PAKISTAN: A senior US envoy cut short a trip to India and rushed to Pakistan yesterday following a grenade attack on a church in Islamabad which killed five people, including two Americans. Diplomats braced themselves for further attacks on foreigners.
The US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, Ms Christina Rocca, said she would accompany the repatriation of the bodies of the two Americans, after she cancelled talks in New Delhi and flew to Islamabad.
The condition of a US diplomat, Mr Milton Green, was improving after he was seriously injured in the attack on Sunday on the Protestant International Church. His wife, Barbara, and their daughter, Kristin (17), were killed in the attack
Pakistan's Interior Minister, Mr Moinuddin Haider, said the attacker could be a badly-mutilated unidentified body found at the scene of the attack, and may have been a "suicide bomber".
Security was stepped up in Islamabad's diplomatic quarter yesterday, with extra paramilitary police and soldiers deployed outside embassy compounds, residences and the church.
President Pervez Musharraf, who described the attack as a "ghastly act of terrorism", convened a high-level meeting for today with governors of all four provinces and police chiefs to discuss the security situation.
Meanwhile, the British Defence Secretary, Mr Geoff Hoon, told Westminster yesterday Britain will send up to 1,700 extra troops to Afghanistan. The US announced yesterday the end of the biggest ground battle of the Afghan war, but forecast more battles ahead.
Gen Tommy Franks, head of coalition forces, said Operation Anaconda was a major success but warned that rebels were likely to regroup to fight again.
"Future operations are likely to be the same size as Anaconda," he said, adding that he had an "idea" where the next attacks would be but did not want to disclose them.
Military officials in Washington said elite US troops had killed 16 people on Sunday in an attack on a convoy believed to be carrying fleeing al-Qaeda guerrillas in eastern Afghanistan.
"No American troops were injured," one official said, adding that the attack took place about 70 km south-west of Gardez.
Other officials said US army special forces attacked a convoy of three or four vehicles believed to be fleeing from Operation Anaconda forces around Gardez.
The 17-day-long battle of Shahi Kot, which started on March 2nd, was fought on snow-covered mountains at altitudes of 11,000 feet, probably the highest location where US troops have ever seen action. - (AFP, Reuters)
Fine Gael MEP Mr John Cushnahan has been appointed the European Parliament's rapporteur on the recently-concluded trade and co-operation agreement with Pakistan.
Mr Cushnahan, a member of the parliament's foreign affairs committee, will be responsible for recommending acceptance or rejection of the politically-sensitive deal, which is linked with Pakistan's human rights record.