Bhutan's King Jigme Singye Wangchuk is leading his troops fighting to flush out Indian rebels holed up in the tiny Himalayan kingdom for the past 12 years, a Bhutanese official said yesterday.
The Buddhist kingdom launched its biggest-ever military offensive on Monday against around 3,000 guerrillas who have set up camps in its southern jungles and have been battling New Delhi's rule in India's remote northeast.
India has been pressing Bhutan for years to take action against the rebels who used to dart across the border for hit-and-run operations.
Bhutan, wedged between India and China, has rejected a ceasefire offer by the rebels and vowed to press on with its offensive in which more than 150 guerrillas have been killed.
About 500 rebels have surrendered to Bhutanese troops since the operation began.
"The king and his son are leading the troops in flushing Indian rebels out of Bhutanese soil," the government official, who did not want to be identified, said.
"Despite having led the troops, His Majesty is in good health and safe," he said, adding that the king was not directly involved in combat operations but was leading the troops.
As the operation entered its sixth day, the rebels fought back, killing a civilian and soldier, Indian police said.
A policeman said a group of heavily armed guerrillas with sophisticated weapons opened fire on a convoy of civilian vehicles, escorted by Bhutanese troops, about 40km from the Indian border, killing two and wounding many others.
Rebel groups called a two-day general strike from yesterday in the northeastern Indian state of Assam and parts of West Bengal to protest against the military offensive in Bhutan, but residents did not respond to the call.
A joint statement by three separatist groups -- the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) and the Kamatapur Liberation Organization (KLO) -- said on Friday the strike would continue indefinitely if the bodies of rebels were not returned to their families in 24 hours.
ULFA seeks Assam's separation from India. The NDFB is fighting for independence of Bodo tribals, estimated at 13 percent of Assam's total population of 26 million. KLO is a smaller organization seeking independence in north Bengal.
Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee met his Cabinet late Friday to discuss the drive against the separatists and thanked Bhutan for launching the military campaign.
"The Indian premier has appreciated the Bhutan king's proactive role and thinks of him as a genuine and trusted friend," a government official said after the meeting. "He would like Bangladesh to follow Bhutan's lead."
Bangladesh denies permitting any anti-Indian militants to operate from its soil. However officials in New Delhi charge that rebels cross the porous border with Bangladesh to carry out hit-and-run strikes against troops in India's troubled northeast.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion