Revelations by Pakistani-American David Headley, a Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative charged with conspiring in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, may have prompted Islamabad to finally go after the Afghan-Taliban, a noted United States scholar on South Asia has said.
Pakistani-American terror suspect Faisal Shahzad is expected to enter a plea on Monday as he makes his second appearance in court after being charged with attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and terrorism.
Faisal Shahzad, the main accused in the Times Square bombing plot has been sentenced to life imprisonment by a New York court.
Pakistani-American LeT operative David Coleman Headley on Wednesday pleaded not guilty to the 12 counts filed against him in the superseding indictment returned on January 14, including charges he conspired in plotting the terror attacks in Mumbai and a Danish newspaper.
Charged with conspiring in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, Pakistani-American Lashkar-e-Taiyba operative David Coleman Headley will be produced in a Chicago court on Wednesday, where he will respond to the charges against him. Headley is set to appear for his arraignment before US Magistrate Judge Arlander Keys in United States district court, Northern District of Illinois. Co-accused Tahawwur Hussain Rana appeared in the same court on Monday and pleaded not guilty.
Pakistani-American Faisal Shahzad, the Times Square bomb suspect, fears for his life after spilling the beans to investigators, but is dying to know why his homemade explosive never exploded in the crowded area of New York city.
Pakistani-American terror suspect Faisal Shahzad had planned to attack four other targets if his bid to detonate a car bomb near Times Square in New York was successful, according to a television channel. Other locations that he intended to attack were Rockefeller Centre, Grand Central Terminal, the World Financial Centre and the Connecticut headquarters of defence contractor Sikorsky. Sikorsky manufactures helicopters for the US military, including the Black Hawk.
US Ambassador to India, Timothy Roemer, was in Mumbai this week to pay tribute to 26/11 victims and to lay out a path for future US-India relations.
Pakistani-American terror suspect Faisal Shahzad was a liberal person until he was struck by financial woes in the past few years, his friends say, following which he appears to have lost the way.
The death sentence to Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone surviving Pakistani gunman of the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack, received wide coverage on Thursday in the US media, which for the past few days has been focused on the Times Square bomb case involving a Pakistani American.
On April 30, Shahzad drove his white Isuzu from Connecticut through Times Square, where he staked out potential locations for the following night's planned attack, CNN quoted a law enforcement source with knowledge of his questioning as saying.
Faisal Shahzad, the Pakistani-American suspect in Times Square failed bombing, has waived his right to a speedy arraignment and is not expected to appear in court today.
Pakistani-American Faisal Shahzad, the suspected Times Square bomber, attended a terrorist training camp at Waziristan in Pakistan, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has said. In a 10-page compliant file on Tuesday before the Court of Judge Nathaniel Fox, Southern District of New York, the FBI alleged that Shahzad traveled from Connecticut to New York on a sports-utility vehicle that was laden with a bomb.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has politely turned down India's request for extradition of terror suspect David Headley to India on the ground he will have to first undergo a sentence which could be imposed on him in the US for the offences committed if convicted.
The US is constantly working at the "highest levels" to provide direct access to India as "quickly" as it can to Lashkar operative David Headley, who has confessed to plotting the Mumbai attacks.
Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative David Coleman Headley, a Pakistani-American accused of criminal conspiracy in the Mumbai terror attacks, is set to appear before a court in Chicago on Wednedsay to respond to the charges against him.
US President Barack Obama believes that indictment of David Coleman Headley, a Pakistani-American charged with criminal conspiracy in Mumbaiterror attacks, is an "important day" in his effort to protect the people from terrorists.
India has insisted that US must provide a direct access to its investigators to interrogate Pakistani-American David Headley, who has confessed to plotting the Mumbai terror attacks.
Pakistani-American terrorist David Coleman Headley, who has confessed to plotting Mumbai attacks, will cooperate with Indian authorities as required by the terms of his plea agreement if the US government allows access to New Delhi, his lawyer said on Tuesday.
"If there are other offences, which are not covered under the plea agreement, then of course extradition is still possible," Home Secretary G K Pillai said when asked about chances of India being able to get Headley's extradition.
Pakistani-American David Headley's confession in a US court about his involvement in the Mumbai terror attacks has strengthened the 26/11 case, currently being heard by a special judge in Mumbai, public prosecutor in the case Ujjwal Nikam said on Friday.
David Coleman Headley, who pleaded guilty before a United States court on Thursday night, cannot be impleaded in the 26/11 trial going on in Mumbai as it is nearing completion, but he can be put on trial in Pakistan, Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam said on Friday. However, he said, Pakistani-American Headley's admission of guilt before a US court has strengthened the Mumbai terror attacks case, which is being heard in a special court.
Pakistani officials have detained an 11th suspect in connection with the probe into the failed car bomb attack in New York by Pakistani-American Faisal Shahzad, a media report said on Wednesday.
'I am convinced Headley was working for the Americans, for the FBI. I had nicknamed him agent Headley,' Rahul said in an interview to UK's Channel 4.
Both the presumptive Republican presidential nominee Senator John McCain and the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama, have issued messages congratulating India, its people, and the Indian-American community on India's 61st anniversary of its Independence, with Obama issuing a similar message congratulating Pakistan, its people and the Pakistani-American community too.
The Pakistani Taliban on Thursday lauded the action of Faisal Shahzad, the Pakistani-American arrested for a botched car bombing in New York, but said he had no links to the banned militant group.
Times Square bombing suspect Faisal Shahzad's bid to flee the United States did not raise any red flag as the airline whose flight to Dubai he boarded had not refreshed its information on the Pakistani-American being tailed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Even as tensions continue to simmer between New Delhi and Islamabad, Indian and Pakistani-Americans have come together to stage a play at the Kennedy Center to show that they can interact without the hang-ups of their respective countries.
Union Home Minister P Chidambaram has said that there was no confusion over the issue of Indian investigators getting direct access to Pakistani-American Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative David Coleman Headley or not.
Nikam said it was not yet clear whether Headley would plead guilty to all the charges or only to some of the charges but this, in any case, would not affect the 26/11 case in the Mumbai court as the trial has already reached its fag end.
Pakistani-American David Coleman Headley, charged with conspiring in the Mumbai terror attacks, is set to plead guilty before a US court in an apparent bid to bargain for a lighter sentence and escape death penalty.
It's a simple resolution, which cannot be voted in the other chamber, Senate, and does not have the force of law.
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari today said his government was determined to eliminate Taliban militants from the region but promised to make every effort to keep collateral damage to the minimum.
The arrest of Pakistani-American Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative David Coleman Headley, that busted an LeT plot to carry out terror strikes in India, has been classified by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as its second biggest case for the year 2009.
There will be no seismic shifts in the balance of the world's richest football competition if the first weekend of the new Premier League season is anything to go by.
The Phoenix Rising Media Group, based in Woodbridge, Virginia, which is staging the play at the Kennedy Centre on August 14 and 15, said, it was to 'remember millions of Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs who were killed or displaced by British India's 1947 Partition', and to 'commemorate the recent demise of Habib Tanvir Sahib who first brought the play into limelight amid rave reviews in 1992'.
Mira's films are alive, rocking and so true to the reality I know. They are gifts that I keep revisiting, and I cannot wait for what more she will share with us, notes Aseem Chhabra.
It was earlier scheduled for Tuesday.
A few days before her assassination, Benazir Bhutto told journalist Hamid Mir that she was aware of the threats to her life but she believed that 'there is a difference between a politician and a leader. A politician always asks for sacrifices and a leader always sacrifices.' She said she was ready to sacrifice her life for Pakistan.
"The difference between the state and non-state actors will come to an end after this statement," Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju told reporters.