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A senior al-Qaeda leader in Pakistan, Abu Hafs al-Shahri, has been killed, say senior US officials. There has been no independent confirmation of the death, which officials said happened in the Waziristan tribal region. The US frequently carries out drone air strikes against suspected militants hiding out in the volatile area. Three weeks ago, the US said it had killed al-Qaeda's suspected chief of operations, Atiyah Abd al-Rahman. The media are denied access to the area, making it difficult to confirm such claims. The US said Shahri has been killed earlier this week and that his death "removes a key...

US officials tell ABC News that al Qaeda’s No. 3 -- Mustafa Ahmed Muhammad Uthman Abu al-Yazid, known as Shaikh Sa’id al-Masri and Mustafa Abu al-Yazid – has been killed. Al Qaeda released a eulogy of Shaikh Sa’id tonight, officials said. "Word is spreading in extremist circles of the death of Sheikh Sa'id al-Masri, widely viewed as the number three figure in al-Qaeda,” a US official told ABC News. “We have strong reason to believe that's true, and that al-Masri was killed recently in Pakistan's tribal areas. In terms of counterterrorism, this would be a big victory.” US officials believed...

PARACHINAR, Pakistan – Two intelligence officials say suspected U.S. missiles struck vehicles in a tribal region near Afghanistan, killing at least three people. The identities of those killed in the attack early Tuesday in the Doga area of North Waziristan were not immediately known. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. North Waziristan has been the target of nearly all of the some 30 other American attacks this year. ..

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The United States has warned of "severe consequences" if a successful extremist attack in America were traced back to Pakistan, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Friday in an interview with CBS' "60 Minutes." The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for a failed bid to bomb New York's Times Square last Saturday. If proven, it would be the group's first act in the United States. Pakistani-American Faisal Shahzad has been charged with driving the crude homemade bomb into Midtown Manhattan and said he acted alone, according to authorities. But investigators have uncovered possible links to the...

The Pentagon on Thursday said Pakistan would decide when to move against extremists in North Waziristan and that it was not Washington's role to dictate timing of military operations in the country. US officials have long urged Pakistan to take its offensive against Islamist militants to North Waziristan, home to an array of extremists including Al-Qaeda and the so-called Pakistani Taliban. Revelations that a foiled car bomb plot in New York City may have been linked to the Pakistani Taliban have added fresh urgency to US requests for action by Islamabad in North Waziristan. Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell repeated...

ISLAMABAD – They were never routed, no matter what Pakistan claimed. Instead, the Taliban and al-Qaida fighters have merely relocated. They're still near the Afghan border. Months after Pakistani troops chased them from South Waziristan, these militants have established a new base farther north under the protection of an insurgent leader who has cut past deals with the Pakistani army, according to residents, militants and reports from Associated Press correspondents who visited recently. The fighters — including Arabs, Chechens and Uzbeks — roam through markets, frequent restaurants and watch jihadi movies or surf the Web at Internet cafes, their weapons...

Unmanned US strike aircraft killed six Taliban fighters during attacks in Pakistan’s lawless tribal agency of North Waziristan. A flight of Predators or its more muscular brothers, the Reapers, hit a Taliban compound and two vehicles in the town of Tolkhel near Miramshah in North Waziristan. The Predators fired their missiles in two waves. Seven missiles total were fired, according to a report in Dawn. The first strike hit a Taliban compound and vehicle, while the second strike appears to have hit during the Taliban’s attempt to recover the dead and wounded. "Missiles hit a car carrying militants and as...

PARACHINAR, Pakistan – Pakistani troops repulsed a Taliban attack Sunday on an army base and bombed two militant hide-outs close to the Afghan border, killing 22 insurgents in a region where the army is pressing an offensive, a government official said. The fighting occurred in Orakzai tribal region where many militants are believed to have fled from a major operation in their former stronghold of South Waziristan. ... The government says more than 100 suspected militants and five soldiers have been killed in fighting in the region in the last week. Officials have said the militants killed so far include...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The US government for the first time has offered a legal justification of its drone strikes against Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants, citing the right to "self-defense" under international law. The CIA attacks by unmanned aircraft in Pakistan, Somalia and elsewhere have sharply increased under President Barack Obama's administration but have remained shrouded in secrecy, with some human rights groups charging the bombing raids amount to illegal assassinations. Broaching a subject that has been off-limits for official comment, State Department legal advisor Harold Koh laid out the legal argument for the strikes in a speech late Thursday, referring...

WASHINGTON – An al-Qaida leader believed to have played a key role in the bombing of a CIA post in Afghanistan last December was apparently killed by an American missile strike last week, a senior U.S. official said Wednesday. The counterterrorism official said Hussein al-Yemeni was believed killed in a strike in Miram Shah, the main town in North Waziristan. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information. Drone strikes in Pakistan's border region, largely conducted by the CIA, have escalated in recent months, proving an effective way to target al-Qaida and Taliban leaders hiding in the...

MIRANSHAH: Two US missile strikes killed at least 12 militants in Pakistan's tribal region near the Afghan border, officials said. The first strike took place at 8:00 pm in Mizar Madakhel village, some 50 kilometres west of Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan and was followed by a second strike. Eight militants were killed when the drone fired four missiles, hitting a vehicle and a compound which were being used by militants and killing four rebels, a senior security official in the area said. He added that the second strike took place after a brief interval in the same...

PARACHINAR, Pakistan — Pakistani officials say suspected U.S. drones have fired missiles at a house and nearby truck in the country's northwest near the Afghan border, killing at least four people. Local government official Sabir Khan said Wednesday's attack occurred in the Mazer Meda Khel area of the North Waziristan tribal area. Mazer Meda Khel is located some 25 miles (40 kilometers) west of the main town of Miran Shah. Two Pakistani intelligence officials confirmed the details of the attack. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. The identities of those...

Suspected Islamist militants attacked the offices of Federal Way-based World Vision in Islamabad, Pakistan on Wednesday killing at least 5 people. Reports say the militants first set off a bomb, then opened fire on the agency. The people killed are believed to be Pakistani earthquake relief workers.

To many Pakistanis the most shocking aspect of the latest Taliban bombing was not the death toll, or the injuries inflicted on survivors, but the question that it raised: what was a team of American soldiers doing in a tense corner of North West Frontier province? In a way, the attack tugged the veil from a multi-faceted military assistance programme that, while not secret, is rarely publicised – by either side. President Obama's public aid to ­Pakistan is transparent: $1.5bn a year for the next five years, mainly to boost the civilian government. But behind the scenes the US is...

Three US soldiers are among at least 10 people killed when a blast hit a convoy near a school in north-west Pakistan.Police said around 70 people, including 63 school girls and a US soldier, were injured in the bombing in Lower Dir. The soldiers were believed to have been training Pakistan's Frontier Corps in counter-insurgency operations. The two governments deny substantial numbers of US troops are based inside Pakistan, where public opinion is strongly opposed to their presence. The US embassy has declined to comment on the killings. Taliban presenceMilitary spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas told the BBC that the...

MIRANSHAH, Pakistan (AFP) – Numerous missiles fired from US drones on Tuesday killed at least ten militants in a village in Pakistan's northwest tribal region near the Afghan border, security officials said. "Up to eight US drones fired some 18 missiles at multiple militant targets in Datta khel village," a senior security official told AFP. "Ten militants were killed in the missile strikes," the official said. Local administration and intelligence officials confirmed the deaths after the volley of strikes reportedly struck militant hideouts and a training centre in three places in the village. Residents in Miranshah, the main town of...

MIRANSHAH, Pakistan (AFP) – Pakistani gunship helicopters on Friday pounded a suspected militant hideout in a northwestern tribal area known for sheltering Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters, officials said. The assault in North Waziristan comes a day after US Defence Secretary Robert Gates asked Islamabad about their plans to expand an existing anti-Taliban offensive into the district bordering Afghanistan. "Two gunship helicopters attacked a suspected militant centre," a security official in North Waziristan's main town Miranshah said. The attack took place on the outskirts of Miranshah in an old refugee camp now home to both Afghan migrants and Pakistanis. Authorities also...

Unmanned US strike aircraft killed six Islamist extremists in an attack on a compound in Pakistan's Taliban-controlled tribal agency of North Waziristan. The strike took place in the Datta Khel region in North Waziristan, a region that hosts a headquarters for al Qaeda's Shadow Army. "Two missiles fired by a US drone hit a compound which was being used by militants," a senior Pakistani security official told Dawn. "One missile hit a compound and the other hit a vehicle outside it. Six militants were killed." No senior al Qaeda or Taliban commanders have been reported killed in the strike at...

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A suspected U.S. drone aircraft fired two missiles into Pakistan's North Waziristan region on the Afghan border on Tuesday, killing three militants, Pakistani intelligence officials said. The drone targeted a house in a village, 35 km (22 miles) west of Miranshah...

Pakistan Collapse Could Trigger Global Great Depression and World War III Politics / Pakistan Jan 16, 2010 - 08:47 PM By: Nadeem Walayat During 2009 the 2600 terrorist attacks resulted in the number of deaths soaring to more than 12,000 casualties in Pakistan, compared to the number killed in Iraq falling to 2,800 from the 2008 total of 5,900. The U.S. War in Afghanistan pushed the Taliban and Al-Qeeda over the border into Pakistan that has sparked an escalating insurgency and Pakistan's own U.S. backed un-popular "War on Terror" which is going just as badly as that in Afghanistan, only...