Free Republic

SNIPPET: "The premier English-language jihadi forum has members in Karachi, Lahore, and Islamabad..."

Members of a U.S. congressional delegation visiting Pakistan say the use of drone missile strikes against suspected al-Qaida and Taliban extremists in the country's tribal regions bordering Afghanistan is proving to be an effective weapon in the anti-terror war. The U.S. lawmakers, however, have ruled out the possibility of giving the technology to Pakistan. After a brief stop in neighboring Afghanistan early this week, the four-member U.S congressional delegation arrived in Islamabad late Thursday to meet with Pakistan's civilian and military leaders. The leader of the delegation, Republican Senator John McCain, told reporters Friday the United States is determined to...

Despite the lingering demonstrations and disorder in Tehran, Iran’s ruling mullahs are confident anew in their country’s ability to surge to a hegemonic position in the Middle East without a major war. The main reason for the mullahs’ confidence is their interpretation of the appeasement policies of the US Barack Obama Administration. Most significant is the undeclared – yet widely projected – profound change in US policy regarding Iran’s nuclear program. Tehran and all other regional governments are convinced that the US now strives to “contain” a nuclear Iran rather than continue the declared objective to prevent the nuclearization of...

A recent exchange of intelligence information between India and the U.S. revealed that an American Moslem (whose father was a Pakistani diplomat) under arrest for plotting Islamic terrorism, admitted that he had witnessed Pakistani Army officers working with Islamic terrorists, while he was undergoing terrorist training in Pakistan. While there have been many such reports, Pakistan always responds by claiming that they are "rogue officers." But American intelligence and military officials, who have worked have worked with the Pakistanis, report encountering many Pakistani officers who were openly favoring Islamic terrorism. Thus the Pakistani protests carry less and less weight. For...

Senior US officials are pushing to expand CIA drone strikes beyond Pakistan's tribal region and into a major city in an attempt to pressure the Pakistani government to pursue Taliban leaders based in the city of Quetta, The Los Angeles Times reported late Sunday. The newspaper said the prospect of Predator aircraft strikes in Quetta signals a new US resolve to decapitate the Taliban. But it also risks rupturing Washington's relationship with Islamabad. The concern has created tension among officials in the administration of President Barack Obama over whether unmanned aircraft strikes in a city of 850,000 are a realistic...

War On Terror: The anti-war crowd says the small number of enemy fighters inside Afghanistan doesn't justify sending 30,000 fresh troops there. They fail to understand the larger problem. Sen. Barbara Boxer complains al-Qaida is scarcely in Afghanistan. She cites an intelligence report leaked to ABC News that only 100 fighters are actually present inside the country, along with several thousand Taliban fighters. "I do not support adding more troops," the California Democrat argued, "because there are now 200,000 American, NATO and Afghan forces fighting roughly 20,000 Taliban and less than 100 al-Qaida." In other words, why are we even...

Billions of rupees of loans written off from Pakistan's state-owned banks...Army led institutions plundered the Army Welfare Trust, Rs14.49 million. General Kuli Khan, two Allied Bank loans written off: Rs1.8 million and Rs1.6 million against Janana De Malucho Textile Mills, owned by his father General Habibullah Khan. His brother Gohar Ayub Khan, Rs7.2 million written off against Rehana Woolen Mills.Lt General Azhar, Rex Breen Batteries, Rs16 million, Major General Mumtaz, Lt Colonel Shaukat, Major Tajuddin Rs1.2 million, Major General Ghaziuddn, Major General Umar, Rs8.5 million written off, Agriculture Development Bank.Air Marshal Azeem, Rs15 million written off, Pakistani Kuwait Investment Co....

Suspicions by Pakistan's powerful army that the country's civilian leadership is growing too close to the United States are fueling a political crisis that analysts here believe threatens the survival of the government and could divert attention from the battle against Islamic extremists. Military officials believe that secretly taped conversations between Pakistani President Asif Zardari and his ambassador in Washington, prove that it was at Zardari's insistence that a $1.5 billion U.S. aid package passed by Congress in September contained several provisions that angered the Pakistani military. The military publicly protested the aid package last month. "The reaction (from the...

Pakistan on Sunday angrily rejected a media report that raised fears of a militant takeover of the Taliban-hit nation's nuclear weapons and suggested that the US had a hand in protecting the arsenal. In the latest issue of The New Yorker magazine, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh wrote that US officials had negotiated pacts with Pakistan to provide security for the nuclear arsenal in extreme circumstances. It also raised the possibility that the threat to the security of the nuclear programme might come not from Taliban rebels battling the government, but from a "mutiny" by fundamentalist elements within the powerful military....

Hillary Clinton faced anger during her visit to Pakistan after she attacked the failure of the government to tackle al-Qaeda. The US Secretary of State also faced angry questions about America's use of drone attacks inside Pakistan as she ended her three-day visit on Friday. Mrs Clinton was earlier forced to soften her criticism of Islamabad for its failure to capture of kill al-Qaeda's leaders.

At least five people have been killed and 35 wounded by a large blast in a market in Peshawar, Pakistani, local media say. Huge plumes of black smoke were seen drifting over the city. Pakistan has seen an increase in such attacks in recent weeks as the military carries out an operation against Taliban militants in South Waziristan. The blast comes as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton begins a visit to the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. Pakistani television showed footage of burning shops in Peshawar, in the northwest of the country, and ambulances rushing to the scene

ISLAMABAD: SNIPPET: "Police found some objectionable literature, computers and some other stuff in the house and seized over 15 vehicles, including Sedan cars and sport utility vehicles. According to a senior police officer, the arrested people were booked under the Anti-Terrorism Act and produced in a court of law for further legal action. He said the activists were suspected of helping militants. He said the meeting was being held in a rented house and police were searching for the owner who would also face a legal action."

ISLAMABAD: The United Nations has temporarily closed all its offices across Pakistan after a suicide blast Monday killed four people at the World Food Programme compound in central Islamabad, a UN spokeswoman said. ‘All UN offices in Pakistan have been closed until further notice,’ spokeswoman Susan Manuel told AFP. Another UN spokeswoman, Ishrat Rizvi, told AFP that the offices would be shut ‘for security reasons.’ A suicide bomber walked into the WFP's heavily fortified offices in Islamabad early Monday afternoon, police say, with three Pakistanis and one Iraqi man killed in the blast.

A nuclear-armed Taliban? It may not be as far-fetched as it might first appear. The Taliban already control or have a significant presence in northwest Pakistan along a critical stretch of the Afghan border. Taliban units operate with relative impunity in the region surrounding Peshawar, Pakistan's major population, commercial and transportation center less than 100 miles from Pakistan's capital, Islamabad. Dominance of Taliban and al-Qaida forces in the pivotal northwest region of Pakistan provides not only a sanctuary and training centers for attacks on Afghanistan, but it has become a base of operations to weaken any pro-Western sentiments among the...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Aug. 21 (UPI) -- Tehran and Islamabad should move in harmony to expand bilateral energy relations as Pakistan struggles to overcome a looming energy crisis, officials say. Islamabad and Tehran in June signed a bilateral deal for the proposed 1,724-mile Iran-Pakistan-India natural gas pipeline. Pakistan would receive 750 million cubic feet per day from the South Pars gas field in Iran to generate electricity under the terms of a 25-year deal. Mian Shaukat Masud, the president of the Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry, told a delegation from Tehran that Iran should increase energy exports to Pakistan, the...

Note: The following text is a quote: LAHORE: Twenty-five explosive-laden vehicles have reportedly entered various major cities of the country, as the intelligence services launched search operations across all four provinces, a private TV channel reported on Monday. According to the channel, the vehicles could target sensitive government installments and other important buildings. The channel cited a notification issued by the Interior Ministry stating that suicide bombers along with the vehicles had entered Peshawar, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Quetta and Karachi. The ministry ordered provincial authorities to immediately conduct search operations and impound the vehicles before any terrorist incident took place....

ISLAMABAD – Pakistani jets and attack helicopters bombed Taliban positions in a district near the capital Tuesday, the military said, in an expansion of an offensive against militants seemingly emboldened by a much-criticized peace deal. Troops and heavy artillery also joined the operation in Buner, which follows urgent calls from the United States for Islamabad to step up its fight against the militants, who moved into the region this month from the nearby Swat Valley. They set up checkpoints, patrolled streets and warned locals to abide by strict interpretations of Islam. The offensive will cause major strains on an already...

'300 Taliban suicide bombers on way to Islamabad,' claim Pakistan officials By MAIL FOREIGN SERVICE 26th April 2009 300 suicide bombers are on their way to Islamabad, Pakistan and plan to attack the capital and certain local officials of foreign embassies there, Interior Ministry sources said. The suicide bombers also plan to attack Rawalpindi and Lahore and are being led by five top Taliban commanders who are close aides of Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the country's unified Taliban movement, according to the sources. Troops of Airport Security Force stand on alert at Islamabad airport. Interior Ministry sources said 300...

International alarm at the Talibanisation of parts of northern Pakistan near Islamabad was mounting last night after militants ambushed a convoy of soldiers deployed to prevent extremists taking over a district only 60 miles from the capital. Snipers opened fire on police escorting four platoons of Frontier Corps paramilitary troops into Buner district, a day after militants overran government buildings and looted western aid offices. One policeman was killed and one injured, an army spokesman said. Locals said the ambush had forced the Frontier Corps to retreat. "Now Buner is ruled by the Taliban," one resident told the Guardian by...

Concerned over the recent peace deal between Pakistani authorities and the Taliban in the Swat valley, the US has admitted that there was a "trust deficit" in its ties with Islamabad, but hoped that it can be erased by jointly tackling a range of issues, including terrorism. It also pledged long-term commitment to help Pakistan come out of its present economic crisis and the threat from terrorism, asserting that there was an urgent need to marshal out international resources in this regard. The "trust deficit" between US and Pakistan can be handled by continuing to work closely together on a...

ISLAMABAD—Pakistan's Supreme Court ordered the release on bail Monday of a hard-line cleric who had been detained since shortly before soldiers stormed his mosque in 2007, killing scores of people and energizing the country's Islamist insurgency. Maulana Abdul Aziz was granted bail while the court considers the charges against him in relation to the siege of the Red Mosque in the capital, Islamabad, his lawyer Shaukat Siddiqui told reporters outside the court. Prosecutors were not available for comment. Aziz was arrested as he tried to sneak out of the mosque dressed in an all-covering burqa worn by some Muslim women....

https://www.osac.gov/Reports/report.cfm?contentID=100164 YOU ARE HERE: Home > Reports > Consular Affairs Bulletins > Report Warden Message: Islamabad Heightened Security CONSULAR AFFAIRS BULLETINS South / Central Asia - Pakistan 9 Apr 2009 RELATED REPORTS 3 Apr 2009 WARDEN MESSAGE: PAKISTAN TERROR THREAT 30 Mar 2009 WARDEN MESSAGE: PAKISTAN POLICE TRAINING CENTER ATTACK 17 Mar 2009 WARDEN MESSAGE: PAKISTAN CONSULAR SECTION REOPENING 14 Mar 2009 WARDEN MESSAGE: PAKISTAN LONG MARCH CLOSURES 12 Mar 2009 WARDEN MESSAGE: PAKISTAN LONG MARCH DEMONSTRATIONS STARTING MARCH 12 U.S. Embassy Islamabad released the following Warden message on April 9: This Warden Notice is to notify American citizens that...

ISLAMABAD – A suicide bombing at a crowded Shiite mosque south of Pakistan's capital killed 22 people Sunday, the latest evidence of how security in the U.S.-allied nation is crumbling well beyond the Afghan border region where al-Qaida and Taliban fighters thrive. The violence came as a senior Pakistani Taliban commander said his group was behind a deadly suicide bombing Saturday night in Islamabad and promised two more attacks per week in the country if the U.S. does not stop missile strikes on Pakistani territory.

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama on Friday affirmed a tripling of US economic aid to Pakistan to $ 1.5 billion annually over the next five years, calling it a ''down payment'' for America’s future security even though he unambiguously accused the country of being a safe haven for al-Qaida and its leadership. Obama announced what seemed like a buy-out strategy while unveiling his administration’s new Af-Pak policy in which there was a pronounced shift to Pakistan as the central front in the so-called war on terror. In an oblique indictment of Islamabad, Obama implied that Pakistan's military strategy was the...

Tuesday, February 17, 2009 Posted By:Catherine MoyPermalinkPakistan Creates Safe-haven for Taliban Taliban now have safe haven in Pakistan It’s tough to tell who’s a friend or foe, especially in the Middle East. Pakistan, which was (kind of) an ally during the Bush Adminstration, has now created a safe area for Taliban, the monstrous terrorists whom our troops are fighting. Here’s the story from FOX News.com: MINGORA, Pakistan — NATO warned Tuesday that Pakistan risked creating a safe haven for Islamist extremists after it struck a deal to impose Islamic law and suspend a military offensive in the former tourist haven...

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

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The United States is entangled in an Islamist web from Afghanistan to India that exposes its reliance on Pakistan as a central but increasingly fragile ally in the war on terror, analysts say. The 60-hour siege last month in Mumbai, even if it is eventually proven to have been masterminded by Kashmiri separatists, advances broader Islamist aims in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and beyond, they add. And nuclear-armed Pakistan, which has long backed various Islamist groups, is more than ever central to the growth of the militant problem in all three countries and a key to their solution....

Excerpt - All flights in Pakistan have been suspended after a major security alert at Islamabad airport, according to reports. The country's civil aviation authority is said to have instituted a state of emergency. A huge search is underway at Islamabad airport after a phone call saying the building would be blown up at 12.40pm local time (7.40pm UK time), say local TV reports. ~ snip ~

Excerpt - Karachi, 24 Sept. (AKI) - By Syed Saleem Shahzad - The alleged mastermind of last Saturday's deadly truck bombing of the Marriott hotel in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, has emerged. The suspect, Qari Zafar (photo), has become part of Al-Qaeda's hardline Takfiri inner circle. He enjoys the protection of Pakistani Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud and is believed to be hiding out in the lawless South Waziristan tribal area of North West Frontier Province. Zafar is not only the suspected mastermind of the Marriot bomb blast, but has created a network which will shortly target strategic installations belonging to...

SLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistani soldiers and tribesman shot down a suspected U.S. military drone close to the Afghan border Tuesday night, three intelligence officials said. If verified, it apparently would be the first time a pilotless aircraft was brought down over Pakistan and likely would add to tensions between Washington and Islamabad over recent American cross-border incursions into the country's lawless tribal regions. The three officials said the aircraft was hit at the village of Jalal Khel in South Waziristan after circling the area for several hours. Wreckage was strewn on the ground, they said, speaking on condition of anonymity...

Pakistan’s fledging democracy faced its first and greatest challenge last weekend. A suicide bomber driving a truck loaded with more than 1,000 pounds of explosives blew himself up early Saturday evening outside Islamabad’s luxury Marriott Hotel, killing 53 people and wounding several hundred. Most of the dead were Muslim guests who were breaking their day-long, Ramadan fast in the hotel restaurant when the bombing occurred.

Dramatic footage from a devasting attack on Islamabad's Marriott Hotel which killed at least 53 people suggests that the death toll could have been far worse if the bomber had been able to ram his truck through a security barrier. More than 250 people were injured in the blast, which officials and investigators immediately blamed on an al-Qaeda affiliate operating out of a tribal area near the Afghan border. They included six Britons, one of them a minor. Four foreigners were killed: the Czech ambassador, his Vietnamese partner and two Americans.

via translation - ALERT - Pakistan: the Czech ambassador was killed PRAGUE - The Czech Republic's ambassador to Pakistan, which had called for help from the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad shortly after the attack Saturday, died Sunday announced in Prague public television CT 24.

Many people were trapped in rooms of the burning five-star Marriott Hotel in the Pakistan capital after a suicide bomber detonated a large truck loaded with a ton of explosives at the hotel gate, killing at least 60 people and injuring some 200 more. The Marriott, frequented by foreigner and local VIPs and the hotel of choice for American officials, is danger of collapse. The ceiling of the banqueting hall crashed down on 500 guests at the Ramadan evening meal.

Dozens dead in Pakistan hotel blast At least 40 people were killed and 100 wounded in the explosion at the Marriott [AFP] At least 40 people have been killed and 100 others wounded after a truck-bomb attack on the Marriott Hotel in Pakistan's capital Islamabad. Reports said a suicide bomber drove a truck packed with explosives into the entrance of the hotel. Many foreigners stay in the hotel while visiting Pakistan and it is heavily guarded. The blast resounded through Islamabad. Reuters news agency reported that at least 40 people had been killed. Police sources also said the death toll stood at 40. But there were fears the death toll could rise as many...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A huge explosion ripped through part of the heavily guarded Marriott Hotel in Pakistan's capital Saturday, damaging buildings in a wide radius, killing at least two people and wounding at least 25.

via translation - Thousands of Islamists commemorate the storming of the Red Mosque Thousands of Islamist radicals gathered in Islamabad to celebrate the first anniversary of the bloody storming of the Red Mosque. The capital of Pakistan is placed under high surveillance. Many demonstrators deemed close to the Taliban and Al Qaeda brandissaient black flags and slogans scandaient paying tribute to the "martyrs" of the headquarters of the Red Mosque. The police established a security perimeter around the mosque, inaccessible by car, with son barbed wire and search pedestrians in the search for possible weapons. "We demand to act against...

ISLAMABAD (AFP) — A blast occurred Monday outside the Danish embassy in the Pakistani capital Islamabad, causing casualties, police and security officials said. "Yes, there has been a blast at the Danish embassy but we are not sure whether it was inside or out," local police official Mohammad Shabir told AFP. Security officials said there were several casualties.

Secretary General of the World Assembly for Proximity of Islamic Schools of Thought Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Taskhiri said on Saturday that Islamic unity charter has been compiled. In a meeting with Pakistani prominent Shia and Sunni ulema in Islamabad, he said the charter has outlined the commonalties shared by different Islamic sects. Referring to emphasis made by the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for promotion of solidarity among the world Muslim nations, he said compilation of the Islamic unity charter is in line with the Supreme Leader's guidelines. He expressed the hope that during his stay in Pakistan, the charter...

US officials have confirmed that four FBI agents were among those injured in a bomb attack in Pakistan's capital Islamabad on Saturday. A Turkish aid worker died and at least 10 other foreigners, including several US diplomats, were wounded in the blast at the Luna Caprese Italian restaurant in Islamabad on Saturday evening.Violence linked to Al Qaeda and Taliban insurgents has left at least 600 people dead since the start of the year and posed a major challenge to the country's incoming Government after last month's elections."This was the first attack in which foreigners have been targeted in Islamabad since...

Foreigners’ haunt bombed in capital: woman dead By Mohammad Asghar March 16, 2008 ISLAMABAD, March 15: Terrorists on Saturday night targeted a popular hang-out of foreign nationals, mostly western diplomats and journalists, by hitting the place with a powerful explosive device, killing a Turkish woman and injuring over a dozen guests who were having their weekend dinner. The Turkish lady who died in the blast at Luna Caprese, an Italian restaurant, was believed to be a nurse working at a western embassy in Islamabad. Among the injured brought to the local hospitals four were identified as US citizens, two were...

At least two persons are dead and nine injured after an explosion at a restaurant popular with foreigners and diplomats in Islamabad. At least three US citizens are among the injured. The explosion at the Italian Luna Caprise restaurant, which occurred at about 8:40 pm local time, could be heard from several kilometres away. The blast created panic in the city and police immediately cordoned off the area, located in the busy Super Market, as ambulances rushed to the site.

via translation - ALERT - Pakistan: General killed in the attack near Islamabad ISLAMABAD - A general in the Pakistani army was one of four people killed Monday in a suicide attack in Rawalpindi, near Islamabad, told from the security services.

Well, I dunno. It seems to me a certain humility is appropriate when offering advice to Islamabad. Gen. Musharraf is – as George S. Kaufman remarked when the Germans invaded Russia – shooting without a script. But that's because he presides over a country that defies the neatness of scripted narratives. In the days after 9/11, George W. Bush told the world that you're either with us or against us. Musharraf said he was with us, which was jolly decent of him considering that 99.9999 percent of his people are against us. In the teeth of that glum reality, he's...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - A powerful bomb ripped through a bus carrying employees from the armed forces, while a device tied to a motorcycle went off in a commercial district near Pakistan's capital Tuesday, authorities and local media said. At least 15 people were killed in the blasts. The first bomb exploded on a bus traveling through Rawalpindi, a garrison city about seven miles southwest of Islamabad, killing at least 10 people, army spokesman Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad said. In addition to the dead, several people were injured.

“Around 600 students of Jamia Hafsa and Jamia Fareedia have not returned to their homes after the Lal Masjid operation. These are the people called ‘missing students’ and they are hiding in madrassas and mosques in and around the two cities Islamabad and Rawalpindi. They are walking bombs and are determined to blow themselves up any time, anywhere,” said a source directly involved in the ongoing investigation of suicide blasts in the country.Lal Masjid prayer leader Maulana Abdul Aziz said that five to six hundred students of the two madrassas had been trained, equipped and brainwashed to carry out suicide...

ALARM - the islamist ones again in the Red mosque with Islamabad ISLAMABAD - Islamist militants occupied Friday the Rouge mosque of Islamabad which had just reopened two weeks after the attack strapping of the Pakistani army counters the fundamentalist ones armed which had been cut off there, indicated a journalist of AFP on the spot and organizes it.

The Pakistani army says it has found 73 bodies inside a mosque compound in Islamabad, after fierce battles between soldiers and gunmen inside. Officials said the Red Mosque, or Lal Masjid, complex had been cleared of militants but troops were combing the area for booby traps and explosives. The mosque's radical chief cleric, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, was among the dead, the army said. The operation followed a week-long siege of the compound by troops. The mosque had been the focus of spiralling tensions between the government and radical students, who had waged a campaign for the adoption of strict Islamic...

Pakistan's army says an operation to flush out militants from a mosque in Islamabad is in its final stages - 24 hours after troops stormed the complex. Several explosions were heard after dawn on Wednesday and sporadic gunfire. During heavy fighting on Tuesday, the Red Mosque's militant cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi and some 50 of his supporters were killed, the army said. Students at the mosque and its attached religious schools have waged a campaign for months pressing for Sharia law. On Tuesday, eight soldiers also died, and some 50 women and children were freed. Pakistan's military spokesman Gen Waheed...

A militant Pakistani cleric and about 50 of his supporters have been killed after troops stormed a mosque in Islamabad, government officials say. Abdul Rashid Ghazi's body was found in the Red Mosque basement. Officials said he had been caught in the cross-fire. The army says eight soldiers were also killed in the military operation, and about 50 women and children rescued. Students at the mosque and its attached religious schools have waged a campaign for months pressing for Sharia law. Public anger in the capital had been mounting after they kidnapped policemen as well as people they considered to...