Hakeem,Wali confirm Mehsud’s death

PAKISTAN: Taliban leaders Hakeemullah Mehsud and Waliur Rehman confirmed the death of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) chief Baitullah Mehsud. Talking to a British news agency, both the Taliban leaders said their chief Baitullah Mehsud has passed away two days back on Sunday.
They said Mehsud was unconscious ever since he was hit in a drone attack on August 5 near Pak-Afghan border, he died in this state of unconsciousness, succumbing to injuries.
Both the Taliban leaders told that Hakeemuall has assumed the chieftaincy of the outfit, after the death of Baitullah Mehsud.
It should be mentioned here that Baitullah Mehsud was the chief of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and accepted the responsibility for several sabotage activities across Pakistan.

US Muslims turn to Jews for Ramadan prayers

Muslims flock to synagogues due to mosque overcrowding
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DUBAI - A booming Muslim population in the United States is creating a shortage of mosques and prayer space, forcing the faithful to get creative during the holy month of Ramadan as Muslims in Virginia rent out Jewish synagogues.
In Reston, Virginia, a synagogue has opened its doors to Muslim worshipers to perform daily prayers during Ramadan, according to the Washington Post. The extra space is crucial to accommodate the additional worshippers expected.
"Just like you have Easter Christians, Hanukkah Jews, we have what we call Ramadan Muslims. They just come out of the woodwork on the holy days," Imam Johari Abdul-Malik, outreach director at the Dar Al-Hijrah mosque in Falls Church, told the Post.
With estimates of the numbers of Muslims in America ranging anywhere between 2.5 and seven million, the Muslim population has doubled since 1990 according to a Trinity College study, challenging the ability of Muslims to build enough mosques to keep up with demand.
The Northern Virginia Hebrew Congregation once depended on space in a Catholic church before its synagogue was built. Rabbi Robert Nosanchuk noted that: “The prophet Isaiah said our houses would be houses of prayer for all people. Now, I don’t know if Isaiah could have imagined us hosting Ramadan in the synagogue, but the basic idea is there."
Overcrowded mosques
Islam prohibits the charging of interest, so most congregations spend years raising the entire amount needed to build a mosque in cash in order to avoid taking a mortgage. Despite a building boom in suburban Virginia, mosques are often full from the minute they open and must rent additional space.
Mosques like the 4,000-strong ADAMS mosque in Herndon, whose membership has increased by a factor of 13 since 2000, have not been able to build apace with membership growth.
The mosque rents space from hotels, a wedding hall and two synagogues to accommodate those attending Friday prayers.
Others, like the 2,000-capacity Dar al-Hijrah, have had to turn away worshippers because of space constraints.
Abdul-Malik said he had to turn many away last Ramadan to avoid violating occupancy rules, and refused to say how many the mosque would accommodate this year out of concern for the fire inspector.

Young Guantanamo detainee returns to Afghanistan

KABUL: A young Afghan whose six-year detention at Guantanamo arrived in his home country, less than a month after a federal judge in Washington ordered his release.

Mohammed Jawad, whose confession to throwing a hand grenade that wounded two U.S. soldiers was rejected as coerced by torture, was helicoptered into Kabul from Bagram Air Base and taken to the office of the Afghan attorney general.

One of his defense attorneys, Marine Major Eric Montalvo, said Jawad then met with President Hamid Karzai and was scheduled to be released to an uncle.

French court accepts SMS as divorce proof

PARIS: French appeal court has ruled that a text message can be used as evidence of an affair in divorce proceedings.

The ruling stems from a case, which hinged on a text found by a woman on her husband’s phone.

While a lower court in Lyon initially ruled this was a breach of the husband’s privacy, this decision has been overturned by the appeal court ruling.

Like letters and emails, text messages will be accepted as evidence as long as they were obtained “without violence or fraudulently”.

Voters targeted after Afghan polls

The Taliban has released footage of its fighters stopping Afghan citizens to see if they have voted, and abducting those who have.
The video footage, obtained by Al Jazeera and broadcast on Monday, showed Taliban fighters manning an impromptu checkpoint, stopping vehicles and demanding to see people's fingers.
On election day indelible ink was used as an anti-fraud measure to prevent people voting twice.
Before the polls, there had been rumours that Taliban fighters would use the ink to identify those who had voted and cut off their fingers.
The footage showed men who the Taliban accused of having voted being marched, blindfolded, by Taliban fighters and reprimanded for "standing in line with the Jews" by casting their vote.
Violence and fraud
The footage is the latest blow to the elections, backed by the West, which were carried out amid Taliban attacks on August 20 and have since been beset by accusations of fraud.
To the relief of Western officials, the Taliban were unable to derail the vote, but turnout was low due to increased violence and Taliban threats.
Election results have still to be released, with preliminary results due on Tuesday and final official results due in September. But claims of vote rigging have escalated in the wake of the vote.
The contest is thought to have come down to Hamid Karzai, the incumbent president, and Abdullah Abdullah, his former foreign minister and main election rival.
Abdullah announced on Sunday that he had evidence of widespread vote rigging by Karzai's faction and that "there might have been thousands of violations throughout the country".
Allegations rejected
Karzai's camp denied the claim, saying it had submitted its own election complaints against Abdullah's faction.
The election complaints commission, a body made up of Afghan and UN-mandated officials, has said it is investigating 225 allegations of misconduct.
The election disputes have arisen against a backdrop of continued high levels of violence. One American and two Estonian soldiers were killed in two separate attacks in southern Afghanistan on Monday.
The Estonian government said that its soldiers were killed when a bomb hit their armoured personal carrier near the Pimon patrol base in the Nad-e-Ali area of Helmand province.
The US military did not provide details of the attack on its soldier.