The US drone strike that killed Al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri on the balcony of a safe house in downtown Kabul points to the use of secret Hellfire missiles by the CIA as there was no explosion and, according to American President Joe Biden, "no civilian casualties" either.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati on Wednesday vehemently refuted Union Home Minister P Chidambaram's claim that the Centre had forewarned the Uttar Pradesh government against a possible terrorist strike in Varanasi.
A spokesman at the US Central Command in Florida, the military command responsible for the region, said there had been no official report of such an attack.
Pakistan's military has initiated a 'cleansing process' and rounded up several people believed to be working for America's Central Intelligence Agency in a move that indicates serious tension between the two countries.
The case of Pakistani doctor Shakeel Afridi took a new twist on Wednesday when a detailed order about his arrest and conviction stated that he has been punished for his links with a militant outfit, not for working with the Central Intelligence Agency and helping it locate Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden. The order has revealed that Dr Afridi will be produced before another court for the trial over his links with the CIA.
Amir Mir reports how a physician became a CIA mole and helped locate the most wanted man in the world.
Strongly reacting to Pakistan jailing a doctor who helped the Central Intelligence Agency find Osama bin Laden to 33 years, the United States has said there was no basis for the verdict and it will raise the issue with the leadership in Islamabad. "We continue to see no basis for (Shakil) Afridi to be held," State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland told reporters.
Dr Shakil Afridi, the Pakistani surgeon who helped the US Central Intelligence Agency find Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, has been sentenced to 33 years in prison for 'treason'.
He entered India through Bangladesh from where he went to Kolkata and Mumbai before reaching Lucknow to get his passport and other documents.
The Central Intelligence Agency managed to kill one of its most wanted terrorists in the world -- Al Qaeda leader Anwar al Awlaki -- in a drone strike attack in September 2011 after hatching a fake marriage plot with a Croatian woman. Al Awlaki was linked with 2009's Fort Hood shooting and the foiled airplane underwear bomb that happened later in the same year.
Central Intelligence Agency Director Leon Panetta will become the new United States defence secretary, replacing Robert Gates, in a major shake-up of President Barack Obama's security team, according to a media report.The top US military commander in Afghanistan General David Petraeus is set to take over as the new CIA Director. The television network said Petraeus will be replaced as the US commander in Afghanistan by Lieutenant General John Allen.
The timing of the tests caught the CIA by surprise.
About Rs 2,280 crore (Rs 22.80 billion) unaccounted income being allegedly routed through Private Placement Programme (PPP) has been detected by economic intelligence sleuths.
Terming as "alarmist" a media report that the Army moved two units towards Delhi in January without informing the government, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday said such reports "should not be taken at face value".
A Pakistani judicial commission probing the death of Osama bin Laden has directed that a case of "high treason" be slapped on a doctor detained on charges of working for the American Central Intelligence Agency to obtain DNA samples of people living in the Al Qaeda leader's compound in Abbottabad.
Bruce Riedel, who spearheaded President Barack Obama's strategic review on Afghanistan and Pakistan, believes that aggressive US diplomacy to resolve the differences between India and Pakistan is 'absolutely critical' for the 'long-term chances of stabilising Afghanistan, and even more importantly, Pakistan'.He pointed out that "it got a whole lot more difficult," on 26/11 in Mumbai.
Killing of top Al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan in recent past has shaken the sense of security of the terrorist leaders in Af-Pak tribal areas, a development which could encourage them to move to other parts of the world, a top Central Intelligence Agency official said Tuesday.
The newspaper said that on February 8, the State Department spokesman P J Crowley, had contacted the paper's executive editor, Bill Keller, asking him not to speculate charges in the Pakistani press.
Since its release last month, Central Intelligence Agency veteran and senior adviser to four Presidents on Middle East and South Asian issues Bruce Riedel's new book, Deadly Embrace: Pakistan, America and the Future of Global Jihad, has been creating waves in administration, Congressional, think tank and diplomatic circles.
Three suspected members of a Sikh extremist group on Interpol's red notice watchlist were arrested during a joint operation by the Philippine government agencies this month, according to an official.
The Pakistani military has rejected reports that it gave China access to the top secret stealth helicopter that crashed during the covert American raid that killed Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in May.
Though there has been a clamour for the Central Intelligence Agency to release secret images and videos of Al Qaeda's Osama bin Laden's death, the agency wants to keep them classified and secret.
With the National Counter-Terrorism Centre getting a nod from the government, Home Minister P Chidambaram has fulfilled his dream of becoming India's counter-terror czar. But his efforts to pattern this body on the lines of the one in the United States, which was formed after 9/11, has failed and how! B Raman analyses
The United States has condemned the death sentence handed to American-Iranian ex-Marine Amir Mirzai Hekmati in Iran and asked Tehran to release him immediately.
'Never in the history of Indian cinema did we have a distribution system for 240 countries, but we have it now.' 'And if we still keep catering to the B and C-tiers of our country, and not the whole world, then we are really being losers.' 'The visionaries of the industry must pull up their socks and say that now we will create for the world.'
"A high alert has been sounded in the state, especially in coastal districts following an alert from the Centre" Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa told reporters after chairing a meeting with top officials of Home Department in Bengaluru.
Sabrina De Sousa, a United States consular officer in Milan, was abandoned by her own government and left to fend for herself in an alleged CIA kidnapping case in Italy. Rediff.com's George Joseph narrates her story.
A new analysis of genetic samples collected from a seafood market in central China's Wuhan city shows the presence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in raccoon dogs sold at the venue, strengthening the case for the natural origin of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a team of international experts.
Pakistan People's Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has said he can "bridge the gap" between his country and the United States even as he defended the handling of the case of Pakistani doctor who helped the Central Intelligence Agency to track down Osama bin Laden and was sentenced to 33 years in jail.
'The day when Ajnala incident took place, Bhagwant Mann was sitting in Mumbai with Arvind Kejriwal'
The spy service will be trained, financed and equipped largely by the Central Intelligence Agency with help from Jordan, US government officials told 'The Washington Post'.
According to one American analyst, the "house that was struck was owned by a top aide to Sirajuddin Haqqani," who is now the interior minister in the Taliban government in Kabul.
Apparently pained at politics over the execution of death row convict Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar, All India Anti-Terrorist Front Chairman M S Bitta on Tuesday criticised the Punjab Congress unit for backing the demand for commuting the sentence. "I am mentally tortured by the Congress and central intelligence agencies for the past 18 years. I have completely failed to face political terrorism in the country," Bitta said.
The Mumbai police on Wednesday recorded the statement of IPS officer and former state intelligence chief Rashmi Shukla for over two hours in connection with a case of alleged illegal tapping of phones, an official said.
A team of Central Intelligence Agency forensic experts team will fly to Pakistan to search the compound where Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was killed. The American spy agency will use sophisticated equipment to search for possible Al-Qaeda materials hidden inside the walls at the site.
The Right to Read programme hopes to cover 100,000 schools, covering 15 million students.
Taxing the rich will fetch nothing; only votes, argues Debashis Basu.
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