World

ROME — Libyan authorities have warned Italy about a Daesh terror group cell based in the Milan area with links to one of the extremist group's battle-hardened veterans, Italian media reported Sunday.

The existence of the network was reportedly revealed by documents seized by Libyan agents after government forces took over a Daesh headquarters in the city of Sirte earlier this week.

The Italy-based militants were said to be associates of Abu Nassim, 47, a Tunisian who lived in Italy for most of his 20s and subsequently fought in Afghanistan and Syria, before becoming a Daesh commander in Libya. The reports came as concerns grow that Daesh militants dispersed from Sirte could cross the Mediterranean on migrant boats and mount "lone-wolf" terror attacks on Italian territory.

Security services have been put on a state of high alert for the peak holiday season and Interior Minister Angelino Alfano has stepped up expulsions of suspected extremist sympathisers.

Late on Saturday, Alfano said he had ordered the deportation of Hosni Hachemi Ben Hassem, a Tunisian imam based in a mosque at Andria in Puglia.

The 49-year-old imam had been cleared of charges of recruiting extermists but Alfano expelled him anyway on the basis of suspected incitement to racial hatred.

The cleric is the ninth imam to be kicked out since the start of 2015 under a “zero tolerance” approach to militancy which Alfano says has reduced the risk of a terror attack on Italian soil.

The centre-right minister has signed a total of 109 expulsion orders since the start of last year, 43 of them in 2016, he said in a statement.

Veteran extremist 

Abu Nassim, whose real name is Moez Ben Abdelkader Fezzani, first arrived in Italy in 1989 to work on building sites.

Suspected of trying to radicalise and recruit other Arab immigrants, he disappeared in 1997 and resurfaced in Pakistan, on his way to join the late Osama Bin Laden's forces in Afghanistan.

He was arrested by US forces in 2001 and held at the Bagram air base detention facility, which was to become notorious for the torture and killing of inmates.

Abu Nassim was transferred to Italy in 2009 after prosecutors tabled charges of terrorist recruitment related to his previous stay.

He was acquitted in 2012 and deported to Tunisia. He was convicted on appeal the following year, by which time he was already fighting in Syria.

Since 2014, he has commanded Daesh militants around the Libyan port of Sabratha.

Tunisia issued a warrant for his arrest in connection with the March 2015 Bardo Museum attack in Tunis, in which gunmen killed 21 tourists and a policeman.

HAVANA — Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro turned 90 on Saturday in an island transformed from the one he led for half a century.

Both loved as a hero and hated as a dictator, Castro is one of the giant figures of modern history.

He defied 10 US presidents during his 48 years in power, but in the decade since he stepped aside Cuba has become a different world. His sworn foe, the United States, is no longer officially Cuba’s enemy.

Warrior 

Now white-bearded and frail, Castro was a strapping 32-year-old in green fatigues when he led a rebel force that drove out dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959.

His image as a revolutionary warrior storming down from the mountains, rifle in hand, stirred his admirers’ imagination. His communist policies and iron-fisted treatment of rivals drew the hostility of the United States and other Western powers.

His voice used to boom out over Havana in speeches that lasted hours. Nowadays he is rarely heard from, although his face still smiles out from countless billboards across the Caribbean island.

No official public events were scheduled to mark his birthday. The former president spends his days out of sight at home.

But in an article published by official media late Friday, Castro showed that he had lost little of his old fire, particularly when it comes to his longtime enemy the United States.

He criticised US President Barack Obama for failing to explicitly apologise during his historic visit to Japan in May for Washington’s decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945. He condemned as “equally criminal” the bombing of Nagasaki three days later. 

Referring to the scores of US assassination plots against him — Cuban intelligence services numbered them at more than 600, some reportedly involving poisoned or explosive cigars — he said, “I almost laughed at the Machiavellian plans of US presidents.”

‘Dictator’ 

Although mostly out of sight, Castro has not been out of the minds of ordinary Cubans. State newspapers on the communist island have for days been printing pictures and articles about him to mark his 90th year. Concerts have been played in his honour.

Fidel Castro retired from public life in 2006 due to ill health. He formally transferred the presidency to his brother Raul in 2008.

But Fidel continues to exert “an indirect influence through certain figures in the regime who are not comfortable with the reforms that Raul has made,” said Kevin Casas-Zamora, a political scientist at Oxford University.

Raul, 85, has gradually opened up Cuba’s economy and foreign relations, restoring diplomatic relations with Fidel’s old foe, the United States.

Such reforms were unthinkable when Cuba was a pro-Soviet state on the United States’ doorstep during the Cold War.

Fidel gave free healthcare, housing and schooling to citizens on a poor island.

“Fidel is everything. He is sport, he is culture. He is rebellion. If Cubans are rebels, it is thanks to Fidel,” said Manuel Bravo, a 48-year-old glazier.

But the former president’s regime is also accused by human rights groups of brutally repressing dissent by torturing and jailing opponents.

“I will remember him as a dictator,” said Martha Beatriz Roque, 71, an anti-Castro dissident who was one of 75 opponents jailed in the “black spring” of 2003.

“He is the man of ‘E’s: egomaniacal, egotistical, egocentric,” she said.

“I don’t know whether I will be able to wish him a happy birthday.” 

Hero

Castro has reportedly suffered from intestinal illness in recent years. But official secrecy shrouds his condition.

He last appeared in public on April 19 at the close of the Cuban Communist Party Congress.

Dressed in a blue tracksuit and speaking in a trembling voice, he seemed to say goodbye.

“Soon I’ll be like all the rest,” he said. “Everyone’s turn comes.” After Barack Obama visited Cuba in March, Castro recalled the island’s long enmity with the United States, including Washington’s backing for the failed invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in 1961.

His bitterness over that botched CIA plot played a part in pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis the following year. The Soviet Union agreed to his request to send ballistic missiles to Cuba.

“For most Latin Americans, Fidel Castro represents heroic resistance to the hegemony and control of the United States,” said Peter Hakim, an international affairs expert at Inter-American Dialogue, a think tank.

“But I do not think he will be seen as a hero for much longer... The modern world has left him and Cuba behind.”

ISTANBUL — Turkish authorities have prepared an official request for the temporary arrest of United States-based Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen over his alleged involvement in the coup attempt on July 15, Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency said Saturday.

The request by the Istanbul chief public prosecutor’s office claims it has determined the coup was staged upon orders by Gulen and requests that he be arrested prior to the submission of a formal extradition request.

The request has been submitted to Turkey’s justice ministry for it to be relayed to US authorities, Anadolu said.

Ankara claims Gulen movement is responsible for the failed putsch which has left more than 270 people dead and has branded it a terrorist organisation. It has demanded that its leader, who runs a network of worldwide charities and schools from self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania, be returned to Turkey to face trial.

Washington has said it would need evidence of the cleric’s involvement, and says the regular extradition process must be allowed to take its course. Gulen has denied involvement in the violent coup attempt.

On Friday, Turkey’s foreign and justice ministers announced that a four-person delegation from the US Justice Department will be arriving on August 22 and meet with their Turkish counterparts on the following two days to discuss the extradition request. Prime Minister Binali Yildirim announced on Saturday that US Vice President Joe Biden would be visiting Turkey during that time, Anadolu said.

In Washington, The White House confirmed that Biden will travel to Turkey on August 24. Biden typically meets with the premier of a foreign country when he visits. He has been one of the Obama administration’s key interlocutors with Turkey’s government, speaking frequently with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Turkey has launched a massive crackdown on alleged supporters of the Gulen movement, raising concerns among European governments and human rights groups. More than 35,000 people have been detained for questioning while tens of thousands of others have been dismissed from government jobs, including in the judiciary, media, education, healthcare, military and local government.

BANGKOK — Police in Thailand said Saturday that they were hoping to identify suspects over the next couple of days in a series of bombing and arson attacks that struck several tourist towns, killing four people and wounding dozens, including 11 foreigners.

The attacks, which hit Thursday and Friday, came days after a referendum was held in which Thais approved a new constitution that critics say will bolster the power of the military, which has ruled the country since a May 2014 coup, for years to come. Thai authorities have suggested there were political motives behind the violence, but named no specific suspects. No one has claimed responsibility for any of the 11 bombings.

"We hope we may have some suspects today or tomorrow," Police Gen. Pongsapat Pongcharoen, a deputy national police chief, told reporters Saturday. He did not elaborate, but said that police were gathering evidence and that international militant groups were not believed to be behind the attacks.

The violence appeared aimed at dealing a blow to Thailand's tourism industry, which brings in crucial income to the government.

One small bomb exploded on a beach in the popular Patong area of Phuket island, and four others rattled the seaside resort city of Hua Hin, prompting businesses to shut their doors, streets to empty and anxious tourists to huddle inside their hotels. The wounded foreigners included nationals of Austria, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands. The four who were killed were Thais.

The fatalities came from bombs in Hua Hin, 200 kilometres south of Bangkok, and the cities of Surat Thani and Trang, farther south. All of the affected destinations — which also included Phang Nga and Krabi, as well as Phuket — are popular with foreign and Thai tourists.

Pongsapat said the perpetrators are believed to belong to the same networks and were still inside the country.

Voice TV and other media outlets reported later Saturday that police in Nakhon Si Thammarat had arrested a 67-year-old man who is suspected of being responsible for a fire at a supermarket in the southern city that the authorities had listed in the series of attacks. Police said they found evidence at his home and in electronic devices they had confiscated from him that he was involved in an active political movement against the government. But they failed to explicitly link him to the other attacks.

Foreign governments, including the United States, issued warnings urging travellers to use caution and avoid affected areas. Many tourists on Saturday were resuming their vacations while keeping an eye for any sign of trouble.

Niels Seeberg, who has lived in the Hua Hin area for 10 years, said Saturday that he was out with friends Thursday night and saw the carnage from the blasts.

Seeberg, a 59-year-old Danish tour leader, said that the incident left him feeling angry and helpless, "and I don't know what to do with my anger".

 While police and other officials have strongly hinted that opponents of the military government that seized power in the 2014 coup may have been behind the attacks, they also have acknowledged signs that Muslim separatists from the country's deep south could have had a hand in the violence.

Royal Thai Police Col. Krisana Patanacharoen said Friday that the bombings followed "a similar pattern used in the southern parts of the country" — a reference to a low-level insurgency in the largely Islamic south that has ground on for more than a decade and killed more than 5,000 people.

Southern militants fighting for greater autonomy have carried out sophisticated, coordinated attacks before, but most have hit three provinces in the far south that were not among those targeted this week.

Speaking at a Saturday event to promote Thai products and handicrafts, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha assured reporters that he was dealing with the situation.

"Don't go starting a witch hunt yet as we must make our home as peaceful as possible; everyone is panicked and flustered, but I have to remain calm," he said. He vowed to keep working in order to make sure that "such terrible acts" never happen again, so that the "nightmare" of the past few days would become just a fading memory.

The violence occurred just ahead of the anniversary of the August 17, 2015, bombing of Bangkok's popular Erawan Shrine, which left 20 dead and injured more than 120. Thai authorities said that bombing was revenge by a people-smuggling gang whose activities were disrupted by a crackdown, but analysts suspect it might have been the work of Uighur separatists angry that Thailand forcibly repatriated more than 100 Uighurs to China.

Although two arrests were made in that case, a confusing investigation shook faith in the competence of the police and raised doubts about who were the true culprits. The case has not yet come to trial.

AMMAN — Pakistan celebrates its independence day on Sunday. It was established in 1947 as a separate homeland for the Muslims of South Asia, according to a statement released by the Pakistani embassy in Amman on Saturday.

"Today, Pakistan stands as a nuclear state with a prosperous economy," the embassy said, highlighting the country's role in fighting terrorism. 

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Fighting raged Thursday in Helmand after Afghanistan rushed military reinforcements to beat back Taliban insurgents advancing on the besieged capital of the southern poppy-growing province, as officials downplayed fears the city could fall.

Afghan forces fought back insurgents after they stormed Nawa district, just south of Lashkar Gah city, late Wednesday, raising alarm that the provincial capital was at risk.

But US and Afghan officials insist that they will not allow another urban centre to be captured, after the Taliban briefly overran northern Kunduz city last September in their biggest victory in 15 years of war.

"The security situation in Lashkar Gah is under our control," the defence ministry spokesman, Dawlat Waziri, said after special forces were deployed.

"We have retaken control of Nawa. Fighting is still going on in the outskirts but we are making progress with clearance operations," he told AFP, adding that dozens of Taliban were killed in the fight.

Fierce battles in recent days across Helmand, seen as the focal point of the insurgency, has sent thousands of people fleeing to Lashkar Gah, sparking a humanitarian crisis as officials report food and water shortages.

The United States has stepped up air strikes supporting Afghan forces on the ground, highlighting the intensity of the battle in Helmand.

The Taliban effectively control or contest 10 of the 14 districts in Helmand, the deadliest province for British and US forces in Afghanistan over the past decade.

The turmoil convulsing the long-contested province, blighted by a huge opium harvest that helps fund the insurgency, underscores a rapidly unravelling security situation in Afghanistan.

'We will die of hunger' 

Around 30,000 people have been displaced in Helmand in recent weeks, local officials said, with many of those fleeing to Lashkar Gah forced to abandon their lentil, maize and cotton crops during the lucrative harvest season.

"We left everything behind in Nawa — our house, our grape and maize harvests. We fled with 15 members of my family to Lashkar Gah, fearing for our lives," Mohammad Ali, 40, told AFP in a camp in the provincial capital.

"For the last three days we have been surviving on bread and water. We will die of hunger." 

The residents of Lashkar Gah said the city was practically besieged, with roads from neighbouring districts heavily mined by the insurgents.

Afghan special forces had launched operations to flush out insurgents controlling key highways linking Lashkar Gah to the districts, said Sediq Sediqqi, the interior ministry spokesman.

Meanwhile, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said it had downscaled its team in Lashkar Gah, with some non-medical staff relocated from the city.

"We've shared coordinates of our 300 bed hospital to approaching warring parties in Helmand," the international medical charity tweeted.

Washington has deployed several hundred troops in Helmand in recent months to aid Afghan ground forces.

NATO officially ended its combat mission in December 2014, but US forces were granted greater powers in June to strike at the insurgents as President Barack Obama vowed a more aggressive campaign.

"The situation in Helmand remains contested," NATO said in a statement.

"While there is clearly an increase in fighting, the Taliban have suffered a number of casualties and [Afghan forces] have been able to recover many checkpoints." 

Northern Kunduz was the first city to fall to the insurgents last September, in a stinging blow to Afghan forces who have struggled to rein in the Taliban since the NATO combat mission ended.

The fighting in Helmand comes as Afghan troops are stretched on multiple fronts across Afghanistan — including eastern Nangarhar province where the Daesh terror group is making inroads. 

KIEV — Ukraine on Thursday placed its forces around Crimea on high alert as tensions soared after Moscow accused Kiev of attempting armed incursions into the disputed peninsula.

Russia's FSB security service said on Wednesday it had thwarted "terrorist attacks" in Crimea this week by Ukrainian military intelligence and beaten back armed assaults, but Kiev fiercely denied the claims.

The allegations ratcheted up the heat in a feud sparked by Moscow's 2014 seizure of the Black Sea peninsula from Ukraine and raised fears of possible wider conflict. 

The UN Security Council was to discuss the growing tensions later Thursday at the request of Ukraine, a non-permanent council member.

Ukraine's pro-Western President Petro Poroshenko met his top brass and ordered forces along the frontier with Crimea and across the conflict-wracked east onto "high-alert level".

Russian President Vladimir Putin also held a meeting with security chiefs to discuss "additional measures for ensuring security for citizens and essential infrastructure in Crimea", the Kremlin said in a statement. 

"Scenarios were carefully considered for anti-terrorist security measures at the land border, in the waters and in the airspace of Crimea," it said. 

'Dangerous game' 

The FSB said one of its officers was killed in armed clashes while arresting "terrorists" on the night of August 6-7, while a Russian soldier died in a firefight with "sabotage-terrorist" groups sent by the Ukrainian military on August 8.

An irate Putin accused Kiev of "practising terror" and warned that the deaths of the two Russian officers would have consequences.

"We obviously will not let such things slide by," Putin said. "This is a very dangerous game." 

Poroshenko hit back, saying Moscow's claims were "senseless and cynical". 

"Fantasies are only another pretext for the next military threats toward Ukraine," he said.

Two residents living on the Russian-controlled side of the Crimea-Ukraine frontier told AFP there had been an unexplained build-up of Russian military hardware in the area over the past few weeks.

Russia is holding nationwide legislative elections next month — including in Crimea — and the FSB said the alleged raids could be aimed at destabilising the situation ahead of the vote. 

 'Crude provocation' 

A senior Ukrainian security official told AFP that Moscow's claims were a "crude Russian provocation" and that Kiev was "getting ready for anything", including an invasion.

Russia says it has detained several Ukrainian and Russian citizens over the incident, including an alleged Ukrainian military intelligence officer named Yevgen Panov. Kiev has called Panov a "hostage". 

Moscow and Kiev have been locked in a bitter dispute since the Kremlin seized Crimea in March 2014 after Ukraine's Russian-backed president Viktor Yanukovych was ousted. 

The crisis sent ties between Moscow and the West plunging to their lowest point since the Cold War and led to tough economic sanctions by the EU and US against Russia. 

The latest war of words represents the most serious increase in tensions in months as a separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine — that Kiev and the West blame on Moscow — drags on despite a stalled peace deal.

More than 9,500 people have been killed since the pro-Russian insurgency erupted in April 2014.

Putin said a mooted meeting with Poroshenko and mediators German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande at next month's G-20 summit in China was now "senseless".

Independent Russian daily Vedomosti wrote in an op-ed entitled "A new old enemy" that Moscow has tended to ramp up tensions ahead of negotiations over Ukraine.

"The main political question now is what is the future of the Minsk process," the paper wrote, referring to the peace deal hammered out in the Belarussian capital in February 2015.

"Will Russia bring an end to it or demand new concessions?"

ANKARA/ISTANBUL — Turkey said on Wednesday the European Union was fuelled by anti-Turkish sentiment and hostility to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and was making grave mistakes in its response to a failed coup which was costing it the trust of ordinary Turks.

Erdogan and many Turks have been incensed by what they see as the undue concern of Europe over a crackdown after the abortive July 15 putsch but indifference to the bloody events themselves, in which more than 240 people were killed.

"Unfortunately the EU is making some serious mistakes. They have failed the test following the coup attempt ... Their issue is anti-Turkey and anti-Erdogan sentiment," Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told the state-run Anadolu Agency.

"We have worked very hard towards EU [membership] these past 15 years. We never begged, but we worked very hard ... Now two out of three people are saying we should stop talks with the EU."

 More than 60,000 people in the military, judiciary, civil service and education have been detained, suspended or placed under investigation since the coup attempt, in which rogue soldiers commandeered tanks and warplanes to try to take power.

Dismissals continued at Turkey's Scientific and Technological Research Council (Tubitak), which has now removed 560 staff, private broadcaster NTV said on Wednesday.

Some of Turkey's European allies are concerned Erdogan, already seen as an authoritarian leader, is using the coup attempt as an excuse to further tighten his grip. Turkish officials dismiss such claims, saying the purges are justified by the gravity of the threat posed by the putsch.

Western allies are also watching Erdogan's rapprochement with Russian President Vladimir Putin, concerned that both leaders may use their detente and chilled relations with the West to pressure Washington and the European Union.

Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern has said Europe needs to think again about Turkey's possible EU membership.

"I am interested in a fundamental discussion," he said on Wednesday in an interview with broadcaster ORF.

"That fundamental discussion is: Can we accept someone within the EU who does not adhere to democratic standards, who has difficulty with human rights, and who ignores humanitarian necessities and necessities regarding the rule of law?"

 Turkey began EU accession talks in 2005 but has made scant progress despite an initial burst of reforms. Many EU states are not eager to see such a large, mostly Muslim country as a member, and are concerned that Ankara's record on basic freedoms has gone into reverse in recent years.

In a return to combative form, Erdogan on Wednesday took aim at Turkey's banks, saying they should not be charging high interest in the aftermath of the coup plot and promising to take action against lenders who "go the wrong way".

Erdogan has repeatedly equated high interest rates with treason and called for lower borrowing costs to fuel growth, raising concern about the independence of the central bank.

Losing Turkey

Erdogan on Tuesday took a big step towards normalising ties with Russia, meeting Putin in St Petersburg, his first foreign trip since the failed putsch.

Putin said Moscow would phase out sanctions against Ankara, imposed after the Turks shot down a Russian fighter jet near the Syrian border nine months ago, and that bringing ties to their pre-crisis level was the priority.

"We're not mending relations with Russia to send a message to the West," Minister Cavusoglu said. "If the West loses Turkey one day, it will not be because of Turkey's relations with Russia, China, or the Islamic world, but rather because of themselves."

 Erdogan's spokesman Ibrahim Kalin told reporters in Ankara it was normal for Turkey to seek "other options" on defence cooperation as it had not received the expected support from its western friends and NATO allies following the failed coup.

NATO said on Wednesday that Turkey's membership was not in question and that Ankara could count on its solidarity and support after the coup bid, which has triggered deep purges in the alliance's second-largest armed forces.

Putin said on Tuesday Moscow would gradually phase out sanctions against Ankara, imposed after the Turks shot down a Russian fighter jet near the Syrian border nine months ago, and that bringing ties to their pre-crisis level was the priority.

Cavusoglu also indicated that Turkey could find common ground with Russia on Syria, where they have been on opposing sides of the conflict. Moscow backs Syrian President Bashar Assad, while Turkey says he is a dictator who must be removed.

"We think similarly regarding the ceasefire, humanitarian aid and [the need for] political resolution in Syria," Cavusoglu said, although he added the two may think differently on how to implement the ceasefire.

He said Turkey was building a "strong mechanism" with Russia to find a solution in Syria, and a delegation including the foreign ministry, military and intelligence officials would go to Russia on Wednesday for talks.

QUETTA, Pakistan  — Pakistani lawyer Ataullah Lango had just arrived at the Civil Hospital in the southwestern city of Quetta to mourn the slain head of his provincial bar association when he heard a loud explosion and felt the pain of glass stabbing his face.

He lost some 60 colleagues in the suicide bombing that decimated the leadership of this tight-knit legal fraternity, probably for years.

"The cream of our legal fraternity has been martyred," Lango told Reuters at the house of the slain bar president.

"Our senior leaders... are now gone."

 Pakistan has endured a wave of militant attacks in recent years, but lawyers have not been singled out on such a scale before.

That changed on Monday when a suicide bomber struck a crowd of lawyers who had crammed into a hospital emergency department to accompany the body of Bilal Anwar Kasi, president of the 3,000-member Baluchistan Bar Association.

At least 74 people were killed, most of them lawyers, in Pakistan's worst bombing this year, claimed by both a faction of the Pakistani Taliban, Jamaat-ur-Ahrar, and the Middle East-based Daesh terror group.

Across Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province surrounded by mountains, lawyers gathered for funeral prayers on Wednesday, visited families of lost friends, shouted slogans at protests and urged the government to protect them better.

Baluchistan is no stranger to violence, with separatist fighters launching regular attacks on security forces for nearly a decade and the military striking back.

Islamist militants, particularly sectarian groups, have also launched a campaign of suicide bombings and assassinations of minority Shiites.

After Monday's attack, the legal community in Baluchistan and across the country said it felt leaderless but also vowed unity.

Kasi's younger brother, Shoaib Kasi, himself an attorney, said the attacker had "pre-planned" to first kill the bar association president and then target the hospital, knowing that mourners would gather there.

"It will take centuries for us to make up this loss," lawyer Abdul Aziz Lehri told Reuters at the district court building, largely deserted due to a strike by his colleagues.

The president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, Ali Zafar, called the attack a "turning point", and gave the government until Thursday to present a security plan to protect lawyers and other "soft targets".

Anger and defiance

Emotions ran high at a press conference where lawyers expressed anger, particularly against the country's powerful military, but also voiced defiance.

"We are not tense because of the terrorists," said senior lawyer Manzoor Ul Hassan. "We have sadness, of course, but no fear."

Lawyers have held a special place in Pakistan's democratic process.

A lawyers' movement emerged as the vanguard of a campaign against the then army chief Pervez Musharraf after he suspended the country's top judge in 2007 for opposing plans to extend the general's term in office.

Lawyers organised convoys travelling from city to city to support ousted chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, and the government was forced to re-instate him.

Musharraf emerged from the confrontation a much diminished figure and stepped down as president in 2008.

"Lawyers were the targets, because we fight for the rights of the people," Ali Zafar told the press conference. "They think we will be weakened... I say we will become stronger."

 Prominent lawyer Ali Ahmed Kurd said those left would carry the torch.

"The juniors who are left, they are filled with the passion for working hard, for honesty... that will make up the difference," Kurd told Reuters in Quetta.

But he added that the lawyers of Baluchistan were afraid to call a meeting of the bar association to map out the legal fraternity's next steps.

"If you convene a meeting now, who will come?" Kurd said. "There's no one. None is left.”

TOKYO — The Japanese city of Nagasaki on Tuesday marked 71 years since its destruction by a US atomic bomb, with its mayor lauding a visit by US President Barack Obama to Hiroshima earlier this year.

A bell tolled as thousands of people, including ageing survivors and relatives of victims, observed a minute's silence at 11:02 am (0202 GMT), the exact moment of the blast.

Some 74,000 people died in the initial explosion, while thousands of others perished months or years later from radiation sickness.

The attack came three days after the US dropped the first ever atomic bomb on Hiroshima, which ultimately killed 140,000 people.

Nagasaki Mayor Tomihisa Taue lauded Obama's landmark May visit to Hiroshima — the first ever by a sitting US president.

"Knowing the facts becomes the starting point for thinking about a future free of nuclear weapons," Taue said, calling on other world leaders to visit his city.

Local officials and those who survived the bombing called for strict adherence to Japan's post-war tradition of pacifism and were critical of the Japanese government.

"The government of Japan, while advocating nuclear weapons abolition, still relies on nuclear deterrence," the mayor said, calling it a "contradictory state of affairs".

Toyokazu Ihara, 80, who survived the Nagasaki bombing, used his address to call for abolition of nuclear weapons and world peace.

"Nagasaki must be the last," he said, concluding his Japanese remarks with an English sentence intended for global citizens.

Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui on Saturday marked the commemoration of the bombing of his city, also citing Obama's visit.

He said the visit was proof the US President shared his city's view of the "absolute evil" of nuclear weapons. 

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, in his address in Nagasaki, called on world leaders to honour the global Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

"We must not allow a repeat of the horrible experiences of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that happened 71 years ago," Abe said.

Abe has moved to extend the scope of Japan's military and deepen the nation's alliance with Washington in the face of threats from China's expanding military strength and unpredictable North Korea.

North Korea last week test fired a ballistic missile that landed in waters off Japan's coast for the first time.