LONDON: A woman was jailed for seven years on Friday for falsely imprisoning her three daughters-in-law from Pakistan who she treated as "slaves and dogs" and subjected to regular beatings. Naseebah Bibi, 63, would not allow them to leave the family home in Blackburn without her permission, One of her victims told detectives she was forced to work on an industrial sewing machine day and night for 13 years.Bibi was convicted last month of falsely imprisoning Nagina Akhtar between 1993 and 2006, Tazeem Akhtar from 2001 to 2003 and Nisbah Akhtar between 2005 and 2007.All three women were brought to Britain following arranged marriages to Bibi's three sons and had little contact with the outside world. The jury heard they were treated as "slaves and dogs" and subjected to beatings and abuse on arrival.Nagina told the court that Bibi struck her with a brush handle and slapped her across the face whenever she disobeyed her. Sisters Nisbah and Tazeem also gave evidence to the jury that Bibi made their lives "hell."They too said they were slapped across the face, hit with a brush handle and struck with shoes when they answered Bibi back. Sentencing her, Judge Robert Brown said it was evident that her victims were "traumatised by you both physically and psychologically and spent long periods living in fear."He ordered that Bibi serve three and a half years of her sentence in prison before she would be allowed out on licence. She will then be monitored for up to nine years from the start of her custodial sentence.
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.
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