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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

World in brief: Al-Zawahri vilifies Red Mosque attack


Al-Zawahri
 (The Spokesman-Review)
The Spokesman-Review

President Pervez Musharraf’s government said Wednesday that militants accounted for most of the 106 people killed in eight days of fighting around the Red Mosque, calling it a signal that Islamic extremism won’t be tolerated in Pakistan.

Hours later, Al-Qaida’s No. 2 leader released a video to join in the militant outcry against Musharraf, calling on Pakistanis to join in a holy war to avenge the army assault. Ayman al-Zawahri told Pakistanis their president “rubbed your honor in the dirt.”

Authorities said the siege of the mosque compound, which included separate religious schools for girls and boys, resulted in the deaths of 10 soldiers, one police ranger and several civilians killed in the crossfire of the initial street battles that erupted July 3.

Seventy-three bodies – believed to be those of the mosque’s die-hard defenders – were found by Pakistani troops clearing the sprawling complex of mines, booby traps and other weaponry after the final 35-hour fight. Among the dead was the militants’ leader, pro-Taliban cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi.

Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said commandos searching the mosque found no corpses of women and children, although seven or eight of the bodies had been burned beyond recognition, apparently by the militants’ gasoline bombs.

London

Glitzy thieves steal $20 million jewels

Two thieves showed up at a London jeweler in a flashy car and made off with an even flashier haul, stealing about $20 million worth of diamonds and gems, the jeweler said Wednesday.

The well-dressed pair stepped out of a Bentley Continental Flying Spur – a car valued at about $250,000 – and into the west London branch of Graff jewelers.

The suspects chatted with staff, pretending to be customers, before brandishing handguns and stealing diamonds and precious stone-studded rings, necklaces, pendants and earrings, officials said.

Mexico City

Guerrilla attack stalls factories

Honda, Hershey’s, and other multinational companies temporarily shut down their factories in western Mexico on Wednesday after rebels attacked a key natural gas pipeline.

The small, left-wing guerrilla group that claimed responsibility for the explosions vowed to continue the attacks, while the Mexican government scrambled to increase security at “strategic installations” across Mexico.

Security analysts and energy experts downplayed the attacks, noting they were relatively small in nature and mostly symbolic, having little effect on the economy.

Seoul, South Korea

Karaoke banned to help culture

North Korea will close its karaoke bars in an attempt to stem foreign influences on the isolated communist country, a South Korean civic group said Wednesday.

Separately, the North’s Ministry of People’s Security conducted house-to-house overnight inspections near the Chinese border earlier this month to search for cell phones and illegal video CDs, the Good Friends aid agency said in a newsletter.

The ministry said in a directive last week that silencing the karaoke outlets was a “mopping-up operation to prevent the ideological and cultural permeation of anti-socialism,” according to the aid group.

Violators were warned they would face punishment, including deportation to other North Korean regions.

The group, whose previous reports on the North’s isolated regime have been reliable, did not say how it obtained the information. The number of North Korean karaoke bars was unclear.