Pervez Musharraf is considering stepping down as president of Pakistan rather than waiting to be forced out by his victorious opponents, aides have told The Sunday Telegraph.
One close confidante said that the president believed he had run out of options after three of the main parties who triumphed in last week's poll announced they would form a coalition government together, and also pledged to reinstate the country's chief justice and 60 other judges sacked by Mr Musharraf in November.
"He has already started discussing the exit strategy for himself," a close friend said. "I think it is now just a matter of days and not months because he would like to make a graceful exit on a high." According to senior aides, Mr Musharraf wants to avoid a power struggle with the newly elected parliament, in which his opponents will be close to the two-thirds majority needed to impeach him and remove him from office.
Excerpted
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/02/24/wpak124.xml
A Profile In Terror, Behind A Keyboard Suspect Charged With Leaking Navy Secrets
February 24, 2008
If appearance matters, Hassan Abu-jihaad is an improbable holy warrior. His demeanor has been painfully meek during the legal proceedings leading up to his trial Monday in federal court in New Haven, where he is charged with transmitting military secrets to terrorists. Mostly, he has been a bewildered-looking man in an oversize prison jumpsuit.
Little is known about him. He was born Paul R. Hall and lived in Southern California. He converted to Islam, changed his name and joined the Navy. Later, he would be recorded by the FBI laughing with a friend at an al-Qaida propaganda video showing an insurgent known as the Juba sniper killing American soldiers in Iraq.
Excerpted
http://www.courant.com/news/nationworld/hc-newterror0224.artfeb24,0,5927352,full.story
Note: The following post is a quote:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1975714/posts
Security agencies arrest Mullah Obaidullah AGAIN(maybe no catch and release this go around)
dailytimes.com ^ | February 25, 2008 | By Shahnawaz Khan
Posted on 02/24/2008 6:45:57 PM PST by Dog
LAHORE: Intelligence agencies have once again arrested the Taliban Majlis-e-Shura’s former defence minister Mullah Obaidullah Akhund along with two other Afghan nationals from Lahore, along with two other Afghan nationals, intelligence sources told Daily Times on Sunday.
The sources revealed that Obaidullah had been arrested in 2006 in Quetta and was released after around nine months, after which he fled to in Afghanistan.
This time he arrived in Pakistan to generate funds, the sources said, adding that he, along with Pakistani allies, had visited several cities in this regard.
The sources revealed that Obaidullah had arrived in Pakistan in the first week of January 2008, and had contacted several influential personalities with links to banned militant organisations. During their visits, Obaidullah had, during rapid visits between cities, convinced several people to provide funding to support the Taliban’s cause, the sources added.
Later, after arriving in Lahore where he was residing in one of the city’s posh localities, the Afghans’ meetings with financially strong business personalities continued for the sake of generating funds. After a tip off, the group was arrested and shifted to an unknown location, according to the sources.
They said that Mullah Obaidullah had been the Taliban defence minister during 1996 till the US toppled the government in the fall of 2001.
He is a senior Taliban figure and is considered by American intelligence officials to have been one of the Taliban leaders closest to Osama Bin Laden, as well as part of the inner core of the Taliban leadership around Mullah Muhammad Omar. Obaidullah is a member of the Taliban Majlis-e-Shura, or executive council, and is thought to be third in command, they added.