A massive security net was thrust around Islamabad airport as South Asian leaders began arriving yesterday for a seven-nation summit in the wake of two attempts to kill President Pervez Musharraf.
The 12th summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) runs from today to Tuesday.
PHOTO: AFP
The airport was closed for two days to all commercial flights and the 13km road to the city was flanked by gun-toting troops, police commandos and officers.
The Prime Ministers of Bhutan and Nepal, Lyonpo Jigme Yaeser Thinley and Surya Bahadur Thapa, landed just after 9:30am to a brief ceremonial playing of their national anthems.
With sirens blaring, the leaders of the neighboring Himalayan kingdoms were whisked off in waiting limousines escorted by a convoy of army jeeps fitted with machineguns. Surveillance helicopters flew overhead.
Armed soldiers holding sniffer dogs prowled through airport lounges as journalists were subjected to special checks by security officials who scanned their equipment with metal detectors.
Police have set up special barricades at key intersections and no one was allowed to stay on bridges along the road to Islamabad.
Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, Maldives President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom and Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga are due later Saturday.
Vajpayee, making his first trip to Pakistan since 1999, will have his own "Black Cat" commandos and travel in bulletproof cars specially airlifted from India, officials in New Delhi said.
Vajpayee's February 1999 trip to the eastern city of Lahore to launch a cross-border bus service was marred by protests by Islamists.
His national security adviser Brajesh Mishra flew into Islamabad on Friday, a day ahead of his scheduled arrival with Vajpayee.
Musharraf narrowly survived a suicide bomb attack on Christmas day in Rawalpindi neighboring Islamabad when two attackers rammed explosives-laden vehicles into his convoy, killing 15 people and injuring 45 others.
The attack came just 11 days after he narrowly missed being killed in a bomb ambush as his convoy passed over a bridge.
Authorities have closed roads between the Convention Center venue of the summit and two five star hotels where delegates are staying, banned protest rallies and closed the city's schools and colleges for the summit.
SUPPORT: Elon Musk’s backing for the far-right AfD is also an implicit rebuke of center-right Christian Democratic Union leader Friedrich Merz, who is leading polls German Chancellor Olaf Scholz took a swipe at Elon Musk over his political judgement, escalating a spat between the German government and the world’s richest person. Scholz, speaking to reporters in Berlin on Friday, was asked about a post Musk made on his X platform earlier the same day asserting that only the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party “can save Germany.” “We have freedom of speech, and that also applies to multi-billionaires,” Scholz said alongside Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal. “But freedom of speech also means that you can say things that are not right and do not contain
Pulled from the mud as an infant after the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 and reunited with his parents following an emotional court battle, the boy once known as “Baby 81” is now a 20-year-old dreaming of higher education. Jayarasa Abilash’s story symbolized that of the families torn apart by one of the worst natural calamities in modern history, but it also offered hope. More than 35,000 people in Sri Lanka were killed, with others missing. The two-month-old was washed away by the tsunami in eastern Sri Lanka and found some distance from home by rescuers. At the hospital, he was
Two US Navy pilots were shot down yesterday over the Red Sea in an apparent “friendly fire” incident, the US military said, marking the most serious incident to threaten troops in over a year of US targeting Yemen’s Houthi rebels. Both pilots were recovered alive after ejecting from their stricken aircraft, with one sustaining minor injuries. However, the shootdown underlines just how dangerous the Red Sea corridor has become over the ongoing attacks on shipping by the Iranian-backed Houthis despite US and European military coalitions patrolling the area. The US military had conducted airstrikes targeting Yemen’s Houthi rebels at the
MILITANTS TARGETED: The US said its forces had killed an IS leader in Deir Ezzor, as it increased its activities in the region following al-Assad’s overthrow Washington is scrapping a long-standing reward for the arrest of Syria’s new leader, a senior US diplomat said on Friday following “positive messages” from a first meeting that included a promise to fight terrorism. Barbara Leaf, Washington’s top diplomat for the Middle East, made the comments after her meeting with Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus — the first formal mission to Syria’s capital by US diplomats since the early days of Syria’s civil war. The lightning offensive that toppled former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad on Dec. 8 was led by the Muslim Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is rooted in al-Qaeda’s
RSS