Bomb plot in India

Gauracandra · 06-16-2001, 04:34 AM

Delhi arrest points to anti-U.S. bomb plot
June 16, 2001 Posted: 3:20 AM EDT (0720 GMT)

NEW DELHI, India -- Police in the Indian capital have arrested a Sudanese national claiming links with Saudi fugitive Osama bin Laden and a plot to attack the U.S.embassy.

"We have arrested a Sudanese national, Abdel Raouf Hawas, who says he is with Osama bin Laden," said Deputy Commissioner of Police, Ashok Chand, on Saturday.

Hawas was picked up along with an Indian associate from near a public garden in New Delhi a day earlier.

The two men, who were now in police custody, were carrying high-intensity explosives at the time of arrest.

A tip-off about a possible attack on the U.S. embassy two months ago led to the arrest, Chand said.

U.S. embassy targeted
Hawas told the police he had visited the heavily-guarded U.S embassy several times to prepare for an attack.

"He says he was planning to attack the visa section of the United States embassy . . . and that he disguised himself as a student many times to survey the area," Chand said.

The Hindu newspaper quoted unnamed police officers as saying that the Sudanese national had planned a car-bomb explosion at the U.S.embassy in the Indian capital.

Security has since been tightened around the American embassy, he added.

Bin Laden has been indicted in New York for allegedly masterminding the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, which killed more than 200 people.

A convicted bomber, Mohamed Rashed Daoud Al-'Owhali, was sentenced to life in prison earlier in the week in New York.

Bin Laden has taken refuge in Afghanistan, where the dominant Taliban has refused to hand him over to Western powers.

Gauracandra · 06-16-2001, 01:56 PM

Bomb Kills 15 at Bangladesh Rally

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) - A bomb exploded at a political rally of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's governing party Saturday, killing at least 15 people and injuring 100, police and eyewitnesses said.

More than 300 activists of the Awami League Party were crammed inside a small auditorium in the party's office in Narayanganj, 10 miles from the capital, Dhaka, when the bomb went off.

A prominent lawmaker, Shamim Osman, who was speaking when the explosion ripped through the hall, suffered hand and leg wounds. Police detained a man at the scene of the explosion, but did not provide any details about him, except identifying him by one name, Liton.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack, and police did not say if there were any suspects. Previous attacks have been blamed by Hasina on Islamic fundamentalists.

Political rivalries in the poor South Asian nation are intense and often explode in violence ahead of elections. Street fights between rival activists and bomb attacks are common during campaigns. General elections are scheduled in October.

The floors and walls of the building were splashed with blood and several severed limbs were littered around after the attack, Mosharaff Hossain, a university student who was wounded in the blast, said in a telephone interview.

``The explosion rocked the single-story building as if an earthquake has occurred,'' Hossain said.

While many of the at least 100 injured were admitted to hospitals in Narayanganj, several others, including Osman, were driven to civil and military hospitals in Dhaka.

On Friday, an explosion was averted when police recovered two bombs from an auditorium in southeastern Chittagong city, hours before a music concert was to begin.

At least 60 people have been killed in 10 such bomb attacks in past two years, according to police records. These include 10 deaths caused by a bomb blast at a concert in Dhaka on April 14. Another 10 people were killed this month in a rare bombing of a Roman Catholic church in southwestern Gopalganj district.