Sri Lanka denies Pakistani pilots flew its planes

COLOMBO: The Commander of the Sri Lankan Air Force (SLAF), Air Chief Marshal Roshan Goonetilleke, has said that the bombing missions in the just concluded war against the Tamil Tiger rebels were carried out by Sri Lankan and not foreign pilots.This remark in the Sinhalese language programme ‘Thulawa’ of the state-owned ITN TV is significant in the context of rumours persistently spread by the Tamil Tigers that the Sri Lankan air force was bombing accurately this time only because its planes were flown by Pakistan Air Force pilots. Air Marshal Goonetilleke said that the SLAF had attacked 1,900 LTTE hideouts and meeting points, and destroyed 52 large Sea Tiger vessels and several Sea Tiger hideouts in the just concluded Eelam War IV. The commander clarified that the battle against the LTTE fought by Sri Lankan, and not foreign pilots, countering the LTTE propaganda that Pakistani pilots were doing the sorties as the bombing was remarkably accurate.

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India's swine flu death rate is increasing

Friday, August 14, 2009 MUMBAI: A 26-year-old woman died Thursday of H1N1 swine flu in the southern city of Bangalore, raising India's death toll from the virus to 20, authorities said.The death was the first reported in India's information technology capital, the Press Trust of India reported.Meanwhile in Pune, the worst-affected in India, two more victims of the virus died Thursday, raising the death toll in that western city near Mumbai to 12, the report said. The victims were an 11-month-old boy and a 75-year-old old woman.US media reported movie halls, schools and colleges were ordered closed Thursday for three days to a week in Mumbai, the commercial and financial capital of the country, as fear of the pandemic spread.Prajakata Lavangare, a spokeswoman for the government of Maharashtra state of which Mumbai is the capital, said similar orders were issued in Pune, which is also located in the state.The woman who died in Bangalore was identified only as Roopa, a teacher in...

Suicide bombings kill 18 in Iraq

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US drones to target Taliban in Afghan war

Friday, July 31, 2009 WASHINGTON: The US military plans to use more drone aircraft to target Taliban militants in Afghanistan while focusing less on hunting down Al-Qaeda figures, report said on Thursday.Although defeating the Al-Qaeda terror network remains an overriding goal for Washington, officials now believe the best way to pursue that objective is to ensure stability in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan instead of Al-Qaeda manhunts, the paper said, citing US government and Defense Department officials.It was more important to prevent a slide towards violence and anarchy that could be exploited by Al-Qaeda, which used Afghanistan to stage its attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, the officials said."We might still be too focused on Bin Laden," an official said. "We should probably reassess our priorities."The shift in priorities for the drone fleet comes despite President Barack Obama's declaration that defeating and dismantling Al-Qaeda ...

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