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Hamas claims
responsibility for rockets attack on Israel
Ezzdine
Al Qassam, the armed wing of Islamic
Resistance Movement (Hamas), claimed
responsibility on Monday for launching five Al
Qassam-2 Rockets from northern Gaza Strip at
Israel.
The rockets
landed near the town of Sderout in southern
Israel.
Launching Al
Qassam rockets at Israel "is the natural
reaction of Hamas movement to the massacres
Israelis carried out every day against our
people," the group said in a leaflet sent
to reporters.
Israel Radio
also reported that three rockets landed near
Sderout, with one of them hit a residential
neighborhood, causing horror among the
residents. But no injuries were reported.
Ezzdine Al
Qassam claimed that it is a legitimate right
for the Palestinians "to respond to the
crimes that are committed against our
defenseless Palestinian people by using all
available means until the end of the military
occupation."
Firing the
rockets was also a retaliation to the Israeli
army military operation carried out earlier
into Al Buriej refugee camp in the central
Gaza Strip, in which nine Palestinians were
killed, five houses were demolished, the group
said.
Iraq
destroys six more banned missiles, two
warheads
Iraq
scrapped six more Al-Samoud 2 missiles and two
empty warheads Monday, bringing the total
number of missiles destroyed in the past three
days to 16, a UN spokesman confirmed here.
The destruction
work was carried out at the military facility
in Taji, 40 kilometers north of Baghdad, under
the UN supervision, UN inspection team
spokesman Hiro Ueki told reporters.
Uday al-Tai,
director general of Iraq's Information
Ministry, said earlier Monday that six Al-Samouds
were destroyed by midday Monday.
Ueki added that
a casting chamber used in making the missiles
was destroyed and a second one was being
destroyed later Monday. Two similar chambers
gave been scrapped over the weekend. He also
revealed that a UN chemical team supervised
the destruction of 14 empty 155mm artillery
shells, 10 of which had contained mustard gas,
at Al-Muthanna. The mustard gas taken out of
the shells is being neutralized, he said.
Under mounting
international pressure and the threat of war,
Iraq apparently stepped up its cooperation
with UN inspectors on Monday as it promised to
submit a report on the anthrax and VX nerve
agents it claimed to have destroyed a decade
ago.
The Iraqi side
it will present a more detailed report
concerning anthrax and VX destruction in a
week, Ueki said.
Iraqi officials
and UN experts held a three-hour-plus
"technical meeting" Monday on the
chemical and biological weapons which Iraq
claims to have destroyed in 1991.
The United
States and Britain have massed over 200,000
troops in the Gulf region poised to invade
Iraq to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein
and disarm Iraq of weapons of mass
destruction.
General Amer
al-Saadi, Saddam's senior advisor, warned
Sunday that Baghdad could halt the process if
it became clear that the United States was
going to wage war against Iraq regardless of
its disarmament efforts.
UN welcomed
to monitor Thailand's anti-drug war
Thai
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said Monday
that the UN can send inspector to monitor the
3-month anti-drug war launched by the Thai
government since Feb. 1.
According to
the Baan Maung newspaper, the Premier said
that if UN wanted to send representative to
inspect the performance of Thai officials in
the campaign, the Thai government would not
reject the idea.
Meanwhile, Thai
Foreign Minister Monday told diplomats from 52
countries and UN representatives about the
country's anti-drug principle, stressing that
all authorities, including police, were
instructed to operate according to law.
Thai Foreign
Ministry Spokesman Sihasak Pheungketkaew also
said that the government would not condone the
excessive use of force or the abuse of power
and promised that all deaths in the anti-drug
war would be investigated.
The special
rapporteur on extra-judicial, summary or
arbitrary executions of the United Nations
Commission on Human Rights, Asma Jahangir,
expressed deep concern last week at the many
deaths in Thailand's war on drugs, which
claimed more than 1,000 lives in February.
Jahangir urged
Thai authorities to ensure law enforcement and
that security officials carry out their duties
in strict compliance with national and
international human rights, and the strict
limits on the use of lethal force in
particular.
Thaksin argued
that the vast majority of the deaths in the
campaign were drugs gang members killed by
other traffickers, only31 were killed by
police.
Thailand is the
world's largest drug consumer, according to
the International Narcotics Control Board.
Thai official figures showed that
methamphetamines are regularly used by 5
percent of the population.
The
government's target is to cut the number of
drug suspects by 25 percent by the end of
February, and none left by the end of the
3-month war on drugs on April 30.
US warns
Iraq not to use chemical weapons in event of
war
A
senior US military official warned Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein on Monday not to use
chemical or biological weapons against US
forces in a possible war against Iraq.
"The Iraqi
capability is extremely limited. We have a
hundred percent better capability to operate
in a chemical and biological environment than
the Iraqis do," US army Maj. Gen. John
Doesburg, commander of Soldier Biological and
Chemical Defense Command, said at Pentagon
press meeting.
"You can
never forget the fact that he used them in the
past," Doesburg said. "Inside his
mind is something that says, against
everything we know and everything we feel in
the world, that it's OK to use chemical
agents, because he's done it."
He said Saddam
Hussein did not use chemical weapons against
the coalition in the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
"He probably has some grave reservations
about using those chemical and biological
agents, but we're going to be prepared,"
he added.
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