World

KAMPALA — The US embassy in Uganda warned on Thursday of a specific threat by an unknown terrorist group to attack the country’s only international airport.

The Entebbe International Airport could be attacked on Thursday between 9pm and 11pm local time, the embassy said on its website, citing information obtained from Ugandan police. The statement urged US citizens travelling through Entebbe around that time to “review their plans in light of this information”.

There is a “continued threat of potential terrorist attacks in the country”, with targets ranging from nightclubs to government offices, the statement said.

The airport, which is about 36 kilometres south of Kampala, the Ugandan capital, was the scene in 1976 of a successful Israeli military operation to rescue dozens of hostages held by pro-Palestinian hijackers.

The warning from the embassy came the day after the US government called for tighter security measures at foreign airports that have direct flights to the US. There are no direct flights from Uganda to the US. Most flights connect through Europe.

Ignie Igundura, the spokesman for Uganda’s Civil Aviation Authority, said there were no plans to temporarily close the airport over a terror threat. He said the airport had since taken some security measures that he declined to talk about.

WASHINGTON — US authorities plan to bolster security at some airports in Europe and the Middle East with direct flights to the United States, officials said Wednesday.

Amid concern that terror groups are developing new explosives to circumvent airport security, US Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson announced unspecified steps that would be carried out in “coming days”, without saying which airports would be affected.

“We are sharing recent and relevant information with our foreign allies and are consulting the aviation industry,” Johnson said in a statement.

After an assessment of security threats, Johnson said he had directed the Transportation Security Administration “to implement enhanced security measures in the coming days at certain overseas airports with direct flights to the United States”.

Johnson said that “we will continue to adjust security measures to promote aviation security without unnecessary disruptions to the travelling public”.

The airports were located in the Middle East and Europe, according to an official at the Department of Homeland Security, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The announcement came before the US independence day celebrations on Friday but officials would not say whether authorities had uncovered a specific threat or plot.

“There will be enhanced security measures in certain airports that fly non stop to the US,” the DHS official told AFP.

“We’re targeting certain airports abroad... based on real time intelligence,” the official added.

The new measures would be designed in a way to avoid creating major hassles for travellers, without signalling to potential terrorists what those steps would be, officials said.

“Information about specific enhancements is sensitive as we do not wish to divulge information about specific layers of security to those who would do harm,” said a second DHS official, who asked not to be named.

The official said authorities “may require some additional screening of persons and their property, so travellers should always arrive at an airport with plenty of time for screening to be sure they do not miss their flights”.

Media reports said the additional screening could apply to shoes worn by passengers and electronic devices.

Britain to step up security 

In Britain, the Department for Transport (DfT) said late Wednesday that it would “step up some of our aviation security measures” following the warning from US security chiefs, The Guardian reported.

“For obvious reasons we will not be commenting in detail on those changes. The majority of passengers should not experience significant disruption,” a spokesman told the BBC.

US counter-terrorism experts in recent months have said there is cause for concern that extremists have come up with new tactics to avoid detection at airports.

Just Sunday, US President Barack Obama warned that “battle-hardened” Europeans who embrace jihad in Syria and Iraq threaten the United States because their passports mean they can enter the country without a visa.

“We have seen Europeans sympathetic to their [militants’] cause travelling into Syria and may now travel into Iraq, getting battle-hardened. Then they come back,” Obama warned in an interview that aired Sunday on the US broadcaster ABC.

These combatants “have a European passport. They don’t need visas to get into the United States”, he told the program “This Week”.

“Now, we are spending a lot of time, and we have been for years, making sure we are improving intelligence to respond to that.

“We have to improve our surveillance, reconnaissance, intelligence there. Special forces are going to have a role. And there are going to be times where we take strikes against organisations that could do us harm.”

Fears about Europeans returning from militant action were underlined when Mehdi Nemmouche, a French-Algerian who fought alongside radical Islamists in Syria for more than a year, allegedly killed four people in a deadly shooting at the Jewish Museum in Brussels on May 24.

ACCRA — West African states lack the resources to battle the world’s worst outbreak of Ebola and deep cultural suspicions about the disease remain a big obstacle to halting its spread, ministers said on Wednesday.

The outbreak has killed 467 people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone since February, making it the largest and deadliest ever, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

West African Health ministers meeting in Ghana to draw up a regional response mixed appeals for cash with warnings of the practices that have allowed the disease to spread across borders and into cities.

Abubakar Fofanah, deputy health minister for Sierra Leone, a country with one of the world’s weakest health systems, said cash was needed for drugs, basic protective gear and staff pay.

“In Liberia, our biggest challenge is denial, fear and panic. Our people are very much afraid of the disease,” Bernice Dahn, Liberia’s deputy health minister, told Reuters on the sidelines of the Accra meeting.

“People are afraid but do not believe that the disease exists and because of that people get sick and the community members hide them and bury them, against all the norms we have put in place,” she said.

Authorities are trying to stop relatives of Ebola victims from giving them traditional funerals, which often involve the manual washing of the body, out of fear of spreading the infection. The dead are instead meant to be buried by health staff wearing protective gear.

Neighbouring Sierra Leone faces many of the same problems, with dozens of those infected evading treatment, complicating efforts to trace cases.

Red Cross staff threatened

The Red Cross in Guinea said it had been forced to temporarily suspend some operations in the country’s southeast after staff working on Ebola were threatened.

“Locals wielding knives surrounded a marked Red Cross vehicle,” a Red Cross official said, asking not to be named. The official said operations had been halted for safety reasons. The Red Cross later said only international staff were removed.

A Medecins Sans Frontieres centre in Guinea was attacked by youths in April after staff were accused of bringing the disease into the country.

Ebola causes fever, vomiting, bleeding and diarrhoea and kills up to 90 per cent of those it infects. Highly contagious, it is transmitted through contact with blood or other fluids.

WHO has flagged three main factors driving its spread: The burial of victims in accordance with tradition, the dense populations around the capital cities of Guinea and Liberia and the bustling cross-border trade across the region.

Health experts say the top priority must be containing Ebola with basic infection control measures such as vigilant handwashing and hygiene, and isolation of infected patients.

Jeremy Farrar, a professor of tropical medicine and director of The Wellcome Trust, an influential global health charity, said people at high risk should also be offered experimental medicines, despite the drugs not having been fully tested.

“We have more than 450 deaths so far — and not a single individual has been offered anything beyond tepid sponging and ‘we’ll bury you nicely’,” Farrar told Reuters in an interview. “It’s just unacceptable.”

BERLIN — Foreign ministers from Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France meeting in Berlin agreed Wednesday on a series of steps for a resumption of the ceasefire in eastern Ukraine where fighting between government troops and pro-Russia separatists has taken more than 400 lives since April.

The steps include reopening talks no later than Saturday “with the goal of reaching an unconditional and mutually agreed sustainable cease-fire” to be monitored by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, their declaration said.

Fighting in eastern Ukraine has increased since a much-violated 10-day cease-fire expired late Monday. Four Ukrainian troops were killed as government forces carried out more than 100 attacks on rebel positions, a military official said.

Russia supported the proposal to give Ukrainian border guards and OSCE representatives access to Russian territory to take part in controlling two border crossings once the cease-fire is in place, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.

Border posts have become a key issue because Ukraine and the United States say military equipment and reinforcements are flowing across the border from Russia. Moscow denies arming the rebels and describes Russian citizens fighting with them as volunteers.

Asked whether Russia has any influence over the rebels, Lavrov said that “we have possibilities to influence those who defend their families, their soil and their territory”.

Lavrov stressed that Russia would not allow the cease-fire to be used to give the military time to regroup and bring in reinforcements, as the separatists accused the troops of doing during the previous cease-fire.

The ministers’ declaration specifically states that the cease-fire negotiations will be handled by the so-called contact group, something Russia has insisted upon. The group, which already has held two rounds of peace talks, includes Ukrainians trusted by Russia, the Russian ambassador and separatist leaders.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier expressed hope that the group would meet before Saturday, calling it “a first and an important step”.

Since the earlier cease-fire expired, three troops died in rebel attacks on government vehicles and checkpoints and 10 were wounded, National Security and Defence Council spokesman Andriy Lysenko said. The federal border guards said one guard was killed when the Novoazovsk crossing point came under attack by rebels with mortars in the Donetsk region.

Donetsk is one of two eastern regions where separatists have declared independence from the government in Kiev. Ukrainian officials said pro-Russian rebels had been forced out of three villages.

Ukraine said it recaptured a key border post Tuesday at Dovzhanskiy, which rebels had mined with explosives.

Another main border crossing at Izvaryne was closed Wednesday because of fighting and an AP reporter saw plumes of black smoke rising above it. Ukrainian officials said rebels shelled Ukrainian troops in the area and a Ukrainian armored vehicle was destroyed by a mine.

At the small Sjevernyi border crossing to the north, Ukrainian border guards had abandoned their post, leaving three Russian border guards to process the several dozen Ukrainians who passed through Wednesday afternoon.

Fresh black caterpillar tread marks from two armored vehicles that had crossed the border were clearly visible on the one-lane road. It was impossible to determine which direction they had traveled, but there have been no reports of armored vehicles moving from Ukraine into Russia.

Fighting also was under way Wednesday in Luhansk, the other eastern region where separatists have declared independence. In the city of Luhansk, a stray missile hit a school near a rebel position but no injuries were reported.

Before the foreign ministers met, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she “cannot rule out that we will have to go further” in imposing sanctions on Russia.

The EU and the United States have already imposed targeted sanctions mostly hitting individual officials in Russia and have held off on more costly sanctions on entire industries.

ANKARA — Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared Tuesday he would stand in August’s presidential election, paving the way to become the country’s longest and most dominant serving leader since Ataturk.

Erdogan — who is expected to win the poll despite a turbulent year that saw unprecedented protests against his rule — declared the election would mark the start of a “new Turkey”.

The election will be the first time Turks will directly choose a president and Erdogan indicated he intended to be much more than a ceremonial head of state.

The announcement, putting an end to months of speculation, was made to 4,000 cheering members of Erdogan’s Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) at a glitzy ceremony in Ankara.

“The owner of this victory is only Allah,” Erdogan said in a speech laced with Islamic references. “We are bracing for a blessed journey to serve the people.”

Erdogan’s wife Emine could be seen wiping tears from her eyes.

His boisterous supporters watching the announcement chanted “Turkey is proud of you”.

‘One-man rule’ 

If he wins, Erdogan, 60, would serve as president until 2019, with the possibility of a second mandate, making him Turkey’s longest serving leader since the founder of the modern Turkish republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

However Erdogan’s move to switch from the premier’s office to the Cankaya presidential palace in Ankara comes at the most turbulent moment in his decade-long domination of Turkey.

The government was shaken by mass protests in 2013, a torrent of corruption allegations, a damaging feud with former allies and most recently its clumsy response to the Soma mine disaster that killed 301 people.

Still hailed by supporters for presiding over an economic transformation of the majority Muslim country, Erdogan is now accused by critics of seeking to run the country like an Ottoman sultan.

“Everything is being redesigned in a way towards a kind of one-man, one-party rule after the prime minister is elected president,” commentator Mehmet Yilmaz wrote in the mass circulation Hurriyet daily.

But Erdogan denied that he will be a polarising president. “If elected, I will be everyone’s president,” he said.

His candidacy means Erdogan’s one-time close ally and co-founder of the Islamic-rooted AKP, incumbent President Abdullah Gul will be stepping aside, with his political future uncertain.

Gul, who has repeatedly squabbled with Erdogan in recent months, appeared to be absent from the Ankara rally, which was attended by the entire AKP elite.

 ‘End to tutelages’ 

If elected, Erdogan is expected to wield far greater power than the largely ceremonial role performed by previous incumbents and he indicated the direct election would give the head of state a greater mandate.

“The fact that the president will be elected by the people is a turning point for democracy,” declared Erdogan. “The presidency will not be a place of rest.”

“August 10 will be a turning point on the path to a new Turkey,” he added. The president was previously chosen by parliament.

In an apparent reference to the AKP’s drive to lessen the historic influence of the powerful Turkish military, he added: “It puts an end to a history of tutelages.”

Despite his recent troubles, Erdogan still commands fervent support across the country, especially from rural populations and religiously conservative small business owners who prospered under his rule.

Erdogan is widely expected to win the election, possibly outright in the first round on August 10, without the need for a second round scheduled for August 24.

To the surprise of many, the two main secular opposition parties fielded a devout intellectual — the former head of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu — as a joint candidate to challenge the pious Erdogan.

But while Ihsanoglu, 70, will may play well with religious voters, the bespectacled and softly spoken academic has none of the charisma of the combative Erdogan.

“I didn’t start this struggle after I turned 60. I’ve been in it since I was 18,” sniped Erdogan in apparent reference to his rival’s age.

Meanwhile the main pro-Kurdish party on Monday announced its candidate would be Selahattin Demirtas, an energetic figure who nonetheless is expected to struggle to break into double figures.

Erdogan said the stalled peace process with Kurdish rebels would continue.

“Turkey has no other option than a solution, brotherhood and peace,” he said. He also reaffirmed he would work for NATO member Turkey’s full accession to the European Union.

TOKYO — Japan on Tuesday loosened the bonds on its powerful military, proclaiming the right to go into battle in defence of allies, in a highly controversial shift in the nation’s pacifist stance.

After months of political horsetrading and browbeating of opponents, conservative Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said his Cabinet had formally endorsed a reinterpretation of rules that have banned the use of armed force except in very narrowly defined circumstances.

“I will protect Japanese people’s lives and peaceful existence. As the prime minister, I have this grave responsibility. With this determination, the Cabinet approved the basic policy for national security,” Abe told a press conference.

“There is a misunderstanding that Japan will be involved in war in an effort to defend a foreign country. But this is impossible. It will be strictly a defensive measure to defend our people.”

Abe has faced down widespread public opposition to the move, which climaxed at the weekend when a middle-aged man attempted suicide by setting himself on fire.

While the move to allow so-called “collective self-defence” needs parliamentary approval, the control of both chambers that Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party enjoys renders this a formality.

Abe had originally planned to change Article 9 of the US-imposed constitution, which was adopted after World War II and renounces “the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes”.

But unable to muster the two-thirds majority he needed in both houses and unlikely to get an endorsement from the public in the required referendum, he changed tack, using what opponents say is sleight of hand to alter what the clause means.

Supporters say the reinterpretation is necessary because of the worsening security situation in East Asia, where an ever more confident China is pushing its territorial claims and an erratic North Korea is threatening stability.

Under the new definition, Japanese troops will be able to come to the aid of allies — primarily the US — if they come under attack from a common enemy, even if Japan is not the object of the attack.

Examples pushed by the Abe camp have included a missile attack by North Korea on US forces in Guam; they say the shift would allow Japanese troops to shoot down the missile as it passes overhead, something presently not allowed.

‘Horror of war’ 

China has warned against the move, saying it opens the door to remilitarisation of a country that is not sufficiently penitent for its actions in World War II.

Just ahead of the announcement Beijing said Tokyo was guilty of “stirring up troubles on historical issues”.

“It’s only natural for us to wonder if Japan is going to change its path of peaceful development that it has long pursued after the Second World War,” said a foreign ministry spokesman.

The Japanese administration rebuts this, saying the change will allow it to promote a notion which it has dubbed “proactive pacifism”.

But that will not entail involvement in military adventures overseas, such as in Afghanistan.

“There will be no change at all in our principle not to allow the dispatch of forces abroad,” Abe said.

“We shall never repeat the horror of war. With this reflection in mind, Japan has gone on for 70 years after the war. It will never happen that Japan again becomes a country which goes to war.”

The move has received backing from Washington, which has long encouraged Japan to take on more of a role in a very lopsided defence treaty.

But it has caused anger at home, where the pacifism on which the constitution is built is an article of faith for many Japanese.

At least half the population opposes a more aggressive military stance, according to weekend newspaper polls.

Hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of people have turned out to protest against the change at various demonstrations over recent weeks.

Sunday’s dramatic suicide bid near a busy Tokyo train station was the most extreme example of the strength of feeling.

Outside the prime minister’s office, hundreds gathered while the announcement was being made.

Housewife Chieko Hirano, aged 63, told AFP: “I have come here to stop Japan from becoming a country that can go to war.”

“Article nine is a jewel about which we can boast to the world and it should not be altered,” she said.

PARIS — Nicolas Sarkozy on Tuesday became the first former French president to be placed in custody for questioning in a criminal investigation.

The right-wing leader was detained at a police station in a Paris suburb in connection with a suspected attempt to illegally influence judicial proceedings in one of a raft of colourful corruption cases in which he is embroiled.

Sarkozy, who turned up at the station in Nanterre in a black saloon car with tinted windows, can be held for up to 48 hours before he has to be charged or released.

His detention came a day after investigators took his longtime lawyer Thierry Herzog and two magistrates into custody in connection with alleged “influence peddling” — a serious crime in France which carries a maximum penalty of ten years in prison.

Investigators suspect Sarkozy attempted to obtain inside information from one of the magistrates about confidential proceedings in an illegal election financing case  and that he was tipped off by a senior figure when judges tapped his phones.

It is the latest in a long line of legal woes for the 59-year-old since he left office following his defeat by Socialist candidate Francois Hollande in the 2012 presidential vote.

Sarkozy is widely expected to attempt a political comeback in time for the 2017 election, but those plans would be torpedoed if he is charged in this case.

He denies any wrongdoing and his allies on the right of the political spectrum denounced what they see as a witch-hunt against their man.

“Never before has a former president been subjected to such treatment, such an unleashing of hate,” said Christian Estrosi, the mayor of Nice and an MP for Sarkozy’s UMP Party.

Government spokesman Stephane Le Foll insisted the judges in the case had acted of their own accord.

“The justice system is investigating and will follow this through to the end. Nicolas Sarkozy can face justice just like anyone else,” Le Foll said.

Tip-off on phone tapping 

The case which has landed Sarkozy in detention was launched after judges looking into the alleged financing of his 2007 election campaign by former Libyan dictator Muammar Qadhafi obtained an unprecedented and controversial authorisation to tap the former president’s phones.

After four fruitless months they discovered Sarkozy had a secret phone registered under an assumed name and recordings from that device led to the opening of the influence peddling investigation.

At the root of the case are unrelated allegations that Sarkozy was helped to victory in the 2007 election with up to 50 million euros ($70 million at the time) from Qadhafi and envelopes stuffed with cash from France’s richest woman, L’Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt.

He dismisses the Qadhafi claims as ridiculous in light of his leading role in the dictator’s 2011 overthrow, and he was cleared last year of taking Bettencourt’s money when she was too frail to know what she was doing.

His campaign treasurer is one of 10 people awaiting trial in the Bettencourt case.

The Qadhafi investigation is ongoing, as are several other cases in which Sarkozy has been implicated.

They include a long-running probe into allegations he helped organise kickbacks from a Pakistani arms deal before becoming president.

In the last month, Sarkozy has been linked to a scandal over the funding of his campaign for re-election in 2012.

The leader of his UMP Party was forced to resign after it emerged that 10 million euros ($13.6 million) spent in support of Sarkozy had been passed off as party expenses.

Sarkozy denies any knowledge or involvement in the apparent fraud, which is now subject to another criminal probe.

French judges have in recent years shown their readiness to go after former leaders with their successful pursuit of Sarkozy’s predecessor as president, Jacques Chirac.

Chirac was convicted in 2011 on corruption charges related to his time as mayor of Paris but was excused from attending his trial because of ill health and was given a two-year suspended prison term.

PARIS (AP) — Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy was detained Tuesday and reportedly questioned by financial investigators in a corruption probe that could cloud his chances of a political comeback.

The detention — a very unusual move for such a high-level figure — dominated French news broadcasts. The investigation is the latest in a string of probes to target the former leader.

Yet Sarkozy has not been convicted of anything, remains well-known on the international stage — and may be his troubled conservative party's best chance to regain the presidency in 2017.

A judicial official said Sarkozy was detained for questioning Tuesday at the headquarters of the judicial police in the Paris suburb of Nanterre. The official, who was not authorised to be publicly named while discussing an ongoing investigation, would not elaborate.

Sarkozy could be held up to 24 hours, which could be extended for another day. His lawyer, Thierry Herzog, and a magistrate, Gilbert Azibert, were also held for questioning.

French media reports say Sarkozy is being questioned in an investigation linked to financing for his 2007 presidential campaign, notably allegations that late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi gave Sarkozy millions of euros in illegal campaign donations.

The case centres around whether Sarkozy and his lawyer were kept informed about the investigation by a friendly magistrate, Azibert.

Sarkozy and Herzog have denied wrongdoing. Azibert's lawyer told reporters he hoped the detention would be over by the evening.

Investigators are basing suspicions at least in part on tapped phone conversations between Sarkozy and his lawyer. The tapping raised questions about the limits between investigative needs and individual privacy. Sarkozy compared the situation to actions by the secret police in the old East Germany.

Allies from Sarkozy's conservative UMP party — which has been in a leadership crisis because of questions about spending during Sarkozy's 2012 presidential campaign — jumped to the former president's defense.

"They have never imposed such treatment on a former president, with such a surge of hate," lawmaker Christian Estrosi tweeted.

Former French President Jacques Chirac was convicted in a corruption investigation in 2011 after he left office, but when he was questioned he was not held in police custody.

The Socialist government tried to stay above the fray.

"Justice officials are investigating, they should carry out the task to the end. Nicolas Sarkozy is a citizen answerable to justice like any other," government spokesman Stephane Le Foll said on i-Tele television.

Political scientist Thomas Guenole said it's too early to draw any conclusions about Sarkozy's political career based on his latest detention.

"Nicolas Sarkozy has often been pronounced politically dead over the last two years because he was implicated in political-judicial affairs ... And he has always emerged," Guenole said.

He described an "immense love" for Sarkozy amid the hard-core of his party, which views the investigations against him as politically driven.

Sarkozy was handed preliminary charges in another investigation into whether he illegally took campaign donations from France's richest woman, L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt. Those charges were later dropped.

In a separate case, relatives of French victims of a deadly 2002 bombing in Pakistan filed a complaint in Paris last year against Sarkozy and two former advisers for allegedly violating a duty to secrecy in the investigation of the case.

BANNU, Pakistan — Pakistan’s military launched a ground assault in the North Waziristan tribal area on Monday, beginning a new phase in its offensive against Taliban militants, after nearly half-a-million civilians fled the fighting.

Troops moved on Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan, around 9:30am (0430 GMT), officials said, after two weeks of air strikes and artillery bombardment of insurgent targets.

Washington has long urged Islamabad to tackle militant sanctuaries in North Waziristan, a haven for Pakistani Taliban and Al Qaeda-linked insurgents.

Security officials in Miranshah told AFP troops moved on the town after six hours of artillery shelling.

“They are using tanks and armoured vehicles for ground movement,” a security official said on condition of anonymity.

“The forces have also taken over the civil hospital in Miranshah and have destroyed four hideouts in the artillery firing.”

Other security officials in Peshawar, the main city of northwest Pakistan, confirmed the advance.

A statement from the military’s communications wing said the assault began “after the evacuation of all civil population”, and infantry troops were carrying out house-to-house searches.

Soldiers have killed 15 militants so far in the ground attack, the military said, while three soldiers were wounded in clashes.

“Troops have recovered underground tunnels and IED preparation factories,” the statement said.

IEDs — improvised explosive devices — have been a popular and deadly weapon for militants fighting the army in Pakistan’s restive semiautonomous tribal areas on the Afghan border.

Since the operation began on June 15, 376 militants have been killed and 19 have surrendered, according to the military, while 17 soldiers have also died.

The conflict zone is off-limits to journalists at the moment, making it impossible to verify the number and identity of those killed.

On Saturday the army said a leading Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) commander was killed, while a “prominent” Al-Qaeda commander was arrested while trying to flee.

Half a million displaced

Nearly 500,000 people have fled North Waziristan because of the operation, codenamed “Zarb-e-Azb” after a sword used in battle by the Prophet Mohammad.

Tens of thousands of families have left for the town of Bannu, close to North Waziristan, while hundreds more have moved further afield to the towns of Lakki Marwat, Karak and Dera Ismail Khan since the offensive began in mid-June.

The civilian flight has created a huge humanitarian challenge for Pakistan, and there have been complaints and protests at the slow delivery of aid in Bannu.

Monday was the first day of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan in Pakistan, and many of those displaced by the fighting face spending the month in difficult conditions in camps.

Tens of thousands have also poured into Afghanistan’s eastern provinces, particularly Khost.

The mountainous border is porous and difficult to police and there are fears that the most dangerous and committed militants may have used the exodus as cover to make their own escape — undermining the effectiveness of the offensive.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has said the operation will mark the “beginning of an era of peace and tranquility”, but the Taliban have vowed to strike back.

Sharif, elected last year vowing to bring an end to the Taliban’s insurgency through dialogue, had doggedly pursued talks with the TTP since February to little avail.

A dramatic attack on Karachi airport which killed dozens of people brought a sudden, bloody end to the peace process and sparked the military offensive.

Pakistan’s allies, particularly the United States, have long called for an operation in the mountainous tribal territory to flush out groups like the Haqqani network, which use the area to target NATO troops in neighbouring Afghanistan.

But some observers have pointed out that while North Waziristan has been a historical stronghold for militants, violent extremism now has strong footholds elsewhere in Pakistan.

PRETORIA — Oscar Pistorius, the South African sprinter on trial for murder for shooting his girlfriend, was not suffering from a mental condition at the time she was killed, a psychiatric report said on Monday.

Pistorius, who competed in the 2012 London Olympics and Paralympics, has admitted to shooting dead his model girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, but maintains he mistook her for an intruder hiding in his toilet in an upmarket Pretoria suburb.

The trial, which began in March, took a month-long break to allow the 27-year-old to undergo tests at Pretoria’s Weskoppies Hospital after a forensic psychologist brought by the defence testified he had an anxiety disorder.

The defence has only a few more witnesses to call before the trial reaches the verdict stage.

Judge Thokozile Masipa said it was important to find out whether the condition affected his criminal responsibility.

“At the time of the alleged offences, the accused did not suffer from a mental disorder or mental defect that affected his ability to distinguish between the rightful or wrongful nature of his deeds,” Prosecutor Gerrie Nel read from a report submitted to the court.

Both Nel and defence lawyer Barry Roux accepted the findings of a panel of psychiatrists and psychologists after 30 days of evaluation.

Sound expert

During the trial, prosecutors have tried to paint a picture of a self-obsessed Pistorius who knowingly killed his law graduate girlfriend as she cowered behind a locked bathroom door. Pistorius could face a life sentence if found guilty of the shooting on Valentine’s Day last year.

Following the assessment report, Pistorius’ defence called sound expert Ivan Lin, who questioned whether neighbours 177 metres away could have heard screams coming from the toilet, or identified them as a man or woman.

“At 177 metres away, if the scream was from the toilet, it is highly unlikely that the listener can hear the screams, let alone interpret the sound source reliably,” he said

Lin’s testimony, which is yet to be cross-examined, comes after state witness and Pistorius neighbour Michelle Burger testified that she was woken in the middle of the night by “bloodcurdling screams” from a woman, followed by shots.

Pistorius competed against able-bodied sprinters on carbon-fibre prosthetics, becoming one of the most recognised names in athletics. Besides a clutch of Paralympic medals, he reached the semi-finals of the 400m at the London 2012 Olympics.