India - Centre rushes Army chief to Siachen

In view of the heightening tension with Pakistan, the central government on Tuesday rushed Army chief General Deepak Kapoor to Siachen Glacier and forward areas of Jammu and Kashmir to check the operational preparedness of the troops.

Government sources told PTI in New Delhi that General Kapoor left for Siachen Glacier on Tuesday morning and will be there for a day to interact with unit commanders and senior officers before returning to New Delhi after taking stock of the situation.

Gen Kapoor would also visit some of the remote areas in Jammu and Kashmir along the borders with Pakistan to interact with the troops posted there, the sources said.

His sudden trip to the forward areas comes at a time when the government has stated that it is not ruling out any option in its fight against terrorism emanating from Pakistani soil in the wake of the Mumbai terror attacks.

On Saturday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh  and some senior ministers had deliberations with the armed forces' top brass at the PMO in South Block, following which it is believed that Defence Minister A K Antony directed that all leave to military personnel be cancelled till April next year in view of the situation along the borders.

Since the Mumbai carnage, Army units along the borders with Pakistan have been maintaining a close vigil.

Some of IAF fighter aircraft squadrons in bases in forward areas have been on a 'cockpit alert' under which the force remains ready for military operations.

Banned LeT front Jamaat still active in cyberspace

Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the banned frontal organisation of Lashkar-e-Toiba, still has two websites running.

While one of the website is in English and the other is in Urdu and both are being hosted by American companies.

The websites have been unearthed by a Jewish group that fights terrorist groups using the Internet.

The website in English has received 14 posts in the last nine days and one of them is a poem titled 'Manmohan Singh and JuD in a Dream'.

It is illegal for American companies to provide services to Jamaat-ud-Dawa as it is a front for the LeT. But despite the ban, the websites have not been deactivated.

Jamaat was banned earlier in the month by the al-Qaeda and Taliban Sanctions Committee of the United Nations Security Council after it was declared as a terrorist organisation.

The committee has added Jamaat and four Lashkar leaders to a list of firms and people facing sanctions for ties to al-Qaeda or the Taliban, the UN said.

The terrorists added to the sanctions list include Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, which the UN statement described as the leader of the group.

The others are Pakistan-born Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, the chief of operations, Haji Muhammad Ashraf, the chief of finance, and India-born Mahmoud Mohammad Ahmed Bahaziq, described as a financier for the group who served as its chief in Saudi Arabia.

The same four were hit with US Treasury Department sanctions in May. The UN sanctions, covered by Security Council resolution 1267 from 1999, include the mandatory freezing of assets and travel bans.