Mehsud is dead: Pak Taliban

Islamabad

Aug. 25: The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) on Tuesday formally acknowledged that their chief Baitullah Mehsud is dead.

New TTP chief Hakeemullah Mehsud said Baitullah Mehsud died on Sunday saying it was from wounds in the US missile attack earlier this month.

"He was wounded. He got the wounds in a drone strike and he was martyred two days ago," Hakeemullah Mehsud told the BBC.

It was the first time the militants acknowledged Mehsud’s death, first reported shortly after the CIA missile strike August 5 near the Afghan border.

Last Saturday, the TTP appointed Hakeemullah Mehsud as their chief to succeed Baitullah Mehsud.

Mehsud’s aides earlier denied their leader was dead. Pakistani and US officials said the Taliban have shown no evidence that he is alive. Jockeying for power among his commanders has only reinforced the belief that he is dead.

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62 Indians left stranded in Malaysia

Kuala Lumpur: Sixty-two Indian nationals who arrived here last week after being promised jobs by recruitment agents have been left stranded in the Malaysian capital here.

Tamil daily Makkal Ossai said they had been offered jobs in Masai, Johor.

The 62 men are currently at the Batu Caves community hall for the past five days. One of them C Prabu, from Chennai, said most of them had pawned their jewellery and taken loans to pay for the trip to Malaysia after their agent in India promised them lucrative jobs. —PTI

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42 injured in Thailand eatery blast

Narathiwat, Thailand: Forty-two people were wounded, at least four seriously, when a powerful bomb exploded outside a restaurant in Thailand’s deep south on Tuesday, the police said.

The bomb, planted in a cooking gas cylinder and left in the back of a stolen pickup truck, was detonated outside a restaurant packed with civil servants.

The attack took place in the main town in Narathiwat, one of three mainly Muslim provinces plagued by five years of separatist unrest.

—Reuters

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2009 deadliest year for Nato in Afghanistan

Kabul: Four US servicemen were killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan on Tuesday, making 2009 the deadliest year for the growing contingent of foreign troops since the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001. The deaths highlighted the steadily worsening violence in the country, which has been in political limbo since a disputed presidential election last week. Afghan election authorities were preparing later on Tuesday to publish the first partial results from the presidential election, but the tiny sample may do little to resolve a growing war of words on the outcome. —Reuters