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Leaders of an umbrella organization of ethnic parties, the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC), formed a peace talk group last week in preparation for future negotiations with the Burmese government.
Speaking to The Irrawaddy on Wednesday, UNFC secretary Nai Hang Tha said, “There are eight representatives within the group which includes Mon, Shan, Karenni, Chin, Arakanese, Karen, Kachin and Pa-O people”.
A senior al-Qaeda operative and possibly the number two of the terror network, Atiyah Abdur Rahman, has reportedly been killed in a drone attack in North Waziristan on August 22.
Pakistani security officials and tribal sources in North Waziristan, however, did not have any information about the al-Qaeda leader and his presence in Pakistan.
North Korea twice fired shells near the flashpoint Yellow Sea border with South Korea Wednesday, prompting warning shots from the South’s marines in response, Seoul’s military said.
The incidents fuelled already high tensions along the disputed sea border, which saw bloody naval skirmishes in recent years and a deadly shelling attack on South Korea’s Yeonpyeong island last November.
The first incident came at 1 pm (0400 GMT), when Seoul’s defence ministry said a North Korean shell landed near the border, known as the Northern Limit Line (NLL).
China on Monday blamed ‘religious extremists’ trained in jihadi terror camps in Pakistan for executing bold weekend attacks in Xinjiang that left 11 dead, including five suspects gunned down by the police. Pakistan quickly released a statement deploring terrorism and assuring China of
‘full cooperation’ against the separatist East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM). The ETIM, which is demanding independence for China’s Muslim Uighur minority, is said to have links with al-Qaeda camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan along the borders of Xinjiang.
The head of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, General Shuja Pasha, is in Beijing and the Uighur terror issues will figure prominently in his talks with this Chinese counterparts.
Two Burmese government military aircraft on Wednesday dropped bombs onto a joint force of Shan State Army-South (SSA-South) and Shan State Army-North (SSA-North), according to Major Sai Lao Hseng, the spokesman of the SSA-S. The information could not be confirmed by outside sources.
He said the bombing took place when government troops on Wansai Hill were under attack by SSA troops near Wankaipha village in Mong Yai Township in northeastern Shan State.