Headley aide Tahawwur Rana gets 14 yrs for backing Lashkar

WASHINGTON, Jan 17: A US court on Thursday sentenced Tahawwur Rana, a Chicago businessman, to 14 years in jail for providing material support to the 2008 Mumbai carnage perpetrators and planning another terrorist strike.

Prosecutors had sought 30 years. Rana was found guilty in June, 2011 of providing support Mumbai attack terrorists and conspiring to provide help for a terrorist attack on a Denmark daily.

"This certainly was a dastardly plot," said US district judge Harry Leinenweber at the sentencing.

On his release, Rana, a Canadian citizen, will be on five years of supervised freedom.

In both instance he had worked with childhood friend Pakistani American David Coleman Headley, who is to be sentenced by the same court on January 24.

"This serious prison sentence should go a long way towards convincing would-be terrorists that they can't hide behind the scenes, lend support to the violent aims of terrorist organizations, and escape detection and punishment," said Gary S Shapiro, acting United States attorney for the Northern District of Illinois.

Rana had helped Pakistani-American David Coleman Headley scout the Mumbai targets hit by Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists in November 2008, which resulted in the death of 164 people.

He had allowed Headley to use the cover of his immigration business as a front for his scouting trips carried out on Lashkar's behalf, supervised by the Pakistani intelligence agency ISI.

Headley has confessed to his role in the attacks and deposed in Rana's trial, giving vivid accounts of the plot, the perpetrators and the extent of Pakistani involvement.

He pleaded guilty in March 2010 in a deal that saves him from death sentence or being sent to India to stand trial. Indian officials, however, were allowed to question him.

The prosecution had argued for Rana's conviction for a larger role in the Mumbai attack, but the jury only found him guilty of proving support to a banned outfit, Lashkar.

Barack Obama seeks four more years

Charlotte, North Carolina, Sept 6: His re-election in doubt, President Barack Obama conceded only halting progress Thursday night toward fixing the nation's stubborn economic woes, but vowed in a Democratic National Convention finale, "Our problems can be solved, our challenges can be met."

"Yes, our path is harder - but it leads to a better place," he declared in a prime-time speech to convention delegates and the nation that blended resolve about the challenges ahead with stinging criticism of Republican rival Mitt Romney's proposals to repair the economy.

He acknowledged "my own failings" as he asked for a second term, four years after taking office as the nation's first black president.

"Four more years," delegates chanted over and over as the 51-year-old Obama stepped to the podium, noticeably grayer than four years ago when he was a history-making candidate for the White House.

The president's speech was the final act of a pair of highly scripted national political conventions in as many weeks, and the opening salvo of a two-month drive toward Election Day that pits Obama against Republican rival Romney. The contest is ever tighter for the White House in a dreary season of economic struggle for millions.

Vice President Joe Biden preceded Obama at the convention podium and proclaimed, "America has turned the corner" after experiencing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

Obama didn't go that far in his own remarks, but he said firmly, "We are not going back, we are moving forward, America."

With unemployment at 8.3 percent, the president said the task of recovering from the economic disaster of 2008 is exceeded in American history only by the challenge Franklin Delano Roosevelt faced when he took office in 1933.

"It will require common effort, shared responsibility and the kind of bold persistent experimentation" that FDR employed, Obama said.

In an appeal to independent voters who might be considering a vote for Romney, he added that those who carry on Roosevelt's legacy "should remember that not every problem can be remedied with another government program or dictate from Washington.

He said, "The truth is, it will take more than a few years for us to solve challenges that have built up over the decades."

In the run-up to Obama's speech, delegates erupted in tumultuous cheers when former Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, grievously wounded in a 2011 assassination attempt, walked onstage to lead the Pledge of Allegiance. The hall grew louder when she blew kisses to the crowd.

And louder still when huge video screens inside the hall showed the face of Osama bin Laden, the terrorist mastermind killed in a daring raid on his Pakistani hideout by U.S. special operations forces" on a mission approved by the current commander in chief.

The hall was filled to capacity long before Obama stepped to the podium, and officials shut off the entrances because of a fear of overcrowding for a speech that the campaign had originally slated for the 74,000-seat football stadium nearby. Aides said weather concerns prompted the move to the convention arena, capacity 15,000 or so.

Obama's campaign said the president would ask the country to rally around a "real achievable plan that will create jobs, expand opportunity and ensure an economy built to last."

He added, "The truth is it will take more than a few years for us to solve challenges that have built up over a decade."

In convention parlance, both Obama and Biden were delivering acceptance speeches before delegates who nominated them for new terms in office.

But the political significance went far beyond that - the moment when the general election campaign begins in earnest even though Obama and Romney have been pointing toward a Nov. 6 showdown for months.

To the cheers of delegates, Obama retraced his steps to halt the economic slide, including the auto bailout that Romney opposed.

"After a decade of decline, this country created over a half million manufacturing jobs in the last two and a half years," he said.

Turning to national security, he said he had promised to end the war in Iraq, and had done so.

"We've blunted the Taliban's momentum in Afghanistan, and in 2014 our longest war will be over," he said.

"A new tower rises above the New York skyline, al-Qaida is on the path to defeat and Osama bin Laden is dead," he declared, one of the night's repeated references to the special operations forces raid that resulted in the terrorist mastermind's demise more than a year ago.

He lampooned Romney's own economic proposals. Have a surplus? Try a tax cut. Deficit too high? Try another. Feel a cold coming on? Take two tax cuts, roll back some regulations and call us in the morning," he said.

Mocking Romney for his overseas trip earlier this summer, Obama said, "You might not be ready for diplomacy with Beijing if you can't visit the Olympics without insulting our closest ally." That was a reference to a verbal gaffe the former Massachusetts governor committed while visiting London.

Obama cancelled 3 kill Laden missions: Book

LONDON, Aug 21: US President Barack Obama put off three times operations to kill world’s most dreaded terrorist Osama bin Laden before finally going ahead with the mission at the insistence of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a new book has claimed.

Citing unnamed sources within the joint operations command, Rich Miniter, a former ‘Wall Street Journal’ and ‘Washington Times’ reporter, claims that three ‘kill’ missions were called off by Obama in January, February and March 2011.

Bin Laden was killed by US Navy SEALs inside his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan in May 2011.

The president feared that the daring Navy SEALs operation to raid bin Laden’s Pakistani hideout in Abbottabad “might go tragically wrong” and he would be blamed for it, the Mail Online reported claiming it had viewed excerpts of the book ‘Leading from Behind: The Reluctant President and the Advisors Who Decide for Him’.

The book, claims that the White House’s carefully-crafted narrative of Obama as a decisive leader who sanctioned the killing of the al-Qaeda supremo was a “myth” and challenges a key element of Obama’s re-election bid – that his decision to kill Osama symbolises his resolute leadership.

At the start of his presidency, Miniter writes, Obama was “studiously undecided” about whether to kill the mastermind of 9/11. “He refused to weigh in or commit himself on even small matters related to a possible strike on bin Laden.”

“Obama was often disengaged as the bin Laden operation took shape, he left critical decisions to the then-CIA Director Leon Panetta, then-Secretary of Defence Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,” the book says.

Seven killed in US gurdwara shooting

WISCONSIN, Aug 6: In what is being described as an "act of domestic terrorism," a gunman opened fire inside a Gurudwara in Wisconsin as the congregation was making preparations for Sunday morning prayers, killing at least six people.

The tragic incident unfolded at around 10:30 on Sunday as members of the Sikh community were gathering in the 17,000 sq ft Gurudwara in Milwaukee's Oak Creek suburb.

The unidentified gunman walked into the Gurudwara where he opened indiscriminate firing, killing six people.

The gunman was also shot and killed by a police officer who also sustained serious injuries. Police said there were a large number of women and children and the women were preparing meals to be served after the traditional prayer ceremony.

Oak Creek Police Chief John Edwards said the police is "treating the incident as a domestic terrorist-type incident."

The FBI will oversee the criminal investigation. Edwards said there were "numerous individual deceased" and "multiple injured."

Obama President Barack Obama offered his condolences to the victims of the shooting and said that his Administration will provide whatever support is necessary to the officials who are responding to this tragic shooting and moving forward with an investigation.

"Michelle and I were deeply saddened to learn of the shooting that tragically took so many lives in Wisconsin, Obama said in a statement.

"As we mourn this loss which took place at a house of worship, we are reminded how much our country has been enriched by Sikhs, who are a part of our broader American family," Obama said.

FBI Milwaukee Special Agent in Charge Teresa Carlson said the agency is working closely with the Oak Creek Police Department and other local and federal agencies to investigate the shooting incident.

"While the FBI is investigating whether this matter might be an act of domestic terrorism, no motive has been determined at this time," Carlson said adding that the investigation in still its early stages.

"We know our community has been deeply impacted by this incident, and our thoughts are with those affected and particularly with the officer who was wounded in the line of duty to protect others."

In response to the shooting, the police in New York have increased security at Sikh temples in the city.

"There is no known threat against Sikh temples in New York City; however, the coverage is being put in place out of an abundance of caution," the New York police said in a statement.

CNN reports say that the gunman had a 9/11 tattoo and was dressed in a white T-shirt and black pants.

The Indian consulate is in touch with the US authorities and the victims' families.

This was the second shooting incident in the US in two weeks, after the massacre at a Colorado movie theatre that left 12 dead. Back in India, Akali Dal activists are planning to hold a protest outside the US consulate today.

More than 400 people were reportedly inside the gurudwara when the shooting occured. A Sikh priest had specially come from India to address the gathering on Sunday.

India urges strong action; US says it'll thoroughly probe gurudwara firing

By Deepak Arora

NEW DELHI/ NEW YORK, Aug 6: India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Monday he was "deeply shocked and saddened" by the killings of at least six people at a Sikh temple in the United States.

"That this senseless act of violence should be targeted at a place of religious worship is particularly painful," Singh, a Sikh himself, said in a statement.

"I am deeply shocked and saddened," Singh said, adding that India stood "in solidarity with all the peace-loving Americans" who have condemned the attack.

"We hope that the authorities will reach out to the grieving families and ensure conditions that such violent acts are not repeated in the future," he added.

India's Minister of state for external affairs Preneet Kaur said that the Indian authorities were in constant touch with the police in US over the shooting at a Wisconsin gurudwara. "President Barack Obama has reached out. I would urge they take strong action," she said.

US Deputy NSA John Brennan called up Indian ambassador to the US Nirupama Rao and conveyed "sincerest condolences" from President Barack Obama on the shooting at a Wisconsin gurudwara that left sven people including the gunman dead.

He assured that these tragic killings would be fully investigated and said that the Sikh community is a precious part of the fabric of the American nation.

Reacting to the incident, the US Embassy in its statement said, "The members of the US Mission in India join President Obama in his expression of sympathy and condolences to the Sikh communities in the United States and India. We are deeply saddened by the senseless loss of lives and injuries caused by the August 5 shooting at a Sikh Gurdwara in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. Our hearts, thoughts, and prayers go out to the victims and their families. An investigation into the incident has begun. Any incident like this one is tragic, especially when it happens in a place of worship. The United States takes very seriously the responsibility to respect and protect people of all faiths. Religious freedom and religious tolerance are fundamental pillars of US society. The Sikh community in the United States contributes to this principle and meaningfully enhances the American social fabric."

Inter-faith groups condemn shooting

By Deepak Arora

NEW YORK, Aug 6: Inter-faith groups have condemned the shooting, describing it as a "senseless" act of violence on religious freedom, asking the Obama administration to take steps to ensure prevention of hate crimes against religious minorities in the country.

Shocked and deeply saddened by the senseless shooting, the World Sikh Council -America Region (WSC-AR) urged all to pray for the victims, their families and friends, and the surrounding community.

The World Hindu Council of America (VHPA) has expressed its deep anguish at the tragic violence leading to the cold blooded murder of seven devotees and critical injury to many others, at the Guru-dwara (Temple) Oak Tree, WI.

The Gurudwara has been located at Oak Creek for more than five years, and had faced hate-crime incidences in the past. In the last year alone, Mr. Crowley said in the letter, two Sikh men in Sacramento were killed, a Sikh temple in Michigan was vandalized and a Sikh man was beaten in New York. Much of the slander and hate in the past, was directed under the misapprehension that Sikhs follow the religion of Islam.

We at World Hindu Council of America (VHPA) condemn this brutal act of terror and assure all possible support to the members of Oak Tree Guru-dwara, in ensuring the safety and support to the community. We urge authorities to take all possible steps to ensure safety of the devotees at all local temples.

Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada (USA) today, said: Our hearts go out to the victims and their families and the community is deeply saddened at this tragedy.

Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, urged Hindus worldwide to join him in prayers for the victims and their families at this difficult and challenging time and urged Hindu temples to hold special prayer sessions for the victims and their families. It was a senseless and shocking violence on a group of worshippers.

Mourning this loss, Rajan Zed pointed out that Sikhs had made lot of contributions to America and the world. Various faith and inter-faith groups nationwide should join hands to express support to the Sikh community and to spread the message of peace, love and harmony at grassroots level, Zed stressed.

We stand in solidarity with the Sikh brothers and sisters, Zed added.

Sikhs for Justice, a Sikh rights group in the United States, has announced $ 10,000 for the policeman who saved many lives by first responding to the 911 call.

Sikhs in US

The Sikh faith is the fifth-largest in the world, with more than 30 million followers. It includes belief in one God and that the goal of life is to lead an exemplary existence.

The gurudwara in Oak Creek was founded in October 1997 and has a congregation of 350 to 400 people. There are an estimated 500,000 or more Sikhs in the United States.