A massive security net was thrust around Islamabad airport as South Asian leaders began arriving yesterday for a seven-nation summit in the wake of two attempts to kill President Pervez Musharraf.
The 12th summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) runs from today to Tuesday.
PHOTO: AFP
The airport was closed for two days to all commercial flights and the 13km road to the city was flanked by gun-toting troops, police commandos and officers.
The Prime Ministers of Bhutan and Nepal, Lyonpo Jigme Yaeser Thinley and Surya Bahadur Thapa, landed just after 9:30am to a brief ceremonial playing of their national anthems.
With sirens blaring, the leaders of the neighboring Himalayan kingdoms were whisked off in waiting limousines escorted by a convoy of army jeeps fitted with machineguns. Surveillance helicopters flew overhead.
Armed soldiers holding sniffer dogs prowled through airport lounges as journalists were subjected to special checks by security officials who scanned their equipment with metal detectors.
Police have set up special barricades at key intersections and no one was allowed to stay on bridges along the road to Islamabad.
Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, Maldives President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom and Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga are due later Saturday.
Vajpayee, making his first trip to Pakistan since 1999, will have his own "Black Cat" commandos and travel in bulletproof cars specially airlifted from India, officials in New Delhi said.
Vajpayee's February 1999 trip to the eastern city of Lahore to launch a cross-border bus service was marred by protests by Islamists.
His national security adviser Brajesh Mishra flew into Islamabad on Friday, a day ahead of his scheduled arrival with Vajpayee.
Musharraf narrowly survived a suicide bomb attack on Christmas day in Rawalpindi neighboring Islamabad when two attackers rammed explosives-laden vehicles into his convoy, killing 15 people and injuring 45 others.
The attack came just 11 days after he narrowly missed being killed in a bomb ambush as his convoy passed over a bridge.
Authorities have closed roads between the Convention Center venue of the summit and two five star hotels where delegates are staying, banned protest rallies and closed the city's schools and colleges for the summit.
South Korea’s air force yesterday apologized for a 2021 midair collision involving two fighter jets, a day after auditors said the pilots were taking selfies and filming during the flight and held them responsible for the accident. “We sincerely apologize to the public for the concern caused by the accident that occurred in 2021,” an air force spokesman told a news conference, adding that one of the pilots involved had been suspended from flying duties, received severe disciplinary action and has since left the military. The apology followed a report released on Wednesday by the South Korean Board of Audit and Inspection,
Indonesian police have arrested 13 people after shocking images of alleged abuse against small children at a daycare center went viral, sparking outrage across the nation, officials said on Monday. Police on Friday last week raided Little Aresha, a daycare center in Yogyakarta on Java island, following a report from a former employee. CCTV footage circulating on social media showed children, most younger than two, lying on the floor wearing only diapers, their hands and feet bound with rags. The police have confirmed that the footage is authentic. Police said they also found 20 children crammed into a room just 3m by 3m. “So
About 240 Indians claiming descent from a Biblical tribe landed at Tel Aviv airport on Thursday as part of a government operation to relocate them to Israel. The newcomers passed under a balloon arch in blue and white, the colors of the Israeli flag, as dozens of well-wishers welcomed them with a traditional Jewish song. They were the first “bnei Menashe” (“sons of Manasseh”) to arrive in Israel since the government in November last year announced funding for the immigration of about 6,000 members of the community from the states of Manipur and Mizoram in northeast India. The community claims to descend from
‘TROUBLING’: The firing of Phelan, who was an adviser to a nonprofit that supported the defense of Taiwan, was another example of ‘dysfunction’ under Trump, a US senator said US Secretary of the Navy John Phelan has been fired, a US official and a person familiar with the matter said on Wednesday, in another wartime shakeup at the Pentagon coming just weeks after US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ousted the Army’s top general. The Pentagon announced his departure in a brief statement, saying he was leaving the administration “effective immediately,” but it did not provide a reason or say whether it was his decision to go. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Phelan was dismissed in part because he was moving too slowly to implement reforms to
RSS