ISLAMABAD: Islamabad and Rawalpindi police launched raids to round up lawyers’ leaders and key political figures Wednesday in a bid to thwart the long march.Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) Chairman Raja Zafar-ul-Haq was put under house arrest while 35 workers, including lawyers, had been detained so far.The Rawalpindi police raided the houses of several PML-N leaders, including Hanif Abbasi, Malik Abrar, Ziaullah Shah, Shahryar Riaz, Sardar Nasim, Anjum Aqeel and Rawalpindi District Bar Taufiq Asif. However, nobody was arrested. N-league’s Rawalpindi Secretariat was also raided by the police.Besides, city administration has started to provide containers to seal major roads.
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
Comments