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ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Investigations into a plot to blow up transatlantic airliners in mid-air, foiled by British, Pakistani and U.S. security agencies a week ago, have focused on the possible financing role played by Islamic charities. Suspicion has fallen on two Pakistani charities said to be linked to banned militant group Jaish-e-Mohammad and its affiliate Jamaat-ul-Furqa, according to Pakistani intelligence officials who say a string of arrests were made in the past week. In particular, authorities are investigating donations made from abroad "We are looking into the activities of al-Rasheed Trust and al Asar Trust because there are some questions...

British and Pakistani investigators are trying to determine whether the group of Britons suspected of plotting to blow up as many as 10 commercial airliners may have received money raised for earthquake relief by a Pakistani charity that is a front for an Islamic militant group. The charity, Jamaat ud Dawa, which is active in the mosques of Britain’s largest cities, played a significant role in carrying out relief efforts after last October’s earthquake in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir. It is one of the most militant of the groups battling the part of Kashmir controlled by India. In May, it was labeled...

Pakistan’s Daily Times ( a paper that’s been known to publish jihadi screeds) reports that an Islamic “charity” organization transferred “a huge amount” of money to the UK terror plotters—and called it “earthquake relief:” ‘Quake money’ used to finance UK plane bombing plot. KARACHI: A UK-based Islamic charity organisation remitted a huge amount of money to three individuals in three different bank accounts in Mirpur, Azad Kashmir, in December last year with the sole purpose of helping its recipients and their organisations carry out the aircraft bombing plan in the UK, insider sources told Daily Times yesterday. An investigation carried...

‘Quake money’ used to finance UK plane bombing plot * Funds given to two British citizens of Kashmiri origin and an Islamabad-based Kashmiri builder * ‘Earthquake relief’ money remitted to individuals alarmed British agenciesBy Sarfaraz Ahmed and Maqbool Ahmed KARACHI: A UK-based Islamic charity organisation remitted a huge amount of money to three individuals in three different bank accounts in Mirpur, Azad Kashmir, in December last year with the sole purpose of helping its recipients and their organisations carry out the aircraft bombing plan in the UK, insider sources told Daily Times yesterday. An investigation carried out by Daily Times...

Scandinavian humanitarian organizations are pulling the plug on aid to victims of last year's devastating tsunami and earthquake disasters, saying the safety of their relief workers has been jeopardized by Muslim rioters protesting cartoons depicting Mohammed. The Red Cross, Norwegian Peoples Aid, Norwegian Church Aid and the Norwegian Refugee Council announced Thursday that they will be suspending aid projects in Indonesia and Pakistan, reports the Norwegian Broadcasting network [NRK]. Danish aid organizations have also announced they are halting relief operations in some Muslim nations. "It is tragic that this has come in the way, but we must first and foremost...

Red Cross Helicopter Missing; 7 on Board By ROSHAN MUGHAL, By The Associated Press 18 minutes ago MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan - A helicopter used by the Red Cross for earthquake relief operations in Pakistan has gone missing with seven crew members on board, an official said Sunday. ADVERTISEMENT The helicopter lost contact with the air control tower after leaving the northwestern city of Peshawar on Saturday, Red Cross quake relief chief Andre Paquet said. The helicopter had been chartered by Turkmenistan to the International Committee of the Red Cross for relief work in the quake zone for the past three months....

MEIRA, Pakistan - Former U.S. presidential candidate John Kerry toured earthquake-devastated parts of northern Pakistan on Saturday, distributing school uniforms and meeting local leaders at a tent village funded partly by both the United States and communist Cuba. The visit came amid warnings that heavy snow would blanket the quake zone over the next four to five days, possibly triggering avalanches along the jagged peaks and promising more misery for the 3.5 million people left homeless by the Oct. 8 quake. "The relief operations will be affected badly," the Pakistan Meteorological Department said. Kerry toured a camp housing some 18,000...

John Kerry U.S. Senator for Massachusetts, center in background in yellow jacket, visited a camp of Oct 8, 2005 earthquake survivors in Shangla district near Mansera, Pakistan, Saturday, Jan 14, 2006.(AP Photo/B.K.Bangash)

In the first poll in Pakistan since the earthquake of October 8, 2005, Pakistanis now hold a more favorable opinion of the United States than at any time since 9/11, while support for Al Qaeda in its home base has dropped to its lowest level since then. The direct cause for this dramatic shift in Muslim opinion is clear: American humanitarian assistance for Pakistani earthquake victims. The second largest and only Muslim nation with nuclear weapons, Pakistan has long been a stronghold for Islamist radicals, and is the likely base for Bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders planning further...

Family scoffs at woman's quake survival story December 16, 2005 - 5:00PM Neighbours and family have scoffed at reports that a woman has been rescued from rubble two months after Pakistan's massive October earthquake. They say that rather than being trapped in her collapsed home for that time, she had stayed there by choice. The story of Naqsha Bibi has been making the rounds in Pakistan for days, and picked up by Pakistani media and some international news organisations. "She was not buried in the rubble. She lived in her collapsed home," said Hafeezur Rahman, a doctor who is treating...

Alive - after 63 days under rubble December 16, 2005 MOST of her muscles are withered, she cannot speak and she is mentally damaged but doctors believe a Kashmiri women who survived 63 days under freezing rubble after Pakistan's deadly earthquake will live. Naqsha Bibi, reduced to a skeleton, lies on a hospital bed in the intensive care unit set up by the Pakistan Islamic Medical Association in Muzaffarabad, the capital of quake-ravaged Pakistani Kashmir. Her two brothers and father, injured in the October 8 earthquake, were flown to a hospital in Rawalpindi near the capital Islamabad where they are...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- A strong earthquake has rocked northwestern Pakistan, the scene of a devastating quake two months ago. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake was a magnitude 6.7 and was centered in the Hindu Kush region of northeastern Afghanistan. It struck shortly before 3 a.m. local time Tuesday. A 7.6-magnitude earthquake on Oct. 8 killed at least 87,000 people in northwestern Pakistan and Indian Kashmir. An earthquake of magnitude 6 or grater can cause severe damage.

MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan -- Earthquake survivors are digging graves before the ground freezes in anticipation of the deaths that the long Himalayan winter may bring, the aid agency Oxfam said. The Oct. 8 quake killed at least 87,000 people and left 3.5 million homeless in northwest Pakistan and Pakistani Kashmir. Aid workers have been racing against time to get aid and suitable shelter to the needy. "There is a real danger that this unprecedented natural disaster will be followed by a manmade one," said Farhana Faruqi Stocker, who is directing relief efforts in Pakistan for the British agency Oxfam. "The international...

Islamic radicals, and their supporters in the media, are waiting for an opportunity to avoid a PR disaster in earthquake ravaged northern Pakistan. Over three million people were made homeless by the disaster, and over 100,000 were seriously injured. Nearly 80,000 died. For Islamic radicals, the real nightmare began after the quakes, when they not only found many of their terrorist training camps wrecked, but the area was flooded with infidel (non-Moslem) relief workers. At first, the Islamic radicals tried to cajole, then threaten locals to refuse help from the infidels. But the locals were desperate, and the infidels had...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, DEC. 2, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Christians are being expelled from their homes in Pakistan to make room for victims of the earthquake that hit Kashmir and the northwestern region of the country in early October. Reports from Catholic leaders spearheading the relief work following the earthquake say that hundreds or even thousands of people near Joharabad, close to Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, are being made homeless, with no prospect of alternative accommodation being found. In an interview with Aid to the Church in Need, Bishop Anthony Lobo of Islamabad-Rawalpindi said he feared that the incident of forced ejections he had uncovered...

LONDON (CNS) -- Hundreds of Christian families in Pakistan are being kicked out of their homes to make way for Muslims left destitute by the Kashmir earthquake, a Catholic bishop said. Bishop Anthony Lobo of Islamabad-Rawalpindi, Pakistan, said the Pakistani government has evicted Christians to solve the problem of how to house some 3 million people left homeless by the disaster. The Oct. 8 earthquake killed more than 73,000 people, but those left homeless continue to be threatened with death from exposure to single-digit winter temperatures. Bishop Lobo told the British branch of Aid to the Church in Need, a...

Trafficking of children reported in Pakistan ___ ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- She is a girl without an identity, whisked here by helicopter from the earthquake zone, one of the devastating temblor's anonymous -- and most vulnerable -- victims. The teenager, her hair cut short for head surgery, cries uncontrollably and cannot remember her name or that of her village. Hospital workers call her Aisha. ''She's alone in the world. She doesn't recognize anybody," said Dr. Robina Quiesha, of the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences. ''I really don't know what will become of her." A magnitude-7.6 earthquake rocked this region Oct. 8....

Sgt. Kornelia Rachwal, 12th Aviation Brigade, comforts a Pakistani earthquake victim being evacuated from Muzaffarabad aboard a CH-47 Chinhook. By Tech. Sgt. Mike Buytas, October 21, 2005Pakistanis watch as U.S. Soldiers unload earthquake relief supplies from their CH-47 Chinook helicopter, near Panjkot, Pakistan. By Tech. Sgt. Mike Buytas, October 31, 20051st Lt. Tory Marcon, from the 212th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital in Muzaffarabad, Pakistan, helps Riaz Sharif drink a special food for tetanus patients with muscle spasms. The Soldiers are providing medical care for earthquake victims. By Petty Officer 2nd Class Eric S. Powell, November 9, 2005.2nd Lt. Jeanette Johnson,...

MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan — U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan chided the international community Friday for a "weak and tardy" response to the South Asia quake that killed more than 87,000 people. Annan said on the eve of a key donors conference that only 30 percent of the money pledged for quake relief had been donated so far. He said that paled in comparison to donations after the Dec. 26 earthquake and tsunami that devastated 11 nations on the Indian Ocean. "I think there is no doubt that donors' response has been weak and tardy," Annan said. "When the tsunami struck at the...

The Justice and Peace Commission accuses the police of “criminal negligence” because they did not intervene, and also criticizes ministers and politicians for not scrapping the blasphemy law. Lahore (AsiaNews) – Three churches, a nuns‘ convent, two Catholic schools, the houses of a Protestant pastor and of a parish priest, a girls’ hostel, some Christian homes, were first vandalized and then set on fire by an angry crowd of around 2,000 people in the village of Sangla Hill, Nankana district in Punjab. At least 450 Christian families fled from the village and they have not yet returned for fear of...