Pakistani diplomats are engaged in behind-the-scenes diplomacy in a bid to stop United States President Barack Obama's administration from supporting a lawsuit filed against Inter-Services Intelligence chief Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha in a US court by relatives of two Jewish-American victims of the Mumbai terror attacks.
Ilyas Kashmiri's death comes as a relief to security agencies across the world, especially India since he was obsessed with undertaking attacks on the Indian soil. His latest operation -- Ghazb-e-Hind aimed at unleashing a wave of destruction in India.
Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence was behind the 26/11 attacks as well as the July 2008 bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul, the BBC said in a damning report on the military-run spy agency that does not function "without the authority" of the Pakistan army chief.
Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence had chalked out a "low-profile routine proxy operation" in India through the Lashkar-e-Tayiba but the plan was "hijacked" and turned into Mumbai attacks by an ex-Pakistan army major and terrorist Ilyas Kashmiri's men with Al Qaeda's blessings, according to a book written by slain journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad.
Pakistani senior journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad, who went missing on Sunday, is in the custody of Inter-Services Intelligence, according to the Human Rights Watch. He invited the wrath of the powerful intelligence agency after he wrote an investigative piece about the recent attack by the Al Qaeda on the PNS Mehran naval base in Karachi.The HRW has learnt through credible sources that Shahzad is in custody of the ISI.
Union Minister of State for Home Mullapally Ramachandran told rediff.com on Monday that there were certain individuals and organisations in the state, which were facilitating the activities of the ISI and said that the Union government would take stringent action against them.
United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has not given clean chit to Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence over Osama bin Laden's presence in the country, her spokesman said on Saturday.
Visiting Indian External Affairs minister SM Krishna has said the recent statements made by David Headley, one of the prime accused in the Mumbai 26/11 terror attack, are being keenly followed and assessed by New Delhi for its import in the larger context.
Mumbai attacks co-accused David Coleman Headley has testified that he received espionage training against India from Pakistan's spy agency Inter Services Intelligence.
"David Headley has only allayed our worst fears and whatever is being said at Chicago only confirms our suspicion," commented an official who is accompanying Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to Addis Ababa.
The District court conducting the Mumbai attack trial in the United States on Wednesday ordered that some of the over dozen sealed documents presented in the court as key evidences be made public.
Clinching evidence of key Mumbai attack accused David Headley's links with the Inter-Services Intelligence and Jamaat-ud Dawa is provided by his diary, which contains telephone numbers of two Major-rank officers of the Pakistani Army besides some others who handled the 26/11 attackers.
In what clearly showcases Pakistan's wicked face, several Afghan and international intelligence officials and diplomats stationed in Kabul have confirmed that the Lashkar-e-Tayiba, with the help of Pakistan's spy agency Inter Services Intelligence, has expanded its anti-India operations into Afghanistan and set up training camps, adding new volatility to the relationship between New Delhi and Islamabad.
Pakistan's spy agency Inter Services Intelligence helped terror group Lashkar-e-Tayiba to execute the Mumbai terror attacks, David Coleman Headley, a key 26/11 accused who pleaded guilty to laying the groundwork for the 2008 strikes, told a court in Chicago on Monday.
Suspecting that the Pakistan government and the Inter-Services Intelligence have backed United States in its operation against Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, extremist organisations have decided to avenge the killing. There's no stopping the Taliban and more attacks similar to the one at the Karachi naval base are expected, fears the Pakistan media. Tahir Ali reports.
Pakistan's late military ruler Zia-ul-Haq's son has served a legal notice on a banker, who is at the centre of a scandal over the funding of politicians by the Inter-Services Intelligence in 1990, for claiming that he gave millions of rupees to his family.
Moderate Hurriyat Conference Chairman Mirwaiz Umer Farooq may have had a secret meeting with the head of Pakistan intelligence agency Inter Services Intelligence Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha in Europe, although he denies that.
Pakistan's new Inter-Services Intelligence chief, Lt Gen Zahir-ul-Islam, is the nephew of Indian National Army hero Shah Nawaz Khan and through him, shares a tenuous link with Bollywood star Shahrukh Khan.
India is unlikely to give any credence to Pakistan Inter Services Intelligence chief Ahmed Shuja Pasha's threat that any Abbottabad-like attack would invite a befitting response, calling it a "tall claim" to hide his own failure.
The success of Al Qaeda chierf Osama bin Laden in evading detection and arrest by the Pakistani security agencies for nearly six years since 2005 when he lived in a house near the Pakistan Military Academy in Abbottabad was the result of a comprehensive intelligence failure by all agencies responsible for the collection of intelligence inside Pakistan and not the result of a failure by the Inter-Services Intelligence ISI alone.
Inter-Services Intelligence chief Ahmed Shuja Pasha, during his meeting with Central Intelligence Agency Director Leon Panetta, has reportedly presented evidence regarding India's hand in fanning terrorism in Balochistan and Waziristan.
Calling Pakistani intelligence's failure to detect Osama bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad a "massive slip-up," ex-President Pervez Musharraf has admitted that "rogue" members of the Inter-Services Intelligence and military may have helped the al-Qaeda chief hide in plain sight in the garrison city.
Manifesting the mindset of the Pakistan military and its intelligence arm, the Inter Services Intelligence, Retired General Ehsan Ul Haq, erstwhile chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff committee of Pakistan and former ISI director, has said that the Indo-Pakistan composite dialogue, now in limbo was 'a charade'.
The United States administration is pushing for greater control over the investigation of any involvement of the Pakistani spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence in slain al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's presence in Pakistan since 9/11, amid fears that Islamabad may not carry out a credible probe.
Distancing himself from former United States Chief of Defence Staff Admiral Mike Mullen's remark about the Inter-Services Intelligence-Haqqani network links, US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta said Pakistan has been asked to take action against the Haqqani network.
Eminent lawmakers on Monday accused Pakistan of playing a 'double-game' with the United States on the war against terror and raised suspicion that its spy agency Inter Services Intelligence knew about Osama bin Laden's presence in the country.
Blaming Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence for the killing of Osama bin Ladin, the Tehrike Taliban Pakistan has vowed to avenge the death the Al Qaeda chief. Both the United States and Pakistan are enemies, but Taliban's prime target is Pakistan, as without its help the West could not operate in Abbottabad.
At least six suspected 'masterminds' of the Mumbai terror attacks are still at large in Pakistan and there is mounting evidence of the Inter Services Intelligence's strong links to the 2008 strikes, an investigative report said on Monday.
Inputs have been received by the security and spy agencies that terrorist groups have been asked to carry out an attack on forces.
A suspected Pakistani spy was on Thursday arrested from Indo-Pak international border in Rajasthan, police said. The arrested, identified as Ismail Khan, used to work as an Inter-Services Intelligence agent, a senior police officer said.
Two top United States security officials are traveling to Pakistan on Tuesday to meet the country's civil and military leadership and press for more aggressive action against Al Qaeda-allied groups. Central Intelligence Agency Director Leon Panetta and the National Security Advisor General James Jones, who are embarking on a visit to Islamabad, will meet President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani, Army Chief General Ashfaq Kiyani.
Amid a diplomatic row over alleged links between Inter-Services Intelligence and terror groups, a top American Senator has said that the United States needs to have "all options" on the table if Pakistan does not abandon the policy of embracing terrorism as part of its national strategy.
While a section of Pakistani media has termed the visit of Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, to Pakistan as an effort to revive the complex relations between the two countries, the US official further put Pakistan into trouble when he blamed the latter's intelligence agency Inter Services Intelligence for contacts with the Haqqani Network.
As pressure mounted on Islamabad to move against the Haqqani network, accused by United States of carrying out a spate of attacks in Kabul, Inter-Services Intelligence chief Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha rushed to Washington to hold a quite meeting with the new Central Investigation Agency head Gen David Petraeus.
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has accused the army, which covertly supports the 2008 Mumbai attacks perpetrator Lashkar-e-Tayiba, of playing a double game in the ongoing war on terror, and an "abundance of evidence backs him up," Bruce Riedel, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer, has said.
Rana's confession would put Pakistan in a spot of bother, as once he starts speaking in court the names of several persons associated with the 26/11 attack and the planning behind it will come out in the open. The onus would then be on Pakistan to bring these persons to justice.
The United States should 'publicly expose' Pakistan whenever it fails to prevent infiltration across the Line of Control with India, shut down jihadi training operations and make the Inter Services Intelligence and Pakistani military pledge that 'they will not abet violent actors' in Kashmir, a US think-tank has said.
The United States has told Pakistan in clear terms that it has to act against all militants operating inside its territory and Islamabad cannot 'pick and choose' among terror groups, Defence Secretary Leon Panetta said.
Pakistani intelligence officials have arrested Indonesian Al-Qaeda operative Umar Patek, suspected to be involved in the deadly 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people. Patek, a member of the Jemaah Islamiyah terror network, was captured by the Inter-Services Intelligence recently, an unnamed officer of the spy agency told The News.
The Pentagon has conceded that some elements of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence is supporting the terrorist networks in the country, thus undermining the war against terrorism by the United States-led international forces in the region.