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President Obama has ordered national security officials to look into allegations that the Bush administration resisted efforts to investigate a CIA-backed Afghan warlord over the killings of hundreds of Taliban prisoners in 2001. In an exclusive, CNN talked with President Obama in Ghana about his order to review alleged deaths of Taliban. "The indications that this had not been properly investigated just recently was brought to my attention," Obama told CNN's Anderson Cooper in an exclusive interview during the president's visit to Ghana. The full interview will air 10 p.m. Monday. "So what I've asked my national security team to...

Afghanistan’s Taliban movement turned their attention to the U.S. role in Somalia and elsewhere in Africa in an article published in the latest issue of the Taliban’s Arabic-language magazine, al-Sumud (Media Center of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan-Taliban, June 27). The article, entitled “Somalia: Next Target for the Global Tyrant, the United States of America,” focused on the alleged neo-colonial ambitions of the United States, especially in respect to the consolidation and exploitation of African energy resources. The author, using the name Anwar, maintains that God provided Muslims ample blessings in the form of natural resources, but Muslim inattentiveness and...

Don’t shoot back! Don’t pick the poppies! And don’t bother the women and men in burqas! These are the new rules of engagement for leathernecks in Afghanistan. Sound incredible? They’re true. Welcome to the modern Marine Corps under Commander-in-Chief Barack Hussein Obama On July 1, the U.S. military initiated Operation Khanjar or “Strike of the Sword,” an invasion of the Helmand Province by 4,000 Marines and 650 Afghan soldiers. “Strike of the Sword” represents the first military operation to be ordered by President Obama. The purpose of the campaign is to flush out Taliban operatives from southern Afghanistan in order...

SNIPPET: "CAMP LEATHERNECK, Afghanistan – U.S. Marines trapped Taliban fighters in a residential compound and persuaded the insurgents to allow women and children to leave. The troops then moved in — only to discover that the militants had slipped out, dressed in women's burqa robes.[...] On Monday, images from a Predator drone showed a dozen fighters and at least 15 to 20 civilians inside a mud-brick compound in the village of Khan Neshin, about 60 miles north of the Pakistani border. Because of the civilians, the U.S. troops held their fire, and instead used a military translator and village elder...

KANDAHAR: Afghanistan’s Taliban said Monday they launched a guerrilla operation to thwart a major assault by US Marines on their Helmand strongholds. Operation Foladi Jal, Pashtu for “iron net”, would teach the Marines “a lesson”. Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi told AFP. “In response to Operation Khanjar by the invading forces, we have launched Operation Foladi Jal,” Ahmadi said. “Their Khanjar will get stuck in our Foladi Jal,”. “In this operation we’ll teach them a lesson so they will never again dare to come into our areas,” he said.The operation would include improvised bomb explosions and “hit-and-run guerrilla attacks”, Ahmadi said....

Pakistan's top Taliban leader, Baitullah Mehsud, is buying children as young as 7 to serve as suicide bombers in the growing spate of attacks against Pakistani, Afghan and U.S. targets, U.S. Defense Department and Pakistani officials say. A Pakistani official, who spoke on the condition that he not be named because of the sensitive nature of the topic, said the going price for child bombers was $7,000 to $14,000 - huge sums in Pakistan, where per-capita income is about $2,600 a year. "[Mehsud] has turned suicide bombing into a production output, not unlike [the way] Toyota outputs cars," a U.S....

WASHINGTON, June 26, 2009 – Afghan and coalition forces detained several suspected Taliban militants overnight during an operation designed to disrupt Taliban bombing and rocket attacks against Afghan and coalition forces in Afghanistan’s Helmand province. In the province’s Nad Ali district, a combined force patrolled near the village of Marjeh, to compounds where intelligence sources reported a known Taliban commander was located. While clearing the compounds, the force encountered a threat. Officials did not provide details of the threat, but said it was “eliminated” after several escalation-of-force measures. The force completed the search without further incident, detained a handful of...

The US carried out its second Predator airstrike inside South Waziristan today. Unmanned Predator aircraft killed more than 65 Taliban fighters in a follow-on attack near the headquarters for Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud. The Predator strike aircraft fired three Hellfire missiles as Taliban fighters gathered for a funeral of Khog Wali, a leader in Baitullah's army in South Waziristan who was among six Taliban fighters killed in the first US airstrike earlier today. Commander Sangeen, a Taliban commander from Afghanistan, was reported to be among those killed in the strike at the funeral. Predators are said to have fired...

Senior al Qaeda and Afghan Taliban leaders are reported to have met with Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud to advise him to move his group's operations into Afghanistan and halt attacks against the Pakistani state. Several meetings were said to have been held last week after an 11-man delegation of al Qaeda and Taliban heavy hitters arrived in Waziristan to deliver a request from Mullah Omar, the Amir al Mumineen, or the leader of the faithful in Pakistan and Afghanistan, according to a report in The Nation. The Taliban dispatched Sirajuddin Haqqani, the powerful military commander of the Haqqani Network,...

A New York Times reporter known for making investigative trips deep inside dangerous conflict zones escaped from militant captors after more than seven months in captivity by climbing over a wall, the newspaper said Saturday. David S. Rohde was abducted Nov. 10 along with an Afghan reporter colleague and a driver south of the Afghan capital, Kabul. He had been traveling through Logar province to interview a Taliban commander, but was apparently intercepted and taken by other militants on the way. The Times reported that Rohde and Afghan reporter Tahi Ludin on Friday climbed over the wall of a compound...

Weekend Trivia June 19th, 2009 | Afghanistan, Bin Laden, Uncategorized, art SNIPPET: "British soldiers found an Aston Villa tattoo on the body of a dead Taliban fighter in Afghanistan, British newspapers reported earlier this week."

Note: The following text is a quote: June 14, 2009 Taliban shoots 11 year-old Christian boy in head Meanwhile, the Pakistani embassy in D.C. considers such stories "exaggerated." "Pakistan: Christians ready to die for their faith," from Spero News, June 14: An 11-year-old boy was shot in the head while attending church near Karachi. Christians live in dread of the Taliban, which is demanding conversion to Islam or death. ‘I am sorry I could not speak to you then because we were just about to begin the funeral service for Irfan, an 11 year-old boy who was shot in the...

US and British officials are no doubt delighted to see tribesmen in northwestern Pakistan fighting the Taleban after years of sheltering, tolerating or supporting them. Elsewhere in the country, there has also been an unprecedented wave of public, political and even religious support for the army’s campaign in Swat, despite the massive exodus of refugees. This appears to show that Pakistanis have at last heeded Western warnings that the militancy they face is indigenous and threatens the existence of the Pakistani state. What is less encouraging — and less well advertised — is that a key reason for the backlash...

Heavy weapons are continuing to stream across the Afghan border from Iran despite Barack Obama's attempts to enlist Tehran's help in fighting the insurgency, officials have said. Border police say they are regularly intercepting consignments of anti-tank mines and mortars bound for Afghan militants fighting Nato-led forces. One shipment seized on May 23 along Afghanistan's 580-mile western border contained dozens of anti-tank mines. "That's a regular occurrence," the official told the Daily Telegraph. "It tends to be heavier weapons like mines and mortars rather than Kalashnikovs". Quantities regularly run into the hundreds and the weapons are usually brand new he...

Note: Photo included. SNIPPET: "Pakistani security forces have detained a senior terrorist leader behind suicide attacks in the capital who has links to the leader of the Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque. A terrorist commander known as Fidaullah was arrested on May 27 along with Shah Abdul Aziz, a former member of parliament. The arrests took place outside the home of Maulana Abdullah Aziz, the former leader of the Red Mosque who was released from prison in mid-April on $2,500 bail." SNIPPET: "Fidaullah was a recruiter and handler of suicide bombers; he reportedly recruited from religious schools in Islamabad and...

Responding to threats from the Taliban, at least 10 girls' schools have shut down near Kunduz in northern Afghanistan. Visiting the schools is a dangerous proposition -- a trip leading directly into the heart of Islamist territory. When the deputy director of Aqtash High School talks of the government, he isn't referring to Hamid Karzai's central government in Kabul. Nor does he refer to the provincial administration in Kunduz. "The Taliban are our government," Bashir says. "They have taken over our region, their commanders give the orders here." Bashir is standing in a dusty classroom on the ground floor of...

The Taliban will win in Pakistan. They are on the right side of the law. They are also on the right side of history. Last month, a video of Talibs whipping a 17-year-old girl for adultery upset Pakistanis, who thought it barbaric. It might be, but it is the law. The punishment for married adulterers in Pakistan is to “be stoned to death at a public place” (Ordinance 7 of 1979). Unmarried adulterers are to be “punished, at a public place; with whipping numbering one hundred stripes”. snip Later in April, the world worried over Pakistan’s decision to enforce Shariah...

Taliban agents of US, India: clerics LAHORE: The Taliban are agents of the United States and India, and the whole nation supports the military operation currently being carried out against them, clerics said at a convention held in Lahore on Sunday. According to a private TV channel the clerics said those against the military operation in Swat were enemies of Islam as well as Pakistan. daily times monitor

WASHINGTON, May 19, 2009 – The United States has pledged more than $100 million worth of humanitarian aid to relieve Pakistan as it wages battle against extremists inside its borders, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said today. About 2 million Pakistanis are displaced as a result of clashes in the country's northwestern frontier province, and the U.S. Agency for International Development has responded by supplying water trucks, meals that conform to Islamic dietary requirements, tents and other relief. “Providing this assistance is not only the right thing to do, but we believe it is essential to global security and...

An army unit has rescued a family who are claiming the Taliban tried to force them to marry off their daughters to members of the group in Matta tehsil of Swat, according to a private TV channel. The mother of the girls told the channel, “They were forcing us ... we did not want to marry off our daughters to them.” She said the Taliban also shot and injured the girls’ father, Hidayatullah, for not agreeing to their demand. Troops then launched a daring effort to rescue the family, and shifted them to a safer location, said the channel, adding...

Growing up we all believe what we want to. For years my son believed that there were monsters under his bed at night, my daughter believed that a unicorn would show up for her to ride away. Both of them believed in the tooth fairy (OK to be honest there was one of those, it was their father in a closet, but that's a story for another day.). Part of the growing process is that we realize that these childish myths are not real by any means. Surprisingly, there is one childish myth that many otherwise intelligent adults cling on...

CHARIKAR, Afghanistan -- Nearly 50 teenagers were admitted to hospital after a suspected mass poisoning at an Afghan girls' school, a doctor said on Monday, in the second such incident in a month. The headmaster rushed his students out of their classrooms in the northern town of Charikar after they smelt an unusual odour and started feeling nauseous and dizzy, a 17-year-old victim told Reuters from her hospital bed. "I am pretty sure whoever has done this is against education for girls, but I strongly ask the parents not to be discouraged by such brutal action and send their children...

Six people including one FC official were killed in a suicide attack at FC checkpoint in Darra Adam Khel. Two others security men sustain injuries in the blast. According to sources, a suicide bomber blew up himself at FC check post in Sabina police station jurisdiction. Five passersby and one FC official were killed in the blast. Security forces have cordoned off the area. Meanwhile, a huge blast heard outside Degree College. Police have reached the scene and started investigations.

The Taliban on Thursday threatened "harsh reprisals" if Pope Benedict XVI does not immediately intervene to stop Christians proselytising in Afghanistan. In a message posted on their official website, the Taliban made the threat against the pope and Christians for spreading their faith. The message followed video footage aired on Arabic satellite TV channel Al-Jazeera earlier this week apparently showing Christian soldiers proselytising outside the Afghan capital, Kabul, and handing out copies of the bible in Pashtun. "We are sending out a message to the most important personality in the Christian world - Pope Benedict XVI," read the message. "If...

Taliban militants on Sunday handed over to Pakistani officials the body of a Polish man who was beheaded in February after being held by the hardliners for months, officials said. Geologist Piotr Stanczak, 42, was working in Pakistan for a Polish oil and natural gas exploration company when he was seized in the volatile northwest of the country last September. His abductors killed his driver and his bodyguard. His decapitation on February 7 – which was filmed by his captors and was the first of a Pole by Islamic militants – provoked a furious reaction from Warsaw, which slammed Islamabad's...

General David Petraeus, the commander of US Central Command, has reportedly told American officials that the next two weeks are critical to determining whether the Pakistani government will survive. Gen Petraeus reportedly said that "we've heard it all before" from the Pakistanis and he is looking to see concrete action by the government to destroy the Taliban in the next two weeks before determining the next course of action for the US. "The Pakistanis have run out of excuses" and are "finally getting serious" about combating the threat from Taliban and al-Qaeda extremists operating out of north-west Pakistan, the general...

Note: The following blog entry is a quote: Blog Details Pakistani Daily: Taliban Vow To ‘Reform’ Media And Banking The Taliban have vowed to ‘reform’ the media and banking system as a next step in their Islamization program, according to a Pakistani daily. In recent years, the Taliban had mainly attacked barbers’ shops for shaving beards, music centers for selling CDs and videos and girls’ schools. According to a report in Lahore-based newspaper Daily Times, Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan said their next target will be the banking system where "un-Islamic affairs are being carried out." The spokesman added that the...

Irfan Masih, the 11-year-old boy wounded on 22 April during a Taliban attack against Christians in Tiasar Town near Karachi, has died. In critical conditions from the start, the boy slipped away after five, agonisingly long days. Fr Emmanuel Yousaf Mani, the director of the National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP), led a delegation to the site of the attack. The group, made up of clergymen and lay people, visited the wounded in hospital and then met leaders of the Muttahida Quami Movement(MQM), the only Pakistani party that is opposed to the introduction of Sharia in the Swat Valley....

Note: Photos included. Wednesday, April 29, 2009 Two Pakistani Christians injured in April 22 firing die Fundamentalist Islamists torched houses, desecrated Bibles and manhandled Christians By Dan Wooding and Sheraz Khurram Khan Special to ASSIST News Service KARACHI, PAKISTAN (ANS) -- Two Christian teenager boys, who had received gunshot wounds from police’s alleged firing on April 22 amid protest of Christians against chalking of church wall with slogans commending Taliban have died from their injuries, ANS has learnt. The deceased have been identified as Imran Masih, 13 and Intikhab Masih, 18. Former Member of Provincial Assembly Sindh, Michael Javaid told...

Taliban in their double-dealing, while announcing general amnesty here, threatened taking revenge from the citizens of the villages Shalbandi and Sultanwus, who had formed ‘Lashkar.’ Talks were held between the different political, religious parties and Taliban, which gave rise to a conscientious on all the contentious issues. Maulana Misbahuddin Malikpuri said that the issue of Shalbandi and Sultanwus would be resolved in a week, however, Taliban have threatened taking revenge from those forming ‘Lashkar’ from these two villages. Meanwhile, defunct Tahrik-e-Taliban spokesman, Muslim Khan made it clear that arms would not be laid until the evacuation of all Americans from...

The Taliban wants to nuke you in the name of god. The Pakistani government's capitulation to the Taliban becomes more frightening by the minute. Because the government could not contain the insurgency running rings around legitimate government forces, it agreed to permit the Taliban to employ sharia law in the large district of Swat, which is less than 100 miles from the national capital, Islamabad. Presumably there was some illusion that a major concession of legitimacy would produce a quieter, gentler Taliban, full of the loving, pious grace occasionally proclaimed by political leaders and interfaith bureaucrats unwilling to face the...

This is what we are fighting against. In the part of Pakistan, newly controlled by the Islamists of the Taliban, a couple was accused of adultery. In footage which is being watched with horror by Pakistanis, the couple try to flee when they realize what is about to happen. But a gunman casually shoots the man and then the woman in the back with a burst of gunfire, leaving them bleeding in the dirt. Moments later, when others in the execution party shout out that they are still alive, he returns to coldly finish them with a few more rounds....

Note: The following text is a quote: April 26, 2009 Taliban bombs kill 16 children To which a Pakistani minister asserts, "The Taliban have exposed their real face by killing innocent children." His point, apparently, is that by killing children, the Taliban have proven that they are behaving un-Islamicly: after all, did the prophet himself not say that women and children should not be killed (only enslaved)? Yet, when jihadis asked Muhammad if it was permissible to attack infidel villages indiscriminately even if women and children were there, he flatly said, "They are from among them," which jurists have long...

Saturday, April 25, 2009 Following Entry Posted 4/25/2009 10:16:00 AM Taliban Burn Holy Quran SNIPPET: "From Ali Sukhanver in Pakistan: Recently it was reported by some of the private TV channels, including Samaa and the Geo News that at Ring Road in Hazarkhawni, Peshawar on 12th April, 2009, at least 12 trailers loaded with supplies for NATO forces in Afghanistan were set on fire by Taliban, resulting in the killing of a driver and injuring two cleaners. In this incident one of the drivers told the Taliban that there was a Holy Quran in one of the trailers but the...

'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...

TALIBAN militants in northwest Buner district shaved the heads and moustaches of four Pakistani men as punishment for listening to music, one of the men said. Buner has been subject to huge US concern after hundreds of Taliban fighters advanced into the area from the neighbouring Swat, where the hardliners fought a brutal, nearly two-year insurgency to enforce Islamic law. "I was with three other friends in my car, listening to music when armed Taliban stopped us and, after smashing cassettes and the cassette player, they shaved half our heads and moustaches,'' he said. "The Taliban also beat us and...

The US got tough with Pakistan as terrorists moved to within 60 miles of the capitalAMERICA made clear last week that it would attack Taliban forces in their Swat valley stronghold unless the Pakistan government stopped the militants’ advance towards Islamabad. A senior Pakistani official said the Obama administration intervened after Taliban forces expanded from Swat into the adjacent district of Buner, 60 miles from the capital. The Pakistani Taliban’s inroads raised international concern, particularly in Washington, where officials feared that the nuclear-armed country, which is pivotal to the US war against the Taliban in Afghanistan and against Al-Qaeda, was...

Pakistani military, Taliban maneuver for position in northwest By BILL ROGGIO April 25, 2009 10:52 AM SNIPPET: "The Taliban blocked a military convoy from moving into the main town in Swat as rumors swirl that the military will launch an operation in the region over the next two days. The Taliban surrounded a military convoy as it attempted to enter Mingora, the administrative seat of Swat. The Taliban surrounded the convoy "from all sides," Dawn reported, and forced the military forces to retreat. The military "warned that if such a situation developed again, the armed forces would not hesitate to...

Taliban Islamic radicals have attacked a community of Christians, executing two of them following a rally that protested Muslim graffiti in their neighborhood that ordered them to accept Islam or die, according to an international Christian organization. The attack in Pakistan follows only by days an expansion of the territory occupied by the Islamic Taliban members. The report from International Christian Concern said it happened in Taseer Town in Karachi. The organization, which reaches out to persecuted Christians around the world, said it was told by Asif Stephen, a Christian politician, that the Christians protesting the Islamic slogans say: "We...

Note: The following text is a quote: Taliban turn children into live bombs No worries: once they take over Pakistan, Obama will sit down and talk with them without preconditions, and straighten everything out. "Taliban turn children into live bombs," from the Daily Times, April 23 (thanks to Jeffrey Imm): TANK: Haneef Mehsud was a normal teenager who spent most of his time hanging out with friends and playing cricket before he was recruited by the Taliban and turned into a suicide bomber. Less than a month after his 17th birthday in late 2008, Haneef killed two soldiers when he...

As insurgents close in on Islamabad, The Daily Beast’s Gerald Posner reports that Taliban forces are on the verge of seizing Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal—which has the capability to hit India, Saudi Arabia and Iraq. This morning Taliban units took control of the Buner region of Pakistan, bringing their burgeoning insurgency within 60 miles of the capital city of Islamabad. The government called the advance a breach of a recently-signed peace agreement. But what did they expect? Any store owner who has ever faced ever-increasing protection payments to local gangsters could have told the Pakistanis that their recent string of capitulations...

DAGGAR, Pakistan | Taliban militants have expanded their operations from the Swat Valley to Buner, an adjacent region they now control that is just 60 miles from the capital, Islamabad. Young militants armed with automatic weapons freely patrol roads, while their superiors lead prayers in mosques, where they recruit other fighters to join their campaign to impose Taliban rule throughout Pakistan. Pir Baba is one such mosque. Named after a revered Sufi saint from the region, an adjacent shrine used to be visited daily by worshippers from all across the country. However, they are no longer allowed to visit the...

Afghan Resistance Statement Why are the Americans closing down Jihadi media? Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate The American newspaper, the Wall Street Journal, quoting sources in the Pentagon, wrote the day before yesterday that those Internet sites and radio stations that according to them belong to or are attributed to the Taliban or are supporting them would be closed down. The Pentagon has reasoned that these Internet sites and media sources not only have no legal licences but also make a large number of people side with the Taliban and incite them...

Taleban militants operating in Pakistan's Swat region who agreed a peace deal with the government have expanded operations into nearby Buner. Dozens of militants have been streaming into bordering Buner to take over mosques and government offices. Buner is part of the Malakand region, which has just seen the implementation of Sharia law under the peace deal. But the Taleban have mainly operated in Swat, where they fought the army from August 2007 until this year's deal. Under the deal the Taleban were expected to disarm. Buner district is only about 100km (62 miles) from the capital, Islamabad. Mian Iftikhar...

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration is starting a broad effort in Pakistan and Afghanistan to prevent the Taliban from using radio stations and Web sites to intimidate civilians and plan attacks, according to senior U.S. officials. As part of the classified effort, American military and intelligence personnel are working to jam the unlicensed radio stations in Pakistan's lawless regions on the Afghanistan border that Taliban fighters use to broadcast threats and decrees. U.S. personnel are also trying to block the Pakistani chat rooms and Web sites that are part of the country's burgeoning extremist underground. The Web sites frequently contain...

There are no Taliban in the Kashmir Valley, Indian Army chief General Deepak Kapoor claimed on Tuesday. "We have had no traces of Taliban. But I would like to say, if any element... whether it is LeT (Lashkar-e-Toiba), JeM (Jaish-e-Mohammad), HuJI (Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami)... whenever an element tries to disrupt peace in a region he will be dealt with in the same fashion. He will be neutralised," said General Deepak Kapoor. The Army chief also assured that the borders will be guarded during polls. "We had already foreseen all this happening. We are quite well prepared for it. We did expect, because...

The Taleban in Afghanistan have publicly killed a young couple who they said had tried to run away to get married, officials say. The man, 21, and woman, 19, were shot dead on Monday in front of a mosque in the south-western province of Nimroz. Nimroz is an area where the Taleban have a strong influence. Governor Ghulam Dastageer Azad told the AFP news agency the killings followed a decree by local religious leaders and were an "insult to Islam". Dangerous region Mr Azad said: "An unmarried young boy and an unmarried girl who loved each other and wanted to...

ISLAMABAD: On a day of fast moving developments, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari late on Monday approved the imposition of Sharia law in parts of the country's restive northwest, including Swat, in return for a controversial deal with the Taliban for laying down their arms. ( Watch ) Zardari signed the Nizam-e-Adl Regulation after parliament approved the measure earlier on Monday, Geo TV quoted senior North West Frontier Province (NWFP) Minister Bashir Ahmed Bilour as saying. The regulation will see the imposition of Sharia laws in the Malkhand division of NWFP that comprises seven districts, including Swat, where the writ...

A SCOTTISH Muslim convert, dubbed the "Tartan Taleban", has re-emerged in Pakistan where he has reportedly been arrested as a terror suspect. Pakistan television paraded images of a man said to be James Alexander McLintock, who had been detained in the north-west city of Peshawar in late February. The 44-year-old father of four, originally from Dundee, converted to Islam in his 20s but came to international attention in December 2001 when he was arrested in Afghanistan on suspicion of being a foreign fighter. Mr McLintock was released five weeks later after strenuous denials of links to terror organisations and sent...

SNIPPET: "NEW DELHI: The al-Qaida-Taliban combo plans to use parts of the Middle East as launch pads for attacks against the west. Not only so, the groups have also developed some expertise in making bio-chemical weapons, NWFP police chief Malik Navid told a Pakistan National Assembly’s standing committee." SNIPPET: "Navid’s testimony also points to the virtual merger of al-Qaida with Taliban, with the latter being both part of the core and the major striking arm. Indian intelligence assessments see anti-India groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba being very much a part of this conglomerate."