A Pakistani anti-terrorism court indicted Hafiz Saeed, the alleged mastermind of deadly 2008 attacks in Mumbai, on terror financing charges yesterday, a government prosecutor and defence lawyer said. Defence lawyer Imran Gill said his client pleaded not guilty. The charges were read as the 70-year-old Saeed was present in court, prosecutor Abdur Rauf Watto told Reuters. “He has been charged for collecting funds for banned organizations, JuD and LeT,” he said. Saeed is the founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a militant group blamed by the United States and India for the four-day Mumbai siege, in which 160 people were killed. The indictment came ahead of a world financial watchdog Financial Action Task Force (FATF) meeting early next year to decide whether to blacklist Pakistan for its failure to curb terror financing.

Five killed in jihadist

attack on Somali hotel

Five people including three civilians were killed when jihadist militants stormed a hotel in Somalia’s capital, police said yesterday, adding that all five attackers had also died after an hours-long siege. The attack on Tuesday evening, claimed by the Islamist group al-Shabaab, took place at a hotel in Mogadishu popular with politicians, army officers and diplomats. Several witnesses told AFP that the assailants were dressed in police uniform, which allowed them to approach the hotel without arousing suspicion. They then opened fire and threw grenades, triggering an armed response from security forces.

UN can’t confirm Iran

behind Saudi oil attack

The UN has been unable to confirm Iranian involvement in a dramatic attack on oil facilities in Saudi Arabia earlier this year, secretary-general Antonio Guterres said Tuesday. Drones and cruise missiles were used in the September bombardment, which knocked out half of the kingdom’s crude production and fueled a record surge in prices. Saudi officials, the United States and several European countries accused Iran of responsibility for the attack, which Tehran has denied. UN investigators had been given access to debris of the weapons used in the attack, Guterres said in a six-monthly report to the Security Council on Iran’s nuclear program, seen by AFP on Tuesday. But the investigation was not able to “independently corroborate that the cruise missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles used in these attacks are of Iranian origin,” the report said. An investigation into the attack is continuing Guterres said.

Source: AFP