World
TUESDAY, AUGUST 9, 2016
Suicide bomber kills 5 in south Yemen attack
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DEN—A suicide bomber rammed his vehicle into a large group of army reinforcements in south Yemen on Sunday, killing five soldiers, military officials said. Another seven soldiers were wounded in the attack targeting troops who had been sent from the main southern city of Aden to Lahj province to fight jihadists, the sources said. A military official said it was unclear whether the attack had
been carried out by Al-Qaeda or the Islamic State group, both of which have gained ground in the south and claimed deadly anti-government assaults in the past. The bombing came hours after clashes between troops and ji-
hadists in Lahj, the military officials told Agence France Presse, adding that Saudi-led coalition jets also took part in the fighting. Also on Sunday, suspected members of Al-Qaeda shot dead an army colonel in nearby Abyan province, a military source said. The gunmen on a motorbike opened fire at Colonel Abdullah Shamba, killing him immediately before driving off, the official said. Shamba headed a local antiAl-Qaeda militia in Abyan.
Late on Saturday, coalition jets attacked Al-Qaeda positions in Abyan’s provincial capital of Zinjibar and in the nearby town of Jaar, military sources said. Government forces backed by the Arab coalition began an allout offensive in March against jihadists in south Yemen, recapturing main cities they had held. But they later retreated from Zinjibar after Al-Qaeda militants struck back. Jihadists have exploited the power vacuum created by the
conflict between the government and Huthi rebels and their allies to expand their presence in south and southeast Yemen. The Arab coalition which backs the Yemeni government against pro-Iran rebels has also turned its sights on the jihadists, and the United States has pressed its drone war against them. Washington considers the Yemen-based Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, to be the extremist network’s deadliest franchise. AFP
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15 hurt in Tokyo Molotov cocktail blast TOKYO—Fifteen people, including a one-year-old baby girl, were injured in a Molotov cocktail attack at a Tokyo festival parade, officials said Monday. Several hand-made fire bombs were thrown from a nearby apartment building when the parade passed through a quiet residential area on Sunday evening, police and fire officials said. Firefighters later found a man in his 60s who had hanged himself in the apartment from which the bombs were apparently thrown, the official said. One of the man’s neighbors told Fuji TV that he had been depressed after losing his wife last year, and complained that the boisterous festival, which included samba dancing, was too noisy for him. Local media said the fire bombs were made with a glass bottle attached with a gas cylinder. Most victims suffered burns, but their conditions were not critical, a fire official told Agence France Presse. AFP
Sokor opposition solons visit China
SLOWDOWN. A truck transports containers at a port in Qingdao, eastern China’s Shandong province on Monday. China’s economy, the world’s second largest, struggled in July with a worse-than-expected trade performance as imports plunged 12.5 percent year-on-year, Customs said. AFP
Iran executes nuke scientist for ‘spying for US’ TEHRAN—Iran has executed a nuclear scientist convicted of handing over “confidential and vital” information to the United States, a judicial spokesman said on Sunday. “Shahram Amiri was hanged for revealing the country’s top secrets to the enemy,” Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejeie told reporters in Tehran. Amiri, 39, disappeared in Saudi Arabia in June 2009 and resurfaced a year later in the United States. Conflicting accounts said he had either been abducted or had defected at a time when interna-
tional tensions over Iran’s nuclear program were at their peak. In a surprise move, Amiri then returned to Tehran in July 2010, saying he had been kidnapped at gunpoint by two Farsi-speaking CIA agents in the Saudi city of Medina. At first he was greeted as a hero, telling reporters as he stepped off the plane at Tehran airport that he had resisted pressure from his US captors to pretend he was a defector. He denied he was a nuclear scientist and said US officials wanted him to tell the media he had “defected on his own and was car-
rying important documents and a laptop which contained classified secrets of Iran’s military nuclear program.” “But with God’s will, I resisted,” Amiri said as he was welcomed home by his tearful wife and young son. However, it was soon clear that Iranian authorities had not accepted this version of events and Amiri dropped out of public view. His arrest was never officially reported. Iran’s judicial spokesman said Sunday that its intelligence services had “outsmarted” the US. “American intelligence servic-
es thought Iran has no knowledge of his transfer to Saudi Arabia and what he was doing but we knew all of it and were monitoring,” Ejeie told reporters. “This person, having access to confidential and highly confidential information of the regime, had established a connection to our number one enemy, America, and had provided the enemy with Iran’s confidential and vital information,” he added. The US State Department declined to comment on the case when asked on Sunday. Tehran and Washington have had no diplomatic ties since 1980,
when students stormed the US embassy following the previous year’s Islamic revolution. “Shahram Amiri was tried in accordance with law and in the presence of his lawyer. He appealed his death sentence based on judicial process. The Supreme Court... confirmed it after meticulous reviews,” Ejeie said. “We like all convicts to repent and reform. Not only did he not repent and compensate for his past, but he tried to send out false information from inside the prison, and finally he was punished,” he added. AFP
SEOUL—A group of South Korean opposition lawmakers defied President Park Geun-Hye and left for China on Monday to discuss the deployment of a US anti-missile system that has opened a damaging rift between Seoul and Beijing. Park had urged the MPs to scrap their trip, arguing that it would boost China’s opposition to the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system and deepen divisions in South Korea over the issue. Seoul’s decision to host a THAAD battery, to counter a growing threat from North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, has been condemned by China as a threat to its own security interests and to regional stability. The ongoing row is threatening to undo the substantial effort President Park has put into strengthening ties with China, which is not only South Korea’s largest trade partner but also the key player in curbing North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. Kim Young-Ho, one of the six lawmakers from the main opposition Minjoo Party traveling to Beijing, said their sole motivation was to calm the situation. “We are visiting with the hope of offering at least a little warmth to the icy Seoul-Beijing ties,” Kim was quoted as saying by the Yonhap news agency before leaving Seoul. AFP
349 Taiwan drivers fined for playing Pokemon Go TAIPEI—Nearly 350 drivers in Taiwan were slapped with fines for playing on their phones after Pokemon Go launched on the island, which has already resulted in broken legs and museum bans. The gaming app has sparked a global frenzy since its launch last month as users hunt for virtual cartoon characters overlaid on real-world locations using augmented reality technology. A total of 349 fines were issued since the game launched in Taiwan on Saturday, with the majority of the offenders driving motorcycles, according to the National Police Agency. While Pokemon Go has been praised for motivating people to become more active, authorities have warned players to remain alert. “Catch the rare creatures, but don’t let accidents catch up with you!” Taiwan’s Premier Lin Chuan said on the cabinet’s Facebook page.
Drivers face fines of Tw$3,000 ($95) if caught using their phone, while motorcyclists have to hand over Tw$1,000. A 20-year-old man in New Taipei City fractured his knee Saturday after falling off his motorbike while looking at his phone, according to Apple Daily. At Taipei’s National Palace Museum officials banned visitors from playing Pokemon Go in its exhibition halls, which house prized artefacts from Chinese history spanning 7,000 years. Elsewhere, authorities are seeking to set firm parameters for avid Pokemon Go players. In Thailand, authorities warned its citizens against entering polling stations in their search for the cyber creatures as the nation voted on a new constitution Sunday. Iran, which blocks many global news and social media sites, went so far as to ban the game entirely. AFP
DETECTOR. In this photograph, a Pakistani private security guard uses an explosives detector to search a vehicle at a mall entrance in Islamabad. Pakistan’s government is building, selling and widely using a handheld explosives detector that senior officials have told AFP is ineffective and is based on a debunked technique scientists have dubbed “snake oil.” AFP