China Xinjiang military boss booted off ruling council after attack

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's ruling Communist Party announced on Sunday the removal of the military chief of restive Xinjiang from the region's governing council, following a car crash in Beijing's Tiananmen Square blamed on Islamist militants from Xinjiang.

The official Xinjiang Daily said in a brief front page report that Peng Yong had been sacked as a member of Xinjiang's Communist Party Standing Committee, and would be replaced by Liu Lei, an army veteran with more than a decade's experience in the region.

The newspaper gave no reason for the move, but the party frequently removes top officials following such incidents as it seeks to apportion blame.

The incident was especially embarrassing for the stability-obsessed party given the billions of dollars it spends every year on domestic security, not only in Xinjiang but across the country, and that the crash happened in the heart of Beijing.

Peng was appointed commander of the Xinjiang military region in July 2011. It is likely that he will also be relieved of his military duties.

Real power in China lies with party bodies rather than government ones, as that is where the key decisions are made.

The government has blamed Islamist extremists plotting holy war after a vehicle police said was laden with gasoline ploughed into bystanders outside the front entrance of the Forbidden City, on the north of Tiananmen Square.

The three people in the car died, as did two tourists. More than 40 were injured. Police have also detained five suspected accomplices.

Security has been stepped up in Beijing and Xinjiang following the incident.

Beijing party chief Guo Jinlong has urged the police to improve their capacity to collect intelligence and take precautions against further attacks, the city government-run Beijing Daily said on Sunday.

Guo urged police and security forces to "look for vulnerable links" and "learn the lessons" from the incident, the report said.

Xinjiang is home to the Muslim Uighur minority, many of whom chafe at China's restrictions on their religion, culture and language, though the government says they are granted broad freedoms.

Xinjiang has been wracked by unrest in recent years, blamed by the government on the separatist East Turkestan Islamic Movement which Beijing believes was also responsible for last week's incident.

Rights groups, exiles and some experts say, though, that there is little evidence of a cohesive extremist movement operating in Xinjiang.

In 2009, some 200 people died in Xinjiang's regional capital Urumqi during riots which pitted Uighurs against the majority Han Chinese.

(Reporting By Dominique Patton and Ben Blanchard; Editing by Ron Popeski)

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China security chief blames Uighur separatists for Tiananmen attack

By Megha Rajagopalan

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's domestic security chief believes a fatal vehicle crash in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in which five died was planned by a Uighur separatist group, designated as a terrorist organisation by the United States and United Nations.

Meng Jianzhu, a member of the 25-member Politburo responsible for domestic security, said the East Turkestan Islamic Movement was behind the attack. This is the first time Beijing has accused the group of carrying out the attack.

On Monday, an SUV ploughed through bystanders on the edge of the capital's iconic Tiananmen Square and burst into flames, killing the three people in the car and two bystanders, in what the government called a terrorist attack.

Beijing police have arrested five people it says were radical Islamists who were planning a holy war. Security has been strengthened in both Beijing and in Xinjiang, the restive far western region the Muslim Uighurs call home.

"This violent terrorist incident that's happened in Beijing was organised and premeditated," said Meng told Hong Kong's Phoenix TV, in comments carried by the official Xinhua news agency on Friday.

"The group that stood behind the scenes inciting it was the East Turkestan Islamic Movement," Meng said.

Many Uighurs call Xinjiang East Turkestan, and the government often blames the frequent outbreaks of violence there on extremists agitating for an independent state.

Some experts have expressed scepticism about China's characterisation of the Tiananmen Square incident as a premeditated and coordinated attack.

"If it's a deliberate act, it's unsophisticated," said Joanne Smith Finley, a lecturer in Chinese studies at Newcastle University who studies Xinjiang. "It doesn't carry any of the hallmarks that we would expect to see if it was something that was plotted and carefully deliberated with overseas extremists."

The United Nations and U.S. placed ETIM on lists of terrorist organisations after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

The group entered the public eye ahead of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, when it claimed to have caused a series of fatal explosions across the country.

Police said the driver of the SUV as a man called Usmen Hasan, whose name suggests he is a Uighur, and said his mother and wife were in the car with him, along with devices filled with gasoline and a flag with "extreme religious content" on it.

At least 42 people were injured.

Exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer told Reuters this week that caution should be exercised over the government's account, adding she did not believe any kind of organised extremist Islamic movement was operating in Xinjiang.

Xinjiang, a sprawling, desert-like region that borders Central Asian nations that were part of the former Soviet Union as well as Afghanistan and Pakistan, has been beset by violence, blamed by China on Uighur separatists and extremists.

In 2009, nearly 200 people were killed in the Xinjiang capital Urumqi in rioting between Uighurs and the majority Han Chinese.

The East Turkestan Islamic Movement has been accused by the United States and China of having ties to al Qaeda, but there is disagreement among security experts as to the nature of the enigmatic group and whether ties with al Qaeda and other terrorist organisations really exist.

Rights organisations have said there is little concrete evidence that the group has carried out most of the attacks it has been blamed for, and that Beijing uses the group as an excuse to push repressive policies on Uighurs. (Editing by Ben Blanchard and Michael Perry, additional reporting by Adam Rose)

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CORRECTED - Indian Mujahideen behind attack on Modi rally: police

(Corrects spelling of Jharkhand in para 6, number of dead in Mumbai attacks, final para)

By Jatindra Dash and Frank Jack Daniel

REUTERS - An Islamist militant group is believed to be behind an attack on a rally by Narendra Modi that killed six people and wounded more than 80, police said on Tuesday.

Modi, who has a good chance of becoming India's next prime minister, is seen as a target of militants who hold him responsible for riots a decade ago during his first term as chief minister of Gujarat. At least 1,000 people, most of them Muslims, were killed in the rioting.

Seven crude bombs went off on Sunday in Bihar as Modi's supporters gathered for his rally. He was not near any of the blasts and delivered his speech despite the attack.

Senior police official S.N. Pradhan said one of two suspects arrested after the blasts had identified a suspected senior member of the Indian Mujahideen militant group, Tehseen Akhtar, as the organiser of the attack.

The National Investigation Agency, India's top counter terrorism body, is seeking the arrest of the 24-year-old Akhtar in connection with attacks in recent years in the cities of Mumbai and Varanasi and is investigating his role in blasts in Hyderabad in February.

"Because of the Tehseen connection, the entire chain is established," said Pradhan, a senior police official in Jharkhand, where the detained suspect is from.

"There is no doubt that it is the work of the Indian Mujahideen."

Police said the bombers were trying to spark a stampede in the crowd. Heavy loss of life could have inflamed tension, recently simmering again, between majority Hindus and minority Muslims.

The Indian Mujahideen has been accused of dozens of similar bomb attacks over recent years.

The ease with which the bombs were planted around the rally ground, where tens of thousands of people gathered to hear Modi, has raised concern about Modi's safety.

Leaders of his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have called the attack a big security failure and have demanded better protection for him.

There has been no claim of responsibility.

LEADER ARRESTED

Opinion polls suggest the BJP, which is seeking to unseat a ruling coalition led by the Congress party, could win the most seats in a general election due by May.

Critics say Modi did not do enough to stop rampaging Hindu mobs in the 2002 riots in Gujarat. Modi denies any role in the violence and a Supreme Court appointed panel cleared him of wrongdoing.

Modi rejects any suggestion of bias against Muslims although his party rose to prominence after leading a campaign that led to the destruction of the Babri Masjid mosque in 1992, which triggered rioting that killed some 2,000 people.

The party said the mosque was built on a Hindu holy site.

The Indian Mujahideen claimed responsibility for a series of bomb attacks in Gujarat in 2011 that killed at least 45 people, saying they were revenge for the 2002 riots.

India arrested the organisation's suspected leader, Yasin Bhaktal, near the border with Nepal in August but Sunday's explosions would appear to indicate the group can still launch high-profile attacks.

Police also suspect the Indian Mujahideen's involvement in a series of blasts in July at the Buddhist holy site of Bodh Gaya in Bihar.

A National Intelligence Agency official told Reuters an analysis of the bombs used in the Sunday attack showed they were similar to devices used in Bodh Gaya. In both attacks, ammonium nitrate was detected, and the timers and circuits were similar, the official said.

In 2011, the United States designated the Indian Mujahideen a terrorist organization with close links to Pakistan-based groups like the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).

The State Department said the group played a "facilitative role" in the 2008 Mumbai attack carried out by LeT that killed 166 people, including six Americans.

For a map locating blasts click link.reuters.com/saw24v

(Writing by Frank Jack Daniel; Editng by Robert Birsel)

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China suspects Tiananmen crash a suicide attack, sources say

By Benjamin Kang Lim and Ben Blanchard

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese authorities investigating what could be Beijing's first major suicide attack searched on Tuesday for two men from Muslim-dominated Xinjiang after three people suspected to be from the restive region drove an SUV into a crowd at Tiananmen Square and set it on fire.

They killed themselves and two tourists on Monday in the square, the heart of China's power structure and the focal point of the mass 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations brutally crushed the military.

Police have spread a dragnet across the capital, checking hotels and vehicles, seeking two people suspected to be ethnic Uighurs, a Muslim minority from Xinjiang in China's far west, on the borders of former Soviet Central Asia.

Two senior sources said on Tuesday the crash, which also injured 38 bystanders at perhaps the most closely guarded location in China, was suspected of being a suicide attack carried out by people from Xinjiang. It was initially believed to be an accident.

The sources did not specifically say the occupants were Uighurs, many of whom chafe at Chinese controls on their culture and religion.

"It looks like a pre-meditated suicide attack," said a source with direct knowledge of the matter, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid repercussions for talking to the foreign media.

There have been suicide bombings before in China, and in Beijing, mostly by people with personal grievances, but none have targeted the very heart of China's government like this appears to have.

China has blamed Uighur separatists and religious extremists for a series of attacks in Xinjiang, saying they want to establish an independent state called East Turkestan. Rights groups and exiles say China massively overstates the threat.

In 2009, nearly 200 people were killed in clashes between Uighurs and ethnic Chinese in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang. But the unrest has never before spilled over into China's capital despite speculation in 1997 that Uighurs were to blame for a Beijing bus bomb that killed at least two people.

Uighurs are also not known to have previously carried out suicide attacks.

Exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer, who is based in Washington, said in a statement that she was worried that Monday's crash would bring a fierce crackdown on her people.

Kadeer, who left China in 2005, heads an international Uighur exile organization called the World Uighur Congress, based in Germany. Her group urged calm and voiced concern that Chinese censorship would stop facts from coming out.

"The Chinese government will not hesitate to concoct a version of the incident in Beijing so as to further impose repressive measures on the Uighur people," she said.

Kadeer said China has used the international fight against terrorism launched after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States as a pretext for a crackdown on the Uighurs in Xinjiang.

"There is no sign we will see anything different this time, even though evidence of what really happened yesterday is thin on the ground," she said in the statement from Washington.

'NO ACCIDENT'

China's government has given no official word on whether the incident was an accident or an attack. State media has mostly kept to reporting brief statements from the police and official Xinhua news agency giving a bare bones account of what happened, as is common for such sensitive events.

Police are still investigating and have yet to determine the identities of the three people in the sport utility vehicle but suspect they are from Xinjiang, according to the sources. The other dead were a Chinese man and a woman from the Philippines, both tourists.

However, Beijing police said late on Monday they were looking for two suspects from Xinjiang in connection with a "major incident" - though it was unclear if these were the people in the vehicle or accomplices still at large.

The sources said that the occupants were suspected of lighting a flammable substance in the vehicle.

"It was no accident. The jeep knocked down barricades and rammed into pedestrians. The three men had no plans to flee from the scene," said a source who has ties to the leadership.

A Reuters reporter at the scene at the time said he did not hear any gunshots.

On Monday night, hours after the fire, Beijing police issued a notice asking local hotels about suspicious guests who had checked in since October 1 and named two suspects it said were from Xinjiang. Four hotels told Reuters they had received the notice.

Judging by their names, the suspects appeared to be ethnic Uighurs.

"To prevent the suspected persons and vehicles from committing further crimes ... please notify law enforcement of any discovery of clues regarding these suspects and the vehicles," said the notice, which was widely circulated on Chinese microblogs.

Beijing police, contacted by telephone, declined to comment. On Monday, the police said on their official microblog only that they were investigating the accident, and did not say if they thought it was an attack.

Calls to the Xinjiang government went unanswered.

Barry Sautman, a political scientist at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology who has studied Xinjiang, said if it were confirmed as a suicide attack by Uighurs, it would be a first.

"Certainly there have been a lot of bombings carried out by Uighur groups, but none of them as far as I know have involved suicide," he said.

Ilham Tohti, a China-based ethnic Uighur economist and longtime critic of Chinese policy in Xinjiang, said Uighurs had been driven to take extreme measures by China's repression.

"The use of violent means happens because all other outlets for expression are gone. Uighurs do not have any representation, they have no means of self-expression," he told Reuters.

China denies mistreating any of its minority groups, saying they are guaranteed wide-ranging religious and cultural freedoms. Many rights groups say China has overplayed the threat posed to justify its tough controls in energy-rich Xinjiang, which lies strategically on the borders of Central Asia, India and Pakistan.

IN FRONT OF MAO'S PORTRAIT

Police said on Monday the sport utility vehicle veered off the road at the north of the square, crossed the barriers and caught fire almost directly in front of the main entrance of the Forbidden City, in front of a huge portrait of the founder of Communist China, Mao Zedong.

Pictures seen by Reuters showed that the vehicle appeared to have driven several hundred metres (yards) along the pedestrian pavement in front of the Forbidden City entrance before bursting into flames, knocking down people as it went.

One eyewitness, who asked not to be identified due to the incident's sensitive nature, said she saw the vehicle knock down three or four people, and that it had a white banner with black lettering on it streaming from the back.

"People started to panic, and all ran to hide in the toilet," she said. "Three or four minutes later I came out and could see black smoke, and the police had begun to clear people out."

While censors moved quickly to remove pictures of the incident from the popular Twitter-like service Sina Weibo, as often happens in stability-obsessed China, many images and accounts are still viewable a day after the event.

Beijing police stepped up checks on cars around the city in response to the incident, one police officer at a checkpoint on the border between Beijing and Hebei province told Reuters.

A state newspaper reported in July that the government suspected Syrian opposition forces were training extremists from Xinjiang to carry out attacks in China.

"They have been known to carry out attacks outside of Xinjiang," said Yang Shu, a terrorism expert at China's Lanzhou University.

"There have also been reports that East Turkestan elements have received training in Syria, so I would say the possibility does exist of a Xinjiang connection," he added.

(Additional reporting by Beijing newsroom, Adam Rose, Megha Rajagopalan and Michael Martina; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

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Russian Bolshoi dancer denies ordering acid attack as trial starts

By Maria Tsvetkova

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian dancer Pavel Dmitrichenko pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to ordering an acid attack that nearly blinded the Bolshoi ballet's artistic director, and a jobless former convict accused of carrying it out told a court he had acted alone.

Guards brought Dmitrichenko and the suspected attacker, Yuri Zarutsky, handcuffed into a Moscow court room and locked them in a metal cage with a third defendant at the start of a case that has tarnished the reputation of a prime Russian cultural symbol.

All face 12 years jail if convicted of intentionally inflicting grave bodily harm on Sergei Filin in the January17 attack that shocked Russia.

Dmitrichenko, looking pale and reading out a pre-written statement from a piece of paper, denied the charges. He had said previously that he wanted Filin to be roughed up but had been shocked to learn that acid was used.

"What happened to Filin is a result of Zarutsky's savage conduct, not a result of my activities. I had no hostile attitude towards Filin," Dmitrichenko said.

"Zarutsky... heeding his own motives, committed this dangerous act, which we never discussed since I had no intent, and could not have had one to commit such act in any form."

Prosecutors say Zarutsky attacked Filin on his return home from the Bolshoi late in the evening and left the 43-year-old in the snow, writhing in agony.

COUNTRY HOUSE

"I admit guilt," Zarutsky, wearing jeans and a sweater, said from the cage.

"I admit being guilty of attacking Filin. But I do not admit to doing it in cahoots with Pavel Dmitrichenko and Andrei Lipatov," he said, referring to the other two defendants.

Zarutsky, 35, in the past spent 7 years in jail for battery, his defence lawyer Sergei Kuprianov said.

He said under Russian law, the maximum jail sentence would be lower if the judge ruled the suspects were not acting as a group and found only one person responsible.

Dmitrichenko and Zarutsky sat at different ends of the court room cage and did not speak to one another, separated by Lipatov who is accused of driving the attacker to and from the site.

Dmitrichenko said during pre-trial hearings he had become acquainted with Zarutsky at his country house outside Moscow and had complained to him before the attack over what he described as favouritism by Filin in his powerful role.

Filin was not present during the hearing. His lawyer said he was in Germany for more medical treatment on his eyes after more than 20 surgeries to save his sight and treat his face.

The scandal led to the dismissal of Anatoly Iksanov, veteran head of the Bolshoi, a colonnaded building near the redbrick walls of the Kremlin. The new head, Vladimir Urin, hopes to turn the spotlight back to the stage from behind-the-scenes drama.

Prior to his departure, Iksanov suggested that another top ballet dancer, Nikolai Tsiskaridze, might have played a role in inciting the attack. Tsiskaridze denied playing any part and, when his contract was not renewed in June, accused Iksanov of conducting a witch-hunt to hound him out of the theatre.

On Monday, Tsiskaridze was appointed acting director at the Vaganova Ballet Academy in Russia's second city, St Petersburg. (Writing by Gabriela Baczynska; editing by Ralph Boulton)

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Attack on African student: 10 years for seven youths

Chandigarh, Oct 24 (IANS) A sessions court in Punjab's Jalandhar city Thursday sentenced seven youths to 10 years' rigorous imprisonment for a murderous assault on a young African student in April last year.

The seven, belonging to middle class families and including the son of a former Punjab police officer, attacked Yannick Nihangaza, a student from the East African nation of Burundi, and left him critically injured.

Yannick remained in coma for a few months before regaining consciousness.

He, however, continues to be bed-ridden in a private hospital in Patiala, 80 km from here. Doctors say Yannick suffered irreversible brain damage.

The attack took place when Yannick was going to a birthday party in Jalandhar, 160 km from here, April 21. He was attacked following an argument over a small matter outside a liquor shop.

The Punjab government had announced it would bear the expenses of Yannick's treatment and also the cost to airlift him to Burundi.

Yannick was pursuing a B.Sc. degree in computers at the Lovely Professional University near Jalandhar.

His father, who arrived in India April 29, after being told about his son's condition, shifted him to Patiala for treatment.

Yannick's plight came to light after his father wrote an emotional letter to Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, seeking his help for medical treatment and requesting that Yannick gets justice.

While sanctioning a Rs.500,000 grant to Yannick's father, Badal promised to extend all possible assistance for his treatment.

The Jalandhar police arrested the youths involved in the assault after the media reported the incident.

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Bolshoi ballet dancer denies guilt at acid attack trial

By Maria Tsvetkova and Gabriela Baczynska

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian dancer Pavel Dmitrichenko denied any guilt as he went on trial on Tuesday over an acid attack that nearly blinded the artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet.

Dmitrichenko, 29, was led into a Moscow courtroom in handcuffs to face trial for the assault last winter that exposed bitter rivalries behind the scenes at one of Russia's great cultural institutions.

He and two alleged accomplices face up to 12 years in prison if they are convicted of intentionally causing grievous bodily harm in the attack on Sergei Filin on January 17.

"I do not admit that I am guilty," Dmitrichenko, who had dark rings under his eyes, told journalists after officers led him and two co-defendants into a metal courtroom cage. He looked at his parents and gave them a brief smile.

Dmitrichenko, who wore a sweater, shook his head at other questions from reporters and said he would have his say in court. But the trial was adjourned until October 29 because of the absence of a lawyer for one of the other two defendants.

Filin, whose position gave him power to make or break careers, was returning home when a masked assailant called his name and threw acid in his face from a jar, leaving him writhing in the snow and calling for help.

At a hearing in March, Dmitrichenko said he had wanted Filin to be roughed up but had been shocked to learn that acid was used.

"Pasha is our third child. Our beloved son. The youngest and the most talented one. I think my son is not guilty," Dmitrichenko's mother Nadezhda said in the courtroom, referring to her son by the diminutive form.

"JUST VERDICT"

Dmitrichenko, who has been in custody since March, is standing trial with Yuri Zarutsky, the alleged attacker, and Andrei Lipatov, who is accused of driving the assailant to and from the scene.

"I hope the court will be able to distance itself from the public resonance of this case and deliver a well-grounded and just verdict," Dmitrichenko's lawyer, Sergei Kadyrov, said on Monday.

Born into a family of dancers, Dmitrichenko played roles including a murderous Russian monarch in Ivan the Terrible and a villain in Swan Lake. On the Bolshoi Theatre's website, his picture remains alongside other leading soloists in the renowned ballet troupe.

"A crime was committed. It must be solved. If Pavel's guilt is proven, he should be punished," Bolshoi spokeswoman Katerina Novikova said on Monday. "In any case, for us this situation is tragic - it involves our friends and colleagues."

In court Dmitrichenko said he had told Zarutsky about alleged corruption at the Bolshoi and accused Filin of playing favourites in the distribution of financial grants.

The scandal over the attack has damaged the theatre's reputation and that of its management and stars.

The Russian government dismissed the Bolshoi's longtime head Anatoly Iksanov in July, and earlier this year the theatre declined to renew the contract of Nikolai Tsiskaridze, a top dancer who feuded with Filin and Iksanov.

After months of treatment in Germany, Filin, 42, was back at the Bolshoi last month at the ceremonial opening of its 238th season, with dark glasses shielding his damaged eyes.

But with more operations expected on top of the more than 20 he has already undergone, Novikova has said it is unclear to what extent Filin will be able to resume his duties. (Editing by Steve Gutterman and Giles Elgood)

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Bolshoi ballet dancer to stand trial over acid attack

By Gabriela Baczynska

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Dancer Pavel Dmitrichenko, who made his name on stage at Moscow's Bolshoi Theatre, goes on trial on Tuesday for an acid attack that nearly blinded the ballet's artistic director.

Dmitrichenko, 29, is accused of organising the assault on Sergei Filin early this year which exposed bitter rivalries behind the scenes at one of Russia's greatest cultural institutions.

He and two alleged accomplices could be sentenced to up to 12 years in prison if they are convicted of intentionally causing grievous bodily harm.

Filin, whose position gives him power to make or break careers, was returning home on January 17 when a masked assailant called his name and threw acid in his face from a jar, leaving him writhing in the snow and calling for help.

At a hearing in March, Dmitrichenko admitted he had wanted Filin to be roughed up but had been shocked to learn that acid was used.

"Dmitrichenko does not consider himself guilty of causing grave harm to Filin's health," his lawyer, Sergei Kadyrov, said on Monday. "I hope the court will be able to distance itself from the public resonance of this case and deliver a well-grounded and just verdict."

Dmitrichenko, who has been in custody since March, will stand trial with Yuri Zarutsky, the alleged attacker, and Andrei Lipatov, who is accused of driving the assailant to and from the scene.

Born into a family of dancers, he played roles including a murderous Russian monarch in Ivan the Terrible and a villain in Swan Lake. On the Bolshoi Theatre's website, his picture remains alongside other leading soloists in the renowned ballet troupe.

"A crime was committed. It must be solved. If Pavel's guilt is proven, he should be punished," Bolshoi spokeswoman Katerina Novikova said on Monday. "In any case, for us this situation is tragic - it involves our friends and colleagues."

In court Dmitrichenko said he had told Zarutsky about alleged corruption at the Bolshoi and accused Filin of playing favourites in the distribution of financial grants.

The scandal over the attack has damaged the theatre's reputation and that of its management and stars.

The Russian government dismissed the Bolshoi's longtime head Anatoly Iksanov in July, and earlier this year the theatre declined to renew the contract of Nikolai Tsiskaridze, a top dancer who feuded with Filin and Iksanov.

After months of treatment in Germany, Filin, 42, was back at the Bolshoi last month at the ceremonial inauguration of its 238th season, with dark glasses shielding his damaged eyes.

But with more operations expected on top of the more than 20 he has already undergone, Novikova has said it is unclear how many of his duties he could resume. (Editing by Steve Gutterman and David Stamp)

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