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Army troops on Thursday shot dead a self-styled commander of pro-Pakistan Hizbul Mujahideen outfit in Udhampur district of Jammu and Kashmir, official sources said. On an intelligence report about the presence of a group of Hizbul terrorists, troops launched a seek and destroy operation in Tringa forest belt of Mahore tehsil in Udhampur district around 8.30 am on Thursday, they said. During search of the area, an encounter took place between terrorists and troops, they said adding that one top terrorist was killed. The encounter was still going on. The slain terrorist is codenamed Abu Usma, tehsil commander of HM,...

LAHORE. Security forces arrested four suspected terrorists who were planning a suicide bombing in the city, intelligence officials told Daily Times on Wednesday. The suspects who were wearing jackets with several large pockets were disguised as street vendors, officials said, adding that security forces also seized explosives and weapons from their carts. The arrests came from the information gleaned from another suspected terrorist Tariq Gujjar, who was arrested four days ago. Gujjar told investigators that he was a member of an Al Qaeda gang headed by Munna Pathan. He said the gang planned to bomb the American Consulate in Lahore....

Pak nets bomb cleric Islamabad Dec. 3: Pakistani security forces today arrested a suspected militant and recovered 10 bombs from his custody in Sheikhpura town, near Lahore. Local police officials said security forces arrested Muhammad Aslam, who is the chief cleric of a mosque in Sheikhpura, during a raid. The police said Aslam is a member of the outlawed Sunni militant outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi but did not give any details. President Pervez Musharraf had banned five militant outfits in January 2002 as part of the government’s drive to curb sectarianism and track down extremist elements in the aftermath of the September...

KABUL, Afghanistan -- US-led troops mounted overnight raids on suspected Al Qaeda compounds in eastern Afghanistan, killing four people and detaining several others, officials said yesterday. The US military said "several Arab fighters" were among the suspects killed or detained in the operation in Nangarhar Province, although a local official said only Afghans survived. News reports of the operation were announced as Lieutenant General David Barno, the top US commander in Afghanistan, reported that Al Qaeda suspects were continuing to slip across the Pakistani border nearby. The raids targeted several compounds that "had clear connections to Al Qaeda," the military...

GAZIANTEP - One of three terrorists who attempted to plant a bomb on railway bridge near Dortyol town of southern city of Hatay was captured in southeastern city of Gaziantep, sources said on Saturday. It was learned that the captured terrorist was preparing to bomb Gaziantep governor's office. Sources told A.A correspondent that Anti-Terrorism Office and intelligence teams captured Adil Abi when he was checking the area around the governor's office for a terrorist attack he was planning. Another person who was with Adi escaped. Sources noted that Adil Abi told police that he was among people who tried to...

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) - Turkish television stations broadcast a video Friday that claimed that Habib Akdas, suspected leader of the Turkish al-Qaida cell blamed for November suicide bombings in Istanbul, was killed this week in a U.S. bombing raid in Iraq. The video, broadcast by Turkish television channels CNN-Turk and NTV, showed the body of a bearded man with a bloody face, who was wrapped in a cloth. A man who claimed to be a Turkish militant was heard in the video saying that the body was that of Akdas and that Akdas was killed in a bombing raid this...

Summary: ITAR-TASS is reporting claims by Prime Minister Ayad Allawi yesterday to Al-Arabiya satellite channel that four close associates of Osama bin Laden have been seized in Iraq. Allawi says other members will be caught soon.

WANA - Pakistani forces have destroyed a suspected Al-Qaeda training camp in a remote tribal area near the Afghan border, killing some 50 militant fighters, the military said. "Around 50 people, 90% of them foreigners, were killed in the strike on the terrorist training camp," military spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan told the private ARYOne television channel. Most of the victims were Uzbeks and Chechens with some Arabs among them, Sultan said. The camp was in the tribal district of South Waziristan, where hundreds of Al-Qaeda fighters have been taking refuge and running training camps since US-led forces ousted Afghanistan's...

QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) - A suspected al-Qaida operative who was captured along with another man during raids in this southwestern city is an "explosives expert" who had arrived here from Iran, a security official said Thursday. The suspects, an Egyptian named Sharif al-Misri and another man of Middle Eastern origin identified as Abdul Hakeem, were caught Sunday when Pakistani intelligence agents acting on a tip raided a home in Quetta, the capital of the province of Baluchistan. The arrests were announced Wednesday by Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed. A security official who is familiar with the investigations of the two...

Islamabad - Pakistan has arrested a key Egyptian al-Qaeda operative who holds a senior position within the terrorist network, a security official said on Wednesday. The official, asking to remain anonymous, identified the suspect as Sharif Al-Misri and said his capture carried a significant reward. "He is one of the top operators in al-Qaeda's hierarchy," said the official. Sheikh Rashid, who is due to be sworn in as information minister later on Wednesday, confirmed to AFP that Al-Misri and another al-Qaeda suspect had been detained. The security official said the pair were arrested on Sunday in Quetta, the capital of...

Pakistan nears endgame in al-Qaeda hunt By Syed Saleem Shahzad KARACHI - As Pakistan continues its relentless campaign against al-Qaeda, diplomatic circles in Islamabad and Washington believe that some "high-value" targets might already have been arrested to be produced at a later date. At the same time, the strongest-ever operation in the country against jihadi forces is seen as a preemptive strike against a backlash in the event of a high-value target being caught. On Monday, the Pakistani army said security forces had killed four suspected al-Qaeda members and captured two others in a raid in the tribal regions of...

KABUL — U.S. and Afghan troops killed a Taliban commander and detained 22 suspected Taliban fighters during a major search operation after a gunbattle in a southern Afghanistan mountain range, officials said yesterday. A renegade warlord also was taken into custody weeks after a clash with a powerful rival in the west of the country, as authorities struggle to improve security for October elections. Mullah Rozi Khan, a Taliban commander in Zabul province, was killed after troops surrounded a group of rebels in Ghazoi village Friday evening, said Asadullah Khan, governor of neighboring Ghazni province.

Men wanted to blow up bomb in 34th Street/Herald Square station. Men of Middle-Eastern descent. No ties to convention. More to follow...

DENVER - A man accused of attending a terrorist training camp was deported Thursday to Pakistan. Sajjad Nasser, 29, was deported under a section of the Patriot Act that expands the legal definitions of terrorist organizations and acts, said Corina Almeida, chief counsel for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "I think this case sends a very loud message to the terrorists and those that seek to do us harm," she said. Nasser's attorney, David Lane, called the allegation that his client helped terrorists "a big, fat lie." "He is a sacrificial lamb," his lawyer said. "It's ludicrous. It's racist." Nasser...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan Aug. 23, 2004 — Pakistani troops acting on a tip raided a terrorist hideout Monday in a remote tribal region, sparking a shootout that left four foreigners dead and several wounded, an army spokesman said. The operation was launched after intelligence reports said some foreign fighters were hiding on the outskirts of Miran Shah, the main town in North Waziristan a tribal region in Pakistan's northwest near the border with Afghanistan, said Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan. He described the assault as successful, and said the bodies of the four slain men were recovered. "The raid also netted (alive)...

Posted on Tue, Aug. 24, 2004 Swiss Accuse Group of Backing al-Qaida JONATHAN FOWLER Associated Press GENEVA - Swiss investigators have found evidence that suspected members of a group backing al-Qaida were supplying fake documents to enable collaborators to enter Switzerland and other European countries illegally, the supreme court said Tuesday. The Federal Tribunal said one suspect, whose name was not released, was found to have links to both an unidentified al-Qaida recruiter who sent volunteers to the terror group's training camps and another unidentified individual convicted of terrorism offenses in France. The support group also provided cell phone numbers...

AL QAEDA MILITANTS KILLED Pakistani security forces have killed four al Qaeda-linked Uzbek militants in a tribal region bordering Afghanistan, officials have said. Another foreigner and a Pakistani were also captured in the raid on a hideout near North Waziristan's capital town of Miranshah.The operation coincided with a big assault on the other side of the border by US helicopter gunships and hundreds of Afghan and US-led troops. A government official said the men were thought to have been among a large group of militants pursued by the military since March in neighbouring South Waziristan. Hundreds of foreign militants, including...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - Security forces were hunted for more terror suspects, officials said Sunday, as Pakistan revealed that it has arrested a dozen al-Qaida-linked militants who had planned to launch simultaneous suicide attacks on government leaders and the U.S. Embassy. Officials said the plot could have killed hundreds of people, underscoring the deadly stakes in President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's aggressive push to defeat violent extremists enraged by his support of the U.S.-led war on terrorism. "We have infiltrated their network and that is why we have made these arrests," Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayyat told The Associated Press. "They...

Time is GMT + 8 hours Posted: 22 August 2004 1252 hrs Australian Taliban fighter and Osama bodyguards to face US military justiceA TV grab of an undated photo of David Hicks taken in Kosovo. GUANTANAMO BAY US NAVAL BASE, Cuba : The United States will this week start controversial military proceedings against an Australian Taliban fighter and three bodyguards for Osama bin Laden. David Hicks, an Australian, two Yemenis, Salim Ahmed Hamdan and Ali Hamza Ahmed Sulayman al-Bahlul, and a Sudanese, Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al-Qosi, will be the first of the 585 detainees at the Guantanamo detention camp in...

GENEVA, Aug 21 (AFP) - Two Yemeni nationals arrested this year in Switzerland are linked to key Al-Qaeda figures with ties to the October 2000 bombing of a US aircraft carrier off Yemen and to a suicide strike in Riyadh last year, the Swiss public prosecutor was quoted as saying on Saturday. The pair, who were detained in Geneva and Bern in January, have been linked to "several core members of the (Osama) bin Laden movement," said a report on an inquiry by public prosecutor Claude Nicati, obtained by Le Temps newspaper. A spokesperson at the federal prosecutor's office declined...