SANAA: Anwar al-Awlaki, a US-born cleric linked to al Qaeda’s Yemen-based wing, has been killed, Yemen’s Defence Ministry said on Friday.

”The terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki has been killed along with some of his companions,” it said in a statement sent by text message to journalists, but gave no details.

A Yemeni security official said Awlaki, who is of Yemeni descent, was hit in a today morning air raid in the northern al-Jawf province that borders oil giant Saudi Arabia. He said four others killed with him were suspected al Qaeda members.

It was not immediately clear if Yemeni forces had carried out the raid or if Awlaki had been killed by a US drone strike. A US drone aircraft targeted but missed Alwaki in May.

US officials were not immediately available for comment.

The Yemen-based al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)usually confirms the deaths of its members or affiliates on Internet posts a few days after the attack.

Awlaki had been implicated in a botched attempt by AQAP to bomb a US-bound plane in 2009 and had contacts with a US Army psychiatrist who killed 13 people at a US military base the same year.

US authorities have branded him a ”global terrorist” and last year authorised his capture or killing, but Sanaa had previously appeared reluctant to act against him.

Eloquent in English and Arabic, Awlaki encouraged attacks on the United States and was seen as a man who could draw in more al Qaeda recruits from Western countries.

Yemen has been mired in turmoil after eight months of mass protests demanding an end to Saleh’s 33-year rule. International powers have feared the unrest has emboldened AQAP.

Militants with suspected links to the group have seized towns in a southern coastal province near a strategic shipping lane.

One analyst said Awlaki’s killing would be more of a boon to Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh than a loss for AQAP, seen as one of al Qaeda’s most aggressive and dynamic wings.

”For AQAP, these franchises are usually resilient. There are other capable leaders in AQAP who can fill his shoes,” said Theodore Karasik, security analyst for the Dubai based INEGMA group.

”It’s a short step backwards which will likely result in more assertion in the future, for the revenge of his martydom.”

However, Awlaki, if his death is confirmed, may not be so easy for AQAP to replace. He may not be a very senior Islamic cleric, Nor is he AQAP’s leader — that is Nasser al-Wuhayshi — but he ranks as its most gifted English-language propagandist.

Britain’s intelligence chief John Sawers singled him out as a major threat with a global appeal in a speech last October.

”From his remote base in Yemen, al Qaeda leader and US national Anwar al-Awlaki broadcasts propaganda and terrorist instruction in fluent English, over the Internet,” he said. (PTI)

PHNOM PENH: At least 150 people in Cambodia and southern Vietnam have died in the worst flooding along the Mekong River in 11 years after heavy rain swamped homes, washed away bridges and forced thousands of people to evacuate.

Worse could be in store if Typhoon Nesat, which killed at least 39 people in China this week and ploughed into northern Vietnam today, dumps rain deep enough inland to further swell the Mekong.

Flooding across the fertile Mekong Delta helped drive rice prices to a three-year high in Vietnam this week, traders said, which will add to inflation problems.

The delta produces more than half of Vietnam’s rice and 90 per cent of its exportable grain.

In Cambodia, 141 people have died since August 13 due to Mekong flooding and flash floods, the Cambodian National Disaster Management Committee said .

”Now, more than 200,000 hectares (494,200 acres) of our rice paddies are under water but we don’t yet know the full extent of the damage,” said Keo Vy, deputy information director at the National Disaster Management Committee.

Cambodia is a minor rice exporter, but Vietnam is the world’s second-biggest exporter behind Thailand.

In 2000, the worst flooding in decades killed more than 480 people across the Delta region.

The following year, more than 300 people died when the Mekong, which flows 4,350 km from the glaciers of Tibet to the rice-rich Delta of southern Vietnam, overflowed its banks. (PTI)

Bahorok: Rescuers held out hope on Friday that some of the 18 people aboard a plane that crashed in the mountains of western Indonesia may be alive, after spotting the aircraft intact with one of its doors open.

Rugged, forested terrain and bad weather have prevented rescuers from reaching the crash site by foot, said Sunarbowo Sandi, head of the local search-and-rescue team, after carrying out 100-meter-high aerial surveys. “We may have to rappel down” to the wreckage, he said.

The Spanish-designed CASA C-212 lost contact with air traffic control early yesterday while flying from North Sumatra to Aceh province. Minutes later, it sent out a distress signal, then dropped off the radar. A helicopter spotted the wreckage on a 60-degree slope in the Bahorok region at an altitude of 5,000 feet. Though the plane’s nose and cockpit were badly damaged, the fuselage and wings were intact, said Robur Rizallianto, a safety manager with the airline, PT Nusantara Buana Air.

“One of its doors is open,” he said, holding out hope that it could mean some of the 14 passengers and four crew on board were alive. Four of the passengers were children.

Footage on MetroTV showed family members of the crash victims waiting at the airport in Medan, from where the plane departed, in hysterics. They demanded clear information about the fate of their loved ones, accusing the airline and rescue teams of taking far too long. “The conditions are really bad,” Sandi, the search-and-rescue official, insisted, adding that tornado-like winds and heavy fog were hampering efforts to reach the crash scene. (AP)

Islamabad: US drones resumed strikes in Pakistan’s restive Waziristan tribal region, killing three suspected militants, amid a continuing row between Washington and Islamabad over a crackdown on Haqqani network, which Americans say has its “safe havens” in the area.

CIA-operated spy plane fired two missiles targetting a house in the Birmal area of South Waziristan Agency killing three people, sources said. Five other persons were injured in the attack, they said. It was not immediately clear which group was targeted in the strike. More than 30 drone strikes have been reported in Pakistan, since Navy SEALs in a bold operation killed al-Qeada chief Osama bin Laden in a Abottabad.

Pakistan opposes the drone strikes but the US has ruled out any change in the campaign. US drones routinely carry out missile strikes in the Waziristan tribal region, which the US describes as a safe haven for Taliban and al-Qaeda elements. (PTI)

Islamabad: A marathon meeting of Pakistan’s top political leaders has rejected as “baseless” US assertion that the ISI is using the Haqqani network to wage a proxy war in Afghanistan and backed the military in defeating “any threat to national security”.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani convened the meeting of political and religious parties on Thursday against the backdrop of growing tensions with the US and threats of unilateral American military action against militants holed up in the tribal belt bordering Afghanistan.

Without naming the US, a resolution adopted at the end of nine-hour meeting said the political leadership had “rejected the recent assertions and baseless allegations made against Pakistan” as they were “without substance and derogatory to a partnership approach”.

The resolution called for a “new direction and policy with a focus on peace and reconciliation”, saying Pakistan “must initiate dialogue with a view to negotiate peace with our own people in the tribal areas”.

A mechanism for this dialogue should be put in place, it added. In an apparent response to US threats of unilateral action against militant groups like the Haqqani network, the resolution said: “The Pakistani nation affirms its full solidarity and support for the armed forces of Pakistan in defeating any threat to national security.”

The defence of Pakistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity will never be compromised and national interests will guide the country’s policy and response to all challenges, the resolution said.

The resolution did not elaborate on the term “own people” and observers contended it could be include militant groups, including the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, that operate in the tribal belt. “‘Give peace a chance’ must be the guiding central principle henceforth,” said the resolution. The marathon meeting was attended by leaders of some 30 parties and Pakistan Army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani.

The gathering was briefed by Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar and Inter-Services Intelligence agency chief Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha on Pakistan’s security environment and the regional situation. Observers noted that the call for negotiations to settle the unrest in the tribal areas marked a paradigm shift in Pakistan’s security policy. The government has so far followed a policy of launching military operations and backing tribal ‘lashkars’ or militias to take on Taliban fighters in the seven semi-autonomous tribal districts bordering Afghanistan. (Agencies)