The White House has welcomed the release of American Central Intelligence Agency contractor Raymond Davis, arrested by Pakistani authorities after he shot and killed two men in Lahore in January. His release ended one of the most serious diplomatic stand-offs between Islamabad and Washington in nine years of partnering in the fight against terrorism.
The United States on Wednesday expressed its gratitude to the families of two Pakistani men gunned down by Central Intelligence Agency contractor Raymond Davis for pardoning him and said the Department of Justice was investigating the shooting incident.
Top US officials are unhappy over some Inter-Services Intelligence elements continuing to support the Haqqani network to counter India's presence in the region, amid fears that Pakistani military is "unable or unwilling" to act against Taliban and Al Qaeda in the restive tribal belt.
Central Intelligence Agency chief Leon Panetta has held a series of meetings with senior government officials in New Delhi. Official sources said Panetta, who also met with Intelligence Bureau chief Rajiv Mathur and Research and Analysis Wing chief A K Verma, discussed various areas of cooperation. This is the first high-profile visit by any American official after a team of the Indian National Investigation Agency had questioned terrorist David Coleman Headley in May.
The 61-year-old will be the first woman to lead the agency in its 70-year history.
United States national Raymond Davis, an alleged Central Intelligence Agency contractor who was arrested for gunning down two men in Lahore, on Friday insisted he acted in self defence and had diplomatic immunity during a hearing into murder charges against him at a Pakistani court, which adjourned the trial till March 3.
A suspected Pakistani spy, who was in Delhi for the last one year allegedly conducting reconnaissance of army installations, was arrested recently, with the Delhi police claiming that they have recovered confidential documents related to the Indian Army from his possession.Sajjad Haider, 43, hailing from Lahore, was apprehended by a team of the Delhi police's Special Cell from Samalkha village on September 14 on a tip off from central intelligence agencies.
ISI sources have confirmed that Davis, who is currently under detention in Lahore, had links to the CIA, and said that the conduct of the US intelligence agency around the incident has 'virtually thrown the partnership into question'.
The 500-page United States Select Committee on Intelligence's damning report on the Central Intelligence Agency's torture tactics lists numerous instances of rights violations. While it is difficult to point out every ghastly detail here, rediff.com lists at least 10 instances.
United States President Barack Obama has visited headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency to congratulate the top spy outfit for its role in killing of the Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
Called WikiLeaks Task Force or WTF, it is focused on the immediate impact of the most recently released files, The Washington Post reported.
The top Central Intelligence Agency official in Pakistan has been called back home from Islamabad after his cover was blown allegedly by the Inter Services Intelligence, resulting in a serious threat to his life. The 'purposeful' leaking of identity of the CIA station chief in Islamabad -- named in Pakistani media as Jonathan Banks -- allegedly by the Inter Services Intelligence is in retaliation of a lawsuit filed against the Pakistani spy agency's chief Ahmed Shuja Pasha.
Pictures of Osama bin Laden's dead body will not be released, United States President Barack Obama said on Wednesday, according to CBS news. Obama said in an interview that he would not release the post-mortem images of bin Laden taken to prove his death, the news outlet said in a statement.
Pakistani officials were kept deliberately out of loop by the United States in its operation to get Osama bin Laden as it feared they might "alert" the targets and "jeopardise" the mission, Central Intelligence Agency Director Leon Panetta said on Tuesday.
The social networking sites were abuzz with discussion over Osama bin Laden's end.
After bin Laden's reported death near Islamabad, rediff.com revisits B Raman's June 2010 analysis
David Petraeus, considered to be one of the best war-time generals and who till recently was commander of US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organisation forces in Afghanistan, was on Tuesday sworn in as the chief of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Former Central Intelligence Agency South Asia analyst, Lisa Curtis, now a Senior Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, recalled how in 1995, when she served in Islamabad as a diplomat, the Pakistan-based terror groups that were funded, armed and supported by the Inter-Services Intelligence specifically to launch attacks in Kashmir against Indian security forces, also had strong links to the Taliban.
Pakistan has agreed in principle to launch a full-fledged military operation against Taliban militants in North Waziristan. But it will be a tough task for the country's army, as the terrain is believed to be the stronghold of numerous Arab, central Asian, Pashtun and Punjabi militants.The military operation may increase the flow of US aid to Pakistan, but the consequences might be unaffordable for the beleaguered country.
Top US security officials briefed Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari on Wednesday, on the probe into the botched car bombing in New York by a Pakistani-American and discussed measures to prevent "potential attacks."
What needs to be understood is that not one, but three cancers afflict Pakistan
American official Raymond Davis, arrested for killing two Pakistanis in Lahore, may have headed a covert Central Intelligence Agency team that was tasked to secretly gather intelligence on the Pakistan-based terror group Lashkar-e-Tayiba, which the United States feels is getting out of the shadows of the Pakistan army to launch a campaign of jihad against it and Europe.
Pakistan's fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami party has announced it will provide financial aid of Rs 3 lakh to the families of the three men killed in an incident involving suspected Central Intelligence Agency contractor Raymond Davis. This is in a bid to forestall reported efforts by Saudi Arabia to arrange a "blood money" deal to settle the matter.
In a setback to the United States' efforts to seek early release of its national Raymond Davis, who was arrested for double murder, a Pakistani court on Thursday rejected his claim that he has diplomatic immunity and said it would go ahead with his trial. During the last hearing of the case, 37-year-old Davis, a suspected Central Intelligence Agency contractor, had filed an application in which he insisted that he had immunity.
American official Raymond Davis, arrested for double murder, had "close links" with Taliban and was "instrumental" in recruiting youths for it, the media in Pakistan claimed on Tuesday, close on the heels of reports in the United States that he was a Central Intelligence Agency agent tracking movements of terror groups like the Lashkar-e-Tayiba.
The growing relationship between Afghanistan and India has been driving the Pakistanis crazy and mounts their concern of being "surrounded," a former chief of the Central Intelligence Agency's Pakistan station has said, warning that Pakistan was unlikely to change its policy towards India.
Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency has categorically denied any links with the Taliban.The Daily Times quoted ISI Director General Lieutenant General Ahmad Shuja Pasha as saying that the ISI is a professional agency and does not have links with any militant outfit, including the Taliban. Pasha's remarks came during a meeting with Central Intelligence Agency chief Leon Panetta, National Security Adviser Lieutenant General James Jones and other officials.
According to The Washington Post, the CIA is making secret payments to multiple members of the Afghan administration to maintain sources of information in a government in which the Afghan leader is often seen as having a limited grasp of developments.
The Central Intelligence Agency feels that nations across the globe would start co-operating with it less in the wake of the David Headley case and growing instances of home-grown terrorists, and start believing that the United States is an exporter of terrorism, according to a secret document posted by WikiLeaks
Lisa Curtis, erstwhile Central Intelligence Agency South Asia analyst and ex-senior Congressional staffer on the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has said that the arrest and findings from the investigation of Chicago-based Pakistani-American Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative John Coleman Headley, has awakened US officials to the gravity of the threat of the LeT and other Pakistan-based terrorist groups.
American intelligence agency Central Intelligence Agency on Tuesday warned India and Brazil that they face 'emerging threats' from the Al Qaeda and Taliban, though the terrorist outfits are 'on the run' due to extreme pressure exerted on them in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Erstwhile Central Intelligence Agency veteran Bruce Riedel, who was the co-chair of the first Af-Pak (Afghanistan-Pakistan Strategic Review) of the Obama administration, had said that the US Af-Pak policy has got in only half right, because while you can't deal with Afghanistan without dealing with Pakistan, by the same token you can't deal with Pakistan without dealing with India -- meaning you've got to address Islamabad's paranoia over New Delhi.
The Central Intelligence Agency has not allowed the death of Osama bin Laden to slow down its hunt for high-value targets of Al Qaeda and its affiliates in the Pashtun tribal belt of Pakistan.
United States President Barack Obama must focus on Pakistan, which is home to more terrorist groups than any other country, for success in the war against terrorism. "This year, President Obama must focus like a laser on Pakistan. He has already promised to travel to the country in 2011," said former CIA official Bruce Riedel. "And he will need to signal our determination to (subtly) help broker a rapprochement between India and Pakistan, with the aid of key players," he said
The arrest of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the second-in-command of the Taliban forces operating in Afghanistan, is being seen as a dramatic shift in the policies of Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence agency, which had hitherto covertly supported some of the organisation's top leaders.But experts warn that by helping the Central Intelligence Agency nab Baradar, the Pakistan government and the ISI will lose the sympathies of Mullah Omer-led Afghan Taliban.
America's Central Intelligence Agency has played a crucial role in India and Pakistan sharing secret intelligence information on Mumbai terrorist attacks, a media report claimed on Monday.
In a major success, a top militant commander considered to be a close aide of elusive Afghan Taliban chief Mullah Mohhamad Omar was captured from Pakistan's port city of Karachi.Mullah Baradar was captured from Karachi in a joint raid by personnel of the Inter-Services intelligence and the Central Intelligence Agency. But Taliban spokesperson Zabiullah Mujahid rejected the news, saying, "Baradar has not been arrested; it is a rumour."
Contradicting Central Intelligence Agency's assertion that it has no intelligence on the world's most wanted terrorist Osama bin Laden since 2003, leaked secret US military documents say the Al Qaeda chief personally attended a recruitment drive for suicide bombers in Pakistan in 2006.
United States investigation officials have stumbled upon an unreleased video of Osama bin Laden which shows the slain Al Qaeda chief speaking on the recent unrest in the Middle East but has no reference to the uprisings in Libya, Yemen and Syria.
A United States lawmaker, who was given the rare opportunity by the Central Intelligence Agency to view the death photos of Osama bin Laden, has said the pictures were "pretty gruesome" and there was no doubt that the Al Qaeda chief was dead.
