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.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
RSS