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.
Bruce Riedel, now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who is being talked about as likely to be tapped for a senior position in an Obama Administration that deals with South Asia, said while the LeT's continuing relationship with the Pakistani intelligence services, the ISI, is much debated and the Pakistani authorities deny any such relationship, "The fact is that the organisation has been tolerated in Pakistan despite the 2002 ban."
CIA Director Leon E Panetta said: "The bottom line here is that the war on terrorism is not just about Al Qaeda. It is a series of terrorist groups that are basically confronting us and it is the kinds of changes that we see in their methods of approaching the United States that I think represents the very important threat that we have to pay attention to."
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.
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
America's Central Intelligence Agency on Thursday strongly refuted reports that Pakistani-origin US national David Coleman Headley, charged with criminal conspiring in the 26/11 terror attacks, was its agent at any point of time.
Headley's trial thus promises to be fascinating and important. If it is established that Headley was working for Headley all along, it will establish the Mumbai terror attacks as being a joint Lashkay-Al Qaeda operation, says Riedel. This, if true, is bad news for American counter-terrorism ops given the Lashkar's global network of supporters the Pakistani diaspora
Rediff.com's Vicky Nanjappa speaks to Author Anuj Dhar about his latest book on Subhash Chandra Bose and uncovers some of the CIA's long-lost records, along the way.
The United States on Wednesday expressed its serious concern over corruption in Afghanistan, but said right now it is focused entirely on the November 7 run-off to presidential elections.
The CIA has come in for criticism for giving false information to strengthen the US case for invading Iraq.
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.
The CIA's Counter Terrorist Centre never developed a plan to deal with the possibility that terrorists might use airplanes as weapons, despite growing evidence during the 1990s.
Holding the Lashkar-e-Tayiba responsible for the terror attack on Mumbai last year, a British Parliamentary committee on Sunday said that several major terror attacks across the world, including in London, Madrid and Bali, had origins in the tribal areas of Pakistan. A report by the powerful Foreign Affairs Committee quoted a former Central Intelligence Agency chief as saying that the Pakistan-based LeT has reached a 'merge point' with the al-Qaeda.
The meetings were held by members of the National Security Council's Principals Committee, which at that time included Vice President Richard Cheney, former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, apart from CIA director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft. The principals not only discussed the tactics, but also approved them, reports ABCNews.com
United States President Barack Obama on Monday ordered a probe into allegations that the Bush administration resisted efforts to investigate a Central Intelligence Agency-backed Afghan warlord General Abdul Rashid Dostum over the massacre of hundreds of Taliban prisoners in 2001.
Citigroup came under growing pressure to overhaul its board on Tuesday after it revealed that two long-serving directors survived a shareholder vote largely thanks to a balloting rule that is due to be scrapped.
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.
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.
Security has been stepped up across Kerala's coastal belt from Cherthala to Kochi this afternoon following reports of a group of suspected LTTE cadre landing in a boat at Thyckal Beach in the district today.
Now that it has been revealed that Osama was hiding in Pakistan, the presence of other key Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives in that nation doesn't seem such a far-fetched possibility
Uttar Pradesh was alerted about the possibility of terrorist attacks in public places, Minister of State for Home Sri Prakash Jaiswal said on Sunday.
Shamsi airfield, in the Baluchistan region in southern Pakistan, has become the new ground zero in the United States war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda.The Times, London, reports that the Central Intelligence Agency is covertly using the Shamsi airfield, located just 30 miles from the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, to launch Predator strikes on Taliban and Al Qaeda bases on the Pakistani side of the border with Afghanistan -- a fact repeatedly denied by US and Pak
Afridi had ran a fake vaccination drive in Abbottabad city to help CIA agents track the former Al Qaeda chief, who was later killed by US Navy Seals in a controversial raid on May 2, 2011.
In what could come as a setback to American efforts to seek early release of arrested Central Intelligence Agency contractor Raymond Davis, a Pakistani court on Monday declined to rule on his diplomatic status and moved the matter to a lower court which is already conducting his trial on murder charges. 36-year-old Davis was arrested in Lahore on January 27 after he shot and killed two armed men he claimed were trying to rob him.
Security of President Pratibha Devisingh Patil, who arrived in Pune on Friday on a four-day visit, has been beefed up following an E-mail threat. The President was provided a new bullet-proof vehicle, official sources said, adding that the vehicle was requisitioned from Mumbai.
The British-controlled Indian ocean island of Diego Garcia might have served as a secret prison for America's Central Intelligence Agency, a media report said on Friday.
NDRF director general Atul Karwal told PTI that the teams are undertaking continuous familiarisation exercises and conducting simulation drills in the temple town to respond to any contingency.
The CIA did not target him once as the UAE royal family was with him at that time, the agency's director, George Tenet, told the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks on the US.
Recently the agency had to sack its top officer in Baghdad amid questions about his ability to lead the gargantuan station there.
Central Command chief General Tommy Franks told the cabinet how he plans to capture Iraq.
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.
Stating that the Al Qaida was able to establish an unprecedented safe haven along the Pakistan-Afghan border in the past 18 months, the Central Intelligence Agency chief has warned that the situation there presented a clear danger to the two nations, as also to the United States. General Micheal Hayden termed the 2006 peace deal between Pakistan government and the pro-Taliban tribals in North Waziristan as absolutely disastrous.
Central intelligence agencies were aware of 'the presence of small LTTE pockets and their counterparts in the two states had been asked to closely monitor such activities,' Narayanan told media persons.
He said Muslims were trying to spread their religion by migrating to new areas, infiltration and Jehad.
RBI has cited "legal impediments" in sharing the reports.
A top Al Qaeda leader allegedly responsible for the deaths of as many as seven Central Intelligence Agency agents in a suicide bombing last December has been reportedly killed in a drone attack, media reports said. Several US media outlets reported that Hussein al-Yemini, the man said to be responsible for the CIA bombing, was apparently killed in a drone attack in Miran Shah area of Pakistan on March 8.
A peeved Pakistan feels that the dozen unarmed RQ7 drones the United States has offered it do not meet its 'strategic requirement' and is hoping for a 'better deal' in the form of missile-capable Shadow 600 Unmanned Aerial Vehicles to hit militant hideouts, a media report said in Islamabad on Monday.
Bush did not answer a question on the reports of the Central Intelligence Agency running secret facilities overseas - primarily in Europe - that are known as 'Black Sites.'
The state electoral rolls can be revised only by the end of January, he told NDTV 24X7.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances