Six In The Morning

Hopes are low as Afghanistan’s Karzai visits Pakistan

Analysts say they see little hope of progress on forging a truce with militants. Separately, CIA chief Leon Panetta, picked to be the next U.S. Defense secretary, meets with Pakistan’s army and intelligence heads.  

By Mark Magnier, Los Angeles Times

June 11, 2011  

Reporting from Karachi, Pakistan- Afghan President Hamid Karzai arrived in Islamabad on Friday for a two-day summit with his Pakistani counterparts that is expected to focus on efforts to forge a truce with the Taliban after years of militant violence in both countries.

But analysts said they saw little hope of concrete progress from his meetings with President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, given lingering distrust and security problems on their shared lawless border.

“I don’t expect anything substantive to come out of this,” said Mahmood Shah, a Pakistani analyst and retired brigadier. “Both sides have an interest in reintegrating the Taliban, but I don’t see anything much.”

Syrians torn between terror and defiance as regime cracks down

Thousands flee as regime steps up crackdown on protests, with dozens of deaths reported

By Khalid Ali and Justin Vela in Harbiye  Saturday, 11 June 2011

In a calculated show of defiance to the international community, Syrian helicopter gunships fired on protesters and army tanks shelled civilian homes yesterday, driving hundreds of people out of the country in brutal retaliation for protests against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad.

Troops from the regime’s notorious 4th Division – headed by the President’s brother Maher – burnt crops and slaughtered livestock in a show of military might in the north of the country after the regime blamed “armed gangs” for the deaths of 120 of its security forces last week in the rebel town of Jisr al-Shughour. Some witnesses claimed that the security forces were killed during fighting between loyalist troops and defectors who refused to fire on unarmed civilians

Misurata bombarded by Gaddafi’s artillery

Anti-Gaddafi rebels in Misrata were pounded with rockets and artillery on Friday as they prepared to launch a new offensive, with at least 20 killed and 100 more wounded

Ruth Sherlock in Misurata and Nick Meo in Tripoli1:04AM BST 11 Jun 2011

Massive barrages were launched against rebel positions hours after their leaders had promised to begin a new push towards Tripoli, which Colonel Gaddafi’s opponents hope could bring the war to a close.

“He was using mortars, tanks, grad rockets. We could hear NATO in the skies but they didn’t bomb,” said wounded fighter Faisal Taragha, 23. “Three of my friends have been killed today, but for every one that dies, ten more will come to fight.”

“All the hospitals are busy. There are wounded flooding in everywhere, and we have dead here lying in the corridors. He is trying to kill us as much as he can. This is power.

 Graffiti Artist Saves Church from Closure

Let Us Spray

By Birger Menke in Goldscheuer, Germany

Hans-Dieter Udri, 70, is a little shy as he goes up to the man standing in the middle of the church, who has his hands in his pockets, a black hat on his head and a gas mask covering his face.

“Are you Stefan Strumbel?” asks Udri. Then he begins to talk of the past, when he was still a child, when everyone went to mass on Sundays, young or old. He is a Christian, and, speaking in his Alemannic German dialect, he insists that he is a believer. His gaze wanders up to the church roof. He hardly ever goes to mass anymore.

CIA chief confronts Pak over collusion with militants

 

Agencies

Posted: Jun 11, 2011  

Islamabad/Washington CIA chief Leon Panetta has confronted Pakistan’s military leadership with evidence of collusion between militants and security officials in the country, causing fresh strains in the troubled US-Pak ties.

Panetta, who arrived in Islamabad yesterday, presented the evidence during meetings with Pakistan army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and ISI head Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha late last night, media reports said today.

The CIA had passed intelligence in the past few weeks to its Pakistani counterparts on two facilities where militants made improvised explosive devices but when Pakistani forces raided the facilities, the militants had disappeared, the reports said.

Sudan mounts air strikes ‘to control oilfields’



 SIMON MARTELLI JUBA, SUDAN – Jun 11 2011

Philip Aguer, spokesperson for the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) of the south, said the SPLA was on “maximum alert” and strengthening its defensive positions, fearing the start of an invasion to seize the oilfields.

“SAF [Sudanese Army Forces] aircraft bombed the area of Yau, in Unity state, many times on Thursday,” Aguer told Agence France-Presse (AFP), referring to the north’s Sudanese Armed Forces.

“This area is deep inside South Sudan and is a move by Khartoum to control the area and create a de facto border to control our oilfields.”

But a United Nations (UN) spokesperson denied that the northern army had launched air strikes south of the border.