Tuesday marks one year since Japanese school bus attack in Suzhou, China
On June 24 last year, an unemployed man in his 50s attacked the bus at a bus stop in the city, Jiangsu Province. A female Chinese bus attendant was killed and a Japanese mother and her child were injured.
A local court handed down the death sentence to the man after he was convicted for homicide. Chinese authorities informed the Japanese embassy in Beijing that the man had been executed by April 16 this year.
Following the incident, the school and local authorities began dispatching security personnel to school buses and bus stops to secure the safety of children on their way to and from school. They go on alert when the children get on and off their buses.
The man's trial was held amid speculation that he may have intended to target Japanese nationals. But as for a motive, the court merely explained that he had become tired of living because of debts. The man also did not state his case, depriving observers of any detailed background to the case.
A father in his 50s said he is careful not to take his eyes off his child, who started attending the Japanese school this year. He noted that everyone in his community seems to be on alert because they believe it is up to them to maintain their own safety.
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Japan Times
17 hours ago
- Japan Times
How a CIA hit on al Qaeda ensnared a U.S. citizen in Afghanistan
As a crowd looked on, uniformed Taliban surrounded the Toyota Landcruiser in which Mahmood Habibi, a naturalized U.S. citizen, sat. Other Taliban smashed open the door of his Kabul apartment, emerging later with his laptop and papers. Blindfolded in the back seat, Habibi and his driver were driven off by gunmen sporting shoulder patches of the Taliban's feared secret police, the General Directorate of Intelligence (GDI), according to several witness statements in U.S. government possession. Afghanistan's Taliban government denies it detained Habibi, 37, who was a former head of Afghanistan's civil aviation. While dividing his time between the United States and Kabul working for a private company, he became a U.S. citizen after the Taliban took power in 2021. The Taliban also says they have no knowledge of his whereabouts, three years after he disappeared. That is contradicted by the witness accounts and other evidence, including data monitored from Habibi's cellphone, described by a U.S. official and a former U.S. official familiar with the matter. The Taliban denials present a conundrum for the FBI, which is leading the U.S. government effort to gain his release; and for the State Department, which describes Habibi's detention a major impediment to exploring increased engagement with Afghanistan, three years after his August 10, 2022 arrest. U.S. President Donald Trump has made freeing Americans held abroad a top priority and already has secured the release of dozens, including from Afghanistan, Russia and Venezuela. The case of Habibi — the only publicly identified American held in the country — has been harder to resolve. Interviews with the U.S. official and a former U.S. official with knowledge of the case reveal that the Taliban likely detained Habibi because the CIA had penetrated the company where he worked. The sources say the U.S. spy agency had accessed one of the company's security cameras, helping it pinpoint the al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in a Kabul guesthouse. Habibi's detention came 10 days after Zawahiri — the last of the top plotters of the September 11, 2001, attack on the United States — was dramatically assassinated by a U.S. drone strike on the guesthouse, ordered by Trump's predecessor, Joe Biden. At the time, U.S. officials briefed journalists that it was a CIA operation. The U.S. sources said that Habibi was unaware of the CIA plot and was wrongly detained after returning to Kabul from a work trip to Dubai after the assassination, oblivious of the danger he was in. A Taliban official hands out bags of cucumbers to Afghan refugees returning from Iran, at a reception center in the border town of Islam Qala, Afghanistan, on July 10. | Jim Huylebroek / The New York Times The CIA, the Taliban, the White House and Habibi's employer, Virginia-based ARX Communications, did not respond to detailed requests for comment for this story. ARX has previously said neither it, nor its subsidiaries, were involved with the strike on Zawahiri. It could not be independently verified whether Habibi was or wasn't aware of the plot. In a statement, a State Department spokesperson called for Habibi's immediate release. "We know the Taliban abducted Mahmood Habibi nearly three years ago," the spokesperson said. A co-worker detained with Habibi, then later released, saw him in GDI headquarters and heard him in an adjacent room being asked if he worked for the CIA or was involved in the strike on Zawahiri, according to one of the statements in U.S government possession. Then, in June and August of 2023, the U.S. government detected that his mobile phone had been switched on in GDI headquarters, the U.S. official and former official said. The U.S. official familiar with the matter said excerpts of the statements have been presented to the Taliban in response to their repeated denials of Habibi's detention. As Habibi and his family on Sunday mark the third anniversary of his arrest, the Trump administration has stepped up efforts to win his release, including offering a $5 million reward for information. But so far, he appears no closer to freedom, the U.S. sources said. "Our family has new hope that the Trump team will be successful," said Habibi's older brother, Ahmad. Ahmad said his brother would never have gone to Kabul four days after the Zawahiri assassination if the CIA had told ARX to warn him it was too dangerous to return. "Nobody told him anything. Neither the company, neither the CIA nor anybody. So, he just went back,' Ahmad said. The U.S. government officially considers Habibi a hostage, said the U.S. official, because his arrest and location remain unconfirmed by the Taliban. The official and the former official spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the case. In response to a request for comment, the FBI said that along with partners in other U.S. departments involved in hostage recovery, it remains "committed to bringing Habibi home to his family." The Taliban rejected an offer made last year to trade Habibi for alleged Osama bin Laden aide Mohammad Rahim al-Afghani, the last Afghan held in the Guantanamo Bay military prison. "We've tried in terms of both carrots and sticks,' said the official, who requested anonymity to discuss the case. The Taliban "literally throw up a wall," said the official. Camera on cell tower As part of the operation against Zawahiri, the CIA penetrated the Asia Consultancy Group (ACG), a subsidiary of ARX, according to the current and former U.S. officials, who provided details of how the spy agency was able to target the al Qaeda chief. ACG, whose parent is headquartered in Herndon, Virginia, had a contract to erect cellphone towers around Kabul, the sources said. CCTV cameras were fitted to the towers to protect the structures, they said. Mahmood Habibi and his older brother Ahmad Habibi during a visit to Toronto in 2014 | Ahmad Shah Habibi / via REUTERS One of the cameras, the sources said, was pointed at a house U.S. officials have linked to Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Taliban's acting interior minister both at the time and now, in the heart of Kabul's diplomatic quarter, a short distance from the shuttered British and American embassies. The sources said the camera sent back video to the CIA confirming Zawahiri's presence in the residence. That confirmation helped the agency kill the Egyptian Islamist with two drone-fired Hellfire R9X missiles on July 31, 2022, as he emerged onto a balcony, they said. His wife and family survived the strike. Arrest On the day of his arrest, Mahmood Habibi was in his apartment in Kabul's Sherpur neighborhood packing to return to New Jersey, where he had a home, with the help of a sister, who was there with her two children, according to Ahmad. It was about noon when a phone call came from the ACG office saying it had just been raided by the Taliban, Ahmad said. Habibi told his sister that he had to leave without explaining why. He was arrested immediately after getting into his vehicle, Ahmad said. A few minutes later, somebody announcing that they were with GDI knocked on his apartment door, according to Ahmad and a witness statement. His sister declined to open it, telling those outside that she had to conform to the Taliban rule that an adult male relative had to be present. The Taliban broke open the door, entered the apartment and rifled through closets and drawers, demanding Habibi's laptop, according to Ahmad and the witness statement. A crowd had gathered outside after the Taliban arrived in five vehicles, blocked the street and surrounded Habibi's car, before driving him off, according to Ahmad and a separate witness statement. The GDI arrested 30 other ACG employees, according to a letter that ACG sent to Afghanistan's Ministry of Communications. Except for Habibi and one other, all were eventually released. In the letter, dated September 15, 2022, ACG asked that family members be allowed to visit him and three other staff who the GDI still held. Afghan refugee women tailor a carpet at the Khurasan camp on the outskirts of Peshawar on Sunday. | AFP-JIJI The ministry appeared to confirm Habibi was a GDI prisoner in a reply two days later, saying that the intelligence directorate would decide on the petition when its investigation was completed. However, in a July 3, 2025 statement reported by Afghanistan's state news agency, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said that in response to requests from Habibi's family, the Taliban had investigated but no evidence has been found to suggest that he was detained by Afghanistan's security forces. Mujahid said the Taliban are a legitimate governing body that does not detain individuals without due process or hide them from public view. Mujahid did not respond to a request for comment. U.S. citizen Born to parents from the southern city of Kandahar, Habibi is one of eight siblings — three brothers and five sisters — who grew up in the Kabul neighborhood of Karte Parwan. His excellent English helped him secure a job with the U.N. civil aviation agency in Kabul in 2008. He worked for the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration's U.S. embassy office from 2011 to 2013. Tapped as deputy civil aviation minister, Habibi helped transition Afghanistan's air traffic system from U.S. control to the U.S.-backed Kabul government. Habibi became civil aviation minister in 2017. He held that post until 2019 while earning a civil aviation master's degree from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida, the university confirmed. In 2019, he resigned and then joined ARX to help oversee its Afghan subsidiary's contract to run air traffic control at Kabul's international airport. Habibi lived between the city and the United States, accumulating the last of the 30 months of U.S. residency he needed over a five-year period for U.S. citizenship in 2021, Ahmad said. He was in Kabul with his family during the chaotic departure of the last U.S. troops in August 2021, Ahmad said, as the Taliban consolidated its grip on the capital after 20 years of war. Habibi flew from Dubai to Kabul on August 4, 2022, after stopping in Qatar to check on his family and parents who were housed on a U.S. military base there waiting for final processing of U.S. immigration visas, said Ahmad. A week later Habibi was arrested. His wife, daughter and parents, who waited in Qatar until October for their visas before flying to the United States and settling in California, have not seen or heard from him since. Resolving Habibi's case would be the easiest way for the Taliban, who crave international recognition as Afghanistan's legitimate rulers, to explore improving ties with the U.S., the current U.S. official said. Since Habibi's detention, four other Americans have been arrested and released by the Taliban.
NHK
a day ago
- NHK
Senior Chinese diplomat Liu Jianchao detained for questioning, WSJ reports
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that senior Chinese diplomat Liu Jianchao has been taken away by authorities for questioning. The WSJ carried the news in its online edition on Saturday, citing people familiar with the matter. The report says Liu, the head of the International Department of the Chinese Communist Party's Central Committee, was taken away after returning to Beijing in late July from a work trip overseas. It says the reason for his detention could not be determined. NHK has asked the Chinese foreign ministry for comment on the report, but has not received a reply. The 61-year-old diplomat has served in various posts, including as foreign ministry spokesperson and ambassador to the Philippines. He assumed his current position in 2022, and has frequently held talks with Japanese politicians including senior ruling party officials. The report on Liu's detention is drawing attention as another senior Chinese diplomat was removed from office two years ago. The then foreign minister Qin Gang was dismissed more than six months after he was appointed.
Japan Times
2 days ago
- Japan Times
FSA eager to back regional bank realignment
Financial Services Agency Commissioner Yutaka Ito has expressed eagerness to support the realignment of regional banks to enhance financial services in Japan. "We will do our best to support consolidations and mergers if they contribute to the provision of high-quality regional financial services," Ito said in a recent interview. Ito, who took office in July, stressed that cooperation with nonfinancial businesses is also crucial for the management of regional lenders. "In order to make the management foundation sustainable, options such as reorganization, standardization of operations and collaboration with nonfinancial businesses should be considered," he said. Although financial institutions' profits are improving thanks to interest rate hikes by the Bank of Japan, the environment surrounding such institutions "will change rapidly from now on," Ito said, claiming that they "need to make management decisions now." The FSA plans to draw up a program to strengthen regional financial capabilities by the end of this year, which will include the extension and expansion of the public fund injection system. Ito showed eagerness to establish a backup system to maintain financial functions in the event of natural disasters. He also expressed his intention to improve the subsidy system that can be used on the occasions of mergers and business integrations. Meanwhile, malicious fraudulent loans have been discovered at regional credit cooperative Iwaki Shinkumi Bank in Fukushima Prefecture where public funds were injected after the March 2011 major earthquake and tsunami. "We need to ensure appropriate business operations," Ito said. "At the minimum, we have to conduct business management and prevent fraudulent practices at institutions in which we have equity participation." In recent years, there have been a series of scandals in the financial industry, such as illicit automobile insurance claims and safe deposit box thefts. "If we take superficial measures, problems will arise again," Ito said, calling for reforms after finding out the root causes.
