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| India-Pakistan |
| Indian police battle Islamic militants in capital |
| 2008-09-19 |
| NEW DELHI - Indian police battled suspected Islamic militants holed up in a house in the country's capital Friday, killing two and arresting one before the others escaped, police said. The gunbattle in a southern part of sprawling New Delhi put the city back on edge days after five coordinated bombings in the capital's markets killed 21 people — attacks credited to homegrown Islamic militants. A senior New Delhi police officer, Karnal Singh, told reporters at the scene of Friday's firefight in the Jamia Nagar neighborhood that there were five gunmen. Two were killed, one was arrested and two escaped, he said. Police spokesman Rajan Bhagat said two policemen were wounded in the fighting. "A sizable amount of arms and ammunition was discovered in the house," said Bhagat. "The area has been cordoned off, and we are continuing our investigation." Soon after the gunbattle broke out around noon Friday, scores of police officers, many in riot gear, could be seen fanning out through Jamia Nagar, a leafy lower middle-class neighborhood. The scene was chaotic with authorities trying to get civilians out of harm's way while subduing the militants. A group calling itself the Indian Mujahideen has claimed responsibility for the New Delhi attacks. It also said it was behind bombings that killed 61 people in the western city of Jaipur in May and July blasts in the western state of Gujarat that killed at least 45. Police apparently zeroed in Friday on one New Delhi house after interrogating a man detained after the Gujarat bombings, The Press Trust of India news agency reported. The man, identified as Abu Basher, said the home in quiet Jamia Nagar was used as a safe house by Islamic militants plotting attacks around India. The Indian Mujahideen was little known before this year's bombings, and police believe it may be a front for the Students' Islamic Movement of India, or SIMI, which was banned in 2001. India has routinely blamed Pakistan or Bangladesh-based militant groups for dozens of attacks in the last three years. But as the death toll has mounted this year, evidence has pointed to the involvement of Indian Muslims, raising difficult questions for the government about growing anger among India's large Muslim minority. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh made a rare acknowledgment that Indians — and not foreign Islamic groups — may have been behind the New Delhi attacks, but cautioned the country's security services were facing "vast" intelligence gaps. Several alleged SIMI activists have been rounded up in recent months, but police have made little apparent headway in finding those behind the attacks. Authorities believe the Islamic militants aim to spread fear among ordinary Indians and provoke violence between the country's Hindu majority and Muslim minority. |
| Posted by:tu3031 |
| #4 You're 5x5 there fellas. Unfortunately,in the USA very few people took notice of the first shot for what it was, declaration of war. 1968, kitchen of an LA hotel, sirhan sirhan a palestinian terrorist assassinated our next POTUS. The GWOT should have started the next day and it should have been all out, B52's in the air, boots on the ground in the ME, over before Christmas, the end. Instead we have this sacrament of liberalism on our hands today. Yeah, yeah, call me crazy BUT I'll say this, somebody gets the STEWPIT sign hung around their neck. Gotta get back to raking leaves. |
| Posted by: Last Breath Farm Resident 2008-09-19 18:27 |
| #3 Agreed OP. We are in a de-facto World War. Islam is at war along _all_ of its borders trying to expand its influence by outright war, terrorism, intimidation (UK), and sedition (USA, Canada). Just look at a map. The 'world' is just refusing to acknowledge it. |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2008-09-19 13:58 |
| #2 Islam is just making friends and influencing people all over the planet, aren't they? Wonder what will happen when we collectively get tired of this sh$$. I'm already there. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2008-09-19 13:38 |
| #1 And I bet the questioning that led them to the safehouse was like " Hey, buddy. Where's your safe house" No waterboarding or anything. |
| Posted by: plainslow 2008-09-19 12:53 |