IO N IPT SC R SU B
SATURDAY, MARCH 31, 2012
JUMADI ALAWAAL 8, 1433 AH
Kuwait National & Liberation Days
No: 15404
The last day of receiving entries for Photography Competition is on April 2, 2012
150 Fils
French commandos round up ‘jihadists’ 19 Islamists arrested; Kalashnikovs, handguns found
Max 28º Min 17º
in the
news
Bin Laden fathered 4 children in Pakistan ISLAMABAD: Osama bin Laden fathered four children as he hid out in Pakistan after the 9/11 attacks, his youngest wife told interrogators, according to a police report seen by AFP yesterday. Amal Abdulfattah’s account provides rare details of the Al-Qaeda leader’s life from when he fled Afghanistan in late 2001 until his death aged 54 last May during a US Navy SEAL operation in Abbottabad, in Pakistan. Abdulfattah, from Yemen, was arrested by Pakistani authorities following the US raid on bin Laden’s compound near the Pakistani capital Islamabad, along with two of his Saudi wives, and her five children. The three detained widows face charges of illegally entering and residing in Pakistan. Abdulfattah, 30, was shot while trying to protect her husband, according to the US. The Pakistan police report, dated January 19, said Abdulfattah was born into a family of 17 children and married bin Laden because “she had a desire to marry a Mujahedeen”, using the term for “holy warrior”. The report, from the office of the inspector general of police in Islamabad, recommended Abdulfattah and her children be immediately deported.
Much sitting linked to shortened lives SYDNEY: People who spent a lot of time sitting at a desk or in front of a television were more likely to die than those who were only sedentary a few hours a day, according to an Australian study that looked at death rates during a threeyear period. Researchers, whose results appeared in the Archives of Internal Medicine, found that the link between too much time sitting and shortened lives stuck even when they accounted for how much moderate or vigorous exercise people got, as well as their weight and other measures of health. That suggests that shifting some time from sitting to light physical activity, such as slow walking or active chores, might have important long-term benefits, they added. “When we give people messages about how much physical activity they should be doing, we also need to talk to them about reducing the amount of hours they spend sitting each day,” said Hidde van der Ploeg, the new study’s lead author from the University of Sydney. Of more than 200,000 adults age 45 and older, van der Ploeg and her colleagues found that people who reported sitting for at least 11 hours a day were 40 percent more likely to die during the study than those who sat less than four hours daily. That doesn’t, however, prove that sitting itself cuts people’s lives short, she noted, adding that there could be other unmeasured differences between people who spend a lot or a little time sitting each day. The team surveyed about 220,000 people from New South Wales, Australia, between 2006 and 2008, including questions about participants’ general health and any medical conditions they had, whether they smoked and how much time they spent both exercising and sitting each day.
BOUGUENAIS: French members of the French National Police Intervention Group (GIPN) arrest Forsane Alizza Islamic radical group’s leader Mohamed Achamlane after searching his house in Bouguenais yesterday as part of down raids in several French cities. — AFP PARIS: Police commandos arrested 19 suspected Islamic militants in raids yesterday in several French cities including Toulouse, where seven people were killed by an AlQaeda-inspired gunman this month. President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose firm handling of the shooting spree has boosted his chances of re-election, said more raids would follow to get rid of “people who have no business in the country”. Interior Minister Claude Gueant said those arrested had paramilitary-type training although he did not say if they were planning an actual attack. “These are people who...claimed they were acting for an extremely violent, jihadist and combat ideology,” Gueant told reporters after meeting Muslim associations in Paris. Television channels showed images of the early morning raids, with agents from the RAID police commando unit and anti-terrorist specialists bashing down doors, smashing windows, and taking suspects away handcuffed and with their faces covered. Five rifles, three Kalashnikovs, four handguns and a bullet-proof vest were seized in the operation, Gueant said. A police source said about 20 people had been arrested in Toulouse in the south-
west, Nantes in western France and also in the Paris region and the southeast. Sarkozy put the number of arrests at 19. The operation was not directly related to Mohamed Merah’s killing spree in Toulouse, the police source said, although Sarkozy ordered a crackdown on radical Islamists following that. Merah was killed by police snipers last week after shooting dead three Jewish school children, a rabbi and three soldiers in attacks around Toulouse, turning internal security into a bigger campaign issue ahead of the presidential election. Polls showed that more than 70 percent of voters approved of Sarkozy’s handling of the incident, reducing his chief rival, Socialist frontrunner Francois Hollande, to the role of bystander before the two-round election on April 22 and May 6. Gueant dismissed talk that the raids had been carried out in response to suggestions that the intelligence services had failed to monitor and track down Merah quickly enough. The police source said several of those arrested were believed to be close to the banned radical Islamist group Forsane Alizza (Knights of Pride). Gueant said the group’s leader,
Mohammed Achamlane, had been arrested in Nantes. Founded in 2010, Forsane Alizza came to prominence after calling that year for a boycott of McDonald’s in the central city of Limoges, accusing the US fast food chain of serving Israel. Achamlane told the daily Liberation in January the group could not exclude launching an armed struggle “if Islamophobia continues to intensify day by day”. Before the Toulouse attacks, the group was known for provocative demonstrations, such as protests against a French ban on worshippers praying in the streets and a ban on full-face veils. Gueant banned the group in February, accusing it of preparing its supporters for armed struggle. Gilles Kepel, political scientist and specialist in Islam, said the group operated more on the internet - preaching extreme views and intimidating but never actually turning to violence. “It’s a big show, but obviously spreading ideas that can cause problems,” he said. France’s 5 million strong Muslim minority is the largest in Europe but only a portion - about 10 percent, or the same proportion as among Catholics - are practicing, according to Muslim associations.— Reuters