All options open in cyber-attack: Pentagon

WASHINGTON: The Pentagon said Tuesday that it would consider all options if the United States were hit by a cyber-attack as it develops the first military guidelines for the age of Internet warfare.

President Barack Obama's administration has been formalizing rules on cyberspace amid growing concern about the reach of hackers. Major defense contractor Lockheed Martin said it repelled a major cyber-assault a week ago.

The White House on May 16 unveiled an international strategy on cyber-security which said the United States "will respond to hostile acts in cyberspace as we would to any other threat to our country."

"We reserve the right to use all necessary means -- diplomatic, informational, military, and economic -- as appropriate and consistent with applicable international law, in order to defend our nation, our allies, our partners and our interests," the strategy said.

Pentagon spokesman Colonel Dave Lapan said Tuesday that the White House policy did not rule out a military response to a cyber-attack.

"A response to a cyber incident or attack on the US would not necessarily be a cyber response," Lapan told reporters. "All appropriate options would be on the table if we were attacked, be it cyber."

Lapan said that the Pentagon was drawing up an accompanying cyber defense strategy which would be ready in two to three weeks.

The Wall Street Journal, citing three officials who said they had seen the document, reported Tuesday that the strategy would classify major cyber-attacks as acts of war, paving the way for possible military retaliation.

The newspaper said that the strategy was intended in part as a warning to foes that may try to sabotage the US electricity grid, subways or pipelines.

"If you shut down our power grid, maybe we will put a missile down one of your smokestacks," it quoted a military official as saying.

The newspaper said the Pentagon would likely decide whether to respond militarily to cyber-attacks based on the notion of "equivalence" -- whether the attack was comparable in damage to a conventional military strike.

Such a decision would also depend on whether the precise source of the attack could be determined. (AFP)

Nepal's royal massacre still a mystery 10 years on

KATHMANDU: A decade after Nepal's crown prince stunned the world by gunning down nine family members, mystery still surrounds the massacre that plunged the monarchy into a crisis from which it never recovered.

Many Nepalese believe they may never know the truth about the night of June 1, 2001, when a drink- and drugs-fuelled prince Dipendra ran amok with an automatic weapon at a family dinner at the palace in the capital Kathmandu.

Dipendra, dressed in military fatigues, killed his revered father, King Birendra, his mother, brother and sister and five other relatives before shooting himself, according to official findings.

The 31-year-old Eton-educated heir to the throne was believed to have been crazed with anger after being stopped by the queen from marrying the woman he loved.

But conspiracy theories continue to swirl in Nepal about the bloodbath, which caused outpourings of hysterical grief in the impoverished nation where the king was seen as the reincarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu.

"The high-level (government) commission formed to investigate the massacre only reported what happened and how it happened," said Vivek Kumar Shah, a former military secretary at the royal palace.

"It didn't say why it happened," he added.

Shah said some internal and external forces could have provoked the crown prince but declined to elaborate, saying only: "There were interest groups who wanted to end the monarchy."

The royal massacre, believed to have been the worst since Russia's Romanovs were shot on the order of Vladimir Lenin in 1918, prompted rumours about the possible role in the slayings of the king's less popular brother, Gyanendra.

Gyanendra was away from the Nepalese capital on the night of the killings.

"The people, who were numb with grief, reached a hasty conclusion it was a conspiracy (involving Gyanendra)," Kishor Shrestha, editor of Nepalese weekly Jana Aastha, said.

From the start of his reign, Gyanendra was much less beloved than his brother who in 1990 had legalised political parties, ushering in a new era of democracy and constitutional monarchy.

Gyanendra's unpopularity only deepened when he dismissed the government and embarked on a period of autocratic rule in 2005, a move that united Maoist rebels with political parties, paving the way for mass protests that forced the king to step down three years ago.

A Maoist-dominated constitutional assembly declared a republic in May 2008. Many ordinary Nepalese were delighted to see the back of the dour king as well as his playboy would-be heir, Paras.

On June 11, 2008, Gyanendra left the palace for a hunting lodge on Kathmandu's outskirts, marking the final end to a royal lineage founded by his warrior ancestor Prithvi Narayan Shah, who conquered dozens of small kingdoms in the 18th century.

"The monarchy lost its traditional respect" with Gyanendra's decision to dismiss the government, said Nepalese journalist Yubaraj Ghimire.

"Looking back, I think the politics of 2006 when the Maoists and other parties were arrayed against the monarchy played a critical role in its demise," Ghimire said.

Now, Nepal remains in tumult, racked by political crisis as parties struggle to draft a new constitution and oversee the peace process that began when the decade-long Maoist civil war ended in 2006.

The widespread hope that followed the end of the conflict and the abolition of the unpopular monarchy has been replaced by a growing sense of anger and frustration in Nepal, one of the world's poorest countries.

And 10 years on from the royal massacre, even though many Nepalese believe they still do not know the full truth, there is a waning desire to reopen old wounds with another investigation.

"Nobody is interested in probing it," Shrestha said. (AFP)

NATO risks becoming 'occupying force': Karzai

KABUL: Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Tuesday the US-led Nato military in Afghanistan risks becoming an "occupying force" if aerial bombings which cause civilian casualties continue.

His outspoken remarks came days after he issued a "last warning" to foreign forces over civilian casualties following Saturday's killing of what he said was 14 civilians including women and children in an air strike.

"If after the Afghan government said the aerial bombing of Afghan houses is banned and if it continues, then their presence will change from a war against terrorism to an occupying force," he told a press conference in Kabul.

"And in that case, Afghan history is witness to how the Afghans deal with occupying forces."

Nato's US-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said the death toll from Saturday's strike was nine, and has apologised over the incident in the restive southern province of Helmand.

Karzai's comments made apparent reference to the historic defeats by Afghan fighters of foreign invasions, including that by the Soviet Union, which invaded Afghanistan in 1979 and withdrew 10 years later.

Karzai, who faces intense domestic pressure over the issue of civilian casualties, also said again that international bombing attacks against Afghan homes were "banned".

"Their (foreign forces') presence here in Afghanistan is for the war against terror. They are not an occupying force," he said.

"That's why the people of Afghanistan so far have endured casualties and have given sacrifices. So these operations should not be used against Afghan people and their houses. That's why bombing Afghan houses is banned." (AFP)

Mullah Baradar leaked info about OBL hiding: UK paper

LONDON: Taliban leader Mullah Baradar is believed to have informed US whereabouts of Al-Qaeda Chief Osama Bin Laden, a UK paper claimed.

According to the report, in return the US promised to pullout troops from Taliban strongholds in Afghanistan once Osama had been killed or captured.

Until now it has been believed that Osama Bin Laden was caught when the US intercepted a phone call made by his courier Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti. But new reports suggest it was actually Baradar who told the US where he was hiding.

Baradar was arrested in a joint Pak-US operation last year in Karachi and was interrogated in prison before being released last October.

Germany announces end to nuclear power by 2022

BERLIN: Germany will shut down all its nuclear plants by 2022, and eight reactors shut down after Japan's nuclear disaster in March will not be reactivated, the government announced Monday.

The decision, announced by Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen, came after a meeting of leaders of the ruling coalition headed by Chancellor Angela Merkel, which lasted from Sunday evening into the early hours of Monday.

It will make Germany the first major industrial power to give up atomic power.(AFP)