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Al Qaeda leadership in Pakistan: Hillary Clinton * US taxes everything, and ‘that’s not what we see in Pakistan’ * Pakistan must start planning for challenges posed by population growth * US secretary of state meets COAS LAHORE: The leadership of Al Qaeda is in Pakistan, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Thursday. “I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and couldn’t get them if they really wanted to,” she added. “Maybe that’s the case; maybe they’re not gettable. I don’t know... As far as we know, they are in...

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has questioned Pakistan's commitment to hunt top al-Qaeda leadership hiding inside the country and accused it of failing to track them down. "Al-Qaeda has had safe haven in Pakistan since 2002... I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and couldn't get them if they really wanted to," Clinton told a group of senior Pakistani journalists in Lahore on Thursday. "Maybe that's the case, maybe they're not gettable. I don't know... As far as we know, they are in Pakistan," she said in unusually blunt remarks during...

Art Keller, a blond, blue-eyed CIA agent, sits inside a decrepit building deep inside al-Qaeda territory, staring at his computer screen. He is forbidden by his Pakistani minders from venturing out into the badlands of Waziristan to help to find and kill the world’s most wanted man. He is sick and exhausted, and suffering from food poisoning. Back home in the US his father is dying of cancer. The plumbing is basic, the heat intense — the generator has failed again. He pores over cables looking for any scrap of information — an intercepted phone call, an aerial photograph —...

ISLAMABAD — A Taliban faction leader who criticized the militant group's Pakistani head over attacks that killed civilians was fatally shot Tuesday, reportedly by one of his own guards. Dr. Mahmood Khan Bitani told The Associated Press that he pronounced Qari Zainuddin dead on arrival at a hospital in the northwest town of Dera Ismail Khan with gunshot wounds to the head and chest. Baz Mohammad, an aide of the militant leader who also was wounded, said a guard barged into a room at Zainuddin's compound after morning prayers and opened fire. He accused Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud of...

Nuclear Proliferation: Al-Qaida says it will use Pakistan's nuclear weapons against the U.S. if it ever gets the chance. We're not surprised. Nor would we be surprised if it eventually got the opportunity."God willing, the (Pakistani) nuclear weapons will not fall into the hands of the Americans, and the mujahedeen would take them and use them against the Americans." So says Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, al-Qaida's top commander in Afghanistan, where the terror group has found a friend and ally in the Taliban. If you think 9/11 was bad, just wait until al-Qaida gets a nuke, which is not as far-fetched...

Al Qaeda says would use Pakistani nuclear weapons 21 Jun 2009 21:01:19 GMT Source: Reuters By Inal Ersan DUBAI, June 21 (Reuters) - If it were in a position to do so, Al Qaeda would use Pakistan's nuclear weapons in its fight against the United States, a top leader of the group said in remarks aired on Sunday. Pakistan has been battling al Qaeda's Taliban allies in the Swat Valley since April after their thrust into a district 100 km (60 miles) northwest of the capital raised fears the nuclear-armed country could slowly slip into militant hands. "God willing, the...

Al Qaeda has transferred seven operatives from the Iraq theater to target senior Pakistani leaders. The targets of the planned attacks are President Zardari, Prime Minister Gilani, General Kiyani, and other senior military officers, cabinet ministers, and provincial leaders. The seven operatives, who were behind deadly attacks in Iraq, reportedly met in Afghanistan's eastern province of Paktia on May 3 to plan the operations, according to a report in the Daily Times. The al Qaeda operatives are assigned to cooperate with the Pakistani Taliban, led by Baitullah Mehsud. The operatives were identified as Amanullah Afghani, Shahidullah Khan, Maulvi Khalid Shah,...

Could our worst nightmare in the War on Terror could now be possible true? Does Al-Qeade or the Taliban have one or more bombs from Pakistan's Arsenal? I was thinking about how naive the Obama White House has been when it comes to the War on Terror, but the last 2 weeks has brought forth this major concern. It began some two weeks ago, when the Obama White House and State Department publicly became embittered at the fact that Pakistan's civilian leader would not tell them the location or in what condition Pakistan's Nuclear Arsenal happens to be and I...

Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda's No. 2 leader, the most wanted terrorist after Osama bin Laden, with a $25 million bounty on his head, is holed up near Quetta, Pakistan, according to a highly placed Pakistani intelligence source. The Egyptian-born radical is a master of disguise, a meticulous planner and the deadliest of terrorists. Yet Pakistani intelligence sources say he roams openly and with impunity in the border regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan. While Predators continue to strike at a variety of key terror targets in that area, our source tells us that the CIA and other intelligence agencies cannot get...

Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda's No. 2 leader, the most wanted terrorist after Osama bin Laden, with a $25 million bounty on his head, is holed up near Quetta, Pakistan, according to a highly placed Pakistani intelligence source.

WASHINGTON/ISLAMABAD: Al Qaeda’s operations chief in Pakistan and a top aide have been killed, Pakistani officials confirmed on Friday. Operations chief Osama Al-Kini was thought responsible for attacks including the bombing of Marriott hotel in Islamabad and an unsuccessful attempt to kill former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. Al-Kini and his lieutenant Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan, both Kenyans, were killed in a missile strike in South Waziristan on January 1. Security officials in Islamabad said Al-Kini’s killing would relieve the security apparatus of a ‘big worry’. agencies

A New Year's CIA strike in northern Pakistan killed two top al-Qaeda terrorists long sought by the United States, including the man believed to be behind September's deadly suicide bombing at a Marriott hotel in the Pakistani capital, U.S. counterterrorism officials told The Washingon Post today. Agency officials determined in recent days that among the dead in the Jan. 1 missile strike were a Kenyan national who used the name Usama al-Kini and who was described as al-Qaeda's chief of operations in Pakistan and his lieutenant, identified as Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan, the sources said. Both men were associated with...

WASHINGTON: The United States and India face tactics bordering on blackmail from a militarized Pakistan - where civilian control is still very dodgy - as they coordinate efforts to eliminate terrorism in the region, according to analysts and officials on both sides. In what is turning out to be an elaborate chess game in the region, Islamabad on Saturday made its "Afghan move" to counter the US-India pincer, telling Washington that it will have to withdraw some 100,000 Pakistani troops posted on its western borders to fight the al-Qaida-Taliban and move them east to the Indian front if New Delhi...

Al Qaeda Bag of Shit, Rashid Rauf, heads off to see the virgins Gotta love Hellfire packin' Predators. More . . .

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — A British militant who was a liaison to Al Qaeda and was a main suspect in the plot to blow up trans-Atlantic airliners in 2006 was killed Saturday in a missile strike by an American aircraft in northern Pakistan, senior Pakistani and American officials said. The militant, Rashid Rauf, was among the five people killed in the attack by a remotely piloted aircraft in North Waziristan, close to the Afghan border, the officials said. He is perhaps the best-known of the figures killed in an American airstrike campaign there that has intensified since August and has caused...

A fugitive British militant linked to an alleged UK plot to use liquid bombs to blow up transatlantic airliners has been killed in Pakistan, reports say. Pakistani media said Rashid Rauf, born in Birmingham, was killed in a US air strike in North Waziristan, a haven for militants and the Taleban. Mr Rauf, on the run after escaping from a Pakistani jail, was alleged to have helped the group planning the attacks. Three men were convicted in the UK in September of conspiracy to murder. News of the liquid bomb plot paralysed global air travel, prompting authorities to implement stringent...

Rashid Rauf, 27, who grew up in Birmingham, was killed along with at least three other militants in the attack on the house of a local tribesman in the North Waziristan area, A US drone targeted the home in the village of Alikhel, part of a district known as a stronghold for al-Qaeda and the Taliban. "The transatlantic bombing plot alleged mastermind Rashid Rauf was killed along with an Egyptian al-Qaeda operative in the US missile strike in North Waziristan," a senior Pakistani security official said. Rauf, who has been on the run after escaping from a Pakistani jail nearly...

PESHAWAR, Pakistan - A suspected U.S. missile strike killed the alleged ringleader of a plot to blow up trans-Atlantic jets, Pakistani television and intelligence officers said on Saturday. Rashid Rauf, a British Islamist militant with links to al-Qaida, was among five victims of an attack launched by a suspected U.S. pilotless drone aircraft in the North Waziristan tribal region. Intelligence officers in the region, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters that Rauf, who escaped from custody outside an Islamabad court last December, had been killed. However, there was no official confirmation.

Karachi, 26 Sept. (AKI) - By Syed Saleem Shahzad - A militant Al-Qaeda satellite cell linked to Pakistan's top Taliban commander, Baitullah Mehsud, and other jihadi organisations was targeted in a major raid by security forces in Karachi on Friday. Three key militants died during the raid on the cell, which was allegedly planning a campaign of destruction. Their targets are believed to have included the bureau of the country's intelligence services (ISI), NATO supply lines from two Karachi ports and anti-Taliban politicians. The satellite cell had direct links to Baitullah Mehsud and Qari Zafar, the alleged mastermind of the...

This was the scene yesterday in the Bajaur tribal region, as it has been for much of the past six weeks. Bajaur, which borders southeastern Afghanistan, is a main operating base for al-Qaeda and the Taleban; Pakistani intelligence believes that Ayman al-Zawahri, the second-in-command of al-Qaeda, has been a visitor. Now it is the venue for the fiercest battle between Pakistani military and Islamic fighters since Pakistan joined the US War on Terror in 2001. More than 8,000 Pakistani troops have been involved in the six-week campaign. The generals claimed yesterday to have killed 1,000 militants so far – yet...

Brett looks at Al Qaeda in Pakistan, Iran and Mexico's Drug Civil War. Did US Hackers take out the AlQaeda 9/11 Video? Is You Tube really committed to taking terror vids down? Find out in today's exciting episode. Running Time 60 Mins.

The US military conducted another airstrike inside Pakistan's lawless tribal agencies. The target of the strike was an al Qaeda-linked group called Al Badar, which is run by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Unmanned Predator aircraft launched several missiles in the early morning at a target in the village of Tol Khel on the outskirts of Miramshah, the administrative seat of North Waziristan. Twelve members of Al Badar (or Al Badr) were reported killed and 14 were reported wounded in the attack, according to AFP. Al Badar is a Kashmiri terrorist group supported by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. The group "is reported to have training...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — President Bush secretly approved orders allowing American Special Operations forces to undertake ground assaults inside Pakistan this summer without getting prior Pakistani government approval, a former intelligence official said Thursday.

War On Terror: Al-Qaida's leaders in Pakistan sure like to hear themselves talk. But the next sound they hear may be the crack of U.S. troops kicking down their doors.For the first time, President Bush has given ground forces authority to pursue terrorists across the Afghan border into Pakistan. No longer must they seek Islamabad's permission to conduct raids against our enemy holed up inside Pakistan. Last month's secret order led to the unprecedented special forces assault on a Pakistani tribal compound suspected of harboring Taliban and al-Qaida fighters. The Sept. 4 raid, led by attack choppers, left 15 dead....

Last year, Barack Obama had the right smirking with glee when he made the sensible suggestion that if the U.S. gets intelligence that there are Al Qaeda cells operating in Pakistan, we should go in and get them, with or without permission of the Pakistani government. If Pakistan won't root out Al Qaeda, Obama said, his administration would. I never quite understood the controversy in that statement, which by the way, is the position of many in the U.S. military. Nevertheless, Obama was roundly ridiculed. John McCain said the statement showed Obama's naivete...

n a rare move, one of al-Qaida's highest-ranking leaders has conducted an on-camera interview with a journalist and, in the process, called for the destruction of Pakistan's government. It was the first time since 2002 that any top al-Qaida official has taken the security risk of sitting down for an interview with a bonafide journalist.Abu Mustafa al-Yazid, an Egyptian whom U.S. intelligence officials have identified as the al-Qaeda's third highest-ranking official, sat for an interview with Najeeb Ahmad, a reporter for Geo TV. Geo TV is a private Pakistani television channel.  In the interview, Yazid, also known as Sheikh Saeed,...

Next 9/11 to come from Fata: US general By Anwar Iqbal WASHINGTON, May 22: A top American general on Thursday endorsed a US intelligence assessment that the next 9/11-type attack on the US soil would come from Al Qaeda bases in Pakistan’s tribal region but urged the United States to increase its security assistance to the country to help it deal with the threat. Gen David Petraeus, a top US military commander nominated to lead the Central Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that Pakistan would be the first country he would visit, if confirmed, to assess its desire...

A senior Taliban commander who became a hero to Islamic militants for his role in shooting down a U.S. helicopter in 2005, killing all 16 special forces troops aboard, has been killed by Pakistani security forces, officials and Taliban militants tell CBS News. Mullah Ismail, a notorious Taliban commander from the Afghan province of Kunar, was killed in a shootout with Pakistani police as he traveled with a kidnapped trader, a local police officer said Wednesday. He was apparently on his way into the lawless Northwest Frontier Province along the Afghan border. Officer Mukarma Khan said Ismail, also known as...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Defense Secretary Robert Gates has signed deployment orders that will send U.S. military trainers to Pakistan this summer, CNN has learned. Their mission: To teach Pakistan Frontier Corps units counterinsurgency skills critical to fighting the Taliban and al Qaeda. Several Pentagon and military officials confirmed the order has been signed although it has not been publicly announced. The deployment will be small -- just about two dozen troops who will stay through the spring of next year, according to the officials. All of this is the first step in a long-term U.S.-Pakistani military program on counterinsurgency cooperation....

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US trainers to help Pakistani paramilitaries WASHINGTON, March 2 (AFP) - The Pentagon is planning to send about 100 US military trainers to Pakistan to assist a paramilitary force that is operating along the border with Afghanistan targeting Al-Qaeda, The New York Times reported on its website late Saturday. Citing unnamed US military officials, the newspaper said that small teams of US special operations soldiers have already been sent to Pakistan to train Pakistani counterterrorism troops. But a classified plan now under review at the US Central Command would increase the contingent of US trainers to about 100, the report...

PESHAWAR - At least 13 militants, including some foreigners, were killed and 11 others were critically injured as three missiles, allegedly fired by the US forces, hit a house in Kaloshah area of Wana District in South Waziristan Agency on Thursday, eyewitnesses said. However, the locals informed that three missiles fired from an unknown direction hit the house of Malik Khel Wazir at Shero Village, Kaloshah Azam Warsak area at midnight, killing at least 12 people, mostly foreigners, and injuring 11 others critically. Exact identity and strength of the foreigners killed in the incident has not yet been determined, but...

PESHAWAR - At least 13 militants, including some foreigners, were killed and 11 others were critically injured as three missiles, allegedly fired by the US forces, hit a house in Kaloshah area of Wana District in South Waziristan Agency on Thursday, eyewitnesses said. Immediately after the attack, the militants encircled the area and local people were barred from entering the site. However, the locals informed that three missiles fired from an unknown direction hit the house of Malik Khel Wazir at Shero Village, Kaloshah Azam Warsak area at midnight, killing at least 12 people, mostly foreigners, and injuring 11 others...

WANA, Pakistan (Reuters) - A missile struck a house in a Pakistani region known as a safe haven for al Qaeda militants early on Thursday, killing at least eight suspected militants, residents and intelligence officials said. The attack took place in near Kaloosha village in the South Waziristan tribal region on the Afghan border. "The blast shook the entire area, about eight people were killed," Behlool Khan, a resident of the area, told Reuters. (Reporting by Hafiz Wazir; Writing by Zeeshan Haider; Editing by Robert Birsel)

QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistani security forces killed a top figure in the Taliban militia fighting U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan and captured four other militants Monday, a military official said. Mansoor Dadullah, brother of slain Taliban military commander Mullah Dadullah, was among five militants caught after a shootout near a seminary in southwestern Baluchistan province around 10 a.m., a local intelligence official told The Associated Press. A senior military official said Dadullah died of his wounds while being flown to a hospital with the other four injured men. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they...

QUETTA, Pakistan - Pakistani security forces critically wounded a top figure in the Taliban militia, among six militants captured after a firefight near the border Monday, the army said. Mansoor Dadullah, the brother of slain Taliban military commander Mullah Dadullah, and five others were challenged by security forces as they crossed from Afghanistan into Pakistan’s southwestern province of Baluchistan. They refused to stop and opened fire, said army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas. “Security personnel returned fire. As a result all of them sustained injuries and all of them were captured,” Abbas said. “Dadullah was arrested alive but he is...

WASHINGTON, Feb 1 (Reuters) - The U.S. success in killing a top al Qaeda operative this week showed that cooperation with Pakistan can be fruitful but security analysts said there were limits to what the present strategy can achieve. Analysts said the unmanned Predator air strike that apparently killed Abu Laith al-Libi in a remote area of Pakistan demonstrated that the United States has the military reach and intelligence sources to carry out a precision attack on a specific target with Pakistani consent. But U.S. participation in a ground offensive against al Qaeda strongholds along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border is unlikely....

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: A U.S. missile strike that killed a top al-Qaida commander at a house with satellite phones and a computer — only two kilometers (1.3 miles) from a Pakistani military base — showed how entrenched Islamic militants are in the country's lawless tribal regions. But the successful targeting of Abu Laith al-Libi also suggests that U.S. intelligence in the area is improving, and that Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf seems willing to turn a blind eye to such attacks along the Afghan border if they avoid civilian casualties. Pakistan has yet to confirm al-Libi's death, reported Thursday on Islamic extremist...

WASHINGTON - In a shift with profound implications, the Bush administration is attempting to re-energize its terrorism-fighting war efforts in Afghanistan, the original target of a post-Sept. 11 offensive. The U.S. also is refocusing on Pakistan, where a regenerating al-Qaida is posing fresh threats. There is growing recognition that the United States risks further setbacks, if not deepening conflict or even defeat, in Afghanistan, and that success in that country hinges on stopping Pakistan from descending into disorder. Privately, some senior U.S. military commanders say Pakistan's tribal areas are at the center of the fight against Islamic extremism; more so...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - An Al-Qaeda resurgence in Pakistan's tribal areas has raised deep concerns in the United States, which reportedly is pondering unilateral military strikes in a reflection of increasing impatience over Islamabad's counterterrorism strategy. US military chief Admiral Michael Mullen last week expressed "grave concern" over Al-Qaeda's use of the Pakistani tribal areas as safe havens, saying they posed a "significant" security threat to Afghanistan and Pakistan itself. Also from the vast tribal region in northwestern Pakistan, Osama bin laden's Al-Qaeda could be plotting and training a deadly attack on the United States, similar to the September 11, 2001...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 11 (UPI) -- Most terrorist trails lead back to Pakistan, Britain's MI5 (internal intelligence service) concluded a year ago. An average of some 400,000 Pakistani Brits a year fly back to the old country for vacation or to visit their relatives. From the airports in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad, where they land, side trips to the madrasas -- Koranic schools -- where they were originally radicalized, or to a terrorist training camp in the tribal areas that straddle the Pakistani-Afghan border, go undetected. There is no way to keep track of thousands of passengers arriving from the United...

The Pentagon is "extremely concerned" about the emergence of al Qaeda in Pakistan, Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.... "So, [the Pentagon is] extremely, extremely concerned about that, and I think continued pressure there will have to be brought," he said. Adm. Mullen added, however, that "Pakistan is a sovereign country and certainly it's really up to ... President Musharraf and certainly his advisers and his military to address that problem directly." U.S. intelligence officials suggest that the area is an operational command center for al Qaeda's senior leaders, including Osama bin Laden and his deputy,...

Scotland Yard experts on the case in Pakistan now believe that al-Qaeda assassinated Benazir Bhutto after reviewing all of the evidence. The Times of London reports from sources inside the organization that the investigators do not see any evidence of a cover-up, but of massive incompetence in the hours after the murder, which led to speculation of government involvement: BRITISH officials have revealed that evidence amassed by Scotland Yard detectives points towards Al-Qaeda militants being responsible for the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Five experts in video evidence and forensic science have been in Pakistan for 10 days since President Pervez...

I have been saying for months the final operations against al-Qaeda will take place in the tribal regions of Northern Pakistan along the border with Afghanistan. This is the birth place of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, and it is their last large sanctuary on Earth now that they are being pushed out of Iraq, Lebanon, Algieria and were unable to create a toe-hold in any other Arab-Muslim country (including Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt which they tried to attack).Walid Phares has a must read history lesson and tutorial on al-Qaeda and Pakistan, which provides the context for the coming final...

SLAMABAD, Pakistan — The Qaeda network accused by Pakistan’s government of killing the opposition leader Benazir Bhutto is increasingly made up not of foreign fighters but of homegrown Pakistani militants bent on destabilizing the country, analysts and security officials here say.In previous years Pakistani militants directed their energies against American and NATO forces across the border in Afghanistan and avoided clashes with the Pakistani Army. But this year they have very clearly expanded their ranks and turned to a direct confrontation with the Pakistani security forces while also aiming at political figures like Ms. Bhutto, the former prime minister who...

Excerpt - DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan: A commander of pro-Taliban militants in Pakistan rejected government claims that he was behind the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, his spokesman said Saturday. The spokesman for Baitullah Mehsud, whom Pakistani authorities describe as an al-Qaida leader, dismissed the allegations as "government propaganda." "We strongly deny it. Baitullah Mehsud is not involved in the killing of Benazir Bhutto," Maulana Mohammed Umer, said in a phone call to The Associated Press from South Waziristan tribal region. "The government is leveling a baseless allegation and we think it is doing so to divert the...

Alleged Al-Qaeda official Mehsud denies killing Bhutto: spokesman Posted: 29 December 2007 1552 hrs PESHAWAR, Pakistan : An alleged Al-Qaeda leader Baitullah Mehsud, blamed by the Pakistan government for killing Benazir Bhutto, denied any involvement in her death, his spokesman told AFP on Saturday. "He had no involvement in this attack," spokesman Maulana Omar said in a telephone call. "This is a conspiracy of the government, army and intelligence agencies." The spokesman said he was calling from Pakistan's Waziristan area, a lawless tribal region where Pakistani government forces have been battling Islamist militants. "It is against tribal tradition and custom...

Al Qaeda is right under Musharraf's nose December 28, 2007 Since 9/11, there has been hardly any jihadi terrorist strike anywhere in the world in which there was no Pakistani connection. Since 2002, there has been hardly any jihadi terrorist strike in Pakistani territory in which there was no connection of the Pakistan army's general headquarters. By GHQ, one does not mean the entire army; one means some elements in the GHQ. The first wake-up call about the possible presence of one or more sleeper cells of Al Qaeda [Images] in Rawalpindi came in March 2003. Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, who...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security issued a bulletin Thursday citing an alleged claim of responsibility by al Qaeda for former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's assassination, a DHS official told CNN. But such a claim has not appeared on radical Islamist Web sites that regularly post such messages from al Qaeda and other militant groups. The source of the claim was apparently an obscure Italian news agency, Adnkronos International (AKI), which said that al Qaeda Afghanistan commander and spokesman Mustafa Abu Al-Yazid had telephoned the agency to make the claim. "We terminated the most...

Bruce Riedel a former defense and intelligence official who helped make South Asia policy in the administrations of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, says he believes Benazir Bhutto’s assassination “was almost certainly the work of al-Qaeda or al-Qaeda’s Pakistani allies.” He says, “Their objective is to destabilize the Pakistani state, to break up the secular political parties, to break up the army so that Pakistan becomes a politically failing state in which the Islamists in time can come to power much as they have in other failing states.” He says the United States should press the government of President...