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Volume 13 Issue 337 Rajab 21, 1434 AH / May 31, 2013 - $1
RELIGIOUS RIOTS SHAKE EASTERN MYANMAR FOR SECOND DAY
Religious riots shook eastern Myanmar for a second day yesterday with one man hacked to death and four injured, a top official said, after an orphanage and mosque were burnt down. Police fired warning shots to disperse rioters after the fresh Buddhist-Muslim clashes in the town of Lashio in Shan state, according to presidential spokesman Ye Htut. “The deceased was hacked to death with a knife,” Ye Htut told AFP, adding that the security forces were taking action to halt the unrest. Several episodes of religious violence have exposed deep rifts in the Buddhist-majority country. Residents said mobs armed with sticks were roaming the streets of Lashio looking for Muslims on Wednesday, while an AFP reporter
saw two houses ablaze. A local hospital confirmed it had received four injured men, all Buddhists. A 48-year-old Muslim man was arrested over that incident, in which the 24-year-old woman suffered burns but was not in serious condition, according to state broadcaster MRTV. A Muslim orphanage, a mosque and several shops were destroyed by rioters, a different government official said, requesting anonymity. Ye Htut, who earlier appealed for calm, posted pictures of police making arrests in the town yesterday as they tried to quell a second eruption of violence that he said saw “conflict from both sides.” “The security forces are taking action against people who are involved in the violence in order to stop the fighting in Lashio,” he
Buddhists armed with sticks patrol the town of Lashio, northern Shan State, Myanmar, on Wednesday. (AFP)
said. Fear rippled through the streets yesterday, with terrified Muslim residents describing a 30-strong group of men with weapons on motorcycles cruising Lashio and shouting anti-Muslim slogans. The residents said there was not enough security in the town. “Almost all Muslims are trying to stay in safe places.... we don’t
know how we are going to get through the night,” one resident said by telephone, asking not to be named. He said the mob of bikers was threatening to “kill any Muslims they see on the road.” Religious unrest in the former army-ruled nation has caused global alarm. US President Barack Obama last week voiced “deep con-
cern” about anti-Muslim attacks, during a landmark visit to Washington by President Thein Sein. Nyan Win, a spokesman for opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, said the party believed outsiders were whipping up the violence in Lashio. Source: Arabnews
US SOLDIER TO PLEAD GUILTY TO AFGHAN MASSACRE
The U.S. Army staff sergeant charged with killing 16 villagers in one of the worst atrocities of the Afghanistan war will plead guilty to
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avoid the death penalty in a deal that requires him to recount the horrific attack for the first time, his attorney told The Associated Press. Robert Bales was “crazed” and “broken” when he slipped away from his southern Afghanistan outpost in March 2012 and attacked mud-walled compounds in two sleeping villages nearby, lawyer John Henry Browne said Wednesday. But his client’s mental state didn’t rise to the level of a legal insanity defence, Browne said. The Army had been trying to have Bales executed, and Afghan villagers have demanded it. In interviews with the AP last month, relatives of the victims
became outraged at the notion Bales might escape the death penalty. “For this one thing, we would kill 100 American soldiers,” vowed Mohammed Wazir, who had 11 family members killed that night, including his mother and 2-year-old daughter. Most of the victims were women and children, and some of the bodies were piled and burned. The killings drew such angry protests that the U.S. temporarily halted combat operations in Afghanistan. It was three weeks before U.S. investigators could reach the crime scenes. Any plea deal must be approved by the judge as well as the com-
manding general at the U.S. base where Bales is being held. A plea hearing is set for June 5, said Lt. Col. Gary Dangerfield, an Army spokesman. He said he could not immediately provide other details. “The judge will be asking questions of Sgt. Bales about what he did, what he remembers and his state of mind,” said Browne, who told the AP the commanding general has already approved the deal. A sentencing-phase trial is set for September. Browne previously indicated Bales remembered little from the night of the massacre.
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