MUSCAT, Oman,
May 2--Oman’s state security court on Monday handed jail terms of between one and 20 years to 31 Islamists accused of plotting to overthrow the government and membership of a banned organization, AFP reported.
Defense lawyers had argued that their clients were innocent of the charges against them and had merely sought to promote the teachings of the sultanate’s majority Ibadi sect.
Judge Hilal bin Hamad Busaidi said the defendants, all Omanis, could not appeal the verdict but could ask for a pardon from the Persian Gulf state’s ruler Sultan Qaboos within 30 days.
Thirty were convicted of plotting to “overthrow the regime by force of arms and replace it by an imamate, by setting up a banned underground organization.“
The accused, who were all in court, were also convicted of conducting military training, arming members with weapons obtained illegally and holding meetings aimed at recruiting new members.
Six defendants, accused of being leaders of the group, were sentenced to 20 years in jail.
Twelve were sentenced to 10 years, another 12 to seven years, while the 31st, who was acquitted of seeking to overthrow the regime, received a one-year jail sentence for holding weapons without a license.
Qaboos must ratify the sentences. The Omani ruler commuted death sentences handed down to defendants in a trial of a Sunni Islamist organization in 1994.
Defense lawyers said their clients’ possession of weapons was in keeping with Omani norms and that the worst they could be accused of was holding firearms without a permit.
The defendants, who were arrested in January, had pleaded not guilty to the charge of plotting to overthrow the regime, although some of them expressed “regret“ and asked Sultan Qaboos to pardon them.
An offshoot of a dissident Shiite sect, the Ibadis are named after their founder, Abdullah bin Ibadh Al-Maqissi, originally from Ibadh in Saudi Arabia. The faith was introduced to Oman in the eighth century.
Ibadis believe the people should appoint imams to head the Muslim community.
Up to 200 supporters of the group staged a peaceful march in Muscat Sunday to demand their acquittal. Demonstrations are banned in Oman, as in other Persian Gulf Arab states.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan

RAMALLAH, Occupied Palestine, May 2--Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived in Ramallah Monday for his first visit to the West Bank where he was to hold talks with new Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas, AFP reported.
Erdogan was greeted by Abbas at the Muqataa leadership compound where he was expected to lay a wreath at the grave of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
The Turkish leader is expected to offer economic assistance for the rebuilding of the Gaza Strip after Israel’s pullout from the occupied territory later this summer.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, May 2--The trial of three Saudi reformists charged with calling for a constitutional monarchy in the ultra-conservative Muslim kingdom resumed Monday behind closed doors, AFP quoted a relative as saying.
About 20 supporters gathered outside the Riyadh courthouse as police cordoned off the building for the hearing of Ali Al-Demaini, Abdullah Al-Hamed and Matruk al-Faleh.
The trio were among a dozen activists arrested in March last year on charges of demanding a constitutional monarchy. The others were released after pledging to no longer publicly lobby for reform.
The trial had been adjourned on April 2 following a request by the prosecutor for more time to produce evidence.

John Abizaid

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, May 2--The top US commander in the region was in Pakistan Monday to hold talks on the war on terror and security with top leaders and senior military officials, officials said.
General John Abizaid, the chief of US Central Command, or Centcom, arrived in the capital Islamabad on Sunday, Pakistani military spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan told AFP.
US embassy spokesman Greggory Crouch said Abizaid’s short official visit to Pakistan was for “routine consultations“ with President General Pervez Musharraf and other senior military leaders.
“The Centcom chief will be discussing Pakistan’s cooperation in the war on terror and issues related to regional security,“ Crouch added.
Pakistan has stood side-by-side with the United States in its so-called global war on terrorism, capturing or killing hundreds of militants who sneaked across from Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban in late 2001.
US officials believe Al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden and other key militants may be sheltering somewhere along the mountainous border.
Islamabad was rewarded for its cooperation in March when the US announced the long-awaited sale of sophisticated F-16 fighter jets for the Pakistani air force.
Middle East expert Abizaid, a Lebanese-American, is military commander of US forces in a vast area that includes Iraq and Afghanistan.

Kashmiri Muslim women clash with Indian policewomen (l) in protest against the killing of assistant sub-inspector Ali Mohammad by unidentified gunmen in Srinagar, April 28. (AFP Photo)

SRINAGAR, India, May 2--The Indian army said Monday a campaign to hunt down suspected Islamic militants in Kashmir had left 90 rebels dead since the launch of a bus service last month meant to signal peace in the divided state, AFP reported.
The army campaign is being waged against suspected militants in the Indian zone of the state and is aided by an extensive network of fences built by India in the past decade to stop militants crossing from Pakistan, a senior Indian army officer said.
“We have intensified operations against militants given the people’s yearning for peace,“ the officer, who declined to be named, said.
The operations are being waged despite a ceasefire by India and Pakistan along the heavily militarized Line of Control (LoC) dividing Kashmir and the launch of a bus service April 7 to reunite divided families in the state as part of a peace process begun 15 months ago.
“The militants were killed in nearly 60 clashes with troops across the state since the bus launch on April 7,“ the officer told AFP.
Four rebel groups have threatened to attack passengers on the bus and disrupt the service in a bid to stall a move by India and Pakistan for a “soft border“ along the LoC.
The officer also said troops had intensified operations against militants to gain an advantage ahead of the normal spring melting of snow now covering alpine passes along the LoC.
Since the latest peace process started 15 months ago between New Delhi and Islamabad, only a few incursion attempts have been reported, the officer said.
According to police figures suspected militants killed 45 people since the bus launch, including 10 security force personnel, 29 civilians and six pro-India political workers and former rebels.
Some 95 people were also injured during clashes between the combatants and in rebel grenade and gun attacks.
None of the rebel groups claimed responsibility for the killings.
But militants often target pro-India politicians and people they suspect of working for Indian troops.
The army operations were further intensified after last month’s talks between Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in New Delhi during which they termed the peace process as “irreversible.“

QUSSAYA, Lebanon, May 2--Residents of eastern Lebanon encouraged by the recent Syrian troop pullout from the country are calling for an end to the presence of Damascus-backed Palestinian military positions in the area, AFP reported.
Since Syria ended its 29-year military presence in Lebanon on Tuesday, residents have been criticizing the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) of Ahmad Jibril.
The Damascus-based radical group has maintained military positions in the eastern Bekaa Valley for the last 23 years.
“We do not want Ahmad Jibril’s men who have been deployed here since the 1982 Israeli invasion to maintain their positions. The Syrians are gone, they should do the same,“ said one resident, Fouad Abu Farah.
Abu Farah was echoing the concerns of the vast majority of the residents of Qussaya and nearby villages on the western flank of the Anti-Lebanon mountain range which separates Lebanon from Syria.
UN Security Council Resolution 1559, passed in September, called for the end of foreign military presence in Lebanon, in a clear message to Syria, and for the disarming of all militias there, in a reference to the anti-Israeli Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah and numerous Palestinian factions.
But the PFLP-GC is the only Palestinian movement to maintain important military positions outside the 12 Palestinian camps in Lebanon. The group’s bases have been struck by Israeli warplanes.
Toni Keddy, municipal council member in Qussaya, “it is our right to ask for their departure, even if they never did any harm to us. We want to regain and cultivate the lands that they have confiscated from us.“
Residents said that since Syria’s pullout, the PFLP-GC has reinforced its positions with artillery, rocket-launchers and armored vehicles. The group has also opened a road leading across the borders to Zabadani, inside Syria, they said.
Both Christian and Muslim residents are hostile to the continued foreign military presence.
The PFLP-GC faces similar criticism for maintaining bases on hills overlooking the coastal town of Naameh, south of Beirut.
The group dug a labyrinth of underground tunnels in Naameh in 1978. It was forced to evacuate the tunnels in 1982 by the Israeli army, but returned to the area in 1984 after the Israeli partial pullout in southern Lebanon.

Hamid Karzai

KABUL, Afghanistan, May 2--Alarmed by a rash of civilian deaths in US-led military operations, Afghan President Hamid Karzai urged coalition forces to use “extreme caution“ as they root out militants, AFP reported.
In a statement on Sunday, Karzai expressed “concern about the occurrence in recent weeks of civilian deaths as a result of counter-terrorist operations,“ following the deaths of three people, including a woman and child, in a US airstrike on Friday.
Two Afghan children were also wounded in Friday’s strike on a militant camp in the southern Afghan province of Uruzgan, a hotbed of the Taliban insurgency.
The incident came less than a week after three civilians were wounded in eastern Nangahar province in a clash between militants and US troops.
The US military said in a statement this week that despite “careful planning“ non-combatant casualties could not be prevented.
In March two children and a woman were killed along with a key Taliban commander in a firefight with US forces in southeastern Paktika province.
A young boy was killed two days before that by US-led troops who were searching a village for a bomb-maker in eastern Afghanistan’s Kunar province.
Despite the civilian deaths, Karzai said he remained committed to coalition efforts in Afghanistan.
“The Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan reaffirms once again its rock-solid commitment to the war against terrorism, and will continue to work with the international coalition against terrorism in pursuing and defeating terrorist forces in Afghanistan,“ the statement said.
The United States leads a coalition force of over 18,000 troops in Afghanistan, mostly battling militants in the restive south and east of the country.
Since 2001, US-led forces have mistakenly killed scores of civilians in their hunt for insurgents.

Nathan Sharansky

BEIT-UL-MOQADDAS, May 2--Israeli cabinet minister Nathan Sharansky, one of US President George W. Bush’s intellectual guiding lights, resigned Monday in protest at the plan to pull Jewish settlers out of the occupied Gaza Strip, AFP reported.
Sharansky, who became the sixth minister to either quit or be sacked in less than a year over their opposition to the disengagement plan, said it would only serve to strengthen Palestinian militancy and divide Israeli society.
“In my view, the disengagement plan is a tragic mistake that will exacerbate the conflict with the Palestinians, increase terrorism and dim the prospects of forging a genuine peace,“
Sharansky said in a resignation letter to Sharon.
“Alongside my concerns, about the dangers entailed in a unilateral disengagement from Gaza, I am even more concerned about how the government’s approach to disengagement is dividing Israeli society.
“We are heading toward a terrible rift in the nation and to my great chagrin, I feel that the government is making no serious effort to prevent it.“
Sharon has consistently overridden the objections of former right-wing allies such as Sharansky over the Gaza pullout, which he believes will ease pressure on Israel to carry out a more comprehensive pullout from the West Bank.