resume the search,” he said.

At least one relative arrived at the base camp Thursday saying he wanted to look for the remains of his brother, but was turned away.

“We told him the terrain is difficult and the weather bad. Even rescue teams find it difficult to reach the crash site. We also told him the remains had been taken to the hospital. He then left,” said Islamabad city administration official Rawal Khan.

Two Americans, an Austrian-born businessman, five children and two babies were among the 152 people on board flight ED 202.

Junaid Ameen, head of Pakistan’s Civil Aviation Authority, called on rescue teams not to touch the wreckage, which could be invaluable in determining whether a technical fault or bad weather was to blame.

A team from European company Airbus was to assist with the investigation, he said, refusing to speculate on reports that air traffic control may have asked the pilot to divert.

“It is the prerogative of the pilot to decide, keeping the situation in view. The air traffic controller can only advise him.

“The incident shows that the pilot was in an emergency-like situation that led him to enter the restricted area,” he said, refusing to comment further.

The plane broke apart in a gorge between two hills, scattering debris across hillsides enveloped in cloud and located some distance from the nearest road.

It was the worst aviation tragedy on Pakistani soil in history, piling more woes on a country on the frontline of the war on Al-Qaeda and where militant bombers have killed more than 3,570 people in the past three years.

Pakistani flags flew at half mast from all public buildings out of respect for the dead. Businesses took out advertisements in the national press to honour colleagues who were killed or to express condolences.

US President Barack Obama offered his “deepest condolences”. UN chief Ban Ki-moon said he was “deeply saddened” and China’s President Hu Jintao also conveyed his condolences.

Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira told reporters that the remains of 115 bodies had been recovered and that it could take up to a week to identify the most charred remains, while urging relatives to be patient.

“It is a tragedy, a great tragedy. The cause of the crash is a technical issue and anything said about the cause at this time is speculation. Everything will be clear after the inquiry,” Kaira said.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik told reporters that 66 bodies had been handed over to relatives so far. Authorities set up an office to collect blood samples from relatives in order to identify remains with DNA tests.

Airblue, one of Pakistan’s most respected airlines, was tight-lipped about any possible technical fault or pilot error.

Reports that the pilot was told to take another route were mere speculation, company spokesman Raheel Ahmad told AFP.

The only deadlier civilian plane crash involving a Pakistani jet occurred when a PIA Airbus A300 crashed into a cloud-covered hillside on approach to the Nepalese capital Kathmandu in 1992, killing 167 people. —Agencies

GUADALAJARA: Mexican soldiers killed drug boss Ignacio “Nacho” Coronel on Thursday, the first major triumph this year for President Felipe Calderon’s war against drug cartels but one that is unlikely to end spiralling violence.

The Mexican army shot dead Coronel, a senior member of the powerful Sinaloa cartel, as he exchanged fire with soldiers during a raid of a wealthy residential area in Guadalajara in western Mexico, officials said.

“Nacho Coronel tried to escape, wounding military personnel ... dying as fire was returned,” Edgar Villegas, a senior army official, told a news conference in Mexico City.

One of the country’s most-wanted traffickers, Coronel was known as the “King of Ice” for his multimillion-dollar methamphetamine business and was a top lieutenant of Sinaloa leader Joaquin “Shorty” Guzman, Mexico’s top drug lord.

Coronel, 56, was indicted in a Texas court for allegedly smuggling tonnes of narcotics into the United States and Europe since the early 1990s. The United States had offered up to $5 million for information leading to his capture.

Troops backed by military helicopters swarmed normally quiet streets in the upscale residential area of Zapopan in search of Coronel, who the army said led a low-profile life moving between two luxury houses in the area.

The killing may provide a boost for Calderon, who has staked his presidency on winning the military campaign he launched against drug gangs in late 2006, sending thousands of soldiers, marines and federal police to fight the drug gangs.

The conservative leader’s image has been stained by the violence that has claimed an increasing number of civilian deaths, and a failure to implement promised clean-ups of endemic corruption in Mexico’s police, courts and prisons.

But drug trade experts cautioned that the Sinaloa cartel is a sophisticated, highly organized operation and was likely to bounce back quickly. “This is going to have a temporary impact on the methamphetamine market ... but someone else is going to take his place,” said security analyst Alberto Islas.

More than 26,000 people have died in drug violence across Mexico over the past 3-1/2 years, in a growing worry for the administration of US President Barack Obama.

Some U.S. companies are starting to reconsider future investment plans in Ciudad Juarez and in Mexico’s premier business city, Monterrey. Mexico’s vital tourism industry is also under pressure.

Tide Of Killings

Calderon replaced his interior minister this month after coming under increasing pressure for the rising death toll in the drug war and a lack of victories since security forces shot dead top drug baron Arturo Beltran Leyva in December.

A car bomb with 22 pounds of explosives in Ciudad Juarez this month, the first attack of its kind, and the revelation that prisoners moonlighting as hitmen were behind the killing of 17 people at a party have weighed on Calderon.

Suspected drug hitmen ambushed and killed the frontrunner candidate for a gubernatorial election in the northern state of Tamaulipas in late June, in the worst sign so far of political intimidation by smuggling gangs.

Calderon, in Guadalajara for the opening of a new soccer stadium on Thursday, did not comment on Coronel’s killing, but the army said in a statement it believed the hit would “significantly affect the operating capacity and shipment of drugs by Guzman’s organization.”

Previous actions under Calderon’s predecessor President Vicente Fox, including the 2003 arrest of Gulf cartel leader Osiel Cardenas, one of the most powerful capos, did little to weaken Mexico’s brazen drug cartels, however.

Security specialists say Calderon will struggle to beat the cartels until Mexico backs up its military fight with a crackdown on money laundering and pushes ahead with a genuine overhaul of ill-paid police, many of whom work as hitmen, and prevents politicians from taking funding from drug gangs.

“There is a different political problem — governors and political parties are not taking responsibility. It’s time for Mexican society to line up behind the president and fight this scourge in Mexico,” said Tony Payan, a drugs expert at the University of Texas in El Paso. —Reuters

WASHINGTON: US and senior Israeli officials were to meet Thursday to discuss the crisis over Iran’s suspect nuclear program and economic sanctions meant to curb it, a senior US diplomat told lawmakers.

Robert Einhorn, the US State Department’s special adviser for nonproliferation and arms control, told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee the United States was “in close touch with the Israelis.”

“As a matter of fact, this afternoon we have a meeting with the senior Israeli team to talk about Iran and to talk about sanctions,” Einhorn said, without specifying the identify of the Israeli officials.

“And they are an important source of information. We cooperate on intelligence matters with lots of friendly countries around the world, but Israeli intelligence is particularly good,” he added.

Asked about the meeting, US State Department spokesman Philip Crowley replied: “It appears this is a White House meeting.”

White House officials did not immediately return requests for comment. —AFP

Gates vowed the Pentagon will “aggressively investigate” and prosecute those behind the leak and had asked the Federal Bureau of Investigation to help in the probe.

The leak of 92,000 classified documents by the website WikiLeaks contained no surprises and did not call into question the US strategy in the Afghan war, Gates and the US military’s top officer, Admiral Mike Mullen, told a press conference.

Gates, however, said “the battlefield consequences of the release of these documents are potentially severe and dangerous for our troops, our allies and Afghan partners, and may well damage our relationships and reputation in that key part of the world.”

The leak exposed sources and methods for US intelligence agencies and allowed US adversaries to learn about military tactics and procedures, said Gates, clearly angry over the episode.

The founder of the Wikileaks website, Julian Assange, has defended the release of the files, saying he hoped it would spark a debate about the war and that his site had checked for named informants before distributing the papers.

But Admiral Mullen said there were better ways to question the war and that Assange may have blood on his hands.

“Mr Assange can say whatever he likes about the greater good he thinks he and his source are doing, but the truth is they might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family,” he said.

Gates promised a thorough probe to find out how the “massive breach” occurred, to identify who was responsible, and to assess what information was compromised.

The military will take additional steps to protect classified information and to safeguard the lives of US service members as well as Afghans possibly endangered by the leaks, Gates said.

The unprecedented leak jeopardized the trust vital to gathering intelligence in the field, said Gates, a former CIA director.

“We have considerable repair work to do,” to fix relations damaged by the leak, he said.

“That is one of the worst aspects of this, as far as I’m concerned. Will people trust us?

“Will people’s whose lives are on the line trust us to keep their identities secret? Will other governments trust us to keep their documents and their intelligence secret?”

Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Thursday condemned the release of the documents, saying it could endanger the lives of Afghans cooperating with the US-led force.

Gates declined to comment on a Wall Street Journal report that authorities had evidence linking an army soldier, already accused of leaking a classified video from Iraq, to the leaked Afghan war documents.

Private First Class Bradley Manning was charged earlier this month with illegally releasing a video of a helicopter attack as well as State Department documents.

The Pentagon chief said the leak will force the military to review how it shares intelligence with soldiers on the battlefield.

In the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the military has worked to ensure soldiers deployed on the front line had the latest intelligence, entrusting troops with sensitive information.

“We want those soldiers in a forward operating base to have all the information they possibly can have that impacts on their own security, but also being able to accomplish their mission,” Gates said.

He said he would be discussing with commanders in Afghanistan and Iraq whether to “change the way we approach that, or do we continue to take the risk.” —AFP