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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...

Karachi, 27 Dec. (AKI) - (by Syed Saleem Shahzad) - A spokesperson for the al-Qaeda terrorist network has claimed responsibility for the death on Thursday of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto. “We terminated the most precious American asset which vowed to defeat [the] mujahadeen,” Al-Qaeda’s commander and main spokesperson Mustafa Abu Al-Yazid told Adnkronos International (AKI) in a phone call from an unknown location, speaking in faltering English. Al-Yazid is the main al-Qaeda commander in Afghanistan. It is believed that the decision to kill Bhutto, who is the leader of the opposition Pakistan People's Party (PPP), was made by...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Al Qaeda has regrouped in Pakistan's remote Afghan border area and begun to focus attacks on the Pakistani government and military, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Friday. But the Pentagon chief said al Qaeda's activities in Pakistan have not yet affected Afghanistan, where U.S. and coalition forces have faced increased Taliban violence in the past two years. "There is no question that some of the areas in the frontier area have become areas where Al Qaeda has re-established itself," Gates said. "But so far, we haven't seen any significant consequence of that in Afghanistan itself....

SWAT, Pakistan - Muslim extremists are expanding their control of northern Pakistan, challenging the U.S.-backed government of President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and adding to the lands where terrorists allied with Osama bin Laden find refuge. Once restricted to pockets in the mountains along the Afghanistan border, radical mullahs and their followers now wield power in vast areas of northwest Pakistan. They have moved in the past few months beyond the tribal regions and into northern Pakistan cities and the Swat Valley. The increased influence of the Islamic radicals was highlighted this week by intense fighting between local gunmen and government...

LAHORE: An increasing number of militants from Europe are travelling to Pakistan to train and plot attacks on the West, European and US anti-terrorism officials say, according to a report in the LA Times. “There have always been people going to Pakistan, but it is more frequent now,” said a senior French intelligence official who, like others interviewed for the report, spoke on condition of anonymity. “There is a return. It is a cycle ... And you have the attractive phenomenon that all the big chiefs of Al Qaeda are there.” “The emerging route, illuminated by alleged bomb plots dismantled...

An all-out battle for control of Pakistan's restive North and South Waziristan is about to commence between the Pakistani military and the Taliban and al-Qaeda adherents who have made these tribal areas their own. According to a top Pakistani security official who spoke to Asia Times Online on condition of anonymity, the goal this time is to pacify the Waziristans once and for all. All previous military operations - usually spurred by intelligence provided by the Western coalition - have had limited objectives, aimed at specific bases or sanctuaries or blocking the cross-border movement of guerrillas. Now the military is...

US terms Pakistan Al Qaeda ‘safe haven’ By Anwar Iqbal WASHINGTON, Oct 9: The White House on Tuesday released a national strategy for combating terrorism, singling out Pakistan as an Al Qaeda ‘safe haven’, which can be used for launching another 9/11 like attack inside the United States. This is the first time that the country has been named as an Al Qaeda ‘safe haven’ in a White House policy document. Al Qaeda has “protected its top leadership, replenished operational lieutenants, and regenerated a safe haven in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas — core capabilities that would help facilitate another...

Pakistan: Concern over nukes as al Qaeda camps empty US intelligence investigates Pakistan's nuclear security and the military’s loyalty to Musharraf as the Northwest Frontier Province spins further out of control As the security situation in the Northwest Frontier Province continues to deteriorate and President Pervez Musharraf's political stock continues to drop, the US military intelligence community is "urgently assessing how secure Pakistan's nuclear weapons would be in the event President Gen. Pervez Musharraf were replaced." Meanwhile, the Taliban and al Qaeda have dispersed operatives from the training camps in the Northwest Frontier Province and are preparing to fight on...

ISLAMABAD — Pakistani helicopter gunships launched new assaults Saturday on al-Qaida and Taliban hideouts in the mountainous northwest as President Pervez Musharraf prepared to address a peace summit in Kabul. Cobra helicopters killed three suspected militants, pounding what was believed to be their base after a firefight Saturday in Mir Ali town in North Waziristan tribal district, the military said. "A security convoy was passing when an improvised explosive device planted by militants exploded, causing no harm to the security personnel," chief military spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad said. "Armed miscreants then attacked security men with automatic weapons that injured...

MIRANSHAH, Pakistan (AFP) - Helicopter gunships pounded suspected Taliban and Al-Qaeda hideouts in northern Pakistan, as the United States called for even greater efforts in the battle against the militants. The military said at least 10 militants were killed in the attack, which also involved ground forces, on a pro-Taliban district in the restive North Waziristan region near the Afghan border on Thursday. Military spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad told AFP the strike was launched after several roadside bomb attacks earlier in the day in the same region wounded four soldiers. In a separate incident in South Waziristan 16 soldiers...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said Tuesday that talk of U.S. military strikes against al-Qaida in Pakistan only hurts the fight against terrorism, and his troops bombarded militant hideouts in their strongest response yet to a month of anti-government attacks. Ten suspected militants were killed. The assault by artillery and helicopter gunships "knocked out" two compounds in Daygan village in the tribal belt near the border with Afghanistan that were being used as staging posts for attacks on security forces, said Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad, the army's top spokesman. Ten militants were killed and at least seven were...

MIRAN SHAH, Pakistan - Government forces attacked two militant bases with helicopter gunships and artillery Tuesday in some of the army's toughest action in the lawless Afghan border region since militant attacks began surging last month. Spokesman Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad said troops targeted a pair of compounds in Daygan, a village 10 miles west of North Waziristan's main town of Miran Shah, after they received credible intelligence that militants were there. President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, a key ally of the United States in its war on terror, is under rising pressure from Washington to crack down on militants in...