US presses Pakistan over Mumbai

From the BBC News

Protests in Mumbai

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said that Pakistan must act “fully and transparently” in efforts to bring the Mumbai attackers to justice.  “Pakistan has a special responsibility to do so,” she told reporters in Delhi.

India says the attackers, who killed at least 188 people, have links to Pakistan, which denies any role.
Meanwhile thousands of people have held a rally in Mumbai in protest at the atta

cks, many angry at the Indian government for failing to prevent them.

Separately, Mumbai’s police said they had defused explosives left by militants in the ma

in train station.
Last week’s attacks at multiple locations in Indian’s financial capital stunned the country, with many describing it as India’s 9/11.

‘Time to co-operate’

Ms Rice was speaking after meeting Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee.

“This is the time for everybody to co-operate and do so transparently, and this is especially a time for Pakistan to do so,” Ms Rice said.  Condoleezza Rice calls on Pakistan to co-operate with inv

estigations.
She also warned India not to take actions that would provoke “unintended consequences”.

“Any response needs to be judged by its effectiveness in prevention,” she said.

Analysts say she is worried that an escalation of military tension in South Asia could distract Pakistan from the battle against militants on its Afghan border and simultaneously undermine its c

ivilian government.

Mr Mukherjee said at the joint press conference with Ms Rice that there was “no doubt” that the militants had come from Pakistan and were co-ordinated from Pakistan.

As Ms Rice visited Delhi, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen was visiting Pakistan.
He urged Pakistan to broaden its campaign against militant groups following the Mumbai attacks.

Adm Mullen called on Islamabad to “take more, and more concerted, action against militan

t extremists elsewhere in the country”. Six Americans died in the Mumbai attacks.

The Mumbai protest drew thousands of people who blocked traffic and shouted slogans, including “down with Pakistan” and “shame on politicians”.

Two attackers at the car park

Trader Mahesh Patel told Reuters news agency: “I have come with my friends because we cann

ot take it any more. The politicians must act, they must stop taking us for granted.”

Earlier police said they had found explosives hidden in a bag in Mumbai’s main train station, which they said were left over from last week’s attacks.

The BBC’s Damian Grammaticas in Mumbai says the discovery will again raise more questions about Indian security failures. Officials have also released a previously unseen video of attackers in the car park of Mumbai’s main train station.

Fugitives

Pakistan’s political parties earlier joined forces to sign a resolution saying they shared India’s grief after the Mumbai attacks and abhorred violence against innocent people. But the parties also said

they took strong exception to what they called “unsubstantiated allegations made in haste against Pakistan”.

Mr Mukherjee said a military response was not under consideration but that if Pakistan d

id not act, the bilateral peace process would be at risk. India has also asked Islamabad to hand over 20 fugitives from Indian law it believes are hiding in Pakistan. However, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zarda

ri indicated there would be no handover.

He told US television: “If we had the proof, we would try them in our courts, we would try them in our land and we would sentence them.”

One militant was captured alive from the Mumbai attacks.

Protests in Mumbai

Azam Amir Qasab is in police custody and Indian police have said he is “certainly” from Pakistan.
Mumbai joint police commissioner of crime Rakesh Maria told CNN the militant had spent the past 18 months at camps run by militant group Lashkar-e-Toiba and was trained by ex-army officers in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. However, Mr Zardari said: “We have not been given any tangible proof to say that he is definitely a Pakistani. I very much doubt… that he’s a Pakistani.”

Lashkar-e-Toiba has denied any involvement.

UK militant ‘killed in Pakistan’

A fugitive British militant linked to an alleged UK plot to use liquid bombs to blow up transatlantic airliners has been killed in Pakistan, reports say.  Pakistani media said Rashid Rauf, born in Birmingham, was killed in a US air strike in North Waziristan, a haven for militants and the Taleban. Mr Rauf, on the run after escaping from a Pakistani jail, was alleged to have helped the group planning the attacks.
Three men were convicted in the UK in September of conspiracy to murder.

News of the liquid bomb plot paralysed global air travel, prompting authorities to implement stringent security measures at airports around the world. Rashid Rauf was arrested in Pakistan on 9 August 2006, at the request of US authorities, who feared he was about to disappear into the remote north-west of the country.

ALLEGED LIQUID BOMB PLOT

• Group accused of plotting to carry liquid explosives onto planes at London Heathrow Airport

• Arrests in August 2006, after Rashid Rauf detained in Pakistan
• Move prompted increased security at UK and US airports
• At trial, three men convicted of conspiracy to murder
• None found guilty of conspiring to target passenger aircraft

One day later authorities in the UK and the US implemented strict security measures at airports, fearing possible bomb attacks. Hundreds of flights were delayed at airports around the world with massive disruption at major UK terminals and in the US, amid security service fears that militants were planning to mix liquids into lethal explosives.

Terrorism charges against the Briton were eventually dropped but he remained under detention in Pakistan as a “preventative measure”.

Mr Rauf, who is thought to have Pakistani citizenship through his family connections, then escaped custody in December 2007 while on his way to an extradition hearing under police guard.
West Midlands Police in the UK were seeking his extradition from Pakistan in connection with a separate case over the suspicious death of an uncle.

‘Safe haven’

Several Pakistani TV channels reported that Mr Rauf was one of five people killed on Saturday by a presumed US attack in the country’s remote north-western region.
Unnamed Pakistani intelligence sources said that a wanted Egyptian militant, Abu Zubair al-Masri, was among the others killed.

However, the BBC has so far been unable to independently confirm the news.
Islamist militants use the mountainous tribal areas along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan as a safe haven for training and resupply. The US regularly uses pilotless drones to attack militant targets in the region, a tactic that has caused growing resentment among Pakistan’s leaders.

On Thursday the government summoned the US ambassador in Islamabad to protest one day after an attack deep inside Pakistani territory killed five people – including at least one alleged militant.
Pakistan says the constant missile strikes infringe its sovereignty. The BBC’s Barbara Plett, in Islamabad, says the attacks spark widespread anger in Pakistan – especially among tribal figures.
In that context, Saturday’s attack will be reported in Pakistan as another violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty and not for the possible killing of Rashid Rauf, our correspondent says.

The US says the insurgents use the territory to launch attacks against coalition forces in Afghanistan.
Islamabad has been pursuing a policy of ad-hoc peace deals with local Taleban commanders.

From the bbc news site